The Dead Circuit

I checked the tool bucket once more before climbing into the four-wheel-drive works pickup. CK cable strippers, insulated connectors, crimpers, the spare head torch with fresh batteries - everything was where it belonged. The secured drum of 2.5 mm2 cable in the load bed was held tight by two ratchet straps, not one. Good.

I did not need it rolling about behind me halfway up the A890.

The Scottish and Southern Electricity Networks service depot in Strathcarron looked exactly as I had left it two hours earlier: chain-link fencing, gravel, cable drums, utility trailers and a couple of works pickups. Nothing seemed to have moved since October.

The office light was on. Graham Pritchard's pickup was still parked crookedly near the gate.

I was running on nothing. That is not me being dramatic.

For two weeks, I had been sleeping in the cab between call-outs, perhaps four hours at a time if I was lucky. The previous three days had been worse. There was a cot in the mess room at the depot, but whenever I considered using it, the control room called with another outage and I kept going.

It was easier that way. Less stopping and starting.

My hands had begun doing that thing where they felt swollen inside my gloves, although they were not. They were simply tired. Everything was tired.

But the next call was already coming over the works radio.

There was a network fault near the thirty-seven-mile road marker, below Bealach Dubh, the high section of the A890 beyond Strathcarron. I decided to take it before somebody else had to drive out. It made sense. I was already kitted up.

Graham came out of the office when I started the engine. He walked across and knocked on my window, so I lowered it. Cold air poured into the cab.

"Be quick," he said.

"Yeah."

"I mean it, Ewan. Get up there, fix it and get back before dark."

I nodded.

Graham had the look he always wore before delivering a safety lecture, and I really did not want to hear it.

"The roads contractor's reported several skids beyond the thirty-mile marker," he said. "Three this week. They've spread salt and grit, but it isn't helping much."

"All right."

"You hear me?"

"I hear you."

He stepped back from the pickup.

"In and out. Don't mess about."

I raised the window and drove out of the yard. Graham was still standing there in my side mirror when I turned on to the main road, his hands in his pockets and his breath clouding around his face.

He worried too much. That was his entire personality, probably. Worry and paperwork.

The A890 ran out from Strathcarron towards the higher country, and the first fifteen miles or so were straightforward. A reasonable road surface, a few bends, nothing difficult. I had driven it perhaps two hundred times. More than that. I no longer counted.

I passed the village sign, a shuttered roadside stall and the turning from which the road fell away towards Loch Carron. A snowplough had been through recently. You could tell from the clean banks on either side, still sharp and white.

They would not stay that way. The wind was already rising.

The radio crackled. The control room confirmed the location of the fault and asked for my estimated arrival time.

"Forty-five minutes," I said. "Maybe fifty."

The man at the other end said something about conditions being stable.

"Yeah, of course," I replied.

That was the end of it.

I did not deliberately ignore Graham. That would not be quite true. I heard him. I simply did not allow his warning to settle.

He always said the same things. Be careful. Do not stay out too long. Tourists this, weather that.

It had become white noise.

I had worked as an SSEN linesman for six years and had never left the road, so I reckoned I understood what I was doing. The fault was near the thirty-seven-mile marker, just below the pass. Probably a fallen branch or ice loading on the line. It happened all the time in winter.

I would reach it, clear the obstruction, check the connection and head back. Two hours at most.

I kept the heater low. If the cab became too warm, I would start nodding off.

My flask was empty. I had finished the coffee at about 6.00 am and had not refilled it. Stupid, but I had been in a hurry.

The road began climbing after the twenty-mile marker. Highland forestry crowded both sides, dense spruce pressing close, and the wind struck the pickup in intermittent gusts. It was not terrible yet, merely noticeable.

A dark blue hire 4x4 passed in the opposite direction, probably heading back towards Strathcarron. A rental firm's decal sat in the corner of its rear window.

Graham's warning about tourists came back to me for a moment, but I dismissed it. Not my problem.

At the small route-marker plate for thirty miles, the wind turned vicious. There is no better word for it.

It was no longer merely blowing. It came sideways, driving hard grains of snow with it. The flakes did not melt when they struck the windscreen. They built up around the wipers until the blades smeared more than they cleared.

I slowed slightly. Not much, just enough to keep the tyres beneath me.

The edges of the carriageway began to disappear. That happens when snow travels horizontally. The white verge bleeds into the white ditch until you are guessing where the road surface ends. I used the centre line while I could still see it and kept my speed steady. It was easier to feel the road that way.

Thirty-two miles. Thirty-three.

Bealach Dubh was close now. I could feel the elevation changing in my ears.

The radio crackled again with a Traffic Scotland travel bulletin. Conditions on Highland routes were described as manageable. Scattered snow. Standard winter warnings.

I stared through the windscreen. Visibility had fallen to about 10 m, and the tyres lost purchase whenever I touched the brake.

Manageable. Right.

Hearing it made me feel more alone. I do not know why. I had not expected them to announce a whiteout, but the gap between what they described and what I could see felt wrong.

