And back her up. He’d have to. She’d given him a way out and he’d taken it, but it’d been the coward’s way out and he knew it. He’d go back and help however he could and if there was flak afterwards over Barrowman Farm, he’d take it, because that was his job. He’d take the lumps, and Ellie could have any gongs or praise that were going. She’d earned them.

Another five minutes, then he’d make his way back. He’d been out here long enough without even a whisper in reply. Call out a couple more times, then knock it on the head.

“Matlock from Sierra Four Five, urgent call, over. Matlock from Sierra Four Five, urgent call, over.”

Nothing. Only the mush of static, as blurred and formless as the snow and the dark.

Sod the five minutes; he’d head back now. He turned the key in the ignition and the headlights flared on.

Something moved up ahead.

He didn’t get a good look; it recoiled from the light, back into the darkness, but he got an impression of thinness and long, long limbs. Like a huge bloody spider.

Snow blurred and flurried through the headlights.

No. He’d seen nothing: shadows and snow, caught in the light. That was all. He was seeing patterns where there were none. Like Ellie. Too much imagination. That was a laugh. He could hear Thelma snorting at that: When was that ever your problem, Tom Graham? He could make out a silhouette in the snow, just at the edge of the light.

One of the picnic tables, that was it. But it was the wrong shape – too tall and thin. Well, the light played tricks, and the way the snow piled up on top of stuff could do the same with shapes and outlines.

But he knew the layout of the Height by now, after all these years, and there was no table directly ahead of where the car was parked now.

He’d got himself mixed up, that was it. Hadn’t parked quite where he’d thought. Besides, whatever he was looking at wasn’t moving. It was just standing still.

Same as it had been until he’d turned on the lights.

“Sod this,” he muttered aloud. He’d been heading back anyway, hadn’t he? Well, then; if this wasn’t his cue to shift his backside he didn’t know what was.

He shifted into reverse, looking up to check the rearview.

The wind lifted the snow like a curtain, revealing three thin, crouching shapes at the edge of the snowed-up picnic area, beside the road.

Tom Graham was not a man given to any language stronger than “bloody hell” and “sod that” – Thelma had cured him of that habit long ago, to the extent he’d ever possessed it – but he quite distinctly heard himself utter the words “Fuck me sideways” at this point, and in a dismayingly thin and wavery tone.