'You're spooking us,' Terry said.

The screech owl called, loud and shrill, only yards away. Sam saw it sitting on a high branch, looking down at them.

Clive pressed on. They came to a small clearing. 'This is it,' Clive announced. 'That's the tree where the Scout was hanging. I was tied up over there. We dumped Tooley's body in that hollow stump.'

Sam felt sure Clive was mistaken. But Terry was nodding, sizing up the boughs of the tree. Together they shuffled across to the hollow designated by Clive. It was half filled with dead leaves, rotting branches and other woodland debris. No one was ready to lift any of it clear. 'Right,' said Clive.

Terry was first, and the other two joined in. Slowly at first, and then with mounting hysteria, they flung the debris clear of the hollow, until their fingernails dug into the soft, organic matter beneath.

'Ugh!' said Terry.

Clive pulled up a handful of the stuff. Sam too.

'It's just earth,' said Sam. 'Leaf mould. There's nothing here.'

'It's been moved,' Clive breathed.

'No. This isn't the place. You've brought us to the wrong place! Look at that tree! You couldn't hang the skinniest Scout from that tree! And where were Terry and me supposed to be hiding? This just isn't the place, you dumb b.a.s.t.a.r.d!'

Terry was scratching his head, looking round. 'Sam's right,' he conceded.

'I can't believe it! I just can't believe it!'

Sam got a blast of that overpowering smell again. Bird s.h.i.t; rain-mashed leaves; tree lichen; fungus; rotting hay; wild bulbs waiting to flower. He knew they were in the presence of a power. The hair bristled on his neck. 'Never mind, Clive. We were led here. We were tricked.'

'What do you mean?'

Sam looked up. The screech owl left its branch and flew overhead, going north. He knew they wouldn't find anything that night. When he looked back, the other two were staring at him with appalled fascination.

'Tell him to shut his f.u.c.king mouth,' said Clive.

'Yes,' said Terry. 'You'd better b.u.t.ton it, Sam.'

Sam led them in silence back to the place where he'd first intended they should go, to the clearing where he'd seen the fox in the winter snow. Its features were similar to those of Clive's venue: but the tree was a more likely candidate, the cover was better, the hollow stump was much deeper. It was also artificially piled with uprooted bushes and broken sticks. After they'd uncovered it in a second frenzy, the results were no different from their initial endeavours.

Clive sank to the earth, his face blackened with dirt and sweat. He wept with frustration. Then he stopped suddenly, simply staring ahead of him.

Sam helped him to his feet. 'Come on. Alice will be going out of her mind.'

They trooped dispiritedly to the edge of the woods, Terry and Sam dragging the useless tarpaulin. Alice was crouched on the ground, hugging herself for warmth, smoking a cigarette down to its filter. There was no need for anyone to explain. The failure of the enterprise was apparent.

They led the horse across the field and over the road. Alice jumped the gate again, and they climbed into the field behind her. 'I'll see you back at my house in about fifteen minutes. Sam, can you ride bareback? Jump up behind me.'

But Sam was distracted. Over Terry's shoulder, sitting on the gate, was the Tooth Fairy, watching them. The moon reflected balefully on its white face. It smiled at him with evil satisfaction.

'You wouldn't allow us to find it, would you?' Sam murmured, so softly that the others, standing a few yards off, did not hear him. 'You wouldn't want that, would you?'

Terry dropped his end of the tarpaulin and pushed past Sam. 'I'll come if Sam won't!' He was up on the horse behind Alice in a second. Sam spun round. He saw Terry's arms fold around Alice's waist. Alice dug her heels into the horse's flanks, and they were away, cantering across fields streaming with mist and flooded with moonlight.

30.

Premonition 'What a good thing,' said Alice.

Alice and the three boys studied a planning-application notice posted on the football-field gate. Redstone Football Club, having purchased the land outright, was proposing to level the ground to construct a second pitch. The enterprise would require infilling half of the pond.

'I mean, what a good thing you three never found anything that night in the woods. They might dredge the pond.'

Over a year had pa.s.sed since the disastrous project to recover the body of the dead Scout from Wistman's Woods, and this was the first time the abortive effort had been mentioned. There had been sleepless nights immediately afterwards, and dreams of bodies composed entirely of leaf-mould rising from the paths through the trees; but the police had made their threatened renewed search of the woods with no more success than the boys'. Now, as they read the planning application pasted on a wooden board, the implications of what might have happened had they been successful that night were dawning on all of them. None of them knew whether the infilling of a pond would cause a submerged body to surface or seal the matter for ever.

'Anyway,' said Sam, and the word 'anyway' temporarily infilled the gaping nightmare for all of them, 'anyway, they can't just come and fill in half of what's left of the pond!'

'Why not?'

'Because it's our pond! It's It's been our pond since we were little kids. They can't do it!'

'They can and they will.'

