Not Far From Aviemore

Not Far From Aviemore

  a 2014 novel by

  Michael Reuel

  Copyright © 2016 by Michael Reuel

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author.

  ISBN 978-0-9928053-1-9

  Acknowledgement

  Numerous sources have helped to inform the depiction of supernatural activity related in this book which, although a work of fiction, draws upon many historical accounts. In particular, this author would not have been able to complete this book without acknowledging the importance of two works on Highland folklore ‘The Big Grey Man of Ben Macdui’ and ‘Legends of the Cairngorms’, both by Affleck Gray, as well as ‘Oddities: A Book of Unexplained Facts’ by Rupert T. Gould for its account of the Devil’s Footprints.

  I

  Of the syndrome

  They did not only attack in the dark, the Hag and her allegiant demon. When falling asleep in daylight their arrival from the depths of Hell, where to the extent of our learning such beings can only after all come from, was not hindered by wariness of the sun or tied to man’s primitive fears of the world. The act of sleep was all they required; loss of consciousness an unlocked door to their ethereal form.

  Hooves had been heard one night of Adam’s early childhood. Hooves had been heard and if heavenly forces and archangels are charged to defend the innocent then that night they were absent.

  They came and went, but who can tell whether the Devil passes many a door in the darkest hours of the night and why indeed should we stir for his fallen presence, or wish to when he does not linger to torch our soul? Were it not for the marks left on the bedroom carpet Beelzebub’s path would not have been a matter for ongoing concern.

  At the time questions were left unasked. There had been no sign of break-in, no trauma or hanging sense of unease. Hoof marks were clear to be seen, the same marks that were caught on camera when Adam’s parents photographed him sitting amongst the pillaging of a five-year-old’s birthday haul, but none were present extreme enough in their religious views to attribute such a sign to evil affairs. Not when there were so many convenient domestic accidents to blame.

  It was many years later when, with a learned eye and the bitter pill of experience, Adam himself came across the photo and was finally given the chance to contemplate what his parents could not; that the Devil had visited on that birthday with a gift of his own.

  A gift and a mark, but no other clue or warning was left; no biblical decree as in the Garden of Gethsemane. His future had been set upon the dark and lonely road of a quest he had not asked to risk his life on. Twas Lucifer’s touch – a tumour on the soul that no x-ray can find. The course of his life was redirected into a desolate and thirsty landscape that could only be tread alone.

  Nightmares began to trouble the young Adam. His parents would hear him crying in his sleep, occasionally sleepwalking. Quiet he became at school and looked to ever be holding a secret he was unwilling to communicate. Subsequently both parents and teachers took him for being bullied and their affections became a frustration in themselves for the conclusions they presumed. No dishonesty ever came from his lips but they heard every truth as a lie and the family that should have been his solace very soon became a burden, even before he had reached those awkward teenage years. So it was that the grip of possession could not be shaken even when its perpetrators were inactive.

  As time wore on he became as astute as any teenager at hiding his troubles and it became of less concern to them, but it was then that the attacks intensified, finding a victim without spiritual or emotional ally, completely at their mercy after years of grooming that only the most obsessive paedophile with a writ from Satan himself could possibly accomplish.

  It began, as with many a young child’s nightmares, with a face in the bedroom wall. Threatening eyes that refused to fade into the dark but remained ever-present no matter how much light the night sky allowed through the curtains. His consciousness could not ignore those bulging pupils, neither did he feel confident in turning his back on such a malicious gaze – should those deranged features ever form into a full being.

  For years he sought to avoid that stare, growing used to a bedtime routine that consisted of diving under the covers as soon as the light had been turned off. All of the time saying nothing while in stale oxygen he waited for sleep, trusting there would be enough to keep him alive through the nightly hours and hoping that one day the eyes would lose interest and leave.

  Such cruel intent and utter devotion cannot so easily be wished away, but no wise head was present to tell him this and soon enough the feeling of a second night-time presence caused his unease to intensify. He would learn the hard way the futility of witless faith.

  Years later his academic achievements and aptitude for learning would lead him to speculate on the tactics behind his haunting. Understanding those early years as being more than just exercising the ability to scare a child, he concluded that he was being hypnotised into a depth of intimidation that allowed a form of possession to take place. Not a possession as many would imagine it; he came to regard it as a bridge between consciousnesses that allowed a hidden offshoot of an unnamed spiritual landscape to be co-inhabited. As a leech might attach itself to a blood donor, Adam’s nightly visitor had sunk its teeth into his soul and was happy to suck him dry for as long as it took to tune to the chord of 666.

