Knife After Death: A chilling crime thriller

by Irvine, Ian C. P.

  Several times he looked across at her behind the bar, and he noticed that she was also glancing back at him.

  Hopefully, the attraction he felt to her was mutual. Otherwise he was in danger of making a complete fool of himself. It had been a long, long time since he had ever been this attracted to a complete stranger. In fact, he had probably never ever been this attracted to anyone else.

  It was more than just sexual. Something else was going on too.

  The odd thing was, Peter had never really been attracted to woman with large breasts. He was strictly a small breast man. So why the incredible, overpowering urge to kiss 'Carolina'?

  Peter wanted to talk to her. No, ...he felt compelled to talk to her. Should he ask her out?

  Then he thought of Susie. Recently he had been missing her a lot, especially since they had slept together again. Could he be attracted to Susie and Carolina at the same time?

  "A penny for them...," a soft voice said to him, catching him by surprise.

  He looked up from his paper, straight into the mesmerizing eyes of Carolina.

  "Can I join you for a minute?" she asked.

  Hardly able to believe his luck, Peter nodded, gesturing to the seat beside him. "Please do..."

  She sat down.

  Neither of them said anything for a moment, then almost comically they both tried to speak at the same time.

  "Sorry...no...you go first..." Peter said. He felt like a silly teenager who was just about to fall in love.

  "I've got a few minutes break...I just felt compelled to come over to ask if you if you are absolutely sure we have not met before...It's uncanny, but I have this incredible feeling that we have..." She hesitated...then Peter noticed with interest that she had started to blush a little: perhaps he was not the only teenager in town!

  "It's mutual...I'm sorry if you caught me staring at you...it's just that...I feel the same...and I don't want to embarrass you, but I find you very attractive." Now it was his turn to blush.

  Carolina laughed.

  "Okay...so it's mutual then. And rather odd, but a sort of 'nice' odd as opposed to 'bad' odd. Can I ask, where are you from? I detect an accent."

  "Edinburgh. I'm just down here and driving around for a few days, trying to de-stress and take a break from city life."

  "Well, welcome to Knuttsford. The most famous town that no one has ever heard of! What brings you here?"

  "The demonstration on the TV this morning. I saw it just before I checked out of another hotel, still wondering where my next port of call would be. Knuttsford seemed nice, so here I am."

  "Aha...a spontaneous man. I like that."

  A few moments silence.

  "So, tell me, what is there worth doing or seeing here or hereabouts?" Peter asked.

  Carolina laughed.

  "What are you into?"

  "You," Peter almost said, but managed to control himself just in time. "Waterfalls and nice forest walks... are there any round here that you can think of?"

  "Actually there are several. Although they are pretty far from the beaten track, and only locals would probably know about them. But since you seem like a nice person, maybe I could share our hidden treasures with you!"

  Peter nodded. "That would be great."

  She got up, walked through to the back of the pub, and returned a few minutes later with an Ordinance Survey map.

  She spread it out on the table, stared at the map for a few minutes, obviously trying to get her bearings, then pointed at the top left hand corner.

  "Here is one. This is my favourite. Miles from nowhere. It's a small waterfall, cascades down over a small cliff. Very pretty...And then there is this one...very large, more public...."

  Peter didn't quite hear the rest of what she said. He was already bending over the map and staring at the name of the first waterfall "The Grey Mare's Tail". A wonderfully evocative name, it rang a bell deep within his brain. He stared at the map.

  Almost immediately a vision appeared in his mind. He shivered. He was standing in a grave, it was dark, and he could feel drops of water falling on his face.

  .

  Forty minutes later he was driving north, the map on the passenger seat beside him, and a brand new spade and torch from the local gardening shop hidden in the boot.

  Chapter Sixty Eight

  .

  .

  Willow Farm Commune

  Wales

  May 4th

  5.00 p.m.

  .

  .

  Robert stood in the vegetable garden surveying the results of his hard work. He had spent the day digging over his newly allocated part of the garden, mixing what seemed like tons of fresh manure into the soil. His back hurt, his hands had a few blisters on them, he was exhausted...but he felt great. He actually felt great.

  Working in the garden of the commune had not been his choice. Stella had suggested it, and he had simply agreed.

  "Have you ever planted anything?" she had asked him, a few days before.

  "No. I don't like flowers."

  "I'm not talking about flowers. I'm talking about growing your own food. It's an immensely satisfying experience to put a seed in the ground, to water it, to watch its first little green shoot poke through the Earth, to see it grow every day, and then one day to eat the gift that it gives you: some food. I can remember the first time I ever picked an apple off a tree. And the first time I dug up a potato. I ate it raw...it tasted fantastic."

  "Raw potato?"

  Stella laughed.

  "It's hard work, growing your own food. But that's what human beings are built for. We are machines. If you work hard, you feel great. When you work hard, your body releases all sorts of little chemical rewards into your bloodstream that you make really enjoy it..."

  "What, you mean like drugs, or something?"

  "Yes. But natural, healthy drugs. They are called endorphins. They can give you a natural high. With no side effects."

