Acid Lullaby (24 page)

‘Little word of advice, Joe,’ Willis said as he took a pinch of cocaine for himself with his free hand. ‘In future, don’t get involved.’ Willis slammed Joe’s face into the concrete one last time and decided that every cloud did indeed have a little silvery lining.

The picnic on Fulford Heath had been a marginal success. The twins had enjoyed their jam sandwiches but a light spattering of rain had ruined Sylvia’s mood. William Bennett
knew he would have to work quickly, before her patience began to drizzle away completely. She was already sitting in the car listening to the radio. William suspected that if the gathering black clouds dispensed their load, Sylvia would simply drive off and leave him.

He was working in an area about 100 yards away from the car. He could see the twins playing with their water pistols. Their blonde heads bobbed around as they dodged each other’s fusillades. He had collected a number of flint samples from the area he suspected had once been a mine. He had also found a number of shallow indentations scooped in the uneven soil that he suspected had once been the entrances to mine shafts. He photographed each of these in turn and marked them with a small plastic tag for future reference.

He had almost completed his survey. He could hear the distant ‘phut … phut’ of gunshots from Fulford rifle range in the distance and the muffled thudding of a helicopter about a mile away. There were still two large earthworks and a ditch that he wanted to investigate. These were located behind a sprawling expanse of tangled hedgerow. Seeing their father disappear from sight into this area, the twins ran over to join him, squirting each other all the way.

William Bennett noticed something odd between the larger earthwork and the ditch that drained water from the heath. He moved closer to investigate. He could see tyre tracks, thick tracks that had left indentations gouged into the soil along the line of the ditch. They extended past the hedgerow for fifty yards in the direction of the road. He clambered over the first grass-covered mound and looked down into the ditch. He could see four grain-bags lying in the muddy water at the bottom of the gully.

‘Phut
…
phut
…
phut,’
said
the
rifle
range.

‘Thud
…
thud
…
thud,’
replied
the
helicopter.

‘What the bloody hell is that?’ Bennett whispered to himself.

The hedgerow crackled slightly behind him.

‘Daddy, Daddy!’ called the twins.

‘I’m here, guys, I’m just checking something.’ Bennett swung his legs over the earthwork and gingerly lowered himself into the ditch.

‘What is it?’ asked Imogen.

‘Can we see?’ asked Isobel.

‘Phut
…
phut
…
phut,’
said
the
rifle
range.

‘Thud
…
thud
…
thud,’
replied
the
helicopter.

‘No, you stay there please.’ Bennett advanced through the ditch.

‘What can you see, Daddy?’

‘I’m not sure, I think some naughty man has been dumping his rubbish here.’

‘Yuk!’ said Imogen. Bored, she turned and squirted her unsuspecting sister in the face with her water pistol.

Isobel screamed and the two exchanged giggles and shots.

‘Phut
…
phut
…
phut,’
said
the
rifle
range.

‘Thud
…
thud
…
thud,’
replied
the
helicopter.

William Bennett crouched over the first of the four bags. It was tied at the neck with string. It stunk. Bennett hesitated. Holding his breath, he untied the string. Warily, he lifted the coarse edge of the grain sack and found himself confronted with the ragged, black tangle of flesh and sawn bone that had once been Liz Koplinsky’s neck. He gasped for air and stumbled backwards falling painfully in the ditch. Panicking, he hauled himself back up and, ignoring the terrible pain in the wrist that had broken his fall, screamed at his daughters to get back to their mother.

Fifteen minutes later, County Headquarters radioed the discovery to Airborne B. Harrison was stunned when he heard the news: they were less than a mile south of Fulford Heath at the time. Stiles had been working the infra-red camera over a wooded area adjacent to the Fulford and Ely Gun Club. At Harrison’s instruction, Tony Payne accelerated away from the position he had taken over the woods and headed north towards the open ground of the heath and the family salon car parked on the muddy access road. Harrison sat back in his chair as the EC135 dropped from the sky and bumped down on the rough ground. He tried to focus on
being professional; on treating what he found on the heath as dispassionately as possible; on overcoming the shock of the coincidence. Then he realized their presence in the area was not coincidental at all.

Underwood had been right.

Mary Colson was afraid and disorientated. She had slept poorly again and had found it impossible to eat anything. She was also discovering that her daily sparring sessions with Doreen O’Riordan were gradually wearing her down. The realisation that this situation was precisely what Doreen was seeking had upset her even more. She had also been switched onto more powerful drugs to control the symptoms of her deteriorating Parkinson’s disease. The side effects were unsettling. Mary sat in her armchair all afternoon. She had begun to feel uncomfortably warm and was finding it painful to swallow her tea. The doctor had warned her what to expect from her worsening symptoms. She could cope with the physical difficulties but found the erosion of her powers of concentration and reasoning distressing. Mary had begun to find herself standing in certain parts of her house with no recollection of why she was there.

Worst of all were the hallucinations. Mostly these came in the form of voices, some immediately identifiable, others curious hybrids born of her imagination. This upset Mary. She was becoming unable to use her gift. She found that the spirit voices she had once heard were becoming absorbed and corrupted by her aural hallucinations. It had become harder for her to distinguish between them at precisely the time that her mental powers had started to wane at an alarming speed.

