by Matt Hilton
It wasn’t about to put her off.
Crouching by the driver’s door, she tugged and pulled, forcing open the door. The metal dug into the ground making it difficult, but there was no way she was going to pit the weight of the Earth against her feeble strength and come out the loser. Yelling helped.
She reached inside, grabbing at Bob’s lapels.
“Help me, Bob. As much as you can. Push!”
Bob roared with agony. Shattered bones inside his legs must have made the effort excruciating. Yet he pushed. And Shelly pulled.
Dirty yellow flames swept along the upturned chassis, writhing like evil sprites. The heat beat at Shelly’s face, and she closed her eyes tightly. She didn’t stop pulling, though. She tore Bob out the door with a strength driven by desperation, and it was as though the expulsion of his body from within the vehicle caused a shift in the atmosphere. Flames appeared out of the ether in the selfsame spot Bob had occupied moments before. There was an angry moan in the air as though the car itself was enraged at Bob’s escape, then the flames erupted over the two of them.
Shelly flung herself down, covering Bob’s face with her body.
It was a momentary belch of flame and it subsided almost as quickly. Her hair was singed and smoke was bitter in her mouth and nostrils, but Shelly realised she’d survived a roasting. She rolled over, grabbed at Bob’s jacket and then propelled herself backwards from the flaming wreck. Bob was twice her weight, but she could barely feel the effort of dragging him to a safe distance. When she could feel only cool air on her face, she dropped down on her backside, gasping for air.
Her feet were splayed either side of Bob’s head. Kind of intimate, but she didn’t care. She crept her bottom closer to him, lifting his head and placing it gently in her lap.
“Shelly…” Bob’s eyelids were flickering.
She stroked his face with her smoke darkened fingers. “Hush, now, Bob. I’m going to get us help.”
“You saved my life,” he said, voice small coming from such a large man.
“You’d have done the same for me.”
“Of course, I would have.” He tried to twist towards her. He nudged her with his cheek, then his chin. His eyes widened, finally realising how intimately close he was, and he almost sucked his head into his shoulders like a tortoise.
“Don’t be getting any ideas,” Shelly said to him. “It’s not every constable who gets this kind of treatment, you know.”
Bob smiled up at her. “I ken, Shelly.”
He snuggled down as though she were the plushest of feather pillows. Shelly smiled to herself. She didn’t object. She stroked his cheek again. Then she reached for her radio. Miraculously the screen showed that the radio was still in working order. She called up the communications centre, told them their situation. Offered an approximation of their location. Then she lay back, suddenly exhausted.
The rain started again. This time the beating water on her face was a blessed relief. It also brought her back to her senses.
Janet!
Where was the professor?
Was she even alive?
She extricated herself from under Bob, coming to a bone aching crouch. “Wait here, Bob. I’m going to look for Professor Hale.”
“I won’t be going anywhere any time soon,” Bob said. Still, he reached for her with an arm that didn’t look quite right. As if it had an extra elbow. His fingers gripped at hers. “Be careful, Shelly. Whoever crashed into us…he’s still out there.”
Shelly chewed her lips.
Bob was right.
Their car had been pushed off the road, had rolled down an embankment and had come to rest at the bottom of a steep gully. Looking upwards she could see no sign of the second vehicle’s lights. Maybe they’d been smashed when the two cars had struck, but she doubted hat was the reason for the lack of lights. The other vehicle was gone.
There was no doubt in her mind who’d been driving the car.
And she knew it would be a waste of time searching for Janet.
The Skeklar already had her.
FORTYFIVE
The crash scene
There’s a tradition in the Shetland Islands that I’ve always wanted to experience called ‘Up Helly Aa’. Strong Viking traditions of the islands are celebrated in a yearly procession of torch-wielding men dressed in Norse costume and culminating in the ritual burning of a Viking longboat. It’s a beer-swilling extravaganza known the world over, and it brings thousands of tourists to the islands, swelling the population tenfold over the carnival period.
