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  ‘No can do, Jimmy. Procedure, see?’ Shimmin shook his bloated head, as if he was powerless to concede the point, even to a man as remarkable as my father. ‘How about you take Tess downstairs for one of those fancy coffees? We’ll come and find you when we’re finished. Won’t be long.’

  Dad was all set to try again. I could feel it in the tightening of his fingers on my toes. He was used to getting special treatment on the island. The best table in a restaurant. A handsome discount in a shop. A forgiving smile when he parked on double yellow lines. It was the outcome of a combination of factors. His reputation as a local sporting legend. The swagger that came from riding away from certain death. And I don’t suppose it hurt that he was handsome. Square jaw. High forehead. Unruly, tousled hair. A powerful, muscular physique, gone a little soft in later years.

  ‘It’s OK, Dad,’ I said. ‘It’s not as if I have anything to hide.’

  My father looked at me then, a broken expression on his slackened face. Mum reached for his arm. The ghost of a smile I hadn’t seen in a long time tugged at her lips.

  ‘Come on, Jim. Let them ask their questions. Rob will still be here when we get back. Right love?’

  ‘Yeah, Mum. I’ll be here.’

  But it still scared me that she’d felt the need to ask.

  *

  ‘Now then Robbie, why don’t you tell us about this mystery blonde of yours?’

  Pumpkin-head had taken my father’s seat. He was reclined with his hands behind his fat neck and his crossed heels resting on the end of my bed.

  ‘It’s Robert,’ I said.

  ‘Eh?’

  ‘Or Rob. Not Robbie. I might be Jimmy Hale’s son, but I have my own identity. Some people respect that.’

  Shimmin let go of a low whistle and glanced over his shoulder towards his colleague. Teare had taken up a position with her back against the wall, one leg bent at the knee, the sole of her shoe marking the beige paint. She took a long pull on her Coke, tapping an unpainted nail on the aluminium casing.

  ‘Chip on the shoulder there, young Robbie?’ Shimmin asked.

  I rocked my head to the right, feeling the pull of the foam sling that had been wrapped around my neck and left wrist. There was a small porthole of glass in the door to my room, but all I could see on the other side was more beige.

  ‘Hey fella, come on. I’m a friend of your father’s, see?’

  They were all friends of my father. Or so they told themselves.

  ‘And I know you and he are different.’ Shimmin snapped his fingers and I turned to find a dark shimmering in the pouched slits where his eyes lurked. ‘Anyone who’s watched you race these past three years can tell that easily enough, eh? Guess the acorn fell further from the tree than maybe you’d like to believe, young Robbie. Or maybe you remember it differently. Something else caused by that crack on your noggin.’

  The blow to my head was something the neurologist had already discussed with me. I’d been fortunate, apparently. Early tests indicated there was no secondary swelling and the chances of it developing were said to be slim. I’d need to undergo more tests in a week or so, and watch for anything out of the ordinary – mood swings, difficulty keeping my balance, a change in my sleep patterns. I also had to take care to avoid any follow-up blows until the bruising had healed. But all things considered, it could have been worse.

  ‘So come on, lad.’ Shimmin tugged the knot of his tie away from his yellowing collar. ‘Tell us what you told the good doctors.’

  Chapter Three

  When I’d first picked the message up on my answer-machine, I’d wondered if it could be a hoax. It wasn’t every day I was called to a job in the middle of a plantation, and the customer hadn’t left a number. Then I’d spoken to Dad and he’d told me there used to be a Forestry Board cottage in the woods. Rumour was it had been sold to a private buyer a decade or so ago. I guessed that had to be the foreign-sounding man who’d phoned me, and since I could use the distraction, I decided to check it out.

  A closed wooden gate blocked the entrance to the woods, beside a sign that read Arrasey Plantation. The gate was secured with a rusted metal chain and a shiny combination lock. The locked gate didn’t strike me as unusual. Access is restricted to a lot of the island’s plantations to prevent people tearing through them on off-road bikes. There are ways around that, of course, but none of them apply when you’re driving a panel van.

