Sharnice shivered even though she was warm. ?How come the police came??

  ?The wife rang them. Calm as anything. Told them there’d been ‘a terrible accident.’?He snorted. ?She had a way with fucking words, you got to give her that. She’s just knifed her husband to death and she wants to call it ‘a terrible accident.’ I mean, fuck me!?

  Darren was smiling. ?So what happened then??

  Lee stubbed his butt out on the floor beside him. ?Well, the mother ended up in some loony bin somewhere, and the little girl went to live with some relatives. The house is hers now. From what my dad said, when she was little, the people she was living with wanted to sell it for her, but

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  she wouldn’t let them. I think she’s grown up to be a bit of a loony tune like her mother ‘cos even though she doesn’t want anything to do with this place, she won’t sell it or let it out. She just wants it to rot until it falls down or the council knocks it down. She doesn’t want anyone to live in it again. Ever.?He paused. ?Now that’s what I call fucking weird.?

  The light above them flickered as Sharnice shook her head. She wished she hadn’t encouraged Lee to tell them the story. She hadn’t liked the place to begin with and now it was starting to make her feel claustrophobic. ?I don’t think it’s weird. I mean, who’d want to live here anyway? It’s a horrible creepy old place. If it belonged to me, I think I’d demolish it. Break it down so there was just dust left. Not even one fucking brick.?

  She got up and started to pace the room, enjoying the light-headedness while the boys drained the last of the bottle. The bulb above them started to hiss, but Sharnice’s voice drowned it out as she spun around, an excited smile dancing on her face. ?Or burn it down, like someone did to that old mill! Yeah, that’s what we should do, burn it down.?

  Darren laughed, ?Yeah right, Sharnice.?He shook his head at Lee.

  ?I’m serious. It’d liven this town up a bit for a few days. The best bonfire they’ve seen in fucking years. And shit, the owner’d probably thank us. Why not? No one’d know it was us. Why should they? They never found the kids who did the mill, did they??Her eyes were sparkling.

  Lee lit a cigarette as he thought. ?We’d need a lot of petrol. I bet this place is really damp.?

  Darren stared from one friend to the other as he did up his jacket, unconsciously aware of the chill seeping back into the room. ?You’re not fucking serious, are you??Neither of the others spoke. ?Shit, I knew it was a bad idea coming here.?

  Lee laughed. ?What’s the matter with you? Not going

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  chicken on us, are you? It’s not as if anyone fucking lives here, is it? It’s just an empty old unwanted house.?

  Sharnice sniggered, unable to understand the intensity of her feelings. ?Yeah, we’d just be putting it out of its misery. And at least it’d be something to do.?

  Darren felt a small smile growing. ?You two are fucking crazy, but if you want to do it, then I’m in. When??

  The idea had made them all excited, and if it were up to Sharnice they’d do it now. Tonight. Just burn it down and get rid of it. Finish it.

  Lee passed his half-smoked cigarette to Darren. ?We’ll have to leave it a couple of weeks. Until it starts getting dark earlier. I know no one really comes down here, but we don’t want to get seen by some pissing old dog walker as we head this way with a load of petrol. Yeah, a week or two should do it. Then it should be perfect.?

  ?So we’ll do it then??Sharnice was jumping up and down, her small breasts jiggling with the movement.

  ?Yeah, we’ll do it.?

  Smoking her own Marlboro Light, Sharnice gazed around in silence for a few minutes, imagining the walls dying with the fire, consumed by flames. Yeah, it was going to be a good feeling watching that. Standing outside in the cold, seeing the house destroyed. She’d definitely get drunk that night.

  Lost in her own reverie, she didn’t notice that the boys had stood up until the door slammed shut, making her jump. ?Jesus, what the fuck was that??

  Staring at her, Lee shrugged. ?Must be a draft.? His voice was odd, quieter than normal. Suddenly, she thought of yellow teeth. An old mouth filled with yellow teeth. She wanted to get out of here. Now. And whatever warmth they thought they might have felt was gone now. ?Pass me my jacket, Darren. I’m fucking freezing. Let’s go. I’m bored of this place.?

