The Fearful (22 page)

Jenny summed it up.
‘Everybody's
Fearful now.'

Bill didn't comment. Instead: ‘Mrs Collins said something about a journalist hanging around.'

‘We didn't speak to him,' Jenny said. ‘He was asking the
other kids loads of questions. But it's okay, because they're all on our side now.'

‘It's not about sides,' Bill said as he put the van into gear.

As they drove both Tim and Jenny listed all the names of the teachers and students who'd made donations, and the promises they'd given to come to the Feed more often. Then they sat in silence, all a little bemused, maybe even suspicious. Tim knew the long list had plenty of names on it that Bill had never even heard before, even in a small town like Moutonby.

They crossed the Dows Bridges, past Bert and Agna's pub. Jenny jabbed Tim's shoulder and pointed out the notice that had been stuck in the big front window:
FEED YOURSELF AFTER FEEDING THE MOURN. MONSTER LUNCHTIME SPECIALS EVERY SATURDAY
.

‘Things are getting out of hand,' was Bill's response.

They turned off the main road onto the dirt track across the waste ground. At first Tim couldn't believe his eyes. There were maybe a dozen tents and caravans spread out along the lakeside. More TV vehicles had arrived. Everybody had binoculars or cameras.

‘What's happening?' Jenny said, wide-eyed.

‘Rubbernecks,' Bill growled. ‘The kind of people who stop at traffic accidents to look for the blood.'

‘Is this good?' Tim asked, wondering if this was what Uncle Doug had had in mind.

‘If you like
ghouls
,' Bill said.

There were traffic cones across the front of the driveway to stop other people from parking there and Bill had to get
out of the van to move them before he could drive through himself. A
PRIVATE PROPERTY
notice had also been put up. This was all very new and bizarre. Tim and Jenny exchanged glances.

There was a van already parked in the driveway, with
ROSS FRASER GLAZIER
written on the back doors – here for the kitchen window. Bill pulled up behind it and switched the engine off. He turned round to face the two of them. ‘Just go inside. Take no notice of what anybody says, all right? Straight in.'

‘Is everything okay?' Jenny asked.

Bill sighed; was perhaps considering not telling them. ‘There's been another sighting,' he said.

Tim was amazed. ‘What? Where?'

‘Over on the western shore. Close to where it first appeared to Old William, as far as I can make out. I'm getting told as little as you at the minute.' He wasn't happy about it, and the strain of events was showing in his face.

Jenny asked quietly, ‘Was anybody hurt?'

‘No, fortunately. But nobody thought it was worth bothering to tell me until a couple of hours afterwards, so I've called for an extra Feed tomorrow – everybody knows.'

‘There wasn't another earthquake, was there?'

Bill shook his head angrily. ‘The Mourn doesn't need special effects. You should
know
that by now. For goodness' sake, this isn't the
movies
.' He near enough bit her head off.

Tim wondered what he was so angry about. Surely this could be seen as good news too, couldn't it? Then he
wondered if it was because Bill hadn't seen the creature himself. He was the Mourner after all, and yet he'd still never set eyes on it.

‘Who saw it?' he asked.

‘It was some young woman from out of town. She says she tried to get a picture of it. We don't know if the picture's come out yet; we'll just have to wait and see.' He pushed open his door with a creak of metal. ‘I've got to go out on the water again in case some idiot falls in. You two get yourselves inside.'

Tim took his time climbing out of the van and looking around the lake. Never in a million years had he believed he'd see something like this. It confused him. Was this good news or bad? He followed Jenny into the house, wanting to ask her opinion. For a second he almost forgot why it was all happening.

‘Jenny . . .?' But the question turned to dust in his mouth.

Anne was sitting at the kitchen table with a middle-aged couple he'd never seen before. The woman's eyes were red and obviously sore from a long day and night of tears. The man had a hand on her shoulder. He was still weeping. Next to them was Scott, stony-faced.

Tim instantly knew who these people were. Gully's parents. They were people who'd just lost their son. There was an almost physical thump in his chest as the facts of the matter hit home. Whatever was happening around the lake would never be good news for them.

