‘My apologies. Stevie Fullerton, this is Cal O’Shea. Cal O’Shea, this is Stevie Fullerton. You might want to wish him many happy returns.’
‘Oh, it’s his birthday?’
‘His forty-ninth and last.’
‘Some way to give a guy his bumps,’ Cal observed. He was leaning carefully into the car without touching anything, looking up at Fullerton’s bowed head.
‘Aye. Four bullets to the chest at close range.’
‘And, it would appear, one to the middle of the fore . . . Oh no, I’m mistaken. Goodness gracious.’
Cal had this idiom of exaggerated politeness that he sometimes engaged as a means of undercutting the crudeness of the language whenever a group of cops were in conversation, but it also tended to kick in when he was genuinely surprised.
‘What is it?’ Catherine asked.
‘Come closer and you’ll see.’
Catherine approached gingerly, stepping through the puddle of evaporating suds and leaning over Cal’s back.
He cupped Fullerton’s head with one gloved hand, then took a pencil and delicately used it to brush away a lock of hair that had been overhanging the victim’s brow.
‘I thought it was another gunshot wound, but rather the gunman appears to have drawn some kind of symbol on Mr Fullerton’s forehead using his blood. No idea what it signifies, but happily it’s not my job to find out.’
Catherine looked at the symbol, crudely smeared in dark, dried blood, and suddenly felt as though the disused petrol station was on board an oil tanker pitching in stormy seas. Something inside her lurched and she felt for a horrible moment like she was going to faint. She stumbled forward a little, her hand reaching out to rest upon Cal’s back for balance.
Now she knew what it felt like to be Beano. If he had still been here she could have told him that, regardless how many murder scenes she had attended, this one had rendered her officially spooked. She just couldn’t tell him why.
‘Are you okay?’ Cal asked, turning around.
Catherine stood up slowly, wary of exacerbating her light-headedness.
‘Just got a wee bit of a fright there. Wasn’t expecting to see something like that, that’s all.’
‘Changes the picture somewhat, albeit only a little. What we have now is a gangland execution latte given extra flavour by a little squirt from the ritual-killing syrup dispenser.’
Catherine exhaled in a long controlled breath, composing herself as she heard the clack and splash of Laura Geddes hurrying towards her. Laura looked fit to burst as she approached, but her news was jolted into a holding pattern by whatever she saw in Catherine’s face.
‘You okay, boss? You look like you’ve seen a ghost.’
‘I’m fine,’ she said. Like Mrs Chalmers was fine. ‘Cal here just showed me a wee macabre flourish to the killer’s handiwork. I’ll tell you in a minute. Have you got something for me?’
Laura’s expression said Do I ever, but Catherine couldn’t read whether this was a breakthrough or a complication.
‘DVLA came back on the plates. One of them is the registration of a green Land Rover Defender, and it’s not been reported stolen.’
This was good news, but it didn’t account for Laura’s expression. There was something more.
‘Whose is it?’
‘The owner is listed as a Mr Tron Ingrams. Better known to you and me as Glen Fallan.’
The Sacrifice
Sparks danced in the cool morning air, golden flecks turning silver as she held the steel to the turning stone. She worked the pedal with her left foot, angling the blade first towards then away from herself until the cutting edge gleamed for a deadly few millimetres either side of the tip. It had to kill with one blow, and she knew that every turn of the wheel would later concentrate a little more lethal pressure at the end of the arc when she swung from her shoulder and brought the blade to bear. Every flex of her calf muscle in driving the pedal down was thus a kindness, a courtesy.
The sun was low and bright, prompting her to shield her eyes until she reached the relief of the shadow cast by the coop. It was noticeably colder there too, the finest of hoar still dusting the moss-choked grass where the shade had preserved it. It was like two states of being, two realms, existing side by side, utterly different and yet separated by nothing, borders denoted only by their distinction. The bright realm was dazzling, vibrant in its colours, welcoming in its greater warmth. The shadow realm was cold and muted, yet it protected the fragile, gossamer adornment that coated each blade of grass and contoured each barren rut like a sculpture.
She cast a glance across to the house, then walked back into the sunlight from where she lifted the chopping block and the bucket, carrying them back with her into the shadow. She placed the block amid the whitest patch of hoar, at the dead centre of the shade, and rested the cleaver against it, handle up.
Bracing herself for the smell, she opened the coop and stepped inside. It was one mercy of the colder weather: the reek was always that bit less volatile, fewer molecules excited by heat and borne into the air by convection currents. The place seemed quiet, just the sounds of pecking and scratching from its occupants, as though they were all too wrapped up in their own concerns of a Saturday morning to be bothered with squawking to their neighbours.
‘Maybe have a blether later, once I’ve got all this pecking and scratching out of the way,’ they were perhaps thinking. That’s what she was like, anyway. That’s why she was tending to this before going over to see to the horses. She always preferred to get chores out of the way before turning to pleasures; even with a list of duties, she would tend to them in ascending order of palatability. Her sister was the exact opposite, an arch-procrastinator who seemed unburdened no matter what was piling up on her plate. She wished she was the same, more able to live in the moment, but she knew herself well enough to understand that this was just how she was made. She couldn’t relax and enjoy anything while there were responsibilities still waiting to be met. In the short term, that meant killing a chicken for Mum before going to the stables, and in the long term it meant that for weeks, even months she had been unable to see past sitting her exams. So much so, in fact, that it was at her parents’ insistence that she was going out tonight when her instincts and conscience were angrily dictating that she could not afford to let up on her studies even for one evening.