  "I'd like to try some of those..."

  Which is how Robert ended up becoming the Alan Titchmarsh of the Willow Farm Commune.

  It turned out that Stella and Gavin were right.

  Hard work was good fun. Satisfying.

  He could see now that it was far better to be doing something creative, productive and useful, than being destructive.

  Robert smiled. He was pleased at the changes that were occurring within him. He was pleased with the decision that he had made to come to the commune. And above all, he was proud of the decision that he had made a few days ago about going back to Edinburgh...not for good...but for a few days, just long enough to accomplish what had to be done.

  He had thought long and hard about it. He had also talked to Gavin and Stella, without mentioning what exactly he was talking about,...but sort of, in a roundabout way, he had managed to sketch out the dilemma he was being faced with.

  And they had all agreed.

  No one should benefit from crime.

  Crime should never pay.

  It was this simple moral maxim that had helped provide to Robert the answer that he had been seeking.

  He knew now just how wrong it was to steal the Victoria Cross from old Mr Wallace. He could understand how upset and sad he would be feeling just now...having lost such a prized, personal possession. Mr Wallace didn't have much left to enjoy in his life, and when Rab had taken the VC away from him, Mr Wallace would probably have been thrown into the depths of despair.

  Robert could not wish such sadness on anyone. He knew now what he would have to do, and he was ready and man enough to do it.

  Robert knew that he was changing, that it was time to leave behind the Big Wee Rab from before, and start the new life that 'Robert' deserved. It was time to grow up. Time to move on. Time to become a man.

  He also knew that in order for him to become a man, to gain some self-respect, and earn the respect of others, he first had to face up to his past. Big Wee Rab had done some bad things, and before Robert could walk down a st
reet with his head held high, he knew that he would have to fix the wrong doings of his past, and make reparations to those whose lives he had so negatively impacted.

  Top of his list was Mr. Wallace.

  He was going to fix it though. In the most honest way he knew how. There would be no games, no cover-ups, no excuses.

  Robert was simply going to go back to Craigmillar, find Mr Wallace and face up to him. Robert was going to confess to what he had done. He would seek forgiveness and make amends for his wrong doings. Man-to-man, he was going to admit to Mr Wallace that he had stolen the VC, that he knew now that what he had done was wrong, and that he had come back to ask forgiveness for the crazy, evil things he had done in his days as Big Wee Rab.

  Robert was not going to seek the reward for returning the VC. He had broken the law by stealing it, and no one should profit financially from his actions. Robert hoped that he would not get caught by the police, and that Mr Wallace would not hand him over to the authorities.

  Yet, if it did happen, he was not going to fight it. If they got him, then, as they used to say in the past, it would be a 'fair cop.'

  The bottom line though, was that Robert was determined to become a different, better, person, but before he could do that, he knew he would have to face Mr Wallace, face his past, and accept any consequences that were rightly due to him.

  Then, and only then, could he move on.

  Now the decision had been made, it felt like a mountain had been lifted of his shoulders.

  For the first time in all the life he could remember, Robert was happy.

  He felt great. He felt liberated. He felt wonderful.

  Chapter Sixty Nine

  .

  .

  Somewhere in the hills around Knuttsford

  England

  May 4th

  5.30 p.m.

  .

  .

  Peter was parked at the top of a small hill, scrutinizing the map in front of him. According to the map there should only be one road here, not the option of two...which direction should he go now?

  He opened the door to his car and got out.

  His car was parked at the fork in a road, which diverged to the right and to the left. He surveyed the road ahead on both sides, and as far as he could tell they both ended up driving into the forest, but which one took him to the Grey Mare's Tail?

  Looking around him, he found, to his surprise that he was actually quite high up now, with a fantastic view of the area around. He could see for miles. The B-road he was travelling along had been rising steadily for the past five miles, and for the past mile he had been coasting along the edge of some sort of ridge. Grass was growing out of a million different pot-holes in the broken surface of the road, and it wasn't hard to see that hardly anyone ever came up here.

  He smelled the air. It was beautiful and fresh. He heard a bird cry, and he looked up, following the path of two birds flying towards the forest. Above a field on his right, he saw a bird hovering dead still in the air, its head pointed towards the ground, scanning the meadow below for field mice that would make a tasty evening meal.

  As he looked at the meadow, something about it struck him as familiar.

  There was a small stile about ten metres along the road, and Peter stepped across, climbing down into the meadow and starting walking across it. The grass had not yet grown tall yet, as it had been in his vision, but immediately he set foot on the solid ground on the other side of the fence, he knew that he had been in this field before.

  Or rather, KK had.

  Peter smiled. Once again, he was getting 'hotter'.

  .

  When Peter had left the village of Knuttsford, he had spent a few minutes thinking about Carolina.

  He decided that if she was still working, he was going to ask her out later that evening when he got back to the pub, where he was going to spend the night.

