The Calling of the Grave (37 page)

    Then
I heard a muted noise coming from nearby, and at the same time made out a faint
glow coming from one side of the passage. I edged towards it and found myself
at a cleft in the rock. The scrape and grunt of Monk's laboured progress came
from inside, and I could just make out the flickering beam of his torch.

    The
cleft climbed at a steep angle. I had to haul myself up, clambering after the
receding light. I went as fast as I could, but it still grew dimmer. The rough
grain of the rock scraped against my coat, pressing in closer. Soon I couldn't
make out any light at all, or even hear him. I tried to swallow the fear and
bile that rose in my throat.
Stay calm. Just keep going.

    Then
the passage kinked in a sharp dog-leg, and I saw a glow up ahead. Following it,
I found myself in a small, natural chamber in the rock. I halted, dazzled after
the darkness by the dim light from a lantern on the floor. The air was fetid
and sour, a mineral dankness fighting with an animal reek. A hissing gas heater
threw out a warmth that seemed stifling after the cold of the caves. As my eyes
adjusted I took in a jumble of bags, bottles and cans scattered on the floor.
Monk was crouched on a rumpled blanket, looking at me with that not-quite-smile
and dead eyes.

    Huddled
as far away from him as she could get was Sophie.

    
'
Oh, God, D-David
...!'

    She
flung her arms around me as I knelt by her. I stroked her hair as she buried
her face in my shoulder, feeling her body trembling through her coat.

    'Shh,
it's OK.'

    It
was far from that, but the relief I felt at seeing her swamped everything else.
Her face was pale and streaked with tears, the bruise still livid. There was
something else about her, something that wasn't right, but I was too
overwhelmed by finding her to follow up the half-formed thought. She bent her
head to wipe her eyes and it went from my mind.

    'Are
you all right? Has he hurt you?' I asked.

    'No,
he didn't ... I - I'm fine.'

    She
didn't look or sound it, but I felt my relief edge up another notch. Whatever
Monk had in mind, Sophie had fared better than his other victims.

    So
far.

    He
was still on the blanket, watching us, with his big hands dangling from his
knees, scabbed and bruised. The low yellow light from the lantern made the
indentation in his forehead into a shadowed pit. Squatting there, he could have
been a throwback to a more primitive age, a pale, hairless ape hunched in its
cave.

    But
he seemed even more ill than I'd thought. The massive shoulders were slumped
with exhaustion, and the skin was drawn tight across the heavy bones of his
face, tinged with a sickly, jaundiced cast. His mouth hung open as he breathed,
a sibilant wheeze sounding with every rise and fall of his chest. He obviously
had a serious respiratory infection, maybe even pneumonia, and living in these
conditions wouldn't have helped. Monk looked like a man at the end of his
physical limits.

    Except
that Monk wasn't a normal man. And ill or not, the dark eyes watching us were
bright and unblinking.

    I made
myself look back: it was like staring down an attack dog. 'You don't need two
hostages. Let her go.'

    'I
don't want a hostage,' he said, his voice sounding raw. His mouth twitched in a
sneer. 'Think I don't remember you from before? Not so fucking smart now, are
you?'

    
No,
not so smart at all.
'So why've you brought us here?'

    'I
brought her. You just followed.'

    'Then
why did you come to find me?'

    Monk
turned his head to hawk into the corner of the chamber, then sank back against
the rock. His breathing had steadied, but still sounded like air escaping from
a broken bellows.

    'Ask
her.'

    I
turned to Sophie. I could feel her trembling against me. 'I . . .We heard you
shouting. Sound carries down here. When it went quiet, I thought ... I thought.
. .' She gave me a desperate look. Again I felt a sudden disquiet that had
nothing to do with Monk, but her next words drowned it out. 'I told him ... I -
I said you'd be able to help.'

    'I
don't understand.'

    Sophie
glanced nervously across at him. 'He ... he says he can't—'

    'No,
he doesn't
say,
I don't fucking
say,
I
can't
His shout
reverberated in the small chamber. 'I try but I
can't!’
There's nothing
there! It didn't matter before, but it does now!'

    Monk ran
his scabbed hands over his skull, rasping them on the stubble that had started
to grow there. His mouth worked, as though the next words were being torn from
him.

    'I
want to know what I did.'

    Time
didn't seem to exist in the cramped chamber. I'd broken my watch at some point,
shattering the face so that the glass had turned crystalline. Beneath it the
hands were motionless, frozen at between two and three o'clock. Not that it
made much difference down here. The light from the lantern gave the small
chamber an otherworldly quality, intensified by the soporific warmth from the
hissing gas heater. The fumes wouldn't help Monk's breathing, but there was
enough air current down here to stop the build-up from becoming toxic.

    I sat
on a wadded-up plastic sheet, my back against the rock, with Sophie curled
against me. Monk had subsided after his outburst. He seemed exhausted, slumped
forward with his head hung between his raised knees, hands wrapped protectively
around it. The posture made him look oddly vulnerable. He hadn't moved in a
while, and the steady whistle of his breathing made me think he was asleep. But
I still watched him carefully as I lowered my head to Sophie's.

    'What
did he mean?' I whispered.

    'I —
I don't know . . .'

    I
pitched my voice low, not taking my eyes from Monk. 'He must have said
something. Why
does he want help? Help for what?'

    'I
don't
know
! I - I feel so sick, and the fight's too bright.'

    I
shifted so my body shielded her from the lantern. 'Sophie, this is important.
You need to tell me.'

