Death Walks Behind You

by Scott Hunter

  “The boys played in the woods, of course,” Lady Cernham went on. “Rufus used to go off on his own. He became very good at hunting, didn’t he, Richard?” When de Courcy’s only response was to let a narrow stream of smoke escape from his clenched mouth she continued.

  “Richard was more his father’s son,” she said. “Always inclined to defend him, were you not?” She cast de Courcy a frosty glance. “Even the indefensible.”

  “What’s done is done.” The cigar glowed as de Courcy took another puff.

  Moran was weighing his chances of getting across the room before de Courcy could lift the shotgun. He calculated that he’d make about half the distance before de Courcy shot him dead.

  “My late husband was not the most discreet man. Nor the most loyal husband, Inspector. His greatest indiscretion was the impregnation of a young girl who had become infatuated with him.”

  Moran listened. He had no option. The drum beats had, for the time being, fallen silent.

  “The fruit of this indiscretion was brought into my house. By this … this girl. The barefaced nerve of it.” Lady Cernham made small, agitated movements with her hands. “My house, Inspector.”

  Moran nodded. “Go on.”

  “Rufus was here. He became very angry. He knew, you see, what had been going on. How his father had hurt me. Humiliated me. He argued with his father. It wasn’t the first time she had brought the child here – to ask for money, of course. She had no family, nothing.”

  Moran began to work out the story. He had already guessed what was coming – or part of it, at least.

  “There was a great deal of shouting. The girl was told to go, to take the baby with her and never come back. She went, after a lot of screaming. And Rufus followed her. He … well, he–”

  “He took matters into his own hands?” Moran finished for her.

  “Quite so.” Lady Cernham nodded vigorously. “He was beside himself. He was young – just a teenage lad. He did it for me, you see. To protect my honour…”

  “Did what exactly?”

  “He was an – is – an expert hunter. With the longbow,” De Courcy explained.

  “I see.”

  “And then he came back,” Lady Cernham blurted. “His face was flushed. I knew what he’d done. I could understand it, but–”.

  “The police,” Moran said gently. “Why didn’t you call the police?”

  “Oh no. We couldn’t possibly. The scandal. Imagine! You see, it would only have been an argument, only words, if – if only…”

  “If only I hadn’t come back from a shoot,” de Courcy interrupted. “With a loaded shotgun under my arm. By then Rufus was back from wherever he’d been and he was very agitated.”

  “So he turned on you?” Moran prompted. “Wrested the gun off you when you wouldn’t rally round and support your mother?”

  “My father tried to intervene,” de Courcy said quietly. Lady Cernham had fallen silent, running her finger up and down the stem of her glass.

  De Courcy shrugged. “It was an accident. The gun went off. The first barrel shot my father through the heart. The second hit Rufus in the head.”

  “A murdered girl, a dead man, and a badly injured teenager. And you still didn’t call the police?”

  “As I’ve explained, Inspector, that would have been quite impossible.” Lady Cernham had recovered some of her composure. “We look after our own affairs here.”

  De Courcy ground out his cigar in a cut-glass ashtray. “I think you’ve heard enough. Shall I fetch the medication?” he asked his mother.

  That didn’t sound good. Moran thought it best to keep talking. “So Rufus lived,” he said quietly. “But he was damaged? Disfigured?” Moran thought of the face at his window.

  “He’s still my son.” Lady Cernham stood and drew herself up to her full height. “He’s still a de Courcy.”

  “And you let him run wild? Indulge him?” Moran felt his face giving away the horror he felt. “To kill? To murder? Why?”

  “We look after our own .This is our village. Our estate. What happens here is our business,” Lady Cernham said. “I shall fetch the medication, Richard.”

  She left the room. Moran watched her go and tried not to think about what ‘medication’ might entail. “Linda Harrison?” he asked de Courcy. “Is she dead?”

  “You’ll have to ask Rufus,” de Courcy replied with a twisted smile. “He might tell you. Then again–” He shrugged. “My guess? Probably.”

