Guardians Of The Haunted Moor (14 page)

“
You’re wrong. That’s exactly when I have to love you. And you
weren’t being a dick—just tired and unhappy.”

“
Well, let’s not split hairs.” Lee tucked his arm through
Gideon’s. He bumped his brow once off his shoulder and led him
through into the living room, where a handful of fire was cheering
the beginnings of a cloudy twilight. “Are you hungry? Or have all
your villagers been plying you with cake?”

“
Mrs Waite offered me her killer sponge, but I declined. I’m
starving, actually—especially if that’s your chicken casserole I
can smell.”

“
With roast potatoes and carrots. It’ll be ten minutes or so.
Go and get changed, and I’ll fetch you a drink.”

The flat
was pristine. They’d been living in chaos for months. Lee must have
got out of bed and spent untold hours in tidying away their books
and papers, dusting shelves and hoovering dog hairs and baby crumbs
out of the sofa and carpets. The bed was neatly made and turned
back to air—just in case of lingering silver-eyed demons, Gideon
thought with pained amusement, stripping out of his uniform. The
bathroom had been cleared of Tamsyn’s toys, the whole flotilla and
menagerie it had taken to amuse her during a five-minute wash. He
showered and picked out a favourite outfit of Lee’s, the shirt and
trousers he’d worn to their anniversary dinner in July. If love and
goodwill could fix this hole in their lives, the job would get
done.

Eventually, somehow. In the little dining room they seldom
used, Lee was lighting candles at the table. Beneath his smile he
looked tired enough to die. He pressed a soft kiss to Gideon’s
cheek, and they went through the pantomime of pulling out chairs
for one another until the game broke into laughter and they both
sat down.

The
casserole was good. They’d each perfected a few simple recipes, and
this was Lee’s speciality, although more often of late they’d eaten
ready meals on the sofa, the baby propped between them and trying
to hijack each forkful as it passed. Zeke had said they were
spoiling her, not teaching her proper table manners, but they’d
have got around to it in time. And eating like this—just the two of
them sharing the table, napkins and nice silverware—wasn’t any
worse or better than the alternative, just different. They’d have
found the balance eventually, between doing everything with their
kid and separating out the strands of their own adult lives. These
things took practice, the trial-and-error stages most parents could
take for granted. They both ate conscientiously, doing justice to
the meal and the strength it brought. “That was gorgeous, love,”
Gideon said, giving them both permission to stop. “Thank
you.”

“
My pleasure. How did your interviews go?”

The
other menu option had been bitter herbs washed down with tears.
Gideon was fairly certain of that, just as he knew Lee had chosen
daily small talk over another anguished wrangle about their child.
“Routine. No surprises. Even Darren and Bill Prowse seem to have
been where they claim they were when John was killed, and everyone
else can account for themselves too. Nobody saw or heard anything
out of the ordinary at all.”

“
What about Bligh and Dev Bowe?”

“
Oh, no.” Gideon shook his head in comic reproof. “The village
bobby doesn’t get to do those interviews. CID deals with immediate
family.”

“
CID doesn’t know them from Adam.”

“
Well, that can be a good thing—no preconceptions. I’ll
probably be allowed to have a chat with them once they’ve been
eliminated.”

Lee’s
eyebrows went up. “What—as suspects?”

“
Yep. First port of call in a murder enquiry, the loving
relatives. Let’s face it—if ever Zeke was found murdered, I’d be
the likeliest perp, wouldn’t I?”

“
After me.”

They
both smiled. Their bitching about Zeke was mostly groundless now, a
habit. “I hope he’s all right,” Gideon said unguardedly, his
pre-dinner beer suddenly going to his head. “I’ll give him a call.
He was nearly as upset as we were, and maybe Elowen would phone or
text him even if she felt she couldn’t contact us. You know, just
to say how Tamsyn was doing.”

“
Gid...”

“
Look, I accept that rushing off to France is the wrong thing
to do. That doesn’t mean we can’t keep in touch. Or...” He paused,
a new fear twisting in him. “Is even that too painful for
you?”