Behind them, through the brand-new kitchen window, he could see the police boats trawling the deep water.

IT WAS HEADLINE
news. Splashed across the front page in bold, black letters.

Caroline Bow: a nurse from Manchester, by chance visiting friends here in Moutonby. She'd heard about the ‘kerfuffle' down at the lake and had gone along ‘just to be nosy, really'. But she'd been the one to see what everybody else was talking about.

Jenny held the newspaper so that Tim was able to read it over her shoulder. ‘What d'you think?'

He didn't answer, but took the paper from her so that he could read it again. He wanted to concentrate on each and every word to be absolutely certain of not missing anything. Yes, he'd read about her in another paper. Yes, he'd seen her interviewed on TV. But this particular story might have something different, something extra.

They were in room six, Jack Spicer's room, and had found the paper on the dressing table. They weren't snooping; they'd been asked by Anne to help clean the rooms. No school for either of them today. They had originally meant to go in late because of the emergency Feed Bill had called. He'd wanted them to go as soon as it was
over but the Head had phoned with the request that they take the day off altogether. Apparently there was not just one but a whole horde of reporters hanging around outside the school gates. Mrs Collins thought it would be far too disruptive for the other students if Jenny and Tim were to attend classes. All Bill and Anne could do was reluctantly consent. But not before putting brother and sister under strict house arrest.

They had plenty to keep them occupied, however, because Mourn Home was full. Every room was taken; it was so busy you'd be forgiven for thinking it was the height of summer. This was why Anne and Nana Dairy were doing an emergency shop at the wholesalers. The Feed earlier had been attended by what Tim reckoned was about a hundred people – a fair few of whom hadn't even been locals.

Tim looked at the photo of Caroline Bow in the newspaper. He couldn't say he remembered her being there, but then there had been so many new faces in the crowd.

Jenny was doing all the work. ‘Tim?'

He shushed her. ‘Just a minute.'

The nurse's description was a little different to what Jack Spicer claimed to have seen, but it was weird that she'd been at almost exactly the same spot where Old William and the schoolboys had been attacked. There was a photo of that spot – the trees crowding down to the shingle at the water's edge. There was a photo of Caroline Bow too. He studied the slightly fuzzy black and white image of her. She was youngish looking, not as old as Anne or Uncle Doug, with long, light hair. She'd obviously been posed pointing out at
the lake. The expression on her face was hard to read – perhaps she looked a little embarrassed. What she didn't look was barmy.

‘Do you believe her?' he asked Jenny.

She was bundling up the sheets she'd just stripped from the bed. ‘Why bother to make it up?'

Good question – why? To get her picture in the paper? He reckoned there were better ways to do it, ways which didn't automatically get people calling you a
nutter
, anyway. There was a particular tone to the interview that he recognized all too well. It was insinuating, sniggering. It was the way he'd often heard people talk to his father. Why would a nurse from Manchester come all this way to make up a story?

‘I think—' Tim started, but didn't get chance to say exactly what it was he thought because Jack Spicer appeared through the door. He jumped, realizing he was holding the old man's paper and immediately started apologizing. This was their first meeting since Saturday in the Dows Bridges, but Mr Spicer seemed to have other things on his mind.

‘Don't bother yourselves, I'm not checking up on you. I've just come for my hat and scarf. It's too sharp for this old man out there.' He bent over the chest of drawers and had his back to them when he asked, ‘What do you make of her, then? This nurse.'

Tim and Jenny exchanged glances. ‘What do you mean?' Tim asked.

The old man was rummaging. ‘I reckon she needs
glasses. She should know that, her being a nurse, don't you think?'

The twins remained quiet.

‘Didn't you notice? She makes it sound more like a big wet wolf or something. Bit different to what
I
saw, wouldn't you say?'

Tim wasn't sure how to answer. Jenny was no help. She ducked out of the conversation by unfolding the clean sheets across the bed, busying herself.

