THE ICY REALM
1
‘Jimbo?’ he said.
‘Alex … mate!’ The caller sounded strained. ‘Just wait …’
‘Jimmy?’
From the grunting and panting, Jimmy was in some kind of kerfuffle. It so distracted Alex that he drove straight into the rush-hour traffic. Horns tooted as he swerved into line. Hurrying pedestrians glanced at him from under their bob-caps.
‘Jimmy?’ he said again. ‘What’s the matter, mate?’
If he was honest, he was tired rather than concerned. He’d had a wearisome day. He didn’t need another problem on his plate right now.
‘Alex … listen to me. I’m telling you, you’ve got to listen!’
‘Okay, I’m listening.’
‘Where are you?’
‘Northwestern Station. Just got in from London. I’ve been …’
‘When you get home, you’ll find a package waiting.’
‘What?’
‘A Christmas present.’
‘Okay.’ Alex was mystified. ‘That’s nice.’
‘No, it isn’t. It really isn’t. Listen, buddy … whatever you do, don’t open it, okay? Do not open it.’
‘Jimmy …?’
The call ended.
Alex sat nonplussed as he swung left onto the one-way system. Fleetingly, he saw only the snowflakes driving at his windscreen. Jimmy Groober was the most down-to-Earth bloke he knew. A regular drinking buddy, he was a decade older and calmer than Alex, and as blue-collar as they came. He wasn’t the sort who got upset easily. He wasn’t the sort who got upset at all. Alex thought about calling him back, though he’d look a fool if it turned out to be a wind-up. Jimmy could be a joker when the mood was on him, though this hadn’t sounded like something humorous. He was a good actor, of course. Only at amateur level, though he’d possessed enough talent to go professional if he’d ever bothered trying. Even so, that voice had been desperate, filled with worry and … could it have been fear?
Alex jammed his brakes on.
Some idiot of a woman so loaded with brightly-coloured parcels that she couldn’t see where she was going had blundered into his headlights. She waved an apologetic mitten as she stumbled across the road. Alex drove on. It had been partly his own fault; he wasn’t paying adequate attention. Plus, the snowfall, while it wasn’t heavy, was a distraction. He hoped it would ease off before the end of the evening, as they were driving up to the Lake District first thing in the morning.
When he was away from the town centre and the traffic had thinned, he called Jimmy back. Three times, but on each occasion it went to voicemail. Well, whatever the problem was, he’d find out about it in time. It wasn’t as if he didn’t have difficulties of his own.
*
‘I’ll need to mull it over, darling,’ she’d said on her way out. ‘Let it percolate.’
That had hardly been encouraging. But if Alex was honest, his own concerns were foremost in his mind. It had been a polished enough production. The performances were topline, as you’d expect. But it had been the play itself. It simply hadn’t delivered, and he couldn’t understand why this hadn’t struck him previously. He’d written umpteen drafts before it had gone to rehearsal. He’d made constant adjustments, run it through again and again, workshopped it tirelessly, and each time he’d felt that it was getting better and better, until he’d finally been certain he had another hit on his hands.
And yet now, for reasons he couldn’t fathom, something was lacking.
Parking at the front of the house, he sat there as the engine cooled. He wondered if he was just worn-out. There’d been much toing and froing to London this last month, which was a four-hundred-mile round trip. Then there’d been all those rewrites and rehearsals.
Oh, it was all lovely, it was great, it was the best job in the world, but it was draining.
‘Yeah.’ He wound his scarf round his neck and climbed from the Jag.
He was wiped out, plain and simple. Which wasn’t helped when he saw that the house was in darkness, because this meant that Erika wasn’t home yet.
Sarah wouldn’t only have been home by now, she’d have had all the lights on, including the Christmas decorations, and the first thing he’d smell on entering would be whatever delicious treat she’d prepared for their dinner. He knew it was sexist and old-fashioned of him, but to be fair, Erika taught dance at the local Technical College. She normally finished at five, and it was now after seven and there was still no sign of her. Almost certainly, she’d gone for a drink with friends. He supposed that with it being Christmas Eve tomorrow, it was fair enough. But it did bug him given that she knew he’d been in London all day and still wasn’t here. He crossed the drive to the front door, feet crunching the thin carpet of snow, and only then remembered Jimmy Groober’s odd warning.
You’ll find a package waiting for you. Whatever you do … do not open it.
There was no package there. Alex let himself in. A couple of bills had been stuffed through the letter flap, but there was nothing inside either, not even a chitty from a delivery service to inform him that they’d left a parcel in the shed. Damned if he was worrying about it, he went around the house, turning lights on. At least, the central heating had activated. He stumped upstairs to have a shower. If nothing else, the hot spray relaxed him. Which was why he almost jumped out of the cubicle when its misted door was suddenly yanked open, and a hand gripped his privates.
‘Bloody hell, Erika!’ he muttered. ‘Didn’t even know you were home.’
‘Came in the back way,’ she giggled, sliding naked into the cubicle alongside him.
She had short spiky blonde hair and a trim but shapely body. When she embraced him face-to-face, he smelled the Cointreau on her breath, but it wasn’t excessive, and he reminded himself again that this was the start of the Christmas holiday.
‘Awww … did I scare you?’ She pecked him on the lips.
He tried not to sulk with her, which wasn’t difficult. It wasn’t as if she’d deliberately sought to surprise him. She usually parked her Juke at the side of the house and came in through the back door, which was why he hadn’t heard her. That was a bit naughty, of course: drinking and driving home, especially at this time of year. It wasn’t the first time, either, and that was something he’d need to admonish her for. Though perhaps not at this moment. Her slim form melded into him as they kissed.
