

The Winter Sickness

By

John Eider

Copyright 2015 John Eider

Smashwords Edition

Smashwords Edition, License Notes

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you're reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

Chapter 1 – His Last Day of Term

Toby switched off his laptop. He folded down the screen then placed it in the top drawer of the lab workbench he was sitting at. He locked the drawer and took the key, to hand to the receptionist as he walked out. He wouldn't be needing it again for three months. It was the Sixteenth of November; he was breaking up for the holidays.

Toby was a Lab Assistant at Carvel Technical College. The semester wouldn't end for at least another month. Yet Toby, Tobe as some called him, had a special dispensation. It was a clause without which he couldn't have accepted his contract of employment: the freedom to leave his post for a twelve-week period each winter.

His bags were packed and by his side. He'd brought them from his apartment that morning, which was now similarly locked up. That key had been left with the concierge of his condominium block, as for those three months he wouldn't be back there either.

Toby loved his job at Carvel Tech, and had been there almost ten years now, ever since his graduation from that same establishment. Carvel was a good sized town: modern, prosperous, open – everything Toby's hometown hadn't been. It was the hub of learning, culture, sports and shopping for miles around, a constant draw for the young people of the rural and mountain settlements that were scattered in a several-hundred-mile radius. You had to go a long way past Carvel, maybe even to the State Capital itself, to find better in most fields.

Toby had been one such rural youngster himself, who had been drawn there to learn. Yet each year he had to leave again, leave the job he loved, and it was hardly through choice.

'Why can't it be summer when I have to go back?' he asked himself quietly, as he did every year at this time. 'Everyone else clears off for months in the summer. Why am I the only one to lose all their leave at winter?' It had harmed his career, and it brought him regret.

It was a bright day though, and Toby found it hard to stay blue. The lab had not been hosting any classes that morning, and so was free for Toby to work in. He had finished up his projects with the blinds drawn back. Now he was leaving early to make the most of the short-day light.

'Off on your vacation, Tobe?' asked Merrill, a fixture at the Faculty for as long as Toby had been working there. He must have come along the corridor without being heard.

'Be thankful that your family don't live up in the hills,' responded Toby with forced joviality – it was an exchange they made every winter when he went away.

'Snowed in for three months a year,' said Merrill, shaking his head. 'I don't know how you manage it.'

Toby's colleague said these words more in pity than any other feeling. They had been Lab Assistants together at the start, a post Toby effectively still held, despite being made up to Senior Research Assistant by their leading Professor. Yet this title was little more than a sop to reward his efforts.

In that time though Merrill had received his doctorate, had become a member of the Faculty Board, was on his way to being made an Associate of the College. Yet it was common knowledge that, were it not for his extended forced absences, then Toby might be doing just as well. Merrill had become in every way his colleague's senior, not that it changed things between them. He only knew his friend could do better.

Merrill also found that he hated Toby's townsfolk – who of course he'd never met: hated them for holding back their children's prospects; for demanding that they make these stupid yearly migrations to their snowed-in outpost in the mountains. Nice place to visit for a sight-seeing trip perhaps, but really..?

Toby got down off his high stool. He took his bags in one hand, and held out the other to shake Merrill's with.

'Till February then.'

'February,' chimed his friend mechanically.

And with that Toby was gone.

Chapter 2 – Early-finish

'You can tell he's bitter about it,' said Merrill in the bar a little later that day. He was sitting with others from the lab after Friday early-finish. With so many students from rural communities boarding in the town, they closed at lunchtime on Fridays to let them get back home for weekends. It meant the other workday evenings were packed with extra sessions, and left Friday lunchtime as the Faculty staff's chance to blow off steam.

Merrill went on, 'He hates the last few days, you can see it in him.'

'Well, we don't come from the mountains,' added one of the others around the table, a Biology Master called Harris. 'We don't know how they live there.'

'And anyway,' asked another, 'aren't they all religious maniacs?'

That last speaker hadn't been at Carvel Tech too long. And his ignorance brought a sharp look from Merrill.

Yet they were interrupted by the Professor, looking for Merrill and finding him where he expected him to be at half-past-two on a Friday afternoon. The grand old man made his way past the pool players and liberated factorymen, toward the table.

'So,' summarised the Professor in response to his young colleague, and sitting down with a beer himself. 'You've been here long enough to hear the talk around the department? About what Toby gets up to in his hometown in the mountains?'

'Sounding his mouth off is what he's doing,' said Merrill.

'Look, I meant no offence...'

'Well, you know what?' said the Professor to the young staffer. 'I'm not going to disagree with you. It could well be seen as cranky that they're up there in the mountains all those months. He goes up every November, doesn't come down till February. With the roads closed it's the only way to spend Christmas with his family.'

The Professor went on, 'And yes, their town is famous locally for their religious festival. But there's nothing odd about the celebration of Candlemas, which is known all over Europe and is as old as Christmas or Easter.'

'But...' the newest member of staff stuttered, 'isn't all that hymn-singing and candle-lighting a bit... contrary to everything we're trying to achieve at a research lab?'

'You mean anti-scientific?' The Professor pondered, before answering, 'Toby came to study with us because he was bright. He came a long way, and left a lot behind. We let him take his courses over extra terms to make up for the months he missed. After graduation, I was glad to have him join us at the lab. At no time have I ever noticed any heavy religiosity about him.'

He continued, 'And anyway, I dare say the residents of that town have a lot to want to celebrate come February Second, what with the kind of winter they'll be having.' (The Professor couldn't have known how close he was to the mark.) 'Have you seen the long-term forecasts?' he asked rhetorically.

Merrill hunched over his Bud,

'Well, it's killing his career.'

To which the Faculty Head's silence said it all. Before agreeing,

'I can make him Senior Research Assistant all day long. But with him not being here for such important times of the year...'

'He misses the end of one semester and the start of the next.'

'...it means he's never going to get his own classes.'

The conversation was becoming maudlin – not what any of them wanted on a Friday blow-out. Around them people whooped and shot pool and sung along to country-rock. Yet at their table all anybody said was,

'He's secretive though, isn't he.'

This was Harris, the biologist. The Professor was called upon again to explain,

'I daresay growing up in a place like that makes you so – he won't have known many people from outside.'

'Well, he's never kept any secrets from me,' struck Merrill in further defence.

'But what do you know of any wife, or girlfriend?' asked Harris.

'A girl,' said one of the group. 'He used to have a photo.'

'Yes, he did!' recalled anther. 'But not lately.'

'Perhaps she broke his heart?' asked Harris.

'And how would you know?' Merrill was getting grumpy now.

'I'm only saying that he doesn't give away a whole bunch about his personal life.'

'He tells me,' shot Merrill, almost tearful. 'Her name's Janey. She's from his home town.'

'Well, there we go then,' concluded Harris as if settling an argument.

Before another of them asked,

'So, where's Jake today?'

Chapter 3 – At the Station

As it was such a bright day, Toby ditched the cab he'd sometimes take, and instead walked across town from the College to the railway station. As he walked along wide sidewalks of wider roads, he found it was one of those walks where he paid extra attention to everything he saw as he passed.

He saw the bright green football fields; noticed the lights and noises of the games arcade; drew on memories of avenues he'd caroused down on nights out, or had walked local girls home along. Girls he'd known, but had always let go without a fight.

'Goodbye to all that,' he said. 'Farewell happy fields.'

A little later, Toby stood beneath the early-afternoon sun on the east platform of Carvel Central Station. He could scarcely believe it was already mid-November again. With the weather still this good, he wondered if he could have given himself another fortnight before travelling. But that would only have been putting-off the inevitable.

He had a bag in hand, others resting around him, and was inches away from leaving for another three-month stint. He imagined himself a ward-of-court: and if Carvel was the kind family who had adopted him, then Stove (for that was the name of his hometown) was the cranky unsafe birth-parent who he could never quite fall out of love with. If love was the right word.

'So, off home for the holidays?'

Toby recognised the voice before he'd turned to meet it. It was that of Jake, from the Faculty.

'What... are you leaving too?' he asked ridiculously, it being over a month before the rest of the world moved for the season.

'No, I catch this train every Friday,' explained Jake. 'You wouldn't know, as you only catch it once a year, right? My family are... well, not as far along the line as yours are, I'll wager.'

'Right,' said Toby looking back along the rail line. In his mind he had left the Faculty behind, and wasn't ready to be known again.

'You'll be celebrating Candlemas then?' continued Jake. 'A fascinating festival. Amazing we've forgotten it in the modern world. But then you don't get any presents for it, do you.' He chuckled loudly in the open air of the railroad platform.

'Right,' repeated Toby, wishing he could leave, in any direction and on any form of transport.

'I wonder if I wouldn't like to see your town celebrate it one year.'

'But the roads are snowed in,' snapped back Toby, far too quickly and defensively.

'So I've heard,' was all Jake answered. 'Hard weather you have up there.'

'It can be,' answered Toby, with the distinct feeling that he was being questioned.

'Must be tough?'

'Yes.'

'No getting in or out.'

'No,' he answered tersely.

'You don't know what might happen.'

Silence.

'An emergency, a crisis.'

Glaring silence.

'Something going wrong.'

Breathless silence.

'You don't know how it could end up.'

And then the Tannoy rang, ding dong, 'The train now approaching...' to draw out those sitting on benches or drinking coffee in the rest areas.

Toby reached down for his bags like someone grabbing for a life-raft. He hadn't breathed for ten seconds.

'Well, I see a friend along the way there who I think I'll ride with,' said Jake in his infuriating ease.

'Right,' answered Toby with comparative rictus smile.

'So, I'll see you next spring. Or even sooner.' And with a smile, Jake was gone along the platform to be lost among the gathering crowd.

Back at the bar, the Professor found Merrill alone at a one-armed bandit.

'I didn't know you played these.'

'I don't. I just wanted to get away from that table.'

'You're upset, but don't be. They don't know Toby like we do. I suppose his yearly disappearance must seem odd.'

'Maybe, if it was any of their business.'

The Professor paused, before saying, 'His leaving has got me remembering though.'

'Oh?'

'Well, for a couple of years he didn't go back, did he.'

Merrill's eyes widened. 'No. You're right.'

'It might even have been three years straight. Had I remembered before coming here I'd have checked the registers. He stayed in Carvel right through the season, had his Christmas dinner at the Marriot Hotel. I know, as one of the students saw him there while waitressing.'

'You know, I'd forgotten that,' said Merrill.

'I remember thinking how we might get his career back on track. But then he started leaving again.' The Professor asked Merrill then, 'He's never told you what happened those three years?'

'No, I don't think he has.'

'Harris is right though, isn't he. Toby doesn't talk about himself.'

'He talks to me.'

The Professor spoke as quietly as possible in the noisy bar, 'He talks to you about baseball and beer, Merrill. If only you interrogated your workmates like you do your specimens in Petri dishes.'

To which Merrill pondered, raising his bottle almost to his lips,

'I get more sense from the specimens.'

Chapter 4 – Riding on Trains

What the hell had Jake meant by those final words? thought Toby an hour later, sat at his empty table seat. He watched the rolling fields whistle past his window as the train left the city behind. It was a modern coach, with high bright windows that let in the sky. It was one of those late-autumn afternoons that until two or three o'clock was as bright as summer, but would have started feeling cold to have been out in. Yet, insulated in the carriage, with that landscape flowing past him like a moving masterpiece, Toby could almost forget that it was the winter he was heading into. And how he longed to forget...

The train ran along the main line that led west from the city; firstly to the edge of the mountains, where it met the stop closest to Stove. After that it buckled north to find an easier path through those snowy peaks toward the isolated coast.

Toby had wanted to sit facing backwards, so as to better forget the towering mountains approaching. Yet he was a pragmatist, and so he made himself sit facing forwards. That way he could judge the rate of their approach and the weather they might meet there.

For now, the snowcapped mountaintops were only glistening diamonds in the distance, hovering over the endless agricultural plains. They glinted vivid blue through the haze of the atmosphere. Toby recalled that the curvature of the Earth meant that to see anything more than twenty miles away meant that it must be very tall. And those mountains were very much more than twenty miles away – the train wouldn't even reach the foothills for another hour.

Yet no one needed to tell Toby of the power of those peaks, of how they held the lives of those who lived among them in peril. His own life had been unalterably shaped by the mountains – deformed by them, some might say. And at that point, hurtling toward the glimmering monoliths for another wretched winter season, Toby wouldn't have disagreed with them.

How odd, it occurred to him then, to be moving in so modern and bright a vehicle so quickly toward somewhere so dark and old and unchanging?

Toby had seen a picture once, a picture in two halves. In fact it was the same picture twice over. It was of a steam train, about to leave a crowded station. One side of the picture showed the locomotive surrounded by families, parting couples, rushing porters. Everyone was dressed gaily, off on their holidays or wishing loved-ones a safe journey.

The other side of the picture was near identical in setting, the train and everyone around it in the same positions. Only now the coaches were painted drab olive, with the men boarding them in khaki and carrying kitbags off to war. Their wives and girlfriends hugged them through open windows, not knowing if they'd meet again. The skill of the artist had been palpable, and Toby had not forgotten it.

Now Toby felt as though he alone had somehow gotten on the wrong train, had slipped into the opposite side of the painting. He was off to war, while all around him were people off on their weekend jollies. In the carriage children laughed, young couples necked; old ladies did their knitting, needles clicking. Was he the only one miserable, while all around him were carefree?

Or maybe not everyone...

The train would make a dozen stops, and would serve all manner of communities – rural, mountain, coastal. Yet Toby would not be the only one getting off at his station. And he fancied he would sense who the others were if he saw them.

It was something in the eyes, a horror hidden by a lifetime of effort, but a horror longing to be shared. And only someone who shared that feeling would know to look for it in another. And once spotted, it couldn't be ignored. A contact would be made, a silent pact, each knowing the other's nightmare and knowing it could only be discussed with someone from their home town.

The train had a canteen car, which Toby half-considered visiting. Yet he knew that Jake was on board somewhere, and didn't fancy bumping into him again. Jake had been weird on the platform, and had had Toby half-believing he might even know the secret. Yet though this couldn't possibly be so, Toby still didn't want to meet him again and have to deal with whatever was making him that way.

Toby had a drink in his bag and an ebook in his pocket – he would be fine for the trip. Yet no sooner had he opened both, than he caught a pair of eyes looking at him over the top of the opposite seat. Their owner quickly moved around the seat to sit on it.

'Is this your first time back?'

The young woman had evidently seen in him what he had missed in her. He wasn't sure where she'd been sitting before.

'Alison,' he remembered.

'Toby, right?' She jumped around the table to sit right beside him.

'Right. And to answer your question: no, I did miss a few, but started coming back again three years ago.'

'I haven't been for five.'

They spoke quietly, familiarly. Each had noted that the table opposite them was empty, and that behind their seats was a bulkhead wall.

She continued, 'I remember you not being there one year. I think you're a few ahead of me.'

It was coming back to him now,

'You were one of Janey's girls at the School.'

'I remember you visiting her, when she was my Junior House Mistress. She really missed you after you left.'

'I know she did.'

'Are you pair still..?'

'Together?' He went quiet. 'I'm only back for the winters now. We don't see each other much.'

Alison looked genuinely sad at the news. 'But you were really good together.'

'Maybe in another time, another life.'

'Another town?'

'Yeah, another town.'

After a pause to watch the landscape go past, Alison continued,

'You know, when I was a girl I envied you two. I wanted to be her and have a boyfriend like you.'

Alison said this in a way that Toby instantly knew to have no erotic edge. She was just that little girl again, remembering him as a kind-of elder sister's boyfriend: calm, safe, protective. In this mode she then half-hugged him, leaning in and tightly holding his arm.

He said, 'You don't know what we do though, Alison. Us men. You don't see it at the School for Girls.'

'I have a younger brother,' she answered, thus confirming that she did know.

'Is he okay?'

'Yes, he's grown out of it now. He's left town too. I don't think he'll be back though. He fell out with our Pa quite badly.'

Toby thought aloud, 'It's hard isn't it, coming back after you've left.'

'You did,' she noted.

'And so are you.'

She tensed, confessing her reason,

'I've got a sister too. She'll be twelve this year.'

'So it will just be starting for her.'

Still holding onto Toby, Alison cried.

'This is why we come back,' he whispered for both of them. 'This is why we come back.'

Chapter 5 – Approaching Shadows

As Toby had said those words to Alison, he'd smiled. And through the tears, she had too. Yet as they sat there she became restless. She broke away from holding his arm, before claiming to have a friend in a nearby town that she needed to visit first on her journey. They were nearing the last big town before the mountains, the one you took before the stop for Stove.

As they pulled in she jumped up, grabbed her bag, and said smilingly,

'She lives not far from here. I'll only be a day or two.'

'I'll see you in town then?'

Toby asked Alison this to test her reaction, and that reaction – nervous, hesitant – had told him all he needed to know.

'Yes, we may do. Bye now.' She smiled a little less easily than before, and left along the corridor.

At the empty table, once the train was carrying on its way, Toby caught himself. Although still half an hour from the mountains, in one way he had already arrived there; for as the sun moved behind them, so the peaks would soon be casting their long afternoon shadows in his direction, rather than out toward the coast.

He hadn't yet pulled on his uniform, but already he bore some kind of authority. Officialdom was running through his veins. He had begun talking to Alison as Toby the Lab Tech, nice guy, the sort you'd kill an hour with chatting on a train. He had ended as an agent of the town, a man not to be trusted or confided in except at your own peril, who would infer motive from your answers and use your words against you. He was now a Special Deputy, pleased to be of service, Miss. You hurry back now from your friend's house, or you'll be missed in town. Mark my words, your absence will be noted.

Toby hated himself. He hated himself all year around, yet for nine months of it he could try and pretend otherwise. The human mind was easily fooled, and could imagine away monsters not present to its senses. He was the monster.

Alison wouldn't make it into town, he judged. She was bolting. And frankly, who could blame her? What was there for her in Stove but pain and the memory of earlier pain?

Toby wished her well, and hoped that if she didn't make it then she wouldn't beat herself up too badly about it. It wasn't her fault, he could fully understand. He was ever-close to taking that same action himself. But he wouldn't take it. He could cope with almost anything – that was his curse.

Alison had no need to feel bad. Toby blamed no one for staying away from Stove. Her sister would be cared for by those trained to do so. Probably by Janey, who was a full House Mistress now. A saint of a woman... and this gave Toby another reason to feel bad.

He felt like Tom Jones in the old song, seeing again the green, green grass of home, his family, the woman he once loved... though now they were only in his mind.

Toby found his face resting on the window, his cheek wet against the glass. Tears, the secret enemy, the stealthiest of assassins – how they crept up on you from nowhere. He looked out toward the passing farms, as if he was the young Tom returning to any one of them. They were falling under golden shadows now, and giving way to rocky barren uplands.

Toby shook himself up. It was okay though, he had time to get his game face on. He would be fine once in his uniform. He had his hours in Gaidon, the town he'd leave the train at, before the bus ride up the mountain. He'd be fine.

The train was almost empty now – there wasn't much call for coastal passage this time of year. Toby wished he could remember where he'd seen the locomotive double-picture now – if he could find it again he'd pin a postcard of it up in his locker in Carvel. No, that wouldn't be right. It would be more fitting tucked under the edge of the mirror in his room in Stove, the room he occupied in winter.

For the others at Carvel might like the cleverness of the painting, might admire the artist's skill – bread-vans becoming ambulances, sandbags around the tea room doorways. But they wouldn't get its meaning, its meaning to him.

Toby closed the cover of his ebook, for there was no reading to be done. Even distraction from his destination seemed a cop-out. It was his lot, and he wondered if it would kill him, if only from a wounded heart?

Chapter 6 – Gaidon

Gaidon was the stop you took for Stove. It was a good town. Tough, mountainous, but homely. The kind of place in which you wouldn't mind being snowed in for a length of time. Toby didn't tell the waitress at the diner that he came from their near neighbour further up the mountain. He didn't tell the cook who put his food out on the hotplate, or the man with a medical bag who sat down opposite him with coffee. Yet he felt they must have known, that he bore a certain look.

Toby didn't want to know what the townsfolk of Gaidon thought of their strange neighbours up the hill. On previous incognito visits he had heard the place whispered of in hushed tones, looks given over the speaker's shoulder as if by villagers living in the shadow of Dracula's castle. As he tucked into his ham and eggs this made him think of the actor who often played The Count, Christopher Lee; and then of another of his films, The Wicker Man. Toby's mind was racing with images of isolated communities left to go weird.

'Is everything all right with those eggs?'

'Yes, thanks.'

'More coffee?'

'Please.'

'Coming right up.'

Toby felt next like an occupying soldier in a subdued land – then cursed that as a ridiculous thought! He looked at his arms on the table, expecting to see them sleeved in black with polished buttons on the cuffs. He couldn't put it off much longer – the mountains wanted him, were pulling him out of his nice-guy disguise. There was only one place he could be now.

Toby ate and drank up, heartily so. He even bought an Irish coffee and a shot of brandy to go over his ice cream. He thanked the staff, left a five-spot tip, and exited for the bus stop.

Stood alone in the centre of town, there was no longer any pretence. Buses from that side of the street went in only one direction – up. For those ten minutes Toby was an open symbol. Hurry up, bus.

When it came, two other passengers emerged from the eaves of nearby buildings to join him – so that was what the clever ones did, left some other passenger to stand there on display, while they pretended to peruse shop windows? How many years had Toby been catching that bus, and he'd never noticed it.

Once the bus doors had clanked shut though, with the driver also being a Stovian, it was as though a membrane had sealed across the vehicle's entrance with a sucking squelch. Outside the bus was sunny Gaidon, inside was stony Stove. They sat there not speaking, before the engine finally grumbled and they slowly pulled away.

Toby was inside the beast now, the heart of his fear. And yet his first reaction was to let out an almighty sigh of relief – he didn't have to lie now. This collective feeling was instantly voiced by a large man sat at the front,

'Well, another damn season here we come!'

'Welcome, Deputy.' An older man leant across the aisle with hand outstretched for Toby to shake.

'Thank you, sir,' he returned. Toby was being recognised – he was among his own kind.

'Sheriff Thornton will be glad to see you,' the older man suggested, as the shops and shoppers of Gaidon passed by the bus's windows. The man was smartly dressed in a blue-flecked three-piece suit.

'I'm sure,' answered Toby, though he was far from certain of his reception. But he wouldn't worry about that for now – the internal politics of the Sheriff's Office stayed within those walls. This was all the better to maintain public confidence. For if the public lost faith in the Sheriff's Office... and with everything else going on at wintertime...

The bus soon left the town behind, to begin its rise up through twisting gorges and mountain passes. As he drove, the driver also stood up at his seat. There he turned the lever to rotate the sign above his windscreen. There were no more stops to come now, and this was the last service of the evening.

The blue-suited man continued his train of thought,

'You're back in the nick of time, Deputy. Council's booked for tomorrow.'

'Tomorrow? Saturday? I thought I'd have a week?'

'Snow's forecast for Sunday. I know you wouldn't think it from the weather we're having – I've been near sweltering in this suit. But that's why I was in Gaidon today. It might have been my last chance.'

'Tomorrow.' Toby tried to adjust.

'And your colleagues will be glad to see you.'

'Oh..?'

'Well, there are less of you back this year.'

'I didn't know.'

'Maybe they've been caught out by the timing, as you almost were. But the date set for Returners' Weekend is well-known, and, well, look around you.'

On the bus were six passengers, four male, though only Toby was young enough to be an effective Deputy.

'I guess you're right, sir.'

Of the women, one had smiled adoringly at Toby from the moment he had boarded. The other only looked out of the window, and was harder to read. That was the thing with Special Deputies, they raised mixed reactions.

'Just male returners, or female too, sir?' asked Toby.

'Both, I'd say. Oh, the School will be fine. They have enough teachers to look after the girls. But the Sheriff's men will be stretched.

'You're batting with a smaller team this season,' called the loud man sat at the front.

An unfortunate metaphor, thought Toby, who could bring himself year-round to play no sport with a club.

Chapter 7 – On the Bus

Saturday then, considered Toby. So much for having time to settle in and see old friends. Or for another meeting he was hoping to get around to doing properly this year.

'The School for Girls,' mused the blue-suited man then. 'Say, Deputy. Didn't I used to see you stepping out with one of the House Mistresses?'

Toby braced himself, 'Yes, sir. Janey Thompson. She was a Junior House Mistress then.'

'Janey, dear Janey. And I suppose with your leaving..?'

Toby let his silence speak.

'A shame, and happens more and more. I never left.'

'No?'

'I don't mean that to be critical of you, Deputy. I know, you young people can see the world on your computer screens nowadays. You can't stay in a small town in the mountains all your life. Some of the older generation don't understand that, but I do. I'm only glad so many of you come back each year. And when you must have such bad memories of the place.'

'Such sad memories,' echoed the kind-eyed lady, with a bitter-sweet look, the only thing she'd say all journey.

The man continued, 'I myself stayed through of a sense of duty.' The woman nodded. 'And if I'm honest, one of guilt.' Another sympathetic nod. 'I arrived here with the oil company when the town first sprung up around the pipeline junction. I was one of those who worked on the laying of it. It was that first winter, after my family came to live with me, that my children got the sickness. That was before we even knew what it was. I remember my girl was in tears dawn till dusk, inconsolable – it's a shocking thing when you see it the first time.'

The woman nodded throughout in support.

'And when it caught my boy... well, I'd never known anyone, even a full-grown man, be as wild. Not in Korea, or in all the years since. I'm afraid... I'm afraid it took three of us to contain him that first night he was stricken.'

Toby opened his arms in a gestured of support, saying,

'Well, of course. You didn't know the best ways then. The techniques hadn't been developed.'

'I'm afraid we got tough with him, Deputy. I fear we were very tough.'

'We've all got our scars,' said the man at the front.

'Well, I haven't,' said the man in blue to Toby. 'I hadn't lived through it myself, like you did, Deputy, and like all the other children who've grown up in the town. I asked my son to bear what I had not. There is no way around that feeling.'

Toby had been wearing a look of surprise. He said,

'I hadn't realised...'

'What?' answered the man. 'That I'd been knocking around these mountains so long?'

'I don't think I've heard the story first-hand before, of the early days.'

'It's not a happy one,' said the man.

The listening lady shook her head, steeped in the sadness of it all.

Toby said, 'I didn't believe it would be.'

'You don't need to hear the story,' said the man sat up front suddenly, who Toby was beginning to realise was drunk. 'It wouldn't benefit you to hear it. It doesn't pay a Deputy to think. You're there to do your job. It doesn't help you stopping to think. Too much brains, these kids.'

He went on, apparently talking to himself, 'They think they know it all. Too many damn brains.'

Toby noticed the man hadn't turned to face them the whole time he'd been talking.

'You've no business hearing it,' he thundered. 'No business at all.'

Toby guessed the blue-suited man was half-minded to have words with the fellow. Yet he clearly thought better of it – for no man had yet come out of an argument with a lush with his dignity intact. Instead, upon disembarking a while later, the old man said,

'Monroe's the name. You come and see me on Hillcrest sometime. We'll toast your health with Uncle Jack.'

'Thank you. I will.'

'Oh, there's a lot I could tell you. A lot I could tell you, to be sure.'

As they disembarked from the bus, the drunk rambled off to pester the driver for change for the payphone. Meanwhile, the kind-eyed lady came to Toby and took his hand, saying,

'I wish you and your boys a good winter.'

'Thank you, ma'am. I wish you a good one too.'

'Sometime, if you have the chance, come and see us too. We're up on Laurel. My daughter would love to meet you.'

The woman's look left Toby under no misapprehension of her motives where her daughter's courting status was concerned. Being away, he'd forgotten that among a certain kind of townsperson Deputies were movie stars.

The man in the blue suit gave Toby a raised eyebrow and a smirk at overhearing the lady's offer, before he left for home. Soon Toby was alone beside the bus, its engine cracking in the dusk as it cooled.

The sky was less bright now. Evening was encroaching of course, but it seemed darker even than that. Something like a haze was descending, the precursor of a fog perhaps. Yet it felt nowhere near cold enough for fog.

The atmosphere between the town's two mountain peaks was contracting. Toby remembered the sensation. For weeks now it would be like this. It was the air pressure, the moisture condensing – or something like that, he forgot exactly. He only remembered the feeling that would last all winter, of being a dog with a wet nose, no matter how hard you wiped it.

He exhaled harshly. It was time to face the town.

Chapter 8 – Stovian Sunset

'We've all got our scars,' had said the man at the front of the bus. At that moment Toby had instinctively reached for the cobweb line across his eyebrow, the result of his own teenage wildness, subdued under a Deputy's club. Now he was the Deputy, taking from hard-pressed fathers the responsibility of managing half-mad sons.

'Hello, Deputy,' said the landlady of the Stovian Sunset Boarding House. Toby's room had been reserved three months ago; if not thirteen years ago, for he had been in the same one each year he'd returned. Except for those three years he'd missed, of course, the ones he didn't like to think about.

'It's a pleasure to have you back.'

'Thank you, ma'am,' he said. They shared a smile as he took his key. 'How has your year been?'

'Good, good. Thank you for asking. There's been a new gas line laid up to the pipeline junction. It's taken extra men to dig it, so I've been booked out all year. And yours? The College?'

'Oh, lots of exciting things. All manner of new research.' Toby remembered she enjoyed hearing of it.

'I always wanted to go to Carvel,' she mused. 'See a show, go horse riding. Stay at a nice hotel – have someone wait on me for a change. But, you know...'

'Life.'

'Life.' She smiled resignedly, and shrugged. 'We're just too busy here.'

'You could pay a flying visit,' he suggested then. 'You'd only be away two nights.'

'I'll send you the tourist brochure,' he said, as he did every year. But how far away Carvel felt at that moment. How much they had to live through before he was released.

Toby turned for his room, but the landlady called after him before he'd got very far up the stairs,

'The Sheriff's left a note for you. Council's been moved forward to tonight.'

'Tonight?' he asked, turning to face her. 'I thought it was tomorrow?'

'That was this morning. It's been moved forward again since then. The forecasts worsen hourly. They're saying the snow could come tomorrow now.'

Toby was struck dumb. Council was tonight, that was one thing. But the snow coming so soon was bad, he knew. It was only Friday still. The designated Returners' Weekend hadn't properly started yet, and might mean that others wouldn't get there in time.

He resumed his uphill climb.

'Your uniform's been pressed too,' his landlady called after him with a touch of pride in her voice. 'It's been laid out on your bed.'

Toby didn't needed telling where his uniform was, his Old Familiar. He could hardly have missed it when he entered the room – it could not have been more conspicuous against the soft cream bedspread had it been stitched together of grizzly bear hide and carrion crow's feathers.

Looking up at him, in its dry-cleaners' polythene wrapper, was the Stove Sheriff's Office, Special Deputies' Winter Uniform. What a mouthful.

Laid before Toby was a tunic in black, flawless black, as if left soaking in a bathtub of thick inky dye all night. The stars in that night sky were polished-silver buttons down the front and on the cuffs. And his number – 214 – pinned to each epaulet. On the left breast pocket was a gold-embroidered town crest. While that dual-pointed mountain motif was also cast in silver studs and pinned to each lapel.

Laid beneath the tunic were matching trousers, tapered as like jodhpurs for tucking into the polished jet-black boots that were standing beside the bed.

Toby saw the single folded piece of notepaper beside the clothes, and picked it up. The Sheriff had hand-written:

Hello Toby,

Glad you're here. Sorry I'm not going to be able to see you before Council. It's been put forward to tonight (Friday). Hope you're reading this in time? Things are happening quickly this year. And Council's not the start of it. Two places I'd like you to show your face beforehand...

Below were written two sets of names and addresses. Families with dinner guests, expected Toby. It was something of a tradition for the more-established households of the town to meet with friends before the season started, a kind of au revoir to carefree living for three months. It wasn't uncommon for them to like to have a Deputy visit on these occasions, to chew the fat, take their praise, and remind everyone present of the seriousness of things.

Toby had fulfilled these appointments many times before, might even have been requested by these families by name. It wouldn't be a problem. Yet the speed at which the machine had gotten moving shook him.

It had been a long day; and the bringing-forward of events would make it even longer. Looking at the uniform, Toby wanted to shove that junk off the bed and sleep. But he knew better than to think he had the strength to resist the forces now controlling him. And so he only lifted the clothes up and onto the back of the dressing-table chair.

He lay down, groaning with relief to do so. Kicking off his shoes, he felt the cool air through the fabric of his socks. 'Half an hour,' he told himself, 'half an hour before I have to dress for that first dinner.' Even with his busy evening, he could put it off for that long surely? Only half an hour, just a short half-hour...

Toby was woken by a knocking at his door.

'Deputy, Deputy?' called the landlady. Toby looked at the clock – he'd been out for ninety minutes. 'The Sheriff told me you'd be dining out tonight,' the woman called from the corridor. 'But did you want coffee before you left?'

'Thank you, yes,' he shouted back through the thick wooden door.

She said, 'I'll leave it outside for you.'

At least he'd had the waking wits to thank her – Toby knew that for the coming months she would be running ragged after him and the other Deputies staying there. Yet she would be glad to do so, and, like many in the town, thought of looking after the Deputies' wellbeing as a grateful duty.

Her job had other responsibilities too, some specific to her. Year-round her establishment catered for out-of-town workers at the pipeline station. Such tenancies ceased at winter, of course, leaving her rooms empty for a very different clientele, and that was where her role changed.

All Stovians were liars to the world, knew Toby. That was their pact, although most had other townsfolk around them for support. Some, like Toby, left for towns where no one knew there was a lie to tell. Yet this poor woman was surrounded by outsiders three seasons of the year, and ran her show alone. This left the activities of one part of her life shuttered-off and secret from the other part. Toby had the utmost respect for his landlady. He considered that you'd have to reach into the spy novels of John le Carré to find another figure living such a splintered life.

Toby sat upright on the bed. His face felt dusted by some substance that had dried and then hardened. He slapped himself lightly to wake the senses – another nodding-off would be disastrous.

'Get your game-face on, Toby,' he said to himself alone in the room, not caring if it was the first sign of madness. He got up and went to fetch in the coffee.

Chapter 9 – Battle Dress

There was a reason that the uniform was black, and the reason was that winter was their friend. The townspeople of Stove may have decided on their seasonal conspiracy, but they could have had no happier co-conspirator than the weather.

In part, this was down to the heavy snow their mountain town received each winter being a good excuse for closing the roads and felling the phone lines. But it also let them dress the way they did.

'Contrasting visibility against the snow' was the explanation that the Sheriff's Office gave for changing the Deputies' uniforms to black each winter. That was the official version anyway, as it had always been explained – for there was never anything written down. Yet Toby knew it was hogwash, and that if 'visibility' was the reason then they'd all be wearing Day-Glo tabards by now.

No, they wore the black Winter Uniform because they loved it. Loved the power of it, the authority it gave them striding through the town. Not to mention the way a man in uniform could make a woman weak at the knees, or so the banter went at the Sheriff's Office.

Toby sat before the dressing table, looking up from the boots he had just pulled on. He saw himself in the table mirror, half-transformed. New Toby was dead; long live Old Toby, the Toby he had been in secret since aged eighteen.

He stood to complete the job, pulling on his tunic – a little tighter than last year. 'It must have shrunk,' he tried to joke as he did up the buttons. He even managed an odd and crooked smile. But then he was becoming an odd and crooked creature.

Not crooked in stature, of course. Toby turned to see himself full-length in the tall mirror on the wall. And as he did so, he pulled on his hat – the peaked cap that they found so much more practical than the almost-decorative ten-galloner the Sheriff and his men wore the rest of the year.

The picture completed, Toby paused a moment to check the details. The buttons were numerous, and all in the right place. The jacket's lapels were straight – small and high for buttoning up tight around the neck. Only the knot of his tie and the collar of his shirt were visible beneath his dark outer-cladding. They were tan, the only part of the Summer Uniform that Toby ever got to wear.

Whoever thought this outfit up had had some kink, Toby had always suspected. Now Mr Monroe, who he'd met on the bus, might be able to tell him who that was. Toby looked again in the mirror – he hated himself. He closed his door behind him, and clumped down the stairs.

Chapter 10 – Diversion

Toby had a busy evening ahead, then. Though not so busy that he couldn't fit in one other appointment he had promised himself he would make.

Come eight in the evening, and he was standing outside the Stove School for Girls. He was beneath trees, hidden in the shadows, with no snow yet for his dark clothes to contrast against. Except for light glinting on his insignia, there was no way of anyone seeing him. Which was just as well, as he didn't want to think how it might look if he was caught there.

Yet it was really very innocent, he reassured himself. This time of year there weren't any boarders. He was also at the back of the School, outside the building where the House Mistresses lived. He was looking for a woman, one he couldn't get to see any other way. And he wanted to see her only to assure himself that she was well.

Toby stood there for twenty minutes, despite all else he had to do that night. There was no snow, but the sun had left early and the night was cold. Twenty yards ahead of him were two lit ground floor windows, those of a lounge and a kitchen. In the lounge were two women, neither of whom was the one he wanted. One of these had come in from the kitchen with a bowl of food, leaving the light on, and Toby was glad of its transmitted warmth.

He wished he was in that kitchen making food, taking it into that snug lounge. He felt excluded in every social sense. Before him was a vision of homeliness, of soft-lit rooms that had felt a woman's touch. He had no access to these things – for the next three months he had only the snowy streets, the wrecked houses, the Sheriff's Office, or the draughty rooms of the Stovian Sunset.

It was no use – Toby had to get on. He checked that neither woman was looking out in his direction, before moving quickly down the drive. Yet as he did so, something in the corner of his eye made him stop, and turn again toward the windows. Looking out now was a third woman, one with chestnut hair falling to her shoulders. Not quite tumbling over them as it had once done, but unmistakably her, even from that distance.

Toby was in the open now, without tree cover, though still hardly visible against the night. He could be no more to that watching woman than a moving shadow, despite her looking right at him. He didn't feel her gaze, the same he imagined as if stood behind mirrored glass.

He stayed like that for a couple of seconds, before he turned along the drive, and into the night.

In the warm room, Toby hadn't heard that soft classical music was playing. A Junior put down her food and spoke to the just-arrived House Mistress,

'I thought there might have been someone out there earlier.'

'Yes,' the Mistress agreed. She was still standing at the window and looking out for the first flakes of the promised snow.

'Council's tonight,' said the younger woman. 'Maybe they're keeping watch already?'

'I think they are,' said the House Mistress. And she smiled.

Chapter 11 – House One

Toby could have blamed his hanging around outside the School for his lateness. Instead he cursed his earlier tiredness – was that what happened when you hit thirty, he wondered? That some dormant dad-dozing-in-the-armchair gene suddenly activated, and turned an urgent young man into one who craved 'forty winks'?

'I'm too old for this,' Toby found himself saying out loud. Talking to himself again – and still he didn't care if that marked him out as mad. For he knew he was already – mad to even be there, mad to be participating in that charade.

He arrived outside the house unseen, the same shadow on a different driveway. Hearing music and the sounds of conversation from inside, Toby felt as if he was arriving at a costume party with himself as Adolf Eichmann.

'Deputy, come in.' Someone was already at the door. Toby stood still at the end of the drive. Things were beginning to feel surreal to him.

The man shook his hand as Toby entered, saying,

'It's good of you to come. I understand your schedule is moving forward. Myself, I wouldn't have had that last brandy had I known it was Council at ten.' He was a round and jolly man, who looked as though he had enjoyed his supper.

Toby recognised him then,

'Councillor.'

Like a lot of the Town Council they owned these larger houses, and were managers of the pipeline and the pumping station, or of businesses that had developed as the town had.

'I'm afraid we've finished the main course. We guessed you were delayed.'

'I was held up,' lied Toby.

'Won't you come in?'

Toby took off his cap and gloves, leaving them on a small table in the hall, then entering the dining room as directed. He found the mistress of the house standing by the table to greet him. The family's three children, out of order, stood beside her. They were awaiting him expectantly. She began,

'Deputy, thank you so much for coming. It's an honour to have you here.'

He took her offered hand and bowed his head respectfully,

'The honour is all mine.'

'How polite.' She smiled. 'How polite you are. Won't you let me introduce our children? Now, children. You remember how I explained about our Deputies, and the important work they do in our town?'

If there was a flicker of something in her tone as said this, she quickly righted herself,

'Well, tonight we're honoured to have one visit us.' She turned back to Toby, introducing her brood in a line like a sports captain to a visiting VIP before a big game,

'This is Elizabeth. She's ten.'

He leaned down, 'Hello Elizabeth, I'm Toby.'

'Well, say hello back,' urged her mother.

'Hello Toby.'

'You're at the School for Girls?'

Her mother answered, 'And gets top marks in every class, don't you, love?'

'Except for maths,' the girl giggled.

'Don't go telling the Deputy things like that!'

'I'm sure your teachers are very are proud of you,' he said.

The girl smiled back at Toby, enjoying his visit as much as her mother; who continued,

'Now, this is Toby too.'

'Hello little Toby.'

'I'm not little Toby – I'm six.'

'Well, hello big Toby. I'm big Toby too.'

'You're a Deputy,' the boy said suddenly. 'You beat people up.'

'Toby!' screeched his mother. 'Deputy, don't listen to him.'

The boy continued, 'Patrick Doyle told me last year a Deputy beat his brother up.'

His exasperated mother said, 'Well, we don't go listening to what naughty boys at school say.'

But her son was undimmed,

'I like beating people up. Last week I punched Thomas Cramer on the nose and made it bleed. Didn't I, Mom?'

'I wish you hadn't. And I certainly wish you hadn't chosen now to share it with the world.'

But bigger Toby only smiled, 'We'll make a Deputy of you yet.'

'And here's our eldest, Letitia.' Her mother placed her hands on the young woman's shoulders and moved her pliably forward toward their guest.

'Hello, Letitia.' Toby had seen her at the end of the line, and had been keeping back his full attention for her. 'You'll be boarding again soon?'

Her mother answered, 'She'll be going to the School tomorrow, before the snow falls. We won't see much of you for a while then, will we, Dear?' The mother brushed her daughter's hair back tenderly.

Toby went to ask, 'I wonder, when you go back. Could you..?' and then paused.

'No, go on.' Letitia seemed to brighten at Toby tentatively asking her assistance. Toby continued, buoyed by this,

'Well, at the School, do you know Miss Thompson?'

'Yes, she's Lettie's House Mistress,' answered the mother. 'She's your favourite, isn't she.'

The daughter asked, 'Do you know her, sir?'

'Please, I'm no one's "sir". And yes, I do. Or I used to.'

'I'll say hello to her for you.'

'No, please. There's no need.'

'Well, if you're sure.' But Toby knew it was too late, and that Letitia was looking forward to her task too much not to carry it out.

Chapter 12 – Sebastian

Just then the doorbell rang.

'I'll get it,' said the father of the house, who'd been watching the introductions from the doorway. A minute later he brought in another family just as smartly dressed as their hosts: parents, and a teenage son. The latter instantly took Toby's attention.

'Ah, thank you for coming!' called their hostess. 'I am so glad you could make it for drinks at least.'

The arrived husband answered,

'You know that had it not been for Sebastian's allergy we would have been glad to come to dinner.'

'And I've told you before, you should lend me that special cook book. I'd be glad to cook for Sebastian.'

As she said this, the hostess looked sympathetically to the boy, the poor pale boy. Yet he looked only at Toby, looked at him with cold hate.

Thirteen, maybe fourteen. Young, preparing for maybe only his second or third sickness. But not his first, Toby knew. For though the lad was young, his eyes were old with experience.

Toby had a lot of faces to learn or re-learn on his first day back, and his mind was working at full speed. Yet it came to him, as he knew it would. Sebastian. Food allergy. Yes, last winter had been the boy's first; and it had been bad. At one point it had taken three Deputies to calm him.

Toby recalled Sebastian backing into a glass display case, earning the boy a cut along the back of his left arm. Toby remembered how it bled, how he'd had to wipe that blood from his own face after grappling with Sebastian afterwards. How he had handed his landlady a ruined shirt that evening to launder.

The parents were introduced to Toby, but then there was a pause.

'Sebastian,' began his father. 'You say hello and shake the Deputy's hand now.'

Yet the boy offered neither.

'Sebastian!'

But Toby spoke to the father, looking at the son,

'That's fine, sir. I understand entirely. It's hard for those living through the sickness. You can't blame your son for having mixed feelings when seeing this uniform again.'

'It's not your uniform. It's you.'

His parents and their hostess gasped at this. Even Toby needed to brace himself, before saying slowly,

'I can remember. The scene in your father's study. The display cabinet.'

At this the boy's mother winced.

'You're in the very worst of it, Sebastian. It's new to you. Last year was your first. And it's about to start again, will start again for another four or five years as likely. I'd be a monster if I didn't understand that.'

Toby went on, 'I was under the club once. As was your father, I expect. As was every man in this town. You might say it's what we go through to become a man. You see me here in my uniform as a bully, as your jailer even. You think we Deputies have the ruling of you boys. But it's not true. It's we who are bound to you. You're our responsibility, Sebastian, you and all the boys like you. It's for us to get you through these winters, nothing else. We gain nothing for ourselves.'

It was an old speech, tried and tested, and Toby hoped he hadn't used it in this company before. He waited for the retort, but there was none. The boy, for whatever reason, said no more. Yet his look had not cooled, Toby's words had changed nothing.

Toby did though note a flickered glance between Sebastian and Letitia, the eldest daughter of the house. Love forged in the crucible of a Stove winter. Toby wondered if this pair would ever make it out? Or whether their town and their responsibilities would destroy them, as they had he and Janey? Toby wanted one Romeo and Juliet to make it, just one.

