DANIEL HOOD looked at the sleeping child and his heart
swelled. The brown hair tumbled on the smooth brow, the
long lashes dipped on the rounded cheek, the stubby thumb
caught between pursed lips in a defiant last stand against
the end of infancy. He thought she was the most perfect
thing he'd ever seen.
At five years old she was poised on the cusp of life, all
its possibilities opening before her, the magical nowhere
she sprang from still close enough behind to clothe her in
its wonder. Six years ago she hadn't existed in any shape
or form; even the idea of her had not been formulated.
Then a chance encounter between two disparate organisms
began the sequence of events that led to this child, this
Paddy Farrell, this marvellous child lying asleep in his
bed at two o'clock on a May morning.
Seeing her like this, the knowledge that she wasn't his —
that she didn't belong here and wouldn't be staying — was
an ache in him. Daniel liked living alone. It was pleasant
and un-demanding; he had no one to satisfy but himself, he
had never felt the need of another person to make him
whole. But if you wanted one of these you needed another
person, and now, watching Paddy Farrell sleep in his bed
on the night of her fifth birthday, he understood the urge
to pair off. It wasn't about sex or companionship; the
first was available to anyone with the right number of
heads, the second to anyone with a few good friends. But
having a family required commitment. At two o'clock this
spring morning, Daniel felt the temptation.
He was a sentimental man: he knew if he went on watching
the sleeping child his eyes would fill. But he couldn't
bring himself to wake her, to trade that fey creature
woven of light and potential for the real flesh-and-blood
child, grouchy with not enough sleep, complaining of the
cold, demanding food, demanding attention, demanding
amusement. Maybe he'd be glad enough to hand her back to
her mother after breakfast.
He thought he'd get the telescope ready before he woke
her. Saturn was coming into a comfortable position for
viewing. Jupiter would be easier in half an hour. He'd
woken in plenty of time although he didn't own an alarm-
clock. After fifteen years of watching the night sky his
Circadian rhythms were attuned to the music of the spheres.
Still barefoot and with his clothes pulled over his
pyjamas — not from laziness, it was the best way to stay
warm outdoors in the coldest part of the night — he padded
across the living-room, his sleeping-bag crumpled on the
sofa, lifted the telescope from the safety of its corner
and carried it out to the little balcony. The iron bit
like ice and he hurried back inside for his shoes.
The sound of him moving about had penetrated Paddy's
sleep. A mumbled plaint just recognisable as his name
reached him from the bedroom. "Daniel?"
"I'm here. I'm just setting up the telescope."
"Is it there?"
"They're all there. I promised you a clear night."
"Is it raining?" This was her birthday treat, she'd been
looking forward to it for weeks — now she was looking for
excuses to stay cocooned in the warm bed.
"No. But it is cold — you'll need all your warm clothes
on. Tracksuit, coat, boots. Do you need a hand?"
"No thank you," she said primly. On the first day of her
sixth year she was already conscious of the proprieties.
Outside, Daniel carried the heavy telescope carefully down
the iron steps to the shingle shore. His flat over a
netting-shed a few metres above high water suited him in
every way except this one. He needed to extend the balcony
to give him a full field of view, but it would take money
he didn't have and didn't expect to have soon. If what he
wanted to observe was north or east he had to carry the
telescope to the other side of the building.
Oh yes: and the stool, without which Paddy wouldn't be
able to reach the eyepiece. He went back for it and found
her waiting. At least, he supposed it was Paddy: it might
have been an Eskimo with a poor sense of direction. "Your
mum didn't want you getting cold," he guessed.
Paddy nodded. With so many layers on she couldn't bend her
arms, she looked like a teddy-bear.
"First rule of astronomy," said Daniel. "You catch your
death of cold, you don't get to name a comet."
"Can I see a comet?" asked Paddy, pressing her mittened
hand into his.
"Er — no," said Daniel. "Sorry. But I can show you the
moons of Jupiter, and the rings of Saturn, and some binary
stars, and a stellar nursery, and we might see some
meteors. Shooting-stars."