“
For
me
?” Lee
got up. He took Gideon’s hand and drew him upright. “Come with me.
I have to tell you...” He swallowed hard and caught his breath.
“No. I have to
show
you something. Please.”

Gideon
followed him into the living room. The sky to the northwest was
still bright, red-gold light shafting through strange heavy cloud
sculptures. The fire gleamed brightly, somehow necessary despite
the evening’s warmth. “You even cleaned the hearth,” he said
uneasily. “The whole place looks great. You didn’t have to do it,
though—not as an apology.”

“
I know I didn’t have to. Sometimes if you’re tired and
unhappy, a clean house helps.” Lee had retained Gideon’s hand in
his own. “You read that so easily, didn’t you—why I did
it?”

“
I suppose so, yeah. But it’s obvious, isn’t it?”

“
Maybe. Where did I put the TV remote?”

“
On the edge of the bookcase. How am I supposed to find it
there?”

“
Think about it, Gid.”

The bookcase was behind him. All he had in his mind was an
image of Lee turning round and setting the remote down on the
shelf. “Oh. Did you, er... Did you
send
me that?”

“
No. You picked it up all by yourself because you weren’t
thinking about it. You do it half a dozen times a day. You read me
all the time, and I want you to do it now, because I can’t be on my
own in here with this—this
feeling
—anymore.”

“
What feeling? About Tamsyn?”

Lee nodded, his eyes darkening with frustration. Gideon ran a
thumb over his cheekbone. “How do I share that with you, though?”
he asked. “I... I
am
thinking about it now, and I’m not picking up anything at all.
Maybe I’ve developed a bit of married-man’s telepathy,
but—”

“
Oh, you’ve got no idea. You heard old man Fisher. You saw
Morris Hawke. And before you tell me that I was channelling those
things through to you, you saw and talked to Gwylim Kitto all on
your own—not to mention that the bloody Beast of Bodmin came and
scratched on your door to ask for help before I’d even met
you.”

“
What?”

“
Don’t you see that yet? You thought it was chasing you. And in
a way it was, but not to hurt you—to get you out onto the moors
where you belong and do what you’re best at. Helping people.
Finding lost souls.”

Gideon stood silently, feeling the mesh and the press of Lee’s
fingers between his, the grip tightening and releasing in a slow
rhythm. He remembered sanding down the front door of the old parish
house before it had gone on the market, because horror-movie claw
marks scored from top to bottom weren’t much of a selling point. He
remembered making love to Lee on the inside of that door—their
first exchange, while beyond it, incomprehensible forces of
moorland night snuffled and scratched and strained the barricade.
What had Lee said to him?
We have to seal
the gate...
“Please tell me,” he said at
last, “you don’t believe some fairytale monster ripped John Bowe
apart as a calling card for me.”

“
I don’t know. But you’re important in all this—so much more
than you ever let yourself know. You’re the good shepherd—the
guardian. Let me go for a second while I close the
curtains.”

“
Oh, no.”

“
What?”

“
We don’t have to... shut the place up, do we? Start taking
down the paintings?”

Lee
smiled, a bright unexpected flash. “Oh. No, not at all. That was
Hawke, and he more than met his match in you. I just don’t want our
neighbours to see us rolling around on the rug.”

Gideon
stared in astonishment. Good though the casserole had been, Lee
would have had to serve it with a Viagra cocktail to get any action
tonight. While he was still wondering how to break the news, Lee
came and stood in front of him. He undid the buttons of the old
plaid shirt. There was nothing intrinsically sexy in the action: he
could have been getting ready for a bath or for bed. But when he
was done, he looked up and met Gideon’s eyes. In the newly darkened
room, the firelight could have full sway. Lorna Kemp had done well
when she’d swapped out the unpronounceable Tyack for Tiger. In the
flickering shadows, Gideon could almost see his stripes. “You’re so
bloody beautiful,” he whispered, undoing the last button, the one
deliberately left fastened for him. “God give me strength to make
the most of you.”

