by Tim Weaver
‘She hasn’t come back to me.’
‘You must understand the reasons for that.’
He knew what I meant. The twin girls down in New Cross – the case, way before Leanne went missing, that had broken him – and then the aftermath: a moment he could never take back, a moment like a cut that would never heal, where he hit his wife.
‘I understand the reasons,’ he said after a while, pain in his voice.
Neither of us spoke for a time, both of us looking down into half-finished coffee cups. Then I saw him look up and study me for a second, as if he was deciding whether to ask something or not.
‘You remember what you said to me once?’
I smiled. ‘I said a lot of things.’
‘You said, “There’s no shame in hanging on. There’s no shame in believing they might walk through the door at any moment.” ’
I nodded.
‘Do you still believe that?’
I looked at him, then across his shoulder to where a picture still hung of Derryn and me, backpacks on, halfway up a tor in Dartmoor. It had been taken the week before Derryn found the lump on her breast. The last week before the end began.
My eyes fell on Healy again.
‘Yeah,’ I said. ‘I still believe it.’
79
Derryn was buried in Hayden Cemetery, a sliver of parkland in north London, just off Holloway Road, between Highbury and Canonbury. As I pulled up in the car park, I felt a pang of guilt, as if I were somehow betraying Liz by being here. Maybe, in a weird way, I was. The first sign of trouble, the first sign of doubt, and I returned to my old life and to the woman who had shaped it. I rarely came back to the cemetery any more, but when I did it was always because I didn’t know where else to go; how else to get past the way I was feeling. It was quiet, undisturbed, and after the search for Sam Wren, after everything Healy had said to me that morning, all the pain I recognized in him, the cemetery brought a strange kind of comfort, even if my memories of it were sad.
The entrance itself was a huge black iron arch, the name Hayden woven into the top, and as I passed through I could see the split path ahead of me: one branch headed down to where hundreds of graves unfurled in perfect lines on a huge bank of grass; the other bent up and around, partially covered by tall fir trees, into the western fringes of the cemetery, where Derryn’s grave – in a tiny walled garden called ‘The Rest’ – was situated. Adjacent to The Rest was the older, Victorian part of the cemetery, all mausoleums and tombs, winding paths and walled gardens. One of the reasons Derryn chose this spot, when she’d decided against more chemo, was for its sense of peace. Once you were inside the walls of The Rest, no wind came through; you were protected on one side by a bank of fir trees, and on the other by the huge Gothic structures of the old cemetery.
I moved through the gate of The Rest, the sun piercing a film of thin white cloud, and across to her grave. The last flowers I’d brought, months before, were nothing but a memory now; if they hadn’t already been dead, they would have been baked by the sun and then washed away by the rain in the past week. I could see a trace of a petal on her gravestone but nothing more. Grass grew long at the base, up towards the date of her death, so I reached forward and tore some of it up, throwing it away and clearing a space.
Then something moved to my left.
I turned. Immediately beyond the wall was a huge tomb, its door facing out at me, flanked by two arched windows. On top was a stone angel, carrying a water bowl. I got to my feet and stepped away from the grave, opening up my view beyond it. A path led to its left, along a narrow trail, tombs on either side, simpler graves in between. Grass swayed gently along the trail, moved by the wind, but I couldn’t hear it. All I could hear was birdsong and, distantly beyond that, the sound of an engine idling in the car park.
Behind me, I glimpsed a couple in their sixties, the woman holding a bunch of flowers, emerging on the other side of the fir trees and heading down towards the field of graves. And then, in the direction I’d seen movement, a bird swooped out from one of the trees, glided along the trail and soared up on to the triangular roof of a tomb further along.
I rubbed an eye; ran a hand through my hair. I was tired.
I knelt down again at the grave, brushing some of the dirt away with my fingers. Soil had got into the lettering, kicked up as people passed too closely. When it was clean, I looked around the rest of the garden and saw other families had been here more recently than me: the graves were decorated with flowers and vases, a handwritten letter on one, held down at the base of the headstone with a series of smooth pebbles.
