Time of Blood. Robin Jarvis

the Union Mill is where that hellspawn will be heading,’ said the burly, bearded Irishman. ‘Where it eluded me the last time.’

      ‘Hellspawn?’ repeated his companion with the ginger side whiskers. ‘What has become of the rationalist and his steadfast belief in a natural, scientific explanation for the events here?’

      ‘When a fiend fresh out of Hades knocks your hat off, only a dunce would claim it was the wind. No one’s ever seen anything like that before.’

      ‘Mark the way it wheels about up there. Why such brazen dilly-dallying? I find that singularly suspicious.’

      ‘You think we’re being led by the nose? To what intent?’

      ‘I believe we should heed the counsel of Friar Lawrence in the Romeo tragedy: Wisely and slow. They stumble that run fast.’

      The Irishman scratched his beard. ‘Was that not a caution against falling in love?’

      ‘It is a prudent maxim for every hazardous circumstance.’

      ‘And if, against all scientific reason, we should find that bullets do indeed prove useless against that agent of evil? What do we do then?’

      Brodribb raised his thick brows dramatically and peered over his pince-nez at him.

      ‘Why then, my friend,’ he said with zeal, ‘we do our Christian and theatrical best.’

      Staring back down Flowergate towards the harbour, a spasm of concern clouded his face.

      ‘I pray that young girl reached home safely. If only she had disclosed more. The blame is entirely mine; I should not have dropped out of character. These are the murkiest and deepest waters we have ever waded in. But come – let us hunt our quarry through field and thicket and, as I always say when we embark upon these perilous undertakings, Here’s to our enterprise !’

      On the quayside, Grace Pickering’s discarded body lay by the barrels. Her blood trickled in a vivid stream over the flagstones until it reached the edge, where it dripped into the river.