Erika was thirty now, but over twenty years his junior, and a sylphlike beauty next to his craggy, burly, bearded self. Alex was under no illusion that the advantages of this relationship outweighed the disadvantages.
Later, when they went downstairs in their dressing gowns, she suggested a takeaway.
‘Good shout.’ He settled onto the sofa, fiddling with the TV remote.
She dug into the top drawer of the bureau. ‘Indian, Chinese, Thai?’
‘Any,’ he said.
‘That reminds me …’ She opened her laptop to access Just Eat. ‘There was a package for you at the back door. It’s over there.’
Alex stared across the room at the small, square parcel sitting on the bureau. It was about half the size of a shoebox, wrapped in shiny green paper and tied with a scarlet ribbon.
‘Who brought it?’
‘Dunno. Shall we do Chinese? Have our usual banquet for two?’
‘And it’s definitely for me?’
‘Course it’s for you. There’s a tag on it … strange message though.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Go and have a look. Won’t bite you.’
Alex went over. There were actually two tags. The first one read: For Alex. Merry Xmas. The second one: Don’t wait till the big day. Open now.
Some kind of joke, almost certainly. Something heavy shifted inside.
‘Banquet C?’ Erika suggested.
‘Yeah, that’s fine. You had any contact with Jimmy Groober recently?’
‘Only when you last did. When we were down the Star and Garter.’
‘It’s just that, well …’ He mentioned the odd phone-call.
She arched an eyebrow. Then gave that fetching lop-sided pixie grin of hers. ‘There you go. Just up Jimmy’s street, that. Probably some kind of jack-in-the-box. Boxing glove on a spring. It’ll punch you on the nose when you open it.’
Alex put the parcel back on the bureau. ‘For which reason, we’ll leave it.’
‘Don’t believe in opening them early anyway,’ she said. ‘Sort of thing that brings bad luck.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘You know, breaks the rules. And we’ve got a long drive tomorrow, and now they’re saying it’s going to snow all night. Everyone says they want a white Christmas, but if you’re not ready for one, it can end in disaster.’
‘Good Lord, Erika … let’s not tempt fate.’
‘Don’t be silly, I’m only joking.’ With a final tap on the keyboard, she placed their order. ‘We’re spending Christmas at the Farm. You’ll be among friends and loved ones. What could go wrong?’
‘What could go wrong is that we’ll be in the middle of nowhere in a winter storm.’
‘We’ll be fine. This is England. Not Iceland.’
*
His house was located on a suburban cul-de-sac, so noises late at night weren’t unusual. But all he heard now was dead silence. It was an affluent cul-de-sac of course, which meant the houses were large, detached and set back from the road, and from each other. So, while it might not be completely unusual to hear the neighbours, it wasn’t common either. Besides, though he couldn’t be certain what he’d just heard, he knew instinctively that it hadn’t been outside, but in. He scrabbled on the bedside table to find his glasses, gazing across the room at the digital clock, which read 03.15. Swinging his legs to the floor, he fumbled with his feet for his slippers. Getting up, he grabbed his dressing gown from the armchair.
‘What is it?’ Erika mumbled.
‘Nothing. Go back to sleep.’
He took the baseball bat from the side of the bed.
‘Alex?’ Erika said, now wide awake.
There was no concealing it from her. She’d long lived in fear that a celebrity like him might be a target. Alex had advised her a hundred times that he wasn’t a celebrity. Okay, he’d been fêted in the West End, where they’d all been seduced by his work’s ‘roughneck charm and working-class honesty’ (Heidi Prince again), but who in Lancashire knew about that?
‘Do you have your phone?’ he asked.
‘Yeah. Why?’
‘Keep it to hand, okay. Stay here.’
He padded along the landing to the staircase, the top of which came slowly into view as his eyes
There were all kinds of unwritten rules about what you were supposed to do in situations like this. Stay in your room, barricade the door, call the police. Or maybe turn all the lights on: let the bastards know you’d sussed them; give them a chance to escape before contact was made. Or alternatively, creep down with bat in hand and beat the living shit out of them.
That was how they’d have handled it in the part of town where he’d grown up, and maybe it was this that started Alex downstairs, but he wasn’t kidding anyone. His street-fighting days were long behind him. The truth was though, that somehow, he knew this wasn’t an intruder. It was far below zero outside. He couldn’t imagine there were many bone-idle scallies who’d put a foot out of bed on a night like this, let alone go on the rob. But it wasn’t just that, it was the silence down there. There was something calm and relaxed about it, no hint of a foreign presence. He stopped to listen again, but now – call it instinct, call it sixth sense, hell, call it ‘spider sense’ – he felt increasingly certain that nothing was amiss.
He crossed the hall to the open lounge door. It was particularly dark in there because the Christmas tree, which was a massive affair, laden with baubles and streamers, was standing in front of the window. Despite that, a faint silvery light shimmered out, and he fleetingly saw flutters of movement in it. That stopped him in his tracks until he realised it was the snowflakes falling outside.
He went in, slapping the light on.
The lounge was empty. He pivoted, scanning every corner.
And sensed movement.
A white-faced figure appeared at his shoulder.
‘God almighty!’ he yelped.
‘It’s me,’ Erika said, tying her dressing gown.
‘I told you to stay upstairs.’
‘No way, mister.’
‘Well … everything’s okay, look.’
But that wasn’t totally the case. They searched the whole downstairs, finding nothing out of place, but when they came back into the lounge, they this time spotted something. The unopened present on the bureau now lay on the floor. It had been dislodged by a single item that had fallen from the wall. The entirety of the lounge, in fact most of the downstairs of Alex McQuade’s house, was decked with framed promotional posters from his many plays.