'I have another house to visit,' explained Toby as his host showed him out.

'I fully understand. I was one of your number once.'

'I thought you might have been.'

'You know you can always count on the Council's full support. Anything you fellows need...'

'Thank you.'

The man asked then, 'That lad, Sebastian, was under your club?'

'I'm afraid so.'

'And so will my son be in a few years.'

'It would seem likely.'

'We do it for their own good. You can't expect them to understand at that age.'

'No.'

'We need your diligence, you and those like you.'

'You can count on it, sir.'

'We know,' said the man as Toby departed.

Chapter 13 – House Two

One dinner-party down, a second to come. Toby dashed along dark and empty streets to find the house. The whole town seemed to know the closedown was upon them – bars already shut, weekend socialisers instead getting serious and staying home. At one point Toby nearly ran into a mirror of himself – another uniformed Deputy, though not one he knew well.

'How's the old suit fitting?' he asked Toby.

'Same as always.'

'That bad?' joked the man, as he darted off with a smirk. This wasn't impoliteness – each was busy, and would meet again within the hour.

Passing by the Town Hall, Toby saw a Councillor haul a box of forms into the back of a low-bed station wagon – they wouldn't be needing those till spring. The man called across to Toby, 'Ten o'clock. Don't forget!'

Toby muttered, 'As if I'm damn-well likely to.'

For the sickness wasn't only physical. It got to the nerves as well, deep into the emotions.

The second house, when Toby found it, was less formal. The sounds from inside were louder, and the front door was already ajar. Toby went up to it and pushed, a voice calling,

'We're in here.'

Following it, Toby entered a large sitting room to find what seemed a Mardi Gras in full swing. Music was playing, looming rhumba or bossa nova, something Toby couldn't identify, and which was not turned down at his arrival. What must have been at least eight people in cocktail dress swam and swooned, in the atmosphere of a Nineteen-Thirties ocean liner lounge.

'Oh oh, it's the party inspector!' called one.

'Who ordered the stripper?' bellowed another.

Toby was the only one in uniform and not seemingly drunk. Had he found the right house? Who were these people? He was exceedingly uncomfortable. And then the music silenced, and it got a hundred times worse.

For, as the music stopped, so did all conversation. All eyes were now on Toby in his absurd get-up. How on earth could he announce himself now? What form of words would possibly do the job?

Yet it was a carousing woman who broke the ice with,

'You know that you're the reason why we don't have children?'

'Come now, Carol,' said her drinking partner. 'That's hardly this man's fault.'

'No, no. He'd want me to be honest. Wouldn't you, "Deputy"?' She over-emphasised his title to absurdity.

'Always. I'm only wondering why you have me here?'

'But isn't that what people do on the night before the town goes into curfew? Invite the Marshal in to tell us why we're under martial law?'

'I should be going.' Toby went to leave, thinking the Sheriff must have made some terrible mistake. But the woman held him back,

'No, no. You can't go. There's someone here who wants to meet you.'

At last, thought Toby. Maybe this then would be the householder. He followed the woman's gaze through the bodies and the furniture and the pot plants, whose leaves nearly touched the ceiling. He followed it all the way through to the figure of a man at the back of the room. The figure of Jake, from Carvel, last seen that lunchtime being contrary on the railway platform. Toby saw him staring right back at him, standing beside the record player. He had orchestrated the whole thing.

Toby was gripped by fear. It seemed to fall from him like sheets of glass that never landed or shattered, just left him blinded in a light of dazzling horizontal planes. His blood was mercury, his skin metal. Detached from his surroundings, Toby wondered whether he would black out? It seemed a genuine possibility. It felt under his control whether he did so or not. Weren't there people who could do that? Narcoleptics, weren't they called? Maybe he had been one all his life, unidentified and undiagnosed?

One instant panic response was quite rational. It was for Toby to ask himself a question: what would Jake do? In that atmosphere anything was possible. Toby wondered how many of the people in the room were in on the joke? But it was none of them, and Jake, when he walked over, played it straight. Saying only,

'Good to see you again. Shall we fetch some ice?'

Chapter 14 – Two Worlds Collide

Jake could have led Toby anywhere, so numbed was he. In the end though, they went no further than the kitchen. Jake did actually collect some ice, though he left the cubes melting in their tray on the unit they stood beside. The music had resumed in the sitting room, and so the pair were quite inaudible, alone in the kitchen.

'I still can't believe it,' began Jake, shaking his head and having a look of bedazzlement in his eyes. 'To see that such creatures as you Deputies really exist. That you aren't a myth, not something from a story made up to scare small children.'

Toby stood there listening to this, still in shock.

'Even after all I've heard, and after having it confirmed from multiple sources, a part of me still refused to credit it. And worst of all, that you are one! Mild-mannered Toby from the lab, Carvel's adopted son. Stood before me now, in all seriousness, in the fancy-dress getup of a Junta boogieman.'

Toby, in his embarrassment, was fuming. Jake continued,

'You're really going to do this? Go on after those children like some half-cocked black-clad Cardinal of the Spanish Inquisition?'

'Red.'

'Sorry?'

'The Spanish Inquisition, they wore red. They were Papal Cardinals.'

'Who cares? Why does that matter when you're wielding your club?' Jake looked to Toby's belt, to see that the instrument itself was missing.

'We don't get them till after Council,' offered Toby in shameful explanation. It didn't even occur to him how much Jake may have known, and what extra he was giving away each time he spoke.

Jake went on, shaking his head,

'Even after knowing for a fact that you were one of those Deputies, still, to see you here before me... And you really mean it, too. Months and months I've spent on this. I tracked you down. I got a job at Carvel just to see one of you, to judge your cover, watch you hiding out in real life. To get a look at you before you went native.'

'Well, here I am native.' Toby attempted to summon his authority, 'So what are you doing here?'

'You've not quite got your water up yet, have you Deputy? Maybe you'll feel more your old self once you have your weapon back.'

Jake hadn't answered. He didn't have to, Toby knew. He was shaking at the knees. Jake's little surprise had destroyed him.

'These people,' asked Toby – he looked around as if seeing them through the wall to the lounge – 'They broke the secret?'

'So what? You'll round them all up?'

'We don't round people up.'

'We both know that's a lie.'

Jake had moved closer and was staring right into Toby's eyes. Toby felt a hatred rising in himself. Jake went on,

'For the record, no. It wasn't they I learnt the secret from. Not one person in this house knows who I am.'

'So who does?'

'A good investigator never tells on his sources. My hosts tonight are simply people I met on the journey up – I skipped the train, and found a freeway services I'd learnt was a rallying point on Returners' Weekend.'

(He has it all, thought Toby. The dates, our equipment, the town's own secret phrases.)

'Interesting people, actually,' continued Jake. 'Our hostess runs the dress boutique in town, another runs the cafe-bistro. This is their last chance to dress up. They think I'm a local, been away but grown up, and from the other side of whatever part of town I learn they're from. I convinced them by my knowing so much about the secret.'

'You'll never keep that up.'

'Wouldn't I? No matter, I'll be off soon anyway, now I've met the guest of honour.'

'You're leaving town?'

'And what good would that do? The drama's hardly started.'

'So what..?'

'So what do I intend to do? To witness it, of course! I have my digs arranged. Don't worry, you won't find them out.'

'And what if I follow you the moment you leave this house?'

'Don't be ridiculous.'

Toby quivered, 'I could sound the alarm on you right now.'

'You won't. We both know you won't.'

Toby's silence confirmed this – the first moment that they had been on the same side. Jake went on, the music coming loudly through the walls again,

'You know, you've really got these people scared. Don't let me put you off by laughing at your little reign of terror. It's obviously working. There're people partying out there who are leaving sixty-thousand-a-year jobs behind for three months to come up here. All because of what happened to them as children. You'd think they'd get as far away as possible.'

'Many do.'

'There's a man here tonight,' Jake gestured in the direction of the music, 'who's here to look after his nephew. The boy's father's lame and couldn't handle him last year. This man has lied to his wife that he's working abroad. Instead, he's come back to the town he thought he'd gotten away from for life. And all to care for a hurting nephew. Why wouldn't I be fascinated by stories like that?'

Toby was silent.

'Numbers are down this year, they're saying,' reflected Jake, confirming he'd heard those rumours too. 'Now, I've got my bed to make up; and you've got Council.'

'You're not coming?' asked Toby stupidly, as if inviting a friend along. But Jake only smiled,

'Even I can't trick myself into that one. I'll see you sometime, maybe.'

And with that, leaving his fluted glass and the sloppy ice-cubes on the kitchen unit, Jake was gone. Firstly to bid his hosts goodnight, then to squirrel himself away wherever he had found to hide out in town that winter.

'Did that just really happen?' asked the shaken Deputy. After several minutes' delay, Toby followed Jake out of the kitchen. But he took the backdoor, avoiding the hosts, leaving like a thief.

There he stood outside the house and caught his breath, his back resting on the rough brick wall. Beside him, a window threw bright light across the garden, illuminating shrunken shrubs and leafless trees. The garden had prepared itself for winter, and was now only hoping to see the spring. All joy and gaiety was gone from it. Toby knew how it felt.

Having left a long-enough time for Jake to have made his getaway, Toby re-entered the night.

Chapter 15 – Extraordinary Town Council

Toby jogged along cold deserted streets, back the way he had come, and soon was back at the Town Hall. Where earlier he'd seen the man loading his car, now there were two Deputies standing at the back door of the building that served as playhouse more often than in any official capacity. They bore the look of extras on a movie set, their outfits stiff and freshly ironed.

'Thank God you've made it. Is Eddy with you?' one asked.

Toby shook his head, though glad to learn his friend was still in town.

'He'll have to make his own way, it's nearly starting.'

Ushered inside, these last three – and a dashing-in Eddy – joined the other black-clad officers waiting in the hallway. Toby quickly counted eleven of them, including Sheriff Thornton. Toby peeked through the door to the Hall, to see the notaries and compulsory-attendees already seated in the front rows. The Sheriff's Office were always the last to enter.

It was pure theatre then, when the Sheriff led his uniformed men into the spotlight. He walked on to take his place sat beside the Mayor at the centre of the stage, while his shock-troopers followed to form a standing line behind them along the back of the thin raised area. But important theatre, for this was their show of strength, their reassurance to the town.

'All present?' called the Town Clerk. 'Then we can begin.'

The Town Clerk, the Mayor's right hand-woman, was standing where she had been sitting in the front row of the audience. She took the few steps up, and moved to a lectern at the corner of the stage. From there she delivered the familiar address, the same each year, only dates and details changed:

'Mayor, Sheriff, Ladies and Gentlemen. I declare this Extra-ordinary' (she'd paused for the hyphen) 'Town Council open, and call order for the following statement to be read. There will be time for questions for all parties later.

'Apologies first of all, to those rushed to get here by the date being brought forward. This was regrettable and a direct result of the worsening forecasts.

'We hope the weather will hold long enough for many more of us to return during Saturday, and maybe even Sunday. But we could not risk delaying Council until tomorrow evening. For, as you know, when the cold comes, so does the sickness.

'The details of this statement will be available from me for the entire season – please let people know who are not able to be here tonight...'

Toby was remembering it all now. 'The details of this statement will be available from me,' the Town Clerk had said. Not 'Copies will be available,' which would have been much more practical, yet impossible, for not one word of the sickness or its treatment was ever written down.

As she spoke, so Toby looked out from his standing position on the stage. He felt like a member of the chorus-line in whatever was showing in the multi-purpose Town Hall the previous week. Usually for meetings the Councillors would be up there on stage. They would sit along a table, facing the assembled townsfolk gathered to join in debates and witness voting. But tonight the Council Members were all in the front rows of the audience. Only the Mayor, Sheriff and their crow chorus occupied the elevated position. Something of a minor coup d'état, Toby always felt.

'Not many Deputes this year,' he caught someone in the crowd saying. It seemed to be the catchphrase of the season, and Toby wouldn't disagree. He was sure there'd been sixteen at this time last year, and as many as thirty when he'd been a trainee.

Along the front rows of the audience among the Councillors, were the Head Mistress of the School for Girls, Doctor Lassiter, the traffic warden, the pharmacist, the owners of businesses and figureheads of local institutions. It always reminded Toby of the scene in Jaws when they met to hire a bounty hunter. Toby's landlady was there in her best dress. So too was anyone with the importance or the clout to demand a seat at the figurative table, whether or not they were actively involved in the sickness or its treatment. To some degree though, all were involved. If only in their silence.

The Clerk continued her statement from memory, and Toby could have lip-synced whole swathes of it.

'...So, to declare. From the opening of this meeting we are under Winter Jurisdiction, as enforced by the Sheriff and his men. This state will continue until such time as the snow and the sickness have passed. This is how it was agreed by the founding Council of the town, and is re-instated at the meeting held at this time each year since.

'The provisional dates are thus: Winter Jurisdiction is enforced from ten p.m. today, Friday November Sixteenth. Roads are to be closed once sufficient snow to justify this has fallen, date unknown but expected to be sometime early next week, possibly as early as tomorrow, and certainly not after Saturday November Twenty-Fourth. Telephone lines are to be disconnected immediately subsequent to this date. That is if the snow hasn't brought them down already.

'The fall of Winter Jurisdiction brings with it the Winter Restrictions. These will be known to many of you, I know. But to re-iterate, it forbids any but townsfolk entry to the town from the time of enforcement, and also bars any townsperson from leaving.

'Those unfamiliar with any detail of the Winter Restrictions can be reminded of them at any time by the Sheriff or his Deputies.'

This brought a low rumble of laughter from the crowd.

The Town Clerk was nearing the end of her statement, with only a few formalities and points of order remaining,

'Efforts should have been made throughout the preceding weeks for all activities involving out-of-town workers to have been brought to an end, and their contracts closed.'

The Clerk looked down to the Foreman of Works at the pipeline station, who briefly stood to declare that this was so.

'And all such men now left town?'

The landlady of the boarding house stood to say that this was also so.

At that moment, the Clerk called across the room,

'Is anyone aware of any non-townsfolk resident, for whom transport and excuses for departure need to be arranged this weekend?'

None in the town were stupid enough to be in a position where they'd answer 'Yes' to that, were they? So thought Toby, before realising he'd been speaking to such a 'non-townsfolk resident' only minutes earlier.

His stomach sank, his legs nearly buckled. Stood there among the brothers of his order, he realised with full clarity of awareness that he had become a double-agent. He was a force of one, had no one on his side. It was a new feeling for him. He may not have told the truth of his life to his friends in Carvel, but at least he could come back to Stove and be honest with all the other liars. Yet here he was, up on stage, lying to the liars. Lying by omission, lying by being silent.

But Jake had been right, Toby wouldn't tell. Though Toby wasn't sure how Jake knew this.

The Clerk went on,

'Then it falls to me now only to me to re-iterate (she liked that word, Toby noted) our responsibilities to the Sheriff and his men. And to acknowledge the efforts they take each winter on behalf of our town and our children. What befalls our youngsters will be difficult, but the Deputies are best placed to help them through it. We are fortunate to have them. They have experience and training, and do this work unpaid each year, leaving other lives behind. This is an act of pure benevolence, for which we should never forget to be thankful.'

There was a murmur of approval throughout the room.

'It is only through the Town Fund that we can compensate them, and those who keep and board them.' The Clerk looked at the landlady as she said this. 'So, as we do every year, we ask for your donations as you leave the Hall tonight. Our collectors will be stationed at the door.

'And now, I will release you all to your duties. As ever, we finish with the Lord's Prayer. Mr Mayor, you'll lead us?'

The Mayor stood, the audience rising with him. Every line he spoke was echoed by the crowd,

'Our Father...'

'Our Father...'

'Who art in heaven...'

'Who art in heaven...'

Chapter 16 – Reunions

As the meeting broke up, Toby took time out to greet and shake hands with those Deputies he'd known best from previous years.

'Hello, Toby.' This was Fitch, nervous little Fitch, but such a town servant, and so unexpectedly brave when called upon.

And Job, tall rangy Job: a good Biblical name that, Toby had always thought. Though no one knew how to pronounce it any more, that it should be spoken as if it had a final 'e', to rhyme with robe.

'You made it back then, Job?'

'Only after six hours on the Freeway.'

'Everything tied up for winter?'

'Yeah, after pulling an all-nighter to get the last job finished.'

Job was a freelance shop-fitter, he moved around a lot. He almost had to restart his business each spring after being 'out of town' for so long.

And there was young Tort, though not so young now. Twenty-one, Toby would guess at, though not looking a day over nineteen. He was a year-round resident (as was Fitch), and training with the Sheriff in civil life.

Someone was missing though, thought Toby. Though not someone Toby was missing. Crawley. Where was Crawley?

To Crawley, Toby bore a selfishness. The presence of that college football linebacker gave the Sheriff's Office real heft that time of year. Nothing reassured a struggling Deputy, his sick kid out of control, like Crawley's brooding presence appearing in the doorway of a shattered room.

Yet Toby could not love him, could not hero-worship him as the other Dep's did. Partly this was through Toby being his senior, when at twenty-eight most of the Sheriff's Office were younger than Crawley now. Partly it had something to do with the shift in influence that had taken place in the three years that Toby had missed, and the Sheriff coming to rely on Crawley instead. Toby wasn't sure.

And then at last, after a dressing down from the Sheriff for turning up late, Toby had a chance to talk with Eddy. Good, broad-shouldered, uncomplicated Eddy, who could keep a tormented eighteen-year-old on the floor unharmed for six hours straight, not a bruise on him. He and Toby had been childhood friends, running up and down the mountains together, always going further than their parents had permitted. Yet something got in the way now, stopping them from being completely open. Perhaps it was only adulthood, the passing of the years?

Eddy had found his way to Toby,

'Good to see you, Toby,' his comrade in arms began.

'You too, Ed. You too.'

'How's the College?'

'Good, good.' How Toby already missed it. 'The business?'

'Even better. There's been a whole new fence put up around the pipeline, with huts every hundred yards. We've never been busier.'

Eddy's father ran the sawmill, and his son had not left town.

'Linda and the girls?' asked Toby.

'And a boy now. He popped up in August.'

'I've missed so much.'

'It's always the way, bud.'

'So, Edward Junior?'

'No, we named him after my dad. We thought it might cheer him up. He's not been so well this year.'

'I'm sorry to hear that,' said Toby truly. They were a good family. But Eddy sensed more,

'Something up, Tobe?' he asked.

'Well, look at our numbers.'

'Returners' Weekend hasn't happened yet.'

'It might not,' shot back Toby. 'It might not have a chance to.'

'Then it's a good job they've got us pair, eh?' His friend was eternally jovial – Toby had forgotten how he had relied on that to get him through their early winters as Deputies.

'But it's not just numbers, is it. It's who's missing.'

Eddy clocked, 'Oh, you mean Crawley? Don't worry, he's confirmed. He's on the train tomorrow.'

'But what if he doesn't make it?'

Eddy laughed, the way they all laughed when they spoke of their absent colleague, as though someone would notice if they didn't, 'Have you ever known Crawley be put off by a bit of snow? Of course he'll make it.'

Toby realised he didn't want him to. Perhaps Eddy sensed this, for he asked,

'You've never got on, have you?'

Toby didn't need to answer, his friend explaining,

'You really can trust him, you know. You really can,' and in Eddy's voice was something like paternal pride.

Toby smiled, and bid his friend goodbye for now. Yet he couldn't shake the feeling. For there was something else about Crawley, something Toby didn't like to think about. Especially not now, dressed up in their shared uniform. It was something to do with the final of the three years that Toby had missed, and the reason why he'd missed no more after that. Something to do with why they called it the Worst Year.

Toby and some others found their landlady waiting on the floor of the Hall, for it was the custom for those staying at the Stovian Sunset to walk her home from Council.

Once under way, as the younger members shared their generation's jokes, so Toby instead matched their landlady's slower pace of walking, the better to take in the view.

'No stars tonight,' he noted.

'That's the snow-clouds coming,' she suspected.

Toby looked at the scattering of buildings that made up the town, running through the relative flatness of their gap among the spiking mountaintops – houses, shops, stores, workshops – all ready for the snow with their toughened, pointed roofs. The roads were busy now with people heading home from the meeting.

'Eddy and Linda have a boy,' announced Toby to his walking companion.

'He's a lovely lad,' she answered, possibly referring to either father or son.

'And Crawley's twenty-eight now.' For Toby's thoughts had brought this fact home to him.

'Time flies, doesn't it.'

'I remember him at eighteen,' mused Toby.

'I remember you at eighteen. You can't go on for ever.'

This hit Toby like a revelation. He'd been so wrapped up his hated duties that he had quite forgotten that, like athletes and astronauts, every Deputy had his day. 'You can't go on for ever' – a man would hit an early-mid-life crisis and the injuries started aching, his heart started weighing him down. He could retire. He could feign an injury, or at least its seriousness... Lor, he'd had enough scrapes over the years to have had a horse put down. Toby suddenly realised that this was his last year, and it brought him pure joy.

'Are you okay there, Toby?' asked his landlady.

Not for the first time that evening he had almost collapsed.

'Just a shiver.'

'I thought I saw you going on stage. Why do they make you stand all through the meeting?'

'Sorry, it's been a long day.'

'Of course, you thought you'd have a rest after travelling. Well, tomorrow morning should be quiet. I'll bring your breakfast up at nine.'

'Make it ten,' he said.

Just then, the very first flakes of snow began falling.

'When it starts, it starts quickly,' observed the landlady, as they hurried to catch up with the younger Deputies.

Chapter 17 – Under the Club / Violent Season

Four weeks later...

The snow was thick beneath Toby's leather boots as he neared the house. It had been falling all night to re-whiten even the turned-over pathways. It was bright that day, and Toby knew he struck a stern figure striding through the uninterrupted colourless drifts.

'He's in here!' called Fitch from the doorway of a tall, old-style house. If there were civilians around, then they were keeping a safe distance. Only professionals were at home.

'What needs doing?' asked Toby as he joined him. His colleague's continual edginess made it hard to judge how much worse a situation might be from normal.

'Young Frank Hinklin, he's spiking. He's pushed his father over, broken his arm. His mother can't hold him.'

'Then why aren't you holding him?' asked Toby.

'Job's got him now, but he's had him for an hour. We've been taking turns. We're exhausted, we can't wear him out. I've been calling and calling.'

'There was no one answering the phone when I got to the guesthouse,' explained Toby. 'She was delivering another message, the place was deserted.'

Fitch had a cut on his cheek, and his jacket sleeve was ripped, its silver button missing. The cut to his cheek was fresh, but the jacket tear could have happened any time during the previous weeks. Fitch was self-justifying,

'I'd have taken over again if you hadn't come. I'm not being lazy.'

'I know, I'm sorry. I didn't mean that. I didn't know Job was here.'

Toby banged the snow off his boots on the front step, and took off his cap. Once indoors he felt hot from the walking, and undid the top button of his jacket. From one of the other rooms came the sound of groaning.

'Frank Hinklin – do I know him?' asked Toby as he psyched himself up.

'Seventeen,' answered Fitch. 'Average build, a good runner. There are medals – there were medals – on the sideboard. He's had his moments other winters.'

'Haven't we all.'

'But never this bad.'

A woman's voice sounded then, Toby turning to see the sobbing figure of the boy's mother. Her dress was torn, and she was holding it together with her good hand. The other arm was black and blue with bruises. She also had the start of a black eye.

'He's never been this bad before, Deputy. He doesn't mean it. Don't be hard on him.'

Fitch whispered in Toby's ear,

'She and the father held him for half the night before they called for us.'

The family were probably ashamed, thought Toby. He whispered back to Fitch, 'So he's been spiking for eight, even ten hours?'

To which Fitch nodded urgently.

This was exceptional, even in their unreal world. If there had been a system of prizes, then young Frank would be up for a medal to go with those he had for running.

A runner, Toby thought. That explained his stamina – good lung capacity. Toby remembered his own time in outdoor athletics, either going long-distance through the town, or around and around their slanted football field – it had been the biggest open space on the flattest patch of hillside that the town could find. But still, ten hours?

Chapter 18 – The Sickness

'The winter sickness' was an illness that affected the young people of Stove each year. Where it came from, no one knew. Why it affected only their town, again none were any the wiser. Nor did they know why it came with the snow each year and left with the thaw. Nor why it caught you at eleven or twelve, and was usually done with you by eighteen.

There had always been those of a religious bent who felt the town to be uniquely damned. However, most of Stove were far too busy for such spiritual speculations – busy in winter keeping the whole wretched business under control, and busy the rest of the year pretending it wouldn't come back.

'Seasonal Insanity,' Doctor Lassiter had named it once, talking only half-jokingly with Toby. And the Doctor ought to know, suffering it himself each year through his own teenhood. 'The teenage sickness,' some called it, as if the very fact of being that age justified you getting it. 'The groaning sickness,' yet others knew it as, named after the waving nausea that settled in for that cold season and underlined all other symptoms.

These other symptoms could be nothing 'worse' than extreme anxiety, discomfort, an unsettled and unresting air. There were also visual and auditory 'sensations' – townsfolk didn't like to use the word 'hallucinations' around here, it sounding too much like the symptoms of schizophrenia. Nor did they speak about the creeping of the skin, the hot and cold flushes, the impossibility of sleep beyond a half-conscious nightmare state.

This was horrible but bearable, containable in families, kind of like a really bad flu. Yet at some point in the season almost all teenagers would spike. 'Spiking' was the term for a young person suffering a bout of the sickness in its most extreme form. Quite a modern term in fact, taken from the world of statistics. The term fitted: for a spike could happen rarely yet quickly, and cause an alarming increase in symptoms.

To spike was for the sufferer's inner-confusion, and their urge to express it, to increase to levels where they would act out in quite alarming ways. Ways dangerous both to themselves and to those attempting to save them from themselves. In the maelstrom of the affected mind, all concern the teenager had for their physical wellbeing was gone, along with any human feeling for protecting others. These instincts were superseded by the need to get out of themselves the enormous, amazing thing they were containing. They were an aeroplane that pulled itself apart by travelling too fast.

Toby remembered this as he recalled his own teenage sickness, experienced quite badly in his case – and in his sister's also. It came to him each year in a bout of throwing up. This was accompanied by the sense, niggling at first though urgent later, that something somewhere was wrong and needed putting right. Yet he had no idea of what this wrong thing was, or of how to go about correcting it.

These feelings were interrupted by almost-weekly spikes of pure rage, of which he remembered little afterwards. Only that the spikes were a relief, a roaring freedom from the groaning sickness. Even the aching of the bruises he was left with had given him something else to focus on.

That was what the Deputies were for then. Their first duty was to contain a spiking child. Their methods brought no one very much pride, for they were those of the lawman apprehending a rowdy suspect. There were coshes, there were arm-holds, there were sometimes restraints.

For when a sufferer could display a carefree disregard for their wellbeing, this put the Deputy in a terrifying moral position: if they didn't hurt the child badly enough and soon enough, then the child could hurt themselves much more.

This, for his sins, was what Toby did each winter.

Toby claimed no special knowledge on the nature of the illness, deferring to his friend the Doctor, who himself bore teenage scars from where his ribs had come through his side.

'It is my speculation,' he had said to Toby, 'and only a speculation, as I'm no neurologist. That it affects those minds that are soft and still forming, which are reaching adult capacity but which have yet to settle into their final shape. It catches us as we reach peak-power, but before our neural pathways have hardened, before we know yet who we want to be.'

'It sounds like teenage angst writ large,' said Toby then. The Doctor replying,

'In that respect it is insidious, and I hate it, as I hate all disease.'

Chapter 19 – Fighting Frank Hinklin

Toby repeated those last words out loud now, as he stood in the doorway of a room where the evidence of spiking was all around him. It was usually the lounge they were called to. It was often the largest room on the ground floor, and so adapted for that purpose.

Around the edges of the room was moved everything that would have filled it – armchairs, lamps, a rolled-up rug, a coffee table. Most of it now only needed a rag and bone cart to carry it off. Amid the mayhem Toby saw a shattered cocktail cabinet. About the only recognisable feature of it was a ripped picture, once held within its back frame, of a smiling woman in a grass skirt, holding a tray of brightly coloured drinks.

'"No glass,"' said Toby, shaking his head. 'Every year we tell them, "No glass."'

The wooden floor was smeared with mud and blood, and gouged and marked from the leather of the Deputies' flailing boots.

Sprawling in a wrestling hold across that floor – so commonplace a sight that Toby hardy needed to register it – was Job. He had the build of a pole-vaulter, all knees and elbows, but was none the less effective for his lack of upper-body strength. He was holding what Toby had to remind himself was still a child, so ferociously were they fighting.

Toby formed his final thoughts before entering the fray: the father's injury meant the house had no protector, and would have to be added to the Deputies' daily rounds. They'd already been putting in longer shifts than usual – for only three more Deputies had made it back on Returners' Weekend.

'Little help?' grunted Job, out of breath. He had his arms in a bear hug around Frank Hinklin's midriff. Frank had pushed himself up onto all fours, lifting Job up on top of him. To Toby they looked like spiders in a mating ritual.

Toby took off his jacket, revealing the tan shirt underneath – he always preferred to work unhindered by the extra layer, even though this left him only a thin shirt to protect against cuts from sharp objects. Arms wide, half-crouched, he approached the scene,

'Ready? One, two...'

On the count of 'three', Job jumped off the boy as Toby jumped on him.

Toby replaced Job's grip, and used his inertia to try and knock the boy Frank off his feet. He didn't succeed, as Frank's star-shaped stance resisted any attempt to have him upturned. Toby however was now facing the other way around to Job, and so risked freeing a hand to punch Frank in the back of his left knee.

The knee buckled and, with Toby above him, Frank collapsed. The sound of his kneecap hitting the wooden floor-beams rang through the structure of the house.

The pain in Frank's leg seemed to limit him for a while, and Toby hoped that that was that. Yet he knew better than to think a spiker couldn't get their wind back up; and so it proved. They were soon back in full wrestling mode.

'Have you hit his kidneys?' asked Toby.

'Yes, and twice on the right,' said Job by the door.

'Damn,' said Toby, who couldn't risk hitting him there again. Secretly though he was glad, as he hated raining blows. Others would though, he knew. Others would have no problem with that at all.

Frank wasn't getting himself very far up off the ground anymore, and Toby feared what he'd done to his knee. Still though he was fighting, and able to move with Toby's full weight over him. With Job stood watching and getting his breath back, Toby couldn't say what he wanted to Frank, which was,

'Stop fighting back, Frank. Lie still, stop making me have to hurt you.'

But it wouldn't have made any difference. A spiker wouldn't listen and remember for next time. Toby would remember though, and he wondered how he'd done this job all those years? Deputies burned out, he knew. Was that what was happening to him?

Amid his exertions his mind was free, and Toby pondered:

When he was a younger Deputy he could engage with it, embrace it, treat it almost like a work-out (there was a gym back in Carvel that offered 'Boxercise' these days.) Among the younger staff there had always been comparison of technique and remembrance of their longest, toughest bouts.

However, Toby could remember older colleagues drifting away from the Sheriff's Office chatter. The youngsters would think these 'old-timers' were bored or tired. They would brand them 'old miseries', and return to their discussions. For why would you not get a thrill from being a Deputy? It was an exciting thing for a young man – still barely a boy – to suddenly be involved with. Here were the keys to the town, the chance to join the adult ranks.

Toby knew now though that it wasn't being an 'old misery' that had men drop out of those conversations. It was the fact that people thought more deeply as they aged, and may have started questioning the world they'd previously felt so proud to have been accepted into. And they may have begun to wonder: 'Why are things done the way they are? Were previous generations necessarily wiser than our own? Or were today's traditions once the panicked, rushed decisions of people just as young and scared as we are now? And why have we never thought to question this before?'

Chapter 20 – Reflections

Toby looked at the clock. It was high up on the wall and so unaffected by the damage below. Frank and he had been fighting for an hour. No wonder he felt dog tired. But Frank was tiring too, and when Toby readjusted his hold he felt no instant exploiting of the weakened grip. Repositioned, Toby could see Frank's eyes were glazing, and he recognised the sign. Soon Frank would fall into a deep and dreamless sleep, and wake to groaning semi-consciousness, and not knowing what the fuss was all about.

Releasing his grip and withdrawing, Toby slithered away on his side, till he was far enough away to get up onto his feet. No sudden movements, he knew. Let the lad the rest now. Toby felt especially unsettled though, and it wasn't only fear for the harm he'd done. At first he scanned his own senses for the ache of unacknowledged injuries, before realising it was emotional – he hadn't shared a word with Frank Hinklin throughout the ordeal.

This was a thing Toby always tried to do, for it helped him keep in mind that his opponents were human, and that he was there to help them.

He hadn't said a word because he'd been embarrassed of Job overhearing. Job, his trusted lieutenant, who'd watched him fight countless times before. Why would Toby start fearing a friend's reactions? He realised that he was falling apart.

Job was already in the kitchen when Toby walked in to meet him, grabbing a towel to wipe over his hair, and knocking back a slug of gin – the only bottle saved from the smashed cocktail cabinet. Fitch had already been called away again, and the Hinklins were at the town clinic being looked over by a nurse.

'Have you gotten hold of the Doctor?' asked Toby.

Job shook his head,

'He's not at the clinic. He's been over on Crawley's patch all night.'

Job and the recovering Toby shared a serious look. Neither wanted to break cover though, and say something like, 'It sounds like Crawley's up to his old tricks again.'

There was no official second strata of management in the Sheriff's Office organisation. However, Toby and Crawley were the two Thornton trusted to oversee the different sides of the town. In his case, Toby hoped this was for his good sense and the authority he seemed to carry quite naturally among the men. In Crawley's case, Toby guessed it was down to the man's sheer uncrossability. Sometimes you really needed someone that strong on the ground.

Crawley got 'Town-side', the main community, containing the schools, clinic, and Sheriff's Office building. Toby had 'Mountain-side', the arm of town that stretched into the hills, and which consisted of fewer houses scattered further. This two-prong method kept them far apart. This was fine by Toby though, and he had enough else to keep him busy. Yet there was a lingering sense, reflected in the townsfolk's private mutterings, that if you had to have the sickness, then have it on Toby's side.

Toby didn't know if the Sheriff had ever heard those same worried murmurs. Though if he had, then Toby liked to think he kept Crawley Town-side where he could keep a better watch on him. Toby was the one left to his own devices, and this implied trust, and this made Toby proud. Though it could just as easily have meant that the Sheriff preferred to have Crawley near him in the town, and wanted Toby out of their way.

'You get on home then,' he said to Job. 'I'll keep an eye on Frank until the parents are back.'

And that Toby did, pulling a kitchen chair to the door of the sitting room. There he watched Frank sleep where he had given up fighting. A knock-out by submission – wasn't that the term? Toby thought so; Toby thought that was the one.

Chapter 21 – A House in Winter

It was a fortnight later. Christmas, such as it was in Stove, had been and gone. New Year's was days away. A call had gone up at night, and Toby was responding.

Toby was wired, was striding down the road, jacket buttoned up, cap pulled down tight. He was affecting some kind of meanness, a caricature of what a Deputy should be. His boot-heels crunched against the grit and ice. He swung his club on its short loop of string, systematically whipping the short padded cosh into a spinning frenzy then releasing the pressure against his thigh. He liked the firm slap of it through the heavy fabric, its dull thud connecting with his person.

He had been called away from one house to attend at another, not to rest or be relieved but because demand outstripped supply. He'd had to leave the last boy with his father, and hoped the man could contain him.

This next house was a new one to Toby. He opened the door straight onto the front room, and saw in the centre of the cleared floor a mother holding a really very young-looking son within her arms and wrapped in her shawl.

'Step away,' said Toby. 'I can handle him from here.'

But the mother didn't move or loosen her grip. Toby stepped into the room to be nearer to her and ask again. He was trying to bring himself down, at the same time as focus on the scene. For the woman's reaction was not right: the boy, or Toby, should have been the centre of her attention. Yet her eyes flickered from Toby to a point just behind him.

Too late, Toby realised the mother wasn't scared of the boy but for him, and that the object of that fear was behind Toby himself. He was almost standing over the mother as he spun to see it.

It wasn't even a figure that moved at him then, but a shape, a blur, grey around the edges it moved so fast. Instinctively, Toby went to swing his club at it, but stupidly was still holding it by its cord and not its handle. As he went to swing it, it flapped around his hand like toy nunchuks. He tried again and the club jumped about ridiculously, dancing on its string. He hadn't the couple of seconds he needed to get his grip around the handle. All in slow motion, the shape was almost upon him.

Toby swung a third time, and the cable cracked tight. The string tautened, the tension was just right. The club moved through the air in an arc parallel with his hand. And with the grey shape's face just feet from him, Toby caught it on the side of the head.

The counterbalance of the swing took Toby out of the creature's path, although it also lost him his footing. As he fell he watched the creature's flight, in one continuous motion as it fell across the floor in an unconscious sprawl.

Toby went onto his backside with a painful thump. The mother looked at him imploringly, as if saying, 'There! That's what I was trying to warn you of!'

What it was she was trying to warn him of was cruelly shown to be a girl, perhaps thirteen, in a full length nightdress. Her hair was dark and long, and splayed around her head now like a peacock's feathers.

Toby's senses grabbed him, and he scrabbled over the shiny wooden floor to reach the girl. She was breathing though, even moving in her odd landing position, as if in an unpleasant dream. He had socked her one across the cheek, and a welt was forming. Nothing that would scar though. Some might even say a job well done. Yet Toby had to tell himself he could breathe again. Frank Hinklin's knee had swollen to the size of a melon for three days – Toby hoped this girl would suffer no worse.

'Is she yours?' he asked the woman.

'Yes. She came back tonight, screaming like a wild thing. Not a thread on her feet. I don't know what they thought they were doing at the School for Girls, letting her get out in that state.'

'I'll get her back before she wakes,' said Toby.

'Take her to the Doctor's first,' said the mother. 'Get her sedated.'

And that was what Toby did.

Chapter 22 – The Doctor's House

It had been an odd battle, over in an instant with one blow. The experience had sobered Toby though. As he walked with the girl limp across his shoulder in a fireman's lift, he felt a soreness in his leg where he'd earlier been hitting it with his club. It was the dead of night, and not a person stirred. He knew the streets though, and hardly had to look where he was going. Nor did he feel the cold too badly.

Toby reflected that sometimes of a winter a kind of intensity could consume him, the kind he'd been feeling earlier as he reached the house. He'd seen something like it in the eyes of heavy metallers still stoked from a bout of headbanging, or sportsmen slapping each other's shoulders after a successful play.

It wasn't necessarily violent, yet intensity and physicality played a big part in it. It wasn't even a bad feeling, as those examples demonstrated. It could be a healthy release of adrenalin and energy, a burn-off of a week's frustration at a rock club or on a sports field. But not in Toby's case, not in his sport. He would have asked the Doctor for something to calm him down, had he not been fearful of it slowing his reactions.

The Doctor hadn't slept for days.

He would have hired a partner for the winter, but another trained medical professional was hard to find from such a small community. And how could he recruit from outside?

As it was then, the Doctor's staff was two nurses, assisted by as many auxiliaries as could be rustled up. These were kids from town who worked in shops and such during summer season. The town had not produced a new medical student though. At least not one who'd then returned.

Job happened to be there with another case when Toby arrived, and the Deputies spoke as the medic did his work. Eventually he put Toby out of his misery,

'She's fine, just knocked out cold.'

'I really didn't know,' said Toby, relieved.

'She's not the first like that I've seen. A girl can become a banshee when the winter spirit grabs her.'

'So why don't we see more of them?' asked Job.

The Doctor answered, 'Because they're closeted. The House Mistresses have their ways of managing them.'

'You've seen inside the School for Girls then, Doc?' asked Job, who evidently hadn't – not many men had.

'Indeed I have. Girls get ill all times of the year. The staff may know their stuff there, but they need me sometimes. And there can be injuries, when the urge takes one, like with this poor wretch.'

'It's not the same for women though, is it?' the gangly Deputy went on.

'Not very much is, Job,' joked the Doctor.

'I mean the sickness, it gets them differently. That's why the girls are put away.'

'Something like that.'

'But in what way?'

'You haven't got a sister?' he asked Job, who evidently hadn't. 'Well, you can think of it a bit like cars, Job. We all drive, but men are likely to drive differently to women. But that doesn't mean you don't see a woman in a Mustang or a man in an easy-parking citycar. He nodded to the girl breathing lightly on the bed, 'What we have here is a woman in a Mustang. Now Toby, I'd get her moved before she's back behind the wheel.'

'To the School?'

'To the School. And Toby, you don't want to hang around. I'd say she'd be awake again already if it wasn't for the sedative I've given her.'

Toby noticed afterward that it had been the Doctor whom Job had asked what the School for Girls was like, when Job would have known that Toby had stepped out with a House Mistress for half his adult life. Toby guessed it was for that very reason that Job hadn't asked him. 'Toby loves Janey' was forbidden ground, though never stated as such. His friends were just being understanding.

However, when it came to carrying the injured girl back there, that was obviously Toby's job. And, though he wished it wasn't so, he wouldn't have had it any other way.

Chapter 23 – Stove by Night

With the girl wrapped in a blanket and put back over his shoulder, Toby moved as quickly as he could across the wet and messy sidewalks. She wasn't old, but the weight was becoming enough to bring out every ache on that side of his body – and by that time in winter, there were a lot of aches. Toby held her legs within the long white nightgown that draped over him like a one-shouldered cloak. And as he walked he could see her hair hanging down and swishing against the back of his leg.

He monitored her breathing, felt her warmth against him, and wondered when he had last been that close to someone whom he hadn't been fighting. She whimpered in the voice she used the rest of the year, quite free of the mania that had consumed her. A soft, breathy voice, mumbling about horses, horses, jumping horses. It was a shared moment, if nothing else. Toby would be sorry when he reached his destination.

Toby had no one to talk to, nor any way to speed the journey up. So, for distraction, he re-told himself of the history of the town. The town that now moved around them in murky misty black-on-black silhouette. The night seemed distant. Reality had been reduced to the gravel under his feet and signs on telegraph poles as he passed close by them. His mind wandered...

The Stockton-Overbury Pass, to give it its full name, was named after those who first surveyed it. Though not as vital to the young nation's Manifest Destiny as the taming of the Rockies, it nonetheless provided a link to coastal areas once only reachable by sea.

Since then, tunnels, train lines and coastal roads had meant that traffic through the Pass had fallen to a trickle. Yet, in Nineteen sixty-four it was alongside the twisting, treacherous mountain road that the newly-formed Stockton-Overbury Company decided to run their oil pipeline.

Questions had been asked at the time: why go through the hills? Wouldn't that require extra engineering? Why not make the line as flat as possible?

Some answered that the road tunnel companies wanted too much money to run the line down their tubes. Others that carrying the pipeline overground would be easier to maintain and be less calamitous in the event of a breach. Whatever the reason, it meant that refineries could now share their product much more easily with industries and tanker ports along that stretch of coast. It would go on to be a great success.

The difficulties of pumping the oil up one side of the mountain range, and then hindering its rush back down the other, would be handled by a pipeline station. This was sited on a handily flattish area near the highpoint of the Pass. The Stockton-Overbury Station would require workers, and they would bring their families. And these families would need facilities, shops and schools. And so, like a market outside a Roman fort, over time all of these appeared. A town emerged, Stockton-Overbury, nicknamed Stove for ease – perhaps the only ease the town would ever know.

The Stockton-Overbury Pass had been known further afield before the town arrived. In the summer, when the snow had melted and the mist receded, the views its altitude afforded were a marvel – distant ocean one way, endless plains the other, snow-capped mountains either side of you. The town would come to call these summer views 'our reward'.

And the tourist attractions didn't end there. The 'flattish space' that became Stove was in the fulcrum of two of those mountains, their dark rock dominating the views in each of their directions. The Pass had long been a perfect base for day climbers, when it was summer and the grass was out. You could camp there, though this was only for the hardy; and in winter no one dared to make the trip.

On one occasion in the Fifties there was even an attempt to cross between the two peaks on a high-wire. It passed two-hundred yards over what would become the town. Toby, like all the town's children, had seen the photographs of this feat, without which he wasn't sure he'd have believed that it had actually happened. He could still remember the image of the speck of a man with his pole balancing all the way up; and a second photo of the high-wire artiste reaching the far end, his spangly white suit catching the sun, and he and those applauding him all smiles and relief.

Yet you didn't need to be quite such a daredevil as those climbers and the tightrope walker to reach the area's most famous landmark. Compass Point was only a hundred yards up the slope of one of the mountains, barely in the foothills, and could be gained in most weathers with no equipment beyond a pair of good boots.

As children, he and Janey would go there after school. There was never much privacy, as the rest of their classes would have the same idea – having different schools, the girls and boys were always glad to mingle after.

There, they would look out from a little crest that protruded from the hillside, like a commentary position above the goings on of the town. And all the classmates would bring a compass. Each would walk with it held in front of them, never tiring of the moment when the needle would start spinning.

Toby looked out in the darkness for Compass Point. He wasn't sure if he saw the dark of the mountain against the dark of the sky, or whether it was an optical illusion. But it was out there, somewhere. It had been one of the places he'd hoped to revisit on his sentimental journeying, before the early snow put paid to that. He wondered if Janey ever went up there still? He guessed she did, and this cheered him, for it kept the memory alive for both of them.

Toby looked up then into the sky, almost suffering a bout of vertigo as he imagined the ghost of the high-wire walker somewhere in the inky ocean above him. He would always be there, no matter that the wire had been dismantled sixty years ago.

