Steve found the number and dialled it. Explaining briefly, then listening for a moment, he said, simply, “Okay” and hung up. Turning to his wife, he looked her in the eye.
“She’s tied up with a breech birth. We’re on our own.”
There was a moment’s silence as they looked at each other. Katie was the first to speak.
“Oh, Steve, what are we going to do?” Her voice was beginning to break. “I need to push, but I can’t do it on my own!”
“You’re not on your own. We are in this together. We’ll manage, somehow.” He repeated the control room operator’s speech about women giving birth in the past, but it had little effect on Katie. At that moment, her face was wracked with pain once more with the onset of another contraction. Waiting for it to subside, Steve took command of the situation.
“Joshie, we need to help Mummy.” The little boy had been sat staring at his mother, incomprehension about to give way to anguish. At the sound of his father’s voice, his face turned to Steve in anticipation.
“Joshie, I want you to go into the bathroom, and bring Daddy all the towels. Just one at a time. Can you do that for me?”
Without answering, the toddler clambered to his feet and left the room. As soon as he was out of sight, Steve gently helped Katie off the settee on to the floor. Reaching up her maternity dress, he pulled her knickers down her legs and off completely. Joshua returned with the first towel.
“Thanks, little man. Go and get me another one.” To Katie he said “If you need to push, push with the next contraction. That’s what they said last time, remember?”
His wife nodded briefly then gritted her teeth. A second later, she let out a scream of pain. Behind him, Joshua burst into tears. Steve looked between Katie’s legs, and was immediately reassured by the sight of a mop of black hair.
“Katie, I can see the head!”
***
Janice Forsythe had been deep in thought during the journey from the hotel to the Melling’s flat. She had sat in silence, wondering just what the future now held for her, but that changed when she spotted the figure of her father as Jack’s car rounded the corner into Stricklands Lane.
“Jack! Look, it’s my father. Where on Earth is he going? He’ll catch his death in this weather!”
Jack diplomatically kept quiet: he hadn’t told Janice about her father’s illness. Furthermore, he had a good idea where Morgan was headed, but, again, decided that now wasn’t the time to start telling ghost stories. That was the Mellings’ job.
“I’ve got to get after him,” she continued as Jack parked the car close to where they had seen Morgan. She opened the door of the Micra as soon as the car stopped and leapt out, heedless of the storm. Jack followed her, pausing only to lock the car before pulling his coat collar up and heading after her. Turning the corner where the stone abutment ended, Janice couldn’t see any sign of her father. Jack guessed that Morgan had climbed up the embankment; looking up, he was rewarded with the sight of their quarry disappearing into the trees.
“Up there!” roared Jack, struggling to make himself heard above the wind. Together they struggled up the slope; Janice’s boots were designed for fashion, not practicality and they slipped and slithered up the bank. Reaching the top, they looked around them but could see nobody.
“Where’s he gone?” yelled Janice. Jack turned towards her but shook his head to indicate that he hadn’t heard what she said. Janice moved closer to him.
“Can you see him?” shouted Janice through cupped hands.
Jack had a good look around before answering, then shook his head once more. They could see that Morgan could have gone one of two ways, and Jack was displaying uncharacteristic indecision as to which way to go first. Janice made his mind up for him.
“I’ll go left,” she bellowed, “you go right. I’ll see you back here. He can’t have got far.”
Jack nodded his assent, despite feeling uncomfortable at leaving Janice alone up here. That youth had been up here previously, whoever he might be. Was he part of all this? Surely he couldn’t be; he was too young to be caught up in a story that dated back more than sixty years. He turned to suggest that they stick together, but it was too late. Janice had set off and could be seen between the trees. Jack reasoned that the sooner he looked for the old man, the sooner they would be back together. Leaning into the wind, he set off along the right-hand curve of the former railway.
Morgan himself was transfixed with terror. The voices were louder still, though no more distinct. The youth stood to one side, and Morgan could see ahead of him a gap in the embankment where a small bridge had once stood. Now, a road to another housing estate, set in the triangle itself, passed through the gap some fifteen feet below.
Suddenly, the youth grabbed Morgan from behind, one arm around his chest and the other clamping a wet hand over his mouth. This is it, thought Morgan, my time is up. The realisation actually assuaged some of the fear as he resigned himself to whatever was planned for him. What he didn’t expect was to be pulled behind one of the larger trees and held firm. A few seconds later, he saw why as his daughter appeared, running from the direction that he had come. Morgan struggled and tried to cry out, but the youth was far stronger and had no trouble keeping him still and quiet.
Janice was running and shouting at the same time: desperately looking for any sign of her father. The rain streamed down her face, getting into her eyes and blurring her vision. Too late, she saw the gap in the embankment, trying but failing to stop in time. The short heel of her boot caught in a crumbling joint between the bricks that had supported the bridge. Her momentum carried her over the edge, the drag from her stuck foot ensuring that she fell head first on to the road below.
