by Harper Fox
Gideon could run faster than this damn truck was going. The hot thought flickered past him faster still. Like a half-remembered dream, he saw the moorland surging by, the gorse-patched flanks of the hills. This fantasy had plagued him in boyhood trips in the back of Pastor Frayne’s Volvo, grinding lugubriously through fields where he longed to leap and dash, tor to tor, encompassing great stretches of country with each stride. In the outer edges of his mind, the primal places not occupied with fear for his husband and questions as to what the bloody hell the Launceston constabulary thought they were playing at, he was convinced he could do it still, and if each pouncing leap brought him four-fur-footed from crest to crest, it didn’t bother him. His child-self had run the moors in the form of a dinosaur, a flying horse and Simba from The Lion King, as each of these creatures had caught his imagination. He’d liked wolves, too, and those dreams had stuck, that was all.
His speedometer was hovering at eighty five. First rule of police driving: no point at all in dashing to the rescue if you added to the damage en route. Still, the road ahead was clear, the A30 at this stretch a newly widened sweep between Temple and Hawk’s Tor. The dispatch officer hadn’t exactly clapped him on the back and wished him godspeed, but she’d been the one to process Anna’s frantic call through the system. All Gideon’s colleagues knew Lee. The sternest and most sceptical amongst them had learned to respect what he could do, and in the wake of respect came affection, for the diffident, quiet way he did it. In the last couple months alone, he’d been deeply involved with three police investigations, at DI Lawrence’s request.
And that was too much. Why was Gideon only realising now? Too much, for a man with a kid, a husband and a successful TV show already demanding his attention. He reached for blue lights and siren, swore softly as the unfamiliar dash squirted his windscreen and flipped the wipers instead. A second attempt got the truck lit up and wailing, and the tailback from the Launceston exit half a mile ahead began to manoeuvre out of his way.
Let this be a wakeup call. Everything in Gideon’s world had dropped into place this last year. Tamsyn had started kindergarten and ceased all poltergeist activity as her days filled up with new scenes, new friends and the prosaic fun of an ordinary childhood. Gid’s superiors had stopped leaning on him to chase promotion, but nor was he simply the Dark village bobby these days. Tollgate Road was Gideon’s kindergarten, the place where he added daily to his policing skills, and used the experience of his injuries and phenomenal recovery to help other officers find their way. He spent two full days a week in the bungalow station at Dark, listening to gossip and keeping his finger on the pulse of his neighbours’ lives, and he valued those times just as much as the drug busts and car chases of his broader terrain. Yes, a packed, rich life, made perfect by Lee, who set a daily cherry of joy on the top of it all with his love, his attentiveness, his unflagging care for his husband, home and little girl.
So quietly. That was the problem. Lee just kept handing it all on in. The thing people loved him for most—his laidback modesty about his gifts—was a trap, and Gideon had fallen into it. Something had happened today, something bad enough to cross the wires and land Lee first in hospital and then the hands of the law. Gideon couldn’t begin to imagine the sequence of events, but he didn’t have to. At last the Launceston exit was there on his left. He laid his foot carefully to the gas and shot up the cleared outside lane of the slip. A brief wait at the junction onto Western Road, where he schooled himself not to honk and rev: if his blues and twos weren’t shifting the traffic, boy-racer tactics wouldn’t do it either. Then the lights changed, the last bus and white transit van got out of his way, and he blazed into the outskirts of the town.
The station was tucked right into the depths of a housing estate. A nice place, community-oriented, modern and open, but once off the main road, Gideon had to crawl there at twenty miles an hour. No emergency short of life-and-death could justify anything else, not with toddlers fresh out of nursery school tumbling around on the kerbs, parents and guardians nosing buggies across the winding roads. He switched off his siren and lights. A beautiful, sunny, ordinary Cornish afternoon after school: there they all were, the lives he was sworn to protect, gossiping on corners, idly rocking prams back and forth off the edge of bloody pavements. Hands clenched on the wheel, grimly performing each mirror, signal, manoeuvre routine like a teenager out on his test, he pulled into the car park.
