Wake Wood Read Online Free PDF Page A

been happy within its walls … until he remembered Alice. He pictured her running down the stairs, calling out to him, laughing as she raced into the kitchen to thrust open the fridge door …
    The vision was so real, so powerful; he backed out of the front door, slammed it shut and posted the keys through the letter box. He’d already given their other two sets to the estate agent.
    Louise was sitting waiting for him in the passenger seat of the estate. He climbed into the driver’s seat before turning the ignition and glancing across at her. She was staring directly ahead at the windscreen, sunk into the silent indifference that was now normal for her. He knew that despite his insistence that they start again without any mementoes of Alice, she’d smuggled most of Alice’s possessions into the bags she’d loaded in the car.
    She may have kept them, but he was determined not to give her an opportunity to unpack them. They would remain in the sacks. And one day – soon – he would carry the bags away where Louise would never find them again. Somewhere far from the new cottage and their new lives.
    ‘All right?’ he asked.
    Louise nodded a reply.
    A nod was better than nothing. He set off and concentrated on the road, trying not to think about anything in particular. Once or twice he was tempted to comment on the scenery but, anticipating Louise’s lack of response, he kept his thoughts to himself.
    Three hours later he negotiated a bend just beyond a narrow bridge. A large sign loomed on his right.
    WELCOME TO WAKE WOOD .
    He glanced instinctively in the rear-view mirror, forgetting that the car was packed so high the back window was blocked.
    ‘The town centre’s just ahead of us.’
    If Louise heard him she gave no sign of it.
    He slowed the car’s speed. The field behind the sign sloped upwards to a thicket of close-growing dark woods. In the centre below the line of the trees, the one concession Wake Wood had made to modernity dominated the scenery: a wind farm with its massive turbines. The blades turned slowly and noisily, their din and appearance perversely at odds with what should have been a tranquil scene.
    ‘Not much electricity being generated there,’ he observed. He continued straight and entered the main street of the town.
    The pharmacy was halfway down the commercial centre on the right-hand side. Its windows and door were boarded up and, judging from the water stains on the wood, had been for some time. He stopped the estate momentarily outside the building. The ‘A’ in the word PHARMACY over the door had come adrift and hung at a precarious angle.
    Louise studied the building through the car window.
    ‘It will need some work inside as well as out. Arthur – my new partner – gave me the name of a firm of shopfitters who come highly recommended. I’ve made an appointment for us to meet them here tomorrow.’
    ‘Tomorrow? I need time …’
    ‘And you’ll have it,’ he assured her. ‘It will take them at least a month to complete the refit. It will take us a couple of weeks to set up accounts with the suppliers and get stock delivered.’
    Another nod.
    He’d made progress. There had been times during the past month when Patrick had begun to wonder if he would ever get Louise to Wake Wood. Perhaps she’d be more enthusiastic once she actually met the fitters.
    He checked the wing mirrors. The street yawned behind the car as empty as it was before them. Rain was falling, a light drizzle that had coated the windscreen with a fine mist. He pulled out again, driving past deserted pavements devoid of human or even animal life. The few shops that weren’t boarded up displayed ‘ CLOSED ’ signs in their windows. No blinds or curtains twitched.
    The only movement was the wings of the crows flocking around a television aerial. He loved animals but he’d never liked crows, regarding them as ugly, ragged birds. Scavengers of the worst kind.
    ‘A murder of crows.’
    ‘What?’ He