I turned the radio down.

At the thirty-five-mile plate, a wall of wind shoved the pickup roughly 15 cm towards the verge. I corrected and carried on. I was not frightened yet.

I had driven in worse conditions. Not often, but often enough to know how it felt. You stayed smooth. No sudden movements. Do not stamp on the brake. Do not wrench the wheel. Let the vehicle move and keep your hands loose.

My eyes were dry. I blinked repeatedly, but it did little good.

I needed sleep. Proper sleep, not twenty-minute naps in the cab with my boots on. After this job, perhaps I would return to the depot and use the cot.

The small plate marking thirty-seven miles appeared through the snow, with reflective snow poles showing the road edge beyond it. The trees thinned on the right, and I could see the valley falling away into white nothingness. The wind had become constant, a solid pressure from the west rather than separate gusts.

I rounded a bend and saw the tree.

It was a spruce roughly 6 m tall, lying diagonally across the right-hand lane. The trunk was too thick to drive over, and its branches spread into both lanes, their green-black needles already gathering snow.

I slowed to inspect it. The opposing lane was mostly clear. Mostly.

Several thinner branches reached into it, but I thought I could thread the pickup through. The verge on the left was only about a metre wide before the ditch, and the snow concealed its edge.

I should have stopped, climbed out and cleared the smaller branches by hand. Or I should have reported the obstruction and waited for BEAR Scotland's gritting and snowplough crews.

I did neither.

I eased into the other lane and began working past at a crawl of roughly 15 mph, aiming for the narrow gap between the branches and the hidden ditch. The spruce was too substantial to push aside. I had to thread through it.

The load bed cleared the trunk. The front tyres rolled past the heaviest branches without catching. I was congratulating myself for not stopping when the steering went loose beneath my hands.

Black ice.

The pickup slid left. It was not fast, merely steady - the sort of slide in which you understand exactly what is happening and can do nothing to prevent it.

I steered into it and did not brake. That was what you were meant to do.

The pickup continued sideways.

The passenger side touched the snow bank, softly at first and then harder as the back swung round. The entire chassis settled at an angle, the bonnet still pointing along the carriageway while the rear wheels sank into the bank.

That was it. Stuck.

I remained behind the wheel for a moment, my foot off the accelerator and both hands gripping the wheel. The engine ran and the wipers swept. Everything looked normal except that I was sitting diagonally across the right-hand lane, with the tailgate probably intruding into the other one.

I selected reverse and applied a little power.

The tyres spun, then caught. The pickup rocked backwards by about 15 cm.

The engine made a noise I did not like - a heavy, wet bogging sound, as though snow had choked the intake.

I released the accelerator. The engine continued running, but roughly. Then the instrument panel lit up: engine-management, battery and oil-pressure warning lights, all at once.

I switched off, waited three seconds and tried again.

The starter turned more slowly than it should have. Once. Twice.

On the third attempt, the engine caught, but the bogging remained underneath it. I switched off again. I did not want to worsen the problem or flatten the battery. I would need power for the hazard lights, given where the pickup had stopped.

I pressed the hazard switch. The relay began clicking and the indicators flashed.

Then I unclipped the works radio and called Graham.

He answered after two bursts of static.

"Yeah, it's Ewan. I'm stuck."

There was a pause. I heard him breathe out through his nose.

"Where?"

"Near the thirty-seven-mile marker. There's a tree across the road. I tried to get round it and hit ice."

"Are you off the road?"

"Halfway. Rear wheels are buried in the snow bank. The front's still on the carriageway, but I'm blocking most of the lane."

"Engine running?"

"It was. Now it's bogging. It might have taken snow through the intake, so I shut it down before it got worse."

Another pause, longer this time. I could hear him thinking. He might also have been annoyed.

Probably both.

"Hazards on?"

"Yeah."

"Good. Don't try starting it again. You'll need a recovery vehicle."

"I thought so. Are you calling one, or should I?"

"I'll call. It'll be a while, though. Two hours at least in this weather. Longer if the recovery truck's already on another job."

Two hours in a dead pickup at the thirty-seven-mile marker.

Snow was building on the wipers faster than they could shift it.

"The cab's going to get cold," I said.

"Yeah." Graham sounded controlled, as though he were deliberately refusing to let concern into his voice. "Walk on to the BEAR Scotland winter maintenance depot. It's roughly a mile beyond you, on the right. They're operating it for Transport Scotland. Tell the attendant you're stranded and waiting for recovery. They've got heat. They may be able to send a gritter or plough down and save us the recovery call."

I did not like leaving the pickup there, blocking a lane with the hazards draining its battery, but Graham was right about the cold. The cab was already losing warmth.

"All right."

"Call me when you get there."

"Yeah."

The radio clicked off.

I sat without moving for several seconds, looking at the warning lights still glowing on the dash. The battery might run the hazards for an hour before failing completely. Perhaps less in that cold.