  He was eleven years old when it first happened; when a child’s nightmare stopped lurking in the shadows and invaded his very physical presence. He had lain close to sleep when a subtle movement – or else some forgotten instinct – woke him, and he opened his eyes to witness his tormentor fully revealed.

  There she was; the Old Hag. Standing in the centre of the room, psychotic eyes fixing his own as she shuffled ever nearer, her grotesque features caring not to mask the depth of ill will to which Hansel and Gretel had remained ignorant. Familiarity had not bred indifference and his pulse raced with fear of why the Hag was so clearly interested in him and had it come to do more than stare this time? The wait for an answer was unbearable. Seconds enhanced by heightened terror do not pass quickly, but at last the Hag disappeared into the shadows, resulting in the greatest sense of relief Adam had ever experienced.

  Sadly such an encounter would not be a lone memory to file away as a hallucination when he grew into a sensible adult. Some form of momentum was underway that required no signature of consent. Having only wished to get through the following night without being troubled by that wickedness again, Adam would learn that wishing against a devil’s curse was useless. The Hag had studied him thoroughly and the banks of his spiritual defences had burst, enabling lustful demons to spill over into whatever landscape his soul had been misled to wander. Adam had been prey all along for a hunt he did not yet understand. On the next night the Hag returned and he was put through the single most terrifying event of his life since being born.

  There was the Hag again; watching. Always watching and if she had a body it was always cloaked – the only aspect of her visitations that Adam may have acknowledged he was grateful for, but then perhaps it was so because all her power seemed concentrated within that malicious gaze alone and he would never get used to being beheld by it. Something was different this time though, that was certain. Back then it was incomprehensible how the attacks could worsen, but Adam was soon to discover they had not even begun. With horror he realised what was different; he was paralysed.

  Lying on his front with his head to one side, Adam found all he could move was his eyes. In them he beheld the Hag, approaching in that familiar leering manner, if more
purposeful this time. Perhaps the thought of movement had not occurred to him during his panic of the previous night, but he was sure this was a new addition all the same – though there would be many a revelation to reflect on.

  Somehow… and even as a science student he was at a loss to explain how his senses picked up on it… but somehow his mind became aware of another presence from beyond the Hag’s ogling. As yet unseen, it seemed that the figure was in some form of fluctuation, growing or forming within the room, as if by the Hag’s command it was enabled to enter from an unseen doorway with a corridor to the depths of its Hell. An extension of the Hag’s will or else an accomplice, the new arrival was separate in body but demonstrated a singular purpose in the torment of the boy whose life they were invading.

  Simultaneously wondering what this new demon might be and wishing to remain ignorant, Adam endured a sickening wait before beholding the more definite shape of this new guest. Emerging as a texture of darkness that light from the window did not illuminate, it might be supposed the demon was neither a creation of this world or indeed standing within it, as for what other reason can we suppose light itself to be rendered inconsequential? Black was not the word. More like colourless, devoid of light and actuality. Rising adjacent to the Hag, its towering shape was soon unavoidable, firm in width and body, the size of an adult and a match for any strong man. A bottomless despair found Adam then, knowing that he had not the strength to affect whatever the being had come to achieve, not that in his paralysed state he could even make a word of protest. He thought that he would either die or be taken.

  Helpless he lay there, sensing the featureless guest approach and hoping whatever evil it had in store was quick and painless. On the previous night the Hag’s stillness had been broken and now so too was her silence. The time she had anticipated was at last nigh and an unhinged glee had begun to sound from her lips, though it loitered for so long at the back of her throat that it took Adam some time to realise it was building into a foul laughter. Rising to an ever higher pitch, the harpy cackled with the discord of a thousand insane and miserable unfortunates, corpsed for the triumph of evil over the innocent as if what happened in that room, one small victory, was all that mattered and the chaining of Satan was of no concern so long as they had one young boy to torment.

  Adam could make no sound himself though he had begun to consider if that demented drawl might cause one of his parents to come to his aid, but no help came and the perpetrators were free to continue to the main act.

  Suddenly moving with clear purpose, the Hag’s accomplice straddled the bed. Adam knew it was directly behind him, felt warm breath on the back of his neck and the expectation of death and probable suffering was complete.

  Pain did then find him, once again proving his worst fears to be correct. The Hag and her companion could touch him physically, not being ghosts or creatures of mind and vision only. As the laughing reached its peak, Adam was struck by a stabbing pain in his backside; they were murdering him slowly in the most humiliating place and he could only guess at how long that would take with no voice to beg for help or swift conclusion.

