Stepping back out into the restaurant, Jason was finding it hard to focus. All the faces of the diners were blurry, as if he was looking at them through misted-up glass, and the room seemed to have become two-dimensional, so he could not tell how far he was from any of it.
He felt panic rising.
Where was she?
His phone pinged, suddenly.
15
Fifteen what?
He crashed into a table, but the four occupants did not appear to notice, and miraculously no glasses fell over. They ignored his profuse apology. He weaved towards the door, as if he was completely drunk, still unable to feel his feet on the ground. Was there another room where Emily could be? Had she gone outside?
‘She’s vanished,’ he said to the greeter.
No reaction.
‘You didn’t see a lady – my wife – go outside?’ He was aware of the desperation in his voice.
His phoned pinged a second time. Was it a text from Emily? He looked down.
14
The countdown again? It seemed to be going more slowly now. Why?
He went out into the street, into the howling gale. There were white flecks, like sleet, in the air.
‘EMILY!’ he shouted, looking around, frantically. ‘EMILY? EM!’
Had she panicked and gone back home to check on the fridges? She must have done – but why on earth had she just gone off without saying anything? And on her own, back to the place that was scaring her so much?
13
In the distance, a figure was moving away. Hurrying. As it passed beneath a street light, he could see it was Emily. Her coat, her headscarf.
‘EM!’ he raced after her, still unable to feel his feet.
His phone pinged again.
12
He increased his pace, but Emily was increasing hers, too. As he passed under another street light it went out, as did the one ahead, and she disappeared from view in the darkness. He carried on, flat out, but didn’t feel any sense of exertion. She appeared beneath another street light, then that went out, too. The rest of the hill ahead was pitch black.
‘EMILY!’ he yelled.
11
He carried on in the darkness, impervious to the wind and the sleet. Darkness that was getting heavier and denser with every step.
Ping.
10
The beam of his phone torch was weakening; as if the dark was absorbing it like blotting paper.
9
‘Em, wait, wait for me, I’m coming with you, I’ll help you with the fridges, the van – we’ll get the van started, somehow.’
8
He arrived at the entrance to Cold Hill Park, rushed in and turned left into Lakeview Drive. Ahead he saw a blaze of lights, far brighter than the street lights, which were now all back on.
7
Text her?
6
He tried to find their message thread.
5
His fingers wouldn’t move properly. He couldn’t make the keys work.
4
Rounding the curve, he heard the rattle of a generator. A female police officer with a clipboard stood in front of police tape stretched across the street. Beyond it, resting on its roof, was Emily’s van, just visible through a team of fire and rescue workers in their bulky outfits. A battery of floodlights on stands shone down on the scene. The tractor was a short distance further on. Jason saw the same cluster of emergency vehicles that had been there earlier. To the right was an ambulance, its interior lights on. Another ambulance was parked just in front of it, as well as a paramedic’s car.
A young man in a sharp suit was standing by the officer, with a notepad.
Ping.
3
Jason’s throat tightened. He broke into a run and reached the police officer. ‘My wife, you have to let me through. That’s my wife’s van!’
There was no reaction from her.
‘Joel Barber from the Argus,’ the man in the sharp suit said to the officer. ‘I just need a quick statement on what’s happened here.’
‘We have a multiple fatality accident,’ she answered, matter-of-factly. ‘Two confirmed dead – one male and one female. Another male is trapped, and a female is in that ambulance and critical.’ She nodded at the vehicle. ‘I don’t have any further information.’
‘Can you give me any names?’ the reporter persisted.
‘I’m afraid not, sir, no, not until next of kin have been informed. Now I must ask you to leave.’
‘Can you just confirm that one of the victims is the Sussex artist, Jason Danes?’
‘I cannot confirm any identities at this stage.’
Jason ducked under the tape, the officer making no attempt to stop him, and ran to the badly mangled van, its front crumpled almost to the windscreen. Hundreds of prawns lay scattered around on the road.
Fire and rescue officers, using hydraulic cutting gear, were sawing through a door frame, while two paramedics were working on a trapped, motionless male figure in the passenger seat. The top of his scalp had been sheared off, exposing his brain. His torso was split open, his intestines uncoiled and hanging grotesquely down.
Ping.
2
Jason stared, numbly, in disbelief. He was that trapped figure in the van.
‘We’re losing him,’ one of the paramedics said to his colleague. ‘No pulse.’
Jason continued staring. No. It could not be. No.
Ping.
1
That was it, Jason thought, his brain racing frantically. It’s an alarm. It was going to wake him. It was going to ring any second.
A message appeared on the screen.
J D E A D 0 0
And now, in that fleeting moment, he understood the significance.
The message disappeared and was replaced with just a single number:
0
Silence.
The display went dark and his torch went out.