Toby regained his bearings. With his tender load, he trudged on. And as he neared his destination, so his inner narrator capped off the story: for the pipeline was successful, and in this untamed cradle a community developed, and sustained. Long enough for children to grow up there, for parents to age and be buried. Long enough for myths to develop, for history to form, for several generations to reinforce their forebears' codes of behaviour. And all that time there was the secret.

Chapter 24 – The House of Women

'Picking up or dropping off?' asked the Junior House Mistress who answered the door. She was barely past the sickness age herself, thought Toby. Wither the doughty matrons he remembered calling at their house each November to take his sister away? Toby wouldn't see her then for three months, though in his own fugue state was only intermittently aware of her absence. They never spoke of it each springtime after she returned.

Toby looked at the young woman facing him. She had asked her question jovially and utterly respectfully, just trying to inject a bit of fun into what could be a tough time for the staff. A male visitor, and a Deputy to boot, might have caused a rush to see who could get to open the door first. He answered,

'So there's someone to collect as well?'

'Yes, she's in the Head Mistress's office. This way.'

Toby had hoped he might be able to quickly drop his charge at the door and be away. Yet the Head's office was through the school hall, which during the winter became a dormitory for their seasonal residents. As he walked along the central aisle, dark-suited, booted, without a free hand to remove his cap, and with a swooning waif across his shoulder, Toby wondered if he could have made a stronger impact on the hall's residents if he'd tried.

The room was full of iron-framed beds, made up with white sheets and brown blankets. In or on each was a girl dressed like the one he was carrying, in a floor-length nightdress. Though it was night time, he knew they would be dressed like that all day and for all winter. Most of them had long hair too and wore it down, for brushing it would calm them, it was believed. This and board games and reading were about the only things the girls could do together when the sickness didn't have them too badly.

When it did take them, it was often to the deepest depths of despair. Where in boys it found out their frustrations, so in girls it found out their sadness. Alone, or held by a Mistress or holding each other, for hours they could weep and weep.

It was the single saddest sight of the Stovian winter season, and Toby had wondered whether the town didn't use the whole side-show of wild boys and Deputies to distract them from the sorrow of the School for Girls. The impression he was left with, on the rare occasions when he saw this hall, was always of a roomful of doomed heroines from Romantic novels.

As Toby passed by them, those conscious of his presence became rapt, while those not would regret it when they came around to the fact of what they'd missed.

'This way, Deputy,' said his guide loudly, just in case anyone who was able to be was not yet aware of him. She flashed smiles at the girls who now sat up alert, or who clambered to the foot of their beds. There were murmurs of excitement and even a wolf-whistle from somewhere in the room.

'If you'll just tell me where to drop her,' asked Toby, his back killing him.

'This way,' said the Junior with relish, winking at every girl who caught her eye. Eventually they passed through a door into a corridor, and then through another door to a smaller room, again filled with beds.

'Which was hers?'

'Just put her down on that one, thank you.'

He leaned forward, and let his charge half-drop onto the springy mattress with its folded-back sheets. The Head Mistress wasn't there. This was her office year-around, but wasn't used as such in winter. Then it became a space for special cases, those who might upset the other girls.

Once on the bed, the girl's nightdress was arranged and her hair brushed straight by one Mistress, and her bedclothes tucked in around her by another. Amid all this she murmured, a picture of innocence and pre-womanhood. Over the bedclothes then came leather bands, which were joined in iron buckles like giant's watch-straps – this time she wouldn't get away.

'Thank you for bringing her back.' In all the activity, Janey had crept in unnoticed to stand next to Toby. 'And so unharmed. How did you manage it?'

'More by luck than judgement,' he stammered out. 'Though I did catch her face.'

'That will heal,' said Janey, who seemed only happy that nothing worse had resulted.

Maybe it had been the weight of all his carrying that had Toby's knees nearly give just then? That would be his retirement excuse for next year, he suddenly decided. Bad knees. You couldn't be a proper Deputy if you couldn't stand up straight.

'Just her cheek, ' marvelled the House Mistress. 'And a few grazes on the arms... She took us by surprise, fairly leaping out of bed before we could contain her. She went right through that window.' Janey pointed to the boards now filling the frame. 'It was pure fluke she made it. And then to run barefoot all the way home...'

'The snow can leave small cuts on the feet,' said Toby in Public Health Advisory mode. 'You'll want to check.'

'Thank you, we will.'

Sometimes a girl got the fever, which was only their name for what the boys usually had. Unprepared for it, the Mistresses could be caught out. And such a girl could be a handful, as Toby had just seen. He looked at this smaller number of young women bound and etherised, and he considered that if the girls outside in the hall were Romantic heroines, then the ones in the office were the mad first wives who their husbands were keeping locked in the loft.

Toby watched the girl sleeping,

'Will she be calm when she wakes?'

'It's hard to say,' said Janey, sadly.

Toby was glad he'd be away before she woke. He hoped the blankets would protect her as she tore against the straps.

As the women worked, he drifted off into his own thoughts. Just as a girl could get the fever, so a boy could sometimes get the sadness – Toby remember one year when he just couldn't stop crying. His watching Deputy was so baffled that he resorted to beating it out of him, and leaving him his eyebrow scar. Did it work? Toby only remembered falling into darkness, and not being conscious for what might have been days or weeks. Maybe he'd never been right since? Wasn't that the old joke, when someone was odd or different – that they must have been dropped on the head when they were a baby? Toby wondered what it did to the brain to have a cosh across the head at twelve?

Janey brought him back to earth,

'You had to knock her out. I understand.'

He flinched.

'It must have hurt you more than it did her. You always hated it, didn't you? The job.' She said this so lightly that no other would hear. 'I can't believe you came back. But you were always brave.'

He turned to her, but the House Mistress had already moved to the next bed along, and was talking loudly again,

'And if you could also take Claire here to the Doctor, we'd be very grateful.'

'What's up with her?'

'She's inconsolable. She won't take her food.'

Sometimes that happened too, a girl who got the sadness so badly that she didn't eat for days, and needed to be taken to be put on a drip. She'd be sedated also, maybe for a week. The winter sickness – sometimes it could be a pig.

Toby knelt down beside this second girl, and tried to get her slumped form over his shoulder. There was really no way to do it elegantly. She was bigger-boned, and would be a heavier load. Once he had her, he turned around but Janey was gone.

Toby's guide led him back the way they had come, every girl in the big room now watching for his return. His cap had been knocked askew, and he hadn't the hands available to set it right. He imagined that he looked like a drunken milkman.

'Here, let me,' said the Junior House Mistress. She stood in front of Toby to tend to his hat. This blocked his progress, when he really wanted to get going. As she raised her hands to his head she flashed him a smile, and every girl in the room saw it, some again wolf-whistling or cooing. His back was screaming, he had a drugged child over his shoulder, he'd just been speaking to the lost love of his life for the first time in however many years. He really didn't need this carnival going on around him.

'Right, isn't that better? We couldn't have you facing the world looking like that, could we.'

At last she turned around and they resumed their journey.

'Bye, Deputy,' the girls called as he left, and Toby turned his head and gave the best smile he could manage.

As Toby reached the entrance hallway, he re-threw his charge over himself to gain a better grip. As he did so an arm fell free, and for the first time he noticed the word Strength inked across the inside of her wrist in Gothic script.

'She has Hope on the other,' his guide advised.

'She's not old enough.'

'She got them on a school trip to the city last summer – can you believe it? She kept them covered all the way home. Her mother was fit to weep.'

They were at the door now, the young Mistress opening it. Toby said,

'I've never seen a woman with a tattoo in this town.'

As they faced each other at the open door, the Mistress teased down the front of her brown dress, to reveal a heart and cupid's arrow nestling in her cleavage, the names Lana and Eric contained within.

'Lucky Eric,' he responded.

To which she giggled, as she adjusted herself, flashed him one last smile, and finally shut the door. As she did so, so the cold wind bit Toby's neck and hands, and the new girl on his shoulder reminded him of all his aching. Displaying Strength but never Hope, he began his return journey.

Chapter 25 – A Call to the Emsworth House

After a while every winter became the same, Toby knew – call upon call coming through to the guest house that served as the Mountain-side base of operations. It was rare that there wasn't someone somewhere needing something, or that there wouldn't be another call waiting once that one was complete. Deputies could take to sleeping in the houses they were working in, or hiding out at a friend's place for an hour's peace. Yet the message always seemed to find its way to them; as had this latest call that Toby was now following up. It has been taken by Sarah, an assistant at the Sheriff's Office, and fed to Toby especially, even though it fell in the heart of Town-side territory.

'Top priority,' had repeated the landlady as she'd relayed it to him. 'They asked for you by name. Come at once.'

Toby now approached the house in question. If Stove was big enough to qualify for a town centre, then he was nearing it, a street of tall houses just behind the main shops. It was coming up to noon, townsfolk passing in their daily activities,

'Morning, Deputy,' greeted one.

'Surprised to see you this far south,' joked another, to which Toby smiled. Yet he couldn't pretend that being that close to the Sheriff's Office, and so to Crawley's base of operations, didn't bring him out in hives.

'Why did they ask for me?' muttered Toby to himself, as he found the gate of the fine upstanding house and turned down the garden path. 'Why not walk around the corner to Main Street and collar a passing Deputy there?' Had he not been so tired, he might have questioned this before.

Knocking on the door, he found it open – not uncommon in a house driven to distraction with a sick child.

'Hello, is anybody there?'

Toby pushed through into an open-plan sitting room and hall, and knew a joke had been played upon him. For sat on the stairs was Jake, the instigator of trouble, the Holy thorn in his side.

'If you wouldn't make such a racket?' the prankster asked quietly.

It was bright outside, and Toby's eyes adjusted. In the centre of the room stood a woman.

'Mrs Emsworth?' he asked, remembering the name he'd been given in the message.

She didn't answer, but rather held him in a cold stare.

Emerging from the kitchen then was another woman, who Toby stupidly took a whole second to clock as Sarah, the Sheriff's Office administrator.

'What are you..?' he started to ask.

But what really shook Toby was that, if Mrs E seemed chilly toward him, then Sarah held him in a look of such contempt that Toby felt himself shrinking under her gaze.

She ignored his question though, as she walked to the gaping entrance behind him.

'Shut the door, would you Sarah?' asked Jake from the stairs. 'It's cold out there.'

It wasn't that cold outside actually, but certainly not as warm as in the snug, well-appointed house. All three of the greeting party were also wearing cardigans and sheepskin slippers, and the scene of bucolic wintertime could only have been made more complete with the arrival of Bing Crosby and David Bowie singing The Little Drummer Boy.

Toby remembered how he'd felt that first evening, standing outside the School for Girls, watching the House Mistresses preparing meals in their warm rooms, and asking himself: why was he the only one not allowed comfort?

Toby didn't bolt for it, but let himself be shut in.

Once they were all inside, Sarah's expression remained one of cold fury. Her arms were crossed in defiance. Toby had stepped into something here, he knew. A trap had been sprung. But set by whom and for what reason?

Adding to the oddness was the fact that it was Jake who led the talking, despite this being Mrs Emsworth's house.

'I told you you would see me again.'

'Another prank, Jake?' asked Toby, trying to sound tough. Yet he heard the words catch in his throat, almost squeaking at one point.

'Not a prank, Toby. Not a prank at all.'

From his position up the stairs, Jake could remain seated yet still have the highest eyeline. Perhaps sensing the snare complete though, he lifted himself to shuffle down to ground level,

'Take a seat,' he instructed. Ridiculously, Toby did as he was told. He was no longer sure what was happening or where the power lay. He sensed that in that room his badge and his billy club were as useless as their foam equivalents in a boy's police playset.

Toby looked then at his colleague from the Sheriff's Office, still totally amazed,

'Sarah, what are you doing here?'

But it was Jake who answered for her,

'All in good time, Deputy. Ladies, please, if we could have ten minutes?'

They did exactly as he asked. The men sat opposite each other on the sofas, while the women receded to remain on the periphery, moving into different parts of the house but always in view and in earshot. Toby found this disconcerting, as if being kept under distant watch. He asked Jake,

'You've been here all these weeks?'

'Since the day after we last met. Or rather the night after. Gill Emsworth came to collect me from the house party. That house was on the outskirts, luckily, so I'd gotten there on foot; but I couldn't risk walking into town on Council night. She drove me here on the back seat, beneath a rug.' He laughed at the memory. 'It was all planned you see – well, maybe not that bit, but it was always going to be this way.'

Toby didn't speak, so Jake was almost needing to make conversation,

'You know we nearly didn't make it, you or I, when the snow came early.'

'And what..?' Toby couldn't even form a question.

'What am I doing here? I told you, I've been doing my research into your town, your secret lives. I could have published what I thought was going on here months ago. But this is the Internet Age, and people don't believe anything without pictures and videos anymore.'

'You're here to film us?'

'What did you think – that I was here to soak up the ambiance?'

Toby stiffened suddenly, remembering the town they were in and what he meant there,

'What's to stop me going right outside and calling in a dozen men?'

'And arrange another car crash?' (Toby winced at the reference.) 'For me, for Gill, for Sarah?'

'Sarah.' Toby remembered it all then.

Chapter 26 – Sarah and Tommy

Jake narrated, 'Sarah, who comes into the Sheriff's Office on holidays and weekends to help Margaret the Sheriff's secretary. Glad of the distraction, because her family have all left town: her sister Terri and her husband Joss, and their boy Tommy. Though little Tommy didn't leave town, did he, he lies in the graveyard. Tommy Richter, who'd died four winters ago, in the year they called the Worst Year, supposedly in a car crash joyriding. Little Tommy who hated cars, who wouldn't even travel with his dad in his truck, because the shaking on the town's bumpy roads reminded him of the fits he used to have.'

Toby felt like he was going to start shaking himself.

'So you get it now?' Jake continued to speak for the three of them, the women maintaining their distance. 'I'm sure you remember the tale of Tommy Richter's death.'

'I wasn't there.'

'I know, you missed that year, the Worst Year. Two deaths, wasn't it? One of them murder – or one that I've uncovered so far. I don't know who the other boy was that your Sheriff's Office placed in that car.'

'Tommy wasn't murder,' began Toby, feeling the women's eyes burn into him from other rooms. 'He was epileptic. It was a seizure, it could have happened anywhere.'

'Only it isn't anywhere, is it, where having a fit has you beaten black and blue.' Jakes eyes flashed then, 'And I notice you didn't deny the car crash was faked?'

'And how would I know?'

(But Toby did know, knew it for a fact, though hadn't found out till months later.)

Sarah, the boy's aunt, re-entered the room, explaining,

'Tommy was too young for the sickness. But those brutes beat him up anyway, shouting at him to calm down. They'd never seen an epileptic seizure before. They thought he was defying them, thought he needed punishing.'

'And then...' Jake laughed grimly at the horror of it. 'And then, someone made the decision to put this boy's dishonoured body in a motorcar and shove it over a hillside... God, it's the Wild West out here. Even the dead aren't sure of burial!'

'He got a burial.'

'Yes, the second time around. But he didn't get the truth, did he, Toby?'

Gill Emsworth came in and put her hands on the troubled woman's shoulders. Meanwhile, Jake took back the reigns, getting up and joining the women standing on the wooden floor,

'They killed him, Tobes. Men you are lined up alongside again this year. They killed him, pure and simple. And then your friend the Doctor signed the autopsy report to say his bruises had been caused in the car wreck.'

Sarah cried again, to further comforting. Jake, apparently the world's expert on Stovian Affairs, resumed,

'Poor Thomas. He had a seizure. No worse than that, nothing that his mother hadn't had to contain so many times before. Just a family secret. Had they lived in a bigger town then she might have found a doctor to take him to. But this was Stove, high up in the mountains. And so she bore a nervous twitch when it came to her child's health.

'The family knew they'd have to run away eventually – they feared what the sickness could do to their boy. But they hoped they had a year or two yet. Until that evening where a wired, roughed-up Deputy heard the sound of breaking glass and raised the alarm. Before he got the situation totally wrong.

'Just an epileptic seizure then. But on the wrong night and in the wrong town.'

Toby looked to Sarah then, asking,

'You're in the room with us guys. How do you manage it?'

Jake answered for her,

'Sarah's done brilliantly, Toby. She was already half-way to breaking the secret before I was on the scene. She'd got herself nicely bedded-in at the Sheriff's Office. Not that they'd left much for her to find.'

'But didn't they remember?' asked Toby. 'Didn't they know you were one of Tommy's family?'

Sarah answered from where she stood,

'I went to them at the start of the next winter, and said I wanted to help, help the town, now that I was at a loose end.'

'Her family had left by then, you see,' added Jake.

Sarah went on, 'I said I wanted to assist them in their difficult work. I played it straight, lost, downcast. They thought that giving me a few duties was an act of charity, a way of helping me get over Tommy's death. Perhaps a way to make them feel less guilty.'

'But how could they bear to have you there reminding them?'

'After a while I think they forgot.'

She drifted back to the hall. Jake resumed,

'Sarah knows the Town-side Deputies, Toby. She knows how they think. She takes their confessions, hears then agonising after every bloody battle.'

'But never that confession?'

Jake shook his head, 'No, none of them will speak of it. Even Sarah's sister wouldn't tell her which Deputy it was, before the couple fled town that spring.'

Toby looked to the ground, 'There's been nothing like that since.'

'As if that makes it all okay?' Jake had moved to a chair next to Toby's sofa now, right in Toby's eye-line, arms gesturing at his sides. 'Just listen to yourself, look at what you're excusing.'

'I missed that year,' he repeated, near-whispering in pathetic self-justification.

'I know you did, and also that your calming presence since might be the reason why it hasn't happened again. It's also why I'm even speaking to you now, and not watching and waiting to consign you straight to hell with the others.'

'Don't take my kindness for granted.' Toby's inner-Deputy surged back suddenly, and was not open to assumptions made about him.

But Jake just laughed, and turned away, still talking as he went to the kitchen, calling from the other room,

'You know, you don't have to be very nice to still be the best of this town. Toby, do you think it's an accident I've been at your college, and not at Eddy's wood yard, or Fitch's printing shop?'

'Because they work in Stove year-round, you couldn't risk being seen here before the winter.'

Jake emerged with a can of cherry soda, giving it to his guest, 'Okay then, why not hiring Job to decorate my house? Or trailing Crawley around the towns, teaching college football and freelancing as a fitness instructor? Because, to borrow a term from the commercial world, you're the person I can do business with, Toby. Now, you need to get that into your head, because this isn't a deal you can back out of.'

Chapter 27 – Jake's Investigations

Once they were settled, Jake changed tack, 'How soon will you be missed outside?'

Toby turned his head quickly, as if looking through the locked door.

'I'll have an hour easily. We can say that Sarah was upset by the scenes at the Hinklin house,' (which was only down the road) 'that they bought it all back for her.'

This brought a look of scorn from Sarah, and chastisement from Jake,

'Don't you dare, we don't want anyone being reminded of her part in the town's history.' He turned to the women by the door,

'Though don't be upset with our friend's efforts to help us, Sarah. He's feeling his way into this. And an hour should cover us. For we need to go backwards before we can go forwards, for the Deputy's benefit.'

'Why do anything for him?' she spat, at last able to unleash long-held fury.

'Because we need him, Sarah. You know we do. Now, will you give us some space? I don't want to scare the guy off.'

He asked this kindly, and the women again agreed.

He turned to Toby,

'Shall we have a proper drink?'

With Jake reaching to the cabinet from the low sprawling sofas of the Emsworth home, they split the can of soda with a little something extra in their glasses.

'But why are we in this house?' began Toby,

'Because it has far the better views from the upper windows. They show you half the town, in fact.'

'But what's Mrs Emsworth got to do with it, when it's Sarah who's your ally?'

Gill Emsworth answered herself – for the women hadn't really left earshot, as they wouldn't the whole time the men were downstairs,

'I felt Tommy's death just as strongly. His parents were my friends, I was bridesmaid at their wedding. Sarah has confided in me from the start.'

Jake confirmed, 'Rest assured, Toby, Gill shares every bit of her friends' feelings for your operation. And they aren't the only ones.'

'What? Who?'

'Don't look so shocked. I thought you knew the people of this town?'

'Perhaps as well as Carvel knows you?'

Jake smiled at the retort, 'Knew. I won't be back there. Though almost everything that the college know about me is true. I only kept my motive for choosing Carvel a secret.'

With Toby listening, Jake began his story,

'I really am a scientific researcher. Freelance, moving from town to town, project to project. Three years ago I was working for a famous motor corporation, investigating deaths in autos of their manufacture. It was no fun, I can tell you, going through five-hundred police case-files of teenage deaths in auto wrecks. I was looking for accidents where safety fittings were criticised by investigators, or were found to have failed – seat-belts, airbags, impact-protection. You know the drill.

'Now, I often found myself speaking to law enforcement officers, just to clear things up on the file or to ask for extra details. Officers current and retired, I should say, for some of these cases went back twenty years.

'Now, do you want to know a human truth, Deputy? Sorry, I won't call you that... Do you want to know a human truth, Toby? Or rather two of them? One, that there is nothing sadder than the death of a child. And two, that there is nothing witnessed by a human soul that they're as keen to share their experience of, and in so sharing unburden themselves – isn't that Shakespeare?'

Toby didn't know.

'Well, either way, I would testify to each being true. These were the officers who'd attended the accident scenes, who comforted relatives, who often knew the families, especially in small towns. In those months I must have spoken to hundreds of them.

'I've never known such conversations, they could go on for hours. I'd call District Attorneys out of court and drag cops off stake-outs – and every one was willing to have me do so. They only wanted to tell me how they'd tried to help the victims, or honour them as they handled their remains. I was invited to towns to look at recent wrecks still in the pound. I was even put on to the families of the victims, who were just as keen to speak. I heard of college football stars in sports cars bought them by proud fathers, daughters taken off hill roads in their SUV's. They didn't think that I was helping, didn't think I'd right any wrong. They only told me of their children and how they missed them. And all I got the whole time were people glad to talk.

'That's until I called your town. For there wasn't one other officer or civilian I spoke to as unwilling to help as your Sheriff Thornton.'

Chapter 28 – A Marker on the Road

Jake continued,

'To go back a step: I'd found a report of an accident within his jurisdiction. Really a horrible, horrible business: two boys killed when their station wagon went through the barrier on a mountain road. They were found the next morning, and were handled by members of your Sheriff's Office. It seemed exactly the kind of accident I was investigating, so I gave them a call and got through to the man himself. The conversation went something like:

"Hello, my name's X, working on behalf of Corporation Y. I'm calling about a fatal road traffic accident that occurred in your town three years back. Two teenage boys, out on Highway..."

"Who are you, a reporter?"

"No, as I say, I'm working on behalf of..."

"And what are you asking about that for? The matter's closed."

"As I say, I've been charged with investigating it for the motor company, and I just wanted to ask a few..."

"And so you're ringing me now, stirring up old upsets?"

"I really don't think I'm..."

"Don't you think the family have suffered enough?"

...This went on and on, until I made my apologies and rang off. I went away and got a coffee, cursing him: he was a public servant, Goddamnit. He had a duty to help. Now bear in mind, I didn't know what I was dealing with then. Had I done so I wouldn't have done what I did next, which was call him right back up, determined to force this guy to get with the programme:

"Hello again..."

"You! I've just told you..."

...This time though your Sheriff sounded even worse, like he was still upset from last time. And then it clicked – he wasn't being rude, he was being defensive. Further, behind his bluster I was scaring him to death. I ended the call politely, and left it to one side – I had to get on with other files – but I couldn't forget him. He'd lodged up here, Toby,' Jake tapped his temple, 'as people sometimes do.

'In the end I didn't use that case in my research – seatbelt integrity becomes irrelevant once a car's gone that far down a mountain – but I took a copy, before handing the material back for storage.

'Report completed, I gave myself a fortnight's grace before my next job. I went over to Aspen to catch the end of the season, kicked back at my hotel, and looked the file over again: two kids, one young, one not-so young, stolen keys, a powerful car. It was the start of spring, the roads still icy. Maybe they were drunk? But the doctor quoted in the report didn't specify. It was the kind of thing that happens all the time. There was nothing untoward, nothing criminal, no follow-up investigations. So why had the Sheriff been so cagy?

'I knew I couldn't leave it, so started to make more calls. A town just along the road from Stove had been quite helpful on another case, a place called Gaidon. So I called their Sheriff back, lied that I couldn't get hold of his opposite number in Stove, and did he know why that might be? I got the feeling from the Sheriff that that wasn't the only odd thing about your town.

'Now, I haven't a recording of my call to Thornton. But I didn't make that mistake twice. Sneaky, I know, but what I got was pure gold.'

Jake leaned from his chair and pressed play on the cassette deck of the Emsworths' hi-fi. The tape was already prepared. Toby heard the voice of the Sheriff of Gaidon:

'So, you're asking about Sheriff Thornton, eh? And the issue of him being evasive? Well, I sure do thank you for trusting me enough to ask the question. And I know I can trust you in return...'

'We'd already worked together, as I say,' interjected Jake in the room.

'...The fact is, he can be evasive, even to me. And that's not the only odd thing about his Office, or his town. Now, you might call this local rivalry, or just our suspicions of what goes on up in those mountains when they're closed off for three months of the year. But a part of a Sheriff's work is instinct, having a nose for things. And... well, let me tell you a story that to me seemed very odd at the time.

'As you may know, our jurisdictions share a border. There's a marker on the mountain road, so small you might not even notice it if you weren't looking for it. But it's there, somewhere around half-way up. It's not normally needed – not much happens on the road, and if it does we can usually agree which side would handle it.

'But, maybe three or four years ago we had an RTA up there. Now, I know your line of work, Jake, so I wonder if that's not what you were hoping to ask Sheriff Thornton about?

'Anyway, most of the road that hugs the mountain is on our side. After that, it meets the mountain pass that Stove sits within. So, after the crash was called in by a lorry driver, both our forces were in attendance that morning. I saw with my own eyes the barrier that the four-by-four had crashed through, and it was clearly above the marker. But the car had rolled so far down the mountain that, were I a cartographer and had a large-scale map rolled out in front of you, I could tell you that the car was resting on our side.

'We were set to fight our corner, mount a full investigation – there was no way to say the victims hadn't died in our town. But it was Lloyd Thornton himself who made the Stove case,

'"They're our kids, Al," he said to me. "I know the car, I know the owner, I knew his son."

'And I gave way, because I could see how much it pained him. This was their tragedy, and I gave way.'

'And strictly speaking,' asked Jake on the tape, 'was your giving way... inappropriate?'

The Sheriff of Gaidon answered,

'No. One of us had to, and it crossed the border.'

'But it left an aftertaste?'

'You appreciate, Jake, I'm getting into my own personal feelings now, nothing I could point to in the police record.'

'I understand.'

'But as I say, a Sheriff has a nose, and there was something off.'

'So tell me your impressions, anything, no matter how vague.'

'Well, I'll tell you what. He looked beat up. Now, the young Lloyd Thornton cut a dashing figure. Jet black hair and sharp jawline, I've seen him turn more than one woman's head. But that town ages people, and he looked awful that day.'

'Must be the rugged life,' suggested Jake.

'Must be,' agreed the Sheriff, sounding utterly unconvinced. 'And one of his men had a black eye – the result of a bar-brawl apparently. And another was limping.'

'When was this again?' asked Jake.

'The start of spring. Literally the week the road re-opened.'

In the living room Toby cringed.

'And I'll tell you what else – they were all wearing fresh-laundered uniforms. They looked like they'd stepped out of a menswear section of a shopping catalogue – tan slacks, khaki jackets.'

'Maybe they needed washing after the rigours of winter?'

'All of them, on the same day? All that mud and slush still around, and I swear there wasn't a speck on them.'

Jake turned to Toby in the room, 'Or maybe their tan uniforms needed washing as they'd been hanging up unworn for three months?'

The Sheriff of Gaidon went on,

'And as we're on the subject... well, that's not the only time events have crossed our jurisdiction and we've been left with the distinct impression to leave well alone.'

'I'd be glad to ask you about it.'

'And I'd be glad to tell. Though I won't say any more over the telephone, if you don't mind. Maybe you could visit us?'

'I'd be glad to.'

'And Jake?'

'Yes?'

'You're not only asking me about a road traffic accident here, are you?'

'We investigators have a nose too.'

And Toby thought the Sheriff of Gaidon sounded distinctly glad of that, as he signed off on the phone call.

Chapter 29 – Another Tale of Life as Lived in Stove

Jake clattered with the tape deck as he changed cassettes,

'Fear not, Toby. The show's not over. Here's the recording of the interview I had with him in Gaidon when I got to visit on Summer Break. Now, you're going to want to get comfortable for this one.'

The second recording started with a hiss at the start of the tape, and the clunk of the recording machine being switched on and set up, then the Sheriff of Gaidon asking,

'You're recording this?'

Jake on tape answered in that calm but unmistakably serious tone that Toby was beginning to get used to,

'This is a potentially criminal investigation, Sheriff. This is evidence. Are you all right with that?'

Toby imagined the fear Jake may have felt just then, waiting for the man's answer. Fear that his journey to the foot of the mountains, even his entire investigation so far, could have been for nothing. But the Sheriff answered,

'Yes, yes. Of course. Sorry, it's just that giving "evidence" on fellow lawmen, even those of another district... I don't like it, Jake. But, as you say, if it could be that important.'

'It really could. So, Sheriff Lacer, to begin,' said Jake then with all due authority. 'I must confess: when we spoke on the telephone I took the liberty of recording our conversation. This was before I knew if you were implicit in the events of the car crash on the mountain road. Since earning your trust however, I'd like your permission to keep the tape as evidence of your recollections of that day.'

'I suppose so, yes.'

'Thank you. You agreed to speak today on another cross-border incident?'

Toby sensed the Sheriff wasn't enjoying this interview; though as the tape rolled on and he told his story, he seemed to relax into it.

'Yes. It wasn't a crime as such. It didn't even warrant more than a couple of lines on our log book – I went to look it up after you'd reminded me of it. But... well, I'll leave it to you to decide what you think.

'This was a couple of years before the car crash, five years this past January.'

'Wintertime again?' asked Jake on tape.

'Yes. We received a call from a householder here in Gaidon to tell us they had discovered a boy, no older than fifteen or sixteen, in distress and hiding out in their carport. This was January, a mountain town in January. He was frozen half-to-death and shivering, not even wearing proper clothes...'

(In the room at that moment Jake said to Toby, 'The Sheriff shivered himself as he told me this bit. I swear he shook.')

The Sheriff went on,

'...The caller said the lad was scared, and looked like he'd been crying. He wouldn't accept food, or shelter inside their house. And when the first of my men approached him he flipped out, screaming, "No police, no police."

'Anyway, we stepped back into the house. I'd arrived at the scene by then, with no idea of how to handle it other than to give the kid some space. The householders took him a bowl of soup at least. The boy wouldn't even tell them who he was, though he wasn't local – I pride myself on knowing everyone in my town.'

'I think a lot of people would like to live in a town like that.'

'Thank you. Now, so far so odd. But you haven't heard the oddest bit. An hour after we got there, so did the Stove police, fronted by Lloyd Thornton himself. They were waiting at my office, huffing and puffing after getting down the mountain, and asking if we'd seen a Stove boy who'd ran away from home? So old, so tall. He fitted our boy's description all right. They said he was a shoplifter, who'd run away after nearly getting caught.'

The Sheriff paused on the recording. Toby imagined him shaking his head at the memory. He resumed, quieter and with a note of concern,

'Now, by then he'd come into the house and been chatting to the householders a little bit. He'd even let us officers into the room, after we promised to leave our sticks and handcuffs in the car. If this lad was a criminal then he was the gentlest soul that ever turned to crime – Lor, I'd say the mother feeding him soup was all fit to adopt him there and then! And if he had been shoplifting, then he'd lost whatever he'd stolen along the way. And it must have been something real big for him to risk a trek down a snowed-in mountain road for it.

'In the house I got a proper look at him. This was winter, yet the lad had regular sneakers on. At least he had a sheepskin over him, though it was unbuttoned and pulled around himself like a comfort-blanket. And this was worn over just a tee-shirt and... what I could only call pyjama bottoms. The clothes were wet with sweat after struggling through snowbound mountain passes. And he had bruises too, old ones. I saw them when the sheepskin fell open. And don't tell me they were all caused by his exertions getting down to our town. He could have died out there, Jake, died.

'To give you a clue of the effort it must have taken him to get to Gaidon, this was a whole month before the road re-opened. The snow up there, even dodging the drifts, can get up to five feet thick in places, left uncleared. He would have been scrambling through it on all fours, sometimes falling in it up to his neck. Imagine the state of mind you'd have to get yourself into to manage such a feat – almost a manic state...'

(Toby could imagine that 'manic state', and knew the effort it took to contain that same energy in his own young spikers. He only wished he'd had the presence of mind as a teenager to put his own spiking energy into an escape attempt.)

'...In all my time as Sheriff I'd not seen one person make the journey from November to February. And now, here were four in one night! Old Lloyd was fit to gasp, and with the whole trek back ahead of him. No wonder he looked aged the next time I saw him.'

'You didn't meet again till the car crash?'

'As I say, we're often given the sense they don't want much to do with us. But that night they were there to take the young lad back.'

'What did you do?'

'I wasn't happy with it, and I said so. I as good as told them that there was something up with their story. But to my shame, I let him go... Well, whatever I might feel about it, I won't doubt a fellow officer staring me right in the eye and asking me to turn over someone he believes to be a criminal. It was another four hours though before I let them take him, not till after he'd rested and had a proper meal, and after we got him some walking clothes.'

'And how did the Stove officers take the delay?'

'As well as they wanted to – I didn't give them a choice. But...'

'What?'

'Well, it was odd – I know the kid was technically a criminal, and that he'd led them a merry dance having to chase him down the mountain. But the Stove officers seemed so show no interest in his condition, they took no pleasure in him feeling better. In fact, the more talkative he became the more nervous they seemed.'

'And how was the boy?'

'A little better. He'd perked right up after eating and resting.'

'And how did he take to going back?'

Toby noticed another period of dead air on the recording, before Sheriff Lacer answered,

'He didn't like it. I think he tried not to think about it, until he'd finished eating and they took his arm and told him it was time to go.

'I also told Lloyd... Sheriff Thornton, I should be calling him... I told Sheriff Thornton that I thought the boy had endured enough that night, and that if he had it in his power he should get the charges dropped. He needed his family and his bed when he got back, not a grilling on a minor charge. And to his credit, Thornton agreed. He said to the poor kid, "Everything that happened in town, that's all forgotten about. We're just taking you home, son."'

'And so it ended with their leaving?'

'I won't forget their faces as they went on their way. I don't think any of them fancied the trip back – the trek down had half killed them. By then the lad was just about warmed up and calmed down. And hell, the look he gave me over his shoulder, as he headed off on his new snow shoes, a Deputy either side of him...

'I gave in, Jake, even though it felt wrong. And it wasn't only up to me. It was my duty, I had to do it, and I've worried ever since what happened to the kid.'

'And did the Stove officers tell you the boy's name, Sheriff?' asked Jake on tape.

'Benjamin Drew. I'll not forget it, Benjamin Drew.'

Chapter 30 – Candour in the Face of Things

Jake clicked off the tape player, to leave the room in silence. Toby looked around, at Jake's unreadable grin and at the women's all-too-readable scorn, standing listening at the door. The looks on their faces had not faded all the time he'd been there.

Jake sat silent by the stereo, before asking Toby,

'"Five years ago this past January." That would have been the first of the three winters you missed?'

Toby calculated, 'Yes.'

'Two years before the Worst Year?'

'Yes.'

'Had you heard this story?'

'No, I hadn't.'

'Not even from Job and Fitch?'

'It must have been Town-side men.'

Jake paused. 'You're thinking of something?'

'It's just...'

'What?'

'Don't make me say it, Jake.'

'What, Toby?'

'Well, when Sheriff Lacer said that the Stove Deputies didn't care when Benjamin's condition improved.'

'Uh uh.'

'It was only because they knew a teen's moods could be up and down all winter, that he could be groaning again in an hour and spiking an hour after that. Their job wasn't to be happy for him feeling better, but to watch for those moods coming back. If he was groaning, then they'd have to carry him over their shoulder all the way back up to town. And if he spiked, then they'd be knocking him unconscious on the road to do the same. They'd have hated having outsiders near a sick kid, and would fear the people of Gaidon seeing how we had to deal with him.'

'Well, I can't fault your honesty. Of course, I've tried to find Ben Drew, but as you may know he's left the country.'

Toby didn't, but Jake went on.

'So, I don't know how it helps us. But you can't deny an anecdote like that adds depth.'

'When you come to write the story?'

'When I come to write the story. Tommy Richter needs closure, Toby. His ghost haunts this town. And that of the other boy, who I don't even have a name for yet – can you believe they consigned him to a pauper's grave under a false identity? Why do that, Toby? Half the town must have known who he was.'

Toby said quietly, 'The truth is, we don't know. At least, I don't, and I've never had anyone tell me.'

Jake let this sink in, before continuing,

'And there were other leads that led nowhere: such as another car crash nearly twenty years ago, again killing young people. This time occurring in late autumn, and on the road leading coastward. Teens desperate to escape before the snow came? I wondered. But the details weren't there.'

'I knew them,' said Toby. 'They were a brother and sister, he was above me at school. I can't remember the names now. They broke the news in school assembly. But it was nothing to do with the Sheriff's Office, I'm sure.'

'I believe you. As for the rest, who knows what I'll find? I've hardly broken ground on the research: fifty years of news stories; the records of all deaths recorded in your town; the history of every town official. I searched for people on social media with Stove as their hometown, and found none – are you all so ashamed of where you come from?

'And then it struck me, something I'd heard as a child, about a town in the hills that was locked away all winter, where the people were stuck together for months in religious rituals.'

Toby shook his head, 'That's hooey. It was a rumour to explain why so many of us came back each year. We're no more religious than any other town, and those of us who are are only praying for winter to end.'

Jake sighed, and then concluded the first part of their meeting with,

'Look at how your town is living, Toby.'

Which is what Toby was doing, had been trying not to do all his life.

Chapter 31 – Jake's Aerie

'I keep most of my research upstairs.' Jake rose from the sofa, 'Come and have a look.'

'You'd show it me?'

'Why not? If you gave us away they'd find it anyway.'

Toby couldn't argue with the logic, and followed Jake up the warmly creaking stairs – was it only his imagination that wood creaked more in cold weather? On the third level, for it was a big house, Toby leant on the wooden bannister of the staircase. It opened out into an open-plan top bedroom that occupied the whole of the loft. Yet this was no gloomy attic, but a bright converted living space, plastered and painted white, and with superior windows facing forward and back.

From a shelf, a pocket radio burbled distant sports scores. Beside the warm-looking bed and busy desk were bags of folders, files, and the red holdall Toby had seen Jake with on the station platform. And at each window, carefully painted so as not to glint in sunlight, were camera apparatus with long lenses.

'I've brought you here to show you how much we have,' said Jake.

'We?' asked Toby.

'We aren't many, but enough. And we're not all in this house either.' Jake was now perching himself on a camera stool, but giving his visitor his full attention. 'And there's nothing here that doesn't have a copy, even if it's only stashed out in the woods, where you know you'll never find it. I need you to know that it's over, Toby. I need you to leave here with that fact.'

'I need a minute.'

'You've twenty left of your hour.'

Toby sat on the edge of the bed, surrounded by the proof of his town's secret. Classified, categorised, growing daily, all awaiting its delivery to the nation's media. It felt to Toby like so many crates of TNT about to blow the town to smithereens.

He didn't need a minute, he only had one question,

'If you've all this evidence, then why speak to me at all? I can see why you came to Carvel – you wanted to see me in my summer setting; and then seeing me in my uniform would give you perspective.

'But why bring me here today? You're not armed. I could smash that window right now, call out. You know they might kill you?'

Jake asked, 'Do I strike you as a man who takes unnecessary risks?'

'No.'

'So, why do you suppose I brought you up here?'

'I don't know, other than to gloat about knowing the secret.'

Jake got up and paced around,

'And risk my life just to "gloat over" you? Of course not. Of course that's not the reason you're here today. It's because, for all of my enquiries, for all that I can tape and photograph, what would the world believe I have here? A sad tale of two children's deaths? A few blurred snapshots of men in black jackets? Rumours of a doctored accident report?

'And all linked together by a fairy story about a strange illness, backed up with a couple of mad-people's affidavits. A classic case of cabin fever if ever there was one, brought to you by the people up the mountain.

'That could be enough to whip up an Internet storm, to get a local news crew buzzing, to bring a few other investigators here next winter, and make things mighty hard to keep a lid on. Enough to bring an end it to maybe, if not next winter then one or two or three or four along the line.

'But let's make a break, Toby. Let's not let this drag on, with your people digging ever-deeper holes for themselves. Lies upon denials, until the whole thing is so sordid. Let's make this the last.'

'So what do we do?'

Jake answered thoughtfully,

'While I've been up here in this room these recent weeks, I've made a list of what would kill the secret stone dead. The first thing would be proof of what happened to the boys in the faked crash. But Sarah already tells me that you keep no paperwork?'

'She's right. It's all in the memory.'

'It must be exhausting.'

'You don't know the half of it.'

'But can you think of anything at all we can use?'

'I might have to disappoint you.'

'You're not doing that, Toby. You're doing great. Now, keep it up.' Jake flicked through a notebook, looking for his cues, 'What about the Doctor, though? He has records?'

Toby had to think. Before answering,

'The Doctor and the Sheriff and the Mayor are scrupulous, and good at this stuff now. There won't be a true report buried somewhere before a fake one is created. They'll fake it the first time, make it clean and neat and with the right docket numbers. The Doctor isn't arm-twisted into this, he's there from the start. He'll keep them on the slab until the Sheriff's Office tell him what to write.'

Toby felt guilty talking of his friend that way; but none of them were innocent, not even he. This was a personal betrayal, but no worse that Toby's betrayal of his own duties. And he told himself that it was for the town's good.

Jake pondered, 'Hmm, what you've told me confirms my feeling that we'll never find written proof. Which leaves us with verbal testimony. Yet, the people who know will never tell, and I daren't approach them – I took risk enough with you. Though that risk paid off, I think?' Jake smiled, and Toby raised a weak one in return.

'So, where does that leave us?' Toby knew he wasn't off the hook yet. Jake continued,

'Yes. As I say, I might not be able to play Nancy Drew on this one. It might be beyond me – even a researcher this long-in-the-tooth knows his limits. But there may be another way of breaking the secret, of stopping the winters.

'And that would be the testimony, not of an actual murderer or conspirator in those murders – we'll never get that – but of a true insider nonetheless. One who wore the badge, who knew the names, the history, could go through the whole season from the first town meeting to the day the roads re-opened. The testimony of someone young, attractive, bright, professionally successful and generally respected, a member of the modern world who presents themselves well.'

Jake flashed a smile, 'Now, does that sound to you like anyone we know?'

Chapter 32 – Toby's Mission

'Right.' If ever a word could also be a groan, it was that one.

Toby slumped; but Jake enthused,

'This wouldn't be a mother wracked with grief and looking for someone to blame. Or a juvenile shoplifter with a beef against the Sheriff's Office. This would be someone Joe and Jane Public would hang on every word of.

'So no, Toby. You're not going to go outside and call your colleagues. Not because you know what they'd do to me, although I know you wouldn't want that. But because I know you hate it, even more than the rest of us.'

Jake stood up and put his hand on Toby's shaking shoulder,

'If there's a break, let's make it a clean one. Let's save those kids another winter.'

Jake bid Toby to 'Take a breather', and disappeared to bring fresh drinks. When he reappeared on the staircase, he stated quickly, as if to pre-empt any forming questions,

'We'll institute a series of meetings. We'll meet here, as it's easier for you to move than I. What time of day would you say?'

'The dead of night. What days?'

'Any you like – I'm here all winter.'

But Toby was still confused, and for some reason chose that moment as the one to think he might start crying. Barely holding that urge back, he asked,

'But why now?'

'Because I had to take the risk of speaking to you sometime, and winter's half-over. I've got a lot of photographs now, I can afford to concentrate on you.'

'No, I mean why wait till winter? We'd have had all the time in the world to talk in Carvel.'

'And would it have been the same Toby I was speaking to there? You'd have been as dumbstruck as Sheriff Thornton was when I telephoned him in the middle of summer. You'd have denied it. I needed you in uniform, and you know it.'

And Toby did know it. He thought of Sheriff Thornton, happy in his role as the custodian of Stove summer season – climbers, campers, sightseers coming to enjoy the mountain views. And to have that punctured by a call out of the blue asking about dead teenagers... In his mind's eye, Toby saw the man's face drop; and he pitied him.

Jake knocked back his second drink, and stood up,

'Well, you've five minutes of your hour left. After that, I'll meet you here at midnight. And we can't risk you coming here any time that isn't necessary. If there's an alarm, then leave a note for Sarah at the Sheriff's Office, about anything innocuous but marked for her attention. She'll come and find you. But don't try any spy stuff, no code words or cryptic messages. Just one short note.'

Toby didn't get up. Instead he asked,

'But Jake...'

'Yes?'

'What will happen to us?'

'You and me?'

'No, I mean the Deputies. The town.'

Jake sat back down and answered softly,

'Well, what do you think will happen, buddy? These are criminal acts.'

Toby was silent. Jake went on,

'And if there's hell to pay, then we'll turn our interviews in as State Evidence. You'll have an easier ride.'

It was all sinking in for Toby,

'And what of the others? What of Eddy, with his family? What of Fitch and his wife?'

'What can we possibly do for them, Toby? It won't be in our hands.'

'But it will be! We can give them a break, a chance to get away, to start again and forget about the sickness.'

Jake chose his words carefully, 'But that's just it, Toby.'

'What is?'

