May 2017

Concealed in the wild rhododendrons at the edge of the garden, Price waited. The stagnant, air pressed around him, each breath filing his nose with the rich, pungent scent of the rotting leaf mould beneath. His jeans, cold and damp where soil pressed them to his skin, clung uncomfortably. He shifted, his shirt chafing at his neck where it stuck to the sweat-soaked skin beneath. He ignored it, and waited.

It wasn't comfortable, but much better than some of the places he'd spent the last few months as he traversed the ruins of Europe at the mercy of vigilantes and looters sprouting in the wake of the war, barely making it out of Paris alive as swathes of the city descending into lawless anarchy. Finally, after six long months, he stepped onto English soil for the first time in three years and began the final slog back home.

No one gave him a second glance. With his scraggy beard, his long, greying hair tied back in a low ponytail at the nape of his neck, and false glasses, he looked like another ageing hippy, winding his way across England talking to the trees and the henges, sleeping rough and looking rougher. Occasionally, he spotted his photograph staring grimly back at him, looking like a stranger, but he averted his eyes, because displayed next to his image, the face of MacTavish, serious, but still full of life, judged him from beyond the grave.

There had been no movement in the house for hours now. Empty, he suspected, but he was taking no chances. He didn't know her regular routine enough to be sure, and he had known her art to make her keep odd hours. He decided to be prudent, and wait for the cover of nightfall.

He wasn't interested in the house, technically, and if this had been a routine, professional job, he would have given it a detached survey and settled down to rest, but when he'd seen it for real, for the first time in over three years, something inside him had cracked, and suddenly, there were memories pouring out that he hadn't even realised he could still remember.

Gaz showed him the derelict shell, his face bright with possibility in the crisp Spring morning, and the sound of the frosted grass crackling underfoot. Price remembered saying that he was a fucking idiot, that it was a pig in a poke, but nothing deterred Gaz's grinning optimism. He remembered the echo of laughter in the barren, newly floored rooms. The wonderful scent of freshly sawn wood in the air. The awful taste of turpentine after an error with a mug of tea. The sharp pain of a blade slicing skin. Blood and dry wood dust on his tongue.

Then suddenly, on a fine summer night it was all over and done. After two long years of slogging it out, it was finally finished. There'd been a party.

"Will you marry me?"

He'd said it in the arbour, the first time they'd been alone all evening, and because, much as he hated to admit it, it had been spectacularly romantic draped in strings of lights. Around them night fell, the fading daylight painting the sky in vibrant shades of pink and gold. She'd looked stunning, even if she didn't believe it, and even with his jacket incongruously draped over her gown, as she shivered in the late evening chill.

He felt like an idiot, genuflected, waiting an age for her to turn round as his knee ground on the cold, hard slabs and for her to do so only when Gaz drunkenly exclaimed "Oh, shit!" behind him.

He stopped, and closed his eyes, breathing hard. The memory had once been joyful, then bittersweet, and once the door of the cell slammed shut behind him, it had turned to ash. He had pushed it so far away that it had almost been forgotten about until it had risen up like an angry cobra, and sank its fangs into him, poisoning his mind with nebulous emotion but now, here, it was so agonising painful to think about that he choked and coughed, the sound like a gunshot over the still grass. He fought to calm himself, but it became more and more of a struggle the closer he came to home, the feelings seeping up through the place he'd buried them, welling and threatening to drown him if he lingered.

He closed his eyes, and rolled onto his back, staring into the darkness of the branches and leaves meshing together above him. Anything to stop looking at the house. Above him, hidden in the dark, a bird trilled, oblivious to his presence. He suddenly felt so tired, so old. He would be fifty soon, a date that was unlikely to be commemorated by anyone, anywhere. He would have been alive for half a century, and for what? A son he'd not seen since he was born. A wife he was too guilty to face.

He rubbed his eyes with gritty fingertips, regretting his stupid decision to return, before stealing himself to the task at hand. He needed the guns, and he was going to get them before he vanished, for the last time, into the mist.

The shed stood on its own, at the rear of the house: a timber box with a slanted felt roof and a double door, behind which he knew stood a ride-on mower and enough tools to start an landscape gardening business: Gaz's unrealised dream. In the moonless night, he could barely see its outline: a blacker shape in the darkness as he padded softly across the long, uncut grass of the lawn.

Price moved swiftly, dodging the range of the security lights. The house still had its original stables: holiday flats now, but if she'd taken the advice MacMillan had dished out, mothballed as a security hazard. Their windows were dark, lifeless holes in the blonde stone walls. He moved on, boxing the buildings by a wide margin, just in case.

He wasn't interested in the contents of the shed per say, but what lay underneath: a concrete bunker that had been slipped into the design without anyone else's knowledge. A secret place for all the accoutrements of his profession that Gaz had gathered over the years, tucked safely away from prying eyes.

Everyone kept a few pieces at home; the bosses turned a blind eye. It would only take one madman with a death-wish to make mincemeat of you, and in Price's opinion, it was better to be prepared. Gaz had been more prepared than was, strictly speaking, necessary, but all the better for Price, planning to disappear into the wilds of rural England as anonymously as possible, but with all the protection he could fit into a stolen hatchback.

Vivianne awoke to an alarm and for a moment, on autopilot, she thumped the clock by the side of the bed. It had no effect, and it took a few more confused seconds before recognised it and jerked into full consciousness..

The security monitor at the side of the bed blinked amber. She picked it up and stared blearily at the display. If the house had been breached, she knew, it would have screamed its siren, but instead… she spotted the problem: the shed.

For a moment, she considered just going back to bed and dealing with it in the morning. No one coming to do her harm would break into the shed. She knew the most likely possibilities included the drunk kids from the village, or any of the farms further up the road.

That did it. She pulled back the covers and sat up. She was going to teach those stupid kids a lesson they wouldn't forget in a hurry and to hell with it. She'd been polite about it, asking nicely if they wouldn't mind not coming into the garden whilst Sam was there, because she didn't want any false alarms and people getting into trouble thinking there were real intruders, but they persisted and laughed about it.

She felt under the bed and pulled the gun out, running her hand over the engraving on the stock and feeling suddenly very old and very alone, just a crotchety old widow in her nightclothes, storming out into the night. She imagined herself: hair wild, oversized t-shirt billowing in the wind and knew it would only put the fear of God into the very young and very surprised, but she was damned if she wasn't going to defend what was hers.

When the door slammed open, Price knew it was over. The room filled with blinding light and he cringed away, holding his hands up against the inevitable surge of force that he knew would come.

"John? John?" The light wobbled and drifted down, away from his face. Pulsing after flashes of purple and red obscured his vision.

He recognised the voice. "Viv?" he said, squinting. He could make out the twin barrels now, inches away from his face. He froze.

The was a pause and then, "Holy shit!" she whispered. "John?"

"Put the gun down, Viv." he said.

"What the fuck are you-" she stopped "Where the fuck have you been?"

"The gun, Viv."

She shifted her grip, pulling her finger back from the trigger and opened the breech. The beam of tactical light swung wildly away across the floor and then there was a click as she pressed the lightswitch and the room was filled with a dim glow.

They looked at each other: her jaw slack in an expression of pure incredulity, and she came to her senses in a second, her mouth closing with a snap and her bearing returning in the same moment, as if suddenly struck by an electrifying force.

"What the fuck are you doing in my shed?"