Dead of Winter Tr Read Free

Carmichael looked back at Jumper and decided he was probably being
overcautious and to let nature take its course, but to check on her again in half an hour. He called Rosie the sheepdog to follow him out of the barn. On his way down to the house he made a last
check on his horse. Inside the stable, he slipped his hand between Tor’s back and his fleecy rug and was reassured that he was warm enough. He should be: it had taken Carmichael an hour that
morning to bank the straw up high against the walls of the stable.
    Stepping back out into the yard, Carmichael locked up and turned his face from the blizzard as he whistled for Rosie. Taking a last look around, he unlatched the back door of the house that had
been his home for the last thirteen years since his wife died.
    As he walked through the kitchen he pulled the pot of stew from the top of the Aga and left it to one side. He knew he should eat but he hadn’t the appetite. Instead, he walked through to
the sitting room and took his Steyr Scout rifle from the gun cupboard, opened it and inserted a magazine. Then he locked it and left it leaning against the doorframe.
    Logs were burning in the Inglenook fireplace. It must have burned the same way for three hundred years.
    Carmichael went to the dresser, picked up the bottle of Scotch and carried it across to his desk and then he opened his laptop, waiting for it to fire up before he clicked on his music library.
It had been a long time since he had listened to any music. Too many memories; too many feelings. Green Day blasted out. It made him smile. He could see his wife Louise’s face now as
she’d pretended to hate it. She’d left him in the lounge with his music and his glass of red and she’d come back with Sophie; both of them wearing earmuffs. He smiled at the
memory. He hadn’t allowed himself even the good memories for a long time . . . he didn’t know why they were coming back tonight. Something in the weather or the world was overpowering
him. It was going to be a long night. He poured himself a few fingers of single malt. It melted in his throat and burned as it slid downwards. Standing on the broad hearth he nudged a half-burnt
log with his foot, sending up a spray of sparks. His face was bright from the fire, his dark hair wet from the snow. He picked up the photo of Louise smiling at him, Sophie in her arms, and took it
over to sit in front of the fire and sip his Scotch. The bridge of his nose burned as his eyes filled. He ran a finger across the photo and held it to his chest as he sat back and listened to the
crackle of the fire, felt its warmth through to his bones. He heard his Jack Russell terrier Rusty sigh from his basket as it watched him. Carmichael didn’t even realize he was crying.
    ‘Enough,’ he said out loud, stood, drank the whisky down, and called for Rosie as he pulled on his overcoat.
    The bitter wind sliced his face as he opened the back door and walked back up to the barn. He switched on the light. The barn was musty with the smell of lambing. He couldn’t see Jumper.
He walked through the barn slowly, as if walking in tar. In the orange hue the sheep’s eyes stared at him as he passed. The lambs stopped suckling to watch his slow progress. Carmichael kept
walking; kept moving one heavy foot in front of the other. Walking in a dream, in a memory. His mind was spiralling back thirteen years, to the day he had walked towards the open door of a small
holiday cottage where his wife and child were staying for the weekend. His breathing quickened until it wheezed in his chest as he stepped inside a world that should have been filled with the sound
of laughter and chatter and heard only the droning of flies. He turned his head to look at the ewes but instead he saw his wife Louise looking at him, her face splattered with blood. She reached
out a bloody hand to him. A cry caught in his throat; the ewes heard it; they turned their heads to listen. The noise jolted him