4: A Woman Scorned

I STOOD AT my kitchen window and looked at the gloom outside. At this time of year it really ought to have been light even this late in the evening but it had rained solidly for two days now; heavy summer rain thrown down from a sky green as an old bruise. Unable to work properly because kit was dangerously slippery and any vehicles just churned the grass areas to mud, Tony and Owen and I had been confined to the workshop in the old stable block, cleaning and sharpening and tuning every tool we owned. I was going stir-crazy.

Owen had been having trouble with his girlfriend and was grumbling about it. He was eighteen, a year older than her, and she wasn’t putting out. He’d solicited Tony’s opinion on the subject, which turned out to be, ‘If you’re in a relationship it’s the lass that’s in charge and the sooner you learn that the better, lad,’ followed by a wink at me and: ‘Isn’t that right, Avril?’

‘I can’t comment,’ I’d answered, waving my combi-spanner in a wise manner, ‘on the grounds it might incriminate me.’

Owen didn’t ask my advice, for which I was grateful because I had no idea why a seventeen-year-old girl wouldn’t want sex with him. If I’d been seventeen I’d have been all over Owen like a rash. Working five days a week on fairly heavy manual jobs, he was all lithe and deeply tanned muscle. His face was ordinary enough but his mousy hair was sun-bleached on top and more importantly he was a good-humoured boy. Working too long in his company made me feel distinctly twitchy. And just a little bit old.

I’d always had a healthy sexual appetite but this was by far the longest I’d been without a steady boyfriend and it was starting to wear on me. My dreams were full of faceless men with bludgeoning erections and I’d woken up practically every night since I’d moved into this cottage and reached for the slim pink vibrator I kept in the bedside drawer. The dragon dream had recurred too. God, I thought gloomily, I need a proper shag. I need to get out this weekend and get laid.

The rain finally overflowed the gutter above my window and ran out in a pale curtain. I thought of the environmental activists camping out in the woods and wondered what they were doing. Smoking dope and screwing like rabbits if they were lucky, or maybe just wedged in shoulder to shoulder in a foetid fug under leaky tarpaulins. Probably couldn’t even get a fire lit in this weather to make a brew. Poor sods. Coming to a decision I reached under the sink for my biggest vacuum flask. As I filled it with black coffee I remembered the Christmas cake in the pantry. I also added a bottle of sloe gin to the carrier bag, before donning my thickest set of waterproofs and squelching out into the rain.

Waterproof trousers are horrible to walk in. I’d brought a big rubber-clad torch but I kept my head down under my hood and almost the only thing I saw on the long walk over to the wood were the toes of my wellies poking out from under the frayed yellow rubber of the trouser–cuffs, and the only thing I heard was the rain. When I reached the gate I called out hopefully: ‘Anybody here? Hello?’

If they had anyone on watch they were doing a poor job. No lights showed among the trees and no one stirred. I didn’t want to appear to be invading their camp but several more shouts produced the same lack of response, so I clambered laboriously over the gate, barely able to swing my rubberised legs high enough, and slithered down the far side. I tramped up to the nearest vaguely teepee-shaped bivvy and shone my torch on it. ‘Anyone home?’

It was much less well-constructed than I remembered, just a cone of plastic sheeting really. I lifted the flap and looked inside. There wasn’t a groundsheet. Weeds still grew from the earth. The only sign of human occupation was a roughly humanoid form made of dead brambles tied together with orange plastic baling twine. I blinked, nonplussed. ‘OK,’ I muttered, as rainwater ran dripped off the end of my nose.

The next bender was no better. It turned out to be nothing more than some black plastic bin bags draped over a shrub, and contained only another scarecrow, this one made of wadded bracken. After that I found another, swinging in a makeshift climbing harness from a tree, like a corpse hung in chains. I was starting to feel confused and finding the life-sized scarecrows really quite creepy. It was a relief when my light picked out movement among the trunks and Ash came stomping down the slope, a canvas tarp draped over his head and shoulders and a fluorescent lantern in one hand. My smile wasn’t feigned. ‘I did shout.’

‘I was asleep. What are you doing here?’ he asked, reasonably enough.

‘I brought you lot some cake. Where is everyone?’

