Under a Watchful Eye(43)

As Seb approached the open front door, the softening of his limbs resumed, and his arms were rendered numb by the idea that the ‘moon’ would be of no use against what had followed Ewan here.

Hinderers.

Thin Len. Child-killer. Hanged.

‘Ewan.’ His first attempt to call out in an authoritative tone failed.

‘Ewan!’ Still not loud enough and no one upstairs would hear him. Maybe that was the point.

‘Ewan!’ Much louder and, as soon as he’d spoken, Seb tensed to flee.

No response arose from within the house.

Seb stepped inside.

Silence amidst the fragrance of the morning’s damp air that had seeped inside. No sound of movement upstairs either, but he couldn’t prevent himself from imagining another up there, holding their breath, if respiration was even relevant in these circumstances.

Expecting the sudden brightness to provoke motion, Seb flicked the upstairs lights on.

Nothing stirred.

His own heartbeat was affecting his balance, but he moved up the first flight and peered about the passage.

His bedroom door was closed. Same with the doors of two of the spare rooms. Ewan’s room was open. Before they’d scarpered like terrified children to the nature reserve, two hours earlier, Seb believed, this was how they had left the house.

Holding the moon’s semicircular blade before him as if it were a bayonet, he crept further inside. Opened the first guest room and scrabbled a hand about to flick the lights on.

Nothing inside, at least nothing visible. The second spare room was the same. His bedroom appeared banal in its ordinariness. The chest of drawers was still skewed at an angle behind the door and the blinds were open, but the room appeared empty of whatever had assumed an awful version of the living in the early hours of that morning.

Seb slipped inside and opened the windows to rid the room of an odour of male sweat.

Ewan’s room was as it had been the last time he had checked on his uninvited guest’s recuperation. The duvet was crumpled from where Ewan had been lying upon the bed, fully clothed. The glass of water remained on the side table.

The bathroom was clear.

This was the house he had known only a few days before. At least for now.

He tried to convince himself that this, whatever he’d endured, could not continue if Ewan wasn’t around. From now on, at all times, he would need to rely upon the curious alarm signals of his instincts.

Gripping the moon tighter, and switching on every light that he passed, Seb moved to the living area.

When he saw that Ewan’s bin bags and rucksack had been removed, a surge of hope left him dizzy.

The kitchen and study were also safe.

Besides a taint of stale cider, and Ewan’s clothes, all other physical traces of the man had vanished.

Seb searched the house again, from top to bottom, though with more confidence during the second pass. Once he felt safe enough to shut the front door, he went back upstairs.

He slumped on the settee, holding a highball glass heavy with bourbon.

He’s gone. Ewan had really gone. He still had the spare keys, but Seb would get the locks changed. He’d also call the police and report Ewan as a nuisance. He’d even describe this whole experience as a stalking, and would mention the threats, blackmail attempts, and anything else that he could legitimately ascribe to Ewan’s actions.

He needn’t mention the other things.

The course of action seemed so simple, but Seb was still stunned by how the man had overrun his life. The invasion seemed to have lasted for months, not weeks.

Was it truly over now? Another brief surge of wishful thinking only foundered when he again considered the previous night’s visitor. He imagined that such a force would not be as easy to dispel as the vagrant who had summoned it.

No, I mustn’t, I cannot think that way. His connection to it was Ewan, and that doorway was going to be decisively and permanently blocked now. That would end the matter. Surely.

Seb didn’t want to be on his own. He called Becky. No one else would have any understanding of his plight, and even she might struggle with recent developments. But at least Becky had experienced something uncanny – a word he’d overused in his own fiction, but had never been able to apply to his own life, until now.

She answered quickly, ‘Seb. Hi,’ though the wariness and lack of warmth in those two words was obvious.

‘Becky, thank God. You just won’t—’

‘I’m on my way to work. I can’t talk long. Later’s better,’ she added, but only in appeasement as if apologizing for her sharp tone. He’d expected her to ask after him. She didn’t.

‘Okay. I wouldn’t have called you if it wasn’t important. But things have happened, or changed since I saw you. You remember when we were in the woods, near the cove? And that dream? Well, this has all just gone to a whole new level. I—’

‘Seb. I don’t know what to say about that. I’m trying not to think about it at all. It’s hard to say, but the whole weekend freaked me out. You did too. I’m sorry, but you did. Everything was all wrong from the moment you met me at the train station. I’m still trying to shake that whole weekend off. I need more time. And I’m really sorry, but I don’t know how I feel about things now.’

‘Becky, he came! He came here, to the house. The man I told you about. The one I have been seeing. He showed up.’ He paused to rub his head, as if to loosen the right way of expressing himself. ‘Jesus. But there is . . . another that came with him. This is not easy to even talk about, let alone believe, but he brought it with him. Brought it here. It got inside the house last night. Becky, I’m in danger.’