I reached across and took the head torch from the passenger seat. I checked the strap. The batteries were fresh; I had changed them two days earlier.

My gloves were already on. I pulled up my hood and zipped my coat to the throat.

Then I picked up my powered two-pole voltage tester from the dashboard. It had probes on short leads and an illuminated display for voltage and continuity readings. I did not need it for a walk along the A890, but I took it anyway.

That was me. I could not leave the pickup without carrying something useful.

I glanced at the windscreen once more before opening the door.

That was when I saw it.

A thin, pale line of frost marked the inside of the glass. It formed a handprint with clean edges: five fingers and a palm pressed flat above the dashboard on the passenger side.

I stared.

The cab was cold, but not cold enough for frost to form inside the windscreen. I had not touched that part of the glass. I had not leaned forwards or put my hand there.

No one had.

Slowly, I held up my own hand beside the print. It was about the same size, perhaps slightly larger.

The frost was real. Individual crystals caught the light.

I drew my hand back.

It bothered me. Not enough to panic, but enough to keep me staring while I tried to decide when it could have formed. Perhaps I had touched the glass earlier and forgotten. Perhaps condensation had behaved strangely.

Nothing made sense.

After another five seconds, I opened the door and stepped into the storm anyway.

One mile, Graham had said. Perhaps twenty minutes on foot.

I began walking.

The wind seemed to come from everywhere at once. It had no direction; it was simply present. The head torch beam vanished a couple of metres ahead, swallowed by horizontal snow.

I kept my head down and followed the point where I thought the road surface met the verge. I could not see the edge. I had to judge it by the texture beneath my boots.

For a while, I counted my steps. I reached 212 before losing track and starting again. Then I lost count somewhere in the nineties. After that, I gave up.

Reflective snow poles marked the road edge at regular intervals. I swept my head torch from side to side until one appeared: a thin post, half buried, its reflective band catching just enough light to show itself.

I aimed for the next. It took longer than it should have. The storm filled every gap and turned the world into white static.

Farther on, I passed a cluster of reflective temporary road bollards placed beside a rough patch in the verge. Their red panels flared in my beam before the snow erased them behind me.

Then I thought I saw tail lights ahead - two faint red points, low and steady.

I quickened my pace and angled towards them. Perhaps another driver had pulled over. Perhaps a BEAR Scotland crew was already clearing the fallen tree.

The lights did not move.

I drew closer. Three metres, then less than two.

I found myself beside a pair of reflectors fixed to roadside posts, throwing my own head torch beam back at me.

That bothered me a little.

I continued.

It happened again about five minutes later. The same steady red glow waited ahead. I approached more slowly because I already knew what it was, although it still resembled tail lights until I came near enough to prove myself wrong.

Another marker, doing its job.

My hands ached inside my gloves. They were not numb yet, but the pain had begun deep in the knuckles and was working its way upwards. I thrust them into my pockets and kept the head torch directed at the ground.

The road curved. I felt the gradient change beneath my boots. Everything else had vanished. There were no trees, no sky, only snow and the small circle of road I could see.

I checked my watch. Fourteen minutes since leaving the pickup. I ought to have been close.

I stopped and turned through a full circle, sweeping the head torch around me.

Nothing but white. No building, no lights, no road - only the idea that a road must still be beneath me.

I found another snow pole and carried on. The wind pushed at my back for several steps, then changed and struck from the side.

My boot caught on something, perhaps a ridge of ice, and I stumbled forwards twice before recovering. I nearly fell.

The frost handprint came back to me. I could not help it.

Its edges had been too clean. I tried to blame condensation or some forgotten touch, but I knew I had not put my hand there. The cab had not been cold enough for frost. Not on the inside.

It did not matter now. The pickup was behind me and I needed to reach the depot.

Twenty-two minutes since I had left. Perhaps twenty-three.

Then I saw light. Real light this time, not a reflection.

A dim yellow lamp barely penetrated the snowfall. I made for it, and the building slowly took shape: a low, broad concrete-block Highland roads depot with a garage bay on the left and a smaller entrance on the right beneath the lamp. A short rear section disappeared into the storm, where I could just make out the line of an equipment shed somewhere behind it.

I walked faster.

My boots found gravel beneath the snow and then a partly cleared patch near the entrance. Someone had shovelled it recently. Not well, but enough.

I seized the handle. The door was unlocked.

It opened inwards, and I stepped through before forcing it shut behind me.

Warmth hit first, followed by the smell: diesel, stale coffee and something else. Grease, perhaps, or merely the air of a building that had remained sealed through winter while the same warmth circulated through its vents.

I lowered my hood and blinked against the light. Fluorescent tubes buzzed overhead, painfully bright after the darkness outside.

The front mess room was small. It had a concrete floor and concrete-block walls painted the particular industrial beige intended to conceal dirt but which only made everything look tired. A folding table stood in the middle with two chairs. A small fridge hummed in one corner, and a coffee machine sat on a metal shelf beside a half-full glass coffee pot that was probably cold.

