[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
it up to his nose, gingerly giving it a lick with his tongue. Then he
straightened up, turned back to his uniformed colleague.
'Blood,' he spoke in a whisper, 'fresh blood!'
'Oh Lord.' Houliston recoiled a pace.
'And more footprints.' The detective's features were pale in the reflected
glow from the torch. 'All of 'em coming in here, stopping at this infernal
wall. . . but none going back out!'
'That's . . . impossible!'
'Yes, if you look at it realistically, but it could be a trick though Christ
alone knows what anybody would get out of setting up a thing like this.
Undoubtedly this is an old torture chamber going back to the early eighteenth
century. Not that that is going to figure in any way in our problem.' Somehow
the detective's voice did not ring true. He, too, was scared beneath the bluff
facade he had created.
'Well, there's definitely nobody in the house,' Fillery told the waiting group
as they emerged into the foggy clearing. The ground floor and the cellar are
empty and the upper storey has completely fallen through. Let's continue with
the search outside.'
PC Houliston checked his watch. 11.30. God, they must have been in that place
almost an hour. In spite of this foul stinking mist it was a relief to be
outside.
The line fanned out again, waited for the whistle to blow to send them forward
again. If anything the fog was thicker, creating weird unearthly shapes out of
the twisted marsh trees, boughs that became arms making threatening gestures
at these intruders; the boles demonic faces screwed up in hate and fury. This
is still the land of the old Droys, begone from it whilst you are still
unharmed!
Roy Bean whistled tunelessly through his buck teeth, a habit of his when he
experienced a sense of inferiority. He almost always whistled on shooting days
when he was surrounded by the visiting gentry with their Range Rovers and
Purdey or Boss guns. Deep down he hated them, hated his own role which was to
serve. Sometimes when this obsession really got the better of him he would
take his .22 rifle, fitted with a silencer, up to the feeding points in the
woods and pick off a few handsome cock pheasants " as they pecked the grain he
had thrown down for them. Rader, the butcher in town, would always give him a
few quid for birds on the side. It could cost the gamekeeper his job if he was
found out, but he told himself that the risk was outweighed by the
satisfaction of nicking half-a-dozen brace of the Agent's birds. It got him
one up on the bastards and made him smarter than them.
Old Houliston had had a fright, the keeper could tell from just looking at
him, the way his ruddiness had paled, his hands shaking slightly as he
fidgeted with his stick. Those two had seen something in there they didn't
like. But no way was Roy Bean going to go back to the old house to find out.
No, sir!
He wished he could have carried his gun today. Damn it, he had every right to
because Droy Wood was officially part of his game preserves. But that
officious Superintendent had made him leave it behind in the van. 'Any guns,
gamekeeper, will be carried by police marksmen only.' Yes, sir. Fuck you.
The going was harder now, the reed-beds denser, the ground softer. Roy Bean
used his long ash stick to prod the area in front of him, trying to find the
firmer patches. This fog was getting thicker, too; you couldn't see the man on
your right or left any longer, and the line could not close up anymore or they
would not be able to cover the terrain systematically.
At least that Superintendent had not objected to him bringing Muffin, the
springer spaniel, along. Roy didn't feel right going anywhere without a dog on
the estate. A day in rough cover like this would do her good, cool her ardour.
She never walked, always ran; never stopped searching for a scent. If any of
the missing people were in here Muffin would find them, long before those
snarling police dogs did. Nevertheless, with the fog coming down like this he
would have felt a lot easier with a gun under his arm. Christ, he only hoped
that they had drawn it ail before dark.
The liver and white springer had gone on ahead, probably on a rabbit scent.
Roy whistled urgently. Hell, he didn't want her getting lost in here. No
response, but he could hear her thrashing and splashing about in the rushes up
ahead. He whistled again.
Suddenly the spaniel bitch stopped, a second or two of silence and then she
gave a cry, a yelp . . . Whimpering, yelping again.
'Muffin!' Roy Bean stepped forward, felt himself sink into a patch of
quagmire, the mud viciously sucking at him as though it sought to pull him
down below the surface. 'Fucking hell!'
Fear, anger, and even as he floundered, caught hold of a silver birch
seedling, he saw the spaniel coming back. Her ears were flat on her head, her
tail curled between her legs, running, whining and whimpering. Fleeing!
'You stupid fucking bitch!' If his feet had not been so firmly embedded in the
mud, Roy Bean would have kicked out at her. She ran up to him, came up close
behind him. 'Stupid bugger, you'll knock me back in there. You'll . . .'
His anger tailed off as he glimpsed a movement in the fog ahead of him, a
shape materialising out of the swirling grey vapour. A man. At first he
thought it was one of the search party, a soldier or policeman, perhaps, who
had heard his struggles in the bog and come to investigate.
But no, [he silhouette was wrong, the strange ill-fitting coat, the
triangular-shaped hat with long matted hair falling from beneath it like a
cartoonist's impression of a living scarecrow. And for a second, maybe two,
Roy Bean was afforded a glimpse of the face and he almost screamed. Coarse
features, partially bearded as though mange had taken its toll, sunken sockets
that were eyeless yet saw; the mouth open in a snarl of anger displaying a
double row of broken blackened teeth.
And then it was gone, as suddenly as it had come, fading back into the fog as
though it had never been. A trick of the half-light, the fog? Roy Bean would
have settled for that explanation, told himself over and over again that it
was an illusion, had it not been for the spaniel cringing and whimpering up
against him.
He knew only too well that whatever that thing was it existed.
Dusk was beginning to merge with the thickening fog as the searchers finally
emerged from the village end of Droy Wood, weary, mud-splattered soldiers and
policemen, physically and mentally exhausted, the tracker dogs staying close
to their masters. Nobody spoke, merely glanced dejectedly at one another,
clustering together, waiting for the Superintendent to come across and dismiss
them.
Three missing people: a conservation officer, an attractive naked girl and a
crazed sex-killer were not in Droy Wood.
But everybody sensed that something was.
FOUR
Curled up against the bole of that dead tree Carol Embleton slept fitfully.
And dreamed. An erotic, frightening dream.
She was in a room, a dark gloomy place with no windows, sprawled on the cold
stone floor. Naked. A man stood over her, legs astride, and glancing up she
saw that he was naked, too. And aroused.
Despair, then hope as she made out his features. Andy! Oh thank God! Until she
saw his expression, the flushed angry cheeks, the blazing eyes, the lips
curled in a contemptuous sneer.
'You bitch!' He kicked her with his bare foot, brought a gasp of pain from her
[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