Sorry I didn’t bring a vase, I thought to myself, and then I smiled at how Derryn would have reacted, probably telling me that I’d have to bring the flowers before I got to apologize about a vase. I studied the polished marble of the headstone, her name engraved in gold, and then I touched the letters beneath it, the marble cold against my skin: Beloved wife of David. It seemed such a long time ago in many ways, and yet the two and a half years had gone in the blink of an eye. One minute I was watching her being buried, the next I was lying alongside another woman. Perhaps now I had neither.
Crack.
A noise to my left, like twigs snapping beneath feet.
Same direction as the movement.
This time I got to my feet and stepped fully away from the grave, eyes on the trail leading between the tombs. It ran for about a hundred yards and then started a slow turn to the right where I could see a stone entranceway, vines cascading down from above, huge pillars on either side like the gates to heaven itself. I’d walked it once before. It led back around the other side of the bank of fir trees and joined up with the field of graves. On the other side of the entranceway, out of sight, were the biggest structures of them all: massive mausoleums, standing like houses.
I moved out through the gate of The Rest and along the path. The tombs ran in a roughly symmetrical pattern, facing each other on either side of the trail, smaller, plainer graves in between. In this part of the cemetery, the front of the tombs and the graves, as well as the trail itself, had been kept clear, but everywhere else nature had run wild. It was thick and relentless, the occasional gap showing through to the car park at the bottom, but otherwise a twisted mess of branches and leaves.
Halfway along the trail, something rustled in the undergrowth. I stopped, looked down and saw a small animal – a mouse, or maybe a vole – disappear into a thick tangle of grass and nettles. Then, through the corner of my eye, something else moved. Just a flicker of a shadow. I looked up, replaying what I thought I’d seen – the movement from left to right, one side of the trail to the other – and headed towards it, quicker now, eyes fixed on a tomb about three-quarters of the way along. It was half turned away from the trail, the door facing me, pillars either side, a coat of arms under the roof. But when I finally got level with the tomb and looked into the area behind it, there was nothing. Just swathes of thick, green brush and the shadow of the entranceway, about twenty feet away now.
What the hell is the matter with you?
Wind whistled through the entranceway, as if drawn into it, vines hanging down from its top, swaying in the breeze. I stood there, feeling slightly disorientated, looking through as the trail continued on to the mausoleums on the other side. All around me were trees and graves. Nothing else. For a moment it was like being in a cramped space, one that was gradually closing in, and as I stood there trying to figure out what I’d seen, and why I thought I might have seen it, I felt my phone start to vibrate in my pocket.
I took it out. It was Craw’s number.
‘David Raker.’
Interference. The line drifted.
‘Hello?’
‘It’s Craw.’
I could barely even hear her, and when I took the phone away from my ear I could see I only had a single bar. I moved back along the trail. ‘Can you hear me now?’
‘Just about. Where are you?’
‘Out and about. The reception’s bad here.�
��
‘I need … you … thing …’
‘I missed that. What?’
And then the line cut out. I stopped and looked down at the display again. Still only one bar, and now the wind was picking up. I glanced around me, trying to find a sheltered spot, but then the phone started to vibrate in my hands for a second time.
‘Craw?’
The wind whipped past me, disguising any sort of reply, so I stepped into the doorway of one of the tombs, set back from the trail and protected under the overhang of a roof. The wind died down a little, replaced by birdsong and a faint drip.
‘Can you hear me now?’ I asked.
‘Where the hell are you?’
‘Right on top of a hill.’
‘Have you got five minutes?’
‘Yeah, sure.’
I looked back along the trail, to the edges of The Rest, and then the other way, to the entrance. In between, everything was suddenly still. No wind. No movement.
‘Pell’s made a run for it,’ she said.
‘From the hospital?’