‘As
you
know,
Mary,’
she
heard
the
doctor
say,
‘Parkinson
’
s
is
a
progressive
neurological
disorder
…’

‘I’m
eating
your
fudge.’
Doreen’s
voice
swam
out
of
the
kitchen.

‘Leave
my
fudge
alone,’
Mary
heard
herself
say.

‘As
the
nerve
cells
in
the
brain
degenerate,
you’ll
find
it
harder
to
get
around
the
house …
your
muscles
will
feel
stiff
and
uncomfortable
…’

‘The
natural
habitat
of
the
gorilla
has
been
critically
eroded
by
deforestation
and
hunting …
’
said
the
television
that
wasn’t
turned
on.

‘You
can’t
eat
that,
Mary,’
Doreen’s
voice
reminded
her
of
an
irritated
school
teacher,
‘it’s
got
nuts
in
it.’

‘The
degeneration
causes
a
shortage
of
a
chemical
called
dopamine
in
the
brain
…
this
makes
it
harder
for
your
brain
to
send
and
receive
messages
from
your
muscles
…’

‘It’s
got
nuts
in
it,’
Doreen
insisted.

‘The
man
who
died
today
was
your
friend,
Mr
Underwood.’
Mary
remembered
that
she
had
said
that
herself.

‘Yes
he
was.’
Underwood’s
voice
floated
over
from
her
sofa.

‘I’m
prescribing
you
a
more
powerful
dopamine
agonist
to
compensate
for
this.’
Mary
heard
the
sound
of
tearing
paper
as
the
doctor
had
removed
a
prescription
form.

‘Remember
the
keys?’
asked
Underwood’s
dead
friend.

‘Ready
for
your
box,
Mary?’
asked
a
voice
that
she
didn’t
recognize.

‘It’s
got
nuts
in
it,’
Doreen
said.

Mary Colson tried hard to concentrate the conversation away. She looked around the empty living room and realized that she had to try and keep her brain occupied. However, this time her puzzle brain seized on particular words hidden in the jumble and built conversations out of them. The jumble on the page seemed to become projected into the room, a melange of nonsense broken only by occasional words that she recognized. She put the puzzle book away.

Perhaps she could do something around the house. Mary decided to open the kitchen window: she was sweating beneath her cardigan and felt that a breeze might help her.
The shaking in her arms and legs had abated over the previous hour and she felt confident enough to try it. Shuffling the short distance to the kitchen was easier than she had expected and Mary felt her confidence and mood increase. The volume of the voices began to recede and as she fumbled open the kitchen window the cooling breeze on her face calmed her agitation. Then, she noted with annoyance that Doreen hadn’t bothered to take her rubbish out to the front of her house.

‘It’s
bin
day
tomorrow,’
she
heard
herself
say.
‘Don’t
you
forget,
Fatty.’

‘
Eat
your
breakfast,’
Doreen
had
muttered.

Mary tried to lift the bag. It wasn’t heavy. There was a slight drizzle in the air but she felt strong enough and confident enough to perform the task herself. She dragged the bag through to the front hall and unlocked the door. She peered outside and gingerly stepped down onto her front pathway, after ensuring her door was left on the catch: she had been caught out like that before.

She heard a dog bark. Halfway down her pathway, Mary felt a terrible flash of fear.

‘The
dream
always
ends
the
same
way,’
said
her
own
voice
from
inside
the
house,
‘when
the
dog-man
appears.’

The dog barked again, louder this time. Mary squinted out into the fuzzy near distance. She couldn’t see anyone but then her vision was poor. She struggled to the front of her garden and left the bag by her front gate. Now she could see movement: two shapes walking towards her.

‘The
dream
always
ends
the
same
way
…’

One of the shapes was a man, the other was a large dog jumping around him excitedly. Mary felt a rush of panic and terror. She turned and tried to hurry back to the house, her weakening nerve cells misfiring in her agitation. She stumbled and fell against the cold, damp concrete. It struck her face before she had time to put her hands out in front of her.

‘
Ready
for
your
box,
Mary?’
asked
the
voice
again.

She lay on her side as the world blurred around her. She
could see the green fuzz of the grass, the grey sky falling in on her and the face of a dog. She could smell its breath, feel its tongue rough and wet against her face. There was a man standing above her, peering down at her. She could taste blood in her mouth. She accepted the darkness gratefully.

Fulford Heath and the surrounding lanes had been closed off. A group of ramblers were watching the police vans and squad cars arrive from the edge of the police cordon. The EC135 police helicopter stood forlornly at the edge of the heath. The rain began to fall with greater strength and regularity. Underwood looked around the desolate land, its rough grass and clumps of entangling hedgerow. It was a fitting site. Mary Colson had been right to have nightmares about it. The scene of crime officers and forensic investigators worked methodically around the ditch that had contained the four bodies. Underwood found their spectral white overalls disturbing.

Dexter joined him. ‘Are you as freaked by this as me?’

Underwood nodded. ‘The old lady was right.’

‘So were you. You figured out the rifle range.’