Read Tyack & Frayne Mysteries 01 - Once Upon A Haunted Moor for Free Online Page B

all right now. What was it about?”
    “Boats, of all things.” Lee sat up. “They were cutting through the water.”
    “Well, you work at the harbour, don’t you? No wonder you dream about that.”
    Lee swung his feet to the floor. “No, there was something bad about them. The fact that there was more than one of them, I mean.”
    “More than one...” Gideon eased onto the sofa beside him. It felt very natural to do so: he only just stopped himself from slinging an arm around Lee’s shoulders while he thought. “Is this like the wheel that was spelled wrong? If these boats are cutting through the water, you’re thinking about the prow. If there’s more than one – prows, right?”
    “Does that mean something to you?”
    “Well, we’ve got a family of ne’er-do-wells in the village called Prowse.”
    Lee gave him an amused sidelong glance. “We’d make a good team. That’s the second time you’ve put my pictures into words.”
    “For all the good it’s done either of us. I might nip round and see Bill again tomorrow, all the same.”
    “I’m not getting any kind of a hit or feel off that name. It’s more like...” Lee faded out. He stared at the carpet with its random constellations of burn marks from the stove. Then, with a suddenness that made Gideon jump, he snapped into a protective curl, clutching the back of his head. “The monster!” he rasped. “In the garden. The monster sees the window – sees the roses, blue and green.” He curled up tighter. “Oh, fuck – it hurts. Gideon, help me – help me see its face.”
    Now Gideon did put an arm around him. He held him hard, deliberately setting aside his own growing fear. He knew what sound had woken him up. “This garden? Don’t be scared. Have a look.”
    “No, not this. It’s dark. The monster’s smiling. Christ, the child is too...”
    Gideon laid his hand on Lee’s bowed head. He knew without looking that James’s model of the Beast would be glowing again. A leaden oppression filled the room. Isolde squeezed herself as far beneath the sofa as her bulk would allow. This time the vibration seemed to pass through Gideon from the timbers of the house itself, and when the howl began – low, resonant, pitching quickly to a shriek – he held still beneath it. The source must be close. The garden? The lane that ran up to the fringes of the moor? He didn’t know – knew only, with a clarity he hadn’t experienced since childhood, that he had to shield Lee from it.
    Lee had other ideas. He sprang to his feet and ran for the front door. He placed both hands on it at chest height, and he was there – lean, upright, defiant – when the scraping at the outside woodwork began. The sound of one great claw... “No,” Lee said softly. “This isn’t who you want. Leave him be.”
    Gideon broke paralysis. Slowly he crossed the room. With a sense of deep purpose – ritual, almost, as if he and Lee Tyack had done this before, met the beast and turned it back – he came to stand close behind his companion. He placed his hands over Lee’s on the door, feeling the bones of his knuckles press against his palms.
    A hush fell. This time it was only the fresh peace of a moorland dawn, and a thread of birdsong shimmered through it. Lee slid his hands out from under Gideon’s and turned around. They were so close that Gideon could feel the sweet vital heat radiating off him. He didn’t step back.
    Lee smiled shakily. “Wow. You’re even better looking close up.”
    Gideon, who had expected anything other than such an observation in the circumstances, and hadn’t realised his guest found him good looking at all, could only stare. “Brown eyes,” Lee went on. “Hair like short-cropped black fur. Broad shoulders – everything sturdy and strong, and...” He paused, his own very different sea-jade eyes lighting up with appreciative mischief. “And a policeman, too. Do you have any idea how incredibly comforting and sexy that is?”
    Gideon