The Kill Call

disgust. The wrong impression?
    ‘Sorry, Randy,’ he said. ‘But I’m afraid she thinks you’re gay.’
    He went back to his computer screen, recalling another interesting fact about the black rat that he could have mentioned to Fry. The one group of people who had never been affected by bubonic plague were the nomadic tribes of central Asia, where the bacteria had first originated. Those nomads lived close to their companions, the wild horses of the arid Asian plains. And the one thing that rat fleas really hated was the smell of horses.

    When the photos from Claire had finished downloading, Cooper clicked on the first attachment and opened the jpeg file with a strange feeling of reluctance.
    He’d never really been keen on photos of himself, particularly in family snapshots. Now, they reminded him too much of his mother, who had always loved showing off the family albums, pages and pages recording the growth of her children from new-born horrors through the adolescent monster stage and into adulthood. Mum would have loved a snap of her sons together, treasured it as a testament of her crowning achievement in life. But without her being there to appreciate the photo, it was just one more embarrassment to suffer.
    In this case, the picture was also too recent. It reminded him too much of the visit to the police memorial on Sunday. The comments made by Matt and Claire were fresh in his mind, and they weren’t what he wanted to be thinking about right now. ‘ Persecuting law-abiding people instead of going after the real criminals.’ ‘Police officers standing around doing risk assessments while someone is dying .’ Dad would never have done that. No, of course he wouldn’t.
    And when Ben saw the picture full-size on the screen of his laptop, he realized something he hadn’t noticed at the time. He’d been too busy staring at the camera, wondering if he should try to hold a smile, or look serious because of the occasion. And wondering, too, whether he looked ridiculously windswept from being outside, those little bits of spiky hair sticking out like devil’s horns. When someone pointed a camera at you, your attention was automatically focused on yourself and the lens, it was such a peculiar moment of intimacy. You forgot completely about what might be around and behind you. Even the photographer did that. It was an error that had caught a lot of people out.
    But in this case, what he hadn’t noticed was that he and Matt, gazing solemnly out of the screen, were standing right in front of the giant policeman in the main building of the arboretum. The bobby loomed over them, vast and ominous, blocking out the light from the windows like a monstrous ghost.
    He’d also been much too tall for the lens of Claire’s digital camera. The head and helmet of the giant policeman were neatly sliced off.
       
    Philip Worsley had finally admitted to himself that he was lost. The fog had come down so quickly on Longstone Moor that it had confused him totally.
    When he’d set off to walk from Stoney Middleton, the weather had been clear, and he’d taken advantage of a spell without rain for his late afternoon walk. He couldn’t believe that it was so different up here – so different that he could barely see his hand in front of his face. This didn’t happen back home in Essex.
    At one point, Philip thought he’d reached the path that led downwards to the crossroads. There was supposed to be a farmhouse not far from the junction, though he couldn’t tell which direction it lay in. He’d been here before, years ago, and it was a pity that his memory wasn’t clearer. He’d have to hope for a distant light visible when he got nearer.
    He had a map in his rucksack, of course, but none of the landmarks seemed to fit. Nothing was where it was supposed to be. A slope where it should be flat, water where there should be land. It was as if he’d stepped out of the real world into some parallel universe.
    He shivered in the damp fog. And for the first time, Philip started to feel concerned. Apart from his map, he had a waterproof, a bottle of water, a spare pair of socks in case he got his feet wet. But nothing to eat, except a roll of his favourite sweets, the perfumed Parma Violets that he’d remembered from his school days. There might be some sugar in them, but they wouldn’t provide him with extra energy for long.
    Philip kept walking, but without recognizing any signs or gateways. Twenty minutes later,