A side door led into the garage. Beyond another opening, a short rear corridor appeared to serve a small cot room and the external back door.

The far wall held a noticeboard covered with Health and Safety Executive notices about frostbite, wind chill and manual handling, a gritting and ploughing rota organised by A-road sectors, and a missing-person poster. I did not examine it closely.

A man sat at the table.

He was perhaps in his mid-forties, heavily built beneath an insulated jacket, with dark hair, a thick moustache and a face weathered by years outdoors. A contractor-issued handheld radio rested on the table beside a half-eaten Yorkie bar, its wrapper folded back neatly.

He looked up but did not rise. He watched me with an expression that had not yet decided what to make of me.

"Hello," I said.

He nodded once. His gaze went to the SSEN patch on my chest.

"You're the linesman," he said. It was not a question.

"Yeah. Ewan Mercer."

"Douglas Kerr." He gestured towards the empty chair. "You're the one stuck near the thirty-seven-mile marker."

I stopped pulling off my gloves.

"How did you know?"

"Graham Pritchard called it through about ten minutes ago. Said you'd be walking up."

Douglas leant back. The chair creaked beneath him.

"Recovery will be a while. Did he tell you how long?"

"Two hours at least. Probably more."

I shoved my gloves into my pocket and approached the table. My hands were red and stiff. I held them beneath my armpits briefly, then let them hang.

Douglas pushed the other chair out with his boot.

"Sit."

I sat. The metal seat was cold, and my legs began aching as soon as I stopped moving.

"Storm's getting worse," Douglas said flatly.

There was no urgency in his voice. He was stating a fact.

"Yeah."

"We had a plough driver go down the sector you just walked. Left a few hours ago and never checked back in."

He picked up the Yorkie bar, considered it, then set it down again.

I looked at him. "When?"

"Two hours ago. Maybe three."

He shrugged.

"It happens. Radio goes quiet, driver finishes the run and heads to the main yard without reporting in. Bad habit, but it happens."

"Have you tried raising him?"

Douglas tapped the handheld radio twice.

"Nothing but static."

I rubbed my hands together. Feeling returned as pins and needles in my fingertips.

"Is he bringing that lorry back here?"

"No. I'm the only attendant on this shift. The overdue plough is working the road sector. The yellow gritter-plough in our garage is the spare. Its blade's detached for repair, so it's no use for your pickup."

"Have you got a landline?"

"No."

The answer settled into the room and remained there.

I stood and wandered to the noticeboard, scanning without concentrating. HSE safety guidance. Route assignments. A call tree full of numbers that were useless without a telephone.

The missing-person poster was pinned in the centre. It showed a smiling woman, perhaps in her thirties. The heading read MISSING in large red letters.

Fiona Dalrymple, last seen near Strathcarron on 8 January.

I looked away.

"Can I try the radio?" I asked.

Douglas did not move. "Go ahead."

I returned to the table and picked up the standard contractor-issued handheld.

I pressed the transmit button.

"This is Ewan Mercer, SSEN, calling from the BEAR Scotland winter maintenance depot beyond the thirty-seven-mile marker. Does anybody receive?"

Static filled the speaker, loud and empty.

I tried once more.

"Graham, are you there? This is Ewan."

More static, followed by a clicking interference. It was not a code or recognisable pattern. It was random.

I put down the radio.

Douglas watched me.

"Told you."

I sat again.

The isolation was no longer abstract. It had become solid: Douglas and me in a concrete-block building beside the A890, without a telephone, with a failed radio and a recovery truck at least two hours away. Outside, the storm was erasing everything. Somewhere on the road, a plough driver had not checked in.

I was stuck there.

Douglas picked up his chocolate, bit into it and chewed slowly.

"Could be worse," he said after swallowing.

I did not ask how.

He put down the radio and studied it for a moment.

"The aerial's been strange since last week."

I waited.

"Interference," he continued. "Random things. Sometimes nothing at all."

That was plausible. Ice could build on the mast. Wind could loosen its mounting. I had seen worse.

Douglas leant back, making the chair creak. He folded the Yorkie wrapper into a smaller square and laid it down. His hands were broad and rough, shaped by years of outdoor work.

"Saw something yesterday," he said.

His tone had changed. It became lighter, but deliberately so.

"Down past the thirty-four-mile marker."

I said nothing.

"A dead red deer stag. Standing upright in the roadside ditch."

I blinked.

"Just standing there," he continued. "As if it froze halfway through a step."

He attempted a smile, but it did not settle properly on his face.

"Legs locked. Head raised. The entire animal frozen solid."

It could happen. An animal might die in extreme cold and freeze quickly enough for rigor to hold it in position. It was unusual, but not impossible.

"Strange sight," Douglas added.

He was not laughing. He did not sound amused. He was simply telling me.

I nodded because I did not know what else to do with it.

Douglas glanced at the radio, lifted it and set it down again.

