by Matt Hilton
“Y’know something, Broom? For such a noted writer you sure do use some cheesy clichés. I mean…magnets and fragments of metal?”
He jutted out his jaw. Effrontery wasn’t something Broom did very well. “I was keeping it simple. I do that when talking to an ignoramus. I thought I’d already made that obvious.”
“Ignoramus, yeah. But not completely gullible.” I stepped closer. “Have you actually listened to what you’re implying?”
“Have you?”
“I’ve listened. I just can’t believe what you’re saying.”
“Surely I made it clear. Cheesy cliché aside.”
I giggled, slightly too hysterical for my liking. “How did you come up with this madness?”
“I didn’t. You did.”
“Me?”
“It’s truth or consequence time, Carter.” He stepped away from the counter, towered over me. Forced me to look up to meet his challenge. “When we spoke on the phone, what was the first thing that struck you?”
I had to think. “I was glad to hear from you.”
“Uh-uh,” he said, his hair swaying. “That wasn’t it at all.”
Chewing my lip I stared up at him; a minor battle to see who would blink first, who would glance away. Broom won. I studied my boots. “I knew you would call,” I admitted.
“And you knew something was wrong.”
My boots blurred out of focus. “Yes.”
“How?”
“I don’t know. Something just felt wrong.”
Broom snapped his fingers, the noise shockingly loud. “There! You felt it. You felt the stirring of the evil.” He clumped away, grabbing a book off a pile of volumes stacked on the work top counter. He opened the book and held it out for me. It was an atlas. I saw the chain of Shetland Islands. My eyes immediately sought out our current location. Connor’s Island was an insignificant blemish on the page alongside the larger islands. “I recall you asking me how island life was treating me. This was before I even told you where I was. You knew without thought where I was.”
I could deny it all I wanted, but admittedly, he was correct. I’d been conversing with Cash on the subject for five days before I received Broom’s telephone call. I knew that Broom would call. Knew that I would be travelling to an island whose name I’d never heard mentioned before. My main concern, that which had frightened me most and had caused me to seek the aid of my immortal enemy while holding him chained in the desert of my mind, was in truth a feeling that something immensely dark and evil awaited my arrival on Connor’s Island.
I looked across at the SIG. Reached for it. Again it fit my hand like the caress of a lover. “Whilst we’re playing truth or consequence, can you tell me one thing?”
“I’ll try.”
“You know what it is. It’s why you gave me this gun.” I weighed the SIG in my palm. Now it was as heavy as a house brick. “How the fuck do you expect me to shoot evil?”
TEN
Skelvoe, Connor’s Island
Sergeant Shelly McCusker anticipated an extremely long tour of duty. As it was, ten-hour night shifts could be interminable on Connor’s Island, but this incessant wind and rain ensured even the most determined thief remained behind closed doors. She had been hopeful of a little excitement earlier in the evening when she’d stopped and questioned that Carter Bailey character. Disappointingly, the check of his details showed that he was clean. Nothing on record said that he was a danger, but she’d noted something in his demeanour that warned her otherwise. Maybe it was simply a reflection from the dashboard of the police car, but she was certain she’d caught a flash of scarlet in the depths of his eyes when she’d spoken to him. Uncharacteristically, this had made her turn from him, allow him to go on his way without further interrogation. When Bob Harris offered to give the man a lift across the island she’d almost swallowed her tongue. Deny it as she might, but there was something about Carter Bailey that frightened her. Not easy for a police sergeant to admit.
She’d dwelled over Carter Bailey these last couple of hours, to a point that she couldn’t think straight. In the end, even Bob, supposedly her subordinate, had grunted angrily at her and sunk into his own melancholy. Now they were parked on the headland overlooking Skelvoe’s harbour, their headlights ineffectively probing the dark oblivion over the sea.
“I’m going to step out and have a cigarette,” Bob Harris said. Nothing in his tone suggested that he was asking for her permission. Shelly frowned, but didn’t deny him his fix. Bob was your old school copper, six feet four, stocky, slightly overweight, and it was no easy task for him to extricate himself from behind the wheel. He was sparking up even as he clambered out into the wind. He stood in the headlights’ beam, shoulders bent against the precipitation. His exhalations were snatched away by the breeze, wraiths dematerialising in the mist.