  At the age of eleven he may have known the basics of how men and women reproduced, but it would be a few years before he found out that anal sex was also a thing folk of certain sexuality or taste did, and so it was a while before he realised the true motivation behind the attacks and that he was in fact being raped.

  The pain continued to intensify and his paralysed state showed no sign of being broken, until suddenly the thrusting stopped and the Hag’s drawl faded back into the bedroom wall. At length he could move again and, trembling with the shock of his ordeal, made his way to the bathroom where he found that he was indeed bleeding but soon knew he was not dying or, in fact, extensively wounded though it would be morning before he was able to calm his nerves.

  With a life still to be lived, it would seem, Adam was then left to consider how to relate such an experience. This did not prove an easy task and after some deliberation he concluded he did not wish his parents, or anyone else, to learn the truth. Despite this a sense of being let down stung him, for the cacophony and humiliation of the Hag’s laughter would remain ringing in his ears for the rest of his days.

  ‘Did you hear some laughing last night?’ he queried of his father.

  ‘No, not that I recall,’ was the brief answer he received and, once the third attack had occurred, there seemed no reason to tread further and presume help would ever arrive – not from his own world at least. Looking back he could see that a child’s mind caught on more easily to spiritual matters than sexual ones – faster than an adult might, in fact. He knew that by some craft of black magic no sound of Old Hag or her cloaked rapist could be heard by mortal ears that were not themselves witness to its act.

  The attacks continued. Sometimes a week would pass, sometimes a fortnight, leaving Adam grateful for any night that he would not be subject to humiliation and supernatural terror.

  Being accustomed to the experience did not lessen the paralysing effect of the Hag’s stare; the fear it evoked being tied, beyond doubt, to the Hell that mankind will fear eternally.

  Supernatural rapes aside, this story does not take place when Adam was a child. We join him after a decade of adulthood, having turned thirty and, as far as any who knew him may have been concerned, appearing to live a normal life. If his friends and relatives could have looked deeper into the life he had built, however, they would soon find it was very wrong to presume that those childhood visitations did not shape his life and character – not that he had ever spoken of them.

  Adam himself had spent years attempting to better the emotional burden of this phenomenon, sometimes kidding himself he could live with it, while at others aiming as much disdain as a teenager could muster to whatever heavens caused him to be used as such a plaything. For some years he even told himself the abuse was no more than an overactive imagination or a trip down the yellow brick road, but there would come a time when hindsight and reflection caused him to begin thinking deeply about his attacks once more. In doing so a door was opened upon a catharsis that was wider than his closed mind had imagined. The study soon became an obsession as with every thread of self-analysis he began to attribute each fibre of his being to this unearthly crime that afflicted him, to blame every flaw and defect upon its trauma.

  The attacks themselves had become less frequent as he grew into adulthood and sometimes revealed themselves in alternative ways, a factor he did not think deeply on at the time but in recent years has caused him to debate whether a battle for control had once again begun. The Hag would appear, not with the featureless rapist, but sitting on his chest and trying to disrupt his breathing during sleep. Fighting suffocation, he would wake suddenly to find the crone gone, possibly repelled or else having released him. Those who knew Adam might have wondered why a relatively handsome and athletic young man, so academically talented as he was, would suffer from such extreme insomnia or seem so outwardly unpredictable. On reflection, his preference for work over sleep can easily be linked to the Hag’s humiliations, together with the lack of a good-looking girl under his arm every now and then. Not because he lacked attraction but because his enigmatic personality might at best be difficult to warm to and at worst suggest he was unhinged in some way, itself not aided by blood-shot eyes and cheeks gaunt from lack of appetite.

  As a youth he was the most academically gifted of his schoolmates, but in hindsight he would accept this was more due to circumstance than intellect. His troubled mindset better suited to losing itself in study than in popular teenage pursuits. Girls did not warm to him, his home life was strained and, although capable in most sports, he found that tiredness impacted on his fitness when it came to competing at the top levels. It was his brain, not his body, which brought him purpose in life from one year to the next, when all else was fragmented and unsatisfying.

  Later he would wonder whether it was convenient or uncanny that his mind was naturally
drawn to the sciences; would speculate whether an attraction to trusted hard facts were a means by which to distance himself from the unruly realm in which his psyche was entangled.

