Dead Man Walking

‘I think I can safely say,’ Heck concluded, ‘that even I would rather be tucked up warm in bed than dealing with that lot.’

‘I’m sure that’ll be an option,’ Mary-Ellen said, as Hazel came back along the bar.

‘Looks like there won’t be much custom in here for the next few days,’ Hazel commented.

‘Just what we were saying,’ Mary-Ellen said, drinking up. ‘Anyway, I’m off. Thanks for the beer.’

‘Bit early …?’ Heck said.

‘True Detective’s on satellite again tonight. Missed it the first time round.’ She sauntered out of the pub. ‘See you later.’

‘True Detective …?’ Hazel mused. ‘Isn’t that the one where they were after some kind of satanic killer?’

‘Seem to recall it was,’ Heck replied.

She mopped the bar-top. ‘Not the kind of thing we get up at Witch Cradle … despite the name.’

‘So I’ve noticed.’

‘These sneaky buggers pinching people’s handbags and wallets are about the toughest we’re used to up here.’

‘Let’s hope it stays that way.’

She gave him a half-smile. ‘Yeah … course you do.’

‘Hey, I may surprise you.’

‘Oh?’

‘I’m adaptable. The quiet life has its attractions.’

‘Such as?’

He shrugged. ‘We’re all adults. It’s not like we can’t find ways to fill these long, uneventful hours.’

Hazel smiled again, saucily, as she pulled Ted Haveloc a pint.

Outside meanwhile, a front of semi-frozen air forged its way across the mountains and valleys of northwest England, sliding under the milder upper air and gradually forming a dense blanket of leprous-grey fog which, in a region already famous for having very few streetlamps, reduced visibility to virtually nothing. The scattered towns and villages were shrouded. Cragwood Keld – a hamlet of only fifteen buildings – was swamped; one house couldn’t see another. And of course it was cold, so terribly cold, with billions of frigid water crystals suspended in the gloom; every twig, every tuft of withered vegetation sprouting feathers of frost. By eleven o’clock, as the last few house-lights winked out and the full blackness of night took hold, the polar silence was ethereal, the stillness unearthly.

Nothing stirred out there.

These were foul conditions, they’d say.

It was a foul night all round.

The foulest really.

Abhorrent.

Loathsome.

Chapter 2 (#u1fab5290-40ec-584a-937a-13cf9b1484f4)

‘We just have to get to lower ground,’ Tara said tiredly. ‘Then we can flag a car down or something.’

‘I agree that’s the obvious solution,’ Jane replied, vexed, ‘but don’t keep saying it over and over, as if it’ll be some kind of doddle and that it’s somehow stupid of us to not have done it already. For the last three hours, the only way to get to lower ground has been over precipices or down vertical drops.’

Tara made no initial response, mainly through guilt.

It had been her idea to finish their week-long camping trip by taking a well-trodden hilltop path from Borrowdale, over High Raise and Great Castle Howe, and down into Great Langdale. On paper it had all looked so straightforward; in fact easier than that, and probably very rewarding. After a difficult week, it had felt as if she was plucking victory from the jaws of defeat. The campsite at Watendlath hadn’t been all they’d hoped for, primarily because it was late November and the tourist season was long over. A few other hardy campers were present – hardier than Tara and Jane, it had to be said – but the site was largely empty, and its facilities operating at a reduced level; the toilets and showers were open, and that was about it. The weather conditions, while not exactly disastrous, were testing; the mornings damp and cold, the afternoons slightly drier but still cold, and the nights, freezing. On top of that, they were not experienced at this sort of thing. Their tent was old and somewhat mouldy; it was also single-skinned, which offered them zero protection against insects and condensation; they’d brought foam mats instead of truckle-beds, and their sleeping bags were old and filled with duck-down, which when it got damp stayed damp – and it had rained several times already that week; boy, had it rained.

None of this had made for a comfortable time. But worse still, they were bored. Neither Tara nor Jane classified themselves as party girls, but they were on their holidays and would have liked a drink now and then. Unfortunately, they’d used up all their spare backpack space on food supplies, and had assumed before arriving there’d be somewhere close by where they could stock up on booze once they’d got here – but there wasn’t and neither had a car, so they couldn’t just drive out. Jane had her iPad, so they could watch movies and listen to music – at least that had been the plan, but the device’s battery had died within a day and Jane had neglected to bring her charger.