The Highway Code need not apply to his personal actions. He sprang out of the truck. The doors to the station were being blocked by a social worker reading the riot act to a sullen, hoodie-clad kid: he got hold of the man by his rotund little midriff and hoisted him bodily out of the way, ignoring his squawk and the kid’s hoot of laughter. Inside, the reception was spacious and cool. Also empty, and that was no good at all. Gideon banged one hand down on the desk buzzer, hard enough to make the domestic-abuse leaflets bounce in their racks. Appreciating the irony, he drew one deep breath then another, got hold of himself and began to guide the tooth-and-claw forces of his nature through the proper channels. “Afternoon,” he barked, and then, when the buzzer’s clatter had died and nothing happened, pressed it again, with a fingertip this time. The soul of patience, for ten seconds anyway... “Hoi! Shop!”
A door flew open at the far end of the room. Of all the faces Gideon might have expected to see, Sergeant Rufus Pendower’s was among the last, but he threw the oddness out. Pendower was working just over the border in Devon. Not beyond the bounds of probability that he’d found his way to whatever fuck-up might be unfolding here. Anyway, Gideon didn’t care. Didn’t care that Rufus was flushed and unkempt, shadows beneath his eyes. Definitely didn’t give a shit about his own painful flicker of resentment that, when Lee was in trouble and needed him, the weird-shit sergeant had got there first. “Rufus,” he said, planting both hands on the surface of the desk, allowing its smooth surface to take the growl out of his throat, the incipient roar. “Where is he?”
“Gideon, I want you to keep calm. Everybody knows what Lee can do, but it seems there’s a new sergeant here, a Karen Lennox, and she hasn’t encountered anything like this before. You know how unsettling it can be, when—”
Gideon was very calm. He showed it in the absolute gentleness with which he shouldered Pendower aside. “Is he through here?”
“Yes, in the holding cell at the end of the corridor.”
“In a cell?”
“I couldn’t stop them. Gideon! He said some kind of assailant had got into a local primary school, a place called Emmerson. I alerted the officers here—immediately, of course—and they got there in time to see this person climbing in through the refectory window. He was armed—knife or gun, they didn’t have time to see, and by the time they’d got inside themselves, he’d vanished. The school was evacuated, but all the kids are accounted for, and no-one’s hurt.”
“That’s nice.” Gideon bit his lip for one last effort. He rounded on Pendower. “For the life of me I can’t see why my poor bloody husband’s been arrested for it.”
“Because he couldn’t have known. He couldn’t have known there was anyone entering the school then, unless... unless he was involved. That’s how Lennox saw it. Gideon, I’m sorry. His assistants from the film unit tried to persuade him to stay at the hospital, and so did I. They couldn’t have touched him if he’d been admitted. But he tried to leave, and Sergeant Lennox interpreted that as—”
“As his fucking attempt to abscond!”
Gideon turned. A sturdy woman in a sergeant’s uniform had emerged into the corridor. She was neatly kitted out, the set of her head businesslike. Nothing about her suggested that she made a habit of storming through the halls of her local station, eyes blank with terror, a rasp of outright hysteria in her tone. “Sergeant Lennox?” he said, advancing to meet her. “I’m Gideon Tyack-Frayne, from over at Bodmin. I’m—”
“I know who you are,” she snapped, avoiding his outstretched hand. “You’re Lee Tyack-Frayne’s husband, and you’ve come he
re to tell me he somehow magically fucking well saw a man climbing into a primary school on my turf—a primary school, fifty little kiddies from three to five years old—with a weapon in his hand. But he has nothing to do with it, right? He just fucking magically sees.”
Lee had warned Gideon this could happen. Right at the very beginning, when he’d made sure Gid knew he had an alibi before beginning to share his insights into the Lorna Kemp case. It hadn’t been necessary then—Gid’s trust in him had blossomed like a frost-delayed rose, after a bumpy start—and ever since, he’d only seemed to garner respect and desperate gratitude from the people he’d helped. Gideon had let himself wonder if his fears had been a touch of paranoia.
He owed respect to a fellow officer. Her gender made a difference, too, although he tried never to let it. He therefore did not grab her by her epaulettes and swing her out of his way. “That’s right,” he said dryly. “I tell you what, Sergeant—rather than argue, I’d like to make one phone call to my HQ at Tollgate Road. I’d like you to speak to my DI there.”
“Your DI... What does she have to do with this?”