“
You always do. The most of me, the best. I want you to come
inside of me.”

“
Oh.” Gideon’s performance anxiety evaporated like snow on a
hotplate. Lee’s occasional blunt statements of his needs and
desires had instantaneous, intoxicating effect. “I’ll go get the
lube, shall I?”

“
No, big man. For once I don’t mean it like that. Just come
here.”

They
went down on the hearthside rug awkwardly, almost shy with one
another in the intensity of Lee’s new meaning. Gideon rolled under,
closing his eyes in the gentle storm of kisses Lee was unleashing
on his brow, his throat, finally on his open mouth, tongue pushing
urgently. Lee grunted and lifted his hips, the signal clear for
Gideon to slide a hand down and unzip and unbutton them both. “I
love you,” Gideon managed between kisses, tugging his cock and
Lee’s out of their clothing. “And I’ll go along with whatever new
project you’ve got in hand, but... you are gonna get yourself
screwed tonight, son, if you carry on like this.”

“
Don’t mean to tease you.” Lee reached down and captured both
of them in a warm grip, holding them length-to-length together. “I
need you hot, though, so you can...”

“
Can what?”

He laid
his brow softly to Gideon’s. “So you can let go all your notions of
what you think you can and can’t do and just... come
in.”

Gideon
had no idea what he meant. He didn’t really care. It was enough to
lie here under his weight and heat and let the world drop away. He
saw a beach in his mind’s eye, a silver sea and a broad stretch of
sand. He was floating over the cliffs, which should have alarmed
him but didn’t. The air was sunny and full of the scent of gorse.
“What are you playing at, lover?” he asked lazily, writhing his
hips up against Lee’s grasp, instinctively curling a hand around
the back of his skull. “Where are we now?”

“
My borderlands. The edge. I need you to come
inland.”

There
was a holed stone on top of the cliff, like a displaced Mên-an-Tol
but much larger. When Gideon drifted closer—effortlessly, as if
drawn down through the air whilst at the same time comfortably
inhabiting his body by the fireside—he broke into laughter. The
stone was a hybrid megalith and Stargate. “Do we go through
there?”

“
Well, it works as a symbol, doesn’t it? Our heritage and our
wasted youth. I bet you watched it too.”

“
If the pastor wasn’t home. Even Zeke used to creep in
sometimes.”

“
All right, then. Come on.”

He
didn’t have to do anything. He let the stone, with its hieroglyphs
and ancient air of sanctity, leap up and swallow him. And then he
was inside Lee’s mind.

No.
Nothing so dramatic as that. He was still aware of himself and his
other half. He could see, clearly as if they were his own, all the
lights and the landscapes of Lee’s interior. He drew breath after
exhilarated breath and it wasn’t enough. He wanted to immerse
himself in this dazzling country, drown in it. “Easy,” Lee said,
releasing his hold and crushing their bodies together so Gideon
would feel the demands of his flesh in the fireside world. “We’re
not meant to see this much of one another, not in this life. And
this is just the edge.”

“
I love your edge. Why shouldn’t I see it?”

“
Because our nice thick, opaque skulls are there for a reason.
We have to understand one another from the outside. But just this
once I need you to look further. Come inside.”

They
were back in the flat. Gideon jolted under the impact of arrival.
It was weirder to occupy the next room and this one at the same
time than it had been to fly over Lee’s beach. They were standing
in the nursery, hand in hand. Tamsyn was safe in her cradle, sound
asleep. And surrounding her—head and foot of the crib, window side
and door side—sat four strange immobile versions of Isolde. Each of
them was facing outwards, and, grotesquely, each one wore a paper
mask with the crudely drawn face of a lamb. “What is this?” Gideon
said hollowly. “That’s our dog. Why are there four of
her?”

“
I’m not sure. Possibly it’s a directional thing. I didn’t have
a religious upbringing, but you remember the prayer your father
taught you—
Matthew, Mark, Luke and John,
bless this bed I lie upon
...”