by Will Carver
He’d expected a similar response to his attendance as he had received the first time he walked into The Arboreal as the new man in town. But nobody really noticed. Eyes were all front and centre. Waiting for the wisdom of the dog-collar standing in the rain.
Pace scoured the room. Hayes was seated with her husband near the front. The large moustache of Anderson scowling three rows behind. Mrs Beaufort was on the very front row, left-hand side, seat furthest to the right, on the aisle, closest to God. Salis even gave her a personal mention, dancing daintily around her health issues but wishing her well all the same.
Owen had even managed to scrape himself up and bring Michael with him. He cringed at the mention of Faith Brady, and his son still looked to be in the same state of catatonic shock he had been in when Pace had thrown his cigarette away before entering the park near the primary school.
Nathan Hadley was less hypocritical, he’d also spent a far from mesmerising few hours in the police station the night before, answering questions about Charles Ablett’s death. So had Roger Ablett, but he had peeled himself from his bed. His pew squeaked in agony every time he fidgeted. He was definitely listening to Father Salis’s rousing sermon but his eyes never left the ceiling.
They prayed for those that had departed in an untimely fashion and they prayed for one another. Salis mentioned the detective in a hasty acknowledgement, and Pace could see him searching for a dark, unholy figure within the congregation to point out and aim his rhetoric at. Pace was well hidden.
He remained that way until everybody had left the Good Shepherd. He managed to catch RD’s eye before he left. The big man gave a wink and a thankful nod.
Pace didn’t want gratitude. Too many had perished on his watch and he knew it was he who had brought the blight to town.
Everybody that walked out seemed to have had their spirits lifted by the good Lord’s wisdom. Fucking idiots. Maybe he should stay. Somebody had to protect these people. Even Mrs Beaufort was unusually pleasant to him. She asked whether he’d be sticking around this time.
The truth was, he didn’t know. If the whole town could buy the crap that Salis had just spouted then maybe there was something to the story that Mrs Beaufort had told about the woods. Something ancient at the heart of Hinton Hollow. He’d seen some pretty strange things recently. Her anecdote had stayed with him.
Perhaps his soul had already been condemned to an eternity among the whispering trees of his childhood town because he’d already left it once. Once was enough. He had plenty of time to be reunited with Julee if the lore were true.
Something was there.
And he was sure it wasn’t God; the darkness had followed him into the church with such gracious ease. Now they were both there with only Father Salis remaining.
Maybe all that was left for Detective Sergeant Pace was chaos and terror and looking over his shoulder and old age and black flames and no love. And death. Always death.
Or he could stay. Make himself useful.
Not run. Stop running.
Confront it.
He could do good. Or, at least, he could do good enough, so that he would not have to spend the long time that follows life running from fire.
EPILOGUE
Where everything happened for a reason.
A LEAP OF FAITH
Detective Sergeant Pace is no good.
Detective Sergeant Pace is a footnote.
Detective Sergeant Pace is a small story.
He told Anderson that he was coming back. There were still a lot of loose ends to tie up. But there were also things that needed the same back in the city.
Pace had instructed Ellie Frith to send him a list of rental properties in the area – preferably on Hollow ground rather than Roylake.
RD was overjoyed that the prodigal son was planning on returning, on coming home. Even Mrs Beaufort, in her new holding-down-the-spite way, showed some good cheer at the prospect. Pace wondered whether he was beginning to feel happiness for himself. He was positive.
The train journey back seemed faster than the trip to his hometown the week before. Fields gave way to glass buildings and graffiti-covered walls and cranes and a life that was passing by too fast.
He looked at his phone but there was nothing from Maeve. A part of him was pleased, another was somehow let down. He couldn’t deal with her at that moment but he also missed her company.
I held him so that he would not contact her. That just wouldn’t do. She had ended it. He’d find out soon enough. He had lost the closeness and the sex and the confidante. She was the only person who knew the details about that last case and about how he ended it.
He knew.
Maeve knew.
And I knew.
The weight Pace felt had never left him. He thought that going back to Hinton Hollow would somehow relieve him, wash away his sin. Or something. But that weight was me.
Sitting. Waiting. Knowing.
He was paranoid that everything he touched turned to shit. His therapist put it down to stress, but Pace was right.
Evil was following him.
He unlocked the door to his city home. It was cold from a week of no activity, no heating, but I filled that entrance with my black flames. I covered everything but the pile of papers on the doormat.
Pace was scared to enter, I could see that. But I knew that he would. Some people are more comfortable in the dark. Some seek it out. Some thrive there.
