Dead Man Walking (23 page)

‘So the question is, are they together or separate from each other?’ Heggarty asked.

‘I’m hoping Hazel ran into Mary-Ellen when she arrived here, and that they’ve gone up the Track together,’ Heck said. ‘Course, we won’t know unless we go up there ourselves.’

‘Perhaps there are other residents down here she wants to check on,’ Gemma said.

‘Only two,’ he replied. ‘One of whom has some keys to the boatshed. We’ll have a look down there afterwards if she’s not up at Fellstead Grange. Annie and Hazel have got to be our priority at present.’

They zipped up and pulled on gloves, as the temperature had dropped significantly. Furls of smoky breath hung from their lips, adding to the general miasma, which was now so thick it was like something from the early days of TV sci-fi. The dull, echoing silence only added to this. Heck could sense the immense, towering rock forms that rose on all sides at this end of the Cradle. It wasn’t just eerie, it was otherworldly. He had to struggle to remind himself how normal this place was in ordinary times. How, with fine conditions prevailing, there’d be climbers on the overlooking cliffs, hot sunshine pinpointing them like tiny blue and orange beetles as they made their cautious way across the ancient, weathered faces. Bands of student backpackers would joke and shout to each other as they yomped ahead, ascending the flinty Track with preposterous energy, while families would stick to the lower levels, laughing and calling out while they explored the lakeside nature trails, throwing sticks into the water for their yapping pooches. And at the end of it all, with the azure sky turning indigo and the sun melting in embers on Harrison Stickle, spilling its dazzling glimmer across Witch Cradle Tarn, they’d all reconvene in The Witch’s Kettle beer garden to eat trout and chips, and join in a rousing, ribald chorus that would be heard as far south as Cragwood Race. Heck didn’t like admitting it, but he wished he was there now, doing exactly that.

Gemma brought him back to reality, her boots crunching as she moved to the gate. ‘How come neither car was taken up to Fellstead Grange?’

‘Even in the police Land Rover, the Cradle Track isn’t for the faint-hearted,’ Heck said. ‘You’d be taking a horrendous risk. No one will chance it in this fog. M-E doesn’t spook easily, but trust me, ma’am, you see this route and you’ll understand what I’m talking about.’

They clambered through the stile, and with all three torches spearing ahead of them, set off up the Track side-by-side. It steepened steadily, and soon they were huffing and grunting with the exertion, their torchlight flickering over the various ghostly totems erected alongside it.

‘Looks like someone had nothing better to do,’ Gemma commented.

‘Artists,’ Heck said. ‘Of one kind or another.’

They proceeded for several more minutes, then, at Heck’s insistence, they stopped. When Heggarty queried this, Heck signalled for silence.

They listened, but heard nothing.

‘What?’ Gemma finally asked.

‘Thought I heard a voice. Only briefly, but it sounded like … laughter. Some way off though, I must admit.’

‘These gullies and canyons can amplify sound,’ Heggarty said. ‘Whoever it was, they could be miles away. Climbers maybe, campers.’

They listened a little longer. Still nothing.

‘You couldn’t have been mistaken?’ Gemma wondered.

‘Maybe,’ Heck said thoughtfully. ‘When I found the injured girl on the shores of Witch Cradle Tarn, I thought I heard something then. Whispers … laughter. But there was no one there.’

‘Weird kind of offender,’ Heggarty said. ‘Hanging around at the scene of the crime, laughing.’

‘Be under no illusion, PC Heggarty,’ Gemma advised him. ‘There are some
very
weird offenders.’

They pressed on, and about ten minutes later they reached the right-hand turn leading into Fellstead Corrie. Despite the cold, all three were now damp with sweat and breathing hard. Again they halted and listened. Heck gazed up the remainder of the Track, which, though they couldn’t see much of it, from this point was no more than a scant footpath. He turned, looking back down the section behind them.

‘More laughing?’ Heggarty asked.

‘No … nothing.’

‘Okay. Good.’