Janice was not a heavy woman, but the force of landing on the back of her head from a height of fifteen feet was sufficient to wrench the fourth and fifth cervical vertebrae apart in a slicing motion that severed her spinal cord. Deprived of the electrical signals from her brain, her heart and respiration stopped immediately. In her last moments of consciousness, Janice Forsyth was confused, knowing that she was hurt but wondering why she felt no pain. Then, her brain starved of oxygen, a darkness closed in. Her last mental image was of Paul, her dead husband, reaching out to her, now they were reunited for eternity.
Thursday 1200
It is often said that when one life ends, another begins. So it was on that stormy Thursday. Katie Melling, screaming in unrelieved agony, had pushed with her contraction to deliver the head of her baby. Her husband, feeling the mental anguish of a man forced to witness his wife’s pain whilst unable to do anything to alleviate it, gently supported the infant as it emerged. Her son, meanwhile, stood behind his father and cried for his mother.
“The head’s out!” Steve said, unnecessarily. “Now, wait for the next contraction, and one more push should do it.”
He sounded far more confident than he felt, wishing that either the midwife or an ambulance would appear. Not that he could actually let anybody in at that moment. Katie lay still, panting hard as she had been taught in her ante-natal classes, unable to influence events and thus placing her faith in her husband. Joshua’s crying was distressing her, and she wasn’t sure that she wanted him to witness at first hand the birth of his sibling. Catching her breath, she called to him.
“Joshie, come to Mummy. Come here, little man, and hold my hand.”
Hearing his mother speaking rather than screaming partly mollified the little boy, and he edged past his father to take Katie's hand.
“Now, Joshie, in a minute Mummy is going to have to scream once more, but that will be the last time,” she continued. “You hold my hand, and soon we’ll have a new baby to look after.”
Without speaking, Joshua sat next to his mother and put his little hand in hers. He was still sobbing, tears running down his nose and dripping off the end. The sight was enough to make Katie smile for the first time in a while. Moments later, she felt another contraction beginning.
; “Time for Mummy to scream now, Joshie,” she said, gently squeezing his fingers and beginning to pant once more. After a few seconds, she pushed once more, heedless of the agony as her birth canal was stretched by the shoulders of the baby. Simultaneously pushing and screaming, she suddenly felt her abdomen deflate.
Steve, grimacing once more at the sound of his wife’s pain, was able to place his large hand under the baby and help it to emerge. It seemed to take an age for the shoulders to come into view but, as soon as he could actually touch the baby’s body, he was surprised by the speed with which the baby came fully out of its mother, followed by what looked like at least a gallon of blood. For a few seconds, he just knelt there, staring at the scrap of humanity in his hands. Then, gathering his wits, he quickly wrapped the child in one of the towels that Joshua had brought from the bathroom and handed the bundle to his wife.
“Katie,” he said excitedly as he placed the infant in her arms, “it’s a girl. We have a daughter.” Tears of joy were running down his face now as he placed a cushion under his wife’s shoulders to help her to hold their newborn.
“Joshie, you’ve got a little sister,” he continued as his son stared, dumbstruck, at the appearance of two blue eyes that slowly opened and seemed to look straight at him.
Steve realised that he had no idea what to do next, so he reluctantly left his wife’s side to ring the midwife once more. Following her instructions, he tied off then cut the umbilical cord and waited for the placenta to appear. One more contraction, less painful this time, saw the final part of the birthing process complete, and Steve removed the messy remains to the kitchen so that, the midwife told him, it could be examined by a doctor when they finally got to hospital. When he returned to the living room, his daughter was suckling at her mother’s breast.
Katie looked at him, a quizzical expression on her face. After a few seconds, she spoke.
“They’ve gone.”
***
The grip around Cedric Morgan’s face and body relaxed. Struggling free, he ran towards the edge and looked over. His daughter lay there, her hair splayed out around her; her eyes wide open but lifeless. Morgan was stunned: he stood, transfixed, as the reality finally dawned on him that his precious child was no more, snatched from him in a brutally trivial fashion. Almost simultaneously, the realisation that he was responsible for her demise made his knees buckle and he slowly collapsed to the ground.
Around him, unheard now, the ghostly figures stood murmuring. The stench of the sea was still present, but the atmosphere of hatred was much diminished, not that anything could penetrate Morgan’s inconsolable grief. One figure, taller than the rest, appeared behind him and stood, silent. Sensing the presence, Morgan turned to look. The ghost of the signalman stared, unmoving, as if unsure what should happen next. The other figures moved behind him, drifting in and out of Morgan’s peripheral vision. The voices, audible despite the gale, began once more.
We came to take him.
He cannot die in his sleep, safe in his own bed.
We have waited for this moment; take him!
But one voice, stronger than the others, took a different line.
He killed us, but he has killed his child too. It is better that he suffers that for his remaining days. Our day of reckoning will come, soon. We can depart, satisfied.
