The rain didn’t fall on Anchester so much as it was thrown, a relentless, horizontal assault that turned the two-lane blacktop into a murky river and made the neon sign of the ‘Rough’ B&B sizzl…

The rain on the roof of the ‘Rough’ B&B was a hard, percussive tattoo, like tiny fists beating a frantic warning against the shingles. It was the only sound that ever drowned out the others—the…

The rain on the roof of the ‘Rough’ Bed & Breakfast was a white noise machine made of nails and gravel. It was the only sound for miles, out here on the old Post Road just outside Anchester, a …

The sign for the ‘Rough’ B&B didn’t so much advertise as warn. The ‘B’ had long since given up the ghost, leaving a sun-bleached scar that read simply “Rough & Breakfast.” It suited the pla…

The rain didn’t fall on Anchester so much as it was wrung from the sky, a sodden, grey cloth twisting over the Hampshire downs. It was the kind of rain that whispered of drowned things and fo…