Gone to Ground

9780151013630

0151013632

Chapter 1 Will Grayson had been awake since a little after five, the light leaking through the curtains like spoiled milk. An hour earlier, maybe more, Jake had cried out from the middle of a dream, and although Lorraine had stirred beside him, it had been Will who had pushed back the covers and barefooted into the adjoining room. The four-year-old's pajama top was soaked through with sweat, his skin slick to the touch, breath sour on Will's face as he held him close. A dream about wolves. Some animated film to blame, Will thought, wolves, slinky and gray, sliding down between tall silvered trees. "It's all right," Will had murmured. "It's okay. They're not real." For a moment, the boy's eyes seemed to focus on Will's face, taking in the words, and Will had kissed his damp forehead and lowered him back down. "It's early. Go back to sleep." He stood there, watching, until he heard the boy's breathing change. Nestled against the warmth of Lorraine's back, he fell asleep again almost immediately, only to be woken when the baby began to cry and Lorraine, half-blindly, lifted her from the cot and into their bed, fingers unfastening the nightgown at her breast. "I'll go down," Will said. "Make some tea." 5:09. Easing back the curtains, he saw not a wolf but the blurred outline of a fox, tail up, head high, making its dainty way along the edge of open field beyond the garden end. By the time Will had showered and shaved, made a fresh pot of tea and some toast, Lorraine, wearing a sweatshirt and jeans, hair pulled loosely back, had come downstairs. "She's gone off again." "And Jake?" "Still sleeping." Will poured the tea. "I saw a fox," he said. "The same one as before?" "I think so. It's difficult to tell." Lorraine nodded, absent-mindedly. "I was talking to Penny Travis. In the village. You know, she does some child-minding. I mentioned her before." Will looked at her, set aside the knife. "She says she might have a vacancy later in the year; for Susie. Once Jake's started school proper." "We've been through all this," Will said.