In a Dry Season Read Free

like, only that he would know it when he found it and that there must be clues somewhere.
    He crossed the old stone bridge and walked into one of the half-demolished cottages, aware of the moist, cool darkness gathering around him like a cloak. It smelled like a bad toilet, or as if some gigantic alien creature had lain down to die in a hot, fetid swamp.
    Sunlight slanted in through the space where the roof had been, lighting the far wall. The dark stones looked slick and greasy as an oil spill. In places, the heavy stone flags that formed the floor had shifted and cracked, and thick gobbets of mud oozed up between them. Some of the slabs wobbled when Adam stood on them. He felt poised over quicksand ready to suck him down to the earth’s core if he made one wrong move.
    There was nothing in this house. Time to move on. Outside, he could see no one. The two tourists seemedto have left now, unless they were hiding, lying in wait for him behind the ruined mill.
    Adam noticed an outbuilding near the bridge, the kind of place that had perhaps once been used to store coal or keep food cold. He had heard about the old days before electric fires and fridges. It might even have been a toilet. Hard to believe, he knew, but once people had to go outside to the toilet, even in winter.
    Whatever it had been, The Destructors had left it largely alone. About seven feet high, with a slanting flagstone roof still intact, it seemed to beckon him to come and vanquish it. Here, at least, was a structure he could mount to get a clear view. If the pretend-tourists were hiding nearby, he would see them from up there.
    Adam walked around the outbuilding and was pleased to see that on one side a number of stones stuck out farther than others, like steps. Carefully, he rested his weight on the first one. It was slippery, but it held fast. He started to climb. Every step seemed solid enough, and soon he was at the top.
    He pulled himself onto the roof. It slanted at only a slight angle, so it was easy enough to walk on. First, he stood near the edge, cupped his hand over his eyes to shield out the harsh sun and looked in every direction.
    To the west stood the flax mill, and the strangers were now nowhere in sight. The land to both the north and south was covered in woods, so it was hard to see anything through the dense green foliage. To the east lay the tear-drop shape of Harksmere Reservoir. On The Edge, which ran along the south side of the reservoir, a couple of car windscreens flashed in the sun. Other than that, there was hardly any movement in the world at all, hardly a leaf trembling.
    Satisfied he wasn’t being watched, Adam struck out over the roof. It was only about four or five feet wide, but when he got to the middle he felt the faintest tremor, then, before he could dash the short distance to the other side, the thick stone slabs gave way beneath him. For a moment he hung suspended in air, as if he might float there forever. He stuck his arms out and flapped them like wings, but to no avail. With a scream, he plunged down into the darkness.
    He landed on his back on a cushion of mud; his left wrist cracked against a fallen flagstone and his right arm, stretched out to break his fall, sank up to the elbow.
    As he lay there, winded, looking up at the square of blue sky above him, he saw two of the remaining roof slabs tilt and fall towards him. Each one was about three feet square and six inches thick, enough to smash him to a pulp if it hit him. But he couldn’t move; he felt trapped there, spellbound by the falling slabs.
    They seemed to drift down in slow motion, like autumn leaves on a windless day. His mind emptied of everything. He felt no panic, no fear, just a sort of acceptance, as if he had reached a turning-point in his short life, and it was out of his hands now. He couldn’t have explained it if he’d tried, but at that moment, lying on his cot of warm mud watching the dark stone flags wheel down across the