When he picked up the pile of letters and leaflets, I extinguished my fire. He shut the door behind him and leafed through, throwing the junk mail back to the floor.
Hinton Hollow had already begun to heal as Detective Sergeant Pace ran a finger beneath the flap of the hand-delivered letter that Maeve had personally posted so that he would open it the moment he came back to London.
She kept it brief. It was a very short note. Just a few words that let Pace know that it was the end.
He read Maeve’s letter, walked into the kitchen, turned on the gas hob and dipped the end of the paper into the flame.
It was over for him.
The rest of the day, I left Pace to it. He showered, he changed, he ate, he saw no more black flames. He cancelled his phone and his broadband. He emailed a local estate agent about a valuation on his property. Everything was leaning towards a move back home.
He didn’t try to contact Maeve.
He did venture into his police station and speak with his superiors about transferring permanently. He did read the news about Little Henry Wallace. He found something on one of the middle pages about his last case.
By rush hour, he was ready.
He went back to Tower Bridge, where nineteen people had jumped to their deaths.
It was supposed to be twenty.
He showed his warrant card at the front desk and explained that he was the detective in charge of that case and needed to go up in the lift. The tour guide made the same joke they always did to the paying public venturing up to the walkway.
Pace exited the lift. There were stairs that had been cordoned off because of the incident. He flashed his badge and ducked underneath the tape. He walked up the stairs and pushed through the door to the outside. It was cold, he couldn’t feel it.
I watched him.
And did nothing.
He walked along the top of the walkway and stood where those nineteen people had. Before their end.
He shut his eyes and imagined. He remembered.
Then, below, somebody screamed.
He didn’t have to say go.
Or count down from three.
He just knew.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
This was a long book for me, so I’ll keep this part short.
To Karen Sullivan, whose ongoing support of my writing is incomparable. Your encouragement to go with the weird ideas I come up with is liberating. You didn’t even roll your eyes when I said I wanted to write a book from the point of view of Evil. Thanks for allowing me to keep pushing things. (We wo
n’t always get it right but that’s half the fun.)
West, who blitzed through the edit with me. You somehow make the worst part of the process, for me, more tolerable. The crap we got rid of that nobody will ever see…
My agent, Kate. The commercial angel/devil on my shoulder. I’m coming around to the idea that selling some copies of my books could be a good idea.
Liz, for always moving my book to the top of the pile and the front of everyone’s minds.
The readers and bloggers and reviewers who championed Nothing Important Happened Today. That book means so much to me, as does your support of it.
To Forbes, you made bringing out the gimp seem like the fluffiest part of Pulp Fiction. Thanks for the book support and this new harrowing annual photo tradition.
Tom, I have ignored your advice for nearly a decade but your dirty little spreadsheet saved this book from its third time in the bin. You bastard.
Mum and Brendan. A tough year for you two but still, somehow, always there.
To Phoebe and Coen, you are my sanity and my love. Evil would have nothing to work with.
Kel, I think this book saw me have my lengthiest moody, this-book-is-a-piece-of-shit period. And you’re still here. Either you really like me or you’re getting better at ignoring me when I need you to. It’s all part of the process and there’s no one else I want to share my self-loathing with. You’re bloody lovely.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Will Carver is the international bestselling author of the January David series. He spent his early years in Germany, but returned to the UK at age eleven, when his sporting career took off. He turned down a professional rugby contract to study theatre and television at King Alfred’s, Winchester, where he set up a successful theatre company. He currently runs his own fitness and nutrition company, and lives in Reading with his two children.
Good Samaritans was book of the year in the Guardian, Telegraph and Daily Express, was shortlisted for the 2019 Amazon Publishing Readers’ Award for Best Independent Voice and hit number one on the ebook charts. It’s follow-up, Nothing Important Happened Today, was longlisted for both the Goldsboro Books Glass Bell Award 2020 and the Theakston Old Peculier Crime Novel of the Year Award 2020.
Follow Will on Twitter: @will_carver.
The Detective Sergeant Pace Series:
Good Samaritans
Nothing Important Happened Today
Hinton Hollow Death Trip
COPYRIGHT
Orenda Books
16 Carson Road
West Dulwich
London SE21 8HU
www.orendabooks.co.uk
First published by Orenda Books 2020
Copyright © Will Carver 2020
Will Carver has asserted his moral right to be identified as the author of this work in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988.
All Rights Reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced in any form or by any means without the written permission of the publishers.
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
ISBN 978–1–913193–30–0
eISBN 978–1–913193–31–7
Hardback ISBN 978–1–913193–43–0
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.