'Well, they shouldn't be allowed to get away with it.' Sam looked across the water, a distance from bank to bank of about seventy or eighty yards. 'They're going to reduce it to the size of a mere puddle.'

'A mere spit,' said Clive.

'A mere flob,' said Terry.

This was the current delight among the Redstone Moodies: anyone foolish enough to try out a word drawn from beyond their immediate range of vocabulary would have it gleefully and mercilessly bounced back at them.

'Someone ought to bomb the football club off the face of the earth,' said Sam.

'Easily done,' said Clive. 'What sort of bomb do you want?'

'Are you serious?'

'I could serve you up a nice Molotov c.o.c.ktail in under a minute; a more cultured device might take me a full day.' Clive's garden-shed chemistry set was capable of anything.

'Cultured,' Sam said in a thin, reedy voice.

'Hmmm, I say, cultured,' Terry echoed.

'Or I could knock up a pipe bomb in ten minutes.'

They turned from the notice on the gate and made towards the pond. 'Really? Would it blow up the football club?' Sam wanted to know.

'Not exactly. But it would blow a decent hole in the door.'

Terry scratched his head. Football had stopped for the summer, but he was hoping to get a regular first-team place with Redstone FC for the new season. 'I don't think you should do that.'

'All you need,' Clive chirped happily, 'is a length of pipe, a couple of rags, sugar and sodium chlorate. Weed-killer to you.'

'Gosh.'

'No,' said Terry. 'Do the gymkhana instead.'

'Keep your hands off the gymkhana,' Alice said fiercely.

'Hey! What's happened here?' Sam shouted when they reached their usual hideaway in the bushes alongside the pond. The leather Morris Minor seat had been slashed; an old stool had been thrown in the pond; their tarpaulin shelter had been pulled down; and some empty cider bottles had been smashed on the ground.

'Kids from the estate!' said Terry.

'Little b.a.s.t.a.r.ds!' said Alice.

'Wish I could get my hands on them,' said Clive. 'I'd make 'em into pulp.'

'This is ingenious! d.a.m.ned ingenious!' Skelton, his large, hairy hands pressed against his thighs, sat on one side of his polished mahogany desk while Sam perched on the chair opposite. The psychiatrist's sleeves were rolled to his elbows. His window stood open to the warm June air. Between them, in the centre of the desk, stood the Nightmare Interceptor. Sam had finally conceded to Skelton's requests to bring it in, partly because of Skelton's scepticism about whether the thing actually existed and partly because he wanted someone in authority to a.s.sess its value.

Skelton's teeth were like a row of weathered clothes pegs left on a washing line, and he bared them proudly in a huge grin. He put his eyes close to the device, poring over its working parts as if it were too fragile and precious to touch, not merely an old alarm clock attached by wire to a thermostatic switch and a crocodile clip. 'And you're certain it works?'

'For all ordinary nightmares, yes. For what you call Tooth Fairy nightmares, no.'

Skelton waved away the distinction. 'Do you realize, lad, how many people in this country suffer I mean, really suffer from the terror of nightmare? About eight million. Not just bad dreams but sweating, weeping, screaming, paralysing, terrifying nightmares. People who are afraid to go to bed at night. This could help them. Really help them. With a few refinements, of course. And it's so accursedly simple!'

'It hurts your nose a bit.'

'May I?' Skelton jabbed a finger at the crocodile clip. Sam shrugged. Skelton delicately plucked it up, opened the spring and let it snap on to his nose. 'Ow! You're right.'

'You have to put bits of cotton wool between the clip and your nose. Otherwise you can't get to sleep to have a nightmare in the first place.'

'I see. I see. So the sensor is here on the clip, is it? Right. Now then. Let's have a go.' Skelton proceeded to hyperventilate through his nose. In a few moments the alarm triggered. He tore the clip from his nose and shouted, 'Hallelujah!' He got up. With his hands clasped behind his back, he proceeded to walk around and around his desk, chuckling to himself. 'What we need is someone who can develop this thing. Develop and refine, eh? Develop and refine. I'm going to get in touch with one or two people. We'll get it patented.'

'It'll still belong to me,' Sam said stubbornly.

Skelton stopped in his tracks. He leaned across and put his face uncomfortably close to Sam's, close enough for Sam to see a jaundiced halo round each eyeball. He was not pleased. 'Listen to me, lad. I may be a d.a.m.ned lousy psychiatrist. I may even admit to taking the occasional drink. What I'm not, however, is a b.l.o.o.d.y thief. What am I not?'

'A b.l.o.o.d.y thief.'

Skelton seemed satisfied. He nodded grimly before returning to his chair, grinning all over again. 'No, this is your toy. We'll get it patented in your name, Sam. But I've got to find someone to take the idea and make it into something more compact and more comfortable.'