Unfortunately Up Helly Aa was three months hence and not something that the residents of Connor’s Island were likely to partake of. Asking Broom about the islanders’ reluctance to celebrate the Viking heritage seemed a rhetorical exercise. The islanders feared the haugbonde curse, why would they celebrate anything even remotely attached to a heritage of ill fortune?
It wasn’t Up Helly Aa, but I could see what appeared to be a torch-lit procession along the roadway up ahead. Beyond the bobbing lights was a pyre that lit the low clouds like a bruise on the underbelly of heaven. It wasn’t barbeque weather, so I could be forgiven for conjuring up a scene more akin to this desolate place?
“I don’t like the look of this,” Broom muttered. As usual he was driving like someone told him that fuel was free but the petrol station fifty miles away was about to close for business.
“Best you slow down, Broom.”
He gave me a look that I used to shoot at Karen when she played at backseat driver. Then, setting his lips in a grimace, he changed down through the gears, engine compression causing the bonnet to dip towards the road. My knuckles were white where I grabbed at the dashboard.
“Police?” I could see now that the torches were actually beacon lights atop three vehicles drawn up alongside the road. Conn didn’t boast too many trees, but there was a small copse of sustained woodland along the western slope of the hill around which the road wound. It was these trees that had given the lights the illusion of a group of marching men as we approached.
“Gun out of sight?” Now it was Broom’s turn to wax rhetorical.
As we approached, a police officer stepped into our path waving some sort of florescent glow stick. Obviously he had no experience of Broom’s driving manner or he’d have never taken the chance.
As Broom slowed the car in a series of bucking lurches, I swept my gaze across the scene at the side of the road. I could tell that a car had gone off the road, and it was the source of the broiling flames just out of sight beyond the slope of the hill that led down to the sea. Stunted grass was torn and churned up to show the peaty earth beneath. Debris was strewn across a wide swathe, marking the rolling progress of the vehicle.
Something clenched at my guts.
Before Broom had fully brought the Subaru to a halt, I scrambled out of the car and headed for the wreck. The police officer got in front of me, his hands coming up.
“It’s no’ safe doon there,” he said, his accent guttural and not of the islands. Likely he was one of the officers shipped in from mainland Scotland to bolster the struggling resources that Lerwick had to offer. “You cannae be goin’ doon, sir.”
“Who was in the car?” I demanded, already fully aware of the answer.
Conn didn’t boast a constant traffic flow. On the western side of the island it was practically non-existent. Since Janet left with Sergeant McCusker and Bob Harris, no other vehicles had passed Broom’s cottage before we’d set off on our journey. Therefore – in my mind - it had to be their vehicle that was scorching the underbelly of the clouds.
My experiences with police officers hadn’t always been good. Despite that, I’d always respected the police, so the way that I grabbed the policeman and thrust him aside was totally out of my nature. I guess his experiences with distraught loved ones at the scene of fatal collisions tempered his response. Instead of bringing me down with a well-practiced rugby tackle, he jogged sideways, keeping pace with me, urging me t
o stop with soothing words.
“It’s all right, sir. There’s naebody doon there. We’ve got them ae by the ambulance.”
I could see the vehicle now. It was on its roof, guttering flames and roiling black smoke fighting to conceal the skeleton of the vehicle within. Florescent markings were non-existent, but the shape of the structure told me that it was indeed the squad car.
“They’re all okay?” I demanded, now pushing past him to get back up the hill.
“How’d you know them, sir?” the officer asked.
“We’re…” I was lost for the correct term, but then settled on the obvious. “We’re friends.”
The officer’s eyes were deep wells.
“Tell me they’re okay,” I said.
“There are some injuries…” the officer stopped what he was saying, as though fearful he was overstepping the boundaries of professional decorum. He stepped in close to me, and whispered. “I didnae tell you this, but I’m afraid PC Harris is no’ a well man.”
“Bob Harris? He’s hurt?”
“Pretty badly, I’m afraid…”
“What about…?”