    She
massaged her temples, glancing fearfully across at Monk. 'He ... he says he
can't remember killing those girls. Not just burying them, any of it! He wants
... he thinks I can help, because I said I could help him find the graves, even
if he'd forgotten where they were. But I didn't mean I could help him get his
memory
back! Oh, God, this can't be happening!'

    I
could feel her shaking. I hugged her to me. 'Go on.'

    Sophie
wiped her eyes. 'That's why he was digging round Tina Williams' grave. He
thought ... he thought if he found the graves, saw the bodies again, it'd make
him remember. That's why he came after us when he saw us out there, he knew it
had to be me. But I — I can't do anything like that, that's not what I
meant!'

    'Shh.
I know.' I stroked her back, warily watching Monk. 'What did he mean when he
said it didn't matter before, but it does now?'

    'I -
I don't know. But I told him ... I said you could help. When I heard you
shouting, it was the only thing I could think of. God, I'm so sorry, this is
all my fault!'

    I
held her as she cried herself into an exhausted sleep. I was shattered myself,
bone-weary and aching, but I had to stay awake. I stared across at Monk's
unmoving form, desperately trying to think what to do. Everyone had always
assumed he'd been lying when he'd said he couldn't remember where the Bennett
sisters were buried. Now ... I didn't know.

    Not
that it made any difference. Even if Monk really was suffering from some sort
of amnesia there was nothing Sophie could do about it. She'd been a BIA, not a
psychiatrist. She was no more able to help him recover his memories than I was.
Sooner or later he was going to realize that, and when he did . . .

    I had
to get her out of here.

    Monk
still hadn't moved, and if the deep, wheezing rhythm of his breathing was
anything to go by, his sleep was deeper than ever. But I doubted it was deep
enough for us to slip out without disturbing him.
So what, then? Club him
while he's asleep?
Even assuming I could do something so cold-blooded - and
that he didn't wake and tear me apart - I'd no idea how to get back to the
surface.

    I
looked around the chamber, hoping to see something that might help. The floor
was piled with empty water bottles and food wrappers, discarded gas canisters
and batteries. Some of them were years old, probably dating to the last time
Monk had hidden out here. Near me was a tattered phone directory and a more
recent pile of boxes, ripped open to spill cough linctus, foil packets of
antibiotics and small brown bottles I recognized as smelling salts, clearly
raided from some chemist's. The smelling salts puzzled me, until I made the
connection with the police dog that had tried to track him a few days earlier.

    Smelling
salts contained ammonia.

    The
only other thing nearby was a plastic bag filled with foul- smelling earth. The
musky odour was somehow familiar, but I couldn't place it. Still watching Monk,
I tried to see what else was hidden among the debris. I gently moved a box
aside and stiffened when I saw what lay behind it.

    The
black cylinder of a torch.

    It
was just out of reach. For all I knew it could be broken, and even if it wasn't
we'd still have to get past Monk before we could use it. But at least it
offered a small hope, and right now I needed every little I could get. Careful
not to disturb Sophie, I leaned towards the torch, stretching as far as I
could. My fingers were only inches away from it when I felt a change in the
chamber. The hairs on my arms prickled, as though the air had suddenly become
charged. I looked up.

    Monk
was staring at me.

    Except
he wasn't, not quite. His eyes were fixed on a spot just off to one side. I moistened
my mouth, trying to think of something to say. Before I could he jerked his
head spastically to his right, mouth curling in a one-sided sneer.

    Then
he began to laugh.

    It
was an eerie, phlegm-filled chuckle. It grew louder, rising in pitch until his
shoulders were shaking with the force of it. I flinched as he suddenly lashed
out with a scabbed fist, smacking it sideways into the rough wall beside him.
If it hurt he gave no sign. Still laughing, he thumped his fist into the rock
again. And again.

    Sophie
stirred and gave a restless moan. Without taking my eyes off Monk I put my hand
on her shoulder, willing her to keep still. She subsided, too exhausted to
fully wake as Monk's manic laughter began to die down. At any moment I expected
those dead eyes to turn to us, but it was as though we weren't even there.

    The
last bubble of laughter escaped from his chest, and his breathing slowed back
into the raw wheeze of before. He sat quiescent, blood dripping from the hand
he'd been slamming into the wall, mouth hanging slack as though he were
drugged.

    
Christ!
I'd no idea what had just happened. I knew Monk was unstable, but this . . .
this was something else. It had seemed involuntary, as though he hadn't even
been aware of it himself. Or even really conscious. From nowhere, something
Roper had said all those years ago suddenly came back to me:
He kicked off
on one last night. . . One of his party pieces, apparently, having a tantrum
after lights out. That's why the guards call him laughing boy.

    Monk
was starting to stir, blinking slowly as though he were waking up. Another
coughing fit racked him. When it passed he cleared his throat and spat on to
the floor. It seemed to exhaust him. He rubbed a hand over his face, the same
one he'd punched the wall with. He frowned when he saw the blood on it, then
realized I was watching.

    'The
fuck you looking at?'

    I
quickly looked away. Trying to sound unconcerned, I picked up one of the foil
packs of antibiotics that lay on the floor nearby. 'These won't do your chest
infection any good.'

    'How
would you know?'

    'I
used to be a doctor.'

    'Fuck
off.'

    I
dropped the tablets back into the mess. 'OK, don't believe me. But they're for
bladder infections, not respiratory tract.'