'Well, if we let them get away, then... what redress?'

'Redress? They'll have this on their conscience for the rest of their lives.'

There ended Jake's understanding. Still standing, he gasped before delivering an oration,

'That's the trouble with you guys in these closed systems. You make up your own rules. And when you've gone too far, you decide if you feel punished enough. There's no justice, no authority greater than yourself.'

'The town are our authority.'

'The town are in your hand. They're terrified.'

'They want us here.'

'Why are you arguing this, Toby? You know you're on my side.'

But Toby couldn't bring himself to face what Jake was saying. It was all too much. He suddenly felt that the town, and the sickness, and the Winter Restrictions, and the Sheriff's Office, were all so deeply imbedded in himself, actually built into his body, that to tear them out would pull his very essence apart, that there wouldn't be enough of him left to survive.

Jake only watched his new partner writhe in anguish, before saying thoughtfully, and a little regretfully,

'It makes no difference. It makes no difference if you can face up to it or not. All that matters is that you go through with the things I've asked you to do. And then you can choose if you want to go the same way as the rest of your town.

'Come now. We're pushing time.'

Chapter 33 – Old Stories

Jake moved for the stairs again, and Toby followed. As he did so, Toby asked,

'When did you first learn it?'

'The secret of the sickness? From Sarah.' Jake paused at the top of the stairs, then seemed to decide they weren't leaving at that moment after all, as he settled in to tell the tale,

'I knew I wouldn't reach the victim's families through Sheriff Thornton, so had to find them out myself. I wrote letters to both addresses given in the accident report. I couldn't risk being open about it, so sent important-looking letters "To the Family of..." each victim, purporting to be from a firm of lawyers, and alluding to possible outstanding compensation payments as a result of the auto wreck.

'Why was I so dishonest? I don't know exactly. I hoped they might be more likely to get back to me directly if there was the lure of a reward, and not tell the Sheriff's Office or whoever.

'In the end, neither letter was replied to. So I sent follow-ups, and this smoked them out. The ex-neighbour of the Richters caught the mailman in time, to tell him that the only family Tommy Richter had left in town was his Aunt Sarah, who he promptly went around and gave the letter to. She phoned me that night.

'That would have been that, you know, had Sarah only told me to sling my hook, or stop intruding in her grief, or any of the other things the Sheriff had said I was doing when I rang him. Instead, she was dead-set to tell me all of it over the phone. It was all I could do to have her hold on till I could meet her in person. I told her who I really was, and she said good, that she'd guessed as much, and that a child wouldn't have been fooled by my letter.'

Jake laughed, 'And she went on to tell me everything, Toby. Absolutely everything.'

Toby thought that fact might take a while to sink in. Jake went on,

'As Sarah related her story, I knew it to be as true a tale of abuse as any I had heard. Everything from her own childhood winters, kept shuttered in that School for Girls. All the way through to the covered-up death of her nephew, the bullying of his parents, and they not even being allowed the dignity of a true verdict and an honest burial for their son. Not to mention the mangling of his corpse in an auto wreck.

'She told me of the sickness and the methods for containing it. It fitted in with the Sheriff's nervousness over the road accident, and why he was so keen to control its investigation.

'It was too much to take in at first.' Jake paused and shook his head. 'You've had your whole life to learn about it, Toby – it took me a week to believe it was real.'

Toby guessed that Jake was holding back a genuine hatred of the Stove Sheriff's Office, and its representative in the room. Yet Jake only said,

'It also means that you were wrong about me not being here before. I was, this summer, but only for a day and a night to meet Sarah; and even that scared me to death. But by then it was as clear as water – your town was to be my working life, for however long it took and however much it cost me. Especially when I saw how scared Sarah was. She could have broken down at any point in the intervening years – I'm only glad she held on for me.'

Jake reflected, 'You know, I've wondered what might have become of her, had she cracked before, started blabbing.'

Toby had little time left for umbrage, yet he gathered enough affront to ask,

'You're saying that we would... silence... a bereaved woman?'

'Don't tell me that the people of this town are all as strong as yourself, Toby. That no one's ever come close to breaking. What do you do with them?'

'For God's sake, I've never...' and then Toby paused, for he had once silenced a doubter. Or at least he had seen it done. Nor had it been a woman, but a townsman, a storekeeper in the main street, a friend of his father during his days as a Deputy.

Toby had been eighteen, his first winter free of the sickness, his first winter not under the club. He had been shadowing his father, and a younger meaner Sheriff Thornton, still not long in the job and eager to impose himself.

The storekeeper's crime had been to break down at the sight of his son clubbed so hard that Doctor Lassiter had spent the whole next day repairing his eye socket. 'No more,' the man had cried. 'No more for my boy'.

That night he somehow managed to kidnap his medicated son from the clinic, and also his sleeping daughter from the School for Girls. He had put both into a tyre-chained station wagon, when the Sheriff and his men arrived to place him under house arrest.

Toby had been there when they'd bullied and cajoled this man, slashed his tires, smashed his lights out, kept a sentry outside his house. The next day, the stupid guard had woken to the sound of wood cracking, and entered to the sight of the storekeeper swinging from the beam across the sitting room ceiling in the flat above the shop. His daughter didn't leave the School for Girls with her classmates that spring. She became a year-round boarder, paid for by the town.

Toby had been on the scene that morning with the other Deputies, and had seen the body before his father could hold him back. His father then decided that his son was old enough to see it, to understand it, especially with the new role he was being trained for,

'This is why we do it,' he explained to his son. 'This is why we have to be so tough.'

'"No room for sentiment."' Toby quoted him aloud now, in mock booming tones. '"Gives people room for acting irrationally. We're Deputies, son. If we can't keep our heads, then the town will lose theirs."'

Jake let these words echo long after they were silent, before he continued,

'So yes, to answer your question, calling Sarah was my serendipitous moment. At that point I knew I'd found a townsperson all about ready to crack and let her insides flow into my tape recorder. I knew from then on that there'd be something. Maybe a novelisation written off as fiction, or a web log purporting to be fact, but something.' He leaned in towards Toby, 'You knew it couldn't go on forever?'

Toby wasn't sure if he'd ever dared to think of it ending – the terror of the town's secret being revealed was too big to consciously contemplate. Yet, in the room with Jake, the matter could finally be raised by another person and his unconscious could respond.

'Didn't want it to.' mumbled Toby.

'What was that?'

'Too... scary.' A stupid word from horror novels, but the only one that fit.

'Too scary to imagine?'

'It's not your town, Jake. It's not your secret, not you thrown in the loony bin, or prison. You walk away.'

'We don't choose our situations, only how we deal with them.'

'Well, bully for you.'

'You quite finished? As I have, and time's almost up.'

Toby roused himself, by now utterly transformed. He followed Jake down the stairs. The echoed clumping of his boots belied the gentleness of his step now he was back in his civilised mode. At the foot, Jake turned to ask,

'"The loony bin"? Is that where they told you children you'd be going if you ever told? Poor little devils.'

In the ground floor room the women watched Toby silently and accusingly. He whispered 'Good day' to them anyway. At the door, he took the handle. Jake stopped him though,

'It might be better leaving this way.' Jake led him to the back door through the kitchen. 'And get your game face back on. We're not at the Carvel canteen now.'

Shocked at the mood he had fallen into, Toby said quietly, so the women wouldn't hear, feeling small and quiet as a mouse,

'You know, Jake. This is me, the true me. Not them.' He pointed outside, as if to a bunch a black-shirts stood around the house – which thankfully there weren't.

Jake could have been kind, if only as a balm to Toby wracked self-image. But he didn't believe in false kindness, didn't have mollifying in his nature. And, for all his deceit at getting Toby where he wanted him, and for all the support he would give him in his mission, Jake knew that in truth was beauty. Being cruel to be kind, Jake said to Toby,

'You tell yourself whatever you need to to get yourself through this. Now, you, raus raus!'

Jake caught Toby's shoulder with the kitchen door as he shut it behind him.

Chapter 34 – Verity

Toby cursed Jake, as he trudged off through the snow along the street's back alleyway – hating Jake was easier than facing up to what he'd heard. Toby knew that Jake's last slur and the door-slam had been to rile him, to get him back angry – Jake didn't care that the anger was directed at him. Meanwhile, Toby also knew that he was Jake's now, that Jake had him as completely as a beau had his teenage bride. Toby noticed he was scowling; then he remembered to retain that grimace as his natural visage. And he wasn't only angry at Jake.

There was also the unfairness of it all. At this point he, Toby, had ninety-nine percent of the power. With a word he could have had Jake's hideout destroyed, had his tormentor himself tormented. The women would be treated who-knew-how badly. What's more, finding and destroying this hornets' nest of agitation would have brought Toby good favour in the eyes of leaders who had never quite trusted him since his three years away.

Yet, Jake's one percent of the situation was a big percent. It was the one percent of utter validity, of what was right, what was true, and what should never have been allowed to be. In inviting Toby into the Emsworth house, Jake was revealing himself in all his ninety-nine percent pathetic vulnerability. Yet Jake knew that Toby, even jackboot-Toby, billy club-Toby, the monster that Toby seasonally became, would respond to that gleaming one percent.

Jake was trusting that Toby was not all bad. Jake spoke to him harshly only to snap him out of his delusions, or to get him angry again as he left. Toby knew this, and it cheered him, even as he knew that his life was ending. Or what he called a life. Wild images of panic and excitement flared in his mind.

There would be enquiries, trials. Someone might get life, if a case could be made. 'Accessories to murder', the rest of them would be called. Accessories after the fact. What on earth might the punishment be? Ten? Twenty years? Less for good behaviour. A spell in jail seemed a liberation, Toby wanted it so badly. And then the next moment, he thought that that was all nonsense, and it would never come to pass.

Carvel was the key, decided Toby. Jake knew that Toby's home-ties were strong, but also that the Carvel-half of Toby needed science, culture and modernity. Jake knew that for Toby, fairy tales and small-town intrigues would never be enough – but would this itself be enough for Toby to give up the very authority he represented? Jake was taking a hell of a risk.

Toby trudged through the slush, not seeing a soul. He could have stayed at the Emsworth house even longer, he realised. He could have learnt more. Yet he was glad to be away and to catch his breath. There was still his testimony to give, although no date of when he'd start to give it – Jake would want it before the winter was out, though. He wouldn't risk Toby's willingness to assist stretching into the next school term, when Toby could pretend again that he was a Carvel nice guy. Jake wanted Toby while there was violence all around him.

Toby hated Jake suddenly, for he got to wear the white shirt of truth all year around. He was a man not like him, not a man made civilised only to be degraded.

But then a clear happy thought came back to Toby; for the meeting he'd just had was, after all, confirmation that it was all ending. And that was the simplest and best fact. Toby tried to calm himself down – it had been a stressful morning.

They hadn't made a date for his first night-time visit. But why wait? Toby would get a message to Sarah the first chance he had, to tell her that he'd be there that evening.

But as he walked, Toby knew one more thing. Jake had known it too, had known it from the start: that Toby was floundering, and needed a touchstone of truth in all the secrecy, was crying out for it. And now Jake was presenting himself as that cardinal point, a true star by which Toby could set his compass, his spinning Stove compass.

'Not quite broken though,' uttered Toby. 'Take me off the mountain and I'll point true north again.'

Chapter 35 – A Little While Later, at the Office

Toby thought aloud,

'It's the middle of the day. Those up all night will be sleeping, Deputies catching forty winks. That's also when the Sheriff has his late breakfast at Maisie's Cafe. If I'm going to do it, do it now.'

The alleyway that led behind the houses brought him out only two corners away from the Sheriff's Office.

'God, that Jake. What a place he's found to base his operations,' muttered Toby, half in admiration and half incomprehension.

Indeed, now that Toby was Jake's Secret Squirrel he felt a surge of confidence, as if the coming scene were his first test.

Remembering that no one else knew anything, and that he had every right to be there, Toby strolled along the increasingly wide and snow-cleared roads. Until he found himself in the town centre and entering the Sheriff's Office.

The first face Toby saw was the thick-set chops of Crawley. His golden locks were prematurely thinning, though his sideburns were creeping down his cheeks to compensate. Toby hadn't seen him yet this winter, and he looked a decade over his late-twenties.

'Tobes.'

'Crawley.'

'What's the matter? Not enough action for you in the mountains?'

'We've got plenty, thanks. I just found myself nearby, and though I'd catch up on things Town-side.'

'The Sheriff's out, he'll be an hour or two.'

'Well, I'll kick back awhile if you don't mind. Avail myself of his hospitality.'

Although this was Sheriff Thornton's Office, this was Crawley's patch, and both knew it.

'Well, don't go drinking all our coffee.'

Crawley was clearly on his way somewhere. With his jacket, hat and gloves on, he was soon out of the door.

There was no one at the front desk, and Toby walked in to the mess room, again empty. Along the short linking corridor he heard the clattering of an electric typewriter. Margaret, the Sheriff's secretary, would be writing up something unimportant – for nothing important got written up at that time of year. She would be posting the anonymous reports of a boring winter.

He found the Sheriff's office empty also. Without a word, Toby pulled a leather chair back from the guest-side of Sheriff Thornton's desk and sat down. After a moment to get his breath back, he wondered – what now? How to leave the message?

'I'll have a drink,' he said to himself, and rose for the corridor.

'Fetch me a cup?' asked someone cat-napping on a sofa against the far wall. His black jacket was pulled over his head.

'Tort?'

'Toby. What you doing here?'

'I found myself in town. Warm or cold?'

'Cold,' he answered. It was warm in the office.

Toby himself felt cool as a cucumber. He was learning that years of secret-keeping made him good at it. He had never lied in Stove, he realised, had always borne his soul. 'No man is a hypocrite in his pleasures,' he remembered someone saying. Toby was only a hypocrite in Carvel then, only honest when among his bludgeoning kind. Was Deputising his pleasure? Or had his notion of what goodness meant become so twisted and ill-used that he no longer recognised it? Twisted through years of sickness and coercion, parental misinformation and emotional blackmail? He felt that question would take a lifetime with an analyst to unpick.

That was fine though, he concluded with grim humour, for didn't prisons have analysts? And they might have half a lifetime to work on him.

Toby's mind was moving quickly, he felt free. He walked to the drinks machine and past the empty desks. Which was Sarah's then? He would leave a scrap of paper, a note about unemptied bins or a broken window. This would be her cue to track him down.

But before he could decide which desk was hers, the phone on one of them rang. There was only one telephone in Stove at winter, its cable kept up all season by the town's tireless repairman; the repairman who made sure every other line was dead. It was the direct link between the guest house and the Sheriff's Office. That way, the two teams could keep in contact.

'Sheriff's Office,' answered Toby. He remembered the role from his earlier days, when answering the phone was about all a young Deputy knew how to do.

'Well Toby, dumb luck.' It was his landlady. 'I was told you were Town-side.'

'What's up?' he asked, though he could have scripted her response himself.

'There's an urgent case, and no one free to handle it. Can you come back?'

His heart sank. 'I'll be there right away.' He took down the address, and hung up. So much for playing Secret Squirrel.

'Who was that?' asked Tort, entering the room and fully awake now.

'It was for me – I've been recalled.'

'Look, Toby. I'm glad you're here. I've been hoping to talk to you this winter.'

But Toby had to silence him,

'Sorry, son,' for Tort was a good ten years his junior. 'I'm on a call.'

'Of course. Well, next time you're back Town-side...'

'One thing you can do for me though.' Toby thought quickly. 'When you see Sarah, can you tell her I saw a house of her street with a broken window. It probably just froze and cracked in the night, but if you could ask her to check with her neighbour. They wouldn't want the cold getting in.'

'No problem, Tobe,' said Tort, glad to help.

Toby thanked him, and was gone.

And as for Tort wanting to talk: well, who knew what that was all about. But Toby hadn't time for any other intrigues just then.

Chapter 36 – Pile-driven

Toby reached the house within the half-hour. It was the same situation as at the Hinklin household, the same as Toby had been in so many times already that winter, and countless times across a lifetime. It was the daily experience of a Deputy at large. The scene, it kept repeating, and repeating, and repeating.

The same clapperboard home, perhaps with a brick-build ground floor. The same ash pathway leading to it. The same tired dirty-frozen look on everything: wood warping with the moisture, paint perishing in the cold, nothing cleaned because the water would only freeze.

Indoors was the same attempt at cheery furnishings, all turned to tinder-wood in a season of violent spasms. The same exhausted parents, bruised but caring only for the one who bruised them. The same troubled teen, clothes ripped, face streaked with tears. Toby knew there was no sense to come from the household that evening, as the early sun went down to throw them into further darkness.

Toby looked at this new boy; he couldn't even remember his name from the phone call. He was Frank Hinklin but not Frank Hinklin. Toby understood him in their differences. Younger than Frank, smaller than Frank, wirier and leaner, the kind who ran off nerves more than muscle.

School athlete Frank Hinklin would have run this kid into the ground, and Toby had – just – managed to hold Frank. Yet Toby felt no advantage here, for the nervous kids could keep themselves as full-tilt for hours on end, like the local paper's sub-editor battering out copy on his typewriter till four in the morning (that's if he'd been allowed to publish in the winter months).

The parents withdrew to leave the expert to his work. The boy was before him on the bare floor, on all fours, and caught mid-spin like a dog who'd heard a whistle whilst chasing his tale. Toby realised then that he had no back up, no corroboration if it went star-shaped. He wished that Fitch or Job or almost any of the others were there. In the room with this pitiful creature, Toby started unbuttoning his jacket.

'I'm Toby,' he began, feeling a little like one of those people who talk to coma sufferers. 'I don't suppose you understand me. I don't suppose much of this will get through. But deep inside you somewhere you'll know who I am, and what I'm here for. You're scaring your parents, and I'm here to calm you down.'

The lad was still, whimpering, had his tongue sticking out. Yet Toby was wrong, for he was responding: from the eyes so recently tearing, now came an almost-childish look of wanting to play. He was still spiking then, and not about to curl into a slumber. Toby moved deliberately slowly as he tossed his jacket on a chair in the corner, then untethered his billy club from his belt. All the time he spoke quietly, hypnotically,

'We need to keep you calm. We need to stop you hurting. We need to...'

As the kid had launched, so Toby crouched and swung a blow. It caught the belly. The victim flew past a side-stepped Toby, before landing on his back. There he arched as if with an electrical shock, before slithering back up onto his feet on the blood and saliva-wet wooden floor.

Toby had spun too, quickly enough to get both hands upon the boy's shoulders. He had stopped his charge from leaping again, but now his head twisted and his mouth snarled and snapped at the Deputy. Toby loosed his grip on one shoulder to avoid being bitten on the wrist, which gave the boy freedom to shake off the other hand, and re-gather for a fresh launch.

'Springy,' said Toby, in admiration. This ridiculous impression of a playful pet! Toby was on the back-foot now, putting down leap after leap with flapping, slapping hands. His main concern was his boots losing grip on the wet floor, or him backing into some knocked-over piece of furniture.

Toby had his club – why not use it? But that suddenly felt monstrous – he might as well club a cocker spaniel. Instead, he let his weapon hang around his wrist. Toby though still had his brains, while his opponent had only instinct. So why not use a move to regain the advantage?

Before Toby could form a plan though, he felt a wall behind him. A moving wall... a door ajar, bringing panic as he feared falling backward through it. He stumbled, went into an almost Cossack-dance crouch, and grabbed wildly for the door's frame, to right himself and get back to full height.

Yet in the moments it took Toby to do all that, the lad had scampered back into the centre of the room... scampered, like he'd forgotten he could walk on just his hind-legs. And then he did something that Toby had simply never seen before: from a crouching start, he accelerated to a frightening speed, before launching himself head-first into Toby's midriff.

The last thing Toby saw before blacking out, was the boy sprawled unconscious before him.

Chapter 37 – Aftermath

Toby woke, and groaned from his injuries. Then groaned again as the last scene replayed in his mind. It was like one of Jake's cassettes, cued up in the tape deck for his return to consciousness. Toby felt soft bed sheets, a softer Nurse's touch. He opened his eyes to see people by him. The Doctor was standing beside his assistant, saying,

'You're back with us, Toby?'

'How..?'

'Fitch found you, then ran to find me.'

'How bad is it?'

'Severe bruising, and the mother of all bad backs. He head-butted you against a doorframe at twenty miles-per-hour.'

'No, him.'

'Of course. Andrew Sippitz. You were saying in your sleep, something about, "I don't know his name"? Anyway, it's muscle trauma. He's bruised his spinal cord. His body's thrown him into a coma as the swelling goes down.'

'You don't sound too..?'

'Worried? More relieved, after the state the pair of you came in here.'

Toby closed his eyes and murmured,

'They seem worse than ever this year.'

'Maybe we're forgetting what they're always like?'

'Maybe we're all wanting an easier life?'

Toby raised his arm to question why it bore an intravenous drip? The Doctor answered,

'You were physically sick after falling unconscious. You had no food in you.'

'Lor, this is bad.'

'Maybe not so,' said the Doctor brightly. 'You'll get a rest, and the lad will be kept semi-sedated, even after waking up. This might be end of the sickness for him this year.'

'Then why don't we just sedate all of them?' asked Toby, falling back to sleep.

'Don't think I haven't thought of it,' answered the Doctor with a melancholy air.

Toby must have fallen back to sleep, before being woken again by Sheriff Thornton, talking loudly,

'You got sentimental, Toby! You didn't have the courage to club him.' The man roared across the ward of injured children and stricken parents. 'One blow, one blow was all he needed. The club's designed to stun, not to hurt.' He rapped his leather billy club across the frame of Toby's bed to demonstrate this, the metal clanging loudly through the room.

'Sheriff,' said the onrushing Doctor. 'Please don't do that again in this ward.'

Toby had never heard the Sheriff speak like this. The patient came around quickly,

'Boss, what's biting you? That's not you talking.'

'That kid's in a coma now, because you didn't save him from himself.'

The Doctor whispered, 'It's a protective coma, as his injuries heal.'

But the Sheriff only had words for his Deputy,

'You'd better not be losing your nerve, Toby.'

'What difference does that make in the present state of things?' Toby gestured to the bed around him. 'I won't be fighting for a while.'

The Sheriff's rage re-bubbled, 'That's the problem. You're going to be out for a fortnight! Two whole weeks. And it's your own damn stupid fault.'

Toby railed, 'Why's that such a big deal? Injuries have happened before. It goes with the territory.'

The Sheriff flashed him a glare, and Toby saw the fear behind it. Pure, purple panic.

'What's up, Chief?' he asked in sympathy and consolation.

'You...' The Sheriff turned to the Doctor. 'You just make sure he gets better.' And with that the Sheriff was gone.

The Doctor looked to Toby,

'Maybe you're right. Maybe this is a bad year.'

Toby fell into another doze. And when he woke the next time he saw things clearer: however maniacal the Sheriff had seemed, he had been right – Toby hadn't dealt the tender blow. He was no longer cruel enough to be kind. And what kind of a Deputy did that make him?

'Now, I really need to keep you out cold,' said the Doctor. The last Toby thing remembered was a needle like a steel wire going into his arm.

Chapter 38 – The Big Sleep

Toby slept a lot those next two days. Sometimes when he woke it was dark, sometimes light. Sometimes he barely registered his surroundings before zoning out again. Sometime Fitch was there, sometimes not. Sometimes Job, or Margaret. Sometimes, in the middle of the night, there was another figure, one with chestnut hair. Sometimes there was commotion, a person being brought in. Sometimes the room was silent but for breathing and etherised whimpers.

One night though, he woke and felt much sharper-minded than before. For the first time he had less urge to get right back off to sleep. There was a voice saying,

'I've stopped the sedatives. Your back's had a chance to rest now. I don't want you becoming mummified.'

This was Doctor Lassiter, sat beside him talking quietly. The clock read two-thirty, and the sky was dark along the edges of the curtains. The room was lit only by Toby's bedside lamp.

'And the boy's looking good,' the Doctor continued.

'He's woken up?'

'No, he's still in the coma. But he seems very restful, not in any discomfort. As I hoped, it seems he hasn't injured his spinal cord, only bruised it.'

Toby breathed a partial sigh of relief. The Doctor went on, quietly and reflectively,

'But his injuries. Only in Stove. Only in Stove... No sane person could do that to themselves. To go in that fast with the top of the head, all that pressure compounding through the neck and down the spine... Even someone with a death wish would flinch, would duck out at the last moment. Are you with us, Tobe?'

'I'm with you. Could you pass me that water?'

'Here you go. Is that good? How do we live like this? How has this become our life?'

'Bad timing.'

The Doctor chuckled, 'Bad timing. I like that. So when are the good times? When are they set to roll?'

'Spring,' managed Toby, still croaky.

'Ah spring, the Stovian false-dawn, when we can pretend things are well again. When we can pull our collars up and our cuffs down, and pretend the winter didn't bite us head to toe.'

'Or blame it all on the pipeline.'

The Doctor knew the routine well, they had played it often enough. He rocked back in the visitor's chair,

'Ah yes, the pipeline. Tough work. Can leave a man black and blue. If every scar blamed on a rogue shovel or jagged pipe-end had been so, then I'd be billing the Stockton-Overbury Company for fifty-thousand a year in claw-back fees.'

Toby could have gone on then, prompting the Doctor in ever-wilder rhetoric. But he wasn't well, and besides he hadn't the heart. So asked seriously,

'Anything from the Scientific Committee?'

'The Scientific Committee,' the Doctor hissed. 'I quit.'

'Oh no. Why?'

His friend became more serious than Toby had often seen,

'The town suffers a holocaust every year, and our only answer is an overworked doctor and two guys with a weather station?'

'But you'd gotten so far. Your theory.'

'The town knows my theory: that the sickness attacks bright minds still forming. But what is it that attacks them?'

'I thought you'd mapped the winter hotspots, like Compass Point?'

'We have. And the fellows have found even more hotspots – or better described as coldspots – running right along the seam between the two mountains. We even think we know what makes them come to life each winter.'

'But didn't we always know it was the cold?' Toby was tiring again.

'But everywhere gets cold. What's special about our cold? They spent the summer digging around Compass Point. They found that the rock there is fractured, riven with underground streams. It's when this underground water freezes that the sickness starts. The ice must expand and pressurise the rocks. Now, our magnetic fields are crazy enough as it is, but Lord knows what this pressure does to them. The compass-needles spin even wilder.'

'And as with the compass points,' concluded Toby, 'so with our children's minds?'

'Well, the brain is only electricity after all.'

The Doctor's voice had risen to a pitch that might wake sleepers. Yet Toby was just happy to see his friend so enthused. However, this was Stove they were talking about, and so no joy could last for long,

'But it was futile. I realised that, and so I quit.'

Toby had to summon all his energy to pursue now, as natural sleep threatened,

'Help me out, Doc. You're not adding up. You've learnt all this, so why stop now?'

'Because it offers us no practical solution, Toby. Maybe we could stand in a line with hot-air blowers down the centre of the town for three months every year, and stop the underground ice from forming. Maybe that could halt it. Maybe we could focus on one district and move everyone there. But realistically, there is no way. We can't defeat a mountain, the Earth itself.' The volume of the Doctor's voice fell again as he concluded, talking very privately with his friend,

'That leaves us with the one option left, don't you think: to admit defeat and go down the hill? Wasn't that what we always knew we'd have to do someday?'

'They won't allow it.' Toby's eyes were closed again, his voice barely a whisper.

'No. Too many secrets they want us keeping.'

The Doctor used the word 'they' as if he and Toby weren't members of the very elite he was criticising, explaining,

'People drifting away to try and find other lives somewhere, fair enough. But how to explain a whole town abandoning itself? People would have questions that we wouldn't enjoy answering. And so we witness scenes like these.' He looked around the room, then back to Toby. 'Anyway, you're tired. Sleep well, sweet prince.'

And despite his agitation at the Doctor's words, Toby did just that.

Chapter 39 – Recovery

Before Toby knew it he'd been in the clinic a week. His first walk around the ward had nearly floored him; but by his last day he was dressed and managing several circuits of the clinic grounds. Anyway, the Doctor needed his bed.

'And I'm expected to be working again in a week?' asked Toby to the medic as he gathered his things to leave.

'Light duties, Sarah said.'

'Sarah from the Sheriff's Office? She was here?'

'Here to keep eye on you, in the Sheriff's absence.'

Well, that was a shock. Of all the faces as the bedside, Toby hadn't clocked hers.

'Anyway,' cheered the Doctor, 'winter's nearly two-month's through now, we've broken the back of it. Ahem, maybe not my finest turn of phrase.'

Both looked to the door of the private room in which Andrew Sippitz lay, still out cold.

'I didn't even know his name when I did that to him.'

'Go, Toby, and don't get maudlin.'

The walk back to the guest house was harder than Toby could ever have imagined. He need two sit-downs along the way, and even then was bent double as he arrived. The landlady came around the counter to hug him.

'Toby, I'm so glad to see you well.' (He didn't feel it.) 'I would have visited, but you know how busy we get.'

'Of course.'

'And you've a lady caller, waiting up in your room,' she added, still giddy.

'Thank you,' he said, turning for the stairs.

'You know I don't normally approve of such things,' she giggled, returning to her duties. Toby wished the Stovian Sunset had an elevator.

Like with a letter you weren't expecting, Toby spent the whole slow journey to his room trying not to get his hopes up – convincing himself it was just an interest statement from the bank, and not the hand-written, perfume-scented love-note of his dreams. And it was the bank letter.

'Hello,' said Sarah plainly and not Janey tenderly. 'I didn't speak to you at the clinic. I thought it better to meet here.'

'Not much better – my landlady thinks we're having an affair.'

'Let her. You could use the reputation, it might get you some action.'

Though it was the blackest humour, Toby wondered if Sarah was warming to him? It was something in her tone. For hate was so hard to sustain, wasn't it? Toby knew this, and as he passed thirty so found it hard not to pity even monsters.

She looked him in the eye,

'He wants to know if you're still together, still on our side?'

Toby laughed, 'Doubt? From Jake? A chink in his ultra-confident armour?'

'You don't know how much he's staking on this.'

'I know.'

'So, you'll come?'

'Of course,' he answered in sternness more belonging to Toby the Special Deputy than Toby the nervous collaborator. 'I did try to pass you a message.'

'Through Tort? About my neighbour's window? Yes, I got it. Jake was disappointed that you got your injury before we could answer.'

'I'm so sorry.'

'Only that he hoped he'd be interviewing you by now.'

'He should have come to visit.'

'Very funny. Maybe you could start tonight?'

Toby didn't want to face that, and thought on his feet,

'You know, the thing with being sedated is it leaves you dog tired. Tomorrow?'

'Okay, I'll tell him to expect you. Come after dark.'

Toby couldn't bring himself to sign off their conversation with any message for Jake, no 'Wish him Good Luck' or 'He'll hear from me soon'. Stuff him, If Jake was leaving Toby to his fate, then Toby would leave Jake to his. But with Sarah's eyes still questioning his face, he felt obliged to say something, summarising,

'I'm staunch, I really am staunch.'

And she nodded in acknowledgement as she got up to leave; before saying,

'Oh, and on the subject of Tort, he's been asking after you in the office – he thinks we're friends after you left me the message.'

Toby remembered, 'He tried to catch me before my injury, but I couldn't stop to talk.'

'My guess is that he wants a move Mountain-side. I'm not sure he likes Crawley's methods.'

'Which are?'

But Sarah had no more to say on the topic as she left.

Chapter 40 – Night Calls and Conversations

Toby didn't end up visiting Jake until the evening after next; but soon fell into a routine of calling at the Emsworth house. Like vampires, they met in the night and watched for the sun.

After the serious business of taking Toby's testimony, they would relax, just chatting like the old friends they were on their way to becoming.

'Why do you come here?' asked Jake one time.

'Because you asked me to,' answered Toby.

'But you're here every night, I'm not having to force you. I wonder why?'

'Because there's no one else I can talk to.'

'If you're ever seen coming here, we're stuffed.'

'I'm in head-to-toe black – who's going to see me?'

'Even so, be careful.'

'I will.'

Sometimes in these after-sessions, Toby would take the lead awhile.

'How will you do this?' he would ask. And Jake would answer,

'Gather enough evidence, then write an article in the spring. Or make a documentary, depending on the footage I can gather. Including your testimony.'

Toby soon got so used to being filmed that he didn't even notice the camera on him the whole time. Nor the back-up tape recorders soaking up every word. He would ask Jake, at the end of a long night,

'And what's your plan?'

'To stop this ever happen again.'

'And remind me why I'm letting you?'

'Because you want it more than me.'

However long they spoke for, there were always a hundred questions left to ask. Jake got used to having to leave them hanging though, ever aware of the morning.

At times, Toby could become quite silly, his attitude childish. But then Jake recognised that twenty-four-hour cover was exhausting when keeping a secret. There was nowhere else he could be light.

'So Jake, will you be coming with us to Candlemas?'

'That might not be such a good idea. What's it like?'

'It's a great release – when the Reverend can talk of the renewal of the new year after the end of the old, and we can all breathe a sigh of relief.'

'Gives a good sermon, does he?'

'He's a very spiritual man.'

'And where is he the rest of the winter season?'

'He's a sensitive man.'

'And the rest of you aren't?'

'It affects him quite badly.'

'What, the sickness?'

'No, the sadness of the sickness. He has to stay away from it.'

'He sounds like a real missionary.'

'The women in the town say his head is with the angels and his feet barely touch the earth. It's his vision that drew him to the cloth.'

'Not much use at anything else, eh?'

Toby answered with a heavy heart,

'We don't have a lot of choice in Stove. We have to make do with who we have.'

During the span of these visits, the attitude of Mrs Emsworth remained cordial but never friendly. Sarah, with her day job and need to sleep in the evenings, was hardly there.

Meanwhile, whatever Jake had thought of Toby once, he was realising that here was a man no more than a boy inside, like all men were. Life was just a game, only now not played with Action Men and G.I. Joes. It was the torment all men felt somewhere within themselves, the awareness that stopped them handling a real car as they would a HotWheels.

Sometimes Toby would even fall asleep on the Emsworth sofa.

'What does he think he is?' Mrs Emsworth would ask Jake, over Toby's sleeping form.

'I don't think he knows,' Jake would answer.

It would require Jake to gently kick Toby's ankles when it was time he made a move.

Chapter 41 – Paying Courtesies

And to the Emsworth house wasn't the only call Toby paid during that slow week of recovery. Toby remembered the conversations he had had on the bus up to town. Although he never followed up on the invite from the lady with the unwed daughter, he remembered Mr Monroe in his blue suit. As Toby's walking distances got longer, so he made his way up to Hillcrest.

'Come in, Deputy. It's good to see you.' Mr Monroe seemed genuinely thrilled to meet his caller. 'I know we say "Come around" and "Of course I will", but so often it's a courtesy and never acted upon. Perhaps the one party was only offering out of politeness, or the other not sure if it was a genuine invitation, and so feared that they could cause a scene by following it through.'

The man talked nineteen-to-the-dozen, as people can when starved of conversation,

'I did have a feeling you would come though. And you being so busy. The morning lull, eh? I was never a Deputy myself, as I told you. Though I remember it from when my Declan was among your number.

'Come in, come in, sit down. I'll get the pot on.'

'Thank you, Mr Monroe,' said Toby as he accepted his cup, once sat in the cosy living room. The walls and furnishings were stripped back to the wood, golden-varnished, and dominated by a roaring fire in a stone grate.

'Vernon, please,' he said, sitting opposite. 'And I hope I can drop your title too, leave it at the doorstep with those boots of yours, so to speak.'

'Of course.'

'I remember my Declan being so glad to leave his duties at the door. He was one of those who started it all off, you know – a first generation sufferer of "the groaning sickness", as we called it then. That first winter was the worst time of my life. A town full of sick children. I thought we were losing them, every parent did.

'Yet in spring, when Declan and the others just got better, well I can't tell you the relief. And even better when he was old enough, and it stopped affecting him all together.'

This was everything that Toby had been so keen to ask about, yet here the man was talking without bidding; and Toby let him, soaking it up.

'Of course we'd noticed that it only caught our youngsters, and only in winter. Yet when we also realised it passed when they got old enough... to know that they grew out of it, well, it gave us the option, didn't it? The awful option: to contain it, to not to have to give up our jobs and our homes. And not to have to tell the Stockton-Overbury Company that living on the mountain drove our kids crackers. For we'd be telling them to give up on their investment, that men with families couldn't watch the pipeline year-around. And therefore the only kind of man available to them would be the loner, the outcast, the prime-candidate for cabin fever, hearing voices and firing at squirrels with both barrels of a shotgun.

'But it was fine. Well, not fine. But the illness passed, it lasted only through adolescence. We could contain that; the kids could grit their teeth and bear it. My boy did. And the first thing he did that first winter it didn't return, was volunteer to help those younger boys taking his place.

'No doubt you think about your own childhood, Toby, and the Deputising winters you've endured since. You may curse me and that first generation of settlers for lumping you with all this extra weight on your shoulders.

'And it's odd isn't how even during winter we don't talk of it often? We don't go out of our houses much, as no one speaks in the shops. And people keep their heads down as they pass.

'It's an open secret going on around us. But then, that's what you're here for, isn't it? The history that no one else will tell you. The history that even I've not told before.'

Chapter 42 – Shock Therapy

The old man slapped his knees, 'As I say, I really did think you'd come, Toby. I could sense it on the bus. I won't say I was looking out for you that afternoon, but I guessed that that was your travelling day, and found myself in Gaidon too.

'I remembered you with Janey, you see, and was always touched by your story. I knew you had a heart and could be talked to, not like some of those young thugs I've seen in action – forgive my seeming to criticise your colleagues. I would never judge your methods, not with the task we set you.

'But yes, perhaps I did arrange our meeting. Perhaps there is some truth in that. If I'm being honest, I was grateful for a chance to catch you before we got into town.

'You see, there aren't many of us left now, of those first seasons. Yet so much was decided then, and none of it written down. So much that has stuck – that's the first amazing thing! Nigh on fifty years' worth. Have you ever known a secret kept so long? Those first Councils would be amazed to see us still here. I wonder, if they could indeed see us, whether they would make the same decision? And that's a weight in itself. I don't want to die with it on me. I want it shared, and in so sharing, halved. Isn't that Shakespeare?'

Toby had been asked that question twice now, and had no better answer the second time. He shook his head to say he didn't know; and Vernon continued,

'College boys. This town was crying out for college boys. It was never hard to get them into college. In other towns it would be such a lot for them to leave behind, but here, unless they were very shy, it would be the perfect escape.

'No, but so much harder to get them back. Thank God some of you return,' he patted Toby's arm. 'And so, Toby, you see I have as much to tell as I believe you're hoping to be told.'

With his cup in hand, Vernon settled further into his chair and began his tale in earnest,

'This was Nineteen Sixty-four. You understand how it was back then. A child with psychological problems wasn't cared for like they are today. They were often taken from their families, put away in a home, subjected to strong early drugs or had their brains operated on. They were even electrocuted, Toby, actually electrocuted. You've heard of that?'

'Electroshock therapy?'

'You see, I'm something of an armchair expert, from our researches in those early days. Even common things like depression and stress just weren't understood. My father came back from the War in Europe when I was just a kid. He was fine, without a scratch. Uninjured, people thought. But he would wake up screaming – I'd go in, woken by the noise and worried he was hurt. My mother would be sat up with him, cradling his head in her arms. And she'd tell me everything was all right, and that Daddy had just had a bad dream, and that she was with him now and he'd be fine.

'But even at that age I knew he wasn't fine. Sometimes, when we were out he'd be looking at people who weren't there; and other times he'd just start shaking. The kids I knew said similar things of their fathers: that they could be distant, or suddenly get angry or upset. But it was never mentioned by the adults, not for years. I've read all about it since – shell-shock, post-traumatic stress. But you see what I'm getting at, Toby?

'The doctors didn't understand, and the treatments were horrific. And so, when our children got the sickness, then we couldn't tell anyone what was happening without the doctors jumping all over them... I only want to paint the picture, Toby, of how scared we had to be to make the decision that we did.'

The man was imploring Toby, as though pleading for his forgiveness.

'Now, the pipeline and the first settlement had all been built in the summer, so we knew how hard that first winter was always going to be. The snow came, as we knew it would, and the roads became blocked. But to then have our children all fall suddenly ill? Mumps, or measles, we wondered. More like a fever, someone else suggested. He'd been overseas with the oil company and had seen tropical diseases first-hand. We moved the children all together, fed them, mopped their brows. We waited over them, wrung our hands – yes, we literally wrung our hands – and knew that things were very bad.

'As this went on through the winter months so there was talk of "the sleepy sickness", which was an illness people used to suffer which could leave them in a coma for years. Even flu could be fatal back then – still can be now. I only mention all this as a window to our minds at that time, so you can sense how we were thinking.

'Every so often one of the children would call out, or burst from the fever with a maniac's energy. They would babble, speak in tongues. The mothers took it worst, and blamed us men for doing nothing. We could say, "What can we do?" But we were cowards, scared. I can admit that now.

'All seemed black; I couldn't sleep with the worry. Over the weeks though, the mood settled. The children seemed quite stable in their condition, and didn't seem to be getting any worse. We had a man with us who'd been a medic in the War, who could see that there was nothing physically wrong with them.

'And then came the thaw, and the kids all got better – to a boy and girl. I can't tell you the relief of those days. We rang the chapel-house bell that spring, for people were religious back then, and we'd built a little chapel. We even found a holy day falling around that time, to gather at and sing hosanna! We sang the Lord's praises that day. With our children, our healthy, happy totally-forgetting children beside us.

Chapter 43 – The Consequence of Lies

Toby sat in Vernon Monroe's warm lounge, trying to take it all in. He wished to keep every detail to remember later. Their cups were long drained, but Vernon had a more important role than playing host – he was unburdening his soul. He went on,

'But then there was a question of what to do next. Oh, we debated it for years. But the decision had been made that happy day in church. And that decision bedded itself in deeper, each year that the pattern of the illness repeated. The sickness could be contained, nothing would be said, and no one would have any long-term consequences.

'Winter after winter, we began to see the difference in the boys and girls; and with no one needing to say it, we started keeping them apart.

'Men volunteered to watch the boys, and our first Sheriff was always going to be central to that. He broke his vow to do so, his vow to Serve and Protect. Even today those of you who follow him are living with that break. He took the biggest risk of all of us, by lying to his superiors out of town, and filing phoney crime reports or not filing what should have been filed. And yet I remember that he did so quite calmly, and with a simple sense of what needed doing. Hoolihan, his name was. He remained Sheriff for twenty years.

'And around him men formed a cadre, drawn both from his own staff – that was growing as the town grew – and from seasonal volunteers. They gave themselves uniforms, an unspoken code, and found a sense of belonging, like a club.

'I wasn't one myself, not all men were, but I watched it happen – within their ranks the Deputies closed themselves off from the town; as at the same time moving into the dominant position. With them being illegal to start with then there was no way to stop them – families needed their service and were grateful for it.

'They formed a conspiracy within the conspiracy.

'Meanwhile the girls began to be taken to the town school to be looked after by the teachers, who in those days were all women. It soon became a school just for girls, and another school was opened for the boys. In its own way, the School became as secretive as the Sheriff's Office. We men didn't think too much of it – it was just another of those areas of life we weren't allowed into, like appointments at the dressmaker's, or their endless coffee mornings. Back then women were mysterious, and we learnt to leave them to their ways.

'So was born the set-up that we see today. I'd say that within those first few winters we had all of it arranged, and it began to feel natural.

'And with every new family who arrived each year, when the snow fell and their child got ill, we'd put an arm around their shoulders and say, "It's all right, they get better. And once they're old enough, it stops completely." And they'd be relieved. And then a little shocked when we told them that no, we weren't going down the hill to find a hospital. Instead, we kept the secret, and whether they liked it or not, they'd be keeping it too.

'But there are other effects. Aren't there, Toby.'

'Lies.'

'Yes. The consequence of lies. They are their own burden. They become worse than the thing you're lying about.

'At first we lied out of consideration for our children's reputation, and keeping them out of the madhouse. Self-interest too, of course, worries over keeping our jobs, or being thought problem-families. And then after a while the secret itself became the secret, and it becomes its own problem; as even if the sickness had ended, we could never have broken the code.

'I've thought over the years of how we might have gotten free of it: all of the town leaving at once and no family re-settling within a hundred miles, the old community broken up and deliberately forgotten. We could all have made new lives.

'But someone else would have come to live up here and run the damn pipeline. And when their kids started getting ill, well, what if they made the same decision? What if they tried to manage it like we did? A second secret within a second enclave?'

The man would sometimes slap his knees, getting up to pace around as he spoke, before returning to his chair, only to then jump up again. He mused,

'Oh, I know it would be different these days. There'd be Oprah Specials, "Help us Help the Children of Stove". Doctors flying in from all quarters. There'd be kind hearts across America, the world reaching out, offering to take them in. We'd be like that Mexican mining town after the landslide – the world would want to care. But we had done the best we could at the time, and had made a rod for our own backs.

'"Our children are hurting," we could say. "How can we help?" the world would ask. So far so good. And then the question we dreaded, "How long has it been going on for?" And imagine the shock when we told them, "Half a century." And then the fear that our methods would be learned. And the worst excesses found out – that some busy bee would root out the truth of our Worst Year.'

At this Toby felt a tingle down the spine, though hoped Vernon didn't notice him squirm in his chair to give himself away.

'You see,' the older man repeated, 'we early settlers had lived through the Second World War, served in Korea, worked abroad. Confinement and pacification – that was how you treated fever, mania, men losing their minds. And every spring the kids got better! Every spring they got better.'

Toby recognised that the man was about to cry. In his bluster he was attempting to justify his actions to himself, as much as to Toby.