  Chemistry in particular he excelled at and later, at University, Neurochemistry, having come close to being one of those rare beasts – a working class child who made it to Oxbridge. In the event, his withdrawn and gloomy character did not quite pull off the interview, or suit a college where presenting oneself openly was a desired attribute, and he had to settle for a place at the University of East Anglia where he nevertheless achieved top marks and proved so adept at his subject that he eventually returned to Cambridge for his Masters.

  So it was that a life of learning, which Adam had thrown himself into as a reaction against a terrifying universe, earned him many plaudits and also a well-paid job in the capital. Once accepted, his income didn’t quite stretch to a house in some of the most expensive streets in the country, but a one-bedroom flat sufficed for his needs. He had never learned to be as ambitious in his personal life as he had in academic pursuits or subsequently in professional life, so it turned out that prioritising work was hardly objectionable and, once the attacks began to intensify again, arguably suitable.

  Fortunate as he may have been with his achievements, the period of reflection that kick-started the events of this book, which he jokingly called his ‘mid-life crisis’, was accompanied by a seething and, in many ways, bitter discontent. The mystery of the Old Hag and her cloaked rapist had shaped his existence and proved entirely responsible for the failures of his personal life – more of which will be explained in due course – while ensuring, even twenty years on from their first appearance, that he was less than the person he aspired to be; that he was incomplete.

  One further factor must also be related before proceeding to explain the happenings that unfolded. A storyteller like myself has no interest in following the life of a passive victim, no matter how tragic. Our attention is not brought to these events even by a fascination for the paranormal or ghostly activities. No, the reason both for telling and hearing this story is due to no offhand or frivolous curiosity but to the decision that Adam has taken. Hindsight has at last awoken fury in him and it is because he has promised himself to be passive no longer that the events of this tale are important; the current order of the universe is about to be tested once an arena of battle is opened, regardless of whether the challenger achieves victory or death. All that is certain is that major conflict is nigh and so I will record it in these pages.

  To begin with, however, we join Adam still in the grip of his profession.

  As an individual preparing to instigate conflict, it shall be his responsibility to set events in motion once his own house is in order. Extensive work is yet to be done in drawing players to the battlefield and so the road to his enemies’ door as yet remains hidden.

  A plan of attack is already in development, but by outward appearance there is so far no clue that the fabrics of his life are soon to be torn apart. The date is the 22nd October 2009 and Adam can be found at his desk in one of the many laboratories of Kismet Lore, appearing to pursue the objectives of his department.

  A journey or quest of some kind is ahead of him, that he is preferring to call his ‘expedition’. We join him in no dilemma or uncertainty on this matter; otherwise we would not join him at all. The decision has been made but Adam has no desire to make his existence more complicated than it needs to be, looking to decipher what leeway can be taken from his current life before it falls apart. Clarity has not led to recklessness and he has avoided making statements or drawing undue attention to a mission that will remain a very personal one. A date has been set, however, when events are to be set in motion and, if matters proceed as planned, tomorrow will be his final day at work and will give way to the undertaking that has possessed his thinking over the last few weeks; that has awoken in him a thirst for life and all its possibilities.

  For a short time only Adam remains the scientist endeavouring to progress healthcare for Kismet Lore – a leading biomedical firm with its headquarters in Central London. The office laboratory before him and the results of his academic pursuits will soon belong to his past.

  His initial work for what was a global company had been typically focused and ambitious, resulting in a new three-people department put in place to continue the research he had begun on the subject of Neuromodulation. Recently, however, his focus had shifted from the aim of his department to the obsessions of his personal life and he had been working on autopilot for some months, no longer finding the subject matter satisfying or feeling passionate about pursuing it much further.

  Adam has experienced an awakening. He realised that directing his analytical skills towards the goals of a corporation should be secondary to fulfilling the mysteries of his own life, knowing that an unfulfilled future awaits if he remains oppressed by them.

  In this he was fortunate to have two fine lieutenants partly mentored by himself, though he was not always sure that Suki and Becky needed his assistance and it would not have been fair to have carried on the pretence much longer, watching them working in their usual committed and rigorous manner while he was secretly scouring websites dedicated to the paranormal – his next big assignment not stipulated by the company.

  And so to a meeting with his manager Mr Harris, to find out whether he had read the potential of his situation correctly and if an expedition to unravel the cords of his ongoing abuse would be scheduled to well and truly begin.

  ‘What is this Adam? We’ve been through this before.’

