Survival of Thomas Ford, The by John A. A. Logan Page B

light, the colours, brown stones, mauves, pinks, orange stones, grey bricklike slabs.
    Thomas unlocked the big, sliding patio doors and lugged a wooden chair out with him into the garden. He sat by the rocks, sometimes staring at them, sometimes letting his neck swing far back until his closed eyelids faced the sky. It was going to be a good day, weather-wise. It occurred to Thomas that he could try to work. He hadn’t been in the little studio in the loft since returning from the hospital. He had no ideas though, nothing to begin on, his mind was empty. Maybe he should do some push-ups, or yoga, but he couldn’t be bothered. It was as though some thick, scaled toad was sitting just beneath his breast-bone, blocking all life.
    Thomas picked up the chair and was halfway down the garden when he saw the footsteps on the grass, two sets it looked like, big feet, coming round the corner of the house and leading up to the patio doors. Some of the boot marks were left on mud, beside the grass, from yesterday’s rain. Some of the marks were on the stone flagging of the patio, boldly embossed there, in dried dirt.
    The mud had only been there from yesterday evening onwards. Who could have come round here like that, since then? Had they come when Alan and Jean were here? Or when he was asleep upstairs? The first thought that came into Thomas’ head was that cops had been here, while he was in the living room talking to Alan and Jean. Cops out here, with Alan and Jean’s knowledge, listening to the living room conversation, trying to get Thomas on tape maybe, or witnessed, as he said something new, some confession about the crash. It was possible. But then Thomas remembered Jean’s eyes at the front door, as she left. Her eyes had not contained any such deceit.
    Kids then, round the back, playing. Kids had big feet these days. Or burglars, burglars who knew about the empty house and had come to see. Well, burglars would have gone through those patio doors like butter.
    Then the image came to Thomas’ mind, the bird-faced driver and the square-jawed passenger. Thomas tried to reason himself out of it, but he saw them clearly, walking round the corner of the house, hovering out here in the garden, staring in at him.
    Thomas walked into the house, sat down and picked up the phone. Then he put it down. He didn’t know the police number. He would have to ask the operator. She would give him some stupid new directory enquiries number. Then eventually McPherson would be on the phone. Thomas tried to phrase it right, in his mind, what he would say to McPherson.
    McPherson! It’s me, Ford. I think they were here in my garden. The driver with the bird-face and the other one. There’s footprints in the garden. I don’t know why I’m thinking it could have been them. It’s just a funny feeling I got when I saw the boot marks out there just now.
    No. There was no way to phrase it that wouldn’t sound mad.
    Thomas sat back in the lonely brown chair and stared at the empty sofa. Footprints in the garden, that was all. The rest was only in the imagination.

Chapter Seventeen
     
    Lorna woke up to the view of Jimmy’s high, profiled hawk-nose. His eyes were closed and she sensed that he was truly asleep, not just feigning it to trick her. She had gone to sleep sure that Jimmy was winding her up with all the talk about causing the Ford crash. Now she woke up believing him. As though sleep had re-ordered her cells and neurones mysteriously, prepared her for this new, dark knowledge. She didn’t want to know anything about it. She closed her eyes again to see if that would stop her knowing. Sleep had forced her to understand that this wasn’t some new craziness come out of nowhere. She had remembered the odd questions Jimmy had asked about Thomas Ford. Even when Jimmy’s stomach had been hurting that day, in Starbucks, Jimmy had still been asking her about Thomas Ford. He had asked her if Thomas Ford had said anything to her at the