“She’s Lee’s friend, and can vouch for him, I hope beyond all possibility of doubt.” He didn’t wait for Lennox’s reply. She didn’t look capable of making one. Cognitive dissonance, that was what this was called, when the whole damn world a person thought they knew turned out to be weirder than their wildest dreams. Gideon wasn’t without sympathy, but he had to get to Lee. He pulled out his phone, hit the speed-dial to his boss’s desk at Tollgate.
Someone must have primed her: she picked up on the first ring. “Hello, ma’am,” he said, keeping his voice low and level with a larynx-cracking effort. “I’m at Launceston police station, where the local sergeant’s taken it into her head to arrest Lee in connection with a crime he predicted, and... You’ll speak to her? Thank you. Yes, she’s right here.” Gideon proffered the phone politely to Lennox. “Sorry for the abrupt introduction, Sergeant. Detective Inspector Christine Lawrence on the line for you.”
He left her standing in the corridor. The cell door at the end of it was open, or he’d have had to start ripping out throats then and there. He could hear a voice, just as low and tightly controlled as his own. The only voice that mattered. He set off towards it, Rufus trotting in his wake. “Another thing I don’t bloody understand,” he rumbled, fear and frustration getting the better of him at last, “was why in God’s name you didn’t do that, Rufus! One bloody phone call to sort all this out.”
“I would have. I was going to. I just had to take care of him, Gideon, and I didn’t want to leave him alone until...”
He faded out into the blood-rush in Gideon’s ears. Lee was sitting bolt upright on the bunk in the cell. He didn’t look up at Gideon’s approach. His attention was focussed on, or at some point slightly behind Anna Briggs, who was kneeling at his feet. She was trying to hold his wrists, to slow down the frantic movements of his hands. “Oh! Gid,” she cried when she saw him. “Thank God you’re here. He won’t stop.”
Gideon leaned down. Gently he helped her onto her feet and into the solitary chair. She looked exhausted, as if she’d been trying to catch the reins of this runaway nightmare for some time. He knelt in her place. “It’s all right, Anna. Stop what?”
“He’s counting. Like, one to five, over and over again on his fingers. He won’t stop.”
Gideon captured one sweat-damped fist in his own. “Sweetheart,” he said, and Lee sucked in a noisy breath and stopped his whispered chant. Blindly he shoved his fingers through Gideon’s, a tight-bound, shuddering mesh. “Good,” Gideon told him. “Hold on to me like that. Now the other. Push in. Push through. Hold tight.”
Lee obeyed him. His eyes closed, and a wash of exhausted tears tracked pale streaks down the blood and dust on his face. His grasp closed ferociously, a palm-to-palm push against his husband’s strength. “One,” he choked out wearily. “One, Gid. One, two, three, four, five.”
“Too much Sesame Street with Tamsyn, this is, my handsome. You’re all right. I’ve got you.” Holding him still, Gideon looked him over. His shirt was splattered with blood, his jeans stained. “Christ almighty, Anna. Did no-one take care of him?”
“We tried. He told us about the guy breaking in at the school, and his nose began to bleed so much that Jack and I took him straight over to casualty. They were trying to treat him when he said he had to leave, and he walked straight out, and then two coppers from this station arrived. Someone at Beaumont must have told them where he’d gone. One of them was that... that mad bitch you met in the corridor. It was like she was terrified of him, or she hated him, or...”
“It’s okay. Thank you for sticking with him. Where’s Jack?”
“They’d only let one of us come. That other fella—oh, this one here, your friend from Liskeard—he was at Beaumont Hall anyway, and they let him come because he’s a copper too, but Jack went back to collect our gear and help get everyone out of the house. We’d just dropped everything.”
“All right.” Gently, powerfully, Gideon returned the push of Lee’s hands against his own. “How did the vision come on, Anna? Was he talking about a monster?”
“Yeah. It came out of nowhere. He was showing us the line of an old tunnel outside the house, then he just said... Christ, it was scary, Gid!”
“I know. But tell me if you can.”
“He didn’t change the way he was talking. He hardly drew a breath. He just said a monster was in the schoolyard, and he worked out it was Emmerson from the letters M and R, and the idea of a little boy—a son, I guess.”
“Right. Yeah, he often gets it through kind of puns like that, like charades. I think if he saw it directly, he just couldn’t cope. Is that right, Lee? You got Emmerson, and now you’re getting something else—another monster?”