  Mr Harris was sitting forwards with a manuscript in his hand, the manuscript being the latest Neuromodulation paper Adam had been asked to complete, fully edited and submitted for publication. The paper would then be released to the science community and reported on by various health journals for the benefit of fellow professionals.

  Adam’s success in carving out this position was largely due to his skills for presenting information and the engaging thought processes his work always inspired. The efforts of his team in drawing their conclusions was always a collaborative one, so his work was presented as a group paper, but the structure and indeed most of the language was of his own direction. An engaging hand had been the decisive factor that had proven effective in expanding the qualities of the company’s scientific papers – not something the best scientists always achieve, or is even deemed necessary by those employing them, but large companies are pleased with any positive attention their employees earn them and so having his own department enabled Adam to further the work he had begun. A small department to finance for such a company and hardly the core of its business, Adam’s success was also the reason for his laboratory’s vulnerability, for it could easily be sidestepped or deleted from the company accounts if its impact on students and lecturers suddenly lessened.

  At the time of this story, however, Adam was still seen as a safe hand by the company’s directors, although there was one bone of contention on which Mr Harris was never satisfied.

  ‘What do you mean?’ Adam asked, feigning ignorance so that Harris could proceed with his well-rehearsed complaint.

  ‘Adam, you know we’re pleased with your work here,’ he continued. ‘We’ve watched you progress to one of the company’s top scientists because of how methodical and well-researched your standards. Regardless, the bottom line is we can’t send work to a publisher that doesn’t have a conclusion.’

  ‘Well you must be missing some pages,’ Adam replied, he would have to admit he too had rehearsed the conversation, in fact they had had it several times with the tone becoming gradually less professional. ‘Conclusions are usually found at the end, I think there’s a heading too to give you a clue.’

  ‘Yes,’ Harris nodded, being familiar with Adam’s sweetened sarcasm. ‘You know what I’m saying, we’ve been through this before.’

  ‘I can show you what was written in my job description,’ Adam continued, trying to sound co
nciliatory, ‘“to report quantified research backed by firm and substantial evidence”. There are no lies in those pages, every piece of valuable research and interpretation is included.’

  ‘We’re scientists, Adam! We can’t offer incomplete explanations and pass them off for theories. People expect certainties, not half-truths. This is the twenty-first century.’

  ‘Yes, this is the twenty-first century. We can see how science develops and surely what we’ve learnt is that no one theory can offer all the answers and however sound it can always be broken by circumstance and exceptional events.’

  ‘Broken?’

  ‘Challenged then. Look at astronomy, they’re talking about dark matter and a universe with eleven dimensions, debating possibilities we cannot even comprehend.’

  ‘Good science gives people answers; explains to them what they can’t grasp,’ Harris replied, favouring a far less contentious philosophy on his profession.

  ‘Every theory has fragility,’ Adam continued, stretching the sticking point of disagreement as far as he could, ‘speculation that shouldn’t be dismissed.’

  ‘Adam, the science community will tear you apart if you send this for print,’ Harris continued, speaking with a tone that suggested he was trying to talk sense into him, even though Adam knew very well he wasn’t going to let him publish the paper in its current form. The ‘Tony Blair way’ was what Adam called it, having been responsible for giving Harris an unwanted reputation throughout the company that he shared many traits with the former prime minister (based on his ability for appearing to listen at the same time as having no intention to pursue any route other than his own – a tease given further potency by Harris being a Tory voter).

  ‘You can’t submit a major thesis where you debunk your own theory,’ he went on.

  ‘I don’t debunk my own theory; I stand by it,’ Adam replied. ‘I just accept there will be arguments against.’

  ‘They are unnecessary,’ said Harris, shaking his head.

  ‘When Future Lab and Exploration publish their own theories a month afterwards – as they always do – it will be completely one-sided. I’ve answered their attempts to undermine us already by showing exactly how they will oppose our theories, because it’s only common sense to do so anyway.’

  ‘We’re not interested…’ Harris began, but Adam finished his sentence for him, ‘…in interpretations we’re interested in facts.’

  ‘How did you get your Masters with this attitude?’ Harris asked.

  ‘I told them what they wanted to hear; flattered their egos.’

  ‘I’m not asking you to suck up to me you big homo, I’m just asking for the department’s direction to be respected.’ The ‘big homo’ was in reference to a gay bar Adam had accidentally walked into and ordered a drink, rather than the bar across the road where the office night out had been booked. Adam and Harris actually got on very well and were closer to friends than colleagues, which allowed them to have such an unguarded conversation that would not have been tolerated by one of the other directors. Unconventional it may have been, but this openness allowed them both to get straight to the point and deal with matters fairly quickly, meaning they faced very little interference from elsewhere in the company, to whom they succeeded in appearing with a more united front than their one-on-one meetings would suggest.

