Tok. Paul Finch

      After they’d hacked and slashed the two bodies for several minutes, they danced on them. The firelight of a dozen torches glittered on their wild, rolling eyes, on their upraised blades, on the blood spattered liberally across the carpet of smoothly mown grass. Their shouts of delight filled the seething night. But when the little girl came out and stood on the veranda, there was a silence like a thunderclap. For a moment she seemed too pure to be in the midst of such mayhem, too angelic – a white-as-snow cherub, who, for all her tears and soiled nightclothes, brought a chill to the muggy forest by her mere presence, brought a hush to the yammering insects, brought the frenzied rage out of her captors like poison from a wound.

      If it wasn’t the little girl herself, it was the thing she held by her side.

      The thing they knew about by instinct.

      The thing they’d seen only in nightmares.

      *

      It was late afternoon when Don and Berni drove onto the estate. Not surprisingly, there were police everywhere: patrol cars parked on the street corners, uniformed officers traipsing door-to-door with clipboards. Don’s blue Nissan Micra was subjected to a stop-and-check.

      “Don Presswick,” he said, after powering his window down. “This is my wife, Bernadette. We’re visiting my mother for a couple of days. She lives at The Grove.”

      The officer, who was young with fair hair, but wearing a grim expression, gave them a curt once-over. “I don’t suppose you’ve got any ID, Mr Presswick?”

      Don didn’t have, but Berni rooted in her handbag and handed over a couple of credit cards. This seemed to satisfy the officer, though he still didn’t smile.

      He passed the cards back. “You’re aware what’s been going on?”

      “That’s why we’re here,” Don said. “To babysit Mum ’til it’s over.”

      “Good idea.” The officer tapped the roof with his fingers. “Okay, that’s fine.”

      “Listen …” Don adopted a confidential tone. “How’s it going? The investigation, I mean. Obviously it’s a concern, with my mum living on the estate.”

      “Sorry Mr Presswick, there’s nothing I can tell you.”

      “I’m ex-job. Don’t know if that makes any difference.”

      The officer shrugged. “I can’t tell you anything because I don’t know anything. Enquiries are ongoing, as you’ll understand. We’ve a lot of bodies working on it.”

      Don thanked him and drove on.

      “Bloody woodentop,” he said.

      “You were only a PC,” Berni reminded him.

      “I had a lot more experience than him.”

      “They all have to start somewhere.”

      “Suppose so. Just wish it wasn’t on Mum’s estate, at this moment.”

      It was only the third time Berni had visited The Grove since she’d married Don, but again she was reminded how lovely an old property it could be.

      A large, five-bedroom detached, built well before the rest of the housing estate, it had been constructed in the Jacobean style – though it was actually Victorian – and was almost entirely clad with white plaster and black beams. Much of this was now weathered, the little you could see of it thanks to the high wall surrounding it, not to mention the tall trees in its front, rear and side gardens. Glimpsed through the red autumn foliage, the plaster had turned green and was flaking; the beams were covered in lichen, those sections that weren’t being eaten away by a shroud of crawling ivy. The roofs, which stood at numerous levels and angles, were also eroding: crabby with moss, their guttering packed with birds’ nests.

      “Such a shame,” Berni said.

      “All be yours someday,” Don replied, getting out to unlock the large timber gate.

      “Assuming there’s anything left of it by then.”

      Don eased the Micra through, climbed out again and closed the gate behind them. From here, the drive circled around the front garden to the rear of the house. Don only had a key for the back door, so that was where he usually parked. But before they’d driven more than a couple of yards, the front door opened and Helga, his mother’s cleaner and cook, emerged, wearing her mackintosh and brandishing her bag. Don applied the brakes, his tyres crunching gravel.

      Helga was a burly woman with broad, heavy cheekbones. Her dark hair was shot with grey. Untidy straggles