Morgan recognised the voice as that of his first victim and realised that, instead of his death being at the behest of the spectres, he was condemned to spend his last few weeks tormented by grief. His grandchildren were grown up now, but how would he explain their mother’s death? Would he pass away hated by his own progeny? He had been willing to face up his fate a few minutes previously, but now the remains of his courage deserted him and he sat, watching the figures fade from view, bitter tears mingling with the rainwater that cascaded down his face.
Two hundred yards away, Jack Rimmer had come to the conclusion that he had taken the wrong path. He had tried, once or twice, calling Morgan’s name but his voice was lost in the wind as it howled through the trees. His coat had given up trying to keep him dry, and he was now soaked to the skin. Wiping the rain from his eyes, he turned and retraced his steps.
It took him a few minutes to reach the point at which he and Janice had parted, and he was slightly perturbed that there was no sign of her there. Pausing for just a brief moment of indecision, he set off along the embankment that Janice had taken. Pushing through the trees, it took only a minute to reach the pathetic figure of their quarry, who was crying uncontrollably.
“Cedric, what’s wrong?” asked Jack, suddenly very worried. “Where’s Janice?”
Morgan just looked at him. It took a few seconds to compose himself sufficiently to speak.
“I’m so sorry, Rimmer,” he gasped, between sobs. “She...she fell. I don’t think that she could see where she was going...oh, Jack...she’s dead. My girl is dead.”
“What?” shouted Jack, incredulously. “Fell where? Are you sure that she’s not just hurt?”
Morgan just gestured behind him, and Jack moved to the edge of the former bridge. Looking down, he could see two people crouched over somebody lying in the road. One looked up, saw Jack, and shook his head slowly. Jack, unbelieving, scrambled down the steep bank, unheeding of the remains of the wire fence that tore the sleeve of his coat and left a deep gash in his wrist. Running over to the people, a couple in their forties who had narrowly avoided running over Janice’s body as they returned home, he caught sight of her face. Her skin was white, her eyes staring and devoid of life.
Jack was utterly bereft. Why now, he thought. Why her? For the first time, Jack had been in love, a feeling that he was sure was reciprocated, and she had been snatched from him by a cruel accident. Unable to stand up straight, Jack slumped against the bridge abutment as he struggled to make sense of the tragedy that had just torn his comfortable existence asunder. He started towards Janice’s body, needing to hold her, just once, but the man held him back.
“You can’t do anything for her. I’ve called the police; they’ll be here in a minute.”
The mention of the police brought Jack back to his senses to a degree. Realising that there would be some awkward questions to answer, Jack merely nodded, then told the man that Janice’s father was still on the embankment and that he was going to fetch him.
As he turned round, he found himself face to face with the youth that he had seen from the window of the Melling’s flat.
***
The first thing that Mike Simpson felt as he came round was neither the cold nor the wetness, although his lightweight jacket had offered scant protection against the wind and rain. Instead, he had witnessed the intense feeling of hatred rapidly diminish, finally disappearing along with the voices that had surrounded him as he passed out. Looking around him, he realised that he was not in the same place: the surroundings were similar but whereas before he had been surrounded by trees, now there was an open space to his right.
Turning his head that way, he could see an elderly man on his knees. He appeared to be crying, although with all the rain it was difficult to tell. A movement to his left caught his eye; by the time that he had looked in that direction all he could see was a tall figure with his back to Mike move into the trees and disappear. Mike was confused. How had he got there? Who was the old man? Climbing unsteadily to his feet, he moved towards the open space seeing for the first time the gap in the embankment. He walked over to the pathetic figure kneeling at the edge of the opening.
“Excuse me,” he said. The man’s reaction shocked him. The white haired man’s head snapped round towards him and recoiled in terror.
“Get away from me!” he screeched. “You did this...you held me as she fell! She’s dead, you know, and it’s your fault!”
Mike backed away, alarmed by the man’s violent reaction. Glancing over the edge, he could see some people on the road below, one of whom was lying close to the wall that held up the earthworks on which he stood. Thinking that he might get
some more sense out of the people below, Mike followed the same path as Jack Rimmer had a minute earlier, although he was able to take his time and thus reach the bottom uninjured. As he reached the bottom, the nearest figure, another old man, turned and faced him.
“Who are you?” said the man abruptly, his face a mask of rage. Mike took a step back, his eyes wide with bewilderment.
“I...I’m Mike Simpson. What’s going on?”
“Did you have anything to do with this?” said the man angrily, gesturing over his shoulder. Mike tried to look, but his view was blocked.
“No! Well, the truth is, I don’t know. I just woke up, up there. That old man, he said it was my fault, but I don’t know what he’s talking about. Can you tell me?”
The man seemed to calm down a little, the anger on his face replaced by something different. His cheeks sagged and his head dropped a little. He thought for a moment, then spoke.
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