  Lady Cernham reappeared carrying what looked like an enamel syringe tray. Moran braced himself. If he could get to Lady Cernham before de Courcy got a shot in…

  “I say we let him spend a little time with Rufus first,” de Courcy said. “Let him decide.”

  Lady Cernham considered the proposition and Moran held himself in check. After a moment she nodded. “Very well.”

  “Come on, on your feet.” De Courcy’s eyes narrowed. “I’ll introduce you.”

  I can hear them. They are bringing someone to meet me and I think I know who.

  It was my brothers who came for me earlier. They often do. They call it ‘curbing my appetite’. They tie me up, ‘restrain’ me, make me sleep. Think it’ll calm me, keep me in check.

  But it doesn’t. Hear my fists on the door? See this knife? I’ll gut with it tonight. GUT WITH IT. They can hear me. Of course they can.

  I need to RUN, to HUNT.

  Running, hunting, stalking, fear in their eyes, the noise they make. Oh, the noise they make!

  So bring the next one to me, dear brothers. Bring him now. Now. Now. Now. Now.

  Chapter 21

  “How is she?” Tess asked Toby before he’d sat down. All eyes of the gathered team were on him.

  “As you’d expect,” Toby told them. “Pissed off. Tired. Angry. Grateful for breakfast.”

  “Right. Listen up,” Tess said. “You all know the score. Charlie’s been fitted up big time and we’re going to find out why. Better than that, we’re going to find the killer before Wilder does and send her off with a flea in her ear.” Tess looked at each officer in turn, still worried that DCS Higginson’s memo, which briefly stated that with Moran away and DI Pepper under suspicion she was now acting senior officer, would not have gone down too well with more senior members like Bola and Toby. After all, she’d only been here a few weeks. But … circumstances aside, she had to admit that Acting DC Tess Martin had a nice ring to it. No time for congrats now, Tess. Just get the job done.

  “What about Wilder?” Bola Odunsi asked. “How we goin’ to work under her nose, but keep her out of the loop at the same time?”

  “Good question. George and I discussed this earlier. Yes, Wilder and the NCA team are ‘in charge’. Yes, she is the SIO. But Charlie’s one of us. Something smells very wrong. We have a duty to make sure we do all we can – yes, support Wilder’s team, but also do a little sub-investigating ourselves.”

  “Which,” George McConnell added, “we’ve already started.” He raised a bushy eyebrow and Tess gave him the nod.

  “OK. We spoke to the housemate, G. She remembered a bike slowing down as it passed the bus stop, right opposite Banner’s property. We checked the camera at the top of Whitley Street. And guess what?”

  “Hundreds of bikes,” Odunsi said.

  “Right. But only one with buckhorns.”

  “Buck what?” Toby made a face and cocked his head to one side, spaniel-like.

  “Buckhorn handlebars. Mini-apes,” Tess said. “Like a chopper.”

  Odunsi giggled and Tess tried not to colour when she realised what she’d said. “All right, Bola. You know what I meant.”

  The tension in the room lifted. Tess went on, more confidently. “G described the bike in terms of its handlebars. It’s what stood out for her. And, like George said, the only bike which was headed in that direction in that time frame was this one.” She motioned to McConnell to switch on the projector. The laptop bleeped and a picture appeared on the screen, slightly blurred.
The buckhorns were clearly visible, as was the rider. Black leathers, black open-face helmet. Shades obscuring most of the face.

  “Cool dude,” Odunsi said. “Easy rider.”

  “You old enough to remember that, Bola?” Toby enquired with a wry grin and George guffawed.

  “Bola, can you run an ANPR check asap?” Tess got up and tapped the screen. “I’m betting you won’t find that reg.”

  “Now?”

  “That’d be good.”

  “On it,” Odunsi said with a dismissive gesture. He waggled a warning finger on his way out. “Wilder hears ’bout this, she’s gonna kill us.”

  “What else we got?” Toby returned his attention to George and Tess.

  “So far,” Tess replied quietly, “that’s it.”

  “And the guv’s back when?” George was fiddling with the laptop, moving it back and forth in a futile attempt to improve the picture quality.

  “Should be tomorrow, but we have to factor in a possible delay,” Tess said. “He’s only got himself tied up in some misper case.”

