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Chase shivered and surreptitiously looked up at the sky.

Adam laughed. “It’s only a legend though.”

“Well thank you for sharing that with me. I’ll sleep easy now.”

“Sorry.” Adam sheepishly shrugged his shoulders.

When they reached High Top Cottage, Adam said, “Would you like me to come in?”

“Is that why you told me the story?” she joked, forcing a smile. She shook her head. “Not tonight.” She needed time by herself to think.

“Well, come into the surgery tomorrow, and we’ll have a chat. Call in any time you like, I’ll tell Patricia to expect you.”

Chase nodded, unlocked the door and walked inside. She waved Adam goodbye and he gave her an encouraging smile before disappearing down the lane. She closed the door, locked it and then checked that it was secure before walking through to the lounge to sit on the settee, where she closed her eyes. Her life was in turmoil.

She must have fallen asleep, because a sudden noise woke her with a start.

Darkness had descended; long shadows had slipped uninvited into the room. Once familiar objects took on unnatural shapes in the nocturnal gloom. Dismissing the noise as the tail end of a lucid dream, she was about to close her eyes again when she heard a rattling noise in the kitchen that made her heart stop.

Someone was trying the door handle.

Someone was trying to get into the house.

She tried to remember whether or not she had locked the door, certain that she had, but panicking in case she hadn’t. Remembering Belinda, she wished she had a telephone to call someone for help.

Why are all the bloody phones dead? Come the morning, she decided, she was going to find Moon and demand he get her the hell out of
Paradise
. Jane had been right.

Too scared to move, she tried to will the person to go away, but she heard the door handle turn again, squeaking and protesting as someone tried to force the door open. She wanted to scream, but that would tell whomever it was, that she was in – and that she was terrified. She didn’t want whoever was out there to know she was scared, as they would feed on her fear, gaining a psychological advantage
.

The eaves creaked, sighing as they settled down for the night. Or was someone in the house, walking in the bedroom above, the floorboards protesting as weight was applied to them? Why hadn’t she checked the house when she returned from the pub? Anyone could have got in while she was away. But why would they?

Panic churned her stomach like a turbulent sea, making her feel sick. She thought about the baby and felt a sudden maternal instinct for something she hadn’t known was there a few hours ago. She was going to be a mother. And someone was trying to break into her house. Rage began to replace the fear, nudging it aside as strength flowed back into her limbs. She stood up, cautiously making her way through to the kitchen in time to hear a key turning in the lock.

The door began to open.

CHAPTER 12

Chase felt giddy. Everything was happening too quickly.

Her heart was beating fast, as though trying to escape from its cage of ribs.

She knew how it felt.

In the ambient light, she could see the door handle turning, the door beginning to open.

Her heart momentarily missed a beat.

Preservation instinct took over as she grabbed a serrated knife from the draining board. The weight of the knife was comforting and she clenched it in her fist, prepared to defend herself against the intruder.

The back door swung open, banging against the wall and a shadow crossed the threshold, followed closely by the physical body that hesitated in the doorway.

Chase steadied herself, sucked in a deep breath.

The figure was too dark to make out; she reached for the light switch, prepared to see Belinda standing there, armed with cakes, or worse. Much worse.

She tightened her grip on the knife.

Flicking the switch, light flooded the room, chasing the shadows away and Chase let out a loud cry as she confronted the intruder: a gangling teenager covered in mud who looked more scared than she was.

His mouth dropped open and he stumbled back. “Where’s my granddad? Who are you?” the boy demanded before he saw the knife and took a further step back, his expression fearful.

“What are you doing breaking into my house?” Chase demanded in return, her voice shaking almost as much as her legs.

“Your house? I’ve got a key. This is my granddad’s house. What have you done to him? You ...” he visibly gulped, “You haven’t killed him, have you?” He looked at the knife and took another step back.

“Don’t be stupid.” Chase lowered the knife slightly.

“Granddad,” the boy shouted.

“Look, there’s no one here, especially not your granddad. This is my house. I won it.”

“Won it? Don’t talk stupid. You can’t have. My Granddad lives here.” The boy’s face contorted in confusion.

Chase remembered the diary. “Did your granddad have a dog?”

“Samson. Where is he?”

“Look, I don’t know what’s going on, but you’d better come in.”

The boy eyed her warily and Chase put the knife back on the draining board.

“I won’t hurt you. Look, come in and shut the door.” She backed away and after a contemplative moment, the boy stepped inside, although he didn’t shut the door.

“Come into the lounge.” Chase was anxious to sit down as the adrenaline that had flooded her body ebbed away, leaving her feeling drained.

Without seeing if he followed, Chase walked through to the lounge, collapsed onto the settee and watched the boy cautiously enter the room, his gaze darting nervously around, as though he expected someone to jump out on him.

“My name’s Chase.”

 
“Peter. But people call me Ratty.”