Lee didn’t answer. His head dipped once in a taut affirmative movement, and his eyes flew open, every trace of their sweet human colour burned out by silver light. “The monster. One, two, three, four, five.”
Lennox had quietly re-entered the cell. Whatever wind she’d been sailing on, Lawrence had knocked it out of her. She came to stand beside Rufus, and like him stared down at Lee in bewilderment. “I’m sorry,” she said, her voice returning to what Gideon guessed was its normal, kindly tone. “I... I gather Mr Tyack-Frayne works with the police a lot. I didn’t know.”
“Well, don’t sweat it now.” Gideon spared her a glance. “This is hard on him, though. I’d like to get it over for him and take him home. Does a count of five mean anything to you?”
“What, like he’s been saying over and over again?”
“Yes. It could be something symbolic, like a pub sign or a family’s coat-of-arms, or even something that seems stupid at first, like a joke. Local landmarks? Anything in a group of five there?”
“Not that I can think of. I really am sorry. This looks like it’s shaking him to bits.”
“I wish you’d left him at the hospital. But the best way to stop it is to help him work it out.”
“Well—is it ever really basic? Obvious?”
“Sometimes, yeah. Why?”
“Because apart from Emmerson, there’s exactly four other primary schools in the Launceston area. Greenfields, Princess Mary, Godolphin Road and Dovecotes.”
Lee snapped his head up. “Emmerson, one! One, two, three, four, five!”
“Jesus, that’s it.” Gideon restrained him as a shock like electricity heaved through his frame. “Five schools. You didn’t catch the guy at Emmerson, did you?”
“No, he got away. We closed all the schools, though—the primaries and all the others, too. They’ve been evacuated, shut down. Everyone’s accounted for. Tell him that, will you? Tell him everyone’s all right.”
But Gideon didn’t have to. Lee’s hands went slack in his. For once he saw the transition in his eyes from the vision-racked silver to tired, lost green-grey. He let his fingers slide free of Gideon’s and looked around him. “Oh,” he said f
aintly. “Oh, shit.”
He was back. Relief flooded Gideon at the absolute return. He reached up and grabbed him as he folded forward. “Got you,” he said, firmly enough that Lee could have no doubts, no fears. “I’ve got you. You’re gonna be all right.”
“Oh, Gid. There was a monster. I couldn’t get its mask off.”
“I know. But you still gave the warning. Let the Launceston bobbies do the unmasking when they catch this guy, okay? Don’t put all us poor coppers out of work.”
A chuckle shook Lee’s ribs, rusty and uncertain, as if he’d half-forgotten how. “They can’t... keep the schools shut, though, not on the strength of a half-arsed tip-off like that.”
Lennox took a step towards Lee, who sat up at the sound. “It wasn’t half-arsed, Mr Tyack-Frayne. It was the eeriest thing I’ve ever seen in my life. We got a call from Sergeant Pendower here to say an intruder was in the Emmerson Primary schoolyard. Pendower was halfway across town, and so was his informant, whose name he seemed to expect me to recognise. We happened to have a unit close at hand to the school. They attended within two minutes, and there was this guy exactly as Pendower told us you had described, climbing in through the canteen window at the back. I can’t keep the schools closed indefinitely, no. But it’s Thursday, and I can close the primaries at least for tomorrow, which gives us the weekend to investigate. I can put security staff in the schools, have the gateways and access points watched until this bastard’s caught.”
Lee watched her uncertainly. “That’s good,” he said. “Er... am I free to go?”
“Yes. Yes, of course, but... do you have anything more for us? DI Lawrence tore a layer of skin off me, and I’m sure you think it’s deserved, but I gather that your gifts are extraordinary. Can you tell me what the intruder looked like, what he was wearing?”
“No. Sometimes my monsters wear masks, and I can’t see their faces. I’ll work on it for you, but... at the moment, no.”
She read Gideon’s warning glance and eased back. She still had traces of fear-sweat on her brow, damp patches in the armpits of her uniform shirt. But she was clambering back into her skin, and Gideon watched the process apprehensively. What would her upshot be? “Well,” she said, “it seems to me a strange thing. You have these insights, these flashes, this... this gift, as Lawrence calls it. You can see a bad thing happening, and I’m bloody grateful to you for helping us protect the kids at Emmerson today. But what use is it, really, if you can’t control it enough to stop the same bad thing from happening again?”