  Neither of the boys moved, and the cold air hung heavily

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  between them. For a moment she felt as if she couldn’t breathe. A sly look passed from one boy to the other.

  ?Come on, stop fucking around.?Walking toward them, she tried to get to where her jacket lay abandoned on the ground.

  Darren grabbed her firmly by the arm. ?Not yet.?

  Trying to pull herself free, she looked over to Lee, not wanting to let her panic show. ?Sort him out, will you??What the fuck were they playing at?

  Lee giggled as he tossed the empty bottle from one hand to the other. ?We’re not going anywhere. Not just yet.?He moved in closer as Darren yanked her to the ground. She was struggling for real now as his stale breath covered her face. ?We’ve had an idea for something we can do right now, you see? And I think you’re going to like it. I really do.?

  She tried to scream as Lee tugged at her clothes, before the hard punch on the side of her head left her blinded and gasping for breath. Oh God, why were they doing this to her? Why were they doing this? Oh God …

  The light bulb, so far above her, went out, leaving them in darkness.

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  It had only been two hours since he’d locked up his flat in London, but it felt like a lifetime away as Rob stood at the doorstep of his parents’ house on Dulverton Road with his laptop bag hanging over his shoulder and his one suitcase beside him on the step. Even though he’d planned all this a few days ago, it still felt surreal to him. Back in Streatford after all this time. He stared at the door for a few moments, unsure whether he could bring himself to go in. To commit himself to his ?new life.?

  Shaking his head—after all it was a Sunday morning and the cab had left, so there wasn’t really anywhere else to go—he lifted the small flowerpot to his right and retrieved the Yale key that Richard Mills had left for him earlier this morning.

  Pull yourself together, Black, he thought as he slid it into the lock. It’s not exactly like you’re going to be walking into a house full of memories, is it? It’s been decorated and refurnished at least a couple of times since you last saw it, so get a grip.

  Still, as he stepped across the threshold, the smell of

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  fresh paint lingering in the peach hallway, it felt like coming back home. The color may have been different-peach?—but the structure of the house remained the same. And peach wasn’t that far off his mother’s love of pinks and purples and terrible combinations of the two. The thought of her awful taste in decor made him smile, although there was a tinge of sadness there. He should have made more of an effort to visit. Especially in her later years, once he’d finished boarding school and university. He’d been a late child, so she’d been in her sixties by then. He was all she had, and he knew how proud of him she’d been from all her letters. Why had he always been too damn busy to come?

  He slammed the door shut firmly behind him. Cut the self-analytical crap. The past is dead and buried. It’s been dead since you put her in the ground next to Dad, Dad who’d been waiting patiently for her for such a long time. It’s done. Over. Let it go. Check it in at the door.

  Leaving his emotions for another day, he made his way through the large Edwardian terrace, refamiliarizing himself with it. Even though compared with his Soho flat it seemed over-furnished, in actual fact, it wasn’t too bad. All the colors were pale and, thank God for small mercies, there were no floral curtains. The large rooms with high ceilings gave similar feelings of space, and looking at the old fireplace in the lounge, he pushed aside the dark thought that threatened to rise, and instead remembered the joys of sitting in front of a real fire. Yeah, this is where he’d do his reading, and probably any rewrites, should he get that far. He probably should pick up a bag of coal this afternoon from the garage. It was definitely getting colder outside, now that summer was ending. He’d have to go out for groceries anyway. Making his domestic plans, he felt his spirits start to lift. A fresh start, that’s what he was giving himself.

  At the other end of the long hall was the kitchen, not that different from how he remembered it. As a child, it

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  had been his favorite room in the house, its largeness broken by the breakfast bar, with a pine table that could seat eight on one side of it. He loved the bank of windows down one wall that let in so much light; even now that winter was coming. This would be where he would write. At this table, never far from the coffee machine. He could see it now, padding down here first thing in the morning, getting his ideas down while they were still fresh, the smell of warm coffee for company. That was another thing he would have to buy. He’d rented the house out with all the basic kitchen crockery and utensils, but a coffee machine wasn’t among them. He felt the urge to fetch his laptop and set it up now all ready for the morning, but he figured that could wait. He had to sort out the practical things today.