‘Yeah. Got up in the middle of the night and disappeared. They didn’t discover he was gone until this morning, which means he left between 2 a.m. and 7 a.m.’
‘Didn’t you have someone watching his room?’
‘Pell knocked him out, dragged him back into his room and switched clothes, then dumped the officer in the bed. After that, he just walked right out.’
‘And no one saw him?’
‘He waited until the nurses were doing their rounds.’
‘He must know he’s in deep shit.’
‘I’ve got teams out looking for him. He’s got bruising all over his face, so it’s not like he’s going to be difficult to identify.’ A pause. ‘But there’s a couple of things.’
‘What?’
‘Smart’s autopsy is this afternoon, so I guess we’ll find out more then. But his medical records list him as forty-one years of age, about fifteen stone, and somewhere around six-two, six-three. That sound about right to you?’
‘Yeah. He was tall. Pretty well built.’
‘That’s how he was able to control them.’
‘Right.’ I sensed something was troubling her. ‘Is everything okay?’
‘It’s … impossible … Pell …’
I frowned. ‘What about Pell?’
The line started drifting again.
‘Craw?’
‘… hear me?’
‘You’re starting to go again.’
‘Thing … completely … height …’
‘What? Can you repeat that?’
‘… height.’
‘What about his height?’
Then the line died. I tried instantly to return the call, but this time it failed to even connect. I dropped it into my pocket and stepped away from the tomb.
A blur of movement immediately to my right.
And then a short, sharp pain in my neck.
80
I opened my eyes. I was on my back, a canopy of leaves and branches above me. When I turned my head to the right, I could see the trail – maybe forty feet away, maybe more – and the tomb I’d been standing in front of. I felt my eyes start to roll, as if I were being pulled back into sleep, and when I fought against it, my head started to swim, and above me the greens of the foliage mixed with the blue of the sky and I felt a spike of nausea.
I closed my eyes again.
Images and sounds filled my head.
The entranceway through a tunnel of leaves to my left … the sound of birds in the trees and a faint wind, cool against my face and hands … my hands … my hands being pulled across the forest floor … my whole body being pulled … being dragged off into the woods by my feet, blocks of sun cutting through the canopy above me … he’s going to kill me … hesgoingtokillme … hesgoingtokillme …
I ripped myself from the darkness.
Blinked.
Once. Twice.
Then I forced my upper body into action, moving left, back towards the trail, my legs barely even moving, crawling through the mud and the fallen leaves. I made it about two feet before I was exhausted. Turned over. Collapsed on to my back.
And that was when I saw him.
He was sitting with his back to me about ten feet to my right, perched on a fallen tree trunk. Black anorak. Hood up. He was looking through a break in the trees, down the slope to the car park about fifty feet below. I couldn’t see his face, couldn’t see anything of him except his hands, but as I looked across at him an image flashed in my head of the dream I’d had three nights before: a man in a coat, hood up, nothing but darkness inside.
Standing at the door to my bedroom.
Coming for me.
My body shivered, as if the ghosts of that dream were passing through me, and my eyes drifted to the tree trunk he was on: next to him was a hunting knife. Eight inches long, four-inch blade, charcoal-grey grip. His hand was flat to the grip, almost hovering over it, like he was threatening to pick it up. I noticed some cuts on his hand; blood dotted along the fold of skin between his thumb and forefinger.
Suddenly, my phone started ringing. I watched him shift, looking off towards the trail and the tombs around it. The tip of his nose came into view, but nothing else. I followed the sound myself, trying to see where it was, and then I spotted it – in the middle of the trail – just a black dot from this distance. It vibrated across the scorched, flattened grass. Four rings. Five rings. Then it stopped. I wondered who it could have been. Healy. Craw.
Liz.
The man turned back to face the trees in front of him. From where I was lying, the cars were just about visible in the car park below. Two. Maybe a third, although it could easily have been an edge of a building. One of the cars I could see was mine. That meant, in the whole cemetery, there was a maximum of two other people. I didn’t know if one of the cars was his but, either way, I couldn’t rely on anybody coming past and finding me.