  “You’re kidding.” Toby grinned. “Sounds like the guv, though.”

  Tess frowned, remembering Charlie’s request. “You phoned that message through all right, George?”

  “Yep.”

  “Can you call again? See if the guv’s available?” At least she could ask for some advice, Tess thought. And it would be a comfort to know that Moran would soon be back.

  “Aye, can do,” George said.

  “He’ll soon sort this out – not that you won’t, ma’am, er boss, I mean –” Toby flustered to a halt.

  Tess forced a smile “It’s OK, Toby, I know what you meant.”

  Chapter 22

  Moran heard the key turn in the lock behind him. The room was in semi-darkness but he could make out detail enough to momentarily forget his situation and simply gape in wonder. The space in which he found himself was huge, like an ex-banqueting hall or refectory. Looking up he could see that the high ceiling had been painted in an artful representation of the sky at night; rather like the London Planetarium he remembered visiting in his youth, except that this seemed warmer, truer somehow, as if the artist in some instinctive moment of clarity had captured a special moment in the planetary movements and frozen it forever.

  The walls were no less extraordinary; covered in elaborate artwork, the pervading theme of woodland – dark, leafy arbours, mossy river banks, ancient oaks presiding over moonlit clearings – gave the hall a gloomy yet somehow strangely evocative atmosphere of times long gone by. Moran was so captivated that he almost forgot his predicament.

  Moving cautiously into the room his foot tripped on what appeared to be a discarded sack and several lengths of knotted cord. The sack was slashed and torn and as Moran bent to examine it, his fingers found traces of moisture on and around the thick hessian. He had smelt blood enough times not to require visual confirmation. The question was whose? Celine’s?

  Moran rose from his haunches. Some sixth sense told him that he had company. He strained his eyes but could see nothing except a long, empty space. There was a slight movement in his peripheral vision; what he had assumed to be the inanimate subject of a forestry scene had shifted subtly from one arboreal shadow to another.

  “Rufus.” Moran’s heard his voice bounce back from the unseen far end of the hall.

  Another movement.

  “You know my name?”

  The accent was similar to de Courcy’s, slightly deeper but with an edgy quality about it. Moran could sense the psychosis; it was almost palpable.

  “Yes. I’ve been talking to your mother and brother.”

  A low laugh. “Them? My keepers. So they believe, anyway.”

  Moran could make him out now, whether it was his eyes adjusting to the lighting or Rufus moving closer it was hard to say. There was something about the shape of the head, something displaced or perhaps contrived. “I know the truth, Rufus. I know what happened.”

  “Ah, you can’t know it all, Brendan. Not all.”

  First name terms, then, Moran thought. Was that significant?

  “They’ve given you to me, Brendan,” Rufus de Courcy said. “But what will I do with you? How shall I proceed?”

  “I can help you. You know you need help, don’t you, Rufus?”

  A long pause.

  How far? Moran tried to assess the odds. Ten, fifteen feet? Could he rush him?

  “Help,” Rufus repeated. “Help?”

  The laughter Moran had heard from the salon was more disturbing at close quarters. He raised his voice a fraction. “I’d just like to know why, Rufus. I understand what happened when you were younger. But why kill again? You did kill Linda Harrison, didn’t you? And Blanche Cassidy, the American?”

  The laughter ceased abruptly. “I killed my father. And her, the beautiful one. She who is still alive, alive in all her kind.”

  The penny dropped. This young girl, Lord Cernham’s plaything – she had been the subject not only of an older man’s philandering desire, but also of deep adolescent longing. “You loved her, didn’t you, Rufus?”

  There was another long silence.

  “I did,” Rufus said eventually in a low whisper. “But she had to die. She always has to die. Every year she has to die. Do you see?”

  “You were under a lot of strain, Rufus. I can’t condone what you did, but now I understand why, and I can help, believe me. It’s time to put the past where it belongs. These other women – they were innocent. No one else has to suffer.”

  “They must.” The voice was stronger now, more threatening. “Their blood goes into the soil. For her. She needs the blood. How else will she be renewed, remain one with the earth?”