Jack Spicer was insistent. ‘I think what I saw tallies more with what we all know the Mourn to look like, don't you?' He pulled his scarf from the drawer like a magician pulling a silk handkerchief from his sleeve.

‘She says she saw it at the same place Old William did.' Tim held up the paper in an attempt to show the photo. ‘It's just here where the marker stone is and—'

Mr Spicer rode right over him. ‘Fur on its head, she says. And a
muzzle.
It's the “dragon in the lake”, not the big soggy
mutt.'
He was particularly scornful and threw his woolly scarf around his neck, yanked it tight. ‘What do you think she saw?'

Tim squirmed. ‘Erm . . .'

‘I'm betting it
was
a dog. What're you betting, young Tim?' Then, when Tim remained stuck for an answer, the old man smiled thinly. ‘Sensible lad. I would've had the shirt off your back. It was a dog, I say, and that's why her supposed photo has never been shown. The sooner she stops kidding herself the sooner she can stop kidding the rest of us. All she's doing is muddying the water. Look at it out there – bloody circus is what it is.'

He pointed out through his first-floor window at the view of the lake. Both Tim and Jenny followed his finger. Lake Mou had probably never seen anything like it. A loose necklace of people, tents, cars, TV vans and camera crews was strung from WetFun on the eastern shore all the way round the water's edge and into the woods to the west. Mourn Home was the pendant that hung in the middle of the chain. People were wrapped up against the cold but sitting on bright and stripy deckchairs, or in their parked cars pointed out at the water, or on picnic blankets, with mugs of hot tea steaming in their hands. Were they watching for the Mourn, or waiting in the hope of seeing Gully's body dredged up by the police divers? It was a circus all right. Even so, Tim thought he should be out there too.

‘She should keep her mouth shut if she doesn't know what she's saying.' A vein, like a streak of lightning, appeared on the old man's forehead. ‘It's just making your job harder, young Tim.' He wagged his spindly finger. ‘I don't envy you and your dad.'

Tim just nodded. It seemed the safest thing to do. But he knew he should be out on the lake with his father, or patrolling the shore, or just keeping everybody out of the water. He was the Mourner in three days' time, wasn't he? And here he was making beds and emptying wastepaper baskets.

Mr Spicer nodded too, at his own supposed wisdom. Then he turned to Jenny. ‘Make certain you tuck that bottom sheet in well, my dear. I can't sleep when it pulls itself out in the night.'

‘I'll be sure it's done properly.'

‘That's a girl.'

Tim caught the flash of resentment in Jenny's eye and guessed she believed she should also be out in the thick of it.

The old man was about to leave but he took the paper from Tim and stared at the photo. With a shake of his head he said, ‘Some people, eh? Nothing better to do with their lives.' He folded the paper under his arm and disappeared out into the hallway.

Tim waited until the footsteps had receded. “What was all that about?'

‘Can't you guess?'

‘Do you reckon he's jealous someone else has seen it too?'

‘Well, you know how much he loved the attention he got last Saturday morning. And he is the only one who's been getting it for the last thirty years.'

‘I would've thought he'd be pleased. You know, someone to prove him right.'

Jenny just shrugged. ‘Who knows? But if you give me a hand we can get out of here quick in case he comes back.'

They moved along the hallway to what had been Uncle Doug's room. There were suitcases on the floor with clothes spilling out of them. The American couple, Mike and Sylvie, had moved in in a hurry, obviously just dumping their stuff before scurrying out with their camcorder's battery charged up and ready to roll.

Originally they'd planned on leaving today but everything
that had happened had persuaded them to stay on longer. Which would have been fine under normal circumstances, but Uncle Doug had booked all the rooms out to people from the British Geological Survey, who were here to investigate the earthquake. He was particularly keen on having them stay because he'd been able to charge them twice the normal room rate.

‘Big organizations can afford more,' had been his reasoning. ‘Mike and Sylvie are a lovely couple, but—'

‘But they're
my
guests, Doug,' Bill had argued at breakfast. ‘And I don't throw
my
guests out into the street.'