But to Heck’s mind it wasn’t good. Like so many detectives who’d spent years and years investigating serious crime, he’d developed an internal alarm system for when something didn’t feel right. It was that old hunch thing so popular in the era before the Police and Criminal Evidence Act, when time-served coppers worked largely on instinct. And it was real. There was nothing magical or mystical about it. Years of experience taught you, particularly in a job like this where observational skills were vital, to subliminally checklist everything your five senses were absorbing, and to stick up a red flag if there was anything that didn’t seem kosher.

He thought he’d heard laughter up here; he thought he’d heard laughter down near the tarn. So did that mean he’d been mistaken
twice
? It seemed unlikely. As Heggarty said, there could be a normal explanation. Climbers or campers, but in this weather that seemed unlikely too.

‘Well?’ Gemma asked him.

Heck shrugged. ‘Nothing. Let’s check the farm out … but let’s turn these lights off first. And no talking either, unless it’s absolutely necessary. This guy’s armed, remember … he doesn’t need to see us to be able to shoot at us.’

They crossed the bridge, their feet unavoidably thudding on the hollow timbers. For several seconds after that they had no reference points at all, and advanced through a world of pure anonymity. It was difficult even to imagine they were progressing forward. Then they passed a gatepost on their left, connected to a tumbledown stone wall covered in desiccated brambles; after that, the rugged ground gave way to old, uneven paving. A few seconds later, the angular shape of a house heaved itself out of the murk.

They halted, stunned.

‘Remember that block of hellhole flats in Salford where I found Ron O’Hoorigan’s body, ma’am?’ Heck eventually asked. ‘After he’d been disembowelled alive?’

‘Yeah,’ she said.

‘I wish we were there now.’

Fellstead Grange was easily the gauntest, most desolate structure they had ever seen. From its silent, featureless bulk, it might have been a derelict ship emerging from an ocean-fret, or an ancient, rusted sub on the floor of a sediment-filled sea.

In light of this, Heck was truly astonished Hazel had come up here on her own. He would never have called her timid, but he knew she was uncomfortable with stories about violence and crime. And yet she must have remarkable depths of strength and character. Either that, or she’d come here in company with Mary-Ellen. Either would be good, though he’d prefer the latter.

They regarded the house for several seconds, finally advancing to its gable wall, which had been built from rough stone and was covered in moss. They tracked along it, moving around the exterior, passing a couple of windows with curtains closed on the inside but fitted with glass so grubby they were impenetrable anyway. When they found what looked like the front door, it was standing ajar. Deep blackness skulked beyond. They slid through it one by one, their torchlight springing to life again, the beams criss-crossing as they flashed around the decayed room, illuminating the dirt and debris. Though they were indoors, there was no discernible change in the icy temperatures and yet despite this a stale fetor hit them; not quite the ‘urine’ stink of a long abandoned building, but a grotty, dank odour.

‘This old girl was living
here
?’ Heggarty said.

‘I’m hoping she still is,’ Heck replied.

‘The fact there are no lights on anywhere suggests she’s absent at present.’

‘Keep it down, eh? Everyone listen up.’

This time they heard something. Three heads turned to the arched black entrance on their left. What sounded like a piece of crockery had clattered somewhere down the passage beyond. Immediately, Heck and Gemma fell one to either side of the arch, left and right respectively. When they passed through, they proceeded down the passage by sliding along its walls.

Heggarty copied them, bringing up the rear behind Heck.

The passage was laid with an old carpet, dingy and gummy, curled along its edges. As they advanced, the stench worsened. Rotted food, Heck realised – they must be approaching the kitchen. But in one way that was good; it meant an occupant had prepared meals here relatively recently. He glanced across the corridor at Gemma, who nodded at the doorway approaching on the left.

Heck stopped alongside it. Only darkness lurked inside, but that was where the spoiled food aroma emanated from. There was another door on Gemma’s side of the passage, a yard past the kitchen door. Gemma indicated to Heggarty to keep an eye on that one. He nodded back, but didn’t look as though he fully comprehended. Of course, this whole process was flawed: they were dealing with an armed suspect, though none of them were armed themselves. But there was no real option. Police officers in Britain were routinely unarmed, and yet faced villains toting guns every day; it was part of their job description – all they could do when it happened was take action to minimise the terrible threat. As such, Heggarty nervously extricated the baton from his belt, easing it open rather than ‘snapping’ it in the time-honoured style.

Heck glanced at Gemma. She nodded again.