  He went to the cupboard under the stairs and took note of the meter readings to give to the gas and electric people on Monday morning, and then he dragged his suitcase up the steep flight of stairs. How the hell did she manage these? he wondered, thinking of his fragile seventy-something-year-old mother. He had a vague memory of tumbling down them himself when he was three or four. He’d cracked his skull on the edge of the radiator at the bottom. Somewhere, under his hair, was the scar to prove it.

  At the top of the stairs, he put the suitcase down on its wheels with a relieved sigh, and started to pull it down the corridor to the room at the bottom next to the bathroom. Opening the door and looking in at the queen size bed and small wardrobe, he stopped and grinned to himself. Old habits died hard.

  This was his childhood bedroom. Tucked away at the back of the house, far enough away from his folks so that they didn’t have to sing along with every terrible record he’d played. Mum used to joke that she could put him in a house at the other end of the street and she’d still be able to hear his music. He’d lived in this room for twelve full

  29

  years, and then all the school holidays from boarding school until he turned eighteen. Standing there, he could feel the ghost of the teenager inside him stirring, and he was tempted to stay where he was and unpack his suitcase. It was a strong temptation. To go back to a time full of hopes and dreams. He paused. But time had moved on and you could never go back, however much you might like to, if even for only a day or two. And it was easy to forget that they hadn’t all been good times in here, tucked up in that bed. It isn’t even that bed. That bed would have been chucked out years ago. He picked up his suitcase and turned around. This was about fresh beginnings.

  He made his way back to the top of the stairs and turned right, pushing open the door to what had been his parents’ bedroom, their twin beds pushed together, her side with a thin duvet, his with a thick one. Well, the twin beds were gone, replaced by a king-size, and although there were still built in wardrobes along the far wall, they were different too. What took his breath away was the complete whiteness of the room, from the carpet to the ceiling. It definitely hadn’t been like this when he’d been a child. If he remembered correctly, there’d been a hideous lot of tans and beiges, but one of his recent tenants must have partly shared his love of clinical emptiness. Everything was white, the bedside table, the phone on the bedside table, the chest of drawers, and the net that hung around the top of the four thin wooden posts that rose from the modern bed. Shit, it was perfect. No clutter, no bookcases, no TV. Just pure relaxing white. Yeah, he could sleep in here. No problem with that. This was fucking fate.

  Having left his suitcase in the hall, not wanting its navy blue to disturb the pureness of the room, he picked up his keys and headed out into the street hoping to find somewhere open to buy his basic necessities for the night. This wasn’t central London, and he wasn’t sure when stores opened on Sunday in the village. The big supermarkets

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  out of town would probably be open, but without the advantage of a car, he wasn’t willing to trek that far. There was a lot to get used to, being back out of the big city, and as he strolled along the quiet road he found he was looking forward to it.

  It was nice to take a walk in peace, a walk for its own sake instead of being caught up in the bustle of everyone just trying to get somewhere.

  He turned away from The Plough, a large pub on the corner that had been there as long as he could remember (although he had a vague memory of his mother telling him that it used to be a schoolhouse back at the end of the last century, maybe there was a story to be found there), and headed up the narrow high street.

  He was pleasantly surprised to see how little had changed. Sure, most of the businesses had changed hands, but there was still a small newsagent’s on the left, and two family butchers a little farther up on the right, separated by a couple of craft and gift shops. It still felt like a small village center, despite the increasing amount of housing estates being built closer and closer to its borders. It was a tiny pocket in time, and Rob felt so many hints at memory, many just sensory glimpses of a past long ago abandoned.

