Flesh and Blood by David Mark

Author:David Mark [David Mark]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Severn House
Published: 2023-02-14T00:00:00+00:00

SIXTEEN

Amberline Haven, Gamblesby, Eden Valley

3.47 a.m.

McAvoy moves like smoke through the darkness of the wood. He plants his feet carefully, forcing himself to keep his eyes on the coal-black air in front of him rather than to glance up at the fat church candle of moon. He can’t lose the little night vision he has and even a flash of light would be enough to tear jagged lines through the blurred, slowly developing photograph of his line of sight.

He reaches out. Touches the bark of the crooked oak. Feels something sharp clutch at the hems of his trousers. Feels something squelch beneath his feet. He steps over a snarl of roots, the slope beginning to even out now. He gets a sense of where he is. Remembers the journey from the little country lane, Lilah on his back and bags clutched in both hands, knuckles white. It had been a quarter of a mile, mostly uphill: Kush’s off-grid compound tucked into a fold of the patchwork landscape. The trees had served as a summit marker; thinning out and drifting to scrub around the parking area by the road.

A sharp, sudden stab of scent. The meat and ammonia reek. He looks to his left. Sees the furred outline of a fox, eyes reflecting back. McAvoy jerks his head. The fox pads on without a backwards glance.

The woods are thinning out here. He ducks under a branch; wet spindles tip dirty water down his collar. He wipes a hand over his face. Feels the ground change underfoot and has to stifle a yell as he slips on the damp gravel. He recovers his balance and moves forward, quicker now, more urgent. He feels the two sides of his nature doing battle within him. He tries to be rational. Tells himself that something bad has happened back home but that Trish is dealing with it; that a robbery has gone wrong and a decent man has paid the blood price. But there is a primal, atavistic knowledge within him; a vibration in his very marrow – some instinct born in the cauldron of violence seen and heard and felt. He knows that Roisin has gifts that defy logical explanation. Knows that there is no scientific evidence for the existence of such abstract concepts of love and justice and forgiveness and that people live their lives taking the concepts for granted. Some people can look into a stranger’s eyes and know that they mean them harm. And he knows that there are those who can detect the slightest change in the quality of the air in the moments that precede violence. He counts himself among them, for better and worse.

Slowly, the strip of road comes into view. He can make out the lumps of three vehicles. His own minivan is parked where they left it. Kush’s little Suzuki Jimny is tucked in underneath the canopy of the silver birch. The third car is new. The doors are open; the lights on. On the passenger side, a figure is upright, standing between the door and the chassis.

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