A Deadly Compulsion (31 page)

The brief struggle was over, and the insight that Hugh glimpsed through the many faceted, stained-glass window of his fragmented personality, consumed him.  He shut down, unable to face the reality of what he was, or the enormity of what he had done. He retreated, back in time, erasing the years as though he were in a lift, plunging down past many floors at sickening speed, away from the present, to finally open the doors on a warped memory of a long gone episode that still haunted him.

He was almost thirteen again, outside the chicken shed at the farm, trying to summon up the courage to open the door and enter.  He felt the cold wind whipping through his clothes, and looked up at the low, lead-bellied rain clouds that were about to discharge their load.  His numb fingers ached with the force he exerted on the egg basket he held. Steeling himself, he pulled back the door and entered the shed.  The fowl were at once crowding, milling about him; a solid circle of hot, stinking, feathered, fluttering avian horror that began to tear at him with snapping, fang-lined beaks.  They flew up into his face, hung from his arms, covered him from head to foot in a suit of feathers, and then dragged him down into the slimy, shit-coated straw, their frenzied clucking filling his mind and drowning out all thought.

In his befuddled state, as the black tide of death surged through his brain, Hugh’s last image was of the corpses of his parents entering the gloomy hut, their accusing eyes holding a promise of merciless, unrelenting purgatory for all that he had done.

Jim saw a look of pure terror materialise on Hugh’s face, as the dying man raised his head and stared at some hideous vision that only he could see.  He coughed, and a welter of blood spurted from his nostrils and cascaded from his gaping mouth, overflowing from his liquid-filled lungs.  With one retching gurgle, he became still, and all expression faded from his now lifeless blue eyes.

Back inside the cottage, using the wounded police officer’s radio, Jim summoned the emergency services, then wrapped a blanket around Laura and supported her weight as he held a glass to her lips and allowed her to sip a little brandy.

“You’re sure that he’s dead?” Laura said.

“He’s pinned to a tree with a crossbow bolt, Laura,” Jim replied.  “I put one through his throat, and another in his chest.  I watched him die.  Believe me, it’s over.”

“What a way to spend Easter,” Laura quipped, somehow finding black humour at her state of crucifixion, and the manner in which Hugh had met his fate.

“It isn’t Easter,” Jim said, managing a strained smile, admiring her strength of character; a flood of relief almost overwhelming him at what seemed a near miracle that had saved her from a fate he could not bring himself to properly imagine.

The officer – who Jim had dragged a few feet away from the bottom of the staircase – was now conscious, sitting up with his back against the wall and his shoulder wound padded with a towel.  Jim had already thanked Vic profusely, acknowledging that he had undoubtedly and radically changed the course of events by performing his duties to a level far above and beyond all expectation of a man in his injured state.  His heroism would not go unsung, though both Jim and Laura owed him a debt that could never be repaid.

“Well it feels like Easter, hanging here,” Laura said.  “Can’t you use the claw end of that hammer and get these nails out?”

“No, Laura.  The fire-fighters will do it.  They have special equipment for removing women from oak beams.”

“Sure.  I bet they do it all the time.”

“It’s a dying art, like thatching,” Jim said, now grinning broadly.  “There’s not been a lot of call for it for centuries.”

They kept up the banter until the distant sound of sirens became a deafening two-tone wail outside.  Within minutes the cottage was heaving with fire-fighters, paramedics and armed police.  Under medical supervision, the beams were cut above and below Laura’s hands, and she was released from the wall with a block of wood still firmly nailed to each, that would be removed surgically on arrival at York District Hospital.

Jim led the police out into the wood, to where Hugh’s body was affixed to the lofty pine, before being taken to a second waiting ambulance, to once more face hospitalisation, surgery to his damaged hand, and treatment for the flesh wound from the bullet that had passed through his side.

JIMMY
Parker and his best pal Malcolm Briggs – who was known as ‘Frog’ by his peers, for the simple reason that he looked like one – had camped overnight in what was known locally as Bluebell Wood.  The two teenagers had set off on a bike ride the day before from their homes in north Hull, and picked the secluded location to pitch their small tent as dusk fell, after riding along a bumpy, rutted access road that was only infrequently used by the employees of the company that owned the wood.