He frowned. ‘They’ll be here if they’re needed. At a moment’s notice. Cake?’

‘It’s a Christmas cake my mum made for me,’ I explained, presenting the carrier bag. ‘But she forgot I don’t like walnuts much so I’ve been saving it until I threw a party at my place or something, and then I thought you guys might like it. It’ll be fine; fruit cake keeps really well and she makes them with brandy.’ I was aware that I was gabbling a bit. ‘There’s a bottle of home-made sloe gin too, and some coffee.’ I blinked raindrops from my eyes.

‘Coffee.’ He was looking at me like I was mad. ‘You made me coffee?’

‘The weather’s that bad and I thought you must be miserable …’ I shivered as a stray drop found its way down the back of my neck. His expression was making an uncomfortable situation worse. I decided to get to the point. ‘Look, you’ve got it wrong, you know. I’m not your enemy.’

‘Aren’t you?’

‘No, I’m not.’ I sounded sharper than I’d intended. ‘I don’t know what it is you think Michael’s planning or what it is he’s done that pisses you off so much, but I’m not here to cut down the wood. I’m a gardener. I’m on your side, as much as I can be. I love the bloody trees as much as you lot.’ I looked around, remembering that there was no sign of any others. ‘They’ve gone off to the pub and left you, have they?’ My shoulders sagged. ‘Well, you’d better take the cake.’ I thrust the bag towards him.

Ash seemed to find speaking difficult. ‘You think I’d trust you?’

‘You think I’d poison a cake?’ I countered, disgusted.

‘I think Deverick might.’

‘You have got to be kidding me!’

‘Well, perhaps not. But only because it would be a bit obvious. Do you know him well?’

‘Not really.’

‘Do you like him?’

‘He’s a manipulative bastard.’ That wasn’t the whole truth, but it would do. Ash surprised me by laughing.

‘Oh, you noticed that, did you?’

I pulled a face. ‘Anyway, Michael didn’t make the cake, my mum did. And I made the sloe gin last year.’ I pulled it from the bag. ‘Want me to prove it’s safe?’ I twisted off the cap and tilted the bottle to my lips, taking a good obvious glug. Rain washed my upturned face but I hardly felt it as the warmth of the spirit hit my throat and the distilled flavour of autumn hedges engulfed me like an embrace. ‘See,’ I said, gasping slightly, ‘it’s fine.’ I passed him the bottle. He took it from my hand and put it to his lips, never taking his eyes off my face, as if he were answering some challenge.

I grinned.

‘Very nice. Avril, isn’t it?’

‘You’ve been asking around?’

‘I talked to a gardener. Older man. He said you were his boss.’

I shrugged and nodded. The gin had roared straight to my head.

‘Do you know what it is that Deverick’s doing here?’

‘No.’

‘Then be careful. He’s using you, Avril. In ways you can’t even imagine.’

‘You what?’

‘Did he tell you what happened to the men he sent into Grange Wood before you?’

I shook my head.

‘The first one died. Ask him.’ Ash took the bag from my hand. ‘Thanks. If Deverick did send it, tell him I’ve got a bezoar and he’s wasting his time.’

‘What the hell’s a bezoar?’

Ash smiled enigmatically ‘Just tell him.’ His attention switched to the darkness behind me. ‘You came out after dusk after what happened the other day? Do you remember what I told you?’ When I didn’t respond he added sharply, ‘Bull Peter?’

‘I wasn’t just imagining him then?’ I said weakly, trying to make it a joke.

‘That’d be one hell of an imagination you have.’

‘I brought a big torch.’ The alcohol was making my cheeks burn.

He looked me over thoughtfully. ‘You’ve got guts.’

It seemed a dismissal. He watched as I retreated to the gate and climbed over, doing my best to look dignified. Only when I was safely on the other side did the disappointment hit me. It was getting on for really dark now, I was on my own again and not even bribery could thaw the attitude of the best-looking man within miles.

The best-looking man who wasn’t my unscrupulous and possibly dangerous employer. ‘Bloody hell,’ I whispered to myself.