She found the hood hanging by its strap on the hook where it was supposed to be. That was because it was her who did this last time; Lisa seldom took her turn, and when she didn’t manage to wriggle out of it she usually found some way of making everybody think it would be simpler in future just to do it themselves. ‘Losing’ the hood had been a case in point.
She chose a candidate with little deliberation and popped the hood over the hen’s head. It was a small thing, but it made the whole undertaking so much easier, a fact presumably not lost on Lisa when she failed to return the hood to its rightful place. It made the birds more placid, sometimes rooted them to the spot, sparing the time-consuming and temper-shredding (not to mention dignity-rending) farce of chasing the chookie around like Benny Hill. But perhaps more importantly, it spared her from looking it in the eye between that moment of choosing and the bird’s imminent end on the block.
That was why they hooded prisoners before the gallows, blind-folded men in front of the firing squad. People thought it was a courtesy to the condemned, so that they wouldn’t have to literally face their death, but it was actually for the benefit of the executioners. How could you shoot somebody while you looked into their eyes? How could you watch a person be hanged if you could see the agonies racking their face?
They should bring it back, people kept saying. People who had never killed anything, not even a chicken.
She took the bird outside briskly, entering an almost automatic process from the moment the hood was in place and her grip firm on the hen’s neck. There would be no dallying, no ponderance, only the swiftest of action. She was at the block in mome
nts, where she held the bird by its legs and tail in her left hand, its neck straining back against its body as soon as it touched the wood. With her right hand she reached for the handle of the cleaver, always keeping her eyes on the bird, and in a practised movement drew it up and decisively down, severing the head completely. A streak of red violated the purity of the frost, and she let a little more spill in a deliberate arc before bringing the twitching bird into place above the bucket. She stared at the spray and the arc, like some runic symbol whose meaning she could not read, all the while continuing to hold the bleeding carcass over the bucket. She admired the rune’s grace and simplicity, imagining herself the keeper of something truly ancient that was sacred to this spot and this act, unchanging over centuries.
She could feel the bird buck and spasm, the muscle reflexes pulsing against her grip, and as she looked at the crimson pattern stark against the whiteness, she felt a small burning echo of shame. She recalled with guilt the time something truly was imparted to her from a previous generation, when her father taught her and Lisa how to do this.
Lisa had been eight and a half, she seven. There was never any question of her waiting until she was Lisa’s age for her chance to be taught or even permitted to do anything: she always had to have a go at the same time, compelled from as young as she could remember to prove she was as big, as fast, as strong, as clever as her older sister.
Dad hadn’t expected either of them to manage it by themselves, but he knew it was important to make them part of this, so that they would be prepared when that time did come. What he clearly didn’t expect was their reaction. She had insisted on going first, as usual, and had been accommodated, as usual, by a father happy to follow the path of least resistance and an older sister who was in no rush to be at the front of this particular queue. Dad made her grip the bird in both hands, showing her how to hold it against the block and very carefully ensuring both bird and daughter were steady before bringing down the blade.
She recalled a pulse of tense anticipation as he swung, her hands squeezing reflexively tighter, and of jolting fright as the impact seemed to pass through her, from the ground at her feet and the warm body in her grip, then a relieved kind of elation mixed with a brief feeling of achievement. She remembered giggling a little, nervously, in the stillness of the moment. Then the bird jerked back to life in her hands and she lost her hold in her startlement, allowing it to drop to the ground, where it proceeded to hare off in the direction of the stables.
Dad was trying to inoculate them against the horror and instil a solemn sense of purpose to the act. However, he was a bit late: they must have seen their mum do it a hundred times, initially paying fascinated attention as they stopped to stare, later merely aware it was going on in the background of whatever game they were playing.
She remembered that the first time she saw a chicken’s head severed and roll off the block, she had felt much as she did when she was shown a magic trick: a mixture of surprised delight and confusion as she tried to reconstruct the action and the outcome. But once you’ve seen it, you’ve seen it. They were already inured to the blood, albeit there remained something incredible about the speed of the transformation from living state to dead, side by side, bright realm, shadow realm.
Dead chickens running around with their heads off was altogether new, and, for a while at least, hilariously so. She and Lisa went charging delightedly after it, shrieking with laughter and excitement as it veered erratically across the grass. Between them they signally failed to corner the fugitive, which only came to a stop when it ran full-tilt into the side of the stables, a conclusion to the chase that precipitated further hysterics from its two pursuers.
The laughter stopped abruptly when they turned around and saw the thunderous glower across their father’s face. He didn’t need to say anything: in that moment, they understood immediately that what they were doing was wrong, and on an instinctive, fundamental level why it was wrong. No, he didn’t need to say anything, but he said plenty nonetheless. If he wanted to ensure that she never forgot his words, then he did his job well. She could recall them still, almost a decade later. His voice was calm, measured, a man who knew the need to scold had been obviated by a mere look, and who wanted his girls to listen, not cower.