  I climbed down out of my van into the falling rain, leaving my dog, Rocky, to watch me from the warmth of the front bench. I dialled in the combination the customer had left on my machine and the lock came free in my hands. I wrapped the chain around the gate post, taking a moment to clear the beads of water from a laminated flyer that had been nailed to it.

  Please help us to find Chester. Missing 5 April in this plantation.

  There was a telephone number to call and a photograph of a scrawny-looking terrier with a blue collar. The dog’s pink tongue was hanging out the side of his mouth, eyes squinting against bright sunshine. I hated seeing posters like this. Fifth April. Almost a month had passed but I couldn’t help peering out the misted windows of the van, hoping for some glimpse of poor Chester as we drove slowly up the rutted track.

  If he was out here somewhere, the weather wasn’t being kind to him. A chill, grey fog was hanging low over the tops of the spruce, larch and pine trees, and the rain was faint but persistent. The narrow path curved steeply to the right and the van wheels slipped on greasy stones and mud. A smell of wet, rotting vegetation came in through the crack in my window, and as the trees pressed in around us, branches scratching along the sides of the van, Rocky turned to me with a doleful look in his nut-brown eyes that seemed to ask just what crazy adventure I’d taken us on this time.

  Rocky is a pedigree golden retriever. He weighs somewhere between thirty and thirty-five kilograms, depending on which phase of his diet cycle we’re currently disagreeing on, and I’m yet to find anything besides asparagus that he isn’t prepared to eat. And that includes furniture, soft furnishings and van interiors. The passenger bench he was squatting on was a case in point. The vinyl upholstery had passed through his digestive system some months back now, and I didn’t doubt that he had plans to chow down on the yellow foam in the not too distant future. Rocky didn’t just eat me out of house and home. He ate through my home. But I loved him more than most things in life, and he loved me back with a force and loyalty that was beyond anything I could readily explain.

  ‘What?’ I asked him. ‘You don’t think this is a good idea?’

  Rocky threw his head back and considered me with plaintive eyes that seemed to expect something more. I ruffled the hairs of his neck.

  ‘They might have cake, right? Wouldn’t that make this worthwhile?’

  He blinked at me and parted his jaws in what I like to call his toothy-smile. It’s one of his key moves. Believe me, it always slays the ladies.

  We were up on a rise by now, the ground falling away sharply on our left. I looked down over the sodden gorse and treetops at a scattering of fields that sloped towards a valley stream, a collection of ramshackle farm buildings and the ruins of an old tin mine. In the distance, the swell of South Barrule hill was shrouded in the watery mist, the brake lights of a passing car shining like sea beacons.

  The narrow track forked in three directions and I followed the middle path, plunging deeper into the tree cover. Water ticked off the pine needles, exploding against the windscreen, and the van pitched and rolled from side to side. A stringy grass had grown up in the middle of the path, leaving two thin bands of earth for me to follow.

  The woods were dense all around and so black that I couldn’t see into them for more than a few feet. The ground was knotted with fallen branches, brush and a thick brown carpet of dried pine needles and mulch. If little Chester had come this far on his own, he’d have scared himself half to death.

  Ahead was another gate, open this time. A rectangle of glistening slate had been fixed to the p
ost, two words etched into it in startling white. Yn Dorraghys. My grasp of Manx Gaelic is only basic, but this was one phrase I recognised. The Darkness.

  Fitting.

  The track petered out after another twenty feet and I swung the van around in a boggy turning circle, beaching it alongside a bank of brambles and a red Nissan Micra. The wheel arches and side panels of the Micra were splattered with mud and I could see an Avis rental sticker in the rear window.

  I dropped out of my van on to the marshy soil, closed the door on Rocky and paced through the rain with my vinyl clipboard in my hand.

  The property was a tumbledown cottage with a sloping slate roof, clotted with moss. The once white walls were leaning towards shades of green, as if they were soaking the moisture out of the foliage that surrounded the place. Tufts of grass blocked the gutters and a collection of wonky shutters had been thrown back from the aged sash windows. A small lawn lay to one side. The grass was as high as my knees and knotted with thorns.