But Toby could only listen; as he went on,

'Look at you. Look at how you and your brothers and sisters turned out. Can you say we did wrong? We only wanted to keep our jobs, to work for our families. Yet, I don't know if in attempting to do right we didn't drive you away. Not all the best of you return.'

'Your son stayed.'

'Yes, till he was about your age. But he left before his own children reached their teens. And as for my daughter, well I think she tries to forget that her childhood ever happened.'

Mr Monroe didn't mention a wife, and Toby thought it best not to enquire. Instead Toby was asked,

'So, what of you, Toby? What of your future?'

'I don't think that far ahead.'

'Come now, a man in his prime. You must have hopes, dreams?'

But Toby couldn't answer.

'I suppose "all this" makes the future hard to plan for. You still think about your House Mistress? Who could blame you. A sad lot, that. A sad lot.

'I'll get us more tea.'

'No, please,' said Toby as the man got up. 'I should be going. I can't have them miss me for long.'

'No. Lots to do. Lots to do. "To be original you must return to the origin." Have you ever heard that expression, Toby?'

Toby shook his head. He hadn't.

'It must be odd for you to doubt things. Unnatural, uncomfortable. After all, this is the world you were brought up in. You didn't create it. It is an odd thing to think that mine was the last generation for whom the way our town works was new. Since then it has been a fait accompli – is that the term? Just the way things are. So why would you doubt it?'

Toby was startled by the choice of words – and who'd said anything about him doubting anything? Was Vernon Monroe seeing through the Deputy's shell, or simply projecting his own feelings onto his guest?

Parting at the door, Toby was half-turned to walk away when he felt a hand on his arm and heard the old man say,

'Do you ever wonder, Toby, if it could go on for ever?'

But Toby didn't answer. Instead he left in a grump he'd later regret, and mumbled to himself once he was down the road,

'This town! Isn't there one person who wants this to end who can do it for themselves? Why do they lump it all on me?'

And everything that Toby was told that day, he told in turn to Jake that evening, as eager to unburden himself as Vernon Monroe had been. For Jake, and not Toby, was the one who'd break the secret to the world. And Toby knew deep down that that was all that Vernon wanted.

Chapter 44 – Toby's Parents

Toby had one more call to make. One he would put off till the end of the season if he could, and then until the next winter after that.

'Toby,' said his mother as he stood at the already-open door.

'You shouldn't let the cold in,' he answered. He was telling her off before he was even in the house, and hated himself for it, even as he could do nothing about it.

'Kettle's on,' she said.

'Thanks.'

As he arrived in the kitchen she turned and caught sight of him,

'Oh, look at my boy. Always so smart. You remind me of your father dressed like that.' She placed the tea things down to smooth his black lapels, before turning back to the kitchen counter. 'We miss you in the summer. But I know you have to live your own life. You know the Richmond boy hasn't returned again. June and Bill haven't seen him for six years now.' Something caught in her voice. 'Toby, those three years you stayed at college, I thought we'd never see you again.'

Toby came to stand by her where she stood at the work-surface, putting a hand on her shoulder. He wanted to hug her, but something held him back. Instead he said,

'I wanted to come and see you sooner,' he lied, or half-lied. 'But we've been busy.'

'I know, the snow came early this year.'

Just then the sound of footsteps came in from the path, and a voice sounded in the hall,

'It's like a barn in here.'

'Well, shut the door then.'

Toby smiled – he had forgotten his parents' joke argument conversations. It was just the way they rubbed along, and perhaps you needed something like that to be together all those years?

'Go in and see him then,' Toby's mother urged to her son. 'Alvin, guess who's here.'

'Hello, Dad.'

'Give us a hand then?' His father had already closed the front door, and was pulling his winter boots off. Together they managed it, though not before his dad had said,

'Look at you, all done up. They still keep the old threads then?'

'Same every year,' said Toby.

'I don't see you fellows very often now, with me retiring and not having children young enough.'

'How is Bernice?' asked Toby then. His sister.

'They're all doing fine,' chirped his mother, as women do when speaking of families and not people. 'They sent us a postcard from Bermuda – can you imagine?'

'What are they doing there?'

'On vacation, silly. They're still living in Connecticut. And who can blame them with that countryside? Not me.'

'Rainy though,' said his father, as if their own weather was all unclouded afternoons.

His mother brought the tea things into the lounge, and the family sat around the little coffee table. Why was it so difficult, thought Toby, just to tell them that he loved them? The answer came back: because there was too much else there stopping him. To have gotten over that would be to acknowledge everything that had happened to them over the years and everything the town didn't like to talk about. The ice was too thick and Toby could not crack it. Yet it let them see through it, and so all sat not hearing one another.

'You'll be needed back there, won't you,' said his father eventually, giving Toby an excuse to leave and they a chance to breathe again. This had been their first meeting in a year, between three people who cared for each other; and not one of them could wait for it to be over.

Back in sunny Carvel, Toby often saw other families in the park or in shops or in restaurants. He knew that he could never have conveyed to them how his family was. His father hadn't even been a bad man, by which Toby meant he'd been no worse than himself. Normal-bad then maybe, but not Stove-bad. Never that. It hadn't been his dad who'd clubbed him into darkness that one time. Yet somehow their relationship carried all of Stove's weight.

Chapter 45 – Nonday

Toby slept heavily the last two nights before returning to duty, and so made no visits to the Emsworth place. Each morning of that week of enforced leave, he woke to the sound of the wood-walled guest house in ferment. It was as if the boots of other Deputies were coming through the boards above him, and that every opened door was being pulled off its hinges.

Once back on his rounds though, he was glad of the distraction that came from meeting Jake to give his testimony.

'It's actually easier to get away while on duty,' said Toby one night, preparing himself for the next chapter of his life story. 'You don't have to make up tales of where you're going. Before, I was having to tell my landlady I was going for midnight walks to clear insomnia brought on by the pain pills.'

'And she bought that?'

'She's not daft.'

But Jake had other things on his mind,

'Don't worry about the big stuff tonight, Tobe... Just talk about the little things, the day to day.'

So that night Toby would tell Jake that it was a relief to get back to duty. That there was nothing like the therapy of work, even when that work was Toby's work. How during his lay-up he'd missed his colleagues, had missed the chance to help them. And how helping them made him feel less bad when calling on their assistance in return.

He told of going back home with Fitch after shifts, and of Mrs Fitch making them all cocoa. And of the baker making it a rule to give free bread to any Deputy at any time of day or night; he even going so far as sleeping in his armchair downstairs in the shop, waiting for the nighttime ringing of the bell above the door.

And Toby told of how they tried, so tried to make their little town a community. How they really did feel and obey every human communal impulse. Yet it had always seemed a little like those cutaway illustrations of the Earth's crust – that thin layer of stability bravely holding itself together over surging primal currents.

'You'll be cracking that crust like an egg,' said Jake.

'They'll never speak to me again.'

'Oh, they will. They'll be glad of it. One day.'

For the next few weeks the Earth's crust held, and Toby was glad of it. No matter the work he was doing and the children he was hurting – he knew it was the last winter, and that their hurt would soon be over.

Since he knew it would be ending, his return to routine let events feel stable and his mind be calm. It was work he knew how to do, and was a relief after his injury scare, his dressing down by the Sheriff, and the sense of uselessness that had accompanied his lay-off.

It was his job, and Toby redoubled his efforts to do it well. Furthermore, being a Deputy connected him to the town and its history, albeit tinged with nostalgia for what would soon be gone for good. It felt like working in an old building about to be decommissioned.

Things were better, then; or at least no worse. The mountains remained imperious, and the snow lay thick over the town nestled between them. Somewhere overhead the high-wire man hovered – as he always had done and always would do – smiling in the photographs.

Meanwhile the clinic got no fuller, indeed emptied as the girl with Strength and Hope got her appetite back and the Doctor saw no major new admissions. And in the corner of the clinic, in a quiet room, lay Andrew Sippitz in his healing coma.

This bucolic state lasted maybe twenty more days, before the Devil came to paradise.

Chapter 46 – The Call from Town-side

It was near midnight when the phone-call reached the guest house along the town's only working line. Fitch had been there sleeping, and so took the message. From there he left to find Toby who was out on a call, relaying,

'There's trouble in the town, Tobe. They need you, sharpish.'

'What trouble? Stay down!' snapped Toby sharply at the boy he had been wrestling with, and who was at that moment glowering at him from where Toby had thrown him down on his family's hearth rug. He repeated to Fitch, 'What trouble?'

'It's the Sheriff, Tobe,' explained Fitch from the living room door. 'He's injured.'

'How?'

'They didn't say.'

'Who didn't?'

'Margaret in the office. She and Sarah are the only ones there. The Deputies are chasing after some guy, and it sounds like Crawley's taken things upon himself.'

'Oh Lord. Stay down!'

'They need "wise heads", she says.'

'I suppose I ought to be flattered... argh!'

At that moment the boy, saliva dripping from bared teeth, had launched again at the distracted Deputy, and caught Toby around his sleeved right arm.

Passing his club to the left, Toby issued a weaker blow than with his right, but enough to loosen the boy's grip. He then kicked him to the floor with one jackbooted swipe.

'And what about this young fiend?'

'I'll take him over, Tobe. It sounds urgent.'

With the de-facto area manager rubbing his sore arm through its damp sleeve, he left for the centre of Stove.

As Toby approached his destination, he noted that – apart from his secret visits – he hadn't been back to Stove proper for weeks. Not to the Sheriff's Office, or the clinic, or to any of the shops in town. In fact, his only indulgence had been to allow himself to pass near to the School for Girls on his dawn returns Mountain-side. Still too early to have seen any of the staff about, but enough at least to satisfy his need to be near a certain member of that staff... but that was an area he wouldn't allow himself to think about. At least not for now.

Instead Toby wondered what the hell was going on in town to require his urgent attention? The Sheriff getting injured at any time was bad, but not enough in itself. Even if Crawley was upset about something, then there were other 'wise heads' in the town: the Town Clerk and the Mayor. If the latter weren't requested – as they evidently hadn't been – then it was Sheriff's Office business, and that made Toby cringe. It meant that it involved the sickness, and the violence, and who-knew-what-else that the elected officials wanted left to their black cardinals.

Chapter 47 – Night Music

Toby was still pumped up from the interrupted Deputising session, breathing too quickly and striding through the snow. He wasn't even feeling his bitten arm fully yet. He felt alive, hot in the cold air. His breath and perspiration steamed off him, leaving a vapour trail which caught in the lights of the homes still up at that hour. And then it occurred to him, as he entered the town itself, that there were far too many lights on, and people looking out of doorways. Some even nodded a cautious 'Good evening', and Toby returned the greeting.

It was the small hours – had Toby not been on call then he might have been heading to the Emsworth House around now – and the town should not have been awake. Something had been going on, something that had woken and unsettled people. Every augur boded badly. Toby tried to stay puffed-up – he had a feeling he might need to be. As he neared the glass front of the Sheriff's Office, Margaret ran out, nearly slipping on the slush in the court shoes she wore in the office.

'Toby, thank God. You need to get to the Orell house, Cable Street.'

'What is it?'

'We've been told that the Sheriff's hurt, and now the Deputies are outside Old Man Orell's house.'

Toby launched off at a right angle to the way he had just come. Along the streets now the occupants of nearly every house were at their windows, but cautiously so, as if already told to stay indoors.

It was a short walk to the Orell house, and by the time Toby got there he would have known that there was something going on. The beams of flashlights danced around the front of the building, and a group of dark-jacketed men were bobbing around in the tall shadows they cast.

There were voices, calls, and someone then appeared to lean out of an upstairs window. The shotgun blast was loud and echoed along the street toward Toby. The figures on the ground shuddered, and one screeched out in shock more than pain.

'That's winged yer!' shouted the man at the upstairs window. 'That's winged yer!'

'You get out of there!' shouted a different Deputy to the one injured, their voice bent unrecognisable with rage. He came forward to bang a long black stick on the house's door. The man upstairs retreated inside, and the scene of the Deputies calling for him to come out repeated itself. The only difference was the wailing of the 'winged' Deputy, floored in silhouette.

The shock of the shotgun blast had stopped Toby in his tracks a little way from the scene. Where he stood was cast in darkness, outside a rare unlit house. He was invisible, and none of those ahead of him had turned around to greet him. He took a deep breath, preparing to march onward into the melee.

But in the air his livid senses caught the scent of something, human heat. He turned to stare at the dark house he was beside, and in the pool of gloom before it were two bodies. Before he could recognise them, one of them moved, saying,

'Toby.'

'Sheriff?'

'Toby, get them out of there. They'll kill him.' The Sheriff couldn't seem to push himself up off his back.

Toby looked to the other body, the one that wasn't moving.

'Who is he?'

'Billy Meting. Fifteen.'

Toby could hardly speak, summoning up from somewhere,

'What happened here?'

'The old story – they were holding him, but he broke out. Someone went chasing after him like a dog with a scent of a hare, and well, we've seen how that can work out.'

'And Orell?'

With a groan, the Sheriff continued,

'Orell saw them beating the poor kid in the street and came out to stop it with his shotgun. The daft idiot missed with both barrels though, and they chased him back to his house.'

'And you?'

'I... got tangled up in it. But forget that, get up to that house and call them off!'

'I can't. I've not...'

'Not got the guts!'

'I've not got the authority.'

'Toby, have you never seen a lynch mob before? They're going to kill Orell. Call 'em off!'

Toby watched the figures before him, dancing in the light of the jostling torches. They looked like little black demons sent to torment the man inside the house. A loud crack was heard, though this was no second gunshot. Instead it was one of the long black sticks the demons were wielding, rapped against the white clapperboard walls. More damage to be painted out, thought Toby.

He stood facing them, though moved no further forward. Hidden in the darkness, he summed the scene up quickly. The men were in the heat of of the chase. One of them, accidentally or otherwise, had just killed. A stand-up challenge to those guys right then would have been outright war. It wasn't Toby's part of town, nor was he even technically their superior.

Toby tried to make out who was there; which was almost impossible. He guessed at one shape being Tort. Despite what Toby had been hearing of his colleague recently, at that moment he looked as jittery and up for the fight as the others – what was it with these Town-side guys? Another figure, as he stared, was evidently Eddy. Though Toby hardly recognised his friend, banging his nightstick against a window-frame so hard that gleaming white splinters of paint came off it.

Toby needed something other than just telling them to stop because he said so. The Sheriff groaned beside him, and there Toby had his idea. He walked forward, then spoke. His voice cracked and wavered,

'Fellows, the Sheriff's down. I need some help here.'

A couple turned from their rabble-rousing, but none answered him.

Toby spoke again,

'I need three of you to help carry.'

'The Sheriff's fine,' one answered.

'We don't know that,' reasoned Toby.

'And the kid's dead.'

But even Toby could see that. The contempt for his being there was obvious. By now all had turned away from the house, and Crawley was glaring at him. It was the first time that Toby had seen him in action since he didn't-know-when, and he had forgotten the presence of the man in anger. Hot and pink and steaming and near three-feet wide. Crawley only needed a ring through his nostrils to complete the picture of a bull at an open gate. Toby was only glad he had been too old to have had to play school sports against him.

And still growing in stature, thought Toby, still only in his Twenties. Crawley's face was contorted with something like rage or hatred, anger or interrupted violence. Maybe all of these combined. Toby could also have sworn, caught in the lamplight, that there were flecks of blood across his face and neck.

Crawley didn't speak though; and Toby knew that against all odds he owned the situation. He said again to the group,

'I need three of you to help me.'

One by one, three of the dancing devils started walking slowly toward him. Toby looked at Orell's trampled garden as they exited it. When they were near enough, Toby turned to lead them to the fallen.

From the upstairs window of the Orell house then came the gleeful call,

'At last, someone with some cahoneys!'

At this, Crawley turned back to the house and raised his stick. But Eddy took hold of his arm at full-height. Crawley fixed the other Deputy in a crucifying glare, but let his arm fall.

Full marks to Eddy for that at least, thought Toby as he watched them, Eddy being the only other Deputy of stature in the Town-side Sheriff's Office. Yet even then Toby couldn't help noticing something passing between the two men at that moment, something in their eyes.

Had Toby had the time and mental clarity just then, he might have tried to figure it out. But they had the fallen to carry. With Toby and the others leaning to lift the boy and the Sheriff, and another Deputy stooping to help up his comrade with the shot-up leg, that left only Crawley without a role, who was soon gone from the scene.

Chapter 48 – The Walking Wounded

Without stretchers it was an awkward procession. Toby's three reluctant carriers had shunned the boy's body, all wanting to go instead for the injured Sheriff. Including Eddy, who shoved another Deputy aside to take their boss's hurting shoulders – Toby really wasn't liking his friend's behaviour that night.

So it was the body of Billy Meting that Toby, and Tort, the youngest of the Sheriff's Office present, were somehow carrying between them. Toby took the heavier head and shoulders. Tort walked in front of him with the legs, and so Toby could not see his face. Though Toby was sure he heard him sobbing.

Toby looked down at the victim. He was young, his face was cut but without time to bleed or bruise. Somebody's son. And now the men who did it didn't even want to touch their handiwork, leaving it to Toby and the runt of their litter to carry him. Toby hated them. Hated his own kind. There he was, accessory to murder. He had no right to live now, to continue breathing, when this boy had already breathed his last. They were cowards, he was a coward. He hated himself.

The Doctor groaned when they arrived, clanking their way through the doors of the overstuffed clinic.

'Is it a damn warzone out there?' asked an old man in one of the beds.

'This is the lot of it,' said Toby. 'It's all over now...'

'What have we got?' the Doctor cut him off, professionalism taking over from disgust.

'I think the boy's dead.'

A woman in the ward groaned. Whether or not she was making these noises anyway, or was even aware of what was going on around her, her low moan made perfect sense and summed up how all were feeling.

'His name's Billy Meting,' added Toby.

Cue weeping from the woman.

The doctor looked at Billy briefly, touched his skin to find a pulse and felt only cold.

'Yes, he's dead. Bring him to the morgue. You men, put the others where the nurses tell you.'

'The Sheriff's worst off,' said Toby over his shoulder as he followed the Doctor's direction. 'The Deputy's just got gun shot in his leg.'

At this the Deputy wailed in pain, as he had been intermittently all journey.

In the cold room they put the body down. Tort, freed of his responsibility, quickly left the room of death. The two men remaining took in the silence for a while. The Doctor said,

'I work away here, terrified of what fresh horror you people will bring me next.'

Toby could only bow his head.

'It's becoming a bad year,' he continued.

Toby silently concurred.

'Was it Crawley?' asked the Doctor.

'He was there.'

The Doctor nodded, 'It was Crawley. I can see the strength the killer needed. Here, see how the cheekbone has been depressed beneath the blow?'

Toby had seen, had tried not to. Had tried not to know who had done it.

Already placed in the cold store with Billy Meting was an old man dead of cold and natural causes. Toby had a vision then of another boy who could just as easily have been lying there with them; the boy who'd nearly died while he had meant to be containing him.

'How is Andrew Sippitz, Doc?' asked Toby.

'Still in his coma.'

'How long has it been?'

'Three or four weeks now.'

'But you said it was only going to be short-term.'

'I know what I said, Toby.'

'Is he meant to be in there that long?'

'These things can go on a while. We don't know what it means yet.'

'I haven't been to see him. Even when I've been here, I haven't been in his room.'

'Toby, you don't have to explain to me.'

'It's not because I don't care.'

'Honestly, do you think I'd judge you?'

'It's only in case his mother or father were there, and I'd be the last thing they'd want to see, striding in in my boots.'

'You hate yourself, don't you Toby?'

He didn't need to answer.

The Doctor said, 'I need to get to my patients. Stay here a minute if you need to.'

And it was in those moments beside the Meting body that Toby resolved. One-hundred percent resolved.

Chapter 49 – Lloyd Thornton's Bedside

When he emerged from the cold room, Toby went over to the Sheriff. From the next bed along came the cry-baby noises of the shotgun-injured Deputy. One orderly held him down while another took out pellets with thick tweezers. Toby hoped the tweezers were blunt. He ignored the sounds as he spoke,

'Sheriff.'

'Toby.'

Toby asked the nurse settling him, 'What's the damage?'

The nurse had that way of talking as if the patient she was tending was not there, 'I don't think his arm is broken, hopefully just badly sprained. This also feels like a cracked rib. And there's also an ankle sprain from when he fell, maybe a fracture.'

'How does it hurt?' Toby asked the patient.

'Like hell.'

Toby stood by the nurse and asked her quietly,

'How long will he be out of action if it's a fracture?'

'Oh, he'll have a cast. It could me months.'

'And if it's not?'

'He won't put weight on the ankle for a week, might not walk for another after that.'

'Can we have a minute?' Toby asked the nurse.

'I'll fetch the dressings.'

Alone with the Sheriff, Toby said urgently,

'Chief, they had nightsticks out there. When were those cracked out?'

If it was possible for a man in a hospital bed to look downward, the Sheriff did so,

'It's been getting tough on the Town-side. It was just for now, an emergency measure.'

'And when's the emergency's over?'

The doors clattered open again, and in came the Mayor... and Deputy Crawley. Toby shivered at his presence – here was a man who had that night murdered. Toby looked his way benignly, and got an equally innocent look in return. Neither said a word, but both knew what had happened that evening.

The Sheriff knew it too, thought Toby. But Lloyd Thornton seemed to get a dose of the vapours just then, and didn't look his new visitors in the eye.

As for what the Mayor knew, Toby guessed that it was only what Crawley had wanted him to hear. Though the man wasn't daft.

Crawley was cleaned up now and seemingly calmed down; though, as events would show, only relatively so. Along with the Doctor, a council formed around the Sheriff's bed, the Mayor leading,

'How's he looking, Doctor?'

'He's done for this winter, Bob.'

The Sheriff groaned, 'He's right, Bob. I can't walk.'

'How'd you get yourself into this mess?'

Toby saw a flickered look between the Sheriff and Crawley. The Sheriff said nothing. The Mayor's tone hardened,

'The town's relying on you, Lloyd. And then you let this happen? A boy dying... and you're not even on your feet to stop it?'

The patient stammered out, suddenly serious, 'Sir, I respectfully request a hiatus of my responsibilities...'

'Hiatus? More like a cessation. You won't wear that badge again, Lloyd.'

'Mr Mayor,' said Toby automatically.

'Cut it, Deputy. He doesn't need you defending him. You're old, Lloyd. You'll never be yourself again.' The Mayor's voice lowered, 'Either one of the boys did this to you, or one of your own men. Now, I'm not going to ask you which, but you see how you can't hope to keep your old authority.

'Anyway, I've been talking with Crawley here, and we've come up with a plan...'

The soon-to-be-ex-Sheriff interjected, 'Then I make one last request.'

'Hit it.'

'That my successor be Toby here.'

Crawley's hopes for an easy succession had been postponed, yet even he couldn't have expected what the Mayor said next,

'Well, that's your prerogative. And in the circumstances, your right to name.'

Crawley took the bed frame and shook it, shouting at the Mayor,

'But you'd said I'd got it?'

'I said a senior Deputy would take over. The Sheriff runs his Office, not me. If he wants it to be Toby...'

'You lied to me. You promised!'

'Please, please,' the Mayor tried to laugh. 'Don't make a scene here.'

'You lied to me!' Crawley nearly tipped the Sheriff off the bed with the force he imported on the frame. 'You lied!'

'Gentlemen,' the Doctor interrupted. 'Please, not on the ward. Take your argument elsewhere.'

Crawley fixed the Mayor in one of his trademark glares – Toby feared he would wring the man's neck right there – before he threw down the side of the bed he was holding, and stormed off.

'Well, what's rattled his cage?' asked the Mayor, trying to make light of it. But every other man in and around the bed breathed hard at the near miss.

'Ambition, I think,' said the Doctor.

'Well, well,' said the Mayor. 'Toby, my office in twenty minutes?'

Toby nodded, before the Mayor took his leave.

This left the Doctor and Toby at the bedside. The Sheriff saying,

'Does that idiot realise who he's just jerked around?'

With only a moment to do so, Toby had to think on his feet. Among the Deputies who'd helped him with the carrying, Tort and Eddie had already disappeared. Yet a couple of others had lingered by the coffee machine. Toby summoned them thus:

'Can one of you get to the School for Girls, tell the Head Mistress about the changes. And the other of you...' He gave them Sarah's home address. 'Can you get the same message to Sarah, tell her we'll need her in in the morning to help Margaret work up a new roster. Tell her I asked for her personally. You've got that?'

'Got it, Tobe... sorry, Sheriff.'

'Thank you.'

Janey would know within the half-hour. Toby wanted her to. He wanted her to know he was still out there and was engaged in the town's interests – no kicking back with a root beer for Toby. Everything had changed, in ways he hadn't even figured out yet. It seemed important that she knew it all that very evening, when every half-hour felt like it might be his last.

Jake too, who'd get the message just as quickly from Sarah. On any other night Toby would be heading to the Emsworth house right then, to find the only person he could talk to. But not tonight, not when it was the most important night of all, not when there was so much to do.

'Toby,' the Doctor reminded. 'The Mayor.'

And he was right. Toby made his goodbyes and left.

Chapter 50 – Sheriff Toby

Margaret was still at the Sheriff's Office when he arrived; but Toby dismissed her, telling her they'd be busy in the morning and to go and get some rest.

'Thank you, Sheriff,' she said, slightly prematurely though full of respect.

It was Toby's office now.

He sat at Lloyd Thornton's old desk for a minute – the Mayor was preparing for him just along the road. The scene at the bedside had moved Toby, the way Lloyd Thornton had known his time was up. Toby also felt a glow of pride that his boss had chosen him as his successor. Also that the Mayor had taken Lloyd up on the recommendation so quickly. Then Toby remembered that most of the other candidates were implicated in the murder of a child that evening. Given the field, Toby could have been Hannibal Lecter and still got the nod.

How had Jake put it? 'You know, you don't have to be very nice to still be the best of this town.'

There wasn't much in front of Toby on the desk's green leather top. There was an electric typewriter, used mainly for incident report forms. Beside it was a photograph of Lloyd's daughter – about Toby's age, he remembered, though not seen in town since she'd been old enough to leave. Also there were a pile of last summer's brochures, with a cover photo of the sunlit town as seen from Compass Point.

There were cardboard coffee cups, and the wrappers of a sandwich the old Sheriff had not had the foreknowledge to tidy away. Given the desk's uncensored state, Toby did a bad thing, in a season of bad things, and checked the drawers.

Those to each side of him were locked as he leant down to try them – these were probably repositories of personal files. Yet the long thin drawer above his knees was open to the touch. Toby paused a moment, then drew it fully.

As Toby expected, there was little of a confidential nature in there, only things Lloyd needed close to hand: a pack of mints, a notepad, Biros, some blank holiday sheets. But also less-classifiable items, such as two more photos of his daughter, a book of baseball scores, an old police certificate dated decades earlier, and beneath these keepsakes another photograph, one of Lloyd Thornton and three colleagues in black winter uniform.

The picture made him shudder – it was strictly off limits keeping any evidence. Toby was wearing that same outfit himself, yet he realised afresh how he had never seen a photograph of anyone taken during Winter Restrictions, not through all the Stove winters of his lifetime.

Just seeing that snapshot now was dangerous, electric. Toby looked again – the picture seemed familiar, though the Sheriff had never shown it, and Toby had never been through the desk before. Yet he couldn't shake the feeling.

The snap was from the old days, or the relatively old days; the middle-era, maybe the Seventies or Eighties. It was hard to tell, for the Stove winter fashion had hardly changed. Only an off-duty baseball cap that one of them wore gave it away, and the design of the labels of the bottles of beer they were holding.

It might have been Christmas, or New Year, or someone's winter-falling birthday; for the four of them were pictured drinking, laughing. It just so happened that one of the revellers had his boot between an exhausted-looking teenager's shoulder-blades, holding him to the floor.

They were joshing in a room he didn't recognise, maybe only celebrating a successful night, a boy left tired and contained. Four Deputies kicking back. No, three Deputies and a Sheriff – Toby could tell by his wide-brimmed hat, the hat that Sheriff Mercer always wore. He recognised him now, as the shock wore off.

Toby looked at Mercer in the picture, and guessed he ran his office with a rod of iron – there'd be no shenanigans like those Crawley was causing this year. Toby looked at him laughing, and knew that behind the smile would be cold control. He looked a barrel of a man, a real charger.

Toby remembered that giant visiting their house when he was a little boy, which might have been around the time of the photograph. Later, when he was a little older, Toby would fall under his Office's influence.

In the following moments the other faces came clear. Beside Mercer was Lloyd Thornton, still a Deputy then. Toby marvelled at his dark black hair. Hadn't the Sheriff of Gaidon said that Lloyd had been a ladykiller in his youth? Looking at that photograph now, Toby could well believe it.

It was the man standing on the other side of Thornton who had bought Toby a pang of familiarity, for looking out at Toby was his own father.

And then the fourth figure; Toby recognised him too.

Sometimes the beatings Toby had taken had been delivered by his father: only through his Deputising role though – he was always caring other times of the year. This was simply the Stovian seasonally-affective interpretation of parental responsibility. The son of a Deputy was still just one child in the town though, and couldn't guarantee his father wouldn't be detained elsewhere. So sometimes Toby's care would be administered by one of his father's colleagues. Like the time he got his scar.

The man was standing at the other side of Sheriff Mercer. A young face, but one which had faded out of memory and out of Stovian public life. Toby wondered: what could have become of him? Though he didn't think it could be anything good.

Toby shoved the photo back where he had found it. It was too much information already, too many secrets. The photograph was poison, it would bleed into his hands and stain them. Toby almost dropped it as he fumbled with the drawer. Sat there though, at the dead of night, waiting, with nothing else to distract him, Toby couldn't rid the image from his mind.

It wasn't a Polaroid, so where the hell had it been processed? For it could hardly have been taken to any old twenty-four hour developers.

And as for what the snap portrayed, well... even in the work they did, even once the fight was over, for Deputies to hold a child like that was dereliction. And to be drinking too – it was a shocking scene.

Toby tried to tell himself that all four men were equally culpable of that negligence, and that it didn't matter whose boot had been holding down the boy. No, it really didn't matter whose foot it was, it didn't matter at all. It had been his own father's, but even then Sheriff Mercer took the greater share of the blame for standing by and letting him do so.

And young Lloyd Thornton, the old Sheriff's right-hand man, his obvious successor and second in command. Where was his leadership that day?

No, thought Toby, those two were the ones in charge. They were the ones worst at fault there, and not his father. Or so he tried to tell himself.

Quite apart from what the photograph displayed though, it was still against every rule of the town to have kept it in the first place. So why had Sheriff Thornton done so? Toby wondered if it was Lloyd's insurance against the town if he was ever sold down the river, his proof that bad things had gone on for years and pre-dated his time in charge? Maybe the photo had been a gruesome reminder for him of what his office did, and all that they had to be ashamed of? Or perhaps it was the Sheriff's way of instantly incriminating himself, if a secret guilt proved too much and he needed to go down the mountain and hand himself in?

Before long though, Toby realised that to those four men the boy under the boot was merely a detail of the work they were engaged in. And that Thornton might have kept the photograph – against all unspoken rules – merely as a memento of camaraderie, good times with good friends.

Toby asked himself: how had it come to this? How was he about to be put in charge of it all? There was a knock on the door though, and he was spared any further troubling thoughts.

Chapter 51 – The Mayor of Stove, for his Sins

There was the ritual to go through at the Mayor's office, held as quickly as anyone could be gathered there to perform it. The hour was barely decent, the sun still hours from being up. Toby entered the annex at the back of the Town Hall, and was as brushed up as he could make himself. He greeted the Mayor's long-standing secretary, and was ushered in to see the man himself.

The Mayor was the opposite of Lloyd Thornton: wide, avuncular, paternal, always smiling. He had probably kept his job for so long with these very qualities. The lack of political movement on the town's single main issue was no more the Mayor's fault than anyone else's, considered Toby. Either way, the townsfolk could have no hope in their leadership, and so looked to the Mayor only for comfort in the yearly crisis.

'Mr Mayor.'

'Deputy. Or I should say Sheriff? We haven't time or resources for a ceremony, so consider these next couple of minutes your investiture.

They shook, and in the handshake's firmness reminded Toby that, for all the Mayor's bonhomie, all leaders needed steeliness at their core. The steel to say what must be said, and to do what must be done, displacing personal affections. The same steel that Toby had seen an hour before at the old Sheriff's bedside.

'Now, Lauren,' he called through to the office. 'Could you and Paul come in now? And bring the scroll.'

Both men stood to greet the secretary and the man who came in with her, who Toby recognised as a town Councillor. He looked half-asleep still, in his jogging suit and sneakers.

The Mayor explained to Toby,

'They will act as witnesses. Now, as we're all standing, I think a reading of the Oath and then we'll all get back to our beds.'

Squashed into the tiny room, Toby raised his right hand. The scroll was held open before him, but he recited it from heart:

'On my honour, I will never betray my badge, my integrity, my character, or the public trust. I will always have the courage to hold myself and others accountable for our actions. I will always uphold the constitution, my community, and the agency I serve.'

Toby counted at least four breaches of that code that he had already committed that day. One even just by being there, by wearing the uniform, by accepting his role: for there was no 'constitution' in the land that authorised what they did.

After the swearing in, the others left. The Mayor sat down, bidding Toby likewise, his host ruminating,

'There'll be issues come peacetime.' (He meant 'springtime', of course. That may have been a verbal slip, but Toby wasn't sure.) 'You have no training as an actual law enforcement officer, as Lloyd Thornton or young Tort do.' (Tort being a year-round trainee.) 'And I imagine you'll be going back to Carvel anyway?'

'I expect so, sir.'

'I only wanted to avoid any disappointment, if you hoped to continue in your new role come spring.'

'No, sir. I fully understand.'

'Very well. You'll be based in the town now, so you'll need to delegate to your Mountain-siders.'

'Job and Fitch, sir.'

'Do you need to go back and instruct them?'

'They'll already be doing the job.'

'Good. It's good to have men around you who you can trust.'

Toby sensed the Mayor hadn't kept him there to talk about personnel issues, 'But that's not all, sir?'

The man proved Toby right,

'Toby, when Crawley came to me tell me that Lloyd Thornton was down, well, if you really wanted to be the one taking charge of the situation, then that's what you should have done. It should have been your first thought. If the town is without a Sheriff, then it's without law enforcement, and the Mayor needs to know.'

Toby hadn't given a first thought – or any thought that evening – to the Mayor, but he didn't tell him that,

'Sir, I only didn't come and see you as I judged it most important to get the Sheriff to the Doctor. And also the body of Billy Meting.'

The Mayor winced at the boy's name, and Toby recognised he was a coward too – as the Deputies had been when asked to carry the body. The Mayor responded,

'I know, and if it had been any less than that keeping you from your duty to me then you wouldn't be sitting here now. As it was, as I walked to the clinic with Crawley, I was all set to give him your role. It was something in the calm way you approached things at the bedside though, and Lloyd's personal recommendation, that changed my mind. It chimed with the high regard I know you're held in, and helped me make what had to be a snap decision.

The man paused to think, then continued,

'The way Crawley reacted at the clinic, well, at the time it seemed to justify my choice. But thinking about it since, I can tell he was just disappointed, acting out childishly. Any young man could act the same. So I won't lie to you, Toby – it could have been the other way around. And even now I wonder at my decision.

'Young Crawley has been a rock for Town-side in recent winters. You see, he understands quite instinctively what a lot of us forget, or would prefer not to think about – that this is a war, Toby. We're not doctors, we're soldiers, and we're fighting for our children.

'I remember a man you're too young to have known, though your father would have. He used to be the Sheriff of this town. He would thunder, "Kindness is false kindness, mercy is false mercy. To be cruel is to be kind. Strike hard and strike quickly, save the children from themselves." Crawley reminds me of that man.

'Someone went too far this night, I won't deny it. But if one child is... hurt in saving all the others from themselves, then I judge that a success. And so would Crawley.'

Toby heard this love-in for Crawley, and asked in his head, 'So what's the real reason why you didn't give him the damn job?' But he didn't ask, for he also sensed a sadness in the Mayor's voice, who went on to lament,

'Crawley though is still perhaps a little young, a little... untamed at times. Having you there to check him seems the compromise solution. I won't deny, we were let down by your three years away. Though the fact that you came back, and keep doing so, has repaid much of that. Perhaps you had to get away to understand the duty you were feeling.

'Now though, a death in the town brings its own pressures – not nipped in the bud it can lead to panic, overreactions, further regrettable acts. A swift return to calmness is the order of the day. So you see, your duty as Sheriff is rather graver than I feared. We're going to be hoping for a heck of a lot from you, Toby.'

Chapter 52 – Under the Overhang

Toby left the Mayor's room knowing that his town was going to hell in a handcart, with Crawley at its head. It may not happen that winter, maybe not the next, but someday. (That was if Jake wasn't taking them there sooner.) And the secret would burn itself out in fury, Toby knew. There was no way that it could end without violence – how much there might be scared him.

The excitement of the scene outside the Orell house had long died down, and the town was now catching up on much-needed sleep. On a quiet, dark street unseen by anyone, Toby found what looked to be a dry patch of ground beneath an overhang, and sat down on the dirt.

The wood creaked as he leaned his back against the building, but Stove was a town of creaks and groans, and no one stirred. He tried to think clearly, knowing he was getting close to suffering chest pains with the stress of it all. He tried to work it out:

How would the town handle things that spring when Sheriff Toby left? The Mayor would have to keep Lloyd Thornton on as figurehead, give trainee Tort more to do. Yet even on a fast-track for the summer, Tort wouldn't be running things next winter. No, in Toby's absence then Crawley would be back in the fall to boss the winter scene.

All thoughts of Toby's retirement 'on medical grounds' were now gone. Toby accepted this. As long as he was there then he could act as Crawley's 'check' – the moment he stopped returning then there would be bloodshed, even worse than the death of Billy Meting. The thought shocked him, but he knew it to be true.

And another phrase the Mayor has used lingered. Under the overhang, Toby whispered,

'Kindness is false kindness, mercy is false mercy.'

So Thornton's dictum taught to Toby had been taught to him by Mercer. And taught to Mercer by older Sheriffs no doubt, maybe going all the way back to those first Councils attended by Vernon Monroe. And now here was Crawley, still 'young' and 'untamed', but full of old-school beating zeal to gladden the Mayor's heart.

And what of Crawley now? The man who Toby had stopped from killing Orell. The man who was presently Absent Without Leave. The man who wanted Toby's job. Toby wondered if a challenge was inevitable, and when it might come?

It was still the small hours, and Toby had the rest of the night to get through.

Chapter 53 – Janey

Toby had no memory of rising from the dry patch of ground, or of the walk back to the empty unlocked Sheriff's Office. He soon learnt though that he had needed his time-out on the dark street, for otherwise he would have gone straight from one interview and into another. Waiting there was Janey.

Twice in one winter – he felt blessed.

She looked drawn. She was still the best looker in the town though.

Over the years Toby had kept his (very) distant tabs on her, and knew the outline of her life, which seemed unchanging. In his sentimental moments, Toby allowed himself to fantasise that the reason she was still single was that she held a candle for him... There were actual reasons: the long hours of a House Mistress year-round, the lack of a man within a hundred miles worthy of her (in Toby's opinion). Not that she'd have been haughty had any made an advance. And Toby had no idea if any had – even though the thought of it terrified him.

There was also something in her nature that might deter a less-thoughtful man: the way the sickness and her duties told on her, bringing out a kind of reserve. A partner would have to empathise with this.

They'd started out as playground sweethearts – a pop-song cliché, but for them true. They'd known it there and then, and had each felt they would never love another.

Once being taught all he could in Stove though, he began to go away each spring. She understood, she really did, for there were things he had to leave to find.

It made things difficult though. Even trying their best to visit had barely been enough. They would meet in Gaidon, go on holidays, but could never move on.

They had each had their hopes: his that he could prise her away to join him; hers that he would settle back in town one day; each that the Stovian nightmare that embroiled them would somehow go away. Yet in their twenties these opposing forces only seemed to strengthen, resulting in his need to leave for good.

It was now seven years since Toby had told her he would not be back the next winter. It had left them three whole years apart, and four winters since then barely meeting, with neither sure who had hurt who. With the sickness and Stove unchanging, there hardly seemed a point to getting in touch. It was as if they knew it would only hurt them, and that nothing good could result.

Now each winter since Toby's return, like a slow car crash, he watched Janey moving into Old Maidhood. If there was one thing he could do to stop it, he would. But there seemed nothing. Some hurts go on and on, made all the worse by knowing that if only a resolution had been found then it might have saved them years. And then one day it would be too late to change, and what would that leave him but regret to fill his dying years?

Stove. She wouldn't leave, he couldn't stay. The sickness hurt them each as deeply as it did the children. It aged all of them, it lowered life-expectancy, it broke their hearts.

Janey sat in the visitor's chair at the Sheriff's desk. Toby didn't know what else to do, so took up his new position at the other side of it.

'Congratulations,' she said. This wasn't sarcasm, but a stab at sincerity, bleak hopeless sincerity.

'Thank you.'

'And thank you for sending us the urgent message.'

'I wanted you to know.'

'I guessed.'

'And I'm sorry.'

'What for?' she asked.

'For hitting the girl the other day.'

'Don't be. She was wild, you couldn't have controlled her.'

'I should have found a way.'

'Toby, she'd already nearly killed another girl two days before. That was why we had her bound, but she just wouldn't calm down. I was relieved when she fled, because it meant we wouldn't have to hold her any longer. Can you imagine how that makes me feel?'

'We're not coping any more, are we?'

Janey looked down, before announcing, 'Mrs Winters is retiring. She wants me to be Head Mistress.'

'And me already Sheriff.'

'They were always going to start giving us these jobs at some point,' she reasoned.

'But can we fill them?'

'Can anyone now? If this is now, what will next year be like?'

'A boy died this evening,' said Toby.

'I heard. It's so sad.'

'I helped carry him to the Doctor. I've never touched a body before, only seen one once, when I was eighteen.'

'I remember.'

'He'd hung himself.'

'Toby. You don't have to go there.'

He smiled at her, as if to say, 'Yes I do.' He continued,

'This year I've nearly killed two children. I was a hair's breadth away with each of them.'

'But you never have.'

'Others have.'

She knew where he was heading, and so pre-empted him,

'The Worst Year?'

'The Worst Year.'

'That was others, Toby.'

'I know. And I feel as guilty as if it had been me.'

She understood his feelings,

'Because you weren't there?'

'The Mayor said it tonight. I'm the "check" on others' excesses.'

'Toby, how old were you those years you didn't return? Was it your job to be there to manage all of those men?'

'We can't escape our responsibilities.' He was shaking, almost crying.

'You needed time away. It isn't your fault that you weren't there to stop them.'

'The Worst Year,' he muttered.

'You were following your conscience. For you to have stayed would have been as dishonest to yourself as for me to have left. I understand that now.'

He looked up. She was almost smiling. Was this an olive branch?

He asked her rhetorically,

'Stove, the sickness. Do we want this? Should we want it? You remember when we were young and we said we'd be the ones to end it, somehow, anyhow?'

'But every generation since the Sixties has wanted that.'

He lamented, 'Our kids are crazy, and the world can never know.'

'But maybe this world is not the old world?'

Toby jumped at Janey's words being so close to Vernon Monroe's. He wondered how many others in the town were thinking this, and didn't dare tell another person? A new wave of sadness hit him as he said,

'The longer you keep a secret, the worse it gets. No matter our intentions, there are deaths now. Someone was responsible each time. To break the secret is to damn those people.'

She looked to her feet, before saying, 'Well, perhaps that's just their lookout?'

'Eh?'

'Perhaps we just need to break it? Switch on the Internet signal and tell it to the world?'

Toby jolted again, remembering Jake in hiding...

When Toby told Janey what he told her next, he knew that it could end their friendship, his career, even his life if she repeated his words to the town. He was under no illusion when he said,

'You speak of breaking the secret? What if I told you that there's already somebody in town planning to do just that?'

'What? Who?'

'An investigator. I only met him recently. Or rather, I've known him a while, at work in Carvel, but didn't know what he was.'

'He got it from you?'

'No.'

'He tricked you?'

'Give me a break.'

'Sorry. It's just...'

'I know, it's confusing. But no. He had it already, all of it, though I didn't know it till this winter.'

'He's here?'

Toby nodded.

'You're hiding him?'

'I'm not rushing to blow his cover, if that's what you mean.'

'And what's he going to do?'

'What I said – he's going to run the story.'

She exhaled, 'It's a relief, isn't it? Despite everything?'

He exhaled too, in joy that she shared his innermost feelings. He said,

'I only feel ashamed that it took an outsider, that I didn't have the courage.'

She said softly, 'Maybe we'd have managed it together?'

There was no accusation in her voice, no criticism. Only regret.

He reached out and took her hand, saying,

'I want to die. I'm so ashamed, I want to die.'

She instantly came around the desk to kneel beside him in her long rustling skirts. He bowed his head and fell into her arms.

She whispered to him,

'Then we need to do this now, Toby. Before another child is harmed.'

'And the blame?'

'Then we take our share.'

'And those who don't want exposure? Who've hurt, or killed?'

He wasn't asking her so much as sharing the questions. She knew this as she answered,

'We might just have to face them.' She lifted his head and kissed his cheek. At that moment the bell above the door rang and three Mountain-side Deputies, led by Job, clattered in.

'Oh. Sorry to interrupt, sir.' Job had been bearing a look as doomy as Toby had seen on him, yet he smiled momentarily as he said this.

Janey let go and withdrew, as Toby asserted himself.

