The Nightmare Man: (Child of the Vodyanoi)

by David Wiltshire

  Inskip lowered the sugar into the cup but made no attempt to stir it. His face was a mask of worry.

  “In what way?”

  Dunlop sat on the comer of the bench and leaned across it and pulled the plaster moulds he had made towards him.

  “Remember those bite marks you asked me to look at?”

  Inskip commenced stirring—slowly.

  “Yes.”

  “Well, here they are.” He pushed them under the Inspector’s nose and brought the Anglepoise light to bear on them. Inskip studied them carefully for a minute.

  “Well, they look like human teeth to me. So our man really is deranged, is that what you’re saying?”

  Dunlop picked up a set and put them together.

  “More than deranged—spooky. ”

  The already cold room seemed to take on an extra chill.

  Inskip frowned.

  “Why?”

  Dunlop put the occluded pieces at eye level before the Inspector and worked them in a simulated opening and closing movement.

  Inskip was still puzzled, so Dunlop pointed to the featureless top ridge.

  “He must be wearing a mask of some sort with a sharp bit that goes right into the mouth, either over the top teeth or instead of them. There is no trace of any of the bite marks or anything other than this razor sharp bar.”

  Inskip frowned.

  “No chance it could be some sort of dental work?”

  Dunlop shook his head adamantly.

  “No.”

  After a second look at the models. Inskip shrugged his shoulders and picked up his tea cup.

  “Macabre—will give the press a treat, but if we find the mask in our man’s possession it will be a real clincher.”

  Dunlop let him take a good few sips of the strong dark liquid before he ended Inskip’s temporary relief with a quiet—“But the really strange fact has been unearthed by the good Doctor.”

  As if to punctuate his remark the door to the post-mortem theatre swung swiftly open and Mackay, dressed in surgical green, framed the doorway, the strong light behind him giving an unreal, dramatic quality to his masked and gowned figure.

  “It’s her—the vertebrae match exactly.”

  Then all the lights flickered, failed completely and plunged them into blackness.

  They got candles from a drawer and set them up on the work bench. Mackay lit them with a taper, having set the bunsen burner going with Robertson’s lighter.

  “There we are.”

  He turned to find Inskip confronting him in the soft yellow light.

  “About the head. I never really thought we had more than one corpse on our hands minus its top.” He gave a mirthless chuckle. “That would have been stretching our imagination.” Mackay gave a resigned sigh.

  “Well, I’m going to do that anyway.”

  The Inspector suddenly remembered Dunlop’s last remark before the blackout.

  “What do you mean? What’s this strange fact you’ve discovered?”

  Gesturing at the candles, Mackay said, “I would have shown you, but I can’t without a light source for the microscope. The woman was sexually assaulted, the vaginal smears show plenty of sperm.”

  Warily, his face creased with distaste, Inskip tentatively probed again.

  “Nasty, but not strange, surely. Even extreme maniacs have sexual urges.”

  Mackay shook his head.

  “There’s more I’m afraid. The peculiar thing is the sperm were ...” He paused. “Abnormal”

  The word seemed to hang in the dark moving comers of the room as the wind continued to howl outside, little draughts guttering the candle.

  For the first time Dunlop detected a nervous note in Inskip’s voice.

  “How do you mean?”

  Only Mackay’s face was visible, Dunlop couldn’t help but notice how odd it looked: the talking face.

  “Well, they were human all right, or at least some were. But others were misshapen, ill formed, double headed even ...” His voice tailed away.

  Frowning, Inskip said: “I don’t understand.”

  The wind gave an extra loud moan before Mackay replied, slowly and deliberately.

  “Neither do I, but what I can see I’m pretty sure is the result of radiation; massive, atomic radiation.”

  The Inspector and Robertson looked at him in astonishment. Inskip’s voice when he could fmd it was incredulous.

  “Atomic radiation? Here? On this island?” He shook his head. “That’s not possible.”

  One grey eyebrow raised in consternation, the old doctor replied.