Shelly leaned forward, pressed buttons on the in-car radio. Anything to pass a few more seconds. The addition of digital technology ensured that reception was clear, but that only made sense if someone else was indeed doing any talking. The radio was silent. Nothing to grasp her attention. She sat back, exhaling. Long, long night. Only seven hours to go. Bob’s pack of cigarettes was wedged into the space behind the handbrake. She picked them up. Read the health warning. So what if smoking caused male impotence? She drew out a cigarette, stepped out the car. “Bob?”
The constable turned to her, blinking rainwater out of his eyes. Droplets clung to his sandy lashes and to the tip of his nose. He was cupping the embers of his cigarette in the palm of his hand. “Sarge?”
“You can smoke in the car if you like,” Shelly said.
He reared back a half step. “Thought it wasn’t allowed.”
“It’s not. But who’s going to tell?”
Bob Harris wavered.
“If I join you,” Shelly said, holding up the appropriated cigarette, “you know that I won’t be running to the inspector with any tales.”
Bob forced a smile. “Fair enough, Sarge.” He started round the front of the car and Shelly slipped back into the passenger side. Bob leaned down at the door. “I thought you’d given up?”
“Three months, two weeks, three days.” She checked her watch. “Four hours. I’m gasping for a smoke. Get in, Bob, and for God’s sake give me a light.”
Bob flicked the stub of his cigarette into the night. It sparked and flared as it tumbled off the headland into space. With much grunting, Bob settled himself back in his seat. He reached for his packet, slipped out a second cigarette. “I’ll have another one with you, didn’t really enjoy the first one.” He struck a flame from his lighter, touched it to his cigarette. He leaned across. “You sure?”
“Positive.” Shelly inhaled. “Whoa! Head rush.”
“Wish it still did that for me,” Bob said.
“I’d forgotten what the first kick was like. Takes me back to when I was fourteen and had my first drag. Behind the bike sheds at school.”
“You surprise me, Sarge. I didn’t take you for a rebel.”
“There are many things you wouldn’t take me for, Bob,” she said with a mischievous smile.
“Pray tell,” Bob said as he settled back in the driver’s seat. “Help pass the time with a few old war stories.”
Shelly took another drag, sitting back, eyes half shut as she attempted a smoke ring. Her mind on her schooldays, a cheeky story involving boys from the neighbouring college almost on her lips.
“Echo Victor One.”
The sudden intrusion of the voice almost sent the cigarette flying from her lips. Shelly blinked in confusion, searching for a safe hiding place for her forbidden ciggie. Bob was watching her, tongue on his bottom lip, eyes sparkling.
“It’s just control,” he said, reaching for the hand mike. Shelly swung back and forth, settled on the digital readout. TALK GROUP 1. Dispatch all the way over at Lerwick on Mainland Shetland. Echo Victor One was the designated call sign of their police vehicle.
“Echo Victor One recei
ving. Go ahead.” Bob held the mike up as though the dispatcher’s answer would emanate from it instead of the speakers in the dash.
“Echo Victor One, what’s your status?”
“Mobile. North headland. Skelvoe Harbour.” Bob’s reply was perfunctory.
“Confirm you are double crewed?”
“PC Nine two three and Sergeant sixteen twelve.”
“Sergeant sixteen twelve,” the dispatcher said, avoiding now Bob Harris’ presence in the car. “We have an immediate response call from a Mrs Stewart. Noble Croft Cottage. South End. Near Ura Taing.”
Mrs Stewart? Shelly dredged her memory. “Would that be Catherine Stewart, Control?”
Already Bob had started the car, was reversing out towards the road. He flicked on the blue lights. The sirens weren’t necessary. Traffic - like everything else tonight, excepting the rain - was light.
The dispatcher came back on. “Catherine Jane Stewart. Born twelfth December seventy-two. No warrants or locally wanted. No markers. But we’ve had previous calls from this address. Domestic violence. Husband is George Stewart. You want me to check him out, Sarge?”
“Negative, Control. George Stewart is deceased. The boat that sank off Quillan’s Point last year.” All this was unnecessary banter. Shelly mentally shook herself. “Nature of the call, Control?”
