Cold Grave

Everything was bathed in blue. That’s what he remembered most: a cold, rich Persian blue that washed over land and sky and lake, and made it all shiver. It made it almost magical, like a neverland that was never quite dark and never quite light — and would never be quite the same again.

It shimmered, this strange new world, where you could walk on water and all sorts of astonishing possibilities lay ahead. Some of what might happen scared him but he was excited more than afraid. There was no uncertainty about what he was going to do; he’d already made his mind up about that, and could feel the exhilaration and anticipation building in him.

The ice kingdom had winked at them on their arrival: a teasing glimpse framed between the old church on one side and the arthritic arms of a barren chestnut tree on the other. As they inched closer, almost fearful of its wonder, it unfolded before their eyes and they were assaulted by its sights and sounds. From the shore it looked like a Lowry painting, thick with matchstick people, graphite grey and black against the icy canvas, with only vague flashes of colour breaking up the monotone sketch. The collective breath of those gathered on the frozen lake fogged the air above them and offered an enchanted border to the blue.

The noise was terrific. The sum of its parts was raw excitement, its constituents the roar of curling stones across the ice; the screams of children’s laughter; and cheers from all corners. There were people everywhere, clad in ski gear, climbing outfits, jeans and kilts, every head covered in a hat.

Getting closer, they could see the ice world contained colours after all. A little girl in a scarlet jumpsuit sat giggling on a sled pulled by a panting Springer Spaniel; a green-kilted warrior whooped as he followed his curling stone down the hastily formed rink; two men with bright yellow hats and beaming red noses shared the national drink from a metal hipflask. Blues and browns and purples and oranges all whirled and birled and skirled in a cacophony of sound and fury.

The skaters, the curlers, the sliders and the walkers extended all the way to Inchmahome Island, a ghostly shape far across the ice. A carnival of people were taking advantage of something that hadn’t happened for fifteen years and might never happen again. They’d been walking to Inchmahome, half a mile away across the lake, ever since word spread that the ice had frozen solid, possibly a once-in-a-lifetime chance both to defy and take advantage of nature.

By all accounts, the two days before had seen even more people on the lake — as many as 10,000, it was said. There were fewer now: some of them had gone back to work; others were scared off by temperatures that had crept back up towards zero. More were leaving with the approach of the day’s end.

He was relieved that she had been easily talked into staying near the shore for a while to enjoy the last of the people-watching before they took their own turn to venture across to the island. It was nearly dusk and the fading light was accompanied by surface water dancing and glistening on the ice, signalling that the frozen bridge to the island might soon disappear. The sensible thing would have been to go immediately and not run the risk of waiting any longer but a smile and wink were enough to persuade her of the benefits of waiting for it to be dark and quiet over there.

Only the brave and the reckless were still attempting the walk to Inchmahome. She was one of those and he was the other. God, she was only a few years younger but she had an innate wonder about her that he envied. Life was still an adventure to her, a world to be explored. For him, it was already beginning to be a chore but he was compensated by the knowledge that he wouldn’t need to be jealous of her innocence much longer.

Finally, as the numbers crossing the lake dwindled, he gripped her hand, feeling the threads of her pink gloves lightly tickle his bare skin, and they both took a deep breath before making their first stride. Suddenly it seemed so much further away, the expanding dusk adding distance and doubt.

‘Ready?’ he asked her.

‘Ready,’ she laughed.

Every step took them further from the shore, the lake deepening beneath them and making them both acutely aware that all that was holding them up, keeping them alive, was a quirk of science. Still they pushed on, through the diminishing crowds, deeper and darker into the lake.

A couple of hundred yards from shore, a noise stolen on the breeze made them turn to see a slim skater clad in black, a spinning silhouette against the falling gloom of blue. The girl whirled as another shadow stood twenty yards from her, filming the scene. She was mesmerising to watch: a vision that spun on one axle, arms high and locked together, then turned out gracefully in a wide arc before returning to her mark to spin once more, finally sliding to the ice like a dying swan.

There were dogs out there too, chasing wildfowl and their own tails as they slid and slipped across the surface, the darkness beginning to envelop them, scooping them up. She laughed to see them careering over the ice, giggling as they spun on their backsides, their paws unable to keep up with the haste of their minds. He tried to laugh along with her but he was tenser than she was, more nervous.