  “That’s not for you to say. I am aware there’s no atomic power station, no industry even for nearly a hundred miles. But what I’ve got on that slide is very similar. He exploded in exasperation. “Damn it—the same as photographs of the spermatozoa of men suffering from large scale radiation overdoses.”

  In the silence that followed, broken only by the ever wailing elements outside, Mackay relented.

  “What you want is a geiger counter. Whoever it is must be dosed enough to contaminate anything it comes into contact with. Just run it over the body of that woman in there and that will prove it once and for all.”

  “And if it doesn’t?”

  Mackay shrugged his shoulders.

  “What the hell else could it be?”

  With growing apprehension, Dunlop offered: “A Freak? Some sort of abnormal birth?”.

  Robertson spoke for the first time.

  “You mean a monster?”

  Dunlop gave a short nervous laugh of embarrassment.

  “Daft. Isn’t it?”

  But nobody contradicted him.

  10

  But the night was not over for Dunlop. When he got back to his room he found a letter on the mat. Puzzled, he stooped down and picked it up, turning it over in his hand. With sudden trepidation he recognized the writing. It was Fiona’s.

  Hastily he ripped the envelope open. It was very short. She wanted him around, right away. The unease came back, just as though a switch had been turned on. He tried, as he struggled through the piling snow, to think of ordinary reasons why she might have taken the unusual step of sending for him like this. He knew the ’phones were out, but what nagged away at him, eroding into every possibility that he conjured up, was the knowledge that whatever it was it must be serious. Why else would she have changed her mind? That morning she had been emphatic. She would see him on Friday, not before.

  He reached the iron staircase and started to kick and scrape the packed snow off the soles of his shoes. When he was half way up the steps she was already opening the door. It seemed an ill omen.

  He stopped in his tracks, looking up. In her face he saw something that he didn’t want to see; guilt, fear, he couldn’t tell what, but his unease flared.

  “What is it? Are you all right?”

  She attempted a weak smile.

  “Yes, of course.”

  As Dunlop drew up to her she stepped back to let him in, and then immediately closed the door.

  Fiona seemed to be avoiding his eyes.

  “I’ll take your coat. There’s coffee on the hob. Like a cup?”

  Silently he nodded, and followed her down the passage. She poured two cups and pushed one across the table to him. He pulled back a chair and sat down.

  “What’s it all about?”

  Fiona stirred her coffee, eyes still averted.

  “Ian, there is something Yvtgot to tell you.”

  “Yes?”

  The unease began to abate, puzzlement and confusion taking its place. She gently shook her teaspoon dry above the liquid and placed it precisely, carefully, into the saucer.

  “It’s difficult to get started. You see, that letter I had this morning ...” She stopped, searching for the right words. A sudden wave of understanding hit him, taking his breath away. The letter, it was from a pregnancy advisory service. She was pregnant.

  He reached out his hand and found hers.

 
Fiona looked up.'

  “I’ve got to go away; leave the island.”

  For a moment he didn’t comprehend, his mind racing excitedly over the idea that he was going to be a father. She continued, turning back to the cup, not noticing his shocked face.

  “I never did get around to telling you properly. It somehow never seemed to matter with us; we started off so free and easy.”

  She faltered, her eyes flicking up guiltily at him.

  “You see, I’m married. The letter was from my husband.”

  There was a sickening silence. He was so stunned he couldn’t even find his voice. Frightened, she carried on with a rush.

  “He’s a doctor; a consultant now. I first met him at the Western in Glasgow when he was a Registrar. I was in the dispensary. We were together for just over a year before things started to go wrong for us. I found he was messing about with one of the nurses, having it off in her room during the day. I couldn’t take that, it was so—” She shuddered, “—common.”

  Fiona took a sip of coffee as if to wash away the distaste, but found difficulty in swallowing. .

  “It wasn’t as though it was one of those things that life throws up at people, catching them unawares. She wasn’t for real. The girl was well known for dropping her drawers for anybody with a stethoscope. My husband was a silly fool.”

  She frowned.

  “He didn’t want me to leave, but I couldn’t stop myself. I just wanted to get away.”