This was one of them.
‘That’s all it was?’ Erika said. ‘A loose nail?’
Alex picked the image up. Its frame had broken, and the glass was cracked, but it was still possible to see the stylised artwork underneath. It depicted a madly capering, goblin-like figure with a rollcall of traditional pantomime caricatures behind it: the Dame, the Principal Boy, Baron Hardup, and so on. Across the top, in snow-capped letters made from what appeared to be twisted-together twigs, it read:
‘Jimmy Groober was in that show, wasn’t he?’ Alex said uneasily.
‘Think that was his first, wasn’t it?’ Erika replied.
Alex threw his thoughts back ten years. Rumplestiltskin had seen Jimmy Groober, a natural born comedian and fellow stalwart of the Bannerwood Players, their local amateur dramatics society, make his debut as the pantomime dame, a role in which he’d brought the house down. Ever since then, the annual panto had been the highlight of the Players’ season (this year they’d done Mother Goose, and it had gone down a treat), and Jimmy Groober was one of its regular stars.
Alex put the picture down and picked up the present. With a vicious rip, he tore it wide open. Under the wrapping was a small cardboard box. He tore that open too. A potato sat inside. Old and rather withered. In fact, from the faint aroma, it was turning rotten.
Erika giggled. ‘If that isn’t a present from Jimmy Groober, nothing is.’
Alex didn’t laugh. ‘Jimmy’s pranks are normally funny.’
The journey north was not too difficult. The M6 was busy with Christmas traffic, but the constant flow of vehicles had kept the road surface warm, so while the surrounding moors and hills were blanketed with snow, the carriageway was clear.
Erika was happy to drive, while Alex sat in the front passenger seat, laptop on his knee, trying to figure out exactly what it was about Dark in the Park that just wasn’t working. At no stage though was he able to establish the problem, or problems, and he suspected the latter. The truth be told, none of his usual creative juices were flowing, his thoughts so awry that he couldn’t come close to interrogating the work the way he normally did when a rewrite was required, not of course that a rewrite would be welcome at this late stage.
It didn’t help that he was distracted by other things.
‘Funny that Jimmy Groober wasn’t in, this morning, wasn’t it?’
‘I don’t see why,’ Erika replied.
They’d been delayed setting out because Alex, having rung Jimmy a couple more times and received no answer, had gone round to see him, only to find his small, terraced house sitting behind closed curtains. No amount of knocking had brought anyone to the door.
‘Probably gone to his sister’s,’ she said. ‘Doesn’t he have a sister down in Norfolk?’
‘Think so, yeah.’
It was a viable explanation, Alex supposed. If not his sister, confirmed bachelor Jimmy had a range of other ladies dotted around whom he still had amicable relationships with; sometimes more than that, even at sixty-five.
Alex didn’t bother saying that this didn’t explain why the guy wasn’t answering his mobile. He called again while they drove, twice, but no answer was forthcoming. He even called Fiona ‘Fee’ Havergood, another mutual friend of theirs, who’d been the original director of Rumplestiltskin, but she wasn’t answering either.
He closed his laptop. ‘Weird idea for a panto, wasn’t it? Rumplestiltskin.’
‘It’s ten years ago,’ Erika said. ‘What’re you moidering about?’
‘I’ve never seen it done anywhere else.’
‘It was partly Fee Havergood’s idea, wasn’t it? She’s the “well-loved tales” expert. Anyway, think of all the fun me and you would never have had, if we hadn’t done it.’
Alex mused. A decade ago, the Bannerwood Players were struggling: understaffed, playing to half-full houses, unable to make the rent even on the scruffy old mission hall at the back of St Simeon’s Church. At the request of retired college lecturer, Fiona Havergood, the only other company member who was a professional author, though in her case it was kiddies’ fiction, he’d taken time out of his busy schedule to write Rumplestiltskin for them, and it had worked on all kinds of levels. Not just because he’d presented them with an exclusive and quality piece of work, but because he’d used all his pulling-power with the theatreland press, who’d responded generously, giving it rave notices. Even a couple of the nationals gave it glowing write-ups. Audiences had packed that hall for twenty nights on the bounce, and the Players had never looked back.
‘Good job you cast me, eh?’ Erika said, giving him a saucy look.
‘I didn’t cast you. It was the Casting Committee who cast you.’
‘Anything you say.’
The Bannerwood Players had never been less than extremely grateful to have a popular playwright like Alex McQuade as a member. Perhaps unsurprisingly, he still exerted influence down there, even though he didn’t participate much in their productions.
‘It wasn’t like you weren’t the best at the audition,’ he said. ‘By a country mile.’
Even now it had been memorable, the shapely young dancer in her fiendish green face-paint, her trim body lithe and flexible in its green leotard, twisting and turning in that sexual yet menacing manner, delivering each line with a catlike hiss.
‘There was that other guy too,’ she said. ‘What was his name? Nils something?’
Again, Alex threw his mind back. He’d been involved with so many shows since then that he struggled to remember. ‘Nils Carling? He was okay. But he wasn’t a patch on you.’
‘Really set his heart on getting that part, didn’t he?’
‘Wish I had a quid for every actor I’ve seen make that mistake over the years.’
‘Didn’t he walk out on the Players afterwards?’
‘Wish I had a quid for every time that’s happened too.’
‘Anyway, what was weird about it?’ she asked. ‘Rumplestiltskin?’
‘Dunno.’ Alex pondered. ‘It’s a creepy story as fairy tales go. Whole new level of goblin nastiness.’