'What's with the "sir", Job?'

'Your promotion. We've just heard.'

'Well, it won't change anything among us.'

'And is it true a boy died in town?'

Toby nodded.

They paused a moment to absorb this.

'I have to get back,' said Janey.

'Don't let us interrupt,' offered Job politely – Toby taught his men to be gracious, even in their line of work.

'I only slipped out for an hour. I'll be needed back for breakfast.'

'Breakfast.' Toby looked out of the window – the first rays of the sun were emerging, the day was being born. He had survived the night, with Janey's help.

She offered Toby the wannest of smiles as she left.

'Goodnight, Miss,' said Job as she slipped away.

Chapter 54 – Job

But they were soon back to business,

'Tobe, we came here earlier looking for you.'

'I was with the Mayor.'

'And they're searching all over for Crawley.'

'It's been a busy night,' Toby told them.

'It's the same Mountain-side. We've only just gotten away.'

The other two Deputies were waiting by the door, as Toby whispered to himself,

'I should have stopped this. I've left it too late.' His heart sank for Billy Meting as it did for the boy's family – all would be destroyed.

Job had overheard him,

'I heard you did more than most, boss.'

Toby hoped that that was true,

'Anyway Job, we need to rearrange things on our side – you and Fitch are in charge.'

Toby rose to show them out. The sky was lightening and the work of another day would soon begin. As the men gathered themselves to leave though, Job turned to his Sheriff, saying,

'Boss. You and Janey – it's good to see you two back together.'

'Yes it is,' said Toby, only just realising that that was what had happened.

And Job did mean it, in the way that any good news was welcome in a sad season. If the town's coolest, ruined couple could find a way back to each other, then almost anything felt possible. Even ending their nightmare.

And maybe it was just the awful death his colleague had just learnt of, but Toby wasn't sure that he'd ever seen Job quite like that before – serious, reflective, even haunted. And Job had picked his Sheriff to show that face to. What was it about Toby that year? He seemed to be the lighting-rod for everyone's confessions. Did they sense his own desire to end it? Or did holding his own secrets make him sympathetic by default to those of others?

As Toby watched them from the door, he saw the light of morning pour over the rooftops. The mist had gone – it would be one of those scorching winter days where he'd be sweating underneath his thick jacket. Spring was coming then, but not yet strongly enough to melt the ice, only to form a glassy surface over the settled snow and make every sidewalk treacherous when the slush froze again that night.

Toby also saw Margaret his secretary arriving for work, mere hours after being dismissed.

'Oh Toby. A terrible business, a terrible business,' she was saying. On the corner of main street he saw the grocers opening their door and raising the awnings. Also the news vendor, who was restricted to selling sweets and cigarettes when no papers were being brought into town.

The night was over, normality was returning. Toby had sat out those dark hours without challenge. Would the day prove as easy? He felt unable to leave his throne for fear of losing it, and yet leave it he must.

Chapter 55 – Administration

With Job briefed, Toby remembered that his 'first thoughts' were always to the Mayor. Now that Margaret was back to watch the store, Toby tailed away from the Sheriff's Office to find his boss and break the latest happy developments – or lack of – in Stovian civic life.

'Toby!' called the Mayor from his leather chair as his still-green Sheriff arrived.

'Sir.'

Toby proceeded to tell how nothing awful had happened since the previous evening; which in Stove at winter was as good as it got. The Mayor took the update in much the same way Toby had hoped, which was calmly and not requiring him to stay there for very long.

'I'm glad things have calmed down,' was the Mayor's response. 'I have the Metings' address, I'll speak to the family.' He concluded asking, 'And what of Crawley? What does Crawley think?'

Which prompted Toby to reply, 'Sir, no one's seen him since the scene at Lloyd Thornton's bedside.'

Leaving the Mayor's office, Toby's feet tried to point themselves toward the Emsworth house. Yet that felt juvenile now, like going to see an old school-friend after work when you had a young family waiting. And so he went back to the Sheriff's Office – at least he had the short walk to warm himself in the sun.

He intended to place a phone-call later to the guest house to check his people had things going well Mountain-side. Firstly though he needed to track down a local Deputy and learn how things went in the town, the day-to-day routines.

Waiting for Toby at the Sheriff's Office though was Sarah, helping Margaret with the staff rosters as requested. Toby had hardly gotten through the door before her eyes led him away from the staff room and towards the corridor by the drinks machine. He took her cue. A moment later she followed after him there, saying,

'He's got something for you. You'll want to go and see it.'

She was referring to Jake, running thing from his secret viewing post. Then Toby remembered,

'Lor, he can see the Orell house from up there.'

'Last night's assault, he's got the lot of it. I swear, you'll want to see it.'

'Okay. But I've things to do first. I'll be there when I can.'

Whether this satisfied Sarah, Toby didn't know, but each returned to their duties.

A short while later, Toby got straight through on the phone line to his landlady. She confirmed that things were fine, and that she'd slept about as much as he had that last twenty-four hours. She concluded that Job and Fitch and the other Deputies had things well under control.

The problems, as Toby had expected, were all Town-side. A cursory glance at Margaret's new chart showed where the trouble lay, as its author explained,

'We just don't have the numbers. Eddy's been with the same family for eight hours. And I haven't seen Crawley since last night.' She read off other names, calling them either on duty or not. Toby recognised the faces in the fracas the previous evening: the one with the gun-shot in his leg; another who'd helped with the carrying of the fallen. The men that were able to were doing sterling work somewhere nearby, no doubt. But Eddy and one or two others were not enough for half of the town.

Toby wondered then what so upstanding a woman as Margaret thought of the Orell incident? Did she even know the details? Had she wanted to know?

But then Toby noticed another name was missing from the list of those available: Tort, the youngest Deputy at that scene, the one who'd cried at the clinic. His name wasn't even on the board.

Toby asked the question, and Margaret lowered her voice to answer, though they were alone in the room,

'He tried to... hurt himself last night, after seeing Billy Meting.'

'Oh God. I made him carry the body with me.'

Margaret neither judged or sympathised, instead explained quietly,

'He didn't get very far with it, praise be. His mother bandaged the cuts. She didn't want the others knowing, so I've told them he was just a bit shocked by last night. But he won't be back this winter.'

'It sounds like you've been rushed off your feet, Margaret.'

'Oh Sheriff, you don't know the half of it. I've hardly had a chance to mourn poor Billy, before this happening to Tort.'

Toby couldn't cope with it any more, and looked around for anything to change the subject. He looked again at the busy board,

'I'd relieve one of the men if I could...' It was the kind of offer a person makes with the desperate hope of it not being taken up. Margaret answered,

'Toby, I can see you're fit to fall down right in front of me. When did you last sleep?'

He couldn't recall. But he realised with numbers so low, that once rested he'd be doing all jobs. He'd be Sheriff, Deputy, Town-side supervisor. He'd be the entire three tiers of their chain of command. Toby realised he'd have no time for anything else: no late-night testifying at the Emsworths', no spooky daybreak conversations with the recently returned love of his life. And he knew that if he was going to do anything decisive with regard to the future of the town, then it had to be right then.

And there was also Crawley. What would Toby do if he didn't show up soon? A part of Toby would have been happy just to imagine he'd somehow disappeared off the face of the earth. Yet Toby also knew that Crawley was a crux of it, and someone he would have to focus on if he expected to achieve any of his goals. He decided that that point was now.

'Margaret, I need to rest. And my belongings are still at the guest house. Do you think the others could hold on till, say, four this afternoon?' He picked that hour out of the air.

She nodded yes, but in the way of one going through the motions. As if both knew that it had never been as bad. As if both knew that, whether they held on until that hour or not, with the rate staff numbers were falling then there was no way they would save the ship.

Toby took his hat and left.

Chapter 56 – Night-vision

Mrs Emsworth gave Toby an alarmed look as he staggered through the front door of her home; to which he grumbled,

'Don't worry about wishing me to hell, I'm already there. Is he in?'

'Where else would I be?' called Jake as he ran down the stairs. 'You forget I see all from up there. You're very visible – a crow in the snow. Don't jibe Mrs E. though. She's doing a lot for us.'

Toby gave her a look in apology, which she seemed to take.

'And what are you doing using the front door?'

'Does any of that matter any more?'

'Perhaps not,' said Jake. 'Though be careful, Tobe. You're being brusque. Don't become the uniform and not the man within it.'

'So would you be if you'd had the night I've had.'

'I can imagine.'

'It's all over, Jake,' said Toby labouring in the chair he'd fallen into.

'What's all over, Chief?'

'I won't be the Chief any more.'

'Always will be in this house. But get specific, will you, buddy? What's over?'

'I am, after winter season.'

'Then all the more reason to do something about it now. Come on up.'

Jake paused before they went to the stairs though,

'I've got to say, you did all right last night.'

And Toby took the compliment.

Jake's motion sensors hadn't failed him. The view from the window hadn't been perfect, with rooftops and a telegraph pole interrupting the view. Yet Toby hoped the evidence was still clear enough for any court to convict on. What it showed to him was this:

The film was shot in ghostly night-vision, like nature documentaries where owls' eyes are white reflective disks. There was a T-junction with the Orell house almost at its head. A small figure burst on to the screen running through the slush and ice as though it wasn't there, moving like a fox, lightly, lithely. A series of heavier figures then appeared, disordered and clumsy, shown as pitch-black even in the artificially brightened picture format.

One of these dark figures stopped though, turned to halt another, and in a move was lifted in the air by this other's shoulder and thrown aside like a rag-doll. This other, larger figure continued in his same direction unchecked, as if his halting guardian hadn't been there. Meanwhile the thrown figure, as he fell, disappeared into the shadows of surrounding buildings.

'That's Lloyd Thornton,' said Toby, as he watched his former mentor left to lie winded in the ice where Toby would later find him.

Jake nodded, 'He lost his authority before he even hit the ground – he could never be Sheriff again after that.'

Ahead of these shenanigans though, the fox-like creature skipped onward, sure to evade his pursuers. This sprinter seemed carefree, Toby even sensed he was laughing, though it was impossible to tell from the tape. He paused at the T-junction, starting one way, halting again, then bounding off in another.

Meanwhile, in a superhuman burst of energy, his chief chaser, having already brushed aside one hindrance, charged forward. With a sickening inevitability, he snagged his quarry.

'Stop the tape!' called Toby.

'No,' said Jake. 'There isn't long left.'

The fight, as it was, did not last long. Toby had already seen the marks on Billy Meting's face.

'A Fox,' he said in sad admiration. 'You ran like a fox.'

On the tape, Billy's attacker stood up. At a waving of this monster's arm other black shapes came into the frame.

Toby gasped, asking, 'The Sheriff, Crawley, at least two others – how many of them were on this kid?'

These new arrivals lifted the body – now no longer a fox, just a broken boy – to carry him into the shadows beside the injured Lloyd. The large figure stood alone then, snorting like the raging bull he was. Crawley.

But that was not the end of it...

Away from the centre of the action, a window shutter flew open. The room the window belonged to was fully-lit, so for a moment the tape flooded with white light, like those old movies of atom bombs going off in New Mexico. The brightness-balance of the camera was thrown out, before it righted itself. From this pool of light a silhouette figure came into view waving a long object. This was Orell and his shotgun.

The shooter recoiled. In the street the black bull flinched.

'He was injured!' shouted Toby. 'But how did he keep going?'

'He was running on adrenaline, I reckon,' said Jake. 'He might not even have felt it at the time.'

On the screen the other black shapes gathered beside their new leader to batter their nightsticks across the rafters of Orell's large white house.

'We can skip it here,' said Jake, who pressed the fast-forward. 'No more shots were fired till you got there.'

As the film sped on, the number of figures increased, as word must have spread around the town and every Town-side Deputy felt the call.

Jake slowed the film again just as Orell leant out of the window and shot another Deputy – the film had no sound, but Toby remembered Orell calling out, 'That's winged yer! That's winged yer!'

'Look who's just arrived?' said Jake.

A new figure appeared. The others ignored him at first, before turning around to answer him, and then following him to where the casualties lay.

'That's me,' recognised Toby.

'A man apart,' said Jake with something Toby thought approached admiration.

'I've seen all this,' said Toby.

'But don't stop watching.'

And Toby saw what Jake meant: for as he and the other carriers turned away from the Orell house and moved towards the fallen, Toby for the first time saw Crawley give one last furious look up at Orell, and then leave the scene holding the left side of himself and moving decidedly awkwardly.

'See, he was feeling it by then.'

Toby thought aloud, 'But I saw him later at Lloyd Thornton's bedside. He still didn't show the slightest sign of being shot.'

'I bet the first thing he did when he got away from Orell's was neck half-a-tube of pain-killers.'

Both men sensed that this was serious. Jake was saying,

'I've watched the film through about twenty times now – it looks like Orell hit Crawley in either his arm or his side.'

Toby remembered, 'He grabbed Lloyd's bedframe with both hands, and shook it.'

'Then it's more likely his side. It was unguarded, as he had his arm raised at the moment he was shot.'

'But a shotgun blast will kill you!' said Toby, who had never fired one or been hit by one.

Jake explained, 'The thing with shotguns is you can aim wildly and still catch your target with half-a-dozen pellets. If it's his side it could be dangerous.'

'Dangerous?'

'I guess that even a glancing blow might hurt like being punched with an iron fist, and afterwards ache like broken ribs. But if a couple of lucky pellets have made their way deep enough, then he could be bleeding internally. Left untreated, he's on his way out.'

Then Toby said something shameful,

'Then can't I wait a day or two until he turns up in a ditch?'

To which Jake gave a wry smile,

'You've seen the films from India, where they have to shoot those crazed elephants on heat? Or a tiger, when it gets a taste for human blood?'

Toby nodded. He had seen the films. Jake asked further,

'How did Crawley seem at the bedside?'

'Like a man possessed.'

'Then he's already half-way there. You can't leave that creature on the loose.'

Jake clicked off the machine, and the pair trudged back down the stairs.

At that point Sarah came in and joined them as they went into the kitchen.

'How did you know I was here?' asked Toby.

'I didn't. I've been popping in all morning with updates.'

'Which are?' asked Jake.

'Nothing.' She nodded at Toby, 'You're resting, Crawley's missing. There are notes come in from half-a-dozen families unresponded to.'

'Margaret isn't missing you?' asked Toby.

'There're no Deputies left to manage.'

Toby mused, 'The town's spiralling. There aren't enough of us to cope. And then the spiking children will have no one to contain them. Who knows the damage they could do themselves. Just like the Sippitz boy, when I lost my footing.'

'So what's happening here?' asked Sarah?

Jake answered, 'He's taking Crawley in for killing Billy Meting.'

'You brave idiot,' said Sarah

'This is the big one,' said Jake. 'He's ending it early.'

'Quite right too,' she said, 'the way things are going.'

And Toby knew that was the case.

Chapter 57 – The Trail

Toby had calls to make. Every journey took forever through the melting midday snow.

Firstly, to the clinic, where an exhausted Doc Lassiter confirmed that Crawley hadn't been to see him. Nor had anyone else been in asking about shotgun injuries.

'If this is about the Deputy's leg from last night,' said the Doctor, 'he's fine – we got the pellets out.'

'It isn't, but thanks.'

'Then what is it about?'

'I'll tell you later, if I have the chance.'

Next was the Mayor – who must have been sick of the sight of Toby by then, but who told him,

'Crawley did look like he'd been in the wars when he came to see me last night. But then you fellows are always carrying injuries, aren't you? He might have been holding his side, I don't remember. Where is he, Toby?'

'I intend to find out.'

Toby had felt like interrogating the Mayor then, asking if he knew that it had been his favourite Deputy who had beat young Billy Meting in the street? And what did he think about that? But Toby didn't, for what was the point? Of course he damn-well knew, the whole town knew, and the whole town did nothing. Just as Toby had known, had always known, that Crawley was the Minotaur in his maze.

Toby had about as much control over his direction as a canoe caught in the rapids; or a single grain of wheat amid a hundred-thousand spiralling down through their hopper into the awaiting sacks.

So what was driving him? What was the plan? How many steps ahead was he thinking? He couldn't see the future that clearly. He couldn't see himself at all. Maybe it was no less than his mind and body going into revolt, putting up with things no more? But the person who has lived with a tricky situation for years, and borne it well will tell you that such line-in-the-sand, this-far-and-no-further moments are few and far between.

Jake might have said that it was just an inner realisation in Toby, triggered by the Emsworth house sessions and at last being able to share his life experiences in an almost-counselling environment.

In the end though, Toby moved so quickly into danger because letting this current situation continue to its logical conclusion was like hearing those stories of soldiers dying on the last day of the First World War.

Toby knew he had to concentrate on his mission. Yet he didn't focus on it directly. All he could think of was Jake's film, and how joyful the fox-boy had seemed, bounding down the street.

For Toby had seen something new here: a spiker happy, allowed to run off his excess energies and loving every minute of it.

He talked to himself as he walked,

'We've done it wrong, every single time. They needed space to run, not to be contained. They'd have tired themselves out. We needn't ever have raised our clubs.

'But that will all be in the past,' he concluded. 'That will all be in the past.' And Toby knew that soon there would be no more spikers, no more clubbings.

Crawley was proving difficult to find, yet there were still the most obvious places. Toby could have asked Margaret where Crawley was lodging that winter. But he felt it better not to tell her where he was going, for she would guess how such a meeting might end up.

Instead he worked off an old memory.

'Buddy Bob's Hardware and Animal Supplies,' read the sign.

Toby found the store on main street.

'Hi Bob,' he called to the man behind by the till, who limped around the counter to come onto the shopfloor itself.

'Hi Sheriff. Congratulations.'

'Thank you.'

'Too bad though that Lloyd Thornton got injured.'

'It is.'

'What can I do you for, Tobe?'

'Crawley's roomed with you in the past, hasn't he? I wondered if he was at your place this winter? I need to talk with him.'

'Oh, anything important?'

'No, just Sheriff's stuff.'

Toby tried to say this as casually as possible – he knew Bob was Crawley's friend from school. He'd Deputised himself in his time, before a leg injury put him out of the game. It also gave him a crooked stance that seemed to age him several decades. Although Town-side and a pal of Crawley's, Bob had had no ill will with Toby. They'd been colleagues and had helped each other though several scrapes, including once a mother threatening Toby with a saucepan if he 'Comes anywhere near my boy.' They would have laughed about it any other time.

The man shuffled over to straighten some saw-blades that had become disorganised on their display rails, saying,

'No, I haven't seen much of him this year. Though I made him the offer of my fold-out sofa. Have you tried Martha's?'

'Who's Martha?'

'You remember her? Blonde girl, used to barmaid at The Peaks?'

Toby did remember – and so undoubtedly would half the men in Stove.

'She's out over on Townshend,' added Bob.

'Thanks.'

'No problem. Oh Toby, before you go...'

Again Toby saw that look in someone's eye, the look of asking things they weren't supposed to be asking,

'Is this about the trouble last night? I mean, I know what he's like. I know he can get rough sometimes...'

Toby silenced Bob with a hand on the shoulder,

'I just need to ask about the roster.'

'Well, I hope you find him.'

'I do too.'

Though Toby knew that Bob was not convinced.

Chapter 58 – Crawley

That damn roster seemed the cover-all lie of choice this winter. Yet Toby had discovered that Crawley had changed the habits of a lifetime. He'd perennially slept on Bob's old sofa – Crawley's mother had long-since kicked him out. Only now he was shacking up with a local girl – perhaps he really was settling down? Or was it all a part of the Mayor's plan to make him a permanent part of the Sheriff's Office?

Toby didn't know the street particularly, and was disheartened when Townshend turned out to have at least ten houses along its right side – its left side fell down a bank, and wasn't suited for building on. Yet he was hardly started along the road when he saw the driftwood plaque, 'Martha's Place'. If it was a knocking shop, then it was certainly well-signposted.

It was a large building of white clapboard filthy from the snow. And before Toby was half-way along the drive, a broad figure emerged from the doorway. The door's summer insect-netting clattered in its flimsy frame.

'What you doing here, Toby?' asked Crawley.

As Toby neared, he looked his enemy over – the porch he was leaning on hid any difficulty he might have had standing. Toby didn't know what to say. It came out as,

'Billy Meting. It was you who killed him.'

'You weren't there.'

'You're denying it then?'

As Toby neared the house, the man came down the stairs to meet him on the driveway. He may have been carrying a possibly-fatal injury, yet he seemed only as stiff as if from lying uncomfortably. Crawley answered,

'I'm saying it was my situation to manage, and I managed it.'

'You killed him!'

'Sometimes they get hurt. We can't help that. You ought to know. How long's the Sippitz boy been out cold now?'

Toby wavered – Crawley had him on the back foot. He'd expected to find an injured man, yet he seemed as comfortable as old clockwork.

Toby answered,

'If Andrew Sippitz doesn't wake, then I'll atone for that.'

'Will you really? And how will you do that?'

God, what was Toby doing there? What had he hoped to achieve? He'd let the quest to track down Crawley obscure the fact that he had no plan of what to do when he found him. All he could blurt out was,

'I'm bringing you in.'

Crawley snickered,

'No, you're not. Get back to your desk and do your job.'

'This is my job.'

'No, Toby.' (Crawley's calmness was as unsettling to Toby now as his rage had been the night before.) 'Your job is to keep this town together till the thaw. They don't want me to do it? That's fine, I can live with that for a couple of weeks. After that, I quit my sports coaching, become a trainee officer, live in town year-round to qualify. I'll be Sheriff by next winter.'

'No you won't, not that soon.'

Crawley answered, 'Lloyd Thornton will be back as badge-wearer for the summer, maybe Tort, but I'll be running things when the snow falls. And I think my first act will be letting you go. Imagine that, Toby: free to your life year-round in Carvel with your books and test tubes, chatting up the pretty girl students. I bet you've had your way there more than once.'

'I'm not leaving you to run this place.'

'You're getting old for a Deputy, Tobes. You've got three years on me. I saw you laid up in that hospital bed, and the way you've been carrying your bad back since.'

Toby hadn't realised it had been so noticeable.

'And that arm you've got right there this minute – what happened, another kid get the better of you?'

Toby flushed, remembering the clamp-like bite.

'Get back to your college, and let us get on with the real work.'

And then Toby couldn't help it, it all came out,

'But it's over, Crawley. The town's finished. You'll be running things? And who will you be running? There were thirteen of us this year, how many next – eight? Five?'

But the man didn't care, he just smiled,

'Oh, I'll manage better with five than you could with fifty. You're quite finished? Then what the hell are you still doing here?'

Toby didn't move. 'I can't let you get away with it,' he repeated.

'So, what are you going to do about that now?'

'Do yourself up, and come with me.'

Crawley laughed.

'I'm going to take you in.'

'You want to try?'

'Give it up, Crawley. You know there's no way we'll get away with this.'

'Yes, there is. There's every way.'

'Come with me.'

'We can do anything, Toby. They can't touch us.'

'You're mad.'

'I'm sane. I'm cool as a cucumber. I'm thinking clearer than you.'

'Come with me, Crawley.'

'And where are you going to take me, Toby? Our own cells? There's not a man in town who'll want to put me there.'

'They will, when they know what you've done.'

'And what then, in the spring? You'll just let me go free again, after all that effort? Or will you march me right down to Gaidon and tell the town's whole history?'

'If I have to.'

'Will you really? Tell your bit in it too?'

'I'm not ashamed.'

'And lose your job, lose Carvel?'

Toby didn't answer. But neither did he move.

'Now come on, on your way, Toby.'

Toby stood; as Crawley reasoned,

'Don't make me have to do this. You'll never bring me in. I'm younger and stronger and I know your weak points.'

Toby countered, 'But we're close enough for it to be a fight. Neither of us will come out of it easily...' Whoomph.

Crawley had tricked him – leaving Toby a question to answer while he set his stance to launch. The wind was knocked out of Toby with a shoulder to his stomach. His balance went then as he tried to sling a low punch back.

Crawley's first salvo had floundered on a misjudgement of his own though, and as Toby fell half-sideways so Crawley found himself on his hands and knees in the snow. Toby spun in time to glance a blow on Crawley's cheek as the bigger man rose to launch again. A moment later Toby received a stronger blow in return to his own temple.

That was the one. The bells were ringing, Toby's senses were gone. He felt his whole body quivering. His thoughts slowed down, or sped up. Either way he was having quite a clear conversation with himself even as the punches reigned over him, sheer instinct somehow holding him on his feet.

'This is honest,' thought Toby. 'For the first time it's men, not kids, not old folk like Orell. A fair fight.' His arms though were still strong, still blocking, even making the odd wild sortie of their own. One of his must have caught, for he heard Crawley snarl. Yet Toby's vision was reddening, and his left eye was almost blind. Toby felt something behind his foot, and that was it, he was going down.

From that position he'd have no way of getting himself back up. The fight was over, if it wasn't already.

Toby fell backwards, somehow missing the fence along the edge of the garden. As he hit the deck he simultaneously felt a hard boot to the ribs. Something cracked, and Toby knew he had another month of pain right there – even if he survived.

Kick after kick went into his leg and arm and side...

...and then something amazing happened – the blows stopped falling.

After a few disbelieving seconds Toby opened his good eye, half-expecting to see Crawley leering over him savouring the kill. But his tormentor was missing from view.

Toby fell back in the snow, breathed hard, and relished the cold against the sides of his face.

Chapter 59 – Down and Out

A blurred figure appeared at Toby's side, and he flinched. But it was not his tormentor. It was Crawley's ladyfriend in a nightgown, who forced a glass of water to his sore lips while half-splashing it over his face. As she did so, so the water ran off him red and made the white snow pink. She started,

'What did you want to go doing that for? You know what he's like when he's angry. Your eyebrow's burst. The Doctor needs to stitch that or it won't heal straight.'

'I'm... still here.'

'Don't you worry. If he'd wanted to finish you, he would have.'

'Where is he?'

'Gone to the Mayor, he said. And I don't blame him! You take him down the mountain, and you blow everything. Are you trying to get the whole lot of us locked up?'

'Do you know what he did?'

'Yes. And I know it's nothing you fellows haven't done before.'

'We can't keep doing it.'

'And where have you been all this time then, Toby? It's a bit late to start growing a conscience, isn't it? Here, drink slower, take proper gulps. And hold this over your eye,' she said, handing him a clean dishcloth.

'I need to get there.'

'You need no such thing. You get home, and you be careful.'

But as Toby staggered up, thanking her for the water, and with a supporting hand on her shoulder, both knew exactly where he was going.

Yet Crawley hadn't gone to the Mayor.

Toby was only half-way back to town, when he first noticed the drops of blood in the snow beneath his feet. A little further on there was a pool of it, thick and congealed, as if someone had coughed it up, or had fallen over with an open wound.

'Had he been that bad?' asked Toby to himself. Well, if he hadn't been before, he was now.

'Follow the trail,' whispered Toby, not in the best of health himself. Yet he hadn't gotten to the end of the road before he knew where he was headed. For he heard a woman call out an alarm, and then saw smoke between himself and the centre of the town. It was coming from the vicinity of the Orell house.

Toby jolted into action, forgetting his injuries, which swiftly remembered themselves to him. Yet with his cut eye washed and his breath back, Toby could still move. He'd had a blow to the head, and his ears would be ringing for days; but his legs didn't give as he jogged on down the slope. And Toby considered that he could have been going into this latest round of activity feeling very much worse.

As Toby covered the short distance to the Orell house, he saw the mailbox, a power pylon, a telegraph pole, and then a neighbour's bright front-door – all familiar sights from Toby's previous visits to the street... and from Jake's video tapes.

Toby realised he was in the middle of Jake's filming frame. He spun and looked up to find the camera window; but he couldn't place it among the upper floors of the row of tall houses looking down over that whole side of town. He looked across the street and the lower rooftops, asking himself,

'Has it occurred to any of you that you're being spied on?' and then, 'I hope you're getting all this, Jake.'

Toby hadn't long to think though, as he already had the smell of burning in his blood-stuffed nostrils.

He'd only paused a moment – a necessary pause, one needed to scan for danger and to know what he'd do next. Yet as Toby came to see the Orell house at the head of its T-junction, he realised he was already too late.

The scene was different now. The once unbreachable Orell front door had been taken off its hinges. Indeed, the whole doorframe had been torn out of the wooden wall, leaving a ragged hole as though The Hulk had just jumped out of a Marvel comic and gone straight through it. From the darkness beyond came wisps of smoke.

Somehow Toby had always known his showdown with Crawley would take place outside. Hence his belief that the fight he had just survived might have been it for him. Now the thought of being indoors with him scared Toby, and brought fresh images of being bludgeoned to death in a darkened room. Yet what choice had he?

For there were also noises, human noises.

'Stop that!' shouted Toby uselessly, and ran to enter the building. Yet before he got there, the image of Crawley emerged from the smoker's lung that was the house's interior. He came out into the wide street, stumbling where the slush had turned dirty in the gravel. If he'd covered his injuries before, then they were visible now. His black tunic was flapping open, and one whole side of his tan shirt was red.

Either Toby had caught Crawley good in the fight, or someone else had had a go at him since, as he didn't look much healthier than Toby felt. He'd also caught a blow to the face – the great red clown's mouth he was sporting seemed to add to his scowl though, and Toby took nothing for granted. In Crawley's features he saw spent fury, and something else, something unreadable, maybe something insane. Crawley said simply,

'Get out of here, Toby. This isn't your show.'

Toby was being offered a way out, which threw him, not that he'd ever have taken it. He asked,

'Where's Orell?'

'We had business. We've sorted it.'

'What kind of business?'

'You know what kind.'

Twitching, swinging in Crawley's hand was a nightstick. One blow of that around his already-raging temple, and Toby knew he was toast.

However, Special Deputy Crawley of the Stove Sheriff's Office did no more with the nightstick than let it hang there beside him. Before slowly turning from the smoking doorway and walking crookedly away.

Just one more surreal image in a season filled with them.

Chapter 60 – The Orell House

Toby could not abandon his duties so lightly. Climbing through the smoking hole and over the remnants of the door, Toby saw another trashed family room. The Orells had no son of sickness age though, and so no furniture had been moved out of the way beforehand. Smashed tables and dragged chairs were strewn across the floor.

Different scents were nagging Toby's senses, and he clocked that the room stank of melting man-made fibres. Along the back wall was what had been the family's couch, now smoking, smouldering and with occasion leaps of flame jumping out of its interior – Crawley had lit it on his way out. Had it been a ham-fisted attempt at covering his tracks, or just the wild impulse of a man bent on destruction?

The fabric of the sofa, lit from the inside, was like a ghoulish lantern as the material charred and blackened. Toby wouldn't have very long.

Nearby items were already glowing red, their plastics melting. A thin mushroom of choking smoke was forming at the ceiling. Toby knew that any moment the flames would go up, and that this and the lowering visibility would make the room impassible.

Toby scrambled through the clutter of the room, to see Old Man Orell lying along the floor of the connecting hallway. Or at least his body was, for its animating spark was extinguished, never to return. Even in the thickening smoke Toby could see the bright red mark across his forehead – it looked to Toby that Orell had suffered the nightstick blow across the temple that Toby has feared for himself.

Toby wouldn't leave him there to burn. Yet when he tried to move him, Orell wouldn't go over his shoulder – he was too heavy and the space Toby had to work in was too confined. So it would have to be the rather less dignified exit of being dragged by his arms out of the house he'd died defending.

'We don't get to choose our endings,' whispered Toby as he commenced the dragging. As they moved along the corridor and then through the smashed front room, Orell's dignity was further compromised by his rubber boots making squealing noises on the wooden floor. Then by his legs catching a linoleum mat and the cord of a fallen standard lamp, and bringing each to the front door with him.

Orell flumped over the front steps as Toby heaved him over them, to lay him in the garden trampled flat by braying Deputies the night before.

Did Toby expect a moment's recognition for going into a burning building, even if the occupant couldn't be saved? Yet all Toby heard before he'd got his breath back was,

'What about his wife?'

This was asked by a neighbour. Locals had seen the smoke, and had gathered across the road. Suddenly it clicked for Toby – it hadn't been Mr Orell making the human noises he'd heard. Toby had wasted vital time on someone already dead.

Toby judged he had minutes... seconds. He'd already seen a lot of the ground floor, and she hadn't been there, so he aimed for the first. He bounded in and went for the enclosed staircase, in the act going straight over on the rumpled mat and tangled light-cord left by the front door.

His body slapped the floor, he might even have caught his head. Either way it was spinning. For a moment he was lost in the warm darkness, the smoke like sticky hands reaching for his face. He had missed any other heavy objects, was stunned but felt no new pain.

Toby tried to get his breath, and his throat rasped, like when he'd tried smoking as a thirteen-year-old and realised it wasn't for him. In all other aspects the feeling was like that of passing out in the Sippitz household after being butted in the chest. His body felt so happy to be going into stand-by mode.

There was a whooshing sound as the couch finally gave in to its urge to destroy itself in conflagration. The smoke seemed to thicken that moment, as if thrown over him by the bucketload. Toby breathed it in like ether, and pulled it over himself as a thick grey duvet, one made of chalk dust and loft insulation foam. For the second time that day, he felt he was checking out.

As Toby's eyes closed, so the dark swirling outside of them was replaced by the same inside. Patterns formed like those in a glass of settling stout. That had been his grandfather's drink. He used to have it brought up the mountain in crates of tiny bottles, and drink it in a straight glass with Toby on his knee. Toby would watch the shapes in the glass shift and settle into ink-darkness and creamy white top. Only, the drink that now filled Toby's mind had no top. Nor did the inky-darkness settle, instead forever swirling in the glass.

Images formed out of the dark, like words appearing in a Magic 8-Ball, then vanishing again. Toby coughed – and remembered being a child in a room surrounded by men smoking. His father, and other men. Sheriff Mercer, young Lloyd Thornton, the fourth man in the photograph.

But the images were fading, and the darkness getting deeper, and soon the drink would settle.

Chapter 61 – In Spite of all the Danger

Something hard and sharp fell over Toby, clipping his legs. It gave him an adrenalin boost, as the shock kickstarted a lizard-brain fight-or-flight impulse. And before Toby knew it he was back on all fours, coughing up his lungs, crouching and looking for the danger.

He breathed: it had only been a coat-stand that had fallen. The coat-stand wasn't on fire, he wasn't on fire... yet. Nor was he there to worry for his own safety. He guessed where the stairs were, and moved.

There were faint sounds coming from the stairwell. There Toby found the woman, thankfully a wisp in comparison to her heavy husband. He gathered her up, and found she was even lighter in a fireman's lift than the girls he'd hauled to and from the clinic.

She seemed to have tried to make it downstairs and had stumbled, falling head-first. In a perfect world Toby wouldn't have moved her an inch before paramedics had had her in a head-brace. Yet this was the world of Stove, and so very far from perfect.

As Toby lifted Mrs Orell, he realised that whatever whimperings he could hear from her were irregular and coming less often than before. Smoke was everywhere now, rising up the stairs to meet them as they came down. At least there there was light from the upstairs windows. Toby got as good a grip on her as he could, and dropped into the darkness.

In the front room the air was now so thick that he couldn't see the front door from the bottom of the stairs. The smoke gathering at the ceiling was falling in a convex motion to join the Dagoban murk already swirling a foot deep through the room.

'That was nearly me,' muttered Toby.

His journeys back and forth through the room had cleared a way now. He judged his angle and moved one step at a time – it seemed to take forever to cross the space, yet to have rushed and slipped could have done for them both.

Around them lights flickered like ghost ships in a sea fog. Toby guessed the whole room dated from before the era of fire regulations and flame retardant material. Now that the sofa had caught aflame, its fabric burned like paper. Meanwhile, its foam innards glowed orange while belching out darker, blacker smoke. Soon the room would be so hot that any object in it might spontaneously ignite.

By the windows, curtains became brightly lit. As they fired up, so a decorative sash along their edges separated from the curtains themselves. The burning parts floated off under their own steam as will-o'-the-wisps, casting eerie lights through the smoke.

Worse, as Toby brushed against these jack-o'-lanterns, they attached themselves to the dark fabric of his jacket. His right sleeve promptly lit itself up. He whacked it with his other hand, scalding it in the process, and nearly losing Mrs Orell.

He sped up, saw the opaque glow of the doorway, and burst through it, not finding clean air to breath for another three steps.

Toby dumped Mrs Orell off his shoulder into the deepest laying snow he could see on the road. As she landed, so the cold made her gasp and shook her into a fit of coughing, which became retching, bringing up the foul debris that had had her close to stopping breathing altogether.

'I knew these uniforms were cursed,' snarled Toby, as he got the burning jacket off. He threw it into the snow, where it sizzled.

The town had a crew of voluntary firefighters, on duty even with the winter, even with the sickness, even with their sons kept at home and their daughters taken away to the School. By the time Toby came out of the house with Mrs Orell over his shoulder, they already had their hand-pulled fire-cart attached to the nearest standpipe. Others were unrolling the hose to aim through the door Toby had just exited.

'Not a moment to lose, fellows,' said Toby as they worked with trained efficiency.

'First on the scene, eh Sheriff?' one asked. 'You must have the sixth sense.'

'I've certainly had help from somewhere.'

Toby grimaced. He fell on all fours and then into the snow itself. Without a jacket he was freezing, but needed it like a body-size icepack. Both of his journeys through the house had taken place within perhaps forty seconds. Sometimes the brain had to slow things down to keep up.

From where he and Mrs Orell lay, Toby looked up at the tall houses on the street beyond, with their upper windows watching; and he waved. A stupid, dumb thing to do. But then the town felt stupid and dumb.

Toby fell back into the snow and laughed, muttering,

'You dumb idiot. Jake'll have filmed the whole thing. And in broad daylight! No ghost-images from last night for courts to have to sift through, you've murdered in the sunlight. You daft, dumb idiot.'

'What's that, Sheriff?' asked the Fireman. But Toby was spark out.

Jake was watching through his telephoto lens behind one of those high windows. He wasn't worried about being given away. He was breathing deep sighs of relief for Mrs Orell and Toby getting out unharmed, even if the woman's husband hadn't been able to be saved. And he felt pathetic, for being stuck in his upstairs room unable to help.

Yet he sensed he wouldn't be stuck there for very much longer.

Chapter 62 – Lost to Snow

'Sheriff?'

Toby woke with a jolt, suddenly realising how cold he was. The snow was melting under him, his shirt was soaking.

'Sheriff!' repeated the Fireman.

'Get this down you,' said a woman from the street, leaning over him in her apron. Toby took the offered tumbler, and found the water was half-brandy, and then took another slug.

'Best restorative going, my old Pa used to say.'

The Fireman echoed the sentiment, 'Come on, Sheriff. No, no, it's not mouthwash, no spitting it out now.'

'He's going to be sick,' said the woman. To which the Fireman answered,

'Thank you, I can see that clearly enough from here. Come on, Toby. Up you sit. Get the old pipes working in the right direction.'

The woman was watching Toby intently, saying,

'It wasn't just the fire – you're all beat up. What happened to you?'

Toby spoke without thinking,

'Crawley hit me.'

'Looks like you caught him somewhere too,' said the Fireman, 'judging by the ruby knuckles clutching that tumbler! Knocked him half-way into next week, I'll wager.'

'I couldn't see.'

'He'll be tasting blood in his food for days.'

'But what was it all about?' asked the woman.

'I tried to take him in.'

'Well, it's about time,' she said and shook her head.

Toby heard another voice then. It was an old lady speaking; she was standing by what Toby knew would have been a neat little garden under all the snow. It was the garden Billy Meting and Lloyd Thornton had been laid out in the night before. She said,

'I remember you. You helped the Sheriff last night.'

'Yes, ma'am. At least I tried to.'

'And that poor boy. The others just dumped him there, but not you.'

Toby tried to wave away the good regard, and learnt he'd lost a layer of skin from the palm of his left hand. He wasn't coughing, but could hardly breathe. The old lady added,

'That big one's a bully.'

Toby half-laughed, 'Next year they're putting him in charge.'

'Then you have to stop him!'

Toby couldn't argue with that.

He tried to rise, but fell back into the snow. With others' help, he made a better go of it the second time.

Someone found his singed, damp jacket and held it open for him, saying,

'Get this on, before you catch your death.'

Toby leant forward to do as instructed, and was sick like Mrs Orell had been, narrowly missing the jacket and those holding it. It was another minute before they had him dressed.

'My hat!' he called, but it was gone, lost somewhere along the line and not recovered.

The firefighters had got the water flowing. They seemed to be matching the blaze, but the Orell house was lost. Soon their priority would be dampening down the neighbours' places. Across the road the public gallery was watching this go on.

'It's Crawley did this,' one shouted.

'Someone's driven him mad,' said a firefighter.

'You need to get him, Sheriff,' voiced another crowd-member.

Toby groaned as inner-steel reformed itself through his body. With his jacket pulled on, he wiped his mouth clean, nodded his respects to those who'd helped him, and straightened to something like his full height.

'Which way?' he called to the gallery.

Half-a-dozen of them pointed and called the same.

'Then wish me luck.'

Chapter 63 – The Chase

Toby already knew it was 'Crawley did this.'

After passing two or three houses in the direction he had been given, Toby found the trail of blood. He followed the drops around the corner of one building, and then another, and then along a walkway behind gardens.

He followed the trail through the same old yards with the same old junk; through spaces where the snow that covered them had dirtied from the moment it had touched the ground. And the trail went on and on. Nor did Toby see another soul – if any of the townsfolk had seen Crawley, then they were keeping well out of it.

Toby asked himself: How had a wounded man, labouring under injuries and under the weight of his own rotten life, got so far? Toby hardy had the energy left to follow. The side of his head had been shrieking since getting back on his feet, and he was sure he must have hit it in the burning house. Crawley had already struck him on the temple. Could he be suffering brain injury, a fractured skull? And how could he do anything about it even if he knew?

Toby leaned against a fence to pause, undid his top button, loosened his shirt and the tie knot beneath. Then – finally – he heard shuffling, and in the snow before him could see not only drops but whole gamuts of blood. It wasn't soaking into the slush, as coloured water might. It was like thick red paint, splashing the snow with its weight, hanging and dripping over the shapes of frost and ice beneath it.

Toby quit breathing – and there he heard clearer the sound of another's breath. It was halting and gargled, as if the person's mouth was underwater.

The nightstick came at Toby quickly and directly. It came around the corner of a white wooden building. There was no intention to scare, it was meant to injure, to break Toby's bones. Toby flinched, threw himself back against the wall as the blow was taken by the building's corner-beam. That would need recarpenting come spring, Toby found himself thinking.

'You're not playing games, are you?' whispered Toby as he got his breath back. He was amazed an injured man still had the strength and control to inflict such a blow. The nightstick was quickly dropped, and as Toby recovered, he heard Crawley shuffling off along the other side of the building.

Toby tried to quieten his breathing to examine his injuries. He wouldn't move from against the wall until he knew he wouldn't collapse the moment he did so. Yet there was nothing there, the blow hadn't caught him – he had reacted quickly enough. There was only the stinging of the skin of his burnt hand, and the pain in his temple every time he turned his eyes too quickly.

He moved away from the wooden wall, and tested himself standing unaided. Then he rounded the corner, stepping over the stick. Toby half-thought of picking it up himself, but fought the notion. He was better than that, he didn't need such a weapon – the prospect of what it might do in his hands scared him.

The splintered corner of the building led around to that house's backyard. Only, Toby realised it wasn't houses that backed onto the alleyway, but shops. Through an open gate, he could see pallets and sacks. This was the back of main street; and the yard would have been that of Buddy Bob's Hardware and Animal Supplies.

So that was where Crawley had been running to: to where he used stay, where he would be safe. To the friend who could patch him up and hide him, surrounded by all those handy dangerous toys...

But Crawley hadn't gone into his friend's yard. He'd only gone further along the alleyway, where he had now turned and was facing Toby. Toby stared back at him. The snow between them was splattered with bright colour like a Jackson Pollock canvas. Toby was penned in between the fences on either side. He thought of retreating, but knew he didn't have the speed. He thought of dodging forward into Bob's back yard, but wasn't sure if he could have made it through the gate before Crawley was upon him. No, the only thing to do was stand his ground.

Toby wished he'd picked up the stick. Stood there in that tight channel, they did not speak. There was no talking left in Crawley. He was a creature without words, he had regressed beyond that level. He only followed one animal impulse: an understanding that Toby was his enemy and must be destroyed. He didn't even seem to care about his own condition: blood was pouring out of him, staining his shirt and uniform all down his left side. Those little beads of lead shot had been put there by Orell's gun. Perhaps Toby had helped them along with a lucky punch? Either way, they had been working their way up through his ribcage and into the soft organs held inside.

The harm done was immense – Toby thought that Crawley now seemed about as self-aware as a dog who saw his reflection in a pond and thought it was another dog barking at him.

And then Crawley moved.

When he did so it was with an energy and speed that Toby hardly credited. It may have been the man's last act, but Toby knew it would be enough. For Toby had hardly managed to trail Crawley that far. He'd had harm done too, to every part of him. And Crawley, till he dropped, until his beating heart gave out, would fight like a savage – biting, gnawing his way through Toby till there was nothing left.

Toby's head was pounding now, his sight in one eye was dimming – wasn't that a symptom of a haemorrhage? Toby pondered this quite clearly, as he noticed something else.

Toby wasn't a religious man. He wouldn't even have been been able to understand the mechanics of a god creating a villain, putting a good person in trouble, and only then mercifully offering the good person a way to contain the evil. But at that moment something shone on Toby. As there, just inside the back fence of Bob's yard, were resting a batch of garden tools. And tallest among them, with a long wooden handle, was a fork. An old hay-gatherer sort, used in whatever function they had for it in the animal supplies side of the business. And the width between the pitchfork's two curling prongs was just about that of Crawley's neck.

