Normal: The Most Original Thriller Of The Year. Graeme Cameron

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СКАЧАТЬ of profane taunts and leering catcalls. Her lovelorn dawdling pleased me somewhat, since I was both optimistic that her improved mood would make my job easier and anxious that she should be finished on the phone when it did so.

      In the event it didn’t matter. Lost in flirtation, Annie found the stone stairs leading to the towpath beside the river. One dreamy step at a time, she giggled her way down into the darkness beneath the bridge. I watched her from above as she paced in a circle, distractedly kicking small stones into the water, head tilted over to hold the phone in the crook of her neck, hands thrust snugly in her pockets. At length, I watched her drift ever farther from the bridge. And when she was all but out of sight, I followed.

      In the shadows beside the water, the air was heavy and still. The towpath is bordered by a high stone wall, at the top of which is the busy station approach. Most of the traffic noise wafts overhead, making the path a relative sea of calm. The bridges along this stretch of the river are too low for a sail mast but passable by small pleasure cruisers which, at night, occupy every available inch of mooring space. The sounds here are of water lapping against fiberglass, fiberglass rubbing against wood. The only light is that which drifts across from the carvery on the far bank, or down from the streetlights on the road above.

      The path was deserted but for Annie and me; the lights of the restaurant faded behind us, the riverbank widened and the horse-chestnuts thickened, and all was impeccably dark and serene. Beyond the far shore, the cathedral spire rose proudly above a blackened tree line, a glowing beacon of humanity against a soulless gray-orange sky.

      Annie finally stopped wandering to rest against a life-buoy station; the orange float was long gone, an easy and attractive target for small-minded vandals. I melted into the trees, listening silently to a conversation winding down: can’t-waits and won’t-be-longs, okay-I-promises and hold-that-thoughts. I wondered what Caroline was doing just then. I heard Annie say her goodbyes, waited while she wallowed in the misty-eyed afterglow. I watched her dawning realization of having strayed farther than she’d intended; she spun around and around, taking in the darkness, the silence, her solitude. Her unremarkable eyes flashed disorientation and frustration, and weariness at the prospect of the long walk back.

      And then, movement. In the shrubbery not twenty feet away, a dark form, hunched, creeping. Annie sensed it, too; she snapped her head around, peering into the blackness behind her. The dark shape turned statue. I could all but smell the adrenaline coursing through it as it crouched, barely breathing until, after what surely felt like hours, Annie released a long breath of her own and turned back to the path. I remained rigid, upright; I let her pass me, glancing nervously behind her as the figure moved almost silently through the brush. It was among the trees now, virtually on top of me as Annie quickened her pace, and then in a blink it was out on the path and running.

      She certainly heard it then. She turned, eyes wide, to face it as it bore down on her, let out a half gasp as it knocked her off her feet. Before I could react, she was in the undergrowth, cursing and spitting, coat ripped open. Her assailant hunched over her, alternately swatting away her flailing limbs and working on her belt.

      Incensed, I broke free of my incredulous trance and the cover of the trees and, snatching up a fallen branch from the ground, stepped into the open mere feet from the struggle. A clearing of my throat was enough to gain the predator’s attention. He looked up at me sharply and froze, mouth agape, eyebrows hitched up almost to his hairline. A kid, no more than twenty-one, dressed from head to toe in black synthetic fibers, his blazing orange eyebrows a fair giveaway as to the identifying feature hidden beneath his beanie hat. Annie had stopped struggling and stared up at me, her eyes undecided between panic and relief. The kid, small but solidly built, had straddled her, pinning her wrists to the frozen earth with his spidery hands, her ankles with his own. Eyes fixed on the hefty limb I held before me, he didn’t move a muscle.

      “Leave,” I said. “Now.”

      The kid, to his credit, didn’t need telling twice; he was off, vanishing into the darkness from whence he came minus his wallet and one of his shoes.

      “You okay?”

      “Oh, my God.” Annie lay there, coat spread, shirt hitched up, belt unbuckled. “How stupid am I?”

      “Not your fault,” I lied, tossing the branch back among the trees. “Are you hurt?”

      She shook her head, reached up to take my outstretched hand. “No, I’m a mess, though.” I helped her to her feet, and she straightened out her clothes, fastened her belt, shook out her hair. “I don’t even know what I’m doing here,” she mused. “Christ, if you hadn’t come along—”

      “Yeah, I did, though, so don’t think about it.” I gave her space to gather the few contents of her bag from where they’d exploded across the path. “Do you want me to take you to the police?” I offered. “I’m just parked up at the train station.”

      “God, I don’t know whether I can go through all that tonight.” She slung her bag over her shoulder, gave her pockets one last check. “I do need to find a train, though, so if you’re walking that way...” She finally looked up at me, puppy eyes at the ready. She seemed remarkably untraumatized.

      “You’re sure you’re okay?”

      “I’m sure,” she said. “I just want to get home.”

      I conceded. She turned off her phone and dropped it into her bag, and I spitefully kicked the kid’s shoe into the river as we set off briskly back toward the lights and the noise. “So,” I asked her, “what’s your name?”

      “Annie,” she said.

      What were the odds on that?

       CHAPTER SIX

      Annie made a hell of a mess.

      I’d convinced her that the last train had probably gone and that even if it hadn’t, I was going her way and could get her home sooner and in greater comfort. On the basis that I’d saved her from an unpleasant mauling and was therefore to be trusted, she happily accepted a ride.

      To be quite honest, when she invited me in for tea, I fully intended to just drink it and leave. In spite of my earlier intentions, I found Annie’s company pleasant and her conversation lively and interesting—sufficiently so to distract me from looking out for deserted lanes and vacant lots along the route. I also felt an unexpected pang of protectiveness, and by the time we reached the coast, my only urge was to see her home safely.

      However, one cup of tea became several, and Annie matched every one I drank with a tumbler of vodka. As we talked, it quickly became apparent that this was no one-off, that the dismissive actions of the man in her life drove her most nights into the arms of a bottle.

      His name was Jeremy and by two in the morning, when I finally removed the last of the stains from the carpet, I’d grown to dislike him intensely. He seemed to me grossly egotistical and of low moral standing.

      “He wouldn’t tell me where he lived,” Annie recounted as she filled her glass for the third time, halfway with vodka and topped with a splash of cranberry juice. “Said he had nosy neighbors and they were friendly with his ex-wife, and that she’d make life difficult for him if she knew he was seeing anyone. I know, I didn’t buy it, either. So I followed him one night.” She took a long gulp of her drink, one that took her three attempts to swallow. “I did that thing, you know, ‘follow that taxi!,’ and I followed him right to his front door. I СКАЧАТЬ