that case. It must have been a man. But no one can move that quickly. They were standing near the centre of the field and could not possibly have made it back to the trees in only a few seconds, or hidden in the crop, because it grows no higher than a man's ankle. The air seems colder now. But then he's stopped moving, and that would explain why he now shivers. Time to move on, because staring across the field, in the descending dark, hurts his eyes. He shakes his head and carries on.
Got to be the acid.
Has a residue of LSD stayed behind in his synaptic fluids? He has a hazy recollection of many horror stories about bad trips. People hallucinate for sure, but recently, he's only been freaked while he's asleep, or just after he's woken up. The beer must have jogged the chemicals loose and made him think he's seen a man standing in the field.
Walking quickly now, Rick heads toward the first outcrop of sloping grey roofs that forms the periphery of David Russell Hall. Above him, the jet passes. Its rush and roar crack the sky, but he chooses not to lift his eyes off the dusty gravel before him. Not until a sudden flutter of movement beside him brings him to a standstill. In the field something has flitted across the green stalks of the crop. He sees it from the corner of his eye. Something dark moves, flares up like a bear on its hind legs, and then quickly sinks to the ground.
Wheeling around as fast as he can, Rick loses his balance and places his weight on his back foot to stay upright. Someone is there, crouching behind the thin fence, pressed against the wire. In the split second of shock he endures before it moves, he thinks it looks like a heap of sacking, thrown over something long, and all covered in shadow. He feels that where there should be a face, it is bowed. The shape appears to be kneeling. It trembles. Or is it readying itself to leap?
'Who . . .?' he says, but his voice is lost as the jet flings its screaming power above the field and path. And when the thing stretches out arms, the shriek leaving Rick's mouth is gone too, as if the plane has sucked every competing sound into a vast and rapacious vacuum.
'To leave your dirty dishes for someone else to clean is . . . is . . . It's immoral. It suggests a sense of superiority. You are deliberately coercing someone else to clean up your mess. Someone you consider inferior,' Jason mutters to himself as he walks. His head is down between his shoulders, and his eyes look no further than the pieces of smeared, broken and unwashed evidence revolving through his mind. It's an obsession; a neurosis. It has taken over his life. How many hours have been wasted in one year with these constant speculations about Rick and the true extent of his inconsideration? It eats into everything: his relationship with Julie, his thesis, his sleep. Everything has suffered. He hates going home.
Jason turns into the Strathkinness High Road and swallows. The countdown to confrontation has begun. Between the small trees and occasional car, the wide sprawl of grey barrack-like flats becomes visible: Fife Park.
Jason jumps over the tiny perimeter wall and then takes a shortcut across the grass to the flats. The entire settlement looks deserted. Besides himself, Rick, and half a dozen postgrads locked in over the summer, Fife Park emptied back in May. Even the warden has gone on holiday – which is particularly trying because Rick has yanked the door off the oven and broken the seal on the fridge. Life in the flat resembles camping; he's been eating off camping equipment, and his diet has been restricted to freeze-dried foodstuffs and food in tins – all stashed away in his room so Rick cannot pillage the stocks.
He has to confront him tonight. The walk has sobered him slightly, but if he does not pursue the issue now then the prevailing sense of injustice, and the sheer loathing he has developed for this individual, will haunt him for the rest of his life. This demon must be exorcised.
Jason stops walking when he hears a scream. It seems to shoot like a bullet from a building near the carpark, and then ricochets off every window and grey wall in the little lanes that