So, the bull had one last charge in him. But this Matador had horns too.

Without even thinking – for thinking would have been fatal – Toby ran for the open gate. He no longer had to worry about Crawley catching him before he got there, as he was going to catch him anyway.

Luck favoured the brave, and Toby made it in time. He reached into the yard and grabbed the fork by its long pole, pulling it into the alley. There he spun in above his head like a Samurai might his sword, and had its prongs pointed right at Crawley as he roared – literally roared – straight at him along the narrow way.

A movement, a nervous flinch, a moment's hesitation could have seen either spike catch the side of the big man's neck – for the fork was only just wide enough. But instead the prongs only grazed him on his way between them; to leave it for Crawley's voice-box to thump against the crux of the fork as it connected.

It was a sickening sound, like when a football coach has a player bite down on a piece of wood before straightening a twisted knee. A real bone-and-cartilage crunch. Toby felt the full force of Crawley's weight as he connected with the fork, losing hold of the handle and being thrown backward into bloody, gritty snow. But it was with relief that the pair of them collapsed side by side.

And then everything was still.

Chapter 64 – The World Catches Up

Lying on his back, with the wooden pole resting over him, Toby uttered,

'It's done. It's over.'

Then the sleepy feeling that he had had in the burning house returned, he murmuring to no one, 'Leave me here, I'm dying.'

Although he was doing nothing of the sort.

Toby dreamt that he was lying in snow, then woke to find he was. He'd blacked out.

'There're only so many times I'm going to wake from these,' he said, as his eyes opened to learn they were full of dirt. Slumped there, the snow had repeated its trick of being cool to lie on, then becoming too cool. His neck and tunic were wet, and he could no longer rest there comfortably.

Toby raised himself to look at his prey. Or had he been the prey, and Crawley the hunter? He had been the hunter in the end. Thank god the worm had turned.

Toby rose, and stood unsteadily over Crawley. The sight took time to sink in. He'd half-expected to see his enemy squirming, screaming, fighting to get back up. But Toby sensed the man's stillness as he lay there.

Like Toby, Crawley had ended up flat on his back. His legs had continued to run as the upper part of him had been stopped dead in its tracks. The weight on his spine as he fell must have knocked the wind right out of him.

The wound to Crawley's neck displayed only redness, yet his mouth was foaming with blood. Toby also noticed how a fork-prong had snagged the soft part of Crawley's left ear as the two had flown past each other. Drops of blood dripped down his neck, to leave a mark like the kiss of a vampire.

The victim was whimpering and making occasional wet yelps. Somewhere in there his voice-box was crushed. The animal beyond language now couldn't speak if it had wanted to.

Toby had half an idea then to take the fork and stamp it into the ground to pin Crawley's neck. Yet his opponent was down and down bad, and that would have been an insult. Toby went to walk away, when a hand flapped up against his tall boot. Toby spun and planted his foot on Crawley's shoulder; before the bloodied paw fell down again.

The exertion caused the broken man a fit of coughing and gargling, splattering blood on his face and the surrounding snow. Toby held his boot in place. He had him – he had him! By hook or by crook, he had driven his enemy's mania onto the surface. He had seen its full flourish, phlegm-flecked and blood-spattered. He had made Crawley a lunatic, and he had defeated him. Toby saw his goal was realised, and at that moment wondered what he had become?

Crawley, pinned and fuming, was an animal. But what creature was Toby? His life helping students at Carvel had never seemed so far away. He could never go back there, even if the secret held. How had Toby ever managed to hide his Stove truth from his Carvel self? Denial, the brain protecting itself from facts it could not handle. Life was a pigsty.

Crawley, at any rate, was waking up. He seemed to want to shout or snarl or make some kind of verbal gesture. But all that happened was a blood bubble formed across his mouth and popped over the snow.

There was the sound then of onrushing boots. Toby removed his foot from Crawley's shoulder just in time.

'Is he dead?' asked a Town-side Deputy, out of breath. Toby guessed he had been called to the fire, and was following in their wake.

'No, but Orell is.'

'Who killed him?' asked the Deputy. Though the question was redundant before it had been voiced, as the newcomer appreciated the renewed rage in the eyes of the wild man gargling on the floor. Further questions were irrelevant, bar the Deputy asking,

'How are we going to get him back?'

Toby heard other feet behind them, and guessed at a second Deputy. Bar Eddy, this was almost the whole remaining Town-side force. Toby asked the first Deputy,

'Who's watching the children?'

'We're not coping, boss. Two less of us won't make a difference.'

'No, I don't suppose it will,' conceded their Sheriff.

The second Deputy arrived, and gasped,

'Lor, look at Crawley. Come on, fellow. Let's get you back on your feet. We'll have you fighting fit in no time.'

'No,' said Toby.

The man stopped and looked at his boss.

'This man killed Orell. He's going to the cells.'

Chapter 65 – Chain the Gates

Toby led as the others carried Crawley, the man's feet dragging behind them. As they arrived at the Sheriff's Office, almost the whole remaining host of the town were present. They came outside or were outside anyway, and were making the same mental calculations at the sight of the four men. Deducing firstly that Crawley had been finished for the winter, and secondly that it was Toby who had trounced him.

Old Sheriff Thornton was already out of the picture, and now too his Town-side right-hand man. Some sensed a dangerous power-shift. They looked to he who was now in charge, the Mountain-side pretender to the throne. And they saw him contorted also, wincing in pain and his face a half-sneer. Amongst themselves they muttered,

'The job's already taking its toll on Toby.'

'And he's only been in it a day.'

'He looks half-mad already.'

'Poor Toby,' lamented one townswoman. 'I fancied him rotten when we were kids.'

Her friend said, 'I bet you're glad you missed out on him now.'

'He couldn't look past that Janey Thompson.'

'And where's she these days? A dried up Old Maid.'

'Well, what goes around comes around...'

Yet for every bitter word there was a murmur of simple sadness for the mark the role had made on a man who, even in that state, was still the boy they had once known. There he was, twisted as Richard the Third, with Crawley cast as the nephews, consigned to meet their end in the Tower.

'Ready a cell,' ordered Bad King Richard.

'He needs to go to the clinic,' said one of the carrying Deputies.

'No,' answered the Sheriff. 'He's too dangerous. We'll treat him here. Someone call the Doctor.'

This was an open challenge, but Toby carried it for want of anyone with gall enough to face him. A door was held open for the carriers of Crawley's living remains, while a messenger left for the Doctor.

'It's a bad lot,' grumbled someone. 'A bad lot.'

The next few hours were one of those strange administrative muddles that occurs when everything changes but no one's quite sure in what way. Were they to continue as before, or do something different? And if so what?

Toby had had nowhere to be but the Sheriff's Office, though it didn't feel right to go inside – the present crisis seemed to require he stay outdoors and be active – never before had hiding behind a desk felt such a dereliction of a man's duty. And so he had chairs pulled out from the office, and sat out where the sun was burning like a summer's day. It was even warm enough for him and his fellows to loosen their uniform collars.

There, Toby held court, his meagre staff surrounding him, occupied in menial tasks, or offering moral back-up for their leader in the various encounters he had with visitors who trickled by. Toby sat in the middle of it like a warlord in an African village, imaginary bullet-belts strung around his neck.

He was only getting his breath back though, and trying very hard not to tilt his head at the wrong angle, as to do so could bring a headache that felt half-way towards blacking out again. Yet this inaction felt like delaying his next decision. He didn't want to think about that.

For the moment there was peace and Toby was in charge. Yet inside himself he was shaking, wondering how long that state could last? The odds of it carrying till the thaw seemed slight.

Chapter 66 – Visitors

During that time the Mayor came by,

'You ought to see the other guy!' he laughed, as all turned to see him. He was trailed by a handful of office-dressed Council flunkies, who, with him paused to stand around in the sun-warmed late-morning. In an hour it would be positively scorching, and then two hours after that near-twilight and freezing again.

'We need to get you to the Doctor,' urged the matronly Town Clerk, who was one of the visiting party.

But the Mayor approached Toby in a very different fashion, eyeing him intently as he offered,

'It looks like I owe you some kind of apology. Though I don't like giving it, and you be sure you're going to earn it.'

'I'll be sure.'

'You know what I think of fighting among the men.'

'I had a duty.'

'You had nothing.'

The Mayor paused then, as if unsure of whether to leave. When he spoke again it was in an altered tone, as though saying things he couldn't quite leave unsaid. He spoke clearly, though only loud enough for those very close to hear,

'And I suppose you expect him to face justice?'

'Sir, he's murdered two people since yesterday.'

The Mayor twitched, 'Toby. I know what you want to do. And you're not the first to think it. I've seen it in others, good men who've lost their nerve.'

'Sir...'

'So let me get this into your head, and let me get it there quickly and with the absolute minimum of fuss. Now, you tell Gaidon nothing or you tell them everything.'

'Sir..!'

'No, Toby, that's it. That's all there is to say. And before you pack your knapsack and trek off down the hill on some Holy Quest after the Truth, know this: that when their Sheriff and his men come calling here, I will make a point in telling them that this very winter you put a boy into a coma, and clubbed a girl unconscious in the presence of her family. I'll have the Doctor swear on those things, and he's under Hypocratic oath to do so.'

'Sir...' implored the Town Clerk, who like Margaret was one of those who had known Toby since he was a boy, and so knew when he was close to tears. The Mayor went on,

'Send Crawley down, and you're sending the rest of us down. And you, the fighter after justice, will be rotting one jail-cell along. And if you ever get out, then you'll be a criminal, your name on every register, every job application turned down...'

Toby was silent, waiting for it to finish. It ended with Mayor concluding,

'Go down that hill, and be sure your sins will follow you.'

Toby answered with undisguised contempt, 'Save it – it's a broken record. I've heard it all before.' With Thornton and Crawley out of the game, the Mayor had lost his cadre. Toby pulled the strings now as strongly as anyone in town, and both men knew it. All the Mayor had left was the ability to hurt him.

Chapter 67 – The Doctor Calls

Later the Doctor came to look at Crawley.

'Is it true?' he asked Toby before going in. 'That he set the house alight while Violet Orell was still inside?'

Toby nodded; as the Doctor shook his head,

'Then even among your debased number, Crawley found a new level of depravity.'

'I guess you have to count me in on that.'

Toby led them inside. Outside the cell the watching Deputy, one of those who had dragged Crawley in there, was worried.

'How's he been?' asked his Sheriff.

'Getting louder, if anything.'

'I'm not hearing anything,' said the Doctor. 'You're sure he's still alive in there?'

The guard laughed without joy as just then, roused by the voices outside, a great roaring and thudding began on the inside of the door.

The Doctor jumped back as though Crawley might actually break through the steel panel. He asked,

'How long's he been like that?'

'Since not long after we brought him here. It looks like you made the right call, Sheriff,' conceded the watcher.

'So how is he?' asked the Doctor.

'It's hard to see for certain.'

The Doctor had treated prisoners before, and soon regained his composure. He got up to the eye-hole and opened the small hatch. Yet he only saw a dull blur of motion through the cracked and dirtied glass.

The Deputy explained,

'He broke the lens barging the door, and he's smashed the ceiling light. We put him food through the hatch, but he just threw it up the walls.'

'You can't get in? Even to clean him?'

'Do you want to try?'

The Doctor shuddered, before he heard himself saying, 'Then fetch the vet. He has a tranquilliser dart they use on horses, he can fire it through the hatch.'

'Go on,' said Toby. 'I'll keep a watch on him till you're back.' And the Deputy left to do as instructed.

As the guard walked out of earshot, the Doctor asked Toby,

'And have you thought about asking me to look over you?'

'My hand's fine, it's just a burn.'

'I'm not talking about your hand. Is that a head wound? I can see you're squinting every time something bites you inside.'

'It's just a headache.'

'You know,' the Doctor mused, 'the eyes and the brain are closely related. Headaches are often caused by bright lights, because we don't have pain sensors in the optic nerve...'

'Doc, please. If you put me on pills I'll just go foggy and not be able to think. And right now I really need to be able to think.'

'All right, boss. You're in charge.'

The pair were silent awhile, before the Doctor said,

'I've got patients to get back for, but I'll be here when Crawley's sedated. And you, see me by nightfall.'

He halted at the door, concluding,

'Toby, you know the phrase, "Devil-may-care"?'

'Yes.'

'Well, right now you bear the look of a man who, if he didn't get his way would get a bullet and his worries would be over.'

'I'll be there, Doc.'

'Well make sure you are.'

Toby stayed to watch the cell door.

Forgotten in all this were Job and Fitch, still doing what they could for their young sufferers Mountain-side. The same went for Eddy Town-side, unaware that his colleagues had given up the ghost and that a pall of resignation was falling over the town that rendered his efforts futile.

Once word reached him though, Eddy wrapped up the fight he was in and, casual as you like, made his way to the Sheriff's Office, where Toby was back outside.

'Sheriff Toby. You made it to the top then?'

'By hook or by crook.'

'I always knew you would. You have the leadership gene.'

The pair tried to smile.

'So,' continued Eddy. 'Crawley's really done for?'

'Go and see for yourself, if you like.'

Though Eddy didn't, and he asked no more about it. He alone seemed unshocked at the levels his old Town-side mucker could stoop to. 'It's come to this?' was all he added.

'I'm sad to say it has. He's sedated now.'

'But why is he so wild?'

Toby answered, 'Because he knows that what he's done will keep him in there for a while.'

'But,' Eddy went into a whisper, 'it's not the first time of a winter that someone's died.'

'Ed, he should be thankful that it happened in this town. Anywhere else and he'd already be up for a life sentence.'

'But not here?' Eddy looked suddenly horrified.

'No,' said Toby softly. 'How could we, without blowing the whole secret?'

'Are you asking me or telling?'

'Maybe asking myself.'

'But you would if you could?'

'That's rather academic, isn't it, Ed? Does it even matter?'

Though to Eddy it seemed to matter a great deal.

Had Toby a clearer mind just then, he might have tried to figure out what his friend was so frightened of. It was already afternoon though, and it had been quite a day. And when Toby turned his head he felt a pain that brought the mental image of Crawley, liberated from his cell, firing one of Buddy Bob's nail-guns into his crocked temple.

Chapter 68 – Margaret

Toby felt he had to stay in the town centre, on that very spot if possible, guarding his Office. To be away for even a moment could see a conspiracy form behind his back.

There was another place though that he felt he was now needed.

Only he and Margaret were outside the Sheriff's Office by that point. Since his return from the fighting, she had been bringing him coffee and finding him painkillers from the medicine cabinet. The words suddenly came to him to ask her,

'If I didn't need you here you'd be at the Tort house, wouldn't you? At his bedside? You care for him every bit as much as you did for me when I started.'

She didn't answer.

'So what if I released you from your duties?'

'I wouldn't hear of it.'

And Toby knew she wouldn't.

'But there's somewhere I have to be, Margaret.'

It was like that party truth-or-dare question, which to Toby had always felt a bit of a party-killer. He whispered, 'Where would I want to be at the end of the world?'

He got up; she asking,

'So, do I need to say goodbye to you properly this time?'

'Maybe.'

She got up and gave him a hug. He asked,

'Am I still that boy, Margaret?'

'Always, Toby. The sweetest boy.'

'Margaret, I need to go.'

'Then, before you do...'

And Toby knew he wasn't going anywhere that minute.

Margaret began,

'That night. The night Lloyd Thornton and the others decided on the car crash. I was in the office, at my desk. They were shouting, and I heard them through the door.'

Toby implored her, 'Oh Margaret, you don't have to carry this around any more. I know about the two boys who died. I know they decided to cover it up.'

'No, Toby. There was only one boy.'

He paused. 'But there were two in the car. Everyone knows it. The Doctor said so in the letter he wrote to me. Gaidon police saw them when they attended the wreck. Two boys, there were two boys.'

'There was one boy, Toby. Thomas Richter, the epileptic. He was the only boy who died.'

Toby had to ask the dumb question,

'Then who was the other?'

She explained, 'He's buried in town, under the name "Matthew Tasco", though that's not a name of anyone I knew. And I also saw the fake record that the Doctor filed. And... well, I looked at the transcript of the inquest that was held in the spring when the County Coroner visited.'

'But they're kept under lock and key. How..?'

'I stole the Sheriff's keys. I'm not proud of it, Toby, and he never found out. But that's not important. What is important is the address the Sheriff's Office gave for "Matthew Tasco". It was my house, Toby. They gave them my address and didn't tell me, as they hoped no one would check. And no one did, Toby. No one checked, and I don't know who he is.'

'How can you not know?' he asked, not wanting to get tetchy with her. But Margaret didn't answer. Instead she went on with the story,

'I overheard the Sheriff's meeting that evening – not because I was snooping, but because they spoke so loudly.'

'I know, I know.'

'The thaw was coming, and they had to decide what to do. They were panicking. "That Richter boy's body's been on ice for three weeks," one of them was saying. "We've got to make a decision." I heard them through the door!'

'I know.'

'They were talking across each other, all speaking at once. I only caught the loudest words, and Sheriff Thornton trying to calm them.'

'You don't have to say this if it hurts you,' said Toby, but he wanted her to so badly.

'And then one of them said, "You animal. Don't you understand epilepsy? He wasn't in control of his body. You monster!"'

'Who was that?'

'I don't remember. All of them were there, all the Town-side staff.'

'Only Town-side?'

'Only Town-side. Mountain-side knew no more about it than the rest of the town, only that there'd been an accident and not to ask about it.'

Toby gulped. Margaret continued,

'Then another of them answered: "I was doing my job. I couldn't know. Useless little runt, he didn't fight back. If he had he'd have been all right. He didn't listen!"'

Margaret sobbed.

Both were shaking, Toby asking,

'Do you know who's voice that was?'

Margaret nodded in the direction of the cells, adding,

'You knew it was him, didn't you, Toby? You knew that?'

'I've always known.'

'I can say it now, can't I, now he's in there?'

'He's finished, Margaret. There's nothing left of him.'

He urged her on gently. She continued,

'Well, one of them said, "The boy's dead. We have to tell." And then he, him in there, said, "If I go down we all go down."'

Margaret paused.

'Yes?'

'And then a third voice called out, "I'm not going down for him. We have to cover it up. I've got a wife and child now, I've got a life here, I'm not handing him or any of us in." Then...'

She stopped quickly.

'Margaret?'

'There was a shot, Toby.'

'A shot?'

'In the room.'

'You're sure? You're sure it wasn't outside, somewhere in the town?'

'It was in the room, Toby. It was so loud, and I could hear the way it echoed.'

Chapter 69 – The Shot and the Silence

Toby was as stunned as Margaret must have been that day.

'What did you do?' he asked.

'I wanted to run to the door, Toby. Or run out of the office. But I couldn't. I was frozen. The Sheriff's room went silent, and there were only odd calls and mumbled voices that I couldn't make out. They were speaking too quickly or too angrily. I just sat there, terrified.

'Then minutes later, Sheriff Thornton opened the door a crack and said, "Margaret, you're still here?" I said, "Where else would I be, Sheriff, when you need me?"

'I tried to smile but I was shaking. And he tried to smile too, but it wasn't there, Toby. And he hasn't smiled since, not properly. He said to me, "You need to go now, Margaret. Go and don't come back until the morning."

'He said it calmly, and not meanly, not like how Sheriff Mercer could say things, Toby. You remember Sheriff Mercer? Your father certainly would. They had some dust-ups.' She tried again to half-smile. 'Though he could be rotten even with his favourites.'

'So what did you do that night?'

'I left, and I went straight home and I didn't go back.'

At this the woman collapsed into sobbing, and it was all Toby could do to try and hold her and keep her upright. She was dissolving, as if the tears were softening the very fabric she was made of.

'Someone wrote a letter to him, Toby, to my house. "To the Family of Matthew Tasco".'

'Did you read it?'

'I ripped it up into little pieces, and burnt it. Then the next day I wished I'd kept it, as I so wanted to learn who he was.'

'It wouldn't tell you.'

'You know who wrote it?'

Toby nodded.

'They've sent another. It's on my mantlepiece, but I couldn't open it. There's something happening this year, isn't there?'

He nodded again.

Toby had questions, and after a little while he asked them,

'Margaret, was there anyone else in the Sheriff's meeting? The Mayor? Councillors?'

'I don't think so. I don't know.'

'Margaret, what happened after the meeting?'

'I went back to work the next morning; and nothing had changed, nothing was said.'

'Nothing at all?'

'No, so I just carried on as as normal.

'Sheriff Thornton did speak to me a few days afterwards though, to say he couldn't tell me what had happened, that it was a secret deeper than he wanted to burden me with. He asked me, "Are you all right with this, Margaret? Can you live with me not telling you?"

'And I said yes, that I could see it pained him, but that I trusted him. You see, Toby, if he couldn't tell me then I knew that it was something very serious.'

'And he's never said anything more? For all these years?'

'I didn't ask, and he didn't tell.'

'Oh, Margaret. What have we put you through?'

'Not you, Toby. Never you.'

'You dear woman. You know it's over, don't you? You know it's ending now?'

She nodded,

He didn't elaborate, but could barely look up as she concluded,

'The thaw came, the crash was faked, and everyone was gone from town within a couple of days. It wasn't spoken of again. I only remember that in the meeting they had been discussing just one boy, yet when the car was found it bore a second. Only the police and the Doctor saw him. They gave him a name which we in town all knew to be false. But we knew we weren't to speak of it.

'Before the week was out the road re-opened, and the lorries started rolling, and the shops had new stock. The summer workers came, and then the walkers and the tourists. Soon the town was public and alive again, and it could all be forgotten.'

'And the next winter?'

'Well, you were here for that, Toby. The Doctor broke all the rules and sent out a letter.'

'Only enough to tell me something very bad had happened.'

'Next winter we went on as if it was any other winter. Though worse for us who'd been there that previous year, as if we all bore the shame of it. It was awful, a secret on top of the secrets. And we were terrified. Still are.'

Then she brightened slightly,

'Though you were back, and I knew they wouldn't do a thing with you there. They're scared of you, Toby. You know that?'

'And you don't know anything of this second boy? Nothing at all.'

'Oh no, not quite nothing,' she said sadly. 'I have my guesses. But you can't make me say, Toby. You can't ask me that.'

He went to protest, but she silenced him with a finger on her lips. Before adding,

'Only look at the registers of the next year, and see who wasn't there.'

She disentangled herself from where she'd been crying in his arms, and straightened his lapels. He picked up a peaked cap that had been found for him – Tort's name was sewn in the rim.

Toby looked upon this woman who he'd known since he was a trainee. Who had looked out for him, and for his father before him, and for countless Deputies over years of tireless service. Now, in his current role as figurehead and on behalf of all the Sheriff's Office, past, present and in perpetuity, Toby said,

'Thank you, Margaret.'

And she replied, 'Thank you, Sheriff. Now, go to where you're needed.'

And Toby did so, with a head full of new mysteries.

Chapter 70 – Jake Again

Toby only fully appreciated afterwards that he and Margaret had had their secret conversation in the middle of the street. Yet it had seemed fine to do so as the town had somehow emptied, leaving them their privacy.

Unnoticed by Stove then, Toby strolled off on his way. He rounded the corner of the Sheriff's Office to hear the church bell ringing, he saying,

'Candlemas – is it that day already? So that's where they've all gone.'

'Talking to yourself, Sheriff?'

Toby looked to find Jake standing there in the road, bold as brass. Toby grabbed Jake by the lapels, throwing him back into the mouth of the alleyway he'd just emerged from.

'What's gotten into you?' asked Jake, as Toby held him against the alley-fence.

'I could ask you the same.'

Jake coughed, 'It must be the spirit of the Stove season.'

'Do you know the danger you're in being out?'

'And who's to stop me? They're all busy, or in church.'

'It's a bad winter,' the local explained. 'Those who aren't run off their feet would want to be there.'

'But not much Christian cheer this year,' added Jake. 'Have you heard the radio forecasts? The sun might be out, but they say the thaw might be a couple of weeks yet.'

'I'm going to be late getting back to Carvel...'

...It was Toby's first thought, before he was able to stop it. Now Jake and he shared a look, before Toby said,

'I know, I know. I'm never going back there.'

Toby tried to calm himself. Seeing Jake had been a shock. He looked left and right along the alley. There was no one around, no danger. He said,

'But Jake, you still need to be careful.'

Jake also looked side to side, saying,

'I haven't seen a Deputy in hours.' He smiled, 'And anyway, you wouldn't set them on me, would you?'

'Don't tempt me.'

Jake boasted, 'I'm the Sheriff's man now. My influence goes right to the top!'

'Gah! Listen to you go on.'

Toby sensed that Jake was joking. If he hadn't he'd have knocked him out there and then and dragged him back to the Emsworth house. But Jake didn't need to answer. Nor did he bear any malice for his rough treatment. Instead he asked Toby,

'You're going to the Doctor's, aren't you?'

Toby nodded.

'Well, we need to speak to him, Toby. We still don't have the answers, and this may be the last chance we have.'

Toby only took a deep breath. Jake asked,

'You were going to see the boy?'

'I have to face him sometime. And as you say, it might be our last chance.'

'Very brave.'

'Don't humour me,' snapped the Sheriff.

'What?'

'You may have the goods on me, Jake. You may own me come the spring, own all of us. But till then you don't know what I have on my shoulders!'

Jake was aghast, 'Where the hell did that come from, Chief?'

Even Toby wasn't sure,

'I don't know. Sorry.'

He was all set to barge straight past Jake, leave him to the next member of the Sheriff's Office he ran afoul of. But then Jake shocked Toby with something Toby hadn't witnessed in him before: humility.

'The fight with Crawley took it out of you, didn't it, Chief?'

Toby's silence said it all, as he closed his stinging eyes. Details of the battle poured into him to fill the space the adrenalin had left as it withdrew. Toby said,

'It's not just that, Jake.'

'Oh?'

Toby explained, 'Well, it's all over, isn't it? Whatever I do.'

Jake considered,

'Stove will be, Carvel too. You might even need to serve time. But out of the ashes will come a new life, an honest life. Which will be scary for you, but you'll do it, because look how brave you are. And you'll have a living, I'll see to that. You'll work with me. Look at the team we make.'

'But everything gone... Merrill, the Professor...'

Jake could only put a hand on Toby's shoulder,

'They don't call it sacrifice for nothing, buddy. But you see now what the others are so scared of? To break the status quo is to break everything. Taking Crawley in to face justice, true justice beyond Stove..? Unthinkable. You might as well be setting off down that hill with an open letter for the Mayor of Gaidon.'

'That's what the Mayor said.'

'Then there's a man who isn't daft. And hey, it's not all bad. For a start, you'll lose this damn job,' said Jake shaking Toby's lapel.

'Then call the Workers' Rights Bureau.'

'Still got your sense of humour though. That's our Tobe. And I am sorry, Toby. I don't mean to needle you. And I don't begin to hope to understand the hole you're in. You're doing great, honestly. But it's changing, isn't it, even as we speak. Plans are fluid, nothing's settled.'

'No,' agreed the Sheriff.

Chapter 71 – As the Church Clock Sounded the Quarter-hour

Alone in the alleyway with Toby, Jake spoke,

'Sheriff.' He used the title respectfully. 'I feel I owe you an apology. I wonder if, even now, I've been playing this as a kind of game. While, to you and your neighbours, this town is your life and sometimes death. I see that now, I don't know why I didn't fully before – after all, I knew about the Worst Year even before coming here. But something in the Billy Meting killing, and people's reactions. What am I trying to say?'

Toby was as rushed as the Devil, but could see Jake writhing, and knew he had to help him,

'Just blurt it out, Jake. Surely we two have no secrets now?'

'Thank you. No, we don't. We really don't. I expect we trust each other as well as any two men can. I think that what I'm trying to say is, that at the start I saw only crime and conspiracy, with the Sheriff's Office as the villains. I saw the seriousness, but channelled it into anger at those I thought responsible.'

Jake continued, 'I found you at Carvel, Toby, and marvelled – "How can he be so cool? How can he go back to being a regular guy each springtime?" Even worse, working with young people, being their friend and mentor, their study buddy, helping with their experiments. And you meant it. You obviously loved your work there. But I also knew what you did in Stove.'

The church clock was sounding, reminding Toby to get on; but Jake was far from finished,

'I had a mental imagine of Carvel-Toby and Stove-Toby meeting across a cafeteria table. One in check-shirt and labcoat, one in head-to-toe black. I tried to imagine the two of you shaking hands, and I couldn't.'

Toby let this image sink in, as Jake gathered himself to continue,

'You fascinate me, Toby. You did then and you still do now. How do you bear such conflict?'

'You don't know till you've tried it. You might surprise yourself.'

'I don't even want to know! I think I bluffed myself into anger at you, in part to avoid facing that contradiction. A pantomime villain is always easier to get a handle on than a confused, conflicted man. A good man, a moral man driven to – I'm sorry to say it – madness.'

Toby took it on the chin as if a physical punch.

'Now, I still don't understand you people. I'm a million miles from pulling on those crow-colours myself. I don't even want to ask myself what I'd have done if I'd been raised here, had had the sickness, had been asked to join up. I'm not ready to go there, Toby. That's your own nightmare to bear.

'But events are accelerating – I see it from my watching post. We won't survive the winter. And so in the act of ending this now, I want to help you. And I can't do that in my room.'

He paused. Toby was a statue. Jake went on, 'You understand the risk I'm taking in coming down here? If you didn't want to end it, I mean. If you lost your nerve at the last moment, and chose to turn me in. You have all the power out here. You had all the power in the house too, if only you'd realised it.'

Silence.

'But I think you're at the right place, aren't you.'

Still silence. Before Toby lamented,

'We got so close. All the way to Candlemas.'

Jake agreed, 'It's just a shame the thaw's so late. Another year we might have made it, and we could have published in the spring, like we planned.'

Toby felt old as he continued, 'And it's been such a tough one. Everyone's so tired, and we've lost so many staff. We don't know what boys are out there now, unattended, hurting themselves or their families.'

He paused before concluding,

'I want it over. And to never happen again.'

His body coursed electric. Yet in his rush of emotions and relief, Toby found himself worrying for Jake,

'But all your work and research?'

'Oh, don't worry. We'll still need that.'

'And what about your story?'

Jake answered, 'But what story would that be presently? The story of me standing by and watching people die? There's a novel-and-a-half in this, Tobe, mark my words. But I won't be writing it today.' Jake ended with, 'So what can I do?'

'I don't know yet,' answered Toby.

'Okay.'

'But you have your bags packed to move?'

Jake nodded, 'Where do you think Sarah's been the past two hours?'

'You have it all? The photos? The files?'

'Yes.'

'Then come on.' But Toby paused after his first step,

'And Jake?'

'Yes?'

'When this is over, if we get down the mountain...'

Yes?'

'...then disappear. Don't take any chances. Hole up in a hotel somewhere and get it written. But Jake?'

'Yes?'

'Before you vanish, hire me the best lawyer you can find.'

Just then the bells rang out anew, calling the faithful. Meanwhile, keeping off the streets the best they could, the pair ran to the Doctor's.

Chapter 72 – Sleeping Andrew

The clinic was deserted with the town being at church. Even the nurses and the orderlies had been released from their duties to attend. The Doctor and his patients were the only ones there.

Toby was in the quiet room at the end of the ward, standing at the side of the bed in which Andrew Sippitz lay. He watched as the bedclothes rose and fell to the mechanical rhythm of the boy's breathing. This was assisted by a machine on the bedside table – it had an artificial lung that breathed in and out for him, passing the air to his inactive body through a tube that ran to cover his nose and mouth.

Beside Toby stood the Doctor, who said quietly,

'I'm glad you came. I wouldn't have judged you if you hadn't.'

'No, I had to, at least once. I'm not stopping his parents visiting by being here?'

'No, they come in the evenings. You've hours yet.'

Toby asked, 'He's not waking up, is he, Doctor?'

'We don't know how his body will respond.'

'You told me once that it becomes serious after five weeks. It's been that long.'

The Doctor didn't answer. Instead he paused to undo his shirt cuff and roll up his sleeve to show his forearm. Not for the first time that winter Toby saw a tattoo of a name, in this case a short name, something European. The Doctor explained,

'I'm a little older than you, Toby. You don't know that when I was young and studying abroad I married and we had a daughter, Meike. My wife chose the name – she was German, you see. We met at college before I qualified.

'She died, Toby, little Meike.'

'Oh God, Peter. I'm sorry.'

'Thank you, but there's no need. It was a long time ago now. In another life, you might say. It was breathing difficulties, nothing to do with Stove – I never brought her within a thousand miles of these mountains.

'We broke up afterwards, my wife and I. It can happen to a bereaved couple – you remind each other of the tragedy. She went back to Germany. She wrote to me a few years back. She'd married again, had two sons.'

'Oh, Peter.'

'No, I'm glad for her. It's what people do. Other people, normal people.'

'I really am sad to hear that.'

'Don't be. I remember my daughter with love. I don't often speak of her, most of the town don't know of her. But I wanted you to.'

The Doctor tapped his arm, 'I had this done to honour her, so that if she was up there somewhere then she'd know she wasn't forgotten. But that's the point, Toby. Had she lived I would never have brought her here. Even risking my wife accepting our town's secrets, I could not have watched little Meike growing up knowing what was to come for her. You'd never have met me, Toby. I'd never have returned.

'So, maybe then I've done more good this way. Maybe something came of her death, that because of it I came back to Stove and helped others. And Toby, maybe if Andrew here just got better, he wouldn't weigh on you so heavily to do what you have to do.'

Toby took those words on board, asking,

'Is that common knowledge now?'

The Doctor only placed a hand on Toby's shoulder, before he turned and left the pair of them alone.

Yet he paused at the door,

'And maybe when you're finished in here, you can tell me who your friend is you've bought with you?'

From the bedside Toby answered,

'His name's Jake. He's an investigator.'

'And what does he intend to do?'

'He's going to break the story, Peter.'

'Is he really?' said the Doctor, with the air of being told the Reverend was holding a craft fair in town that Saturday. 'Good, good,' he reflected, and left quietly.

'I won't let you down, Andrew,' said the Sheriff now alone with the patient. 'I'll turn myself in for what I did to you. I'll face the full force of the law.'

But Toby's confessions were interrupted by loud voices in the main hall of the clinic. Turning and leaving to discover the source, Toby opened the door to find a stand off. On one side of the room, by the beds, was the Doctor. In the middle, by the drugs shelf, was Jake. And to the other side, standing by the door, were Janey and Job. Job had just arrived with the Hope and Strength girl over his shoulder.

All who were conscious turned to look at Toby, who spoke first, looking at the lost girl,

'Is she all right?'

'She's not taking her food again,' answered Job distractedly, as this was not the main issue in the room. As he spoke, so all eyes then turned to the tall Deputy, untroubled by the slumped figure over his shoulder. He finally asked what all were thinking, looking at Jake,

'Who is he, Toby?'

'He's a friend, a friend.'

'From out of town?'

'Yes.'

Jake tried to make a gesture,

'You're Job, right? Don't worry, I'm on your side.'

But this just made Job worse,

'He's just called me by my name. So how the hell does he know my name?'

Toby took charge,

'Job, let's get the girl to bed and we can...'

'How does he know my name?'

It was Janey who answered, in her own question to Jake,

'I think Toby mentioned you. You're here to help us?'

'If it's in my power to do so,' answered the investigator.

'He's going to break the secret,' muttered the Doctor.

'Toby..?' Job's voice was bearing signs of stress.

'Job, get the girl on the bed.'

But he wouldn't move, 'Toby... Sheriff. Lord forgive me, but you tell me what's going on right now.'

'You trust me, don't you?' asked his boss.

'But... '

'You trust me, Job?'

'Of course, Tobe. Forever and a day.'

'And you remember what the Reverend told you when you were a kid in Moral Instruction class?'

'That trust doesn't matter till its tested.'

'And courage doesn't count till it's counted on. Well, be courageous, Job. You always have been, so trust me now.'

'I will. You know I always will,' and Job stormed off toward the nearest empty bed, with the girl over his shoulder and the Doctor in tow.

Chapter 73 – Bedside Conference

After the girl had been settled in her bed, Toby asked Job to 'Go Mountain-side and find Fitch, then bring yourselves back here.'

It was with a look of deep uncertainty that Job left to do just that.

'Can we trust him?' asked Jake once he was gone.

'Yes,' said Janey, as the remaining four of them found themselves the centre of the main room, sometimes pacing around, sometimes taking one of the chairs left for visitors, before as quickly getting up again. 'What we are doing is right,' she added. 'Deep down he knows it.'

'He's thinking of Council,' added Toby as he joined the conversation, 'when we are asked to speak up if we know of anyone who shouldn't still be in town. He's shocked that I lied there.'

The Doctor spoke,

'He's not the only one. You've had all winter to tell me, Toby. And there's not a great deal that I haven't told you.'

'Yet you haven't told Toby everything, have you, Doctor?'

Jake's words were sharp, and made the Doctor silent. But Janey and Toby were left with the same thought – that is wasn't Job they had to worry about.

The afternoon was still, and the ward was almost silent. Even the afflicted seemed to know to keep the groaning down. The air had gotten to be hazy, with the unseasonal heat they'd had that day. Soon the sun would be setting and the shadows lengthening, and they'd be reminded that it was still winter after all.

The four sat or stood among the beds, alone but for sleepers and the subdued suffering. Somewhere in the distance was the sound of people church-singing.

Janey broke the silence,

'How's Andrew Sippitz doing, Doctor?'

'No worse,' was the answer. But this only brought out the sadness that Toby had seen in him earlier, as he explained,

'He's well. Not improving, but stable. As well as can be hoped when we don't have an MRI scanner. Because I don't have an MRI scanner. How would I, up here in the mountains? And what kind of doctor keeps a brain-injured child two-hundred miles from the nearest scanner?'

The Doctor continued, 'And I didn't even ask myself the question of whether I should take him to find one. I let the town and its history and its Winter Restrictions decide for me. I simply took it for granted that the tools I had here were the only tools available. When, two months ago, or two weeks from now, I'd have a helicopter whisking him away to the nearest city. What have I become? What sham of a doctor?'

Toby couldn't speak. The Doctor continued,

'I won't serve. I won't serve. I can't obey the Hypocratic Oath. I withdraw my services. I am no longer your doctor.'

'Don't be stupid.' When Toby spoke it came out as cold as the winter sun that poked around the edges of the curtains. There was none of the confidence the pair had enjoyed before.

The Doctor raged, 'You have the nerve to call me stupid? You, Sheriff, who wear that badge with a straight face?'

'Now, come on.'

'Killers! Killers!'

'Doctor. You're waking the patients,' said Toby in an effort to calm him. But if the talkers were noticed by those around them, then they were barely acknowledged, as if their bed-bound state left them one-space removed.

By now the Doctor was standing and shouting,

'You, me. We're all murderers! Sweeney Todd. Doctor Crippen.'

'Shut up!' shouted Toby as he too stood.

'At every point in history I'll show you a doctor who was killing people...'

'You're not killing anyone!'

'...deciding who should live and who should die. Hopeless cases thrown out in the battlefield clinic. Or kept alive just to suffer in the gulag. Or killed for purity and breeding and selection, to keep the strong strong and to weed out the weak. Is that it, Toby? Sturmbannführer in your widow's weeds? Am I your Doctor Mengele..?'

Toby stepped forward and punched the Doctor in the face. A messy punch, with all the impact and none of the effect. It caught the nose and not the chin, did more damage than expected, caused a gamut of spit and blood, and all without hardly calming the Doctor down. Though he did crumple to his knees, and then into a cross-legged sitting position on the floor. And his voice became lower and his babbling less coherent,

'What you do best,' he muttered. 'This is what you do best.'

Janey fell down to tend him; as Jake said,

'Don't worry, Doctor. He has a habit today of beating on his friends.'

Toby only flexed his knuckles and looked around glaringly. He caught Jake's eye, imagining him saying as if telepathically, 'You're becoming the uniform, Toby. Becoming the uniform.'

But Jake said nothing. He didn't need to. Toby knew that Jake was watching him disintegrate. Toby kneeled down beside his bleeding friend, saying quietly,

'Doc, doc.'

'Can't you give him a minute?' asked Janey.

The Doctor turned on Jake standing over him, suddenly lucid,

'You. Outsider. I know what you're thinking. Billy Meting, Old Man Orell. The mess that was Crawley in that cell. What did I do for any of them?'

'You couldn't do anything for those three,' answered Jake. But the Doctor went on,

'And then your mind is casting back to four winters ago, and to my part in the Worst Year. Well, what's left to tell? Two boys didn't die as I said they did. I signed the forms, I lied in court.' The Doctor fixed Jake in a glare. 'And if you're worth your salt as an "investigator" then you'll already know that.'

He added, 'But don't forget, it was me who wrote to Toby to tell him. Me who risked the wrath of the town to get him back.'

At that, the Doctor seemed to fall into himself, common sanity leaving by the side-door. Janey took a gentle hold of him, to help him get his senses back.

Chapter 74 – Friends in the Snow

Standing in the middle of the room, near the collapsing Doctor, Jake turned to Toby, speaking quietly,

'We'll get nothing more out of him now. And who knows if we'll ever have another chance to find out who the second boy in the car was.'

'Margaret mentioned him today,' remembered Toby, as if in passing.

'Oh?'

'But nothing we can use. It was nonsense, saying how no one knew who he was, and that the letters you were sending to his family ended up at her house.'

'Christ. So the Tascos never were at that address. Sarah said as much after she got her letter.'

'She was making less sense than the Doctor, talking about a shot being fired in the Sheriff's Office. And telling me to "check the school registers." As if you and Sarah wouldn't already have done that.'

'I have checked the school registers,' confirmed Jake. 'There wasn't another child missing, Toby. Not a single one.'

'Then that's that,' said the Sheriff. 'And it rather feels like Domesday to me. That when I go outside, there's only one thing left to do.'

'Then don't spend these moments with me,' said Jake.

Unnoticed by Toby, at some point Janey had settled the Doctor and had stood again to join them.

As Jake moved away to leave them together, he instead turned and asked,

'Toby, are you sure Margaret said "school" registers? Not any other sort?'

'I... can't remember now.'

'For there is one other sort,' said Jake. 'You've told me all about them yourself in our night-time talks. The sort you fill in every winter upon returning. The Register of Special Deputies, for those of you who volunteer to don the winter uniform.'

'I didn't think you kept a record?' asked Janey.

Jake answered, 'Oh, there's no record of what they actually do. But any town would be expected to enlist extra men at winter, to dig people out of drifts and help old folk across the snowy roads. How old's your youngest trainee, Toby?'

'Eighteen, nineteen.'

'Young enough for the Doctor to list them as a year or two younger when he filed his phoney death certificate?'

Toby took the lead,

'If he was over the sickness age, then he might have already left Stove. He might have been a Returnee. He could have been living in another town or city all the rest of the year. Had a job or college course to go back to there.'

Jake slapped his leg, 'And that's why no one in Stove missed him come the spring.' He looked around him at the town in general, 'Damn, you were a clever bunch.'

Toby was going over the details,

'Yes, that's what Margaret said, "Look at the registers of the next year, and see who wasn't there." She meant Deputies!'

Janey groaned,

'Oh no,' Toby comforted her. 'Don't feel bad. It's all over now, it's in the past. I'm ending it right now.'

But Jake chipped in,

'I don't think she means that, Toby. You said that Margaret heard a shot? Then who was it who shot him? Remember the words, Toby. Exactly what Margaret told you.'

But the words wouldn't come, not exactly. And then there was a banging on the door.

The singing from the church had stopped, and had been replaced by other voices. These had been building outside, but were something no one inside had yet been able to give their full attention to.

Janey grabbed her man, almost manic,

'Stay, Toby. See out the winter. We'll drive down to the State Capital with Jake in the spring.'

But Toby looked at the shattered frame of the Doctor on the floor; at the unconscious girl of Hope and Strength on her drip; toward the door behind which Andrew Sippitz rested; and to the other, heavier door behind which lay the bodies in the cold store. And finally he looked down at the shaking, limping figure of himself. And said,

'No, Janey. Look at us. This has to end.' And then he held her.

But even as she held him, she asked,

'How can you love me when you know what we did that year? We stood by and let them do it.'

But he only held her harder, expressing more than he could have in words.

From the other side of the room Jake asked Toby, not needing an answer,

'Have you ever gotten over your guilt at not being there to stop it?'

Somewhere in the ward an old man groaned. But Toby only continued to hold Janey; until the point when he had to draw away. She wouldn't let him though. And so Jake stepped in, taking her shoulders, half-holding and half-comforting her, as Toby bid farewell to those standing, and to the Doctor sitting, and to the patients now awake in their beds.

He only asked one last thing,

'Jake, before I go out there, promise me. Matthew Tasco, although his name wasn't Matthew Tasco. The second boy in the car. Find him out. Find his mom and dad, his aunts and uncles, whoever there is. Whether they're in Stove or wherever. And you tell them that he didn't just stop calling and writing.'

'I will.'

'And you find his friends in the town he left that autumn and never returned to, and you tell them he didn't leave them. That he would have been back in the spring.'

'I will, Toby. Sure as certain.'

And with that assurance, Toby left the room.

Chapter 75 – Le Damné

A moment's calm just then would have benefited them all. But it was the mean season, and it wasn't to be. As Toby opened the door a fraction there was a rise in volume in the voices outside, and even an angry muffled shout.

Toby braced himself, not knowing what he'd see outside. It could have been anything from a firing squad with their guns raised, to a gallows pole driven into the hard ground.

Instead it was just a smattering of locals, knowing he was in there and waiting to know what was going to happen.

And then?

And then total personal annihilation.