  He almost laughed out loud when he saw the familiar green paintwork outside a double-fronted shop, its window displaying all kinds of hardware and household goods, from garden furniture to curtain rails, the big black lettering on the awning proclaiming that you were passing O’Neale’s. So old man O’Neale hadn’t been forced out by these changing times, well there was a lucky surprise. He was glad about that.

  O’Neale’s had always been there, the kind of shop where you could get exactly what it was you needed, and the old man always knew exactly where to locate the tiniest item among the thousands of tiny drawers behind the counter. An old-fashioned shop. Old man O’Neale would

  31

  never have a computerized stock system. He’d never need one. Everything was locked neatly in that brain of his.

  Shit, with all the time that had gone by, the old man was probably dead by now. One of the twins must run it. It was strange to think of those two little boys, a year or so below him in school, now grown men taking over the family business, bringing it to a new generation. Strange, but heart-warming. There was a solidity to life in Streatford that would never exist in the fast river of London. People knew each other here. They knew the stories of whole family trees. I always knew she’d be a problem, didn’t you? After all, surely you heard about her great-aunt Beatrice? Well, you know what trouble she got herself into, and I can see this one turning out just the same. It runs in the family.

  Yeah, this really was the kind of town where old ladies gossiped in the street or over their fences. Blood was thick here. There was no anonymity. Maybe that was why he’d stayed away for all this time, he thought as he pushed open the door to the tiny Spar supermarket, nestled next to the old church of St. Mary and St. Giles. Maybe somewhere deep inside he didn’t want to face the ghosts.

  The middle-aged woman behind the counter gave him a cheerful grin, pleased to have his custom, no indifferent and exhausted foreign language student with broken English serving here, and he found himself smiling back. A genuine smile. Yeah, it was good to be home.

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  When the front door slammed shut, CaroleAnne let out a small breath and shut her eyes, waiting for the sting in her cheek to fade. Her skin tingled as the pain was replaced by numbness, and her shoulders sagged as she leaned her heavy body forward on her forearms, the sturdy kitchen table used to taking the weight. Some women got a kiss good-bye from their husbands in the morning, or so the fairy tales always told you, but not her. Not CaroleAnne Locke. However, there was the small bonus that this time when he’d told her she’d deserved it, there was some truth in the statement. There were no tears today, though. She was all out of tears after all these years.

  At least the boys hadn’t been there for Daddy’s daily outburst. How can someone be so ugly and so stupid all at the same time? Swallow that fucking food and answer me that, CaroleAnne. No, Luke and Mark had already left for school. Not that she really cared anymore. Sometime, a long time ago, they had been her babies, but now they were their father’s boys. Strangers grown inside her, and although deep down somewhere she knew she must

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  love them, if she were honest she didn’t like them very much. She tiredly wondered whether her increasing fatness was a reflection of the growing weight inside her as she pulled the local paper over from Jimmy’s side of the table next to his cooling coffee.

  She stared at the front page, needing to think. The headline, in bold black print read, local teens confess in rape case. But she ignored the article, having learned all there was to know about that three days ago in the butcher’s. Her eyes were drawn to a smaller column down on the right-hand side. This was what was unsettling her.

  FAMOUS WRITER COMES BACK TO HIS ROOTS. It went on to

  say that bestselling novelist Robert Black had returned to his hometown of Streatford after an absence of almost twenty years. The paper hoped to interview him in the near future, and ask if he intended to write his next book here, and would the town feature in it in any way? All the usual local news crap.

  So Rob was back in town. Three of the four of them were here. Her, Rob and Jason. Only Gina was missing. Not that CaroleAnne saw Jason much anymore, just the occasional awkward ‘hello’ if they had to pass each other in the street. After that summer, even though they stayed—had no choice but to stay, stuck here in this dead-end town—their friendship had drifted, oozed quietly away. She’d pretended that it was a natural thing, just part of becoming a teenager, but she’d known deep inside that wasn’t it. After that summer, she hadn’t really wanted to see him, to see any of them. And she guessed it was the same for him.