  A naturally competitive relationship had actually formed outside of work as part of a five-a-side football league – so any tensions would soon be relaxed and forgotten – but Adam wanted to go through the motions just to remind Harris that he had compromised many times for him. The argument was a familiar one; Harris preferred the traditional way of showcasing science as the safe hands of the world, whereas Adam had long grown tired of hearing scientists claim an absolute truth one day only to admit a few years later they were looking at other possibilities. For now though he was resigned to being something of a lone voice within a profession that took pride in deciding how people should live their lives.

  ‘Yeah sure,’ Adam at last conceded with a laugh, giving in to Harris’s next question before he had asked it. ‘You’re my employer and I’ll do what you ask. You asked for my best work and I did it. You want me to revise my conclusion again that’s fine; I’m not emotionally involved in this project, boss.’

  Harris leaned back in his chair, somewhat relieved the contest was over, though puzzled as to whether the victory was really his. If he had known Adam had already written the alternative conclusion...

  ‘So why the intense debate?’ Harris asked.

  ‘Well, I had to make you feel like you’d won something before I asked you about holidays. I couldn’t do it at five-a-side coz your team always loses,’ Adam goaded, knowing he would already be treading a fine line on one of the company’s least favourite issues.

  ‘Well at least the team I support wins things,’ Harris replied with his only defence and a nod to the Liverpool FC picture framed on the office wall.

  ‘Used to,’ Adam corrected him.

  ‘When have I ever been a dick about holidays anyway? How long do you want?’

  ‘Five weeks.’

  ‘Five– Adam the max they’ll agree to is three.’

  ‘I know but they’ll stretch if you ask them nicely, and I need them October.’

  Now Harris really did pull his most proper boss’s face.

  ‘What! Next week?’

  ‘I already got Becky and Suki sorted on all the research they need to know,’ Adam told him. ‘Nothing will go missed. Becky’s twice as good a scientist as I am anyway, and anyone else I know for that matter, you just employed us in the wrong order.’

  Here were the first fabrics of Adam’s expedition, relying solely on Harris’s acquiescence. Booking the holiday in advance would have been too risky; Harris would only have agreed to the holiday with the provision that it could be lessened if important matters arose at the company. Adam would have had to cut all ties – and wages – there and then. This way his workload was timed so there were no pressing matters and the time off would seem amicable. Knowing that Harris would only inform their directors that two, perhaps three weeks had been requested, he would be able to achieve at least some leeway from unemployment as a worse-case scenario, with the possibility that the full five might be further granted through one excuse or another if no in-house disasters demanded his immediate attention and recall over the course of that time. He was lucky in this to have Harris as his direct manager, for none of the other directors would have been as flexible to the personal lifestyles of their employees and he would have begun his expedition with the likelihood of contending with a huge rent bill before much ground had been made.

  ‘Well you said it,’ Harris replied, not in as much disbelief as he might have been with another colleague. He knew of Adam’s loathing of routine and love of unpredictability, being secretly impressed that such qualities could be tailored so effectively into a scientist’s lifestyle.

  ‘Bottom line is I wouldn’t ask if I didn’t need it,’ Adam told him, trusting that his sincerity would count for something.

  ‘Where are you going?’ Harris asked, inadvertently revealing that he would allow the time off. ‘Abroad?’

  ‘I hate flying.’

  ‘You’re not going away? Is it important?’ Harris asked, wondering if Adam was ill or had a family tragedy.

  ‘No,’ was Adam’s deliberately exasperating response, and the look on his face told Harris that his awkward answers would continue from thereon, known as he was for toying with colleagues’ curiosities whenever holding back information.

  ‘I’ll tell you what,’ Harris said, loosening his tone so that Adam knew he had won, ‘I’ll give you your five weeks as long as everything’s sorted before you go – and when you come back that you have your head screwed back on.’

  Only a tactical come down, Adam knew, but because he was the only party completely filled in on the situation he knew it was exactly what he required; a battle is always more effectiv
ely fought if the opponent remains unaware that anything is in jeopardy. Besides, Adam knew that within three weeks Becky and Suki would have Harris completely confident in their abilities and, as long as the department continued to perform, there would be no repercussions.

  So his scheme to effect release from work was secured, but it was only then that Adam found himself wondering what on earth he would say to Becky.