  A warped cycle of murder, guilt and repetitive sacrifice. It didn’t take a degree in psychology to work it out. Maybe it was the shotgun blast that had damaged Rufus de Courcy’s brain; it was either that or the mental agony of knowing that he had killed something infinitely precious to him for the sake of an overarching, oedipal love for his mother.

  “Come with me, Rufus. Let me help you. Please.”

  Rufus’ voice took on a distant, unfocused cadence as he began a conversation with himself. “What shall we do? A man. A man who knows. Everything, he says. If we let him go, he might tell. He wants to help. But he can’t help. We don’t need any help.”

  Moran began to edge away. Perhaps Rufus would forget that he was not alone.

  Head bowed, Rufus’ muttering continued. “No. No. It won’t do. Call them. They can put him away for a bit. Yes. And then we’ll run. Then we’ll hunt. Then we’ll kill.”

  Moran tensed as Rufus darted to the wall and reached for something above his head. In the distance came the sound of a tolling bell. He was calling the de Courcys.

  Now or never, Brendan.

  The door through which he had entered was locked, but what about the far end? There would be another exit, surely? Moran made his decision and ran for it.

  He had only gained a few metres when Rufus battered into him like a rugby flanker. Moran had an impression of great, tensile strength, a panther-like grip on his neck and he was down, flat on the floor, face crushed into the heavily piled carpet. He heard a door slam, de Courcy’s voice, a padding, cautious approach. A word of command? No, a guarded request…

  …Hold him…

  Helpless, Moran felt his sleeve dragged up. As the needle slid into his flesh he consoled himself with the thought that sedation was preferable to death by gunshot wounds, or worse. But the question remained: sedation pending what? He felt consciousness sliding away, rough hands turning him, de Courcy’s eyes on him, Lady Cernham just visible behind her eldest son, hands clasped, watching. As his vision faded he thought he saw Matt Harrison behind his mother, arms folded, shifting uneasily from foot to foot.

  He’s not happy with this…

  Moran held on to the thought.

  Lady Cernham’s voice, distant now. Enough, Rufus. Enough.

  Th
e room wobbled like a badly engineered TV set, darkened, then went out.

  His head ached and he felt nauseous. What had happened? Where–? It took a good thirty seconds for Moran to remember. He flexed his arms experimentally. No problems there. Legs. Check. He opened his eyes. Darkness. He reached out and felt metal against his fingertips. He tried to get up and banged his head hard on a low roof. He was in some kind of cavity – a small cell, or…

  For a brief, terror-filled moment he thought he’d been buried alive, but he soon realised that he could feel air circulating; he sensed a wider space just beyond the bars of his prison. A cage. That’s what it felt like; a cage just slightly larger than his body. He could move, but not freely. Already he could feel cramp tightening his leg muscles. How long had he been unconscious? And, more importantly, what would the de Courcys do with him? Moran remembered a fragment of Rufus’ monologue, something he’d rather not have overheard: then we’ll hunt…

  They meant to keep him alive.

  For now.

  Chapter 23

  DS Maggs looked even more unsavoury in daylight. His hooded eyes, bleary from lack of sleep, regarded her condescendingly. The sweat stains beneath his armpits almost made Charlie gag as the detective sergeant leaned back in his chair, stretched both arms vertically and yawned with practiced, uninhibited satisfaction.

  Next to Maggs and looking much fresher than she should have been, DCI Wilder reached over and clicked a button on the ancient tape recorder. “DCI Wilder, DS Maggs interviewing DI Charlie Pepper. Thursday fifteenth of May, 10.45am.”

  “I want to see DCS Higginson.” Charlie tried not to sound as if she were pleading.

  “No deal. We’ve been through this. Higginson’s busy.”

  Was he? Did he even know what was going on here? Surely he must – but then why hadn’t he made an appearance? Charlie remembered their chat, his office, the avuncular reassurances…

  “Let’s go over it from the beginning, DI Pepper.”

  There was no point objecting, Charlie knew. Once more, then. Maybe it would clarify things for her, too. Keep positive…