So, he went over each step. He kept his eyes closed and he took himself through it, from the moment he woke, got up, dressed. The clothes were important. Every item of clothing he put on in his mind. He would be laying them out in order that night.

Dark jeans. Dark shirt. Navy sleeveless fleece. Navy woollen hat, fitting close to his head. The usual trainers with the thick polythene wedges attached to the soles.

He packed the gear. He took the bike. At the airfield he got out the new roll of plastic for the side of the van. He rode over to the lock-up on the business park. Got out the van. He fixed the panels. Left the bike. Locked up.

He had left himself two hours. He would need that. He wasn’t going to rush anything. Danger in rushing. Ahead there were half a dozen problems, things that might go wrong, however careful his planning. He needed time to sort them.

He would be there by half ten. Too early but better that. He’d timed it well.

He bit into the second sandwich. The sun was warm for November but the forecast for tomorrow was the same and it suited him. You needed clear, bright light to do the job properly at that distance and the sun wouldn’t be in his face—he had that one worked out long ago—the sun would be right where he needed it, on them.

He finished his tea. From next door came the sound of a vacuum cleaner. A cat came slinking over the fence that ran along the row of gardens. Looked at him, eyes half closed. Paused.

“Wise guy,” he said. The cat opened its eyes and hopped neatly down onto the soil. Came padding over the grass to where he sat and started to weave in and out of his legs. He bent down. Rubbed its ears. Stroked it. The cat went on weaving. Then settled down on the concrete slabs in the sun and closed its eyes.

He went over everything one last time. A to Z. Then, he put it out of his mind. He’d done. There was such a thing as overplanning.

He picked up the field sports magazine he had bought on the way home and began reading about the effect of climate change on the future of grouse shooting.

Seventy-one

It was almost midnight when Tom’s motorbike ran out of petrol in a side street near the centre of the town. He hauled it up against a wall. He wouldn’t need it now. Someone could find it. It was a decent bike.

The words that had been filling his head, coming in as thick and fast as snowflakes in a storm and packing in so that they had confused him, began to sort themselves into phrases that he could understand now and the phrases were familiar.

“ He will give his angels charge over you to guide you in all your ways.”

“ They will bear thee up in their hands lest thou shalt dash thy foot against a stone.”

It was odd. The Bible they read from and studied with the pastor was modern, it didn’t go in for thee and thou but the words that came to him seemed to be the old words. He wondered if it mattered.

It was quiet. He walked past the empty shops and there was no one else walking, across the square, past the cordoned-off site where the ghost train had fallen, down into the marketplace towards the new shopping mall and no one else walked there either. A couple of cars passed. That was all. He put his collar up.

“ He soared upon the wings of the wind and he went in flight through the air.”

The words had never struck him before but now they were here for him. He felt exhilarated. The feeling was one he had heard described, an ecstasy, the pastor had called it, an out-of-the-body ecstasy. People had experienced it in front of him during services, praying in tongues and throwing themselves to the ground, but before now Tom had always found it rather embarrassing. He didn’t know if they felt different or were just trying too hard.

Now he knew. He seemed to be walking above the ground.

He had left his mother and Phil Russell behind him. They would be saved or they wouldn’t. Like Lizzie. He couldn’t worry about it any more. He had to look after himself and he knew that he was making none of it up, not trying to do it, it was simply happening and all he had to do was go with it and with the words. The flying words.

He started to walk faster, and then to run, and then he turned as he ran. Someone watching him would think he was either very drunk or very mad. Or happy. He turned and danced down the street and across the road. At the end he saw it, like a heavenly castle. It was shimmering and beautiful and he could see figures here and there, pale figures beckoning to him. He ran towards them. The nearer he got the more figures he saw and when he arrived and began to climb up and up, round and round, they came with him, hovered about him, touched him, held out their arms to him.

A car at the far end shone its lights and began to move. He dodged behind one of the pillars and the figures shielded him from sight. The car drove away down the ramps, its noise echoing round the empty spaces and away, and then there was only him, with the figures wreathing and encircling him, protecting him.

“ Lest you dash your foot against a stone.”

Below him were sparkling, shining, glistening golden lights. He looked up. Above him, more lights, tiny little pinpricks of stars, thousands of stars.

He wondered briefly what they would make of it, how they would interpret what he knew would be the ecstatic expression on his face. The pastor would know of course, but how could his mother and Lizzie, because they had never seen the lights or known the glory, never had this overwhelming experience of beauty and heard the voices singing and singing to him like sirens and seen the beautiful faces, upturned to him, the arms outstretched to welcome him.

But perhaps when they saw him, it would be given to them. They would know. They would be enlightened. They would understand at last.

He spread out his arms.

“ They will soar on wings like eagles.”

He flew.

Seventy-two

Simon Serrailler took a left turn and drove into the country. Six miles out, he turned again, onto the high, winding single-track road that led up to Featherly Moor. A mile on the other side, the tiny village of Featherly clung to the slopes, cowering back from the wind that drove towards it for three-quarters of the year. But now, the autumn sun had returned. He parked beside the pub and went inside. The saloon bar was empty apart from a couple of walkers in the far corner, rucksacks and cagoules in a heap beside them.

“Hello, Gordon.”

“Well, blow me. Haven’t seen you here in a while. What’ll it be?”

“Lime and lemonade. Can I take it outside?”

“Put the garden tables up now after the rain the other night. Thought winter had come. Bench at the front.”

The walkers were making to leave.

“I’ll go over here.”

The pub fell silent. In the summer and at the weekend it was always full with hikers and climbers. During the week, it was generally empty, and although Gordon served food, the Arms had never tried to compete with the gastropubs around Lafferton, preferring to stick to ham and eggs and plough man’s lunches.

Simon took his drink into a corner. Gordon retired into the back. After a moment Simon heard pattering feet. A cold nose was pressed against his hand. Byron, the pub’s Labrador, settled at his feet. He was grateful to the landlord for not hanging around to ask him the usual questions about the gunman, tell him how bad it was for trade, make his own pronouncement about what should be done and how. A quiet half-hour away from the station, the phone, the ever-present media pack outside, was something Simon believed in and quite often took. His time was sometimes best spent not doing, but thinking.