I was nearly home, in fact I was just coming up to the back of the cottage, when above the rattle of raindrops on my hood I heard a snort and round the corner of the building stepped a familiar bull-horned figure. My heart leapt into my throat then crashed back into my stomach. ‘Oh Christ!’

He snorted again, softly. I could see the gleam of his rain-slick skin. His dark eyes flashed rings of white.

‘Stop there!’ I snapped, raising the torch in both hands. ‘Don’t move or you know what I’ll do!’

The threat was pathetic, but he stopped dead. His broad chest rose and fell.

‘Oh, you do understand English then?’ I should have switched the torch on anyway, but I didn’t. The smell of wet cow wafted to me. I took a cautious pace forwards. ‘Bull Peter? Is that your name?’

His head tilted, bovine ears flicking forwards to catch my voice. I could see his nostrils flaring and narrowing with every breath. His neck was very thick, his head – apart from the horns and the ears – human but blunt and heavyset, with chestnut curls on his scalp. His skin was precisely the same colour as a ginger biscuit. His expression, which showed only around the eyes, was curious but a bit vacant. A beef breed, I thought, not dairy. Beef cattle are bred more docile.

An arse man, not a tit man then. It was his lucky day.

‘Hey now, Peter. You’re not going to hurt me, are you?’ I took another couple of steps, brandishing the torch like Van Helsing brandishing a crucifix. He scraped the earth with one hoof and looked nervous. ‘It’s all right. All right.’ I was within arm’s length now. I reached out with one hand and brushed my fingertips across his chest.

He felt like man, not tree stump. Warm despite the rain. His musculature was that of a man too, except for those feet. He even had nipples. ‘Wow,’ I whispered to myself. He shivered, his hide dancing under my fingertips. I stroked his chest slowly, still holding the torch between us and angled up at his face, my thumb on the button.

Deep in his chest he uttered a noise, half bovine low and half groan.

‘Shush.’ I let my hand trail down to his belly, and followed its path with my eyes. He had no pubic hair. His cock already hung big and distended, though it wasn’t totally out of proportion for a human. Unlike his bollocks, that is. He really was hung like an animal.

‘You’re not real, Bull Peter,’ I whispered, discovering that he had no navel. ‘So what’s the harm?’ My exploring fingertips circled his prick and he shuddered all over. He felt hot in my cold hand and it thickened at once in response to my touch, so that all of a sudden my fingertip couldn’t reach my thumb around its circumference. I stroked him up and down rhythmically. He was like velvet to the touch and, beneath that, hardwood. ‘Oh, you’re a big boy,’ I told him, delighted.

He seemed hypnotised. His head was tilted high. The eye of his cock gleamed, his own lubrication mingling with the rain. I wanted to fondle the big pouch of his balls but I only had one hand free so I had to release his cock. His whole frame surged back to life and he laid his hands on the front of my coat. His fingers were thick and blunt.

I should’ve switched the torch on.

He tore my waterproof open, pulling the zip from the rubberised cotton with no apparent effort. Then he tore open my sweatshirt and blouse together, exposing me to the sudden chill, and slid to his knees in front of me. I gasped with shock, rocking on my heels. His head dropped to a level with my torso and then his tongue slid out and lapped at my breast as if trying to lick it off. I was overwhelmed by sensation as he mouthed and licked and tried to suckle at my nipples, coating me in his saliva, his brown eyes rolling. Overwhelmed so completely that I didn’t notice him rending the front of my trousers until the elastic and plastic and the thin leggings beneath had given way with a sound of tearing. I laid my hand on his face and cried out. Then I lost my grip as he ducked his head and licked right up between my legs, nearly lifting me off the floor. Only his hands, transferred to my thighs, kept me from tumbling. He pinned me in place as, snuffling, he explored my exposed sex and gently butted my clit.

Bloody hell – his tongue was long, inhumanly so. He had no problem ascertaining my state of readiness or of effecting entry. And there was no question but that I was ready for him. The torch slid out of my numb hand. As he stood he lifted me, holding me to his chest, and bellowed in triumph. The vibration made my head ring.