  Dunlop heard her as if she was talking on a cinema screen, clearly, but slightly remote. It couldn’t be happening. But as she rambled on, justifying, pleading, it slowly sank in.

  Not so much the actual words, but the numbing feeling that came with knowing that she belonged to somebody else. All the easy acceptance which had built up between them over the months, based on the unspoken supposition that she was his, and vice-versa, had suddenly evaporated.

  “Ian? Ian, are you listening?”

  He took a deep breath and tried to keep his voice steady. “Yes. And now he wants you back?”

  She nodded, miserably.

  He nodded.

  “And are you going?”

  “You must understand, I’ve got to.”

  “Why?”

  Fiona looked away, not answering immediately, taking out her handkerchief and blowing her nose. She dabbed at one eye, pretending it wasn’t a tear, that something was in it, examining the end of the cloth.

  “Perhaps I’ve had guilt feelings about walking out too readily, too quickly. Anyway, he needs me now.”

  Dunlop’s voice was barely audible.

  “Don’t the last few months mean anything?”

  She looked up, then spoke almost aggressively.

  “Of course they do. In fact the way we’ve got on together hasn’t helped.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Well, being close, happy… Her voice tailed off miserably.

  He sat back.

  “Christ, I could do with a drink.”

  Fiona nodded weakly, pushed back her chair, and crossed to the sideboard. She poured two glasses of whisky and set one down beside him, resting her hand on his shoulder.

  “Look, I’m sorry-—breaking it this way, so quickly. But I’ve had all day to think about it and that seems long enough. I suppose this other horrible murder business has acted as a catalyst… She smiled fleetingly. “Sorry, can’t get away ' from the chemist in me, can I?”

  Dunlop frowned.

  “That’s another thing. How can you leave the pharmacy, the shop? Hell, what do I care about them? Fiona, what about me?”

  This time he could see the tears forming in the corners of her eyes and starting down her cheeks. This time she did nothing to hide them as she sat down again,

  “If only we’d met sooner. But what else can I do?” Her voice changed from pleading to firmness. “After all, he is still my husband.”

  He took a drink from the glass before him, gratefully letting the smooth single malt whisky slide easily down until it burst deep and low in his stomach.

  It steadied him for what he had to say next.

  “Why should he mean more to you than me? He let you down. I never will.”

  She flushed at the first touch of bitterness in his voice.

  “I’ve said I’m sorry. He was very fair and open in his letter; admitted it was his fault. Now he needs me.”

  “Why—what’s changed?”

  “He’s settled down; a sober consultant in Ayr. The strains have gone. He’d like children, and frankly I can see his point. He’s had to wait long enough to get where he has. “Anyway,” she said, and looked down at the glass in her hands, “I’d like a family as well. I’m not getting any younger.”

  That was the final irony for Dunlop. He swallowed hard and lapsed into a desolate silence. Fiona had more trouble with her eyes.

  “Sorry.”

  He made a last effort, leaning forward on his elbows.

  “Fiona, you must know how I feel about you.” He held his hand up to silence her as she tried to interrupt. “It’s overworked and all that, but I love you. I’d hoped we’d get married—I still do. You can have all the children you want then.”

  She looked dreadful. In that second Dunlop knew he’d lost. He sank the rest of the whisky as she started with difficulty to let him down gently.

  “James—that’s his name—is my husband. Like it or not, he has first call on me—he must. Please understand. And I feel guilty about leaving him. I may have been far too intolerant when I was younger. I didn’t give him a second chance, and he needed the money from my job; it helped to pay for a lot of things. It’s been on my conscience, the fact that the poor wee man had that to cope with as well as his study. I know you love me. I feel the same way for you..

  His heart rose.

  “... but I’ve got to be adult.” She dropped her eyes. “If James and I can’t make a go of it, then if you’ll still have me back...”

  His cup of bitterness overflowed.

  The bitch wanted to be a consultant’s wife. He regretted the thought immediately. Fiona wasn’t like that. Dunlop lapsed into silence. Vaguely he could hear her talking away. He came back to reality with a rush, breaking into her mid-sentence and startling her with the harshness of his unguarded voice.

  “When do you expect to