There was a momentary pause. Shelly didn’t like it when the dispatchers seemed unsure. Didn’t exactly give her a fuzzy feeling when the precise nature of a call for help was unclear. Forewarned is fore armed, as the saying goes.
When the radio next blared the female dispatcher had been replaced by a gruff male voice. Inspector Clift. “Report of an animal attack, Sergeant McCusker. Treat as urgent. Possible Foxtrot.”
“Inspector,” Shelly acknowledged. “Can you show us attending, Sir?”
The engine revving with a banshee’s howl, Bob throttled along the coast road as it swung above the town. The two officers shared a glance. Shelly noted the paleness around Bob’s lips, at the corners of his eyes. She assumed that her own face bore the same pallor.
“Possible Foxtrot,” Bob muttered under his breath. “Shite.”
“Yeah.” Shelly sighed. “Shite is exactly what I was thinking.” Despite the vulgarity her voice was that of a small child. Foxtrot. Not a word a police officer ever liked to hear. Cop code for “fatality”. Read that as dead. Usually suspicious. Usually messy.
Bob drove with an unerring accuracy that made use of the natural curves of the road, making good headway. Whilst he concentrated on driving, Shelly called up Control and again spoke directly to the force room inspector. “Anything further, Sir?”
“Nothing further at this time. We received the call from Catherine Stewart. She was distraught, not making much sense. She hung up after a few seconds and we can’t get her to pick up the phone.”
“Did she say who was hurt?”
“Negative. She was just screaming about it looking like a wild animal…mentioned biting and clawing. That’s all we have at this time.”
“Thanks, Inspector. ETA is a couple of minutes. I’ll update Control on arrival.”
Shelly was acquainted with Catherine Stewart. Knew that she had two small children. They lived at a pretty remote location just above the village of Ura Taing. Alone, as she recalled, since George’s untimely demise. “I hope it’s not one of the children.”
Bob squinted into the slanting rain. “I don’t get it,” he said. “Animal attack? What kind of animals have we got on Conn that could kill anyone?”
His question was pure rhetoric. The simple answer was none. In fact, Shelly was finding it difficult to think of anything more vicious than Andrew Clairey’s elderly collie, Jip. Even the surly old collie dog wasn’t capable of breaking skin these days; last Shelly remembered was fifteen years old Jip having lost all but one of its canines when it had chewed its way from its kennel to go hunting a bitch in heat a couple miles over the island.
There were other dogs. Will Gower had his Jack Russell terriers, Sam, Pip and Frodo. Rob Wallace owned an Airedale terrier - Jip’s alluring femme. Grant and Heather Irving had a poodle named Chrissie, for Christ’s sake! Not a one of them capable of more than a nip at a jogger’s ankles.
There were of course the guard dogs employed up at the submarine tracking station at Burra Ness, but Shelly doubted that any of these dogs could be responsible for an attack at this end of the island. For a start, should one of the dogs have escaped, she would have received a call by now. The dogs were expensive commodities and the base security team wouldn’t allow them to run free.
Sheep, fowl, goats, even the short, stocky, indigenous breed of pony, didn’t bite or claw people to death. Neither did the two dozen-or-so cats that prowled the harbour streets, often the police’s only companions during a night shift.
At the southern end of the island it was a little more verdant than the moorland at its centre. Fir trees, sustainable copses, clung to the ridge above the coast road. The rain teemed from the heavy boughs, making crazy rivulets on the road surface. Bob simply blasted through the pooling water with nary a concern for aquaplaning or otherwise. The gumball lights made the woodlands strobe surreally, a flickering pattern of shadow and hard-edged neon.
To approach Noble Croft Cottage you would ordinarily follow the road around the curve of the land, before picking up a trail that swung round a wooded hillock and adjacent to the ocean inlet that the cottage overlooked. Bob applied his brakes early. The car slewed to a halt, adjacent to a steep embankment on their right. Shelly didn’t question his daredevil manoeuvre; she too had spotted Catherine Stewart mid-way up the embankment. She was kneeling in the tall grass, leaning on her hands. Her ginger hair hung in rain-soaked bunches around her face. Their harsh blue lights etched sharp planes into her features. Her eyes were huge as she stared at the police car. And even over the thrumming of the engine, the constant drumming of rain on metal, Shelly heard the keening wail issuing from Catherine’s twisted mouth.