‘Goblins are nasty, aren’t they? It’s Enid Blyton who gave them their back garden makeover. You wouldn’t want to know the real ones.’
‘Real ones?’
‘I meet them all the time,’ she said. ‘Whenever I’m round town. Even in the posh bars. “Any chance of a Christmas kiss, love?” “How about some festive slap and tickle?”’ She glanced sidelong at him. ‘You don’t know how lucky you are, mate. And you still haven’t got me into the big time.’
‘I’ve told you …’ Alex gazed ahead. ‘When the right part comes, I’ll push you forward.’
‘Doesn’t have to be the right part. Any part will do, so long as it gets me an Equity card.’
‘An Equity card isn’t the be-all and end-all. You want to make an impact, it needs to be the right part, trust me.’
‘Well, you write the parts. It’s all in your hands.’
But she didn’t hammer this point too hard. Erika usually knew when enough was enough.
Ahead of them, the Lake District fells were stark, soaring massifs of rock and snow.
He crossed the hall to the open lounge door. It was particularly dark in there because the Christmas tree, which was a massive affair, laden with baubles and streamers, was standing in front of the window. Despite that, a faint silvery light shimmered out, and he fleetingly saw flutters of movement in it. That stopped him in his tracks until he realised it was the snowflakes falling outside.
He went in, slapping the light on.
The lounge was empty. He pivoted, scanning every corner.
And sensed movement.
A white-faced figure appeared at his shoulder.
‘God almighty!’ he yelped.
‘It’s me,’ Erika said, tying her dressing gown.
‘I told you to stay upstairs.’
‘No way, mister.’
‘Well … everything’s okay, look.’
But that wasn’t totally the case. They searched the whole downstairs, finding nothing out of place, but when they came back into the lounge, they this time spotted something. The unopened present on the bureau now lay on the floor. It had been dislodged by a single item that had fallen from the wall. The entirety of the lounge, in fact most of the downstairs of Alex McQuade’s house, was decked with framed promotional posters from his many plays.
This was one of them.
‘That’s all it was?’ Erika said. ‘A loose nail?’
Alex picked the image up. Its frame had broken, and the glass was cracked, but it was still possible to see the stylised artwork underneath. It depicted a madly capering, goblin-like figure with a rollcall of traditional pantomime caricatures behind it: the Dame, the Principal Boy, Baron Hardup, and so on. Across the top, in snow-capped letters made from what appeared to be twisted-together twigs, it read:
RUMPLESTILTSKIN
‘Jimmy Groober was in that show, wasn’t he?’ Alex said uneasily.
‘Think that was his first, wasn’t it?’ Erika replied.
Alex threw his thoughts back ten years. Rumplestiltskin had seen Jimmy Groober, a natural born comedian and fellow stalwart of the Bannerwood Players, their local amateur dramatics society, make his debut as the pantomime dame, a role in which he’d brought the house down. Ever since then, the annual panto had been the highlight of the Players’ season (this year they’d done Mother Goose, and it had gone down a treat), and Jimmy Groober was one of its regular stars.
Alex put the picture down and picked up the present. With a vicious rip, he tore it wide open. Under the wrapping was a small cardboard box. He tore that open too. A potato sat inside. Old and rather withered. In fact, from the faint aroma, it was turning rotten.
Erika giggled. ‘If that isn’t a present from Jimmy Groober, nothing is.’
Alex didn’t laugh. ‘Jimmy’s pranks are normally funny.’
*
Erika was happy to drive, while Alex sat in the front passenger seat, laptop on his knee, trying to figure out exactly what it was about Dark in the Park that just wasn’t working. At no stage though was he able to establish the problem, or problems, and he suspected the latter. The truth be told, none of his usual creative juices were flowing, his thoughts so awry that he couldn’t come close to interrogating the work the way he normally did when a rewrite was required, not of course that a rewrite would be welcome at this late stage.
It didn’t help that he was distracted by other things.
‘Funny that Jimmy Groober wasn’t in, this morning, wasn’t it?’
‘I don’t see why,’ Erika replied.
They’d been delayed setting out because Alex, having rung Jimmy a couple more times and received no answer, had gone round to see him, only to find his small, terraced house sitting behind closed curtains. No amount of knocking had brought anyone to the door.
‘Probably gone to his sister’s,’ she said. ‘Doesn’t he have a sister down in Norfolk?’
‘Think so, yeah.’
It was a viable explanation, Alex supposed. If not his sister, confirmed bachelor Jimmy had a range of other ladies dotted around whom he still had amicable relationships with; sometimes more than that, even at sixty-five.
Alex didn’t bother saying that this didn’t explain why the guy wasn’t answering his mobile. He called again while they drove, twice, but no answer was forthcoming. He even called Fiona ‘Fee’ Havergood, another mutual friend of theirs, who’d been the original director of Rumplestiltskin, but she wasn’t answering either.
He closed his laptop. ‘Weird idea for a panto, wasn’t it? Rumplestiltskin.’
‘It’s ten years ago,’ Erika said. ‘What’re you moidering about?’
‘I’ve never seen it done anywhere else.’
‘It was partly Fee Havergood’s idea, wasn’t it? She’s the “well-loved tales” expert. Anyway, think of all the fun me and you would never have had, if we hadn’t done it.’
Alex mused. A decade ago, the Bannerwood Players were struggling: understaffed, playing to half-full houses, unable to make the rent even on the scruffy old mission hall at the back of St Simeon’s Church. At the request of retired college lecturer, Fiona Havergood, the only other company member who was a professional author, though in her case it was kiddies’ fiction, he’d taken time out of his busy schedule to write Rumplestiltskin for them, and it had worked on all kinds of levels. Not just because he’d presented them with an exclusive and quality piece of work, but because he’d used all his pulling-power with the theatreland press, who’d responded generously, giving it rave notices. Even a couple of the nationals gave it glowing write-ups. Audiences had packed that hall for twenty nights on the bounce, and the Players had never looked back.
