Woodhill Wood (12 page)

"Right."

Gurde dropped the plastic briefcase in the hall and went straight into the sitting room, lifted the lid on the piano and brought his fingers down hard on to the keys. The room filled with the chord. He let the sound fade away, then picked another chord and brought his hands down again, drowning the old sound, driving its remnants from the room. He heard the study door open and the father appeared in the doorway.

"For God's sake, Matt!"

"Hello, Dad. I didn't know you were back."

"Well I am back. And I'm working. Would you mind leaving that until later?"

"Sure. No problem."

"Thank you."

The father went back into the study, clicking the door shut behind him. Gurde closed the lid again. He had done enough. Gurde went into the kitchen, made the usual cup of coffee and a sandwich and then went in to watch the television with Ben.

The mother came back later and Ben went straight through to see her, probably to try and explain what he was doing in the house. They had a short, muffled conversation before Gurde heard her go through into the sitting room. After a while he got bored with the cartoons and went upstairs.

He sat on the bed and did what he could of the Maths exercises that Stewart had set. Luckily the answers were at the back of the book, so, even if he did them wrong, at least he knew that the answers were right. Gurde tried to make it as difficult as possible to read the working-out section just in case Stewart tried to check how he had done them.

He munched through another few chocolate bars from the drawer and hid the empty wrappers inside one of the clean socks. Apart from the constant, distant drone of the television the house was silent. It was strange to think that, although they were in different rooms, the parents were sitting only a few feet apart. Gurde hadn't heard a word pass between them for a week, not since the mother had chased him into the bathroom. Gurde turned on the radio by the bed and lay on top of the covers staring up at the ceiling.

Gurde went downstairs later in the evening to get some food. Ben had already clattered his way into bed and Gurde guessed that the mother was still doing whatever she did in the sitting room. He made a bowl of soup and carried it through into the living room. The father was sitting in his chair at the back of the room waiting for the News to come on the television. A spaghetti-sauce-stained plate lay on the floor by his feet.

"Hello, Matt."

"You finished working?"

"Nearly. I've just got an hour or so to go tonight."

Gurde carried the bowl of soup past the father and sat down with it on the floor.

"Is it still the Jenkinson case?" Gurde asked him.

"Amongst others."

Gurde slurped a taste of tomato from the spoon. It was still too hot to gulp down.

"How's your week been then, son?"

"All right."

"No trouble?"

"No. Why?"

"No reason."

Gurde hesitated for a second. "What's wrong with Mum?"

"That's a good question."

There was a longer pause while we watched the introduction to the News.

"Er... you were working early this morning Dad."

"I wasn't home last night."

"No?"

"I stayed near the office."

"Working on the case?"

"Not exactly. Now, let's watch the News."

Gurde took half a spoonful of soup and swallowed it as quietly as he could.

The newscaster grinned his welcome then forced a serious expression. "Tonight's main story: Another child has been murdered in Kent tonight. Police say that the killing may be linked with the ritual killing of Michael Thompson whose body was found last Saturday night. The body of Kenneth Morris, aged fourteen, was also found near his school, St Thomas', in Gravesend..."

"That's funny," Dad said, "that's my old school."

Gurde felt a tug inside his head.

"...been badly mutilated. Kenneth went missing this afternoon while walking home from school. His body was discovered by the school caretaker. Our Home Affairs correspondent, Frank Graham, is at the scene now. Frank? Any further developments?"

"Well, I have with me Inspector Peter Murphy. Is it correct you suspect the same man is responsible for both murders?"

"There are reasons to suspect a connection, yes."

"Can you tell us what those are? Did he damage the hand of this boy too?"

"I don't think that it would be appropriate to comment on that at the present time."

"Do you have any idea of a motive?"

"Our investigations are continuing but I would ask all parents in the area to be particularly alert. I would also appeal to anybody watching who has any information..."

Gurde put the bowl of soup on the floor. "Dad?"

"Yes, Matt?"

"Which school were you at before that one?"

"I went straight to St Thomas' from primary school."

"Which one? Which primary school?"

"Why do you ask?"

"Just wondering."

"Let me think. Um... It was Green Valley Primary. It was a long time ago."

Gurde's heart was thumping as he sprinted up the stairs to the bedroom. He threw open the bedroom door and lunged for the News of the World that still lay tucked behind the chest of drawers.

He knew what was there, his memory had already found it, but Gurde had to see it written down. He scanned down the columns, trying to spot the words. And there they were, standing out from the page as if they had been printed in a different colour. The first boy to be killed had been found outside Green Valley Primary in Kent. That's what had bothered him when Gurde had first read about the murder: Green Valley was the father's old school. He had seen the photograph of the class. It was on the study wall. Now a second boy had died in some ritual outside another of the father's schools. Gurde reassured himself that it was just a coincidence. Hundreds of boys would have been to both schools over the years. He crept downstairs and went back into the living room. The News had moved on to talking about what the Queen had been doing.

"Dad?" he said.

"Yes."

"Did you have many friends at school?"

"That's a strange question, young man. What's the problem?"

"Well." Gurde thought fast. He could look stupid if the father knew why he was asking. "Well, I haven't got many friends here and I was wondering..."

"If it ran in the family?" The father smiled. "No. Don't worry. You'll make friends in time. Yes, I had quite a few friends at school."