“Oh, she’s awright. A wee bit singed. A bit of smoke inhalation, but otherwise she’ll be fine.”
“You’re talking about Sergeant McCusker?”
“Aye, sir. Who else?”
Without answering, I broke away from him. The ambulance parked on the grass next to the roadside appeared to be the most forlorn thing I’d ever seen. As I charged up the slope Broom galumphed towards the ambulance in his own lurching fashion. Backlit by the beacon lights he momentarily reminded me of the Frankenstein monster from the old black and white movies.
Shelly McCusker was sitting on the back step of the ambulance. She had an oxygen mask held loosely in her hand and was taking periodical gulps of air. Her face was smudged with sooty oil and her dark hair looked frizzier at the back than previous. Seeing me coming, she stood up and the look in her eyes confirmed my worst fears.
“Where is she, Sergeant? Where’s Janet?”
Allowing the oxygen mask to fall from her hand, Shelly stepped forward and gripped my shoulders. Broom stumbled to a halt behind me. Her eyes flicking between us, she said, “Janet was thrown from the car, Bailey. We’re just about to start an area search for her.”
I squinted at her. Around her head her auric lights churned a dark, muddy blue. I perceived that the lights were muted through fear of the truth, fear of what the future may bring.
“He’s got her already,” I said. “You know that. Why waste time looking here when the Skeklar’s already taken her?”
Her chin dropped and Shelly found something on my chest more interesting to look at.
“I’m a police officer; I have to follow procedures, Bailey. You have to understand that? What if Janet’s lying out there somewhere, in desperate need of medical help?”
“Fuck procedures.” I quickly rotated my body, scanning the night. I allowed my vision to zone out. The beacon lights from the emergency vehicles, the blazing wreck down the slope, didn’t help, but I could immediately tell that Janet was nowhere near. Snapping my attention back to Shelly, I now gripped her shoulders, so that we looked like long lost lovers reunited and unsure of whether to embrace or not. “She’s gone, Sergeant. She isn’t lying in the grass waiting for you to find her. The Skeklar’s got her.”
“How could you know that, Bailey?”
“Trust me.”
Her eyelids flickered, and for one indefinable second I read terror behind the look. Terror of me, because of what I was? Perhaps my talent for seeing a person’s intention wasn’t so unique after all.
In a softer voice, I said, “Shelly. You know as well as I do that we’re wasting time here.” Beyond her shoulder two medics feverishly worked on Bob Harris and immediately I wished I could take back those words. Rather than make an awkward attempt at extricating my foot from my mouth, I said, “Bob would understand. He’d want us to go after Janet.”
Tears dripped down her cheeks. Shelly turned to stare into the ambulance. Bob was a shapeless form beneath a pale blue blanket. Wires and tubes attached him to monitors and what looked to be an intravenous drip. Not good.
“How is he?” Broom asked over my shoulder. For a moment I’d forgotten he was there. I nodded at Shelly, asked, “Is Bob going to be all right?”
“Until they get him to hospital we won’t know the extent of his injuries.” A grimace tightened her features. “Bob thinks both of his arms and legs are broken. We can only pray that they’re the worst of his problems. The paramedics think he might have some internal bleeding…”
I felt as though I’d been jabbed in the testicles. I liked Bob Harris. This should not have happened to such a good man.
“What happened?”
She shook her head and I caught the scent of smoke off her hair.
“It happened so fast,” she said tremulously. “Nothing I could do to stop it.”
“No one’s judging you, Sergeant,” Broom said.
Shelly turned back to us, and for a fleeting moment there was a look of resignation. “You don’t know Inspector Marsh.”
“He’s a donkey’s arse,” came a voice, and to my surprise I saw that Bob Harris had struggled up to a seated position. Wires were tangled in his bedding and the medics were losing the battle to lie him back down. “Give me a second or two,” he grunted at them. “Sarge, could you come here please?”
Shelly scrambled into the ambulance and joined in with the gentle coaxing of the medics. “You have to lie still, Bob. It’s for your own good.”
