The Dead of Winter Read Free Page B

meeting with Sir Stephen. I suddenly felt chilled and weary and Jerwood must have seen this in my face when he returned.
    ‘Come along,’ he said quietly. ‘Our carriage awaits.’ Without another word, he set off, and I, fearing I would be lost in this strange place, picked up my bag as swiftly as I could and all but ran after him towards the carriage.
    The driver was a tall, thin man and he was standing immediately below a gaslight so that the shadow from his hat darkened his face to a point just above his mouth, a mouth which seemed to curl into a sneer as I caught his eye. He stepped forward at our approach and tipped his hat to Jerwood, who nodded back, passing him first his own bag and then mine, before climbing into the carriage, with me close behind. I thought I heard the driver say something as I passed him; or rather I heard him make some kind of noise. But it could likewise have been the horse.
    The driver whistled and flicked the reins and the carriage moved away, rattling through the town, its lanterns sending animated shadows leaping back and forth, and making the passing windows shimmer and flicker as though licked by the flames from some great fire.
    Night was now in full spate and its inky waters had flooded the flatlands all about and they were black to the far horizon, where the sky was barelybrighter than the land.
    I had never been to these parts before, but knew that they had been marshes centuries ago, drained and transformed into black-soiled farmland. Looking from the carriage window was more like looking out from a boat across a wide uncharted sea, so untroubled was it by any sign of human habitation.
    As on the train, I once more drifted on the edge of sleep. The rumble of the carriage wheels faded in and out of my consciousness: a sound like waves washing against shingle. I seemed to float on dark waters.
    I dreamt I was standing among the headstones in Highgate cemetery, looking down at my mother’s grave. Jerwood and Bentley were some yards away, whispering. Every now and again they would look towards me and laugh, their faces distorted and ugly.
    I was aware of a movement among the shadows to my left and turned to see a figure – a small figure – running between the gravestones, hiding and then running again. It was always, always, in shadow and I could discern no features at all.
    It scampered in a crazed and zigzag path, which I realised, with dread, was bringing it closer andcloser to where I stood. When it came to the nearest headstone, it stayed hidden and did not reemerge. I looked to Jerwood and Bentley but they now stood as still as statues, as if the whole world had come to a halt. I edged forward to look behind the headstone; a shadow leapt towards me with terrifying suddenness, smothering me in darkness, and I awoke with a start.
    Jerwood nudged me and said that we should shortly be arriving at Hawton Mere and that if I looked I might catch my first glimpse of the house.
    I leaned out of the carriage window, the combination of the cold night air and the rain that was now beginning to fall making me squint. But I could see nothing but a vague shape up ahead, blacker than the blackness beyond. Even so, I could tell that the structure was of some considerable size. A mist was combining with the drizzle to blur what little I could make out.
    Just as I pulled my head back into the relative warmth of the carriage, the lanterns, whose glow did not extend much beyond the edge of the road, illuminated for a passing, startling moment a woman who loomed out of the night. Her arms reached out towards the carriage, her eyes wild and her face pale, her mouth wide with a cry that therumbling wheels drowned out entirely. Despite the freezing temperature she appeared to be dressed in nothing but a linen shift and was soaking wet into the bargain.
    ‘Sir!’ I cried, turning to Jerwood. ‘There’s a woman, sir. By the road. I fear she may need some assistance.’
    ‘A woman?’ he said,