"Smith, Guy N - The Lurkers" - читать интересную книгу автора (Smith Guy N)

Janie groaned to herself as she awoke and saw the dark grey of a winter's morning filtering into the bedroom through the frayed curtains. Everything came back to her in one rush as though determined to depress her for the day. The Wilsons, those rodents, the lack of mod-cons and all the extra work it entailed - like carrying in buckets of coal, which left a trail of mud and coaldust across the kitchen floor, and trying to light a stubborn old Rayburn that smoked back so that she needed a bath afterwards. But Gavin was her main worry. She'd told Peter in bed last night, half-expecting him to fly into one of his rages and threaten to kill the Wilson boys with his bare hands. Instead he had said, 'Decidedly awkward. We'll have to play it very, very carefully.' What was he going to do, and what would happen to Gavin on Monday?

Fully awake now, she slid out of bed and padded barefooted across the rough floorboards. A feeling of uneasiness had her hurrying across the tiny landing. When she had looked in on Gavin last night he had been lying still with closed eyes, but she had known that he wasn't asleep. He'd probably worried himself sick all night.

Janie opened the door of the small bedroom and peered inside. It was dark, because the curtains weren't so rotten and they effectively shut out the cold inhospitable November daybreak. She stood there in the doorway, waiting for her eyes to adjust to the gloom.

Oh God, no! Panic flared inside her, making her switch on the light and scrabble with trembling fingers at the heap of discarded blankets at the end of the bed, praying that somehow she would find Gavin curled up asleep beneath them. But her prayer went unanswered. There was no sign of the boy; Gavin was gone.

'What the hell's going on?' Her shout had brought Peter on the run, trying to blink the sleep out of his bleary eyes, angry at being awakened so abruptly.

'It's Gavin. He's gone!' Janie sensed her own helplessness, her futility. This time she would not be able to stop the panic, the fear of this past week that had built up inside her and was threatening to explode at any second in the only possible way. 'For God's sake, Peter, do something. Find Him!'

'Pull yourself together.' He grasped her firmly by the arm, wondering if he ought to slap her across the face now or wait until she became hysterical. He waited. 'The boy's not a prisoner in his bedroom. He doesn't have to wait for us to get up first.' Peter noted the cast-off pyjamas, the bedside chair where his son's clothes should have been draped but weren't. Damn it, there was nothing to worry about. Yet. 'I'll take a look downstairs.'

Peter was aware of Janie following him, and half-expected her to hold on to his pyjama jacket. She never used to get emotional this way, just a bit fraught sometimes during her periods. Now she was frantic.

He checked the front rooms, then went back to the kitchen. All empty. They turned, faced each other, and Janie saw her own fear momentarily reflected in her husband's eyes. I knew there was something out there last night and now they've got my baby!

'He might have gone outside. Probably has.' Peter knew that his voice had trembled, but hoped Janie hadn't noticed it. Damn it, she was unnerving him.

'Let's go and look for him then.* She was already on her way to the back door.

'Hold it.' He caught her by the arm, pulled her back. 'Let's get dressed first. We can't go wandering about on a cold damp November morning in our nightclothes.'

I don't care. I don't care if I bloody well catch pneumonia, so long as I find my baby! She stood there numbed, unable to resist as Peter began pulling her towards the foot of the stairs. It was like a slow-motion dream; somehow, after what seemed an eternity, she found herself dressed in her denim suit, and almost stopped to put make-up on. She followed her husband back downstairs and out into what would have been an olde-worlde garden had it been cultivated. Instead it was just a mass of dying bracken and foxgloves, wet with the dew that soaked their trousers long before they reached the crumbling stone steps that led up to the granary. Janie noted details that had escaped her ah" week: the missing slates on the roof, the way the timbers bowed because they were riddled with woodworm and might snap at any time. Everything was either dead or dying at Hodre.

She opened her mouth to call Gavin, but no sound came. She mentally shied away as Peter pushed open the creaking heavy door and looked inside. He was afraid, too, of what he might see in there, but he had to look.

'He's not in here.' Peter turned back, letting the door swing closed. In the early morning light his unshaven features looked strained and grey. 'He must've gone up the fields.'

'Oh no, not up there.' That wood, so dark and forbidding, hiding whatever it was she had sensed this past week. 'He'd never go into the forest.' But her expression said that he just might.

'We'd better take a look.' Peter came back down the steps and closed his hand over hers. Suddenly even he needed Janie's support.

The big wood was only just visible, a dark mass that showed through the thinning horizon mist like a slumbering monster with a spiked back. A faint golden glow on the dying bracken showed them that the sun was already up, trying its hardest to break through. As it melted the grey swirling vapour Janie became afraid of what they might see. She had to force herself to look. Some sheep. That rabbit again, or was it a hare, up by the top hedge. Funny how you noted these things in a crisis when you were all churned up inside, a kind of inbuilt therapy.

Gavin wasn't on the fields. In which case he must be in the forest. It might stretch for miles, row upon row of artificially planted conifers that somehow destroyed the natural magnificence of the panoramic landscape. Hiding - things.

'He wouldn't go far into the wood.' Peter hoped he would convince Janie, because he didn't convince himself. 'When we get up there maybe we can shout for him.'

When we get up there; Janie was hanging on to Peter, her calf muscles beginning to ache after the first hundred yards. She thought she might be sick or else burst into tears. Maybe both, only right now it was taking her all her time to get her breath.

Sheep eyed them curiously, bunched together and moved away as though they hadn't seen humans before. A ewe was limping as though it had a damaged foot and Janie found herself feeling sorry for it.

Then they were close to the wood, could almost feel its hostility as they stood in the shadow of the nearest trees, which blotted out the hazy rising sun. Silence except for the steady drip of moisture like some form of Chinese water-torture sent to plague them. Somewhere in the dense coniferous greenery a magpie chattered harshly like distant guerilla machine-gun fire. A friendless landscape.

'Ga - vin!' Peter shouted, feeling almost foolish at the feeble noise which his normally powerful lungs made. It was the fog, or low cloud, or whatever it was, of course, stifling his shout, not even allowing it to echo.

They just stood there, two people not daring to look at each other because they did not wish to read the expression of fear in their partner's face.