‘Good job you cast me, eh?’ Erika said, giving him a saucy look.
‘I didn’t cast you. It was the Casting Committee who cast you.’
‘Anything you say.’
The Bannerwood Players had never been less than extremely grateful to have a popular playwright like Alex McQuade as a member. Perhaps unsurprisingly, he still exerted influence down there, even though he didn’t participate much in their productions.
‘It wasn’t like you weren’t the best at the audition,’ he said. ‘By a country mile.’
Even now it had been memorable, the shapely young dancer in her fiendish green face-paint, her trim body lithe and flexible in its green leotard, twisting and turning in that sexual yet menacing manner, delivering each line with a catlike hiss.
‘There was that other guy too,’ she said. ‘What was his name? Nils something?’
Again, Alex threw his mind back. He’d been involved with so many shows since then that he struggled to remember. ‘Nils Carling? He was okay. But he wasn’t a patch on you.’
‘Really set his heart on getting that part, didn’t he?’
‘Wish I had a quid for every actor I’ve seen make that mistake over the years.’
‘Didn’t he walk out on the Players afterwards?’
‘Wish I had a quid for every time that’s happened too.’
‘Anyway, what was weird about it?’ she asked. ‘Rumplestiltskin?’
‘Dunno.’ Alex pondered. ‘It’s a creepy story as fairy tales go. Whole new level of goblin nastiness.’
‘Goblins are nasty, aren’t they? It’s Enid Blyton who gave them their back garden makeover. You wouldn’t want to know the real ones.’
‘Real ones?’
‘I meet them all the time,’ she said. ‘Whenever I’m round town. Even in the posh bars. “Any chance of a Christmas kiss, love?” “How about some festive slap and tickle?”’ She glanced sidelong at him. ‘You don’t know how lucky you are, mate. And you still haven’t got me into the big time.’
‘I’ve told you …’ Alex gazed ahead. ‘When the right part comes, I’ll push you forward.’
‘Doesn’t have to be the right part. Any part will do, so long as it gets me an Equity card.’
‘An Equity card isn’t the be-all and end-all. You want to make an impact, it needs to be the right part, trust me.’
‘Well, you write the parts. It’s all in your hands.’
But she didn’t hammer this point too hard. Erika usually knew when enough was enough.
Ahead of them, the Lake District fells were stark, soaring massifs of rock and snow.
*
‘Hello, Fee,’ Alex told the answering machine. ‘It’s Alex McQuade. I’ve been trying to get Jimmy Groober, but he’s not answering. I know that doesn’t necessarily mean there’s anything wrong, but … well, you’ve not had any contact with him, have you? Feel free to call me back. I know it’s Christmas, but I’m always happy to chat.’
He glanced from the car to where Erika was taking the bags in through the side door. The Farm looked gorgeous in its winter finery. The house itself wasn’t pretty, a sprawling structure of granite with various wings and annexes, multiple chimneys and different-levelled roofs of heavy slate. But it was in a beautiful if remote position, on high wooded ground overlooking Swindale. The expansive lawn at its front and the encircling woods were already deep in snow, the steel blue sky only intensifying its glimmer.
Alex had bought and renovated the place, making it into his personal weekend retreat, over a decade ago, after the phenomenal success of Witchcradle had ‘catapulted him into the top bracket’, to quote the Sunday Times. This was probably the prettiest he’d ever seen it, and yet he still wasn’t able to relax, and that wasn’t just down to his sudden inability to string two words together, though that was troubling enough. Again, during the last twenty minutes of the journey, he’d delved into his laptop, trying to fix Dark in the Park, but as before, hadn’t been able to pinpoint the problem let alone perform some corrective surgery. Frankly, the last time he’d looked at it, it had been nothing more than a higgledy-piggledy mass of disjointed words and ideas. Oh, it ran smoothly enough when he read it aloud, but where was the meaning, what was the subtext?
Determined that he wouldn’t look at it again until Christmas was over, he got out of the car and grabbed what remained of their baggage.
Inside the farmhouse, most of the olde worlde layout remained, so it was a rabbit warren of passages and small rooms. The two largest were the lounge/conservatory, which was at the far side of the house, the view from its glazed annex looking down through a break in the trees, along the length of the immense, picturesque valley that was Swindale, and the kitchen, where the central table could seat sixteen and the huge cast-iron range was an Edwardian original. He’d had storage heaters installed, because the place could be bitterly cold in winter, and was pleased to see that the two caretakers, Jack and Hetty Elwell, who lived in a small croft just down the valley from here, had turned the heaters on in time for their arrival, and had tidied the interior up nicely, hanging it with festive greenery, before heading south to spend Christmas with their children and grandchildren, which they did every year.
‘As a child, I used to dream of festive seasons like this,’ Erika said.
He stood behind her. ‘You should’ve been around in the Seventies and Eighties. We had them regularly.’ ‘I don’t just mean the snow. I mean the setting. It’s magical.’
‘Well, a bit of magic can’t hurt now and then.’
‘It’s your brother and his family who are coming tomorrow, isn’t it?’
‘Yeah,’ he confirmed. ‘They’re only in Carlisle, so it shouldn’t be too difficult for them.’
‘In that case, I need to nip into Shapwick to get a couple of last-minute presents.’
‘Okay, but we’ve only got about an hour and a half of daylight left.’