In three strides he had me pinned against the rough wall of the cottage and I was sobbing with fear and relief as he entered me with his prick. I was slick with his saliva and my own insane desire and he moulded me around him, rearranging my insides to make room for his pizzle. I’d braced myself for a real battering and that is what I got; his thrusts were deep and heavy and inexorable. They filled me with his fire. They crushed the breath from me and bruised my arse against the stones.

They were exactly what I needed.

When he’d come – and I’d come twice – and a shift of my weight on his hips had released a wash of his seed overflowing my sex and running down my thighs, I rested my head on his hot shoulder and listened to the thundering of his heart until consciousness left me.

It was a sudden draught that woke me, the chill on my newly exposed breasts. I opened sticky eyes and blinked, trying to make sense of things in the grey light.

It was just before dawn. The rain had stopped and a white mist lay over the silent land. I slid my hand through ivy and a small brown bird rocketed out of the leaves and flew away peeping its protests. That woke me up properly.

I was wedged, standing, between the back wall of my cottage and the remnants of a dead tree which had grown up too close to the foundations. My clothes were torn open down the front and my pubes were mashed against an old knot in the wood. Carefully I tilted sideways and slid out from the embrace of wood and stone, then stood, gnawing my lip.

I was quite sure that when I’d first looked around my new home there’d been no tree stump this close to the house.

Ash came to my house a few evenings later. I shouldn’t have been so surprised to open the door to him, after all he and I – and perhaps his fair-weather activists – were in theory the only people on the Kester Estate once the gates were locked at night. But somehow I’d assumed it was Michael, calling to try his luck.

‘I brought your flask back,’ he said, a little tentatively. He was wearing a long green coat this time to keep out the drizzle.

I gaped, then took the flask from his outstretched hand. ‘Do you want to come in for a drink?’ I suggested after a slightly impolite hesitation.

He nodded.

‘Coffee? Tea?’ I asked as I led him through to the living room. ‘I’ve got some bottled beer I think. You got the last of the sloe gin.’

‘Tea would be great.’ He looked around him curiously. I wished I’d had some warning of company and a chance to clear my usual mess. My little dining table was occupied by my dismantled chainsaw, which I was busy cleaning, and a new chain soaking in a margarine tub full of oil. ‘The sloe gin was much appreciated.’

Indoors, he seemed a whole lot taller. It was a tiny room and he seemed to fill it. I swept an armful of magazines off the sofa. ‘Sit down.’

He sat dutifully. Then as I retreated to the cupboard-sized kitchen he stood up immediately and followed me, stationing himself in the doorway and leaning on the post to watch. I felt rather self-conscious. Was he thinking of that night out in the meadow and my bare body? I wondered.

‘Milk? Sugar?’

‘Just tea, thanks.’

‘How is it going in the woods?’

‘Um. Soggy.’ He folded his arms.

‘I bet. How long have you been living out there?’ I asked as I hunted out tea bags.

‘Oh, pretty much since the last owner of the Grange died. That’s … getting on for four years now.’

I stared. ‘Winter as well?’

He nodded.

‘God. That must be … I mean, I like the outdoor life, but four years in a tent?’

He hooked a wry smile. ‘Sometimes it’s a bit grim. Most of the time it’s OK. And there are days I wouldn’t be anywhere else.’

‘But that’s much longer than Michael Deverick’s owned the place, isn’t it?’

‘I had a lot to do.’

‘To do?’

‘To get ready for him.’

Words failed me. ‘Right.’ I found the last teaspoon in the drawer. ‘What is it exactly that you’ve got against him?’ I thought I might as well hear it from both sides.

‘Exactly? The fact that he doesn’t give a crap what he destroys in order to accumulate the financial power he’s after. You want details? He owns a major investments company and puts money into anything that’ll make him a profit. His money’s behind exploratory oil drilling in Alaskan wilderness and the Russian Taiga. He makes a fortune from palm-oil plantations in the Far East and soya-bean production in South America on land that used to be virgin rainforest. Companies he’s got holdings in are busy right now all across Britain building roads and houses and airports on green fields so that the English can own their own cardboard huts on coast-to-coast identikit estates and escape on their cut-price carbon-heavy holidays every year to places that aren’t ruined yet but will be after they get there with their stag parties and their chip shops and their nightclubs. Oh, and he dabbles in armaments exports.’

