The body swung. A thick rope was cast over a rafter. A chair lay on its side in a pool of dirty engine oil. The body swung. The garage smelt of petrol and staleness and death.
A trail of paraffin had seeped from the garage, polluting the crystal-like frost out on the drive. It had been this fluid that had aroused Luke’s curiosity when he had received no response to his knocks and calls.
A blurred movement, seen through the garage window, had alarmed him – he had forced the door.
Unsettled by a light breeze, the body swung. The jaw had fallen open and the eyes glared with a skull popping insanity. Those eyes, those wide-open eyes, stared out into the white, bright outdoors, to where Luke now stood. They seemed to penetrate him, to get beneath his skin and bone and into his mind. They appeared to read his colliding, confused thoughts – filled as they were with profanity and panic.