Flood by Ian Rankin Read Free Book Online Page A

chew on his ballpoint pen and stare at the wall. There were no exams important enough to be worth studying for on days like that, days which would be emerging again soon by the look of the buds on the trees, though there was a coolness to the sun still, like porridge watered and milk-soft.

    He clambered over a wall and skirted the edge of a field.
    His mother would be expecting him home, but she was not anxious these days if he was a bit late. He was fifteen and could stay out till after ten o'clock if he liked; could say that he had been visiting a friend without really having to lie. He had some friends at school - Mark, Clark, Colin - but he could not visit them comfortably in their homes. Sometimes they flushed as they tried to lie an explanation to him as to why he could not actually enter their houses. He was old enough now to shrug off most of the resentment. He knew that it was the old-fashioned stubbornness of the parents that was to blame, that kept him waiting at street corners, hands slouched low in his pockets. He knew that some of his friends even had to lie to their parents in order to go out with him. Fuck that. Fuck that. Could he dye his hair and change his mother into something else? That was it all right.
    That was it. His shoes stamped deeper into the soft earth as he trudged towards his destination. At least he could be sure of being accepted there without fear of embarrassment.
    Even if it was dangerous. Even if someone saw him and told his mother. Did anyone care about him that much or mind him that much? He doubted it.

    On the golf course to his left some men were shouting and hitting the ball off the first tee with a satisfying swish.
    Sandy might want some clubs for his birthday in September, a whole summer away. If he had a job he could save the money to buy them. He had only to wait until Christmas. He could not leave school until Christmas. Then he would buy everything on his list: golf clubs and motorbike and all. He would get a job in Glenrothes if he could, and one day he might move away from the area. His mother wanted him to stay on at school to do Higher exams. Where was the future in that? The only future was to see yourself at the first tee with your half-set or even full set of clubs, plus all the extras. Teeing off, the ball going swish into the sky like a tiny satellite. That was the future. He climbed another wall, higher than the first, and was in the garden of an empty mansion.

2

    Her grandmother had made the most beautiful shawls, crocheted intricacies of nature. She placed them back in the chest. Her mother too had worked with wool. A jersey remained, as fresh as washing on a line. She put it back, patting it neatly into place on top of the shawls. There was still a good six inches of space to the brim of the chest. She could not hope to fill that space, for her own hands were out of touch with delicacy. They could never know the peace of mind that comes with patterns. She closed the heavy lid of the brass chest and sat down on it, humming softly. This room smelled damp even in the spring and summer. In winter it was an ice-box, unusable. No electric fire could take anything but a superficial chill from the air, leaving still the depth of the room's iciness, a depth beyond mere physical presence. She looked at her watch. He would be home from school soon, her son, her only child, her bastard. Born out of shame . . . But what was the use in thinking about all that?
    She had spent too long thinking back to it. She rose from the chest and started downstairs, holding on to the banister with one of her long, awkward hands. She felt weak today.
    Her period was coming on. She would have to be careful not to snap at Sandy. He was always in a sulk these days. His age, she supposed. He was either out for much of the night, or else sat in his room with the record-player blaring, and even when he deigned to slip downstairs around ten o'clock he would say that he had been studying. What