"You can wish on those," said Paddy knowledgeably.
"I know."
"What will you wish for?"
"More meteors," said Daniel. "What will you?"
"To stay at your house again."
Daniel planted her on the stool. He glanced through the
finder, made a tiny adjustment and indicated the eyepiece.
"Look through there. Don't touch the telescope or it'll
slip out of alignment. What can you see?"
The child looked, and blinked, and jerked back and looked
up directly at the night sky. "A big white..." She tailed
off, puzzled that it had gone. "Where is it?"
Daniel pointed at the bright dot that was Jupiter, a spot
of brilliance among a hundred others. "There. That's what
it really looks like from here. The telescope makes it
look bigger."
She looked again. "Wow!"
"Can you see four dots lined up with it, two on each side?
Those are Jupiter's moons — like our moon. Actually there
are fourteen, but these four are the biggest."
"They're tiny!"
"They're a long way away. And Jupiter is much bigger than
Earth. It's the biggest planet in the Solar System."
Daniel wasn't sure how much of this she was taking in. He
was a teacher by profession, but not of children of this
age. He talked to her more or less as he'd talk to an
adult with no knowledge of the subject: she'd make it
plain when she'd had enough.
"Show me something else."
He quartered the sky with the little finderscope until the
curious oval that was Saturn appeared. "Saturn's the one
with the rings. Can you see — like ears on either side?"
"Cool!" said Paddy Farrell, peering. "Can I call Mummy and
tell her?"
Daniel doubted Brodie would appreciate being woken at two-
fifteen a.m. with the news that Saturn had rings. "Maybe
after breakfast."
He was never afterwards sure if he heard voices first, or
the sound of running feet hollow on the rotten boards of
Dimmock's pier.
Either would have been sufficiently unusual at this time
of night to attract attention. The pier was supposed to be
closed, although no one stopped the children who played on
it or the anglers who fished from its end. Occasionally on
summer nights lovers availed themselves of the privacy
offered by its ruined concert-hall, two hundred metres out
over the English Channel. Occasionally in the hour after
closing time young men who were too drunk to go home would
clump around out there, trading beery dares that ended in
a splash.
But it was a Monday morning in May, too late in the night
and too early in the year for any of the usual suspects.
Still with his hand on Paddy's shoulder Daniel turned
towards the pier, brow gathering under the fringe of
yellow hair, grey eyes troubled behind the thick glasses.
The moon was low, bathing the shore in a flat half-light.
He could see two figures on the pier, one behind the
other, occulting the westering stars as they ran. At this
time of night Dimmock couldn't manage a background of
traffic noise, so the thunder of feet on boards and the
angry voices carried easily across a hundred metres of
shingle shore.
Daniel couldn't make out the words but the tone was
unmistakable. Quietly he lifted Paddy down from her stool
and took her up to the flat. "Stay inside," he said
softly. "I'll be back in a minute."
He wasn't sure what he was witnessing. It might be a
police matter, it might not. He wanted to check, and he
didn't want the child with him just in case. He walked
towards the pier.
The shouting stopped, the feet were still. The figures had
vanished in the shadows where the concert-hall canted
drunk-enly at the end of the pier. Perhaps the drama was
over, the differences resolved, the protagonists making up
over the dregs of a six-pack where once Madam Astarte had
told fortunes and a Laughing Policeman had performed for
small denominations of a forgotten currency.
Daniel vented a pent breath and turned for home, glad fate
had let him off the hook. He'd no idea what he'd have done
if he'd stumbled on real violence. He wasn't built for
knocking sense into people. A God with a funny sense of
humour had given him Robin Hood's urge to ride to the
rescue, and Maid Marion's muscles.
A man screamed.
Daniel froze. The blood in his veins turned to ice and the
hair on the back of his neck stood up.
The sound of another human being in that much distress
would, and should, have pulled anyone up short. But Daniel
Hood knew about pain and terror. The last man he heard
screaming like that was himself.