They picked their way round the bore holes that were dotted over the lake, peering down into the depths through the cracked circles left where the ice had been tested to make sure it was thick enough for the grand match, the great curling bonspiel that had been promised but had not taken place. Twenty thousand people had been set to descend on the lake for the once-in-a-lifetime match between the north and the south of Scotland but it had fallen an inch short of being held — six inches of ice were measured rather than the required seven.

Almost all the people they were passing now were on the return journey to the shore and the warm promise of the hotel bar. She gripped his hand tighter, the first sign of anxiety at their adventure accompanied by nervous laughter. He squeezed her hand in return, his own nerves having been replaced by adrenalin and a pounding in his heart in anticipation of what was going to happen.

The island’s shoreline was just yards away now and they could see the tiny wooden jetty where the ferry tied up in the summer months. A few more steps and they’d be there. With a final, exultant leap they left the ice behind and landed with a crunch on the snowy shore of Inchmahome, celebrating with a hug and a look around to see who was still there. They were both thrilled to see there was no one in sight.

Just twenty minutes later, he was walking back across the ice on his own, every step washing away behind him, every footprint slipping softly into the lake. The crunch of foot on snow and the glide of boot on the icy bridge to neverland disappeared without trace. All he and she had ever been were ghosts and every sign of them had become lost in the blue.

Almost all of the ice revellers had left the lake — just a noisy rump of curlers remained near the shore and a straggle of kids sliding recklessly on the wet ice by the edge. None of them paid any attention to the last shadow that walked back towards the hotel, the lone spectre that slipped into the night.

‘So tell me again why we’re going away for the weekend?’

Rachel Narey didn’t take her eyes off the road to answer him but instead exhaled testily, then shook her head.

‘What’s so hard to understand, Tony? We’re just going away for a day or two, just like any normal couple.’

Tony Winter let loose a snort of derision.

‘But we’re not a normal couple,’ he retorted. ‘Sometimes I’m not even sure that we
are
a couple. Not a public one at any rate.’

A patently false smile stretched across Rachel’s face as Winter watched her drum her fingers against the steering wheel. She was not only containing her anger but making a show of doing so — a tactic both designed and guaranteed to annoy him.

‘Well, we are this weekend,’ she finally and tersely replied, her brown eyes pointedly fixed on the road ahead. ‘You’re always moaning we never go out together, and now that we are, you can’t just be happy.’

‘Rachel, you haven’t even told me where we’re going.’

She blew a thin burst of exaggerated exasperation between pursed lips and shook her head. It had become a familiar pose of late and Winter wasn’t sure whether that said more about him or about her — or about them. All he was sure of was that it was becoming a pain in the ass. Where were they going? Maybe that was too big a question to answer.

‘Oh, for Christ’s sake. Shut up,’ she told him. ‘There’s a bar and a big bed. What more do you want?’

It was unarguably a winning combination and he laughed despite himself. Time for the voice of compromise and geniality.

‘Fair enough, you win. Right, driver, let the mystery tour continue. How long until we get to wherever it is?’

Rachel smiled.

‘Not long. Another forty-five minutes or so.’

It had been a little over ten minutes since they’d left Rachel’s flat on Highburgh Road in Glasgow’s west end and they were now heading out of town on Great Western Road. Narey’s black Renault Megane held three bags in the boot, two of hers and one for Tony, plus his camera bag. Pack casual things for during the day but something smart for dinner was all the information she’d offered him. With a bemused shake of his head, he’d thrown jeans, trousers and shirts into the bag and given in.

Winter actually wasn’t sure when they had become a couple, even if not in a conventional sense. Their relationship was a secret from just about everyone around them, much to his irritation. She was a detective sergeant in Strathclyde Police and he was a police photographer, a civilian. Fraternising with the lower species of the crime scene community wasn’t exactly encouraged and, as far as Rachel was concerned, it was easier all round if no one else knew. He’d appreciated that — at first.

Something had changed somewhere along the way, from the secret first-night kiss to his semi-residential status in her Highburgh Road pad. It was one of those slow-moving rivers of a relationship and he couldn’t pinpoint the place in the bend where his Facebook status changed from ‘Single’ to ‘It’s Complicated’. Hers remained resolutely ‘Fuck off; it’s none of your business.’