The cemetery was massive, the number of people here minuscule.
It was why he wasn’t bothered about my phone.
‘Duncan?’ I said, trying to make the natural connections between events. Pell was on the run. It had to be him. ‘Duncan?’ I said again, and this time he jolted, reacting to the sound of my voice. His hand, still hovering over the knife, lowered on to it, around the grip. Then his fist closed around the handle, and all I could see was his hand and the blade coming out of it.
I tried to pull myself to my feet, using the nearest tree, but my legs buckled under me, giving way like there was no bone, no muscle, nothing inside them. They were like liquid. Whatever he’d injected me with hadn’t paralysed me, but it had slowed me down. I could feel it working its way out of me, feel my system fighting back all the time, but when I finally had the strength to walk out of here, it was going to be too late. He was already moving off the tree trunk and coming towards me.
Get the hell out of here.
I dug my fingers into the cracks in the earth, the palm of my hands cutting on thorns, skin brushing nettles, and tried to drag myself forward. Behind me I could hear his feet on the forest floor, branches cracking, dried leaves crunching, as he came around the tree trunk towards me. I got another three feet when a boot slammed against the ground to my right and he grabbed a handful of hair at the back of my head. I heard him grunt, felt his hand brush the skin at the nape of my neck, and then he forced his knee into the centre of my spine. It was like being in a vice. I couldn’t move. I looked out to the trail, left, right, praying someone was coming. But there was no one. We were alone. Even if I shouted out, forced up every sound I had, it would only be a second before he put a hand to my mouth.
My eyes flicked right, to the boot on the floor next to me. They were plain black. No pattern in them. No labels. Nothing distinctive. No red stitching. I couldn’t see much else. Grey combat trousers, the ends of the leg frayed. The boots must have been a size twelve. Bigger than Pell’s feet. As I tried to process what I was s
eeing, tried to formulate a plan – any plan – he released his hand from the back of my head and, inside a second, thumped me in the back of the skull. My face hit the floor. White spots flashed in front of my eyes. A ringing sound echoed from ear to ear. And then I drifted into darkness again and, by the time I returned, into the light, I was back where I started and he was on the log. Except this time he was facing me. And it wasn’t Duncan Pell. It never had been.
It was Edwin Smart.
81
Smart shifted the knife across the tree trunk towards him and then faced me, hood still up. The swelling had gone down, but the cuts and bruises remained bad, one of his eyes half shut and puffy, a huge cut running from the right side of his head all across his face. The gash was traced by a thick purple bruise. But I recognized him now, even with all the injuries. I could see his bent nose, recognized the stiffness in his gait even as he sat, saw the dark eyes – one of them bloodshot – and knew they were his.
‘Smart,’ I said, my voice cracked and soft.
Nothing in his face. No reaction.
I glanced at my phone, out on the trail, and remembered Craw’s call. His medical records list him as forty-one years of age, about fifteen stone, and somewhere around six-two, six-three. But that didn’t match the body they recovered from the staffroom in Fell Wood station and the autopsy was going to prove as much. Because that wasn’t Smart, it was Pell. Smart had blown Pell’s head off to prevent identification, or at least to delay it, and then he’d replaced Pell in the basement of his house and done the same: cut himself, smashed his face against a wall, let it bleed and watched the bruises form. All to give himself some time.
A chance of escape.
Except he wasn’t escaping. He was here.
‘Why aren’t you running?’ I said.
He looked down at the knife. ‘I intend to,’ he replied, his voice quiet, articulate. ‘I stayed ahead of the police for eighteen months, so I’m sure I can do it again, with or without this detour.’ He glanced at me. There was nothing mischievous in him, nothing playful. He spoke matter of factly; almost exactly the same as he had at Gloucester Road. ‘I don’t have much time, but I had to take the opportunity to show you exactly what you did.’