  That had been her suggestion: the pub had two reasonably priced guest rooms. He had taken the one at the back of the pub, overlooking the car park, thinking that it would probably be the quieter of the two, but in reality, so little probably happened in Knuttsford that noise was probably not an issue he would have to be concerned with!

  .

  Having made the decision to ask for a date with Carolina, Peter started thinking more about what the hell he was going to be doing for the next few days.

  How on Earth was he going to find the other bodies? And if he did, would they lead him to KK or help to find out his true identity?

  He played with the idea of telling Alex everything, getting him on his side, and trying to get Alex to work with Sergeant Angus in Edinburgh: with a certified, dead, real body on their hands, could they get some sort of official police document that would force Dr Jamieson to reveal who the identity of KK was?

  That might be the simplest and easiest way to identify KK, but for now, Peter knew that Alex was too suspicious of him to help. At the moment...

  Looking at the village as Peter had driven through it, Peter had felt strongly that he was here for a very good reason. Had he been brought here?

  So who was leading who?

  Was KK again leading him to something he wanted Peter to see or find, ...or was Peter in command, tracking down KK's movements through examination of the visions that KK's neuropeptides were releasing within him?

  Or did it not really matter?

  Either way, surely the most important thing was to find the next body and fit the next piece of the jigsaw puzzle together: to take another step forward in the exorcism of KK's memories from within Peter?

  As soon as Carolina had mentioned the Grey Mare's Tail, he had got that feeling again. That 'feeling' that told him to pay attention, to sit up and take notice, that this was the next clue, and that he should follow it.

  He stopped in the middle of the meadow, closed his eyes, and listened.

  Nothing. Absolutely nothing. Not a sound.

  So, incredibly peaceful!

  Peter lay down on the ground and closed his eyes, letting the warmth of the sun rise up and embrace him from the soft grass and turf underneath.

  When was the last time that he had been so close to nature? Just lying here on the ground with the evening sun on his face was surely one of life's most simple yet glorious pleasures.

  He felt the warmth upon his face, and smiled.

  He heard another bird call somewhere in the sky above him. Opening his eyes, he looked up and up and up. The sky was a vast, deep, open, blue that went on forever and ever. To the stars and beyond.

  Peter sat up with a start.

  Instinctively he turned to his left, almost expecting to see a redheaded girl lying on the ground with a knife embedded deeply in her chest.

  Shit...it was here...definitely here in this meadow... It was in this meadow that he...no bloody KK... had killed the redhead.

  He stood up, looking back towards the forest.

  Shit, yes! And then there in the forest is where KK had buried the body later that same night...Probably as soon as it had got dark.

  Peter looked at his watch.

  There was still time. It would not be dark for another two or three hours.

  Running back to the car, he jumped back in and looked at the map. The Grey Mare's Tail waterfall was probably only about a quarter of a mile from the start of the forest. If he hurried he could be there in 30 minutes. Easily.

  The car bumped and rattled as it navigated the potholes along the road on the right, which Peter was now sure was the route that KK would have taken. About half a mile further down the road, the road petered out and came into a small car park, which was overgrown with grass and looked as if it had probably not been visited by anyone else for weeks.

  Peter grabbed his coat, the spade, the map and the torch and walked over to the stile in the corner of the car park. On the ground on the other side amidst the grass Peter could make out patches where a gravel path was still just visible. He jumped the stile, and hurried along the path,
feeling that with every step, he was getting 'hotter' and 'hotter'.

  A hundred metres further on, the path entered the forest, and within seconds it had started to get quite dark. Peter hesitated. Looking up, the canopy of trees closed above him quite thickly. Not much light was getting through.

  He looked at his watch again. It was now 7.00 p.m. In Scotland the sunset would probably be about 9 p.m., but this further south he was guessing that the sunset would be about 8.30 p.m. Would he be able to get to the waterfall and back before it got too dark? He had a horrible feeling that if he left it too late, he would end up getting lost and spending the night under a pile of leaves somewhere!

  He walked on.

  The path twisted and turned, and a few times he wondered if he had actually lost it, but scouting slightly ahead he found it again, and realised that he was still okay.

  After about ten minutes, the path started to rise slightly, following the contour of a small hill covered by the forest, and Peter began to doubt to himself if KK would really have carried a body on his shoulders so far.

  One thing was for certain, if he had, then KK was definitely a very strong, and very fit man.

  A few minutes later, the ground levelled off and he was able to hurry up. He began to trot along the path.

  Suddenly he heard a crash, a loud noise, and he turned to his left and stopped dead still, his heart thumping hard within his chest.

  "What the hell was that?"

  He ducked down, and tried to control his breathing, then out of the corner of his eye, about thirty metres away he noticed something large moving at first slowly, then very quickly through the trees away from him.

  A large deer.

  "Shit..." Peter whispered to himself, relieved.

  He stood up and started trotting again, swapping the spade into his other hand.

  He was sweating heavily now, but he ignored it and carried on.

  A few minutes later, he stopped again, convinced that he could hear something. Another deer?

  No...this time it was something else.

  He recognised it now.

  It was water. Falling water.

  The Grey Mare's Tail.