I turned towards the noticeboard. I had noticed the missing poster when I entered, but I had not truly looked at it.

Fiona Dalrymple, last seen near Strathcarron on 8 January. The text was clean and clearly printed.

The photograph was not.

Someone had scratched out her face. They had not torn away the picture or covered it. They had attacked it with something sharp - perhaps a key or a knife - cutting so deeply that the paper was pierced in places. Tiny curls hung loose around the deepest gouges. The edge of her dark hair remained visible, as did part of one shoulder, but her face was gone.

I stared longer than I intended.

"Do you want a cot?" Douglas asked behind me.

I turned. He had risen and stood with his hands in his pockets.

"There's one in the back. Nothing fancy, but it's flat."

I thought of the pickup. The hazard relay clicking. The battery draining.

Two hours at least for recovery. Probably longer. There was no sense walking back into the storm.

"Yeah," I said. "I'd appreciate it."

Douglas nodded and began to say something else.

The heater stopped.

One moment it was humming steadily in the background, the sort of white noise you cease to notice. The next, it was silent.

The lights remained on. The fluorescent tubes continued buzzing overhead, and the small fridge still ran in the corner.

But the air turned sharp almost at once. I felt it first on my face and then across my hands.

I looked at Douglas. He was frowning, not alarmed, merely irritated.

"Separate circuit," he muttered, mostly to himself.

He took his hands from his pockets and crossed to the side door leading into the garage.

I stood.

Douglas glanced back.

"Electrical faults are my trade," I said.

He shrugged, pushed through the door and continued into the garage. I followed because remaining behind felt wrong. I worked on electrical systems for a living. Troubleshooting a consumer unit was hardly complicated, and I was not going to sit in a room growing colder while someone else prodded at circuits.

The garage bay was larger than I had expected, with a high roof and a concrete floor stained dark in places. The spare yellow gritter-plough lorry stood on the left. Its paint was faded and chipped, and its detached blade was propped against the wall awaiting repair.

The air smelt of diesel and old oil. It was colder than the mess room; the garage had little insulation.

The consumer unit was fixed to the far wall. Its metal enclosure looked undersized for a building of that type, more suited to a house than a roads depot. Probably a cheap installation done to a tight budget.

Its cover hung open, not merely unlatched but left wide as though somebody had been working there.

Douglas approached and stopped. I joined him.

The circuit labels were not faded. They had been smeared, as if a wet hand had been drawn down the entire column. The ink had become grey pulp, leaving the writing unreadable.

Several miniature circuit breakers had tripped.

Douglas reset them. Each returned with a firm click.

The heater did not restart.

I took the powered two-pole tester from my pocket. I still did not know why I had carried it from the pickup. Habit, perhaps.

I opened the consumer unit fully and checked the incoming supply and main switch. Live supply. Sound connection. I traced the distribution points. Everything appeared normal.

"It should be working," I said.

Douglas did not answer.

I looked up. He was staring at the ceiling rather than the consumer unit, following a length of conduit along the roof structure.

I followed his gaze.

A run of 20 mm galvanised steel conduit rose from the consumer unit, crossed the ceiling and continued towards the back corner, where I assumed the heater was installed.

Roughly two metres from the unit, something had scored a groove into it.

The mark was shallow and spiral-shaped, as if something had coiled around the steel and twisted. The conduit was neither crushed nor dented. A clean line simply wound around it three times before stopping.

I stared.

It could not have been part of the installation. There was no reason for it. It was not corrosion either. The scoring was too fresh, too precise.

Too deliberate.

"What the hell?" I whispered.

Douglas said nothing.

Something struck the garage door.

The impact was heavy and solid. It was not the wind. Wind pushed and rattled; it did not hit once like that.

The sound was loud enough for me to feel it in my chest.

I turned towards the closed aluminium roller door. Douglas turned with me.

Neither of us moved.

For several seconds, nothing happened.

Then came another blow, lower than the first. It landed perhaps a metre above the concrete, rattled the aluminium and ceased.

I remained still. So did Douglas.

We stood in the garage with the consumer unit open behind us, the cold settling around our bodies and that second impact lodged in my chest.

It was not wind. Wind did not knock twice. It did not select a point and strike cleanly.

I told myself a branch might have blown against the building, or a slab of ice might have slid from the roof. Something carried by the storm.

But the second impact had felt deliberate, as if something were testing the door.

That was when it changed for me. It ceased to be a problem caused by the storm and became something else.

Douglas spoke quietly.

"Don't move."

"I wasn't planning to."

He stepped backwards towards the side door into the mess room. Without turning, he reached behind himself, pushed it open with his boot and slipped through, never taking his eyes from the roller door.

I followed. My hands were cold again.

The voltage tester was still in my right hand. I could not remember deciding to keep hold of it, but there it was.

Douglas crossed to a tall metal cabinet beside the small fridge. It held emergency equipment of the sort kept at remote Highland depots: road flares, first-aid supplies, blankets and survival gear.