‘We’re taking this creature’s life to preserve our own. Killing something is a sacrifice – it’s always a sacrifice, and a sacrifice should be solemn. We’ll live off this creature today and tomorrow too. We owe it our gratitude and we owe it our respect, our courtesy . . . and our kindness.’
She remembered looking down at the headless body, now lifeless on the ground, and weeping. She didn’t feel bad that they had killed it, but for the indignity of the chase.
That was why she had glanced towards the house before moving the block and the bucket, and felt an echo of that shame as she contemplated the rune. She wanted to see what the blood looked like against the frost, but she didn’t want anyone to notice that this was what she was doing. It was merely an echo of shame though, not shame itself, because this wasn’t to disrespect the act of sacrifice. She was making it feel like a ritual, because ritual served to remind her of the significance of actions that had become almost automatic.
She would remember the rune always, she decided: this cold morning, this sunshine, this symbol in blood newly imbued with meaning. And she was right, but not for the reasons she envisaged in that moment.
Suspect Motives
Glen looked in the rear-view mirror again. The BMW was still two cars back behind his Defender. He had suspected it was following him for the past five miles, and now that he had come off the motorway onto an A road, there was little question.
He changed gear and accelerated. As he returned his right hand to the wheel, he realised he was trembling: physically trembling. He felt shock, fear and anger: anger at himself first and foremost, because he had fucked up and was now paying the price.
When had he last felt like this, felt so afraid? Not since childhood, when he had known enough fear to last two lifetimes.
Since then, he had made a friend of fear: he had learned to listen to it, to draw power from it and to retain control when it was threatening to flood his senses. This was not the fear of which he had made himself a pupil, however. This was something different, something paralysing and debilitating, shot through with helplessness and doubt.
Nothing was under control, and he was just plain scared.
He felt the impulse to reach for the phone, an impulse he had felt twenty times in half as many minutes. On each occasion it was stayed by the knowledge that it was futile, and yet that knowledge wasn’t enough to stop his instincts from suggesting it again.
He kept his foot steady on the pedal, accelerating gradually, trying to be inconspicuous, trying to look normal. But nothing was normal any more. He knew this road so well, must have driven it a hundred times, but it looked different today. Everything looked different.
Arable fields lay either side of the tarmac, bordered by hedgerows. A river snaked in s-bends down the slope to his left. A couple of miles ahead he could see woodland, human-planted evergreens in their regimented rows hugging the hillside, punctuated by firebreaks and pylons. He knew there were Forestry Commission tracks snaking through there. He could take the Defender offroad, lose the BMW on the axle-breaking trails hidden beneath the canopy of pines. It would buy him time, but time to do what?
He had no game plan here. He was lost and blind. This was what happened when you broke your own rules.
He had been stupid, let impulse seize the reins and ride off at a reckless pace, leaving judgment trampled in its wake. He had been listening to fear, as he always did, but his emotions had caused him to misinterpret what it was telling him.
Up ahead he saw a helicopter rise above the trees, banking as it crested the hillside. Then he caught a flash of blue light in his rear-view mirror and saw the BMW pull out to overtake the Skoda that was sitting between them.
There was no quest
ion now. The blue light had been placed on the dashboard and the police car was closing on the Defender. Behind the Skoda he could see three more vehicles similarly identifying themselves and joining the chase. Instinct had told him what that BMW was, way back on the motorway, just as instinct had told him he was making a mistake a few hours before that. In both cases it was now far too late to do anything about it.
Christ.
He remembered about the gun, still secured in its hiding place under the chassis. There was no way of getting rid of it now.
Another glimpse in the mirror showed the BMW gaining. Something inside urged his right foot down, though it was laughable to think of trying to outrun the thing in this battered Land Rover; not on the open road anyway. The BMW had plenty more in reserve; it wasn’t readying itself to overtake or cut him off, just closing in and watching to see what he would do. Behind it, two of the other cop cars were slewing across the tarmac to form a roadblock, stopping any following traffic from passing that point. Something was about to happen, and soon.
He stared forward again as the Defender approached a bend, the road curving steeply to the right, mirroring the course of the nearby river. The woodland was still a long way off.
He tried to recall whether there was a break in the hedgerow coming up, a route over fields that would take him into the forest. The BMW was close enough that if its driver read his intentions, he might well be able to floor the accelerator and cut the Defender off. Glen would need to be absolutely committed to it, prepared to risk flipping the vehicle by making the turn at the latest possible moment and the highest possible speed, and that’s why it wasn’t going to happen. He didn’t see what hiding could achieve now, didn’t really understand why he was still driving. Flight was an instinct, not a plan.
It was over, then, even before he rounded the bend and saw the two police cars nose to nose, a van tucked sideways behind them, blocking the road less than two hundred yards ahead. Not just cars, either: it was an Armed Response Unit, two men in position on either side of the roadblock.
Bred in the Bone Page 6