As such, Tara’s sudden suggestion that they stop moping around the camp and actually get up into the wilderness – do some real walking, get some proper exercise and fresh air – had seemed like a godsend. It wouldn’t even be that difficult, she’d said, as they pored over a map on the fourth morning. Watendlath to Elter Water was not a great distance. The guidebooks described it as a ‘challenging route’, but they weren’t looking for a stroll in the park. If it took them all day, so much the better – they had nothing but time anyway. Once they reached Elter Water, they could catch a bus to Ambleside, stay overnight in a B&B, and head for home by train.

‘I mean, how difficult can it be to just check the weather forecast?’ Jane grumbled as they trudged doggedly on, their backpacks jolting their aching spines.

‘With what, Jane?’ Tara retorted. ‘The club and bar were closed, so we had no access to a telly. Our phones aren’t getting any signal up here. No one was selling newspapers on the site, and even if there’d been sufficient Wi-Fi for your iPad to be any use, the bloody thing ran out on us …’

‘Alright, alright, for Christ’s sake!’ Jane’s face reddened, and not just from the unaccustomed exertion.

On all sides, meanwhile, the midnight fog hung in impenetrable drapes. At this height and temperature it was like movie fog, a dense, grey mantle that rolled and twisted, obscuring everything. There hadn’t been any sign of this when they’d set off that morning, in broad daylight – it had been clear as a bell. But even if it had still been daylight now, only a few yards of harsh, rocky ground covered with frost-white tussocks would be visible. And of course, it wasn’t daylight; it was dark, which didn’t so much obscure the surrounding landscape as obliterate it. Naturally, they’d neglected to bring a torch. The last few occasions they’d needed light – to try to make sense of a dog-eared map, which was now next to useless anyway, as some time back they’d unconsciously veered off the flinty footway that was their prescribed route – Tara had switched her phone on, using the dull glow of its facia. She was increasingly reluctant to do this now, as she didn’t want to run its power down. It would be typical of their luck if they suddenly entered a better reception area and were able to make an emergency call, only for the battery to die.

The guidebook had predicted the journey would take six hours, meaning they’d finish well before nightfall, but they’d now been struggling along for at least twelve.

‘Look …’ Tara tried a more placating tone. ‘If we can’t find our way down to a road, we should maybe think about pitching the tent. Just camp for the night. Hopefully this fog will have lifted by morning.’

‘Newsflash, Tara … it’s perishing bloody cold!’

‘So we wrap up.’

‘Everything’s wet, you dozy mare! We’ll die from bloody hypothermia.’

Their voices echoed and re-echoed, creating the illusion they were in a chasm rather than on some open hillside. It was more than uncanny.

‘Jane, it can’t be a good idea to just keep ploughing on. We don’t know where we’re going, and this ground seems to be sloping upward.’

‘We can hardly pitch the tent when we can’t see our hands in front of our faces,’ Jane said. ‘Anyway, what if the fog hasn’t gone by tomorrow? We’re up on the fells, remember … not in some nice park a few yards from your mum and dad’s nice little middle-class house.’

‘Alright! You don’t need to be such a bitch about it.’

‘Anyway, what good is sitting tight going to do? No one’ll come looking for us, Tara, because no one fucking knows we’re here. Didn’t it ever enter that air-filled brainbox of yours to tell someone what we were planning? And I don’t mean that bloody campsite owner. I mean someone who might actually care about us, who might actually have been listening when you were talking to them. Like our fucking parents, perhaps! I mean, Jesus, how difficult can it fucking be …?’

‘Alright, I said! Christ’s sake, Jane … I’m in as much danger as you are!’

Jane muttered some incoherent, vaguely foul-mouthed response, and they trod along in silence for a few more minutes, hearing only their own grunted exertions and the hollow thuds of their feet. Fleetingly, oddly, Tara was uncomfortable with the otherwise complete silence. It was a stupid thought, of course. There was no one else up here, but why did she get the sudden feeling their latest outburst, which would likely have been heard for miles and miles on a night like this, might have drawn the attention of someone listening? Even if it had, that ought to be something they’d want – and yet there was a brief queasy sensation in her tummy.

‘Sorry about the airhead thing,’ Jane muttered self-consciously.