‘Well, that’s the Market,’ I said dubiously. I had to take Ash’s cold litany with a pinch of salt.

‘Those are the ones I know about because they happen to be legal. I don’t doubt there are others.’

‘Well he’s not a big fan of rules,’ I admitted. ‘So that’s the guy I’m working for, is it? I’d no idea he was so important.’

Ash raised both eyebrows.

‘I mean, I knew he was rich. He’s throwing money at this place.’

‘Yes.’ The word was loaded with meaning.

‘And you’re going to get in his way, are you?’

‘I’m going to try.’

I picked up the hot mugs and ushered him back into the living room. As he took off his coat and seated himself again I walked casually over to the window and cracked it onto the drizzly night. I really had no choice; Ash had brought in with him a reek of wood smoke and clothes that’d got damp and musty and never dried out. I had no great objection to the first – God knows I was used to it – but the mildewy smell was overpowering.

When I turned back his face was pinched. ‘Sorry,’ he said.

‘It’s OK …’ I was twice as embarrassed as he was. ‘It’s just –’

‘I try to get to the public baths and the laundrette in town but it’s this weather …’

‘Uh-huh.’ I grabbed for another subject. ‘You have a car then?’

‘I hitch.’

‘Right.’ I bit my lip. ‘Um, well, if you wanted a bath here there’ll be loads of hot water now. I forgot to turn the immersion heater off after mine.’

He looked doubtful.

‘And I’ve got a washer and tumble dryer; I could put your clothes through on a quick cycle if you wanted.’ I smiled encouragingly. ‘It all goes on Michael’s electricity bill.’

The ice cracked. ‘OK. That’d be nice. Thanks.’

I showed him the bathroom and climbed onto the chair to pull the biggest towel I owned out of the airing cupboard. He kept his eyes on me all the time, even when my backside was at face height. I felt a bit dithery. ‘You’ve got soap, shampoo, whatever,’ I said, wishing I’d been able to hide my razor and the tumbled box of tampons. Why wasn’t I naturally neat? I opened the cabinet and pointed out the rack inside. ‘Bath fizzies here if you like them. That might be a good one for you. It’s lime and eucalyptus – not too girly.’

I left him in the bathroom and retreated to the armchair, feeling that I’d made a fool of myself. I didn’t have long to collect my dignity before Ash came out again, carrying his clothes in a bundle. He was wearing the towel around his waist and it was long enough to brush the tops of his feet, like a sarong. I fought not to look, and lost. His bare chest was nearly hairless and his left shoulder was covered in a jagged tribal tattoo. I’d expected him to be paper white, being a redhead, but he was tanned to the pale-gold of Jersey cream.

I wanted to lick him.

‘I’ll do it,’ I said, reaching for his bundle, but he carried it to the washing machine himself and loaded it, only letting me add detergent. My machines were kept under the stairs, half-concealed behind the sofa, the only place where there was room for them to be plumbed in. ‘Wash cycle three: there,’ I said, pushing the button.

‘Great.’ He waited for the machine to start drawing water, then returned to the bathroom.

He was in there a long time. Long enough for me to tidy the living room, hurl all my clothes off the floor and into wardrobes, straighten the bedlinen, change into a pair of leggings that didn’t have a spaghetti stain on them, wash up and finally sit down and give my full attention to berating myself for acting like a fourteen-year-old. I was a grown woman and he was a grown man and he was in my house naked and there wasn’t any more simple equation than that, was there?

My eye fell on his mug of tea, balanced on the arm of the sofa. It was cool now. I zapped it in the microwave to bring it back to steaming and carried it over to the bathroom door. Softly I knocked, my pulse racing. There was no sound from within. As it happens there’s no lock on my bathroom, so I opened the door and stepped inside.

Ash lay in the milky water under a warm cloud of eucalyptus-scented condensation. Far too tall for my bath, his knees were bent up revealing shins striped with red-gold hair and his dreadlocks dangled into the water about his shoulders. He was fast asleep. Greedily I studied what I could see of his body, but as I looked at the smudges under his eyes I felt a strange flutter of pity. I put the mug down on the corner of the bath. His eyes opened at that small noise and he looked straight up at me.

