He called, ‘Martin!’

‘Yes?’ The lad appeared at the open doorway.

‘I’m not sure where it is.’

‘Please, you have to find it. It’s important. Fabian needs …’

And he stopped speaking.

‘Who’s Fabian? Someone from the squat?’

‘A friend, that’s all.’

‘OK, OK. It’s here.’

Hobbes took the wristwatch from its resting place in a wooden box filled with signet rings, tie-pins, cufflinks and the like. He handed it over. ‘I don’t think it works any more. If you’re thinking of …’

‘I’m not going to sell it, don’t worry.’ Martin looked at the object avidly, his face filled with happiness. ‘This is good. It’s just right! Thank you.’

The wristwatch rested on the palm of Martin’s gloved hand.

Hobbes spoke gently. ‘Son, show me your hands.’ There was no response. ‘If there’s anything wrong, you know you can—’

Martin groaned. ‘Perhaps I shouldn’t have come here. You won’t stop.’

Hobbes felt a sudden desperation. ‘If you need help, anything at all …’

‘I won’t bother you any more, don’t worry.’

And his eyes were held so wide open that the light itself was swallowed within them: dark, dark. This was a young man with a different plan for life.

He moved away, along the hallway.

Hobbes tried to stop him, to hold on to him. He called, ‘Wait!’

But his son had already made it to the front door. He was running up the side alley, wheeling his cycle alongside. Hobbes went after him, but Martin was too quick, and he managed to swing a leg over the frame of the bike and to carry on in the same movement, pedalling furiously, turning on to the road and making his escape, riding erratically as though drunk or high on life.

Hobbes watched until the figure had vanished around a corner.

A night sharp and clear under the streetlamps and a cloudless moon.

Everyday Strangeness

There were only four people around the open grave, and that included the priest. A pitiful turnout. Hobbes watched from a way off, half hidden by a copse of trees at the cemetery’s edge. He wasn’t sure what he was hoping for: certainly, more people. And then a twitch of nerves maybe, something that told him a malign presence was near. But he felt nothing, no sensations other than cold and the usual ache in his heart whenever he attended a funeral.

It had rained earlier in the day and now the air was grey and misty, a perfect setting for the end of a lonely life. The priest made the usual gestures, the same pattern, no matter who had died, and his words were hardly audible at this distance. A spell to ease the pathway ahead, through the darkness.

Nicholas Graves stood with his head held high, a proud man suddenly. Perhaps it was a show for the woman at his side, no doubt one of the two sisters he had mentioned in his interview. She was a little older than him. Standing slightly apart was a younger man, perhaps one of Leonard’s grandchildren. There was a slight family resemblance.