“Well, Pete ... Ratty, sit down.”

Ratty shook his head.

“Okay.” Chase sighed and quickly explained the circumstances of how she had moved in; about the competition, about Jane, about Moon. She didn’t mention bizarre Belinda, or her pregnancy, which was an intimate matter that she hadn’t come to terms with herself yet. She showed Ratty the diary, watched his pained face as he read it, and then listened in silence as he explained about the fog and the hunters or whatever they were. She didn’t believe it, putting most of his tale down to youthful exuberance.

He must have been mistaken, perhaps scared at being lost and embellishing the tale to make it more interesting and to deflect from his fear. Youth was the great pretender.

When he had finished, Ratty sat down, as though telling the story had taken a weight from his shoulders and he could now relax, safe in the knowledge that the information was in the hands of an adult.

“So what are you going to do?” he asked.

“Do?” Chase frowned. “Well, I think I should tell someone that you’re here. Your parents will be worried about you.”

“No, I mean about the fog and the armed men.”

“Ah, that.” She nodded her head. “Well, it’s quite a story.”

“Story! It’s not a story. That’s what happened.” His lower lip trembled.

Chase could see Ratty was becoming agitated. “Would you like something to drink? Perhaps something to eat, you look famished.”

Ratty licked his lips. “Well, perhaps just a glass of water and a piece of toast.”

“Water and toast. I may not be the best cook in the world, but I’m sure I can rustle up something better than that.” She walked into the kitchen, quickly shut the back door and locked it. She still hadn’t forgotten about Belinda, and as she prepared a meal of pasta with tomato sauce and vegetables, she kept glancing warily out of the window, but only her own pale reflection stared back, ghostly and surreal. She hadn’t mentioned to Ratty that she had also seen a figure in the fog, afraid that it would only fuel his fertile imagination.

But something was going on. Of that she was sure. Thoughts bounced around her head like a pinball.

When the meal was ready, she poured a glass of orange juice and called Ratty through.

He stepped into the kitchen, warily eyeing the back door that was now shut before fixing his eyes on the food and sitting at the table.

As though his fear was forgotten, he devoured the meal in a matter of minutes and drank another two glasses of juice before wiping his mouth and saying he was full.

Chase finished her own meal, thinking about what Ratty had said. He certainly seemed to know the house, and he did have a key. He also knew about the dog, Samson, but it didn’t make any sense. Why did he think his granddad still lived in the house? The last entry in the diary had been in June, one month ago. Where had the author gone after that? Had he moved away and just forgotten the diary? Or was he dead? She didn’t like to voice this last option to Ratty. He looked serious enough, and she honestly believed
he
believed his story. But, thinking of Belinda, she knew looks could be deceptive. Perhaps he was delusional. Perhaps he had run away from a secure home. Or perhaps she was just being stupid, having been left badly shaken by Belinda and the news of the pregnancy.

What she needed – what
they
needed – was a good night’s sleep. It was too late to tell anyone Ratty was here now, and she didn’t fancy going out in the dark, not when Belinda might be out there somewhere. Just in case her luck had changed, she checked her mobile phone again, but there was still no signal available.

“What do you say to a good nights sleep?” she said, throwing the phone down. “Then tomorrow we can sort this out.”

As if warmed to the idea, Ratty yawned. “But what are we going to do? Where’s my granddad?”

Chase didn’t know what to say. “There must be a reasonable explanation.”

“You do believe me, don’t you?”

Chase looked at him across the table and smiled. “Of course I do. Now come on, you can have the spare room.”

Having shown Ratty to the spare bedroom, Chase retired to her own room and propped the dressing table chair under the door handle, jamming the door shut, just in case Ratty really had escaped from a secure unit. She knew she was being foolish, but after the day she’d had, being foolish was the least of her worries.

***

Tears rolled down
Ratty’s
face as he slept and he woke in the morning feeling upset and miserable. He dressed quickly and ran downstairs, hoping to see his granddad sitting at the table, his granddad who had charmed him with wartime tales, his granddad who had been commended for bravery, his granddad who had taken a German machine gun post by himself, his granddad who used to playfully scare him with ghost stories, his granddad who helped him with his homework.

But he wasn’t there.

Even his belongings were gone. The furniture, the photographs, the mementoes, the ornaments, the pictures Ratty had drawn for him aged six and which had been framed and hung on the wall, the clothes, the smell, it was all gone. It was as though he had never existed. All that was left was a memory, and even that was faded. He couldn’t remember his granddad’s face, couldn’t remember what the twinkle in his eye looked like, couldn’t remember what the smell of his pipe tobacco was like. He was angry with himself, angry that he could forget what the person he loved, looked like. Screwing his eyes up, he tried to conjure up his granddad’s image in the darkness behind closed lids, but all he saw were spots of luminescence, and even those disappeared, replaced by tears that he quickly wiped away.