‘Don’t forget your tea,’ I said, my voice husky. I shut the door behind me as I left.

He didn’t take long after that. Through the wall I heard the sound of him rising, followed by the bath draining, the flush of the toilet and then an odd squeaky noise that I only slowly identified: he was cleaning the bath. Wow, I thought, now that’s the sort of man there should be more of. When he emerged I was waiting for him with a sweater: a plain white hand-knitted thing that had stretched hugely over the years, it was my comfort jumper and if I tucked my knees up I could pull it right down to my ankles. It was the only piece of suitable clothing I had that I thought might fit him.

He was back in the towel sarong again. I came up close to make my offer: ‘Do you want a jumper?’ Close enough that I could see the water sheen on his skin and smell the eucalyptus and lime. Close enough so that he could easily pull me to him. Your choice, I thought: girl or sweater.

He picked the clothing. Not swiftly; his eyes were on me the whole time, his expression unreadable but intense. He slipped the sweater over his head and then went and sat back on the sofa, balancing his mug on one knee. It was a good job it was a big towel; like most men he sat with his thighs carelessly apart.

‘Suits you,’ I said, then went and perched on the lone armchair opposite, dizzy with longing and disappointment.

Ash licked his upper lip thoughtfully. I felt like I was under examination. Why the hell didn’t he say anything? The silence was unbearable.

‘I asked Michael Deverick about the men he’d sent into the wood, like you said,’ I ventured.

‘Oh?’

‘According to him one of them walked into a wasps’ nest and was stung a couple of times. His mate carried him out but he died of the anaphylactic shock.’

‘That’s right. What about the others?’

‘He didn’t mention any others.’

Ash took a sip of his drink. ‘He’s sent a few men to try to get in. One got bitten by “a stray farm dog”, I quote. One broke an arm when he fell off a rock pile. Lots of them had problems with the wasps. None of them got anywhere. Are you seeing a pattern?’

‘Yeah. Now tell me why.’

‘The wood keeps people out. Deverick knows that and he shouldn’t have sent you in.’

‘But why? Why’s it so important that you keep people out? What’s he going to do that’s so bad?’

Ash thought about answering for a long moment. I could see the doubt in his eyes. ‘There’s something in the wood he wants,’ he said at last. ‘It’s … important. He thinks it’s his to take.’

‘So this isn’t about the wood itself?’ I demanded.

‘No.’

‘But then what is it?’ I asked, exasperated.

‘I can’t tell you.’

‘Why?’

He made a helpless gesture. ‘You wouldn’t believe me if I did.’

‘Try me.’

He drummed his fingers on his mug. ‘All right. There was a Michael Deverick supplying munitions to the Allies in World War Two. There was a Captain Michael Deverick in the trenches at Ypres. There was a Michael Deverick in the Order of the Golden Dawn back in 1903. He fell out with Crowley, but then who didn’t? There was a Michael Deverick sitting as member of parliament for a rotten borough in 1831. Same man. Same man as the one you work for. He’s at least two hundred years old and he’s a magus.’

‘A what?’

‘A magician.’

I sat in silence for a while. ‘Well,’ I said at length, ‘he’s managed to get British builders to work for him seven days a week. I suppose there had to be some rational explanation.’

Ash looked suspicious. ‘You’re taking it well, considering.’

‘Oh, I’m not bloody stupid! I’ve seen …’ The words died in my throat. ‘Though to be honest, I’d have had you pegged as the weird one. No offence.’

Ash put his mug down on the carpet. ‘None taken. Our methods differ. Nevertheless.’

‘So you are a … You’re one too?’

‘A magus. Yes.’

‘That bull bloke,’ I muttered. ‘Bull Peter. What’s he? Is that something you did?’

Ash looked nonplussed. ‘Ah. I wasn’t sure how clearly you’d seen him.’

‘Pretty bloody clearly.’

‘Right. Well, I think he’s a changeling – you know, left once in the place of a human baby. He seems to be imprinted on human women. But I’m not totally sure. It’s not as if I’ve talked to him. He’s aggressive with men.’

‘He’s a fairy,’ I said. ‘That’s what you’re saying?’