He opened it, shifted a box and withdrew a marine distress-flare pistol with a bright orange grip and short barrel. The depot was authorised to carry it for signalling rescuers during remote-road emergencies when radios and mobiles failed.

Douglas broke it open, checked that a flare was loaded and snapped it shut.

I looked at the voltage tester, then reached into my coat and drew out the folding utility knife clipped inside my pocket. Its blade was roughly 6 cm long when extended. I did not open it yet. I merely held the handle.

Douglas glanced at me, at the knife and then at the garage door.

He made no comment. What was there to say?

Another impact sounded.

This one struck the side wall facing the road rather than the garage door. The same solitary, heavy blow. Solid, then nothing.

I counted silently.

Five seconds. Six. Seven.

Something moved across the roof.

It was not a bang this time but a long scrape, as though a considerable weight were being dragged over the metal panels. It began above the garage and travelled slowly towards the centre of the building, directly over our heads.

Snow shook loose from the roof structure in the garage. I heard it falling beyond the side door, hissing softly as it struck concrete.

The scraping continued, slow and steady, all the way to the far side of the roof.

Then it stopped.

Douglas's jaw tightened. He held the flare pistol low in his right hand. His other hand touched the radio on his belt, not lifting it, only checking that it remained there, although we both knew it was useless.

"Could be the plough driver," he said.

I did not answer immediately.

The plough driver who had failed to check in for three hours.

"Of course," I said.

Douglas went into the short rear corridor and approached the external back door. A reinforced inspection window, perhaps 20 cm square, was set into it so staff could check outside before opening the door.

He drew a torch from his belt, switched it on and pressed its beam close to the glass.

I remained behind him.

The light cut into the storm and disappeared into white. Douglas angled it down and then upwards, sweeping slowly.

He stopped.

His shoulders became rigid. He did not pull away from the glass. He simply held the beam steady.

"What?" I asked.

He did not answer at once.

The light shifted slightly to the left, and I heard his breath catch.

I stepped closer, though not all the way to the door. From behind his shoulder, I could see the torch illuminating something on the other side of the window.

It was not snow and not part of the door.

Something lay against the glass.

It moved, not with the wind but against it. Snow streaked from left to right through the beam, while the thing slid slowly in the opposite direction.

It looked like hair. Long, dark strands, although the snow and glare made it difficult to be sure.

But it moved wrongly.

It moved as though it possessed weight, yet there was no body attached - only hair dragging itself across the window.

Douglas recoiled and switched off the torch.

His expression was blank. Not exactly frightened. Closed down.

I stepped backwards and caught my boot against a metal bucket beside the shelving. It toppled and struck the concrete with a sharp clang that rang far too loudly through the building.

The roof fell silent.

No scraping. Nothing except, for one impossible instant, the apparent absence even of the wind.

I held still. Douglas did the same.

My heart hammered foolishly against my ribs, the way it does when the mind catches up with what the body has already understood.

Something had been above us.

It had heard the bucket.

I do not know how long we waited. Thirty seconds, perhaps a minute.

Nothing moved on the roof. Eventually the wind became audible again, muffled by the walls, but whatever had been crossing the building did not resume.

Douglas set the flare pistol on the table. He was not putting it away, only leaving it within easy reach.

"We need the generator," he said.

I looked at him.

"The heat's gone and the radio's useless. The generator might restore both. At least the heating."

"Where is it?"

"Behind the building. The equipment shed's about 12 m from the rear door."

Outside.

I said nothing.

Douglas picked up the flare pistol again and turned it in his hands.

"I'll go," he said. "You stay here and lock the door."

I shook my head.

"I'll go."

He stared at me. "You don't know where it is."

"You can tell me."

"It'll be faster if I do it."

"You've got the flare pistol," I said. "If something comes through that door, I've got a voltage tester and a folding knife. You stay here. I'll start the generator."

He did not argue at once. He considered me and then looked down at his own clothes: heavy insulated bib trousers, thick coat and boots designed for standing through a twelve-hour shift, not for moving quickly. He was dressed for a heated depot with occasional trips outside to inspect equipment.

"Straight out of the back door," he said at last. "The shed's about 12 m away. Green metal, roughly two metres by two and a half. You should see it even in this. It's locked. Combination is 2704."

I nodded.

"Generator's a yellow Champion. Pull-start. Petrol tank should be full, but check the gauge. Choke lever's on the left. Pull it out. Give it no more than three pulls, then push the choke back once it catches."

"Understood."

Douglas crossed to the shelf and took down a dark blue woollen scarf, frayed at both ends. He tossed it to me.

"Cover your mouth. You don't want that wind in your lungs."

I caught it. The wool smelt of diesel and old sweat.

I wrapped it around my neck, pulled it over my nose and mouth, and tucked both ends into my coat.

Douglas picked up his torch and handed it to me. It was bigger and heavier than mine, and its beam would punch through the snow better than my head torch.

"Straight out and straight back," he said. "Don't stop. Don't look around. Get it running and get back inside."

