Bedroom: close curtains, dump clothes on wicker chair, timber into bed, wriggle under covers.
Swear.
Wriggle out again.
Set alarm on phone for 18:30.
Back under covers.
Swear again.
Text Tara:
I’ve got an hour and a half at home to sleep.
I love you both but if you wake me up I WILL DIE!!!!!
And I’m taking everyone with me!
SEND.
Back under covers.
Sleep, sleep, sleep, sleep...
Cthulhu hopped up onto the bed, treadled her way up the duvet, then thumped down on the pillow next to Logan. Reached out a paw – big, fluffy, with a faint biscuity whiff – and placed it against his head. Purring her way to sleep.
A smile tugged at Logan’s lips. He sighed, closed his eyes, and joined her.
LIV
The rattle-clank-roar of the JCB’s backhoe stuttered to an end, and silence settled over the crappy collection of outbuildings.
But it wasn’t really silent, was it: the digger’s noise had drowned them out, but now the bluebottles’buzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzfilled the hot sticky air again.
Natasha stood beside her mobile anchor – rolled as close to the window hole as she could get it – for a slightly better view of the field.
DS Davis climbed down from the JCB’s cab, and brushed the dust off his jeans with his work gloves. Sweat darkening the fabric of his faded ‘BLODHØSTDØDSULV’ T-shirt.
She flattened herself against the wall, peering around the edge of the hole – keeping as low a profile as possible.
Don’t come back here.
Don’t come back here...
Shit.
That’s exactly what the bastard was doing.
He was going to squeal open that door and stab her, or shoot her, or bash her brains out with a fucking axe or something, then stick her in that bloody hole he’d been digging for hours.
Thing must be halfway to Sydney by now...
Most people: they buried a body, maybe only two or three feet down. There were tell-tale signs, like the ground saggingas the body decomposed, and weird patterns of extra growth where the plants feasted on human compost.
But a hole that deep?
Davis was making sure nothing wouldeverbe found.