‘Uh-huh. You had any problems with him since that night?’

‘Problems? No.’ I had a sudden desire to change the subject.

‘Good.’

I thought of the things I’d seen flitting through the weeds around him. ‘What about the other fairies? They talk to you, do they?’

‘Not really. Fay tolerate me better than they do most humans. But they don’t talk. You know: parallel lives.’

‘OK.’ I had to bite back the desire to mention the deer-girl. ‘And you’re living in the wood and doing your witchy stuff there –’

‘Ritual magic.’ His tone was very dry all of a sudden.

‘Ritual magic, because you want to keep this other magus from getting the thing in the wood.’

‘That’s right.’

‘Then,’ I said slowly and clearly, ‘what the bloody hell is it?’

I could see the reluctance settling over his face like a cloud. ‘Something powerful. Something he could use to control – I don’t know – millions of lives. It’s something he must never be allowed to get hold of.’

‘OK, I get it. You’re its guardian, right?’

‘Yeah.’

‘Can you take it away from here?’

‘No.’

‘Can you use … whatever it is, against him?’

‘Christ. No.’ For a moment he looked really appalled.

‘So you’re stuck in the wood, and Michael can’t get in, and you can’t leave.’

‘That’s about the size of it. For the moment.’

I looked at my nails. ‘I’m really starting to wish I’d gone to the pub tonight.’

Ash rubbed gently at the piercings through his eyebrow. ‘Sorry. You asked.’

‘But you came here to talk to me.’ I bit the inside of my lip. ‘Didn’t you? I mean, bugger the flask. You wanted to talk.’

He sighed. ‘Yes. I need … I mean, I am short of … Listen, this is how the situation is. I’ve had four years to build every defence into the wood that I can think of, without Deverick about. But now the estate’s in his hands and he’s going to be looking for any possible way in past those defences. He’s good at that. He’ll be looking for any weak point. It might only be a matter of time. In fact, he’s found a weakness already.’

‘Which is?’

‘You. You walked unharmed right through the wood to the bridle path.’

‘How come?’

He looked apologetic. ‘I set the wards up to block Deverick. They’re at their strongest against him, and they draw from the Wildwood. And I assumed that if he were going to launch an attack on the wood itself, with chainsaws and bulldozers and such, that his crew would be male. So, some of the guards are of no use against, say, you.’

‘Welcome to the twenty-first century,’ I said, with ill-concealed amusement.

‘I still think he’s not going to be able to find enough women for that job, though I may be wrong. And anyway, the deeper wards will still function. But that was a weakness. He’ll find others. He’ll think of a way to use them. So I came to ask you if you’d help me.’

‘Help you? Against him? What the hell could I do?’

‘Well,’ said Ash tentatively, ‘I can’t get into the house any more than he can enter the wood. I’d like to know what he’s doing in there.’

‘And why should I?’

‘That’s a good question. Because he’s a shit. Would that do it?’

I stared. At that moment the washer came noisily to the end of its cycle. I welcomed the distraction. I stood and crossed the room to squat in front of the machine. Ash half-rose from the sofa and put his hand on my shoulder as I opened the door. ‘No,’ he said; ‘please …’

I turned, looking up at him. He was leaning right over me, his face close to mine, and I acted without thought and almost without realising what I was doing, from pure instinct. I put my lips to his in a soft kiss of invitation.

I think he was more surprised than I was though. For a second I thought he wasn’t going to respond. Then I felt his sharp inhalation of breath, and then his hand cupped my throat and jaw as he kissed me back – not hard but tentatively and very slowly. Almost as if he were afraid.

For a moment that was all we did. Then I pushed him gently back onto the sofa and followed up, straddling his lap. His eyes were wide with shock, so I kissed him again, challengingly, catching his lip in my incisors. His hands slid round my waist. Our kisses were like strange dogs circling one another, all tension and avid curiosity and barely concealed teeth. Then he slid his hands up the front of my top to cup the bare breasts beneath and I broke away with a gasp, arching my spine as he caught at my nipples. He pulled me up sharply against him, pushing up my blouse and putting his lips to my tits. I felt his wet mouth around my nipple and I cried out in helpless delight. I clasped his head and his long locks were damp under my hands but I was damper, down between my splayed thighs. I love having my tits sucked. Sometimes I can even come that way, they’re so sensitive – if the man is right. If he knows what he’s doing.