“I’m just bashed up a wee bit, I’m not a flamin’ invalid,” Bob argued. Still, he lay back at the pressure of Shelly’s hands on his chest. When he was the good patient, Shelly stroked his hair back from his forehead and then leaned forward and kissed him on the cheek. I’m pretty sure that his smile was of more than contentment.
Standing at the door, I felt like an interloper and I stepped away, pulling at Broom’s wrist to take him with me. Broom lingered a moment longer, then he followed me as we headed back towards his Subaru.
“He’s going to be okay, Broom. We have to get after Janet.” My words were rhetoric, but I felt the need to say something - if only to cover the awful feelings of responsibility I felt for Bob Harris being as injured as he was.
“You think we can do this without the help of the police?” Broom asked.
Stopping in my tracks I swung round to look back at the ambulance. “The police don’t know what we’re dealing with. You can’t stop a monster by following fucking procedures.”
Broom made a low noise in his chest that sounded like disagreement. But he stepped past me, pulling the car keys from his pocket. I grabbed them from him.
“Sometimes you just have to do things yourself,” I told him. “I’m driving.”
“Okay. You can drive. Just…well…be careful.”
Coming from a man who drives as if he’s in a fairground bumper car, it made me shake my head. “It’s been a while,” I told him. “But don’t worry, they say it’s easy. Like riding a bike. You never forget.”
“No, but it’s still easy to fall off.”
“I think you’re confusing your metaphors, Broom. It’s a log you can easily fall off.”
“I’m not confused. You can also fall of a cliff,” Broom added. “Something Connor’s Island has in abundance.”
“I’ll be careful, okay?”
“Please do. Even the country’s fifteenth bestselling horror author can’t afford to buy a new car every five minutes of the day.”
Nervous tension does cause a person to talk drivel. Yet the pointless conversation was doing a fine job of keeping our minds off what we were genuinely afraid of. His Subaru was Broom’s way of recapturing his boy racer spirit, a way of grasping at his fading youth, but he wasn’t really concerned that I was going to scratch his paintwork. No: it had finally set in that we were both in terrible danger. If the Skeklar were prepared to t
ake Janet from under the noses of the police, then we wouldn’t trouble it. Not when it was capable of taking us out in an instant.
To give Broom his due - frightened or not - he clambered in beside me and settled in the passenger seat.
Fear could be debilitating. But it could also be the spur one needs to galvanise you to action. When Karen called me that time I didn’t stop to think: “You have to come home, Carter. Please…come now.” Looking back, it was fear that drove me then. It made me race home; and in contradiction it also gave me the courage to fight Cash for everything I loved. Without that fear I would not have possessed the strength or the determination to break free and take Cash to his watery death.
It was the same fear that had controlled me to this point. How could I not be afraid with the knowledge that I was either one of two things; insane or the vessel carrying the vile spirit of a serial killer? Four years in such a constant state of horror would be enough to put some people in their grave. Yet, there I was. Seeking to bait a monster in its lair. Somehow I’d managed to embrace that fear. In comparison the prospect of dying under the slashing claws of a mythical trow meant nothing to me.
Adjusting the driver’s seat to fit someone of lesser proportions than Broom, I glanced back over at the ambulance. The back door was closed now and the ambulance was driving down the incline above the road. Once on the road, it took off with urgency uncommon to this island, blue lights flashing, sirens wailing.
Wondering where they’d take Bob, I watched the ambulance move off along the road. The nearest hospital was on Yell. I hoped that Bob wouldn’t have to endure the ferry trip back over to the mainland, and one of the helicopters would be requisitioned to get him the urgent help he deserved. At least Sergeant McCusker would ensure he’d be given his due. There was no way she was going to watch him suffer needlessly, not when she was accompanying him to the hospital.
There was a bang on the window.
Shelly McCusker stood with one thumb hooked through her equipment belt, staring down at me. Before I could crank down the window she pulled open the rear door and slid into the seat behind me.