"Did you make them at primary or secondary school?"

"Well. I made some friends at primary but then your grandfather changed jobs so I had to start again at secondary school, although it wasn't called a secondary in my day."

"But.. I thought both schools were in Kent?"

"They were. It's a big county, you know. We moved right down to the south. Down to the coast."

"Oh, you moved house and so you had to go to another school a long way away? You lost all of your old friends?"

"Yes. But I soon made new ones. Don't worry about it, Matt. Things'll be fine."

"Yes."

"Right. I'd better get back to work."

The father carried his plate back through to the kitchen. Gurde watched him until he walked out of sight, then climbed the stairs to bed.

Gurde stared at the red numbers on the clock, trying to bore himself back to sleep, but the longer he stared at the time, the longer it seemed to take for the clock to change from one minute to the next. He kept telling himself to forget about the nightmares and think about moving the pole. But all the time his ears were on full power, listening to every sound as the house cooled and shifted.

He woke for the last time as the curtains began to take on an orange glow. Once the birds were singing, he stopped listening to the house and listened only to them.

It was hunger that drove him out of bed, the half-bowl of soup the night before had not been enough and his stomach gurgled as he sat up. He liked being up early because the house smelt at its best. All the faint scents that had built up over the years had a chance to linger in the still air.

Gurde dressed for the Woodhill: an old pair of patched trousers and a thick woollen jumper with a tear in the shoulder. The sooner he got on to the hill, the better he would feel.

Not wanting to disturb the parents by stomping down the stairs, he carried the walking boots down into the kitchen before pulling them on. His stomach groaned again. There was just enough milk in the fridge to make the Weetabix soggy. As soon as the bowl was empty he tossed it into the sink, put a saucepan full of tomato soup on to the cooker, and went to find a thermos flask.

By the time Gurde had dug the flask out of the cupboard and carried it back to the kitchen, the soup was starting to boil. He poured the soup in carefully, screwed on the lid, squashed the thermos into the little rucksack and slipped out into the breeze.

He had one job to do before going up the hill. He hurried down the drive and turned towards town. The street lights were still on, even though the sun was now over the horizon, catching the underside of the few clouds and turning them pink. It didn't take long to reach the deserted main street.

Gurde hurried along to the Newsagents and slipped inside to see Mr MacKenzie in his usual chair reading a paper. He glanced up, put the newspaper on to the floor and levered himself on to his feet.

"Mornin', Matthew," he said. "What can I do for you this early on a Saturday mornin'?"

Gurde looked along the headlines lying along the counter. He took a copy of the Sun and a copy of the Daily Record. "Just these please."

"No sweets this time?"

"No thanks. Just these."

"You'll still be eatin' the last lot, eh?"

"Yes. Yes."

"Right you are. That'll be twenty pence young man."

Gurde reached into his pocket and pulled out some of the money that should have gone on fish and chips the night before.

"Terrible business," the old man said.

"Aye," Gurde replied.

Mr MacKenzie handed over the change and the papers.

"Cheerio."

Gurde snatched the papers, tucked them under his arm and stepped outside on to the empty pavement. He stopped to look at the front pages. The headlines were similar but the Sun was the more direct: RANDOM CHILD KILLER.

The huge letters filled the page except for a few words at the bottom and the smiling face of the boy in the lower left-hand corner. The boy was wearing a school uniform that, in the black and white photograph, looked just like his own. He wondered what colour it really was. Gurde tore his eyes away from the smile, stuffed both newspapers into the rucksack and started the walk back towards the Wizard's Skull.

As he walked past the bottom of the drive he knew the mother would be up, scrubbing some floor on her hands and knees, or polishing the banisters, keeping herself busy.

Gurde climbed through the fence into the field and cut across the face of the hill. The flocks of sheep were nowhere to be seen. He assumed they must have moved higher up into the maze of bracken and gorse. As he moved on, a startled rabbit shot across the path ahead, and Gurde watched as its white tail bounced all the way down the steep slope to the road.

The clouds had lost their warm colours and the cathedral that was the Woodhill grew closer. As he neared, Gurde could see shapes of the individual trees, each with its own mixture of colours, some red and yellow, some yellow and brown, a dwindling few still proudly green. Another few weeks and there would be no leaves left and the cliff would be naked to the wind, and Gurde would feel naked upon it.

He reached the steep-sided glen down which a cascading stream, the Silver Burn, marking out the line where the hills merged. The water was indeed silver in the morning light, but it was the old mines that had given it its name. Hidden all around lay the wire-covered entrances to the tunnels, waiting like baited traps.

For some reason Gurde turned off the path and clambered down to an overgrown entrance that he knew was hidden only a few yards below. It looked as if somebody had recently ventured in. One side of the wire mesh had been pulled back, and through the darkness he could just make out the dull colours of a crushed Pepsi can, lying on the muddy slope inside.

The mines had lain abandoned for over a hundred years. Everyone knew the stories of those that had been into the tunnels and never come out, and those that had explored and returned having met the devil. But despite those tales he felt drawn to the gaping mouth. Gurde slipped off the rucksack, tossed it on to the grass and sat on the edge of the pit, full of desire to see the forbidden, to know that no part of the hill was forbidden to him.

He rolled on to his chest and used both hands to grip a jagged boulder beside the hole, while he lowered his legs in under the wire.