Ash did.

Then suddenly he pulled his mouth away and looked up at me with eyes full of storm. My wet nipples stood out like hazelnuts. ‘No,’ he groaned. ‘I can’t.’

If he’d just decided to let on that he was married or gay or something then I didn’t want to hear it. I slid out of his arms like water and down between his spread thighs. I pulled his towel open as I went. He was a man and men, I reasoned, are straightforward: pull the lever and you get the candy.

In this case the candy was of the raspberries-and-cream variety. Definitely a natural redhead, I thought as I ran my fingers through his pubic thatch. And I doubted very much he was gay; his erection was like polished rock already and it jerked against my tongue as I wrapped my lips around it, tasting of lime bath bomb, tasting of the salt of his own eagerness. Ash’s whole body bucked as I engulfed him and he threw back his head with a groan. I had him now; he wasn’t going anywhere. He had a second tribal tattoo, I found, on his right hip and thigh. I traced it with my fingertips. Lovingly I teased his swollen prick head and ran my fingers up his shaft and down and around his balls. Cocks are wonderful. I adore them. I love to feel them urgent and yearning for me, responding to the flick of my tongue and the pressure of my lips and the friction of my throat. I gave Ash’s cock everything I had, briefly. Long enough to feel him tense and rock under me. He slid his fingers into my hair, holding me.

Then I pulled away, just far enough so I could look up at him and suggest, ‘Let’s go to the bedroom.’ I planted a kiss right on his cock tip.

His eyes were shining. He stroked my temple. And somehow he still said, ‘No.’

No? I blinked.

‘No. Finish it off.’

You selfish git, I thought. As I hesitated his hands tightened on my head. For the first time it occurred to me that maybe I wasn’t engineering this as well as I’d thought. ‘Hey …?’

‘Finish it off.’ Those green-brown eyes weren’t shining now; they were burning.

‘OK.’ I didn’t want a fight. Not from this position. Swallowing my disappointment I went back to work. This time I was rougher than strictly necessary. Ash’s pelvis twisted as I concentrated on pumping him, forgetting such delicacies as handling his scrotum. I didn’t give him a chance to catch his breath or enjoy the journey; I just rode him to the end of the line as directly and brutally as I could. He was too far gone to find it truly painful, but he came with wrench and a gasp that didn’t sound like unalloyed pleasure, filling my mouth with his sweet-sour ejaculate.

I sat back, raised my eyebrows and waited grimly.

For a long time he seemed unable to collect himself. Then he blinked and focused on me anew. ‘Did you swallow?’ were his first words.

‘Of course.’

He leant forwards and kissed me. This time I didn’t welcome it. I yielded mostly from habit and surprise. His kiss was hard, his tongue invasive. He’s checking, I thought incredulously: he’s checking to see that I’ve swallowed it all! I tore from his kiss and he grabbed me by the hair.

‘Drink,’ he ordered, scooping up the half-empty mug of tea and pressing it to my lips.

‘Get lost!’

‘Drink!’ His hand tightened in my hair until tears sprang to my eyes and the rim of the mug banged painfully against my teeth. I took a mouthful of the lukewarm tea, milkless and bitter, and choked it down.

He released me at once.

‘You bastard,’ I said, backing away across the carpet. ‘Who the hell do you think you are?’ My voice was wobbly with shock. ‘Get out of my house.’ He looked at me speechlessly. There was agony in his expression and anger and shame too, and I didn’t understand what was going on with him but he had completely freaked me out. ‘Get out!’ I shouted.

Ash stood and went to empty his clothes out of the washing machine. He pulled on his wet trousers without looking in my direction, then scooped up the rest and walked out.

I jumped up and got into the hall just as the front door closed, then threw his mug at the door, hard. Tea painted an arc across the wall. After that I retreated to the living room and paced up and down. Then I rang Michael Deverick’s voice-mail.

‘This is Avril Shearing,’ I snapped. ‘I want to tell you I’ve changed my mind about the Eden Project.’