They sat and talked about the Nightmare Interceptor for some time. Sam finally realized that Skelton wasn't at all interested in stealing the idea; his fascination was genuinely motivated by the potential psychological benefits for some of his patients. Eventually Mrs Marsh put her head round the door and reminded Skelton he was running well over time.

'Golly! You'd better go, lad. Take your toy with you for now. Make another appointment with Mrs Marsh.' Sam was half-way out of the door before Skelton seemed to remember something. 'Oh! Now then, before you go, is everything all right with you?'

'In what sense?'

'In the sense of your b.l.o.o.d.y mental health and well-being.'

'Suppose so.'

'No fairies?'

'Not for a long while.'

'Good. Carry on.'

Shortly after his deliberations with Skelton over the potential of the Nightmare Interceptor, Sam and Terry pa.s.sed by the cottage behind which Terry used to live. The caravan had been towed away long ago, but the garage workshop remained padlocked and, as far as Sam could tell, untouched since Morris had shot himself, his wife and his baby twins.

'Don't you ever want to look in there?' Sam asked Terry.

Terry coloured and spoke very quietly. 'Nothing to look at.'

'But there might be stuff in there. Stuff you could use. It belonged to your . . .' Terry never made reference to his father, and Sam couldn't bring himself to either. 'I mean, those things belong to you.'

'They sold off all the good tools and things when they flogged the caravan,' Terry said. 'Uncle Charlie said that only junk and clutter got left behind. I'm not bothered.'

But Sam found himself drawn again to the workshop, even though his last visit to the place had resulted in a gashed wrist, the scar of which he still bore. The place contained demons he had to exorcise, ghosts he needed to lay.

He knew he was in no danger of being spotted by the old man still living in the cottage. One warm evening Sam squeezed down the side of the garage, looking for the loose window where he had cut his arm all those years ago. The broken pane of gla.s.s had never been replaced. The window frame easily swung open, as before. He c.o.c.ked a leg over the window frame and pushed his head inside. The interior smelled of warm wood and mould. Even the darkness smelled of dust. As far as he could tell, most of Morris's equipment had been removed, but a few of the old features remained: the aeroplane propeller blade was still strung to the roof; the gutted jukebox rested in the corner along with the husks of penny-arcade machines. But Sam was afraid to climb in. He hung there for a while, half in, half out, unable to overcome either his fear or his memories entirely.

He pulled himself out of the garage and slipped away, nursing a sense of defeat.

Midsummer's Eve, and Redstone and District Social Club were hosting the annual Midsummer Queen beauty compet.i.tion. Judging was scheduled for seven o'clock that evening. A cash prize of 100 was on offer, plus a weekend holiday for two. The judges were the editor of the Coventry Evening Telegraph; George Crabb, the Coventry City Football Club top goalscorer; and someone or other who manufactured light aircraft.

Linda had entered.

Compet.i.tors had to appear in daywear, evening wear and swimwear. Because Linda had entered, Clive, Sam and Alice, along with Terry and Linda's boyfriend Derek, were dragooned into the living room to be an audience on which she could practise and parade her change of clothes. The Social Club conducted its business in a dirty nicotine fug where the tang of sour beer was sharp enough to sting the nostrils. It made no sense to sport swimwear in such a venue, Sam thought, and he said so.

'Don't be ridiculous,' said Alice.

'Killjoy,' said Terry.

Only Derek agreed with Sam, but the argument was hushed when Linda shyly entered the room modelling her daywear and performed a twirl. Clive and Terry put their fingers in their mouths and wolf-whistled. Linda blushed and smiled. Her face had been carefully made up by Dot, and she wore extraordinarily long false eyelashes and a simple miniskirt. Sam blushed too. Linda was stunning. She was heart-stoppingly desirable and utterly unattainable to him. She saw his blush, and she met his eyes for a moment before he looked away.

Linda went out and reappeared in a sky-blue swimsuit and white high heels. Sam remembered the shape of Linda's b.r.e.a.s.t.s, purple nipples erect in the moonlight as they had spied on Derek's Mini from the hedgerow that night. His eyes strayed to the soft mound of her pubis under the stretched, sky-blue cotton of the swimsuit. A cirrus of stray pubic hair was visible at the groin; he wanted to suggest she did something about it, but couldn't possibly draw attention to such a thing. His c.o.c.k fattened in his trousers and he shifted uncomfortably in his chair, glancing guiltily at Derek, but Linda's boyfriend only seemed nonplussed by the whole business.

'Good choice of colour!' Terry bawled. 'That'll get George Crabb going!'

After she'd modelled her evening wear, the show closed. Derek went out to fiddle with his Mini, getting ready to drive Linda up to the social club. 'She's gorgeous,' said Alice. 'She's breathtaking.'

Terry said, 'You should enter too, Alice.'

'Ha ha ha. No chance of that.'

Sam looked hard at her. Alice too was lovely but in a different way. She had beautiful bone structure. Yet her good looks intrigued, where Linda's comforted. 'Terry's right, you know.'