remind you that it wasn’t some gaping, bottomless trench down there. The waters sloughed along, cold and heavy, like a fat and hungry snake sliding through the landscape.
The path leading down to the river, the one that led from Maybrick Road to the green metal footbridge, was almost unlit. It was only when my eyes adjusted to the gloom that I could see it at all. An icy night mist was beginning to form in the dip where the river lay. Very gradually, it started to thicken, to creep up the hill and across the park.
I’d been sitting there watching the darkness forabout an hour before I thought of packing it in and going to bed. I hadn’t seen a single living soul, or heard a sound. The sombre tranquillity of it all was somehow reassuring, though. My thoughts drifted off, until they came full circle and froze around the subject of school, and the people in it, and the endless bloody homework on my schedule.
Give it half an hour,
I thought. Maybe this wasn’t a good idea after all. I was getting tired and yawning.
I didn’t realize it was them, at first. I caught sight of two people walking slowly down the hill, along the path. It was about a quarter past midnight now.
I picked up my binoculars to take a closer look. It was only when I’d scanned around for a few seconds, twisting the focus dial first one way and then the other, that I could see clearly. One was taller than the other, the taller one in a dark overcoat, and the other with a hood pulled tight.
It was Emma and her grandfather, Ken Greenhill. I was sure of it. Over the weeks, Emma’s body language had imprinted itself on me, the same way you can identify a close friend or a member of your family at a distance, by the way they walk or the way they move their head. I was all but certain thatI could see Emma’s rolling, almost gliding motion. And that semi-march of the person beside her was definitely her grandfather. Wasn’t it? I could make out the walking stick swinging at his heels.
If either of them had been on their own, I’d have been less sure. As I couldn’t see their faces, one of them alone wouldn’t have grabbed my attention so firmly. But the two of them together made me scramble for the camera.
I put the camera on full zoom, but I couldn’t get a decent image of them that way, not at such a distance and in low light. I held the camera lens against the binoculars and tried to home in on them that way, as if I had one of those large telephoto attachments. I clicked a dozen or more pictures, but flicking through them afterwards showed little more than motion blur and two vague figures in mid-stride.
As I watched them through the binoculars, I could see that Emma was carrying something. It looked like a large box with a handle, and it took me a minute or two to realize that it was a cat box. It wasn’t a particularly large one but it had something in it – the way Emma was carrying it, it looked likeit weighed at least a couple of kilos.
I was fully awake now, the binoculars pressed tightly to my eyes. Emma and her grandfather walked down the path, along the flat area close to the river, over the footbridge, and away to the right, into Elton Gardens. I caught a slightly sharper glimpse of them just before they moved out of sight, because they walked under one of the park’s lamps and for a second they were lit up much more.
When they’d gone, I checked the time. 12:22 a.m.
What were they doing over there? When were they coming back?
I kept the binoculars trained on that patch of light beneath the lamp. They would have to pass it again, if they were going to return home the same way.
I waited, hardly daring to breathe. I kept glancing at the clock screensaver on my phone. 12:29… 12:36… 12:41…
Several times I almost gave up. I thought they must have been on their way to somewhere up in town, and I wouldn’t see them again. But then I wondered where they could possibly have been going, the two of them, at that hour of the
The path leading down to the river, the one that led from Maybrick Road to the green metal footbridge, was almost unlit. It was only when my eyes adjusted to the gloom that I could see it at all. An icy night mist was beginning to form in the dip where the river lay. Very gradually, it started to thicken, to creep up the hill and across the park.
I’d been sitting there watching the darkness forabout an hour before I thought of packing it in and going to bed. I hadn’t seen a single living soul, or heard a sound. The sombre tranquillity of it all was somehow reassuring, though. My thoughts drifted off, until they came full circle and froze around the subject of school, and the people in it, and the endless bloody homework on my schedule.
Give it half an hour,
I thought. Maybe this wasn’t a good idea after all. I was getting tired and yawning.
I didn’t realize it was them, at first. I caught sight of two people walking slowly down the hill, along the path. It was about a quarter past midnight now.
I picked up my binoculars to take a closer look. It was only when I’d scanned around for a few seconds, twisting the focus dial first one way and then the other, that I could see clearly. One was taller than the other, the taller one in a dark overcoat, and the other with a hood pulled tight.
It was Emma and her grandfather, Ken Greenhill. I was sure of it. Over the weeks, Emma’s body language had imprinted itself on me, the same way you can identify a close friend or a member of your family at a distance, by the way they walk or the way they move their head. I was all but certain thatI could see Emma’s rolling, almost gliding motion. And that semi-march of the person beside her was definitely her grandfather. Wasn’t it? I could make out the walking stick swinging at his heels.
If either of them had been on their own, I’d have been less sure. As I couldn’t see their faces, one of them alone wouldn’t have grabbed my attention so firmly. But the two of them together made me scramble for the camera.
I put the camera on full zoom, but I couldn’t get a decent image of them that way, not at such a distance and in low light. I held the camera lens against the binoculars and tried to home in on them that way, as if I had one of those large telephoto attachments. I clicked a dozen or more pictures, but flicking through them afterwards showed little more than motion blur and two vague figures in mid-stride.
As I watched them through the binoculars, I could see that Emma was carrying something. It looked like a large box with a handle, and it took me a minute or two to realize that it was a cat box. It wasn’t a particularly large one but it had something in it – the way Emma was carrying it, it looked likeit weighed at least a couple of kilos.
I was fully awake now, the binoculars pressed tightly to my eyes. Emma and her grandfather walked down the path, along the flat area close to the river, over the footbridge, and away to the right, into Elton Gardens. I caught a slightly sharper glimpse of them just before they moved out of sight, because they walked under one of the park’s lamps and for a second they were lit up much more.
When they’d gone, I checked the time. 12:22 a.m.
What were they doing over there? When were they coming back?
I kept the binoculars trained on that patch of light beneath the lamp. They would have to pass it again, if they were going to return home the same way.
I waited, hardly daring to breathe. I kept glancing at the clock screensaver on my phone. 12:29… 12:36… 12:41…
Several times I almost gave up. I thought they must have been on their way to somewhere up in town, and I wouldn’t see them again. But then I wondered where they could possibly have been going, the two of them, at that hour of the
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