  The black front door opened before I could knock and a swarthy man in light denim jeans and a green turtleneck sweater filled the void. He had lank, shoulder-length brown hair, and he was wearing wraparound sunglasses, the type with mirrored lenses. The sunglasses were an odd choice, considering the dreary conditions beneath the tall forest trees. He clutched a mobile phone.

  The man leaned sideways and looked over my shoulder at the stencil work on my van. It was brief and to the point. Manx Heating Solutions and Repairs, followed by the numbers for my mobile and landline.

  ‘You are heating man?’ His accent was hard and clipped, making me think he was from somewhere in northern Europe, possibly Germany. He sounded like the guy who’d left me the message, only more cautious. I get that all the time. Too many people have heard horror stories about cowboy tradesmen.

  ‘Name’s Rob.’ I switched my clipboard in my hands and held my palm out to him through the rain.

  He seemed not to notice. He was still looking past me, like he was trying to see inside my van.

  ‘It’s just my dog in there,’ I told him. ‘He’s the brains of the operation.’

  The man half-nodded. ‘The hot water. It break.’

  ‘So I understand.’ I left my hand out for a moment longer before giving up and drying it on the backside of my work trousers. ‘Where’s your boiler?’

  He pointed with his phone at a built-in garage to the side of the property. There was a high up-and-over door with a turn handle in the middle. It had fluted metal panels. The white paint was flaking.

  ‘Is it open?’ I asked.

  The man delved inside the pocket of his jeans and threw me a key on a red plastic fob. ‘I turn lights on for you.’

  He stepped back, as if to shut the front door.

  ‘Wait. Have you checked your oil?’

  He just looked at me. It was hard to gauge his reaction from behind his sunglasses.

  ‘Your oil tank,’ I said. ‘Is there any fuel in it?’

  ‘I do not know. You can check this too.’

  *

  I grabbed my torch from the van and let Rocky out, and then the two of us ran through the slanted rain in search of the oil tank. We found it hidden in the tall grass behind the garage and I checked for fuel. By the time I’d screwed the lid back on the tank, we were both pretty wet. I ran back to the van for my tools and a towel. Then I unlocked the garage door and heaved it upright.

  Mr Shades had been as good as his word. The lights were on. Two fluorescent tubes were humming and flickering above my head. Over to the far left was a plain internal door that would connect with the cottage. A pull cord was suspended from the ceiling alongside it.

  I stepped inside and rubbed my hair, hands and face with the towel while Rocky shook himself dry. Normally, I’d have laid the towel down and made Rocky clean his paws, but really there was no point. The floor was bare, unpolished concrete and the walls were unfinished breezeblocks. There were no stacked boxes of belongings. No pushbikes or garden equipment. There was no sturdy workbench or pegboard of household tools or any of the customary junk you might expect to find in most garages. There was just a run of white laminate shelving units fitted against the wall on my left, all of them empty, and a combination boiler located near an immersion tank in the right-hand corner of the room.

  The boiler was one hell of an old thing. I already knew it was going to be a crappy job before I removed the front panel and what I found inside didn’t disappoint. It looked as if it hadn’t been serviced in decades.

  I ran a few basic tests, checking the thermostat and the burner, but it didn’t surprise me that a simple solution was out of the question. The best outcome in a situation like this is when the home owner agrees to buy a new boiler. It’ll be more reliable, and more efficient, and compared to the maintenance costs of keeping an old system running, it’ll pay for itself within five years. But something told me Mr Shades wouldn’t be interested in any of that. The shabby state of the cottage didn’t suggest that anyone was looking to spend money on home improvements. And the rental Nissan and the man’s accent had made me think he was most likely a temporary guest. So unless he told me otherwise, I was going to focus on getting the hot water running again, leaving the sales pitch for another day.

  Behind me, Rocky slumped on to the cement floor and lowered his head on to his forepaws. Then he whined like he could tell this wasn’t going to be one of those jobs where a quick fix was followed by a long walk through the woods.