"Yeah."

He walked to the rear door, the one I had not yet used, beyond the bulletin board at the end of the short corridor beside the cot room. He unlocked the deadbolt and put his hand on the handle, but did not open it. Then he looked back at me.

"Thirty seconds out," he said. "If you're not back inside within two minutes, I'm coming after you."

I nodded, pulled up my hood and tightened the drawstring. Douglas turned the handle and pushed the door open. The storm came in.

I stepped outside, and Douglas shut the door behind me. The wind struck me head-on. I pulled my scarf tighter over my mouth and switched on his torch. The beam cut perhaps 10 m through the snow before dissolving into white static.

The equipment shed was about 12 m straight out from the rear door. I lowered my head and began walking, counting my steps.

I reached twelve before my boot struck something solid beneath the snow. I stopped and swept the torch down. A wooden pallet lay half-buried there. I stepped over it and carried on.

At twenty-three steps, the shed emerged from the storm. It was roughly 2 m by 2.5 m, its green paint faded mostly to grey. It had metal cladding, a single door facing me and a pitched roof beneath a thick ridge of snow.

As I drew closer, the torch beam caught the ground in front of the door.

There were tracks, but not boot prints. Two long, parallel drag grooves, roughly 20 cm apart, had been carved deep into the snow, as though someone had been pulled by the shoulders while their heels trailed behind. The grooves curved round the left side of the shed, vanished behind it, reappeared on the right and ended directly outside the door.

I stopped.

The combination padlock was still attached, in a manner of speaking. It hung from the hasp, but its shackle had been twisted apart. It had not been cut or snapped with bolt cutters. The metal had been wrenched sideways until it deformed and separated, leaving a corkscrew where the curved shackle had been.

I stood staring at it for three seconds, perhaps four. Then I reached out and pulled the ruined lock free. Its combination wheels still showed 2704 when it dropped into the snow.

I opened the door.

The shed had a concrete floor and no windows. It smelt of petrol and rust. A yellow Champion pull-start generator stood in the centre, exactly as Douglas had described.

I swept the torch across it and saw the starter cord hanging loose. I stepped closer and crouched. The cord had snapped, leaving frayed ends. It had not been cut. It looked as though somebody had hauled on it until it gave way.

I set the torch on the floor, angling the beam towards the generator, and examined the recoil assembly. The cord had separated at the handle. I could not repair it there, not without tools and a replacement cord I did not have.

That was it. No generator. No heat.

I stood and turned towards the door.

That was when I saw the glove.

It lay on the concrete near the back corner. It was an electricity linesman's glove, with a leather palm, insulated back and high cuff. The same make and style as mine.

It still held the shape of a hand. Its fingers curved as though someone had only just slipped free of it, and the thumb projected at an angle. The glove looked full, as if the hand were still inside.

I moved closer, crouched again and nudged it with one finger.

The glove collapsed flat. There was no hand inside it, no weight at all, only the shape it had somehow retained.

Nothing else happened.

I picked up the torch and backed towards the door, my chest tightening. I did not look at the glove again.

Outside, I turned towards the depot. I had taken two steps when I heard the rear door creak.

Douglas was not supposed to open it.

I stopped and aimed the torch at the building. From that angle I could not see the door, only the corner of the concrete-block wall and the snow banking against it.

Then the wind stopped.

It was not a lull or a break between gusts. It ceased completely, as if someone had muted the entire storm. Snow continued to fall, but now it dropped straight down. There was no horizontal movement and no sound.

I turned slowly, raising the torch.

Something scraped directly above me. It was a wet, dragging sound.

I looked up.

The thing clung to the edge of the shed roof. It was pale and far too long, with joints bent in directions they should not have bent. Its limbs resembled branches, but moved like muscle, flexing and gripping the metal eaves with fingers I could not count.

Antler-like shapes sprouted from its back, or perhaps its head. I could not tell where one part ended and another began. They curved forwards and dripped something dark which did not freeze when it struck the snow.

It had no face. Or it did, and my mind could not hold its details. Every time I tried to understand what I was seeing, my thoughts slid away from it.

I stepped back and raised the torch higher. The beam struck the creature full on. It recoiled, drawing one limb back and twisting its body sideways.

Then it stopped and looked at me.

I could not have said how I knew, but I knew.

My other hand still held my powered two-pole voltage tester. I had forgotten I was carrying it. I lifted it without thinking, little more than a reflex, and activated it. Its illuminated display came alive.

The creature flinched. It did not recoil from the torchlight. It pulled away from the tester, retreating by about 15 cm. One of its antler-like branches scraped across the metal roof and gouged a line through the snow.

I stood there with the tester raised as my thoughts finally caught up.

The distribution-network fault. The miniature circuit breaker that kept tripping. The heater circuit failing even though its connections tested correctly. The works radio dying. The spiral scored into the galvanised steel conduit.

It reacted to electrical activity. Perhaps it reacted to interruptions in it. I could not tell which, and I had no time to work it out.

