the strength, and it's so fast up there, skittering about, before it tenses and makes ready to leap.
'No! Leave me alone. Please!' Kerry screams. Her voice breaks into sobs. She falls to her knees, where the hard stones thump her bones and freeze her thighs. It will get her, swing around her neck, and take her over the side. Raising itself upright on the wall, it hisses with delight.
'Hey!' someone shouts from the shore.
'What the fuck's going on?' another voice bellows, words slurred by drink, the accent local. At the base of the pier, she sees two silhouettes, that run and then bump against each other; the soles of their feet slap in a frenzy, sounding a welcome urgency. On the wall, the thing raises itself to nudge at the air with its mercifully obscured face. Then it glances at Kerry before settling down to its haunches. Rage trembles through it.
The men draw closer, out of breath, intent on reaching the frightened girl, all sunken and witless on the pier. With a sound of dry cerements dragged across stone, the ragged shape disappears over the side of the pier. One of the drunken men has seen it and leans over the wall, ten feet away from where Kerry sits. 'Oi!' he shouts, craning further forward over the edge.
Kerry hears a distant splash, far away and below.
'What . . .?' The man on the wall queries, and squints into the moving darkness below.
'You OK luv?' the other asks, and squats down, wide-eyed with shock. His breath reeks of beer. Kerry sobs – it's the most wonderful thing she can remember smelling.
On shore, away from Kerry and her two saviours, a car engine erupts into life on the road that runs alongside the masts of small fishing boats bobbing and grinding together in the stone-walled dock. Lights flash on, tyres ripple over tarmac, and a sleek black vehicle speeds away towards the Pens archway.
CHAPTER FOUR
'It still seems like an omen.'
'Cut it out, Tom,' Dante says, dropping his head to stare at the sea so far below, rushing in with a foamy roar to crash and then drag itself back across the black rocks and reef. They stand on the coastal path, outside of their new flat at the end of the long and leafy road known as the East Scores, that ambles from the ruined castle to the long pier, the latter built from the consecrated stone of cathedral rubble. Despite the early-morning excitement of waking up in strange beds, in a house somewhere other than Birmingham, they fail in their attempts to ignore a growing sense of unease.
'But within the first ten minutes of us getting here, Johnny Law pulls an arm out of the sea,' Tom continues, his face tense and committed to his point. 'Things like that just don't happen up here. I mean, look around you, Dante. It's beautiful. I bet the place hasn't changed in centuries.'
'Must have been a shark attack. Or some fisherman who fell under the rotor blades of his engine,' Dante says, gazing into the middle distance, the familiar focus of the preoccupied. 'It probably didn't even happen here. You know, just got washed in from the sea.'
Tom follows Dante's stare and looks at the horizon, to find what his friend is searching for. 'And I was looking forward to a swim down there,' he adds quietly, to himself.
Dante looks at his friend's face, at the strong bones and even features, framed by a fringe of silky hair. Tom's lips are pursed and he blinks his eyes quickly as he tries to make sense of things in his own way: not often given to protracted thought or tiring anxiety like Dante, who begins to laugh at himself, and at Tom.
'What?' Tom says. His mouth twitches with the notion of laughter.
'You thought of going for a swim.'
'You're sick. But I do need two arms to play a guitar.'
Dante laughs until he wheezes.
Tom slaps his shoulder. 'Man, why did I let you talk me into this? There's shark-infested waters, no totty, and to top it off our flat is probably haunted.'
'Enough,' Dante says. He wipes his eyes. 'You never cease to amaze me. You have seen some poor bastard's arm on the sand and already your prime concern is pulling.'
Tom grins, relieved their camaraderie has returned. 'I have to do something when you're yakking to Eliot. Which reminds me, you still haven't phoned him, have you?'