Someone else, mindful of what can happen when decent
citizens tackle vicious thugs, might have hurried on up
the iron steps, locked the door and told himself it was
none of his business and he'd call the police if it was
still going on in half an hour. But Daniel knew how long
half an hour can feel. No one had been close enough to
help when he needed it. But he was close enough to help
whoever was up there, and he couldn't turn his back on
him. It wasn't sensible, it wasn't logical — he could have
had the police on the scene in just a few minutes. But he
couldn't abandon someone in pain for even a few minutes.
He headed for the pier at a slithering, skittering run.
All he had in his pockets were a star-chart and a torch to
read it by. It wasn't even a normal torch but a red one:
the night-blindness induced by white light takes minutes
to clear. So the only weapon he had was his own presence.
As he reached the weed-bearded struts of the crumbling
pier he raised his voice — and hoped he sounded strong and
determined rather than, as he rather suspected, small and
afraid. "What's going on up there?"
Perhaps they were too involved in their own drama to hear
him. Certainly no one answered. There was the shuffle of
movement and when Daniel stood back he could see them,
against the end rail, five metres above the incoming tide.
He heard grunts of exertion, a panic-stricken sob, and one
of them cried out, "Get away from me. Get away from me!"
They were wrestling for some kind of implement. Daniel
couldn't make out who was the aggressor and who the
victim. Finally one of the two figures broke away with the
thing in his hand, raised it above his head and swung it
mightily towards the man cowering against the rail.
Daniel gasped. There was a thick choked wail, then
silence. Then the man still on his feet bent and lifted
the other against the rail, and bending again lifted his
legs and tipped him over. The injured man fell silhouetted
by stars and disappeared with a splash where the sea
gnawed at the timber piles.
Shocked to the core, Daniel yelled something — he had no
idea what — and the man above him, already running back
towards the promenade, startled and froze. He seemed to
real-ise for the first time that he'd been observed. He
looked down at the same moment as Daniel shone the red
torch up. Then he jerked back and hurried on up the pier.
The beat of feet diminished, and then there was nothing
but Daniel and the sea.
And the man who went into the sea, plainly injured but
perhaps not dead. Panting with shock, trying to think,
Daniel turned his torch towards the breakers. He could see
nothing beyond the foam. But he could see most of the
timberwork. Only a little past slack tide, much of the
pier was still high and dry — a man might wade almost as
far as the splash before he was out of his depth.
Having thought that, the rest was inevitable. Daniel
wasn't a strong swimmer but he didn't need to be. All he
had to do was stay on his feet and grope in the darkness
and the foam for an injured man who might still be saved.
He threw off his parka, kicked off his shoes and waded
into the surf.
The sea was both colder and rougher than expected. He
plunged on, drawn by the hope of a miracle that might be
had now but not in five minutes' time. He regretted not
calling the police when he had the chance. But it was no
longer an option: if he turned back now there would be
only a corpse to recover.
By the time the water was round his hips it was hard
keeping his feet. The thick piles broke the tide into
eddies and undertows. Still well short of his goal the sea
swept Daniel hard against the timbers and took the legs
from under him.
He swallowed brine but somehow found his feet and broke
the surface, coughing and gagging and flinging the water
out of his hair. He found the corroded iron of a
crossbrace and clung to it.
Water broke around him like an avalanche. Chilled to the
bone, unable to feel his fingers knotted round the
ironwork, he clung to the pier and knew he would risk his
own life if he ventured one step further into the Channel.
He sucked in the salt-laden air and raised a voice
cracking with despair. "Where are you? Tell me where you
are. I can help you. Please..."
Hard as he listened, no answering cry sounded above the
tumult of the waves. The water surged around his chest,
the cold of it like razor-blades. It was dark under the
pier, he could see nothing but the chiaroscuro breakers,
only knew where the shore lay from their direction and the
shingle sound. His glasses had gone when the sea swept
over him. It hardly mattered. He could have seen nothing
from here, and he had neither the strength nor the courage
to go further.