I turned and ran.

The rear door was only a few metres away. I struck it with my shoulder, shoved it open and stumbled inside, then slammed it shut and threw the deadbolt.

Douglas stood by the table, staring at me. In one hand he held the depot's marine distress-flare pistol, part of the authorised emergency signalling kit carried at remote Highland road depots in case stranded crews lost every other means of communication.

"It's outside," I said. "On the shed. We need to..."

Something struck the door.

It was not a bang. It was a long, wet scrape, dragging down from the top edge towards the handle.

Douglas raised the flare pistol and approached the door.

"Don't open it," I said.

He did not. Instead, he turned towards the 20 cm inspection window set into the rear door and aimed through it. He pulled the trigger.

The flare punched through the small pane, leaving a neat hole, and burst into red light outside.

The entire clearing lit up. The snow turned pink. I saw the equipment shed and the paired drag marks. I saw a thin shape moving across the ground near the rear door, hauling itself forwards on too many limbs with a motion that was nothing like walking.

Then I looked past Douglas's shoulder towards the corridor leading to the cot room.

The fluorescent light was still on, humming above it. Something stood at the far end where the corridor turned. It was tall, narrow and dripping, and it was already moving, pulling itself along the wall on limbs that bent backwards.

The thing illuminated outside and the thing within the depot moved at the same time. Whether there were two of them or whether one presence had travelled through the powered building, I could not understand.

"Douglas," I said.

He turned.

The thing folded itself over his shoulders.

I did not see it cross the distance. It was simply there, draped across him like a wet tarpaulin. Then it wrenched him backwards.

Douglas dropped the flare pistol. It struck the concrete floor and skidded towards me. He did not scream. He made one choking sound, and then he was gone, dragged into the corridor.

The fluorescent light went out.

I did not think. I ran through the side door into the garage bay and sprinted to the undersized consumer unit. The cheap installation had bothered me from the moment I saw it. Now I threw down every miniature circuit breaker in one rapid sweep and forced the main switch off.

The depot went black.

The pounding outside stopped.

It did not fade. It simply ceased, as though I had unplugged the entire building and whatever had been using it.

I stood in the darkness, breathing hard, with the voltage tester still clutched in my hand.

I did not search for Douglas. I did not call his name.

I turned and felt my way along the wall until I reached the front door. I found the lock by touch, opened it and stumbled outside.

The noise of the storm rushed back around me: wind, driving snow, the ordinary violence of Highland winter weather.

I began to run. The reflective strips on the snow poles guided me along the A890. I kept Douglas's torch aimed low, sweeping its beam across the carriageway edge and the verge.

The voltage tester remained in my other hand, its illuminated display casting a faint glow, barely enough to show my gloves.

Something scraped along the road edge to my left, keeping pace with me.

I did not look. I ran faster.

After a while, the reflective temporary road bollards I had passed on my outward walk emerged from the snow. Then came the fallen spruce, roughly 6 m of trunk and branches blocking part of the carriageway. Beyond it stood my four-wheel-drive works pickup, still abandoned diagonally across the lane with its rear wheels buried in the snow bank.

Its hazard lights were dark.

I grabbed the door handle, wrenched it open and threw myself into the cab. I slammed and locked the door, then turned the key.

The engine started cleanly. There was no bogging and no hesitation. None of the engine-management, battery or oil-pressure warning lights remained illuminated.

It was as if cutting all power to the depot had released whatever had been choking the pickup, though I had no proof that the two things were connected.

I selected reverse. The rear wheels found purchase and pulled free of the snow bank. I straightened the pickup onto the carriageway, shifted into drive and accelerated south along the A890.

I watched the mirrors. I watched the road. I watched for headlights that never appeared and for shapes that might cross in front of me.

Near the thirty-two-mile marker, identified by its small route-marker plate beside a reflective snow pole, my mobile buzzed.

A weak signal.

I pulled it out with shaking hands and rang Graham Pritchard. He answered on the second ring.

"Are you at the depot?" he asked.

"No."

"Where are you? Are you driving back?"

"The depot isn't safe. Don't send anyone there."

There was a pause.

"What happened?"

"Douglas is gone. The heater's out. The generator's dead. The whole place..."

I stopped. I did not know how to finish the sentence.

"Ewan, what the hell are you talking about?"

"The network fault," I said. "It isn't normal equipment failure."

The next silence was longer.

"You're not making sense."

"I know."

His voice stayed controlled, but I could hear the concern beneath it. "Are you hurt?"

"No."

"Then get back here. We'll talk when you're in."

He ended the call.

I set the mobile on the passenger seat and kept driving.

Around the twenty-mile marker, I began to see scattered lights through the snow. More appeared as I descended, followed by the glow of Strathcarron against the low clouds.

I kept one hand close to the voltage tester in my pocket. Twice, I took it out and studied the display, waiting to see whether it would illuminate without being activated.

If something had followed me, it gave no sign.

I kept checking anyway.