  ‘Sorry, pal,’ I said.

  Rocky closed his eyes and rolled on to his side. So this is what my business partner was contributing to the situation. Nap time.

  *

  An hour later, the rain had settled into a hard patter and I’d managed to suck most of the crud out of the boiler with my vacuum cleaner. I also seemed to be wearing a lot of grease and dust and oil. That was when the side door to the cottage opened and an angel walked in.

  Sickening, I know, but trust me, compared to Mr Shades, she was a huge improvement.

  Her smile hit me first, and it was so unexpected that I almost dropped the socket wrench I was holding. Wham. Neat white teeth, full lips. She was blonde, the kind of light blonde that only comes from years of sunshine. She was tanned, too, a soft caramel tint that was like a rebuke to the cheerless rain. She had on a pink vest top, frayed beige corduroy trousers and flipflops.

  Dainty, that was the first thought that came to my mind. I won’t tell you the second.

  Rocky stirred and sidled over to her. He leaned into her thigh and she tickled the back of his ear in that way that drives him happily nuts. Oh, right, I thought. You can sleep through an hour’s worth of vacuuming, no problem, but the moment a stunning blonde enters the room, you’re super-attentive.

  ‘Ooh, you are so beautiful,’ she said, and I recognised traces of the same European accent I’d heard from Mr Shades. ‘And your ears are so soft. What is your name, handsome one?’

  Rob, I wanted to tell her. And then I wanted to roll over on my back and have her tickle my tummy.

  Rocky beat me to it.

  ‘He’s called Rocky,’ I said, as she knelt down and circled her palm over his abdomen. ‘And I think he likes you.’

  She smiled and glanced up from beneath long, curling lashes. ‘Would Rocky like some water, maybe?’

  I had some in the cooler in my van. I knew it and Rocky knew it, too. But he looked at me like he’d crap in my bed if I said as much.

  ‘That’d be nice,’ I said.

  ‘And you?’ Her fine blonde hair had fallen across her face. She tucked it behind her ear. ‘Would you like some tea? It’s been some time since I made tea for an Englishman.’

  Now true, I could have told her I was Manx, but I couldn’t see the harm in letting it slide. I nodded and she gave Rocky a last pat before straightening and turning for the door.

  ‘Come,’ she said. ‘And bring Rocky, yes?’

  The dog was gone before I’d cleaned my hands on an old rag. I knoc
ked the worst of the dirt from my clothes, took off my work boots (trying to ignore the way my big toe was poking out of my sock) and made my way into the kitchen.

  It was a cramped, dingy room, with small windows that were positioned too low in the walls. Rainwater sluiced down the glass. A bare ceiling bulb cast a weak light across the aged pine units and cheaply tiled countertop.

  Rocky had his head down at a bowl in the corner, doing a good job of spilling its contents across the linoleum floor and acting as if this was the finest tap water he’d tasted in his entire life. The blonde was standing beside the sink, filling an earthenware mug from a steaming kettle. And at a round table in the middle of the room sat Mr Shades and a second man I hadn’t seen before.

  I was looking at the man from behind. He was big and muscular, with a shock of peroxide blonde hair and a colourful sleeve tattoo escaping the left cuff of his khaki T-shirt. The T-shirt was so tight he might as well have been wearing body paint. I got the impression the guy lifted weights and that he liked people to know it. The muscles of his lower neck and shoulders stood out as if someone had braided thick rope beneath his skin.

  A photography book was open on the table before him. His head was bowed, hands covering his ears, his thick elbows propped on the tabletop. The page he was studying featured a black-and-white photograph of a pale, emaciated girl with a crescent-shaped collection of studs above her top lip.

  Mr Shades was tapping at a laptop. The laptop was placed alongside his phone. It seemed he wasn’t a complete idiot, because his sunglasses were now balanced on top of his head.

  Neither of the men paid me any attention. I stood awkwardly in my socks, shifting my weight between my feet.