Catherine Jinks TheRoad (34 page)

For a moment, Alec just sat. He was stunned. Get out of the car? He couldn’t do it.

‘Alec!’ Chris barked. ‘Get a
move
on!’

Alec obeyed, all the while thinking resentfully: What makes
him
the bloody boss? This budding sense of animosity was just enough to take the edge off his fear. It allowed him to put one foot in front of the other until he was ahead of the four-wheel drive, his pace picking up the further he went. He didn’t even look at the first body until he was almost on top of it, because he was too busy scanning the roadside. Then he trod on something and glanced down, moving his foot.

It was a cartridge.

‘They’ve been shot!’ he said loudly, without thinking.

‘What?’
Someone’s voice – Graham’s, probably – was raised above the rumble of the Land Rover’s idling engine. But Alec didn’t repeat himself. It suddenly struck him that they shouldn’t be shouting.

Now that he was close to her, Alec could see what he had missed from the car. There wasn’t a chance in hell that this woman still clung to life. She was sprawled on her stomach, and she smelled, not of meat gone bad, but of blood and urine. There were flies everywhere. And blood – so much blood! The back of her head was a hairy, glutinous mass. The ground beneath it was soaked – blackened – muddy with more blood than Alec had ever seen in his life. Someone had nearly severed her hand from her arm, with a weapon that had chopped cleanly into her shoulder and back and legs, leaving the most dreadful, bloodless gaping wounds, like axe marks in a tree-trunk. But they weren’t the only wounds. There were holes everywhere, deep punctures and shallow cuts, torn fabric, weird gouges, a crushed finger . . . this woman had been practically torn to pieces.

Alec staggered backwards, gagging.

‘Ah...ah...’ He swung around, tears springing to his eyes. He swallowed.There was a clattering noise from the Land Rover, which suggested that Graham had dragged the axe off the luggage rack.

She was dead. She had to be. But though he was practically reeling from shock, Alec realised dimly that he would always be haunted in days to come unless he made absolutely sure.

So he edged towards the ghastly, fly-blown thing, swallowing repeatedly, groping with an outstretched hand, shooting quick glances in its direction, until he finally made contact with her wrist – the wrist that wasn’t dangling on the end of a strand of sinew. It was inert. Sticky. Not cold (how could anything be cold, at this hour of the day?) but not warm either. It had a strange, flaccid feel to it.

Alec gulped in air, averting his eyes. He pressed down on the yielding flesh, but could find no pulse.

It didn’t surprise him. He dropped the arm as he would have dropped a live centipede, wincing at the way it hit the ground. For a minute or two he had completely forgotten the risk that he was running, but his fear came flooding back now, like nausea. Dizzy and panic-stricken, he staggered over to the next body, which was about ten metres off down the road. Drawing closer, he saw that it belonged to an old guy with grey hair, lying on his back, arms flung wide. Alec couldn’t help slowing. He knew that he would have to look at a face, and he didn’t relish the prospect. Oh fuck, he thought. Fuck, fuck,
fuck
. The old guy had lost his hat, which was sitting on the ground nearby. He had also lost a slipper – one foot was bare. His sleeves were rolled up. The front of his shirt was red, soaked in blood, most of which looked pretty dry (though Alec wasn’t going to touch anything). Blood had spread out beneath the body, seeping into the desiccated earth, but there only seemed to be one wound. No stab marks. No severed limbs. The face . . .

The face wasn’t too bad. It hadn’t been mutilated. It was spattered with blood, but at least the eyes were closed. The mouth was open, and a set of false teeth seemed to have been knocked askew. Alec averted his gaze from that bizarre, damaged grimace and picked up an arm.The hands were like rough chunks of old tree root, dyed yellow around the finger tips. He couldn’t feel a pulse.

On his way back to the Land Rover, Alec saw that Graham had retrieved the woman’s purse, and was peering into it. An axe lay discarded on the ground beside him.

‘Well?’ said Graham, looking up at Alec’s approach.

Alec shook his head, breathing deeply. One breath. Two breaths. He felt cold, despite the heat.

‘Both dead?’

Alec nodded.

‘Did he have a wallet?’

Alec stared.

‘For identification,’ Graham explained.

Alec’s long-suppressed anger flared up. ‘How – how the fuck should I know?’ he stammered.