Frog was awake at dawn, and crawled shivering out of the tent.  He stretched and moaned aloud.  His whole body ached from the hard earth that both the ground sheet and his thin sleeping bag had failed to cushion him from, even though he and Jimmy had removed all the loose stones from the level patch of ground on which they had chosen to erect the tent in a small clearing.

Lighting a cigarette, Frog wandered into the bracken and unzipped his jeans, urgently needing to relieve his pounding bladder.  Looking about him, as he let the strong stream play on a tree trunk, a small patch of pure white among the greenery caught his eye.  Finishing up, he crept through the high ferns until he could make out what stood in the much larger clearing before him.  It was a caravan, hitched to a Citroen car.  He retraced his steps and crawled back inside the tent to shake Jimmy awake.

“Uh!  What?” Jimmy grunted, lashing out to knock his pal’s hand away.

“Come see what I’ve found.  Hurry up,” Frog said.

Jimmy sat up and groaned as his muscles complained, then yawned and combed his long mud-coloured hair back out of his bleary eyes with his fingers.  “This’d better be good, Frog.  I was dreamin’ that Adele was about to sit on my face.”

“Adele who?”

“The pop singer, dummy.”

“Yucch!  Why would you wanna dream that?”

“Never mind.  What’ve you found?”

Frog retraced his steps, with Jimmy sauntering along behind him, lighting a cigarette and coughing as he inhaled the first drag.

“Look, there it is,” Frog said, pointing at the caravan.

“What’s so interestin’ about a friggin’ caravan?”  Jimmy said, shrugging, still only half awake, and starving; his stomach rumbling.

“Let’s check it out,” whispered Frog.  “It’s probably been abandoned.”

They crept up to the edge of the clearing, then hunkered down and listened for voices or music from a radio.  But apart from their breathing, and Jimmy’s belly gurgling, all was quiet.

“They might still be asleep,” Jimmy said.

“We can see in the window.  There’s a gap in the curtains,” Frog said, moving out into what he thought of as no mans land; becoming Rambo in a jungle setting as he approached the enemy stronghold in a crouching run.  Jimmy strolled out after him, hands stuffed in his pockets, eyes screwed against the smoke that curled up from the half-smoked cigarette dangling from the side of his mouth.  He was not caught up in what Frog thought of as an adventure.

Jimmy was a skinny five-nine, three inches taller than Frog, and could look inside the vehicle without having to jump up or stretch.

“So, what can you see?” Frog asked.

“Nuthin’.  Looks empty,” Jimmy replied, squinting into the dark interior, unable to see anyone.

“I told you.  It’s been dumped.  C’mon, let’s go in and see if they’ve left anythin’ worth havin’.”

“It hasn’t been dumped, dummy.  It looks new, and the car’s in good nick.”

Frog ignored him and tried the door.  It opened.  He stepped up and entered furtively, waiting for Jimmy to join him before venturing any further.

Jimmy eased the door closed behind them, and they both moved forward into the dimly lit dinette.

“Check the back,” Frog said, noticing that the caravan was not unfurnished and stripped out as he had expected it to be.  There was a portable TV on a work surface, and the clutter of occupation all around him.  If the owners were just early risers and had taken a dog for a walk, then the shit would fly if they came back and found him and Jimmy on board.  They may even still be in bed, though surely if they were, the door would have been locked.

Jimmy walked the few feet to the open door of the bedroom, then stopped, totally fazed at the sight before him, unable to move or speak, and unaware of the spreading warmth that stained the front of his jeans.

“What’s up?” Frog said, turning to see Jimmy rooted to the spot.  “What’ve you found?”

Frog walked up behind his friend, looked round him, and saw the blonde-haired figure in the shadows, sitting upright on top of the bed against the headboard, staring back at him with a single bulging blue eye and a gaping, dark cavity where the other should have been. He joined Jimmy in stupefied horror, his brain trying to make sense of the mummified corpse.  The face was creased and leathery, its mouth partly sealed by metal staples.  Part of its nose was missing, disclosing yellowed bone, and the forearms and hands that were skeletal and birdlike under tatters of flaking skin, as was the one leg that jutted from the garment it was clothed in.

What had been Jennifer Parfitt was as Hugh had left it, reposed in a peach-coloured housecoat that belonged to Molly Champion.  Hugh had, in his mind, left his mother watching the small, portable TV.