Shelly experienced a jolt in her innards, the kick of endorphins, the queasy sensation of spurting adrenalin. It had been a year or two since she’d come anywhere near as close to this trembling excitement; normally police life on Connor’s Island was the stimulation equivalent to painting skirting boards. Fingers shaking, she rummaged in the back seat for her hat, grasped it and pulled it to her chest. Bob was already exiting the car. In his professional urgency, his usual awkwardness wasn’t in evidence. He was three or four paces away as Shelly grasped at the microphone.
“Echo Victor One to Control,” she said, clambering out, the microphone cable at its extent. “Can you show us at scene?”
“Received.” The force room inspector continued to monitor the transmissions. “Please advise as to situation as soon as possible.”
About to confirm the request, Shelly looked again for Catherine Stewart. She saw the woman rock back on her knees, lift something and show it to Bob Harris. The constable stumbled to a halt. He slowly turned and looked back at his sergeant. Seeking direction. Seeking a grain of understanding. But Shelly had nothing to give. Nothing in her experience prepared her for what Catherine held up.
It was the first severed head she had ever seen.
ELEVEN
Broom’s Cottage
Admittedly, the bedroom at Paul Broom’s house was more than marginally comfortable. Compared to the billet I’d rented at the Sailor’s Hold back in Skelvoe I would go as far as describing it as palatial. Plus the accompanying sounds were the soft ticking of the central heating as opposed to chainsaw snoring, muted late night TV, and the clearing of throats I could have expected at the hotel. Didn’t mean I could sleep any better than normal. More than the intrusion of Cash’s constant grumbling troubled me. Obviously the madness that Broom had flung at me was a sore point. Carter Bailey: Demon Magnet. A notion as way out there as that was bound to give me nightmares. But that wasn’t the only thing impinging upon my dreams. I also had a certain lady archaeologist on my
mind.
Surely I had no right to my thoughts of Janet? We had barely met. Our conversations had been nothing more than strangers exchanging small talk during a stressful voyage. Her interest in me was simply due to me being an unfamiliar face in a familiar setting. For God’s sake, the woman was married! I had to keep reminding myself she belonged to another man therefore she was unattainable. What was I doing imagining my mouth on her pouting lips, or gently kissing her trembling throat? What was I doing imagining her petite body as it might look devoid of her bulky waterproof anorak - or any other clothing for that matter? How soft that body would be beneath mine as we locked together? It was growing very near to cold shower time.
At 03:19 a.m. I gave up on the notion of sleep and slipped from under the twisted sheets to pad across the bedroom in my boxers. My bare feet whispered on the thick pile. I entered the en suite bathroom and guided myself towards the toilet without use of a light. I kidded myself that my erection was down to a very urgent need to empty a distended bladder, but it took me a good few minutes to squeeze out a few fluid ounces of urine. For reasons I can barely explain I was angry with my body for betraying me. I loved Karen. Still did, even though she was gone. I had no right experiencing carnal desire for another woman.
Finally I flicked on a shaving light above the mirror. For the second time that night I stared at my reflection. I still didn’t like what I saw. My burgeoning designer stubble would require attention again. I was in no frame of mind to see to my ablutions and contented myself with scrubbing my palms through my growth and listening to the faint rasp. I’d have to borrow a razor from Broom at any rate. My meagre belongings and my shaving kit were left at my digs in town.
I allowed my fingers to trail up to the scar on my face, feeling again the risen edges. In my reflection my skin appeared pasty, the scar livid against it. Most people barely noticed the scar, when to me it looked as vivid as a motorway on a relief map. The scar, Broom explained to me, was as much psychological as it was physical. So be it. I’d wear it not with pride, but as a reminder of the night I’d failed to save my loved ones. In a way, it gave me an inkling of self-satisfaction to know that the scar was there. It proved to me that I had indeed suffered, that I had resisted Cash. In these days of cosmetic surgery on tap it would be a simple enough procedure to eradicate the scar, but I was not of a mind to have it removed. Call the scar a badge, if you will, my very own tin star.