“Well, tread lightly. Folks round here, they’re trying to move on. Incident didn’t happen that long ago, but to them, they’ve got the guy for it. It’s resolved. There’s a sort of vigil at the church on Tuesday night if you want to see what I mean. Everyone wants to mourn the deaths of the Five and they want it to be over.” Amber went to the staircase, but before she began to ascend, she turned back. “And if you see Roger Claypath...” She trailed off. She thought for a second, opened her mouth and then closed it again. Wordlessly she went up the stairs and left Robin alone.

Had she looked scared? Or was it Robin transplanting his feelings onto her? He didn’t know.

He ran his finger over the notes he had made. The Standedge Five were starting to become more fleshed out in his mind, and so was his caller, Matthew. Seemed like there were some complex feelings between Matthew and the rest of the group.

What had Amber called Matthew? He searched through his notes, almost unable to read his hurried handwriting. A rubber band, she had said, that was stretched and wound to fit the group.

Robin looked at the photo of the Five. What appeared to be a happy night in the basement of The Hamlet. Without Matthew. He wondered how the young man would feel if he saw this very photo.

How far could you stretch a rubber band until it snapped?

Chapter Nine

Robin put his suitcase and backpack in the room and turned the small television on, but couldn’t settle. He felt there was one last thing he needed to do before he went to sleep.

He had to see it for himself. He had to see Standedge. Even though he knew he couldn’t go inside. He had to see it with his own eyes.

So he turned off the television, got his coat and went back out.

The evening had turned to a bitterly cold night. A wind was blowing through the empty streets with alarming speed. If Marsden seemed empty before, now it seemed like a ghost town. Robin retraced his steps up to the station, knowing from the maps that Standedge lay to the left instead of the right he had taken to get to the town.

He took the left and found himself almost instantly walking parallel to the canal that had made its way under the bridge he had crossed earlier. He followed the canal, hearing the soft lap of water between the gusts of wind. He continued down a country path until he turned a corner. And paused as he took another bridge over the canal.

And there it was.