The spell broke, and both boys reeled backwards towards the door, fighting and gibbering with fear as they scrabbled at the handle, to fall out face down on the ground in a tangled heap of flailing arms and legs.  They found their feet, crashed through the undergrowth and mounted their bikes, to pedal away down the track, not stopping until they had reached the road and ridden flat out for over a mile; the tent and all else abandoned as they imagined the atrocity in hot pursuit, gaining on them.  Lungs burning and leg muscles aching, they finally dropped the bikes on to the verge and sat down on the grass next to them.

“W...What do we do?”  Jimmy said, examining the now cold, wet patch at his crotch, as if it had appeared there by magic, not generated by unbridled fear.

“We phone the police and report it,” Frog replied.  “But we don’t give our names. Then we forget about it.  We never saw it.”

But they
had
seen it, and although they would never mention it again, even to each other, both boys would have nightmares and carry the picture of Hugh’s mother’s remains etched on their brains for the rest of their lives.

Half an hour after the anonymous phone call had been received, a police car pulled up near the clearing in Bluebell Wood, and a much relieved Molly and Eric Champion were found and released from the cramped wardrobe.  Both were aching and dehydrated, but had survived their meeting with the man that they would soon learn had been the killer known as the Tacker.  Their experience led to a change of lifestyle.  Never again would the couple take to the open road on caravan holidays.  They subsequently sold the Gazelle and joined the masses that took package holidays, believing, justifiably to their minds, that they would be far safer in the hotels of Florida or Spain, than parked up in a lay-by in the British countryside.

STANDING
up against the guard-rail at Yavapai Point, they looked out across to the pink, gold and blue hues that were unveiled as the sun rose over the far rim of the Grand Canyon.

“This is...it’s just, well, it’s awesome,” Laura said.

“I know.  There are no words that can do it justice,” Jim said, shivering slightly in the sharp, cold, dawn air and tightening his grip on Laura’s shoulder, to pull her closer to him.  “It never looks the same twice.”

They had arrived the previous afternoon, late, just in time to see the sun sink from view over the western horizon in a blaze of deepening reds and purples, to be quickly devoured by the dark wedges of shadow that crept into the mile deep chasm and extinguished its beauty to human sight for another day.

Over two months had passed since the night at the cottage, from where Laura had escaped with her life, and Jim with his sanity.  Most of the t’s had been crossed and i’s dotted on the Tacker case, and the world had moved on to new atrocities, acts of terrorism, mindless murder, natural disasters and violent loss of life in myriad other ways, that took place every day.

“We could split our time,” Jim suggested, his mind wandering from the canyon, his eyes finding more beauty in the equally natural wonder of Laura’s radiant face.  “Maybe buy a place out here in Arizona, and keep my flat on in Windsor.  What do you think?”

“I think we should go back to the lodge, have a hot shower, make love, and then discuss this at length over bacon, eggs over easy, hash browns and coffee,” Laura replied, lighting a cigarette and vowing to herself that she
would
kick the habit, sooner rather than later.

They walked back towards the holiday lodge, as close and as much in love as any two people could be.  They had shared extremes of emotional highs and lows, which had formed an inseparable bond between them.  There was no question of whether they would be together or not.  It was just the fine details that needed to be ironed out.

Laura felt the dull ache in her palms – that was exacerbated by the low temperature of the wintry autumnal morning – and again contemplated the medical retirement and generous gratuity that was on the table, awaiting her decision.  She could put it off for another few weeks, but sooner or later would have to sign the papers or return to duty.  There was no real choice.  She knew what she wanted, and also knew that the job came a poor second to Jim.  She had done her stint, and owed the force nothing.  It had nearly cost her everything, and had no further claim on her.

Stopping, she turned to Jim, tilted her head back and kissed him gently as he lowered his mouth to meet her slightly parted lips.  At that moment, Jim’s idea of pond-hopping and working in public relations didn’t seem a half bad way to spend the foreseeable future.  It was time to move on, embrace the book of life, and start writing a new page.

Neither Laura nor Jim could possibly know that an abyss so much deeper and darker than the natural wonder behind them, and one that they had both spent so much time at the edge of, would prove impossible to walk away from.  You can’t run away from what and who you are.  Like a slow moving storm on the horizon, events were conspiring that would involve them in as much if not more danger than they could possibly imagine.