He whirled across the left-hand entrance to its opposite side, his torch directed into the far left corner of the room beyond. Gemma darted over too, taking the other side of the door, driving her own beam to its far right corner.

‘Clear!’ Heck said.

It was indeed a kitchen, with a paved floor, a cinder-filled hearth, ancient oak fittings, and an age-blackened kettle-cum-teapot on the hob. Again, dust sheathed everything, and a canopy of webbing hung overhead, multi-limbed monstrosities scampering away from the light, seeking refuge in cracks or crevices. Directly facing them was a stone sink heaped with crockery caked in a detritus of dried food. Two rats, having presumably been digging around amid said crockery, leapt out and bolted in different directions. One scuttled through a broken lower panel in the window over the sink; the other hit the floor and streaked past them across the corridor and through the other doorway. Heck followed it with his beam – and shouted a warning at the sight of a human shape standing there in the recess.

The other two reacted as one, spinning to face this new threat – but just as quickly relaxed. It was a mannequin, the sort you’d find in a department store window or on a display pedestal. Probably sometime in the 1940s.

Heck approached it, bewildered.

It was made from the usual flesh-toned plastic. It had no hair, but its painted features had faded through age; the blue of the eyes and the pink of the lips were barely recognisable. How it had arrived in Annie Beckwith’s possession was anyone’s guess, though she’d clearly been making use of it. Heck now remembered that she’d designed and made her own clothes. By its short hair and V-shaped physique, it was supposed to be male, but it wore female garb – an old woollen cardigan with hooks instead of buttons, and what looked like a patched-up tweed skirt.

Heck pushed the figure aside, shining his torch into the room behind. This might once have been a dining room; it was large enough, with a properly beamed ceiling and ancient wainscoting. But now it was hung with ragged clothing, both men’s and women’s – he also remembered hearing that Annie had once lived here with her parents. Jackets, pairs of trousers, skirts and frocks adorned every wall, suspended along what had once been the curtain rail and from the lintel over a doorway connecting with yet another darkened room. The scent was exclusively rancid. Annie might well use and re-use her old family garments, which in some ways was laudable, but she didn’t have hot running water, so how could she wash these things effectively? Meanwhile, what might once have been a handsome dining table took up the central space. It was dented and scuffed and covered with melted wax from candles that had burned down into puddles. The long dark of the Northern English winter was difficult at the best of times, but the thought of facing it without gas or electricity was horrific.

An Edwardian-era sewing-machine, powered by foot pedal, occupied the far end of the table. The sight of this aged mechanism – which stirred so many memories of Heck’s indomitable grandmother – put a barb of sadness through him, reminding him more than words ever could that they were dealing with a real person here; an elderly lady who’d struggled against the elements all her life, putting in backbreaking hours just to survive. He moved around the table to the next door, but this led only to a walk-in wardrobe hung with yet more tattered relics. Gemma now entered the dining room, Heggarty standing behind her in the doorway. Before anyone could speak, there was a dull thud somewhere overhead. They swapped glances. Another thud followed; it sounded like a foot impacting on timber.

They followed the corridor back to the living room. The front door stood open as they’d left it, but now they noticed another door, beyond which their torchlight picked up the bottom of a staircase. Heck halted briefly at the foot of it, staring at what looked like a recently-placed basket of consumables, complete with a fresh tablecloth over the top, sitting on a side-table. This was all the proof he needed that Hazel at least had been here. But why had he not seen her yet? Why couldn’t he hear her voice as she conversed with old Annie? Why did the place still feel silent and dead? Swiftly, Heck led the way upstairs. They stopped at the top – and heard what sounded like a suppressed whimper. It came from a passage on the left. Heck went down there first.

‘Heck!’ Gemma hissed.

He barely heard her, homing in on a door at the end, coincidentally the only door on the landing that was closed. At the last second his old instincts kicked in again, and he slid to a halt.

There was a soft metallic
click
.

Heggarty had come up behind, but Heck spun from the door, slamming an arm across the tall bobby’s chest, knocking him back against the wall. Gemma, about five yards behind, dived to the left. With a shuddering
BOOM
, and a gale of smoke and splinters, the entire lower half of the door was blasted outward.