'Good morning,' he offered uselessly. 'Sorry, good afternoon now.'

They were silent for a while, before a man broke rank, and once he had then they all started,

'We heard about the Meting boy, Sheriff.'

'...And the Orells.'

'...And the Sippitz boy, still in his coma.'

'...And young Tort. What did you do to help him?'

Toby stammered, 'Tort... was out of my reach.'

They became bolder:

'We've got no Deputies left.'

'...No one's watching the children.'

Toby spluttered, 'We're... certainly down in numbers.'

'Then what are you going to do about it, Sheriff?'

'...We don't want this no more.'

'...No, no,' those gathered murmured.

'...Some of us haven't wanted it for years.'

'...If ever!'

'Treason,' whispered Toby so only he could hear. 'They're not scared any more.'

'What are you saying, Sheriff?'

'I'm saying: No. No, I don't want it anymore either.'

'Then what are you going to do?'

'I'm going down the mountain. I'm handing myself in.'

There was a gasp – this was new for Stove. The people had to adjust.

'How?' asked one of them, quieter.

'I don't know. And I do know. We get the truck and the snowplough. Get the children. Is it really that simple?'

And no one contradicted him to tell him it wasn't.

So, no firing squad. Although the image stayed with Toby, and he knew that it would until do he'd faced whatever real-life punishment awaited him at the foot of the mountain – that line of men would always be around the next corner, guns raised to fire.

Toby was miles away, thinking through what he'd just heard and said. Around him were locals, shellshocked, wondering what could come next, what fresh horror? This was no ordinary winter, even by Stovian standards.

'This isn't even the Worst Year,' said someone in the crowd. 'This is out-worsting the Worst Year.'

Toby rubbed his hand over his unshaven chin, and realised he was looking at a face in the crowd; and that that face was looking back at him. As Toby focused so the face grew suddenly nervous, and the person bearing it bolted away from the scene. At that moment Toby recognised it, and shouted,

'Benjamin! Benjamin Drew. Come back.'

With his boots slipping on the slush, the battered Deputy... no, battered Sheriff... he was forgetting... went in pursuit. The thin crowd parted as he bolted at them. Yet those who saw him closely would report not mania in his eyes. Instead they saw happiness, even joy. And so this sighting bought them joy, which had been in rare supply those recent weeks.

Toby caught a glimpse of Benjamin Drew dashing between two white-washed clapperboard houses. He was moving quickly given the conditions, and Toby wasn't in the best shape to catch him. At least three parts of him hurt with every footfall, and yet he matched Drew's pace of running. Toby was also shouting, as Benjamin turned at a right angle behind one of the houses.

'Stop, stop! I just want to ask you a question. I don't want anything from you. I don't care why you're here. I wasn't there that year. It wasn't me that brought you back.'

Toby came around the corner to a two-by-four beam swung right into his midriff. As he went down so Drew dropped the pulled-up fencepost, and jumped over his pursuer to go off in the direction they had just come from.

Toby inhaled with the intensity of a starting jet engine, such was the effort required to refill his lungs. The blow had seemed to unlock all his other injuries, as though a spell had been broken.

'Stop...' he cried hoarsely. His breath slow in returning, and he even feared the taste of blood in his throat. 'I just want... to ask... you... a question...' Toby staggered up and into a jog, looking out for freshly trodden snow. Also for places where Drew might have been lying in wait to hit him again.

Toby peered cautiously behind an empty chicken coop thick with white ice flakes, then around the corner of the next building. But by the time he got to each place it was hopeless, and Drew would have had too much of a head-start.

And then Toby heard a noise. It was a whining, tiny and hard to place. He staggered onwards behind houses, and through unfenced back yards. Had the owners objected to this intrusion, then they didn't leave their homes to confront the juddering, injured figure in his bloodied uniform, his ripped shirt, and his tie still held down by a silver clip, as it had been all along the line. For Toby had become the town's boogieman, a murderous vision of everything to warn your kids against becoming, a photo-negative of all that was wholesome in small-town life.

Now that he'd stopped running, Toby was suddenly bitter-cold and pulled his jacket tight around him. The moaning grew louder. There was no other sound – no one else had followed them from the street.

Near the end of the run of houses, Toby became aware that the sound was coming from just around the next corner. He turned it slowly, arms in front of him in useless protection. And there before him was Benjamin Drew, lying on his back, a smashed old bicycle beside him. A bent wheel-spoke had entered one side of his left leg and was poking out the other. The man whimpered as he reached his hands to his injury, then whimpered again as he was too scared to touch.

'Don't move,' said Toby, kneeling beside him.

'My brother!' shouted Drew. 'My younger brother, Simon. He had a bad year last year, and I had to come back to help him.'

'It's okay, it's okay.' Toby took the man's jeans-clad leg between both hands, and rolled it slowly till he saw both ends of the spoke.

'Our mother died two years ago. Our family get it bad, and my Dad was... tough with me in my time. I had to be here for Simon.'

Toby only said, 'Be still.'

Judging which end was the cleanest, Toby wiped the spoke in fresh snow. Then he braced, and took the thin metal in both hands. Benjamin continued to babble,

'I didn't want Sheriff Thornton knowing I was back. I didn't... agh!'

Toby threw the spoke away, then squeezed the patient's hand,

'It's out now. It's out now. Breathe, breathe.'

Suddenly the man smiled at Toby, as if everything was all right. And just as suddenly Toby knew the question he wanted to ask, and he did so,

'Benjamin. The year you ran away.'

'I won't do it again, Sheriff. I know the Restrictions. I won't run again. I promise I won't.'

Toby realised how gruesome he must have looked to Drew, in his bloodied butcher's uniform. But he tried to calm him, speaking as softly as his wrecked voice could manage,

'None of that matters now, Benjamin. It's over. The town's over. But you have to tell me – when you ran away, did the sickness follow you?'

Drew looked at Toby with the eyes of one who hadn't thought to consider the question before.

Toby asked again, 'When you got to Gaidon, were you still ill?'

Drew bore the look of one evangelised, as he answered,

'I... I don't think I was. No, I don't think I was.'

Between the roofs of the houses they were sat amongst, Toby could just see the tip of one of the mountains. Turning his head, he saw the other. Toby looked up at that those snow-topped crags; that peered down at people wherever they were in Stove; that loomed over buildings and filled their windows; the first things they saw when they opened their curtains, and the last thing when they closed them at night.

'It's you,' he said to the mountains. 'It's being next to you. Gaidon's only down the road, and that's enough.'

Statement of the obvious: no one else was living like this, surely to heaven. Of course it was only them. Gaidon was fine.

When the men emerged from behind the houses, they found the remnants of the crowd still milling in the town's streets, waiting for someone, anyone, to tell them what to do.

Seeing those two battered figures, the first thought of some may have been, 'Oh no, who's the Sheriff gone and injured this time?' Yet that caption didn't fit the picture. Not when the one in uniform was supporting the other. Not when the injured man looked to the tarnished lawman as if to a saviour. And not when that lawman wore an even larger smile than before.

'Can anyone run an errand for me?' he asked, and half a dozen were happy to oblige. 'Actually, two errands. Firstly, can you get this man in to the clinic? He needs a tetanus shot.'

Within moments two men were carrying Benjamin Drew off to be seen by the nurses.

'And secondly, can someone get to the Stovian Sunset. I need Job and Fitch here now.'

'Right away, Sheriff.' A young husband and wife ran for the guest house.

Toby muttered, 'It really will be fine. The sickness doesn't follow. It really will be fine.' The broken Sheriff realised he was dog-tired. Cold already, hurting his whole life, he let his legs go and just sat there on the slushy tarmac, smiling like a loon.

Chapter 76 – Preparations

The town of Stove had a secret. Of course, it had a lot of secrets. But perhaps the cruellest and most-specific was that which Fitch was about to expose. For it was not known to most of the townsfolk that the Sheriff's Office had a snowplough.

This was not the shovels and scoops and grit-throwers used to keep the town centre's sidewalks passable. Nor even the Jeep with the boat's-prow accoutrement sometimes seen trying to keep Main Street clear. But a proper snowplough, like a ten-foot turbine blade, strong enough to keep a highway free in all conditions.

It remained a secret so as to stop any unhappy locals getting ideas; and could remain so as the Sheriff's Office didn't usually clear most of the roads during winter, for no one with a vehicle had anywhere to go that wasn't walkable. And anyway, snow made every journey harder and kept people in their homes.

Little Fitch, now a bundle of nervous energy, used a snow-scoop resting outside the workshed to clear a space to let him open the doors. Within the dull-white shack was the town truck. Nothing secret there – it was seen all summer long towing broken-down cars or moving roadsigns. What wasn't seen though was what was kept in the cupboard at the back of its shed.

Once he had the truck's engine running, Fitch unpadlocked that cupboard, and dragged out the gleaming cleaver of snow. As he did so sparks burst from its lower edge. The blade was almost as tall as him. Some parts were shiny, others scuffed, but all of it talked business.

It was the work of one man to hitch it to the truck and set it at five-inches' clearance. Fitch turned the key in the truck's ignition and let the engine warm up. And he was full of excitement as he got behind the wheel, laughing,

'This'll cause a stir when it rolls into town!'

Meanwhile, in the town centre Job was calling at the top of his lungs,

'Anyone with a four-by-four, get it here now. Anyone with a suffering teenager, get them here now. They can keep warm in the shops till it's time.'

'But how?' people asked. 'There are five-foot drifts on that mountain road. What good are four-by-fours outside of town?'

'You'll see,' said Job with a good-natured smirk.

For what had overtaken Job and Fitch was a childlike thrill of disobedience. This was a feeling not often available to an adult, and usually only then when drunk and repentable at leisure. Yet to be offered a chance to break the Winter Restrictions fed into wishes held since childhood.

That pleasure, and the acknowledgement of the disaster the town was facing, had almost been enough for Job and Fitch to throw aside their duties. Yet what had sealed it had been that their leader had totally committed himself. And so when Toby asked his two lieutenants which side they would fall down on, they didn't need asking twice. Job's earlier awkwardness had been part-shock and part-pique at having initially been left out of Toby's inner-circle. Meanwhile, Fitch was giddy with glee from the moment he was let into the plan.

At one end of Main Street, across from the clinic by the grocers, was an open corner-lot they called the Town Square. There had been attempts at flower beds along the sidewalk edge, but they had gotten so trampled in the winter that the roses were now grown in tubs that were taken inside before the first flurries.

The square was now the backdrop for a scene that was part disaster-movie, part refugee crisis, and part town-outing. Everywhere were people in winter coats and wrapped in blankets, and everyone not personally afflicted by the sickness had someone with them they were caring for.

In many towns those needing the most assistance would have been the old. But this being the broken town of Stove, uniquely many of the hurting were the young. Yet families couldn't just leave their aged relatives to fend for themselves, and so it was the job of the middle-aged to care for both.

The old were suffering from the cold. The young from the sickness – they'd hardly notice the weather. People were arriving outside in sheepskin slippers and wrapped in bedsheets, as if from a fire drill in a hospital. The sufferers of all ages were brought into crowded shops to sit on fold-out chairs and be given cups of coffee.

Underpinning all this was the incredible noise: of vehicles revving into position; of voices calling and crying; of bags being dragged and dropped; of belongings being gathered then cast aside when there wasn't room; and of furniture and fence panels being smashed to start fires in the middle of the street.

For what had happened with Job and Fitch was happening to the town's population at large. They had all been inching along a see-saw, waiting for one person to be first to tip it over.

Janey spent that afternoon hour dashing between the square and the School for Girls. Seeing it all together like this, she was struck by a series of instant and powerful sensations: she saw the gibbering, shaking, confused people being moved by their carers, and it looked to her like an outing of the residents of an old-fashioned asylum, the kind where people were thrown in for their entire lives.

Her second thought was that there was joy there, even amid the confusion and uncertainty. People were laughing, sharing camaraderie, experiencing something. And she realised that they were smiling; and that she was too.

In the melee Jake was hardly minded. He made himself useful bringing blankets from the clinic, and also bottles of medicinal whiskey from the liquor store. The owner was throwing the stuff at anyone who wanted it, explaining,

'They'll only loot me when we've left. And I won't be back here, screw this town.'

Jake popped the cap off a bottle and took a swig himself, and let the fire roll into his belly.

He bumped into Janey then,

'It's like The War of the Worlds,' she said, 'when they run to the mountains.'

'Yeah, only now we're running from them.'

'Are you all right, Miss?'

This was Lana, her Junior who'd been sent to find her.

'Yes, quite all right, thank you,' answered Janey. 'Isn't it wonderful, Lana.'

The youngster observed, 'It's like we're all being honest with each other at last.'

Janey smiled, 'I knew I'd picked the right girl to be my Junior.'

They shared the kind of moment only women can, and then with nods to Jake, continued smiling as they hurried back to the School.

Amid all this, Toby occupied some nominal leadership role. He was running on empty though, and barely able to keep his eyes focused on the same object for five seconds straight. Thankfully, the machinery of the town seemed to be running by itself, as though always waiting for this moment.

Occasionally a question came to Toby, and he answered as best he could:

'Do we call ahead?'

'No, I don't want them knowing we're coming. It might confuse things.'

'Who goes first?'

'The emergencies are all going on the truck. Gaidon can manage those few, no problem. We can find room for the others after that.'

Indeed, the patients of the clinic were being taken to Fitch at that very moment. This was supervised by one of the nurses, as the Doctor was sedated and among her charges.

Not all the patients left though, for Andrew Sippitz was too delicate to move. He'd remain at the clinic with the other nurse and a guard of local men.

Chapter 77 – Exodus

The convoy was nearing readiness to leave, although it was still missing some essential pieces. And then another, older truck swung around the corner and into the busy square, this one arriving from the School for Girls.

Toby was griped by the sight. It recalled an old film he had seen many years ago, set during the French Revolution: in their nightdresses and with their long hair flowing, the girls were holding onto the back of the pallet-sided lorry like aristocrats being carted to the Guillotine. Only these were happy aristocrats.

And then there was a gunshot. People scattered to the edges of the public space, while others stood frozen, as a group of four Deputies arrived, rustled up from somewhere, and led by Eddy.

He displayed a swaggering bravado that Toby hadn't seen in him since childhood, racing go-carts as his Indy Car heroes, or being the top cowboy on their mountainous prairie. Yet now, that childhood spirit of derring-do was mixed with fear, adult fear, the type you didn't get till you were older. He asked,

'What are you doing, Toby?'

'You know what I'm doing,' answered the Sheriff.

'I was on a call. Bill here had to fetch me.'

'Well, what difference does that make..?'

'Only that it looks like I got here just in time to stop you making a fool of yourself. Crawley always said the town wouldn't last a week with you in charge.'

'You'd rather talk about him, after what he did?'

'And you're telling me he wasn't right? I'll have that badge off you now, Tobes.' Eddy called to the crowd, 'Come on, everyone. Back to your homes.'

But no one went.

'No, Eddy,' said Toby, feeling like a twelve-year-old standing up to the class bully. 'You used to have the run of things when we were kids, but no more.'

Eddy leaned in,

'This isn't about childhood, Toby. You're going to ruin both of our lives. Now, this is killing me, don't make it any harder. Just give me the badge, and you can get back up your hillside and carry on as you did before.'

'I can't, Eddy.'

All this time the town stood around them, the recent chaos stilled to silence.

'You know we're armed?' asked Eddie.

'I heard the shot.'

'Yet still you'd do this?'

'Yes.'

'But... why?'

'It can't go on!' Toby called out in hopelessness.

'Yes it can,' answered Eddy. 'It can go on forever!'

Toby looked at his friend and those behind him. If they won this battle then Toby guessed the kind of leaders they would make. He figured aloud,

'So Eddy, you've been under Crawley's shadow also? How does it feel to be the big man now?'

But Eddy only shook his head,

'No, Toby. It was me protecting him. Don't you get it?'

And just then Toby did, with nauseous clarity, like a perfect view from a sickening cliff-drop. Toby reasoned out loud,

'You kept Crawley's secret. You shot the Deputy who wanted to reveal him. You murdered for a murderer.'

'You see Toby, we understood, Crawley and me. We knew what it took to run this town. I thought we could protect you from it forever, but you had to keep chipping away, didn't you: making people feel guilty, not letting them forget, carrying that cross on your back like a martyred saint.'

Toby could only try and speak,

'People want this, Eddy. They've wanted it for years.'

'Really? Do they?' Eddy looked quickly, left and right, then spoke loudly, addressing the crowd,

'You want people thinking you're from Loonyville, USA? You want your kids pointed at, stuck in special homes, experimented on? Scorned on every talk-show, and laughed at on every comedy? Do you think one of you here will be able to keep hold of your children when the authorities learn about how we do things up here?'

'That's better than them being dead, Deputy,' said someone in the crowd.

Eddy's head and neck jerked, looking around for the speaker. His right arm seemed to flinch, and then Toby saw the pistol in his hand. It was currently half-hidden under the cuff of his black sleeve.

'Well, it's not happening!' the armed man called out. 'Everybody back home.' And then his gun-arm flew out straight, twisting in stuttering motion across the field of potential victims.

All breath left Toby's body.

'Lord, don't leave me now,' he muttered to himself, incoherent, half-prayer, half-curse. Toby intoned the words mechanically, the new inhuman, emptied-out Toby. These were moments that felt like minutes, but were split-seconds in total. Under his breath he repeated,

'Lord, don't leave me now. Lord, don't leave me now. God damn you, God. God damn you, God. You bring me to the most important moment in my life, and you give the other guy a gun? You leave my enemy four-handed, likely four-barrelled; and me with a broken-down doctor, a weeping teacher and a hack with city hands? God damn you, God. God damn you, God. Don't leave me now? Don't leave me now? You left me on the day I was born here...

'They aren't going back home, Eddy.'

The Sheriff stepped forward a pace.

Chapter 78 – Epilogue: In the Footsteps of Benjamin Drew

Opinions differ over the order of the shots. Janey remembers the puff of blood coming from Toby's hand first, and he even looking down at it the moment before the second hit his chest. Others recall him slumping forward when the first shot was heard, and that the second was a panicked misaim from a flipping-out Eddy. Yet it makes little difference – two shots were fired, one was fatal. The rest is details.

As for the moments after, what can anyone now recall? There was Janey jumping down from the truck and running to her hero's body, oblivious to gunfire. Her shriek this writer is clear on – I'll not forget that so long as I live. Nor moments later, when the crowd, who had been taken so far to the brink that they weren't going back, jumped on Eddy, and in a moment ended him also. They left him just another body of a townsperson of Stove. But the last one, we all hoped.

'When it starts, it starts quickly,' had observed Toby's landlady when the first snow fell. Indeed, and once a thing has started we don't get to choose our ending.

The convoy Toby had arranged still went its famous route. The truck with its snowplough and its flatbed full of patients easily cut its way through the late-winter snow. Fitch drove, with tears in his eyes. Job was on the back with Janey, pulled away from Toby's body.

Other vehicles followed like carnival floats. Down came the girls from the school, stood in the back of the swaying milk truck in their nightclothes. Individual families came next in whatever vehicles could be got going in time, all wanting to get their sons out as quickly as possible... though none quite wanting to get to Gaidon first. The old town bus that Toby and Vernon Monroe had arrived on had been forgotten about at first, though this was soon brought out of its mothballs. Loaded to the hilt, it brought another forty down.

Behind the vehicles went the rest of the town on foot, every man, woman and child of them – they weren't going to be left behind while their friends and neighbours were getting to leave. Once reaching Gaidon, then their police had a chance to assist. In their Jeep Cherokees, they fought their way uphill against the tide to help the stragglers and those stranded on the road.

Most of this I heard from those who were there. I had to stay behind, of course – I had a bedroom full of papers and surveillance footage that I wasn't going to let fall into the wrong hands.

Of course, you know it's me writing this, don't you? Who else could it be?

Making sure there were no lingering Deputies around, I dashed back to the Emsworth house. With Sarah's help I got the essentials into a box each for us to carry. You see I'd lied to Toby: there were no copies of documents stashed in the woods, no partners out of town. What we had in that top bedroom was all we had, there was no back-up plan.

Leaving all else behind – in Sarah's case, her entire life – we caught the stragglers on the journey down the mountain. By then the road was well trod, cleared but slushy, and I confess I went over at one point. Thank God my box didn't break, and so spill papers and cassettes and photographs across the ground. Have you ever worked in an office, and been the one to bring the letter-headed paper from the storeroom for the copiers? Then you might know how heavy those boxes can be to carry even for a minute. We had ours for almost an hour.

But still, it was so short a walk. Ten minutes on the bus. No wonder Benjamin Drew could manage it those six years before. Yet I take nothing away from his achievement, accomplished while half-dressed and spiking with the sickness. And most importantly, being the first on record to even try – his achievement therefore is as much one of imagination as athleticism.

Pausing sometimes to rest at the side of the road, Sarah and I found others doing the same. With them would be jewellery boxes, deeds, framed pictures, photo albums – were people leaving for a day or forever? No one knew.

Some rested their arms from carrying small children, who'd not a clue of what was going on, of course. The youngest were sometimes crying, hurriedly dressed and hungry. They would have been smiling if they'd known what their parents were saving them from.

Although of course it was the older children who were the revelation. Taking up our loads, we tail-formers found the comet as we neared Gaidon town. And what we found there were scenes of weeping in the street. This was more often the parents than the teenagers themselves, who mostly wore a look of incomprehension. As if waking from an odd dream, recently-beaten youths were wondering why they were standing in the icy street in their pyjamas or without proper shoes. This was not as any had known it before, or how fresh sufferers had been told the sickness-season would end for them. They had been physically moved, were outside of their town, and were not coming around in their beds or in trashed, emptied living rooms.

The girls, having travelled in the lorry, were more collected. The boys meanwhile were dispersed among their families. And there were Gaidon policemen and women, in broad tan hats and bright blue shirts – not black, not hated black. Men and women who were trying to help.

'How did it end for you, when you were a kid?' I asked Sarah, seeing these scenes in the town square of Gaidon.

'Slowly, and in waves. You would come around to your senses, then wake up again three days later.'

The recoveries we were seeing then though were instantaneous, and there were no relapses. Just as Benjamin Drew had told Toby it would be. Benjamin was there, smiling with his younger brother. The lad was hardly able to gather his wits, his eyes wide open. As were the eyes of almost everyone from Stove. Including an elderly man in a blue suit, who seemed sad but wore a beaming smile of approval.

Chapter 79 – Getting out of Life Alive

If only Toby could have seen it all. It was chaos, and anyone who wanted to flee was now at liberty to do so. And many did, with people jumping buses or buying lifts. Toby had told me specifically to get as far away as possible. Yet a sense of public service gripped me. Along with the medics pouring out of the town clinic, the Gaidon Sheriff's Office were managing a wholly unexpected humanitarian situation. From nowhere had come several hundred confused people, on foot or in trucks and cars, cold and homeless and often injured, and with only babbled explanations of what had happened.

Someone had to tell the story, and that someone was me.

We hadn't time to waste. In the melee, Sarah and I found a dried-out crawl space beneath the town's railcar diner, and shoved the boxes there. Then I had to present myself to the authorities – taking whatever consequences might have come. This was in order to assist as best as I could in what was sure to be a convoluted investigation.

Yet it was as hard as hell to get the attention of a policeman in the town. I had only one option, and that was to follow the Jeeps that I'd already seen going back up the mountain. There, with fewer distractions but many more questions, they might be a little keener to hear my answers.

Unburdened by the boxes, I made it half-way back up the road before I felt the effort in my house-bound lungs. It had been hard to keep exercised that winter not going outside of the Emsworth House. I'd had dumbbells and an exercise regime, but it was blood-pumping exercise I'd missed and was exactly what I now needed.

'Get off the road,' a car shouted as it slithered up past me. 'We don't know what's up there.'

'Lor,' I said, after they'd scooted past. 'What do they think it is, the Black Death?'

Before I'd reached the top, black Cadillac Escalades had passed me, and I knew the Bureau were already on the case – within the hour! Incredible. Above the town, helicopters hovered – regional police, army, news crews – keen to keep a safe distance from the misty mountain peaks.

Stove, once I'd reached it, was the photonegative of Gaidon – chaotic in its emptiness, spooky for its lack of people. Almost any Stovian who'd chosen not to go down, or who had even slept right through it all, was now being rousted up and questioned. I even saw one opportunist thief being escorted away holding someone else's television. In a fit of pique, the thief threw it down on the ground to smash the tube. There were shotgun blasts, and people holing themselves up in their homes. I'd later learn that some of these families still had sick children.

Thankfully the sieges didn't last for long. These 'localised incidents' would be resolved by the FBI SWAT teams, soon seen heaping out of further helicopters like Marines on a search and destroy mission. They had secured the town's sloping football field as an airstrip, and they alone were risking landing as the day turned dark and cold.

As I got there, barriers were already being put up. But I was one man moving quickly, and I got through all the way back to the town square. There I saw men and women in different uniforms standing over Toby's body.

'What in hell happened here?' one was asking.

'And what is he wearing?'

I approached them to answer,

'Officers, that is the body of the finest man this town has ever known.'

'Sir, I think you need to come with us.'

From that moment on I would be under some kind of official jurisdiction for the next three years. It ended only with the winding-up of the FBI investigation into the events of the town, and the wrapping-up without solid conclusion of the Senate Subcommittee Public Enquiry and Congressional House Committee Hearings into the same. In the eighteen months since then, I have been forever called upon to offer evidence here or expert testimony there, to be interviewed for this or that documentary, or to write a piece for whatever Sunday newspaper review thinks there's still more to be said on the matter. I doubt I'll be free of the sickness all my days. You might say then, that the investigation that began with those reports of old car wrecks was more successful than its investigator ever imagined.

But in another way, I really didn't have to do very much. I am only glad to have been there when I was. For Stove's way of life was due to end, it only needed someone to end it. That someone wasn't me, it was an inestimably braver man that I. Though I like to comfort myself by thinking that I offered him some perspective, some grounding in town history, or maybe only a friendly ear. Maybe that was enough?

Chapter 80 – The Bureau

But back to that day... From the town square, I was taken to the battered old Sheriff's Office, to face a man wearing a blue flack jacket over a work shirt and tie. I would later learn his name as Agent Carter. There I was asked the obvious questions. Then asked them again, and again, as if he hadn't believed me the first however-many times. I don't think he knew the answers he was hoping for.

We sat in Lloyd Thornton's old chairs, at Lloyd Thornton's old desk. I was interviewed by Agent Carter for an hour before they offered me a drink, and then for perhaps another two hours after that – soon I would begin to lose track of how long they had been talking to me for.

After dark, I was taken down the floodlit mountain in a Jeep, and interviewed some more by different people. Before being brought back up and being asked to give the investigators the guided tour. By then it was after midnight, and the town was under a second daylight of halogen lamps.

It seemed that every emergency protocol in the book had been activated. Any question of my not assisting was a moot point. And frankly, I wouldn't have had it any other way. These men and women from several different agencies were concerned for public safety – they had a town who'd left in an exodus, they had hysterical and conflicting accounts of a mystery illness, alongside wails of denial that the illness had ever existed.

(I soon learnt the psychology of this denial: After arriving in Gaidon, and seeing that every child was instantly fine, a natural instinct in a lot of families had been to retreat into the old Stove secrecy. The crisis was over, so why drag up the past and have the town damned for its cruelty? Why not explain their presence in Gaidon – however implausibly – on a gas-leak, or them all losing their jobs? Before quietly catching the next Greyhound bus and getting the hell out of there.

But the families hadn't had the time to get a story straight between them, and so they only confused and prolonged things. Those first officers on the scene might have imagined Jonestown, Waco, chemical attack, mass murder, or any point in-between. Anything I could do to clarify this for them would be a service.)

During my trips back up and down the mountain, I would see the uniforms of the Gaidon Sheriff's Office amid the throng. And on one occasion I met again with their Sheriff Lacer. He remembered me, and looked at me gravely,

'So this was what you were investigating?' he asked.

'Yes.'

'Some kind of illness?'

I nodded.

'And they were beating it out of the kids with clubs?'

The Bureau were leading the inquiries, and Carter was their man. He would tell me,

'We have a dilemma when it comes to you.'

'Me?'

'You aren't implicated criminally by any available testimony.'

'Good!'

'Except on local bylaws of withholding evidence and not reporting a crime.'

I went through it again, 'But it was the police I was investigating – and it was almost impossible to leave the town to reach the Gaidon force.'

'I know, I heard you the first time.' (Though had he heard me the second, third and fourth?) 'And we're very grateful for all the evidence you've handed over.' Agent Carter shuffled through his papers. I thought that might have been the end of it, but he offered no conclusion, only adding,

'And there's also this business of you going to a party under an assumed identity.'

I exhaled, 'Again, Officer, I was working undercover. It was my first night in town, and they'd have thrown me in jail if they'd have known who I really was.'

'Well, I have a roomful of guests who'll swear you told them that you were a local man, and had returned that winter to join in with the efforts to contain these children.'

'You have my passport, you know where I grew up. You know I had hardly set a foot in Stove before this winter.'

Again though, that seemed to be that. Agent Carter explained, 'Yes, yes. I'm sure that in time all of this will be sorted out. And frankly, we have too much else going on here to worry about it either way. The party-goers' testimonies are on file, and I expect that's where they'll stay.'

He let the file close with a whumph, and for the first time I sensed that the interviews were over. This must have been after three or four airless days. Agent Carter looked at me calmly, his fingers interwoven, his elbows on the desk,

'Jake – I can call you Jake, now we've gotten to know each other?'

I nodded – though of course he'd never told me his first name.

'I've decided that I need to trust someone in this town, and that it might as well be you.'

He went on,

'I have three-hundred-and-fifty-four witness statements on my desk. I don't know if any two of them are telling me the same thing. None of you can tell me what crimes were committed because you seem blind as to what was a crime. Take this excerpt:

Interviewing Officer: Was an assault committed against your son?

Mrs Edna Wood: No, he just had the sickness.

Interviewing Officer: So what did the Deputy do?

Mrs Edna Wood: He held him down on the floor, then hit him if he got up.'

Agent Carter slapped the page down on the desk, and recoiled into Sheriff Thornton's chair,

'And that's before we get onto the fathers and the grandfathers. What do we do with those? They were childhood victims of abuse, then perpetrators of that same abuse, then victims again by proxy when their children were abused.'

I explained, 'A lot of sufferers jumped right into being Deputies. It was a town tradition.'

'Well, that's one town tradition that we can say quite conclusively has been brought to an end.'

Bought to an end by dint of there no longer being a town. The pipeline company claimed ignorance – which was correct. At last they understood why the permanent workers liked a year-round foreman from their own stock. They threw open their records to investigators, records which for the most part had been kept deliberately free of any mention of health issues by the staff and their families.

There was, though, one poignant historical case file: a report of a 'nauseous illness' suffered by the daughter of an exploratory engineer in Nineteen Fifty-three. She liked to travel with her father on his work when school holidays allowed, and so was there with him in his trailer as he prospected that region for the proposed pipeline.

The notes concluded that the illness 'passed quickly after returning to the nearby town,' and that 'it could be put down to a combination of excitement and vertigo.'

That girl would be in her seventies now. I think I'd like to find you. If you're reading this, please write to the publisher.

Chapter 81 – You Really had to be There...

My conversations with Agent Carter didn't quite end that day. And the next time we spoke he began with,

'There's still the matter of your friend Toby...'

You see, with many of the major players either dead or incapacitated, Carter and his colleagues had the common difficulty 'after the disaster' of having only a chorus of cowards and pedestrians to talk to, with the villains missing from the courtroom.

And the cherry on the mystery-cake was this odd fellow Toby.

Allow me to attempt to explain. There are those formerly of the town who, freed of the sickness, were at liberty to hate Toby.

'He destroyed our town.'

'He made us criminals.'

'He turned us all in.'

'There must have been some other way?'

And other variations on the theme. I hear it often. Though what this 'other way' was, I'd love to have known.

I suppose it is one of those criticisms you can't answer, as it is more of an emotional release for the speaker than a statement they want a response to. They want to hold on to their point of view as a comfort. It is therefore an accusation that you have to learn to absorb and not take too personally, and I won't let it tarnish Toby's memory.

Yet among a kinder element of the townsfolk, none would hear a bad word said or printed about their last town Sheriff.

'This man beat your children,' reporters or barristers would begin. 'Yet you still defend him?'

'But he's the one who ended it,' they'd answer. 'It's because of him we're here.'

And this ambiguity didn't stop within the people formerly of Stove.

The facts of Toby's recent life, as any could pertain them, looked bad – he was on record as an attacker and imprisoner of young people, assisting their parents in enforcing house arrest. Both the Doctor and myself had to admit under oath that we had suffered an assault at his hands – albeit, in my case, a very minor one.

A published photograph, taken from a helicopter above the town square, showed him neatly dead in his black uniform. Nearby was the ragged figure of Eddy as he'd been left by the crowd. The one was shot, the other beaten – so, asked the newspaper's headline, 'Who Had Killed Whom?'

The net result was that Toby was becoming a figure that neither the judiciary or the general public understood.

During one of the subsequent hearings, I met with the Professor and Merrill from Carvel Tech. They seemed so sad, though not at all embarrassed to be there. They were only worried for the memory of their friend; and troubled by it also.

'But it's like we didn't know him,' said Merrill.

'How so?' I asked.

'Well, the things he was doing in that town every winter.'

'He hated it though,' I explained. 'Carvel was where he was happy.'

'But it's as if he was two people, and that the Toby we knew was a lie.'

'Oh no,' I implored. 'Carvel was the real Toby, the one who cared and helped. You saw the best of him.'

The Professor asked, 'And I hear that it was he who ended it?'

'He did. You should be proud.'

'And this teenage illness – he suffered it too?'

'Yes.'

'And the beatings?'

'It's how he got the scar above his eye.'

The Professor flinched, 'Then I am proud; and also sorry that we couldn't help him.'

It was then that I decided to write the book.

Toby was an enigma to anyone not there that season. And when I thought about it, I was surprised to find I was probably the one best placed to do something about that.

Janey knew his past, but not his present. Carvel knew one half of him, Stove the other. Eddy had been Toby's childhood friend, but secrets had driven them apart long before that friendship was so brutally terminated. The Doctor was a good bet to produce the most-rounded portrait, but with what he'd gone through after being struck off, you really couldn't ask it of him.

(The last I heard, he was retreating in Tijuana under the advice of other doctors – apparently the warmth reminded him of summer, keeping thoughts of winter at bay.)

So, with Job and Fitch under caution, it was down to me. There wasn't much else I could reasonably be doing, and any official story I wanted to write was placed on judicial ice. And so I wrote the book in a fever in two weeks – like how Jack Kerouac had written 'On The Road'. However, in my case, instead of Mrs Kerouac bringing me coffee and changing the shirt on my back as I sat at the typewriter, it was Sarah. We'd grown close over those months, and had each gotten used to the other one being around. So when it came to it, we stuck together.

My tapes were all with Agent Carter, but Toby's words flooded back – night after night of endless talking. I really think he was the best friend I ever had.

What he hadn't told me, I found out from others. I've interviewed every person in the narrative still available to be so. His parents were very gracious, and Margaret especially was a rock.

Over time I'd also gotten to know how Toby thought. And don't forget that I was right at his shoulder for a lot of that last day. At the shooting, for instance, I was yards from him, hearing every word of his intonation, scared to reach out as he took that step. He was the only one among us not frozen rigid. I suppose that's what makes him a hero. It still scared me to write that passage.

As for the remainder of the tale, what I didn't know I made up. For isn't that what we wannabe story-tellers do, make things up?

And so, with as long again for re-reading and editing, I had completed a fictionalised account of all of it. And then released it anonymously to every television station, news agency, and web blog I could think of. I titled it, 'Written by one who knows...'

I needed Toby's character known, I needed his contribution... no, his sacrifice recorded. Had I not done so, then that fateful scene may have gotten lost in the weight of counteracting statements being read out in court. I had to say how he came to his decision, and how that left him facing a gun. And how he still stepped forward.

I let the original anonymous story end at the first point that anyone in the wider world knew anything about Stove, which was the rolling news teams filming the bodies on the mountain. I trusted readers to join the dots, and jump straight from Toby having Eddy's gun pointed at him, to the flood of media coverage they'd been watching since. And what a flood it's been – I swear, there's been nothing like it since the live broadcast of OJ Simpson being chased in his Ford Bronco.

Agent Carter didn't like the book. I knew he wouldn't, and he guessed I was the author. He told me that an emotive account could prejudice a trial. But what trial was that going to be, when Toby was already out of their reach?

So the hearings and the court cases dragged on, and were eventually wound up. And thanks to me, then hopefully Toby was a little better understood. That ended some segment of the saga, and leaves us where we are now. Where I'm free to take back my early effort and add the epilogue I'd always wanted. Thus the full edition is born, which is what you picked up in the bookshop, and is what you're reading now.

We're nearly done for this chapter, but allow me one final flight of fancy: that when I think now of Stove-Toby lying there in the square, I imagine Carvel-Toby in his loafers and trailing white labcoat coming and kneeling down by the body, before standing and turning and disappearing forever. I think Carvel-Toby might have understood. In my mind, this brings the two halves back together as one man. I miss him.

Chapter 82 – The Townspeople of Stove

And so what of those characters whose threads I've left hanging? These last pages really need to go to them.

Crawley was found in his bloodied cell – an image beamed around the world that the town could have done without. He was patched up, and instantly committed to the highest-security facility in the land.

The old Sheriff, Lloyd Thornton, looked too frail to have ever done anyone any harm. He was wheeled into court with a blanket over his knees. Even a sentence in a minimum-security penitentiary felt harsh, the way he'd seemed by the end of the trial.

They found the Mayor dead in his car with a bottle of scotch. He'd been there for a while too, pretty much from the time he'd put Toby in his place with harsh words outside the Sheriff's Office. There then was a perceptive man: he knew the game was up hours before it ended.

The upstanding local business-owner and Councillor, whose family Toby had visited that first evening, left his family in Gaidon after the exodus, and disappeared. He later turned up in Florida with a twenty-year-old mistress. She was then 'horrified' to learn that he'd had 'anything to do with that awful story in the papers,' as she declared in a five-figure interview carried in one of those same publications.

Job and Fitch only earned a year or two off their sentences for wilfully presenting themselves to justice. And this for the men who brought the children and the injured down the mountain...

They were tried along with half-a-dozen others of that final roster of Deputies. Some had handed themselves in that extraordinary day, while others had been picked up wandering around Stove or Gaidon, not sure what they were meant to be doing in that brave new world. One was found buttoned up, sitting in the Sheriff's Office awaiting his instructions. A couple ran, but didn't get far – one was caught two towns on from Gaidon, still in his gleaming boots and decorated uniform.

All were sent down on a general Violence Against Minors beef. Although the option was left open for other charges to be brought, should such be identified during the Byzantine legal processes then being gone through. Ridiculously, awaiting trial they were held in different prisons in different states, as if they were a Mafia gang. If nothing else, this made my job of keeping up with them all an Air-Miles freebie giveaway.

Memories of their trial linger: like when items of the Deputy's uniforms were held up in court. The state's attorney stood and described them as, 'Like remnants of a Nuns and Nazis fancy dress party, cast aside in the host's back garden and found the next morning by the pool.'

Those Deputies who did appear at the stand had a very hard time. Yet any hope of the truth being found again foundered on the horns of wildly conflicting testimonies.

The women always have it worst though, don't they; in the tireless manner of that half of the population who have to keep going for families, children, themselves, no matter what. Men are almost expected to act like brutes – there's no surprise when it happens. But the women... people ask the unknowing wives of criminals and deviants, 'How could you live with a monster? How could you stand by and let them do it?' They who had been lied to worst of all.

Yet the women of Stove knew precisely what had happened.

Eddy's wife and children had stayed up on the mountain, and were picked up by the Bureau when they arrived. They didn't dare go down to Gaidon with the others, and were placed under protection, some degree of which they've remained under ever since.

Margaret, the tireless secretary of several Sheriffs, left the state as soon as she was able, and has been living quietly with relations.

The Town Clerk, even before I got down to the task, had written her own angst-ridden self-immolating account of 'The Last Year'. She had presented herself to the police, and seemed disappointed that they couldn't pin a crime on her that carried a sentence to match the weight of guilt she placed upon herself. She has a second book out soon, called 'Moral Crimes: the Punishment we Carry Within'. I can't say I'm expecting it to be a light read when I get my reviewer's copy.

The Head Mistress of the Stove School for Girls appeared unrepentant, as haughty and upright in her public appearances as a Dickensian dowager. 'I have nothing to apologise for,' went her only public utterance outside the court. 'I gave those girls a future.'

She was of an age though where she had nothing to lose. Yet some of the younger ones made a bid for freedom. Lana, the Junior House Mistress, was shown on the rolling news struggling against her arrest at a friend's house in Toledo. That grimace was on the front of every paper the next morning. The last I heard though, she was married – though not to sweetheart Eric – living in a small town I won't name, and working as a hairdresser. Lana then embodied the town's fondest wish – to be re-absorbed into national anonymity. So maybe happiness was possible for Stovians after all?

In general though, what of the former townsfolk? Giving nothing away, those I know are by and large: widely dispersed, out of work, and often outed on national television. A lot bear horrible secrets and guilt: at what they suffered as children, and later inflicted on other children. Mark my words, in future years you'll hear their stories – this is a wound that won't stay sutured.

Despite Eddy's prophecy that final day, for the most part families were allowed to stay together. And even where the father was a Deputy or other bully, mothers were still trusted to keep their children; for it was an unacknowledged truth of the town that in such homes there had been a lot of husband-on-wife violence.

And so the families... endure. And they all ask themselves the same question: did they want the Sheriff's Office punished for past crimes, or were they actually glad at the service they provided in keeping their children safe? It is a tough one, with strong voices on each side. But no consensus has been come to.

One person who might have had an opinion in that debate was Andrew Sippitz, had he ever woken to the world. Against the Doctor's best prognosis, he hasn't improved. He stays within his healing coma to this day. In that state no harm can come to him, no more clubs will be raised. His body may still be repairing, and at some point be strong enough to re-emerge. His parents will never see the machines turned off. Yet with every year that passes, his chance grows slimmer.

A part of me wonders if it isn't purely psychological, and that Andrew is working through his traumas in there. Like hysterical blindness, perhaps he is only hiding from the world until he can bare to face it again? I retain an absurd hope that one day he'll come right out of it.

Chapter 83 – The Promise

I made a promise to Toby on that last day. And here I come good on it:

I took Margaret's advice to 'check the registers', and there he jumped right out at me. 'Matthew Tasco', real name Gerard McCord, a nineteen-year-old first-year returnee. He was reduced to seventeen on the death certificate, to make him seem a little more of a teenage tearaway, one who might take a younger friend out joyriding one night.

He wasn't missed in Stove, as he was raised by an aunt and uncle who'd already left. (There'd been rather a lot of leaving those final years, hadn't there. Toby hadn't been the only one who'd noticed it.) Gerard McCord's absence wouldn't have been noted in Stove until the next winter. Yet in his new home, his summer home, was a girlfriend, and a flatmate as close as any brother. I know because I met with them to confirm the facts. They hadn't even heard of a town called Stove – Gerard had told them he was leaving that winter to work as a ski instructor. Lor, the lies these people told...

When they saw his Stove school photograph, his new friends cried. They'd been running a campaign for four years: printing posters, calling every ski centre in the USA, and spending thousands of their own money having private detectives track his bank card and phone. They couldn't know that neither of these objects would work in Stove at winter.

Before I left their town, I stopped in at a restaurant where Gerard had waited tables. It must have been a good employer, as several of the staff from Gerard's time were still there. They had missed him too – talk about a fellow leaving an impression.

I left that happy little place hating Stove, really cursing it. It left these people with a friend who never got to say goodbye. While all the time he'd been in the churchyard of a town they didn't know, no flowers on his grave, buried under an assumed name. To me that feels almost as heartless as putting a child's lifeless body through the trauma of a car crash. It's still so sad for me to think about.

So, a young life, but not an uneventful one. There you go, Toby. Promise fulfilled, and friends informed. Gerard McCord had his part to play in the story like we all did.

The last word of this epilogue I think needs to go to Janey. She among them managed to become a kind of tarnished heroine. She gave a television interview where she openly – and unrehearsedly – wept for her dead lover, and the women of America folded.

She confessed to everything that went on at the School for Girls – the drugging of pupils, and strapping them to beds. She is now technically a criminal, although no court has issued sentence yet (and if you ask me, none will). I'll not forget the final time we spoke, where she was repentant for all she had to be, and for so much more besides. Truly a personification of sainthood.

She spoke of Toby, and their meeting at the Sheriff's Office that last evening after Toby had been put in charge,

'He came back to me,' she said. 'For that hour he was mine again.'

'He was always yours,' I answered.

She also says that she forgives me for holding her back and letting Toby leave the clinic on the final day - I broke up the last moment that the pair had together.

Sarah and I offered to put her up, but she preferred her own way. The last I heard, she was staying with the Convent of Saint Anna, California. And I really can't think of a better place for her to be. Without Toby to share the weight, she seems to have the whole thing on her shoulders. She's the one I worry for the most, and the one I have least need to worry for.

For the mountain town of Stove found itself in a dilly of a pickle. Yet it counted without the strength of its young people – they couldn't know that they had a golden generation to come who'd dig them out of the hole.

That it would destroy that generation seems to matter little. For it is honesty, understood in that deep historical sense, that is paramount here, and all seem to feel it. Like the dead of ancient wars, it is less important how they lived than that they lived at all, to do what they had to do.

And I knew that that was what my book would have to be about. And so that is how I wrote it. And this is where I end it.
