Lorraine saw a sprinkle of golden lights that might be Burnley. It was time to pull off the motorway. She moved the car down through the gears and swung onto unfamiliar A-roads. Soon she could sense a vast emptiness beyond the strip of unlit road as the little Metro crossed mile upon mile of moorland. For a long time she saw no lights at all, save for her car headlamps’ reflection on drystone walls and the occasional farm gate. There had been no road sign for more than twenty minutes. The little car was climbing now, and she steered it close to a steep bank, fearing an invisible drop beyond the road’s edge.
At a sharp turn her lights picked out a sign: ‘Windwell Village’. Thank God for that. She was tired and her head was buzzing from the noisy rattle inside the car’s cabin. The silver crescent of the moon faintly illuminated a black shape crouching at the top of the hill that seemed to