‘That’s all I’ll need. What about your Michael?’
Alex shrugged. ‘Manchester’s a bit further. Mike’s not sure if him and his girlfriend are going to be able to make it.’
‘Still doesn’t like me, does he?’
‘He’s never been rude to you, has he?’
‘Not in recent times. Not like when he was a kid. You mentioned goblins on the way here. That was your Michael all over.’
He put his arms round her. ‘Took his mum’s side, that’s all.
‘Sometimes he was a horror.’
‘Like you said, goblins are.’
*
For all that, Erika still had things she wanted to buy, and one of them was a surprise for Alex, so after they’d parked, they split up, having agreed to reunite in forty minutes.
Alex drifted into Shapwick Mall, where Slade were playing over the tannoy. Again, too many outlets weren’t currently in business. Despite this, his feet followed their usual path to one of the few shops open, the multileveled bookstore at the end of the main concourse. The only person on its ground floor was a young woman with green hair seated behind the till. She was too absorbed in her phone even to glance at him as he trudged upstairs to the first floor. At which point his own phone rang.
He dug the device from his pocket. It was Des Hepworth.
‘Hi, mate,’ Alex answered.
‘Alex … just had a note through from Heidi Prince.’
‘Yeah?’
‘She’s going to send us the final draft of her review before she clocks off for Christmas.’
‘Okay …?’ Alex waited.
‘She didn’t need to do that, of course, but she’s a mate … and I think she’s basically giving us a heads-up.’
‘I see.’ A heads-up was rarely a good sign.
‘Des sounded awkward. ‘I thought the play was pretty good, myself.’
‘You thought?’
‘I mean I think.’ In truth, Des sounded as though he didn’t know what he meant.
‘Can you copy me in when you get it?’ Alex said.
‘Absolutely. Look … it’s only one review. Don’t worry too much.’
Sure, it’s only one, Alex thought. But like you say, Heidi’s a mate. What about the ones who aren’t?
Pocketing the phone, he walked across the shop’s first floor, which was bare of both staff and customers. Though he tended to buy crime novels for his personal reading, Alex invariably visited this area first. He thought of it as the Drama Department because there was a whole section here given over to published stage-plays, and that was something you rarely found in high street bookstores. Not that he normally purchased works by other playwrights; he preferred to see them on stage. This was all about massaging his own insecure ego.
Sarah had always blamed this on his working-class origins. ‘You don’t think you belong in this world,’ she’d told him. ‘You’re sure they’ll find a way to throw you out. But no one gets born to this, Alex. You worked your way in like everyone else.’
He’d believed that; many artists suffered from imposter syndrome because other shortcomings in their life made them feel unworthy. But you couldn’t rationalise away your deepest fear, not when you walked a constant tightrope between success and failure.
‘You’re a damn good writer,’ Sarah had said. ‘And you’ve got more to say than most.’
On this occasion it felt even more important than usual to remind himself of that.
The plays occupied several parallel bookcases, with seven shelves each. To the shop’s credit, it had a wide range of titles, but he usually had no problem locating his own. This time, though, as he ran his finger along the appropriate shelf – McLellan, McMorrow, McNally, McPherson – there was an empty gap where his own plays usually were, before it went on to Medoff, Meisl …
He stood bewildered, then spied two thin booklets, definitely plays, lying on the floor halfway along the aisle. He swooped them up.
Enemies at the Door by Alex McQuade
and
All the Devils Are Here by Alex McQuade.
Both were grubby and creased, as if they hadn’t just dropped from the shelf, but had been kicked around. When he opened Devils, the interior was gooey, a greenish slime sticking several pages together. From the next aisle came a guttural chuckle, and then a crude hawking sound and what might have been someone spitting.
Slowly tensing, Alex walked round the corner. At the far end of that next aisle, a dishevelled figure stood with back turned. He wore a ragged green parka over a red hoodie, the hood of which was pulled up and begrimed with filth. What looked like dirty pyjama trousers were tucked into a pair of ratty, worn-out boots. The figure’s big shoulders heaved as he chuckled again, and once again hawked and spat into something, before tossing it over his shoulder. It skittered face-up along the aisle.
Hunting Season by Alex McQuade
‘The hell!’ Alex said aloud, but when he glanced up, Mr Shabby had vanished round the next corner. ‘He hastened in pursuit. ‘What the actual …?’
There was no one in the next aisle, but here, Witchcradle lay on the floor. This one had been torn down the entire length of its spine. He trembled as he scooped it up. This wasn’t just random vandalism. Surely, this was targeted? At first, he was lost for ideas. He could go downstairs and complain. But what would the girl behind the till be able to do? She could hardly confront the vandal on her own. She could call the police, but would they turn out for a couple of damaged books when they didn’t even bother investigating burglaries anymore?
Suddenly, suspecting he was being watched, he spun round.
There was no one there, but his gaze fell on something else curious. On a shelf directly behind him, one particular book was clearly out of place. They were still in the Drama Department, but this was a hardback work of nonfiction. What was more, it had been placed there with its front facing outward.
The Icy Realm
Its cover depicted several rows of what looked like Viking runes carved in stone and covered with frost. More arresting though was the photograph that had clearly been used by someone as a bookmark, the upper part still showing at the top of the book. It was a portrait, but whoever it was, only their eyes were visible.
Staring directly at Alex.
Stiffly, he took the book down.
Its strapline read:
A Compendium of the myths and folklore of the Nordic lands
That meant nothing to him, but his impulse was still to flip it open on the page where the picture had been inserted as a marker. It was the start of a new chapter. Another image displayed a bunch of semi-distinct figures, humanoid but, as before, etched crudely onto what looked like a Viking runestone. Across the top, it read:
Yule Lads
But it was the photo that was the main attraction.
Alex had to blink several times before he could comprehend what he was seeing there. Because incredibly, unbelievably, it depicted a face he knew.
Nils … Nils Carling?
Had that been his name? The guy who’d wanted to play the part of Rumplestiltskin all those years ago. Who’d said he’d been born to play it. And had then lost out because Erika had auditioned so well. But this wasn’t Nils Carling as Alex remembered him. This was a more recent version. Back then, the guy had been young and fresh-faced, with white-blond hair. Here, he was older, heavier, balding, his cheeks pouchier, his features pitted by age.
‘Little bastard,’ Alex said under his breath. This settled it. He was being targeted.
From somewhere close by, he heard another guttural, piglike chuckle.
He hurried to the end of the aisle and diverted left into the main shop. Again, there was no sign of the dishevelled figure, but another of Alex’s plays lay on the floor. Blind Alleys, the first one to make the professional stage. As before, it had been torn, spat on, kicked. From downstairs, he heard the shop doorbell jangle, as if another customer was entering the premises. Or leaving.
He raced down. The girl with green hair still sat absorbed in her phone. But she glanced up as he lurched towards the door. ‘Excuse me! That book?’
‘What?’ he replied, distracted. He glanced at the book in his hand.
A Compendium of the myths and folklore of the Nordic lands.
‘You are going to pay?’ she asked curtly.
‘For Christ’s sake, love … you have a go at me, when there’s been some tramp upstairs ripping books apart. Here!’
He chucked a crumpled tenner at her and dashed outside.
He wasn’t entirely sure why he’d kept the book, but surely it was a clue to what was going on. A deliberate clue even, which was equally odd. Out on the concourse, Slade had now been superseded by Wizzard, but the festive anthems still failed to work their magic in that empty place of scuffed linoleum floors and dark, empty windows. Not that this mattered. When he glanced left, he saw a shabby shape in a green coat and a red hoodie walking away down a side corridor.
Alex didn’t think for one minute that this was Nils Carling. He now remembered the guy properly: he’d been unusually short and squat, a Tolkien dwarf in terms of his stature, in every way perfect to play Rumplestiltskin, had Erika’s approach to the audition not been so captivating. This figure though, was much taller. Over six feet. For that same reason, Alex didn’t run after him. He wasn’t tackling someone like this on his own in a deserted shopping centre. The guy could have a knife, or syringes, or anything. Instead, he followed at a careful pace, his target never more than fifty yards ahead.
Until he turned abruptly right and entered through a shop door.
Surprised, Alex hurried forward. Again, the shop appeared to be closed. An empty display stand occupied the window. Overhead, a signpost read: Christmas Shop. One of those charity outlets. They opened around September, selling festive tat, but any business they did would be concluded by this time on December 24.
Shoving the book he’d bought into his jeans back pocket, Alex pushed tentatively at the door. When it cracked open, he hesitated. This could be construed as looking for trouble, but he knew that he couldn’t go back to the Farm without having investigated. What kind of Christmas would he have if he didn’t at least try to get some kind of answer?
The interior was small and poky, fragments of tinsel hanging from naked shelves, the floor covered with scraps of wrapping paper and a thin scattering of pine needles. But a door at the back stood ajar. Alex held his ground. That next door had to be where the guy had gone. There was no other hiding place. ‘Hello?’ he called out. ‘Anyone at home?’
He’d already decided that if the guy reappeared, he’d produce the book of Norse myths and claim that he’d seen him drop it. The photo was still inside, so it would be interesting to see the reaction.
However, no sound issued from that back room.
Gritting his teeth, Alex advanced and pushed the next door open. The space beyond lay in extreme dimness, but it had the aura of a stock room. He could sense clutter. Reaching out, he found a switch and threw it. An electric bulb came on, and he was startled to see how much Christmas still lurked in there. Stacks of open boxes overflowing with cheap baubles and plastic evergreens, a whole pile of glitzy fake Christmas trees zip-tied into bundles and propped in a corner. In addition, somewhat classier, a neat row of festive marionettes hung limply along the back wall. Alex pivoted round, scoping out every nook and cranny. As before though, there was nowhere obvious for a fugitive to hide.
His gaze fell on the marionettes again. There were thirteen of them, and at first glance he’d taken them as representative of the season, but now that he looked closely, while, yes, they were wearing Christmassy type garb – thick boots, warm, colourful clothing with white fur trims, caps with bells on and such – they were remarkably soulless, their expressionless faces made from clean white porcelain, holes where their eyes should be.
Then the door to the back room closed. And a lock turned.
Alex spun round. ‘Hey … hey, whoa, wait!’
He dashed across the room, but now heard the door at the front of the shop closing as well, and then another lock turning.
‘Hey … wait! There’s somebody still in here. For God’s sake, wait!’
The lights went out.
Alex froze for several seconds. When he finally scrabbled at the wall, he found the light-switch and flipped it. But the darkness remained.
‘For God’s sake!’ he shouted. ‘What’s the matter with you?’
But only now was the full nightmare of his predicament dawning on him.
This was a shopping mall, and the lights had probably all gone off automatically. That meant the mall was now closed. And tomorrow was Christmas Day.
‘Hello!’ he shouted frantically. ‘There’s still someone in here! Hello!’
He imagined his voice echoing down the empty, darkened walkways. And as such, though it was totally unlike him, he flew into a panic, whirling round amid the heaped boxes and shelves, rebounding from one to another. Things fell. Something broke. He didn’t care.
‘For Christ’s sake!’ he yelled.
And as quickly as the hysteria had come on him, it subsided. He snatched his phone from his pocket. Only a smidgen of juice remained, but that was enough to call Erika.
But before he did, something moved in the darkness.
It was only very slight, but he heard it clearly.
He activated the phone-light, spinning round again, seeing nothing except the disorder he’d caused. And the row of marionettes, in particular the two at the nearest end, whose heads were no longer drooped downward.
Alex tried to speak but could only make an odd clucking sound.
Their heads were now upright, as they stared at him with those black holes where their eyes should be. He backed off unsteadily, the marionettes still watching.
When he turned and ran, he did so blindly, crashing into another door he hadn’t noticed because it was half-hidden behind a curtain of hanging tinsel. Clawing madly at it, he located an escape bar, which he rammed downward. The door burst open, emitting him back into the icy cold. An alarm immediately sounded.
‘Alex, for God’s sake!’ Erika said.
She’d come to a standstill some ten yards away, arms filled with bulging paper bags. They were in the outdoor passage leading to the car park.
‘I, erm …’ He was almost as tongue-tied now as he had been when trying to rewrite his play in the car. ‘I … went the wrong way.’
‘You’ve set the alarm off.’
‘I know, I … it was an accident.’
‘We’d better find someone and tell them.’
‘No, no … we’ve just got to go.’ He lurched towards her, took her by the elbow and frogmarched her along the passage.
‘Alex, are you okay? You’re white as a sheet.’
‘It’s fine.’
‘What’s the matter?’
‘Nothing,’ he said gruffly. ‘Let’s get back before it starts snowing again.’
Gritting his teeth, Alex advanced and pushed the next door open. The space beyond lay in extreme dimness, but it had the aura of a stock room. He could sense clutter. Reaching out, he found a switch and threw it. An electric bulb came on, and he was startled to see how much Christmas still lurked in there. Stacks of open boxes overflowing with cheap baubles and plastic evergreens, a whole pile of glitzy fake Christmas trees zip-tied into bundles and propped in a corner. In addition, somewhat classier, a neat row of festive marionettes hung limply along the back wall. Alex pivoted round, scoping out every nook and cranny. As before though, there was nowhere obvious for a fugitive to hide.
His gaze fell on the marionettes again. There were thirteen of them, and at first glance he’d taken them as representative of the season, but now that he looked closely, while, yes, they were wearing Christmassy type garb – thick boots, warm, colourful clothing with white fur trims, caps with bells on and such – they were remarkably soulless, their expressionless faces made from clean white porcelain, holes where their eyes should be.
Then the door to the back room closed. And a lock turned.
Alex spun round. ‘Hey … hey, whoa, wait!’
He dashed across the room, but now heard the door at the front of the shop closing as well, and then another lock turning.
‘Hey … wait! There’s somebody still in here. For God’s sake, wait!’
The lights went out.
Alex froze for several seconds. When he finally scrabbled at the wall, he found the light-switch and flipped it. But the darkness remained.
‘For God’s sake!’ he shouted. ‘What’s the matter with you?’
But only now was the full nightmare of his predicament dawning on him.
This was a shopping mall, and the lights had probably all gone off automatically. That meant the mall was now closed. And tomorrow was Christmas Day.
‘Hello!’ he shouted frantically. ‘There’s still someone in here! Hello!’
He imagined his voice echoing down the empty, darkened walkways. And as such, though it was totally unlike him, he flew into a panic, whirling round amid the heaped boxes and shelves, rebounding from one to another. Things fell. Something broke. He didn’t care.
‘For Christ’s sake!’ he yelled.
And as quickly as the hysteria had come on him, it subsided. He snatched his phone from his pocket. Only a smidgen of juice remained, but that was enough to call Erika.
But before he did, something moved in the darkness.
It was only very slight, but he heard it clearly.
He activated the phone-light, spinning round again, seeing nothing except the disorder he’d caused. And the row of marionettes, in particular the two at the nearest end, whose heads were no longer drooped downward.
Alex tried to speak but could only make an odd clucking sound.
Their heads were now upright, as they stared at him with those black holes where their eyes should be. He backed off unsteadily, the marionettes still watching.
When he turned and ran, he did so blindly, crashing into another door he hadn’t noticed because it was half-hidden behind a curtain of hanging tinsel. Clawing madly at it, he located an escape bar, which he rammed downward. The door burst open, emitting him back into the icy cold. An alarm immediately sounded.
‘Alex, for God’s sake!’ Erika said.
She’d come to a standstill some ten yards away, arms filled with bulging paper bags. They were in the outdoor passage leading to the car park.
‘I, erm …’ He was almost as tongue-tied now as he had been when trying to rewrite his play in the car. ‘I … went the wrong way.’
‘You’ve set the alarm off.’
‘I know, I … it was an accident.’
‘We’d better find someone and tell them.’
‘No, no … we’ve just got to go.’ He lurched towards her, took her by the elbow and frogmarched her along the passage.
‘Alex, are you okay? You’re white as a sheet.’
‘It’s fine.’
‘What’s the matter?’
‘Nothing,’ he said gruffly. ‘Let’s get back before it starts snowing again.’
TO BE CONTINUED
(on Dec 22)
(If you are enjoying this spooky tale, perhaps you might be interested in two collections of Christmas-themed ghost and horror stories of mine, published over the last few years: THE CHRISTMAS YOU DESERVE and IN A DEEP, DARK DECEMBER. Or, if you prefer something a little more substantial, you could always opt for SPARROWHAWK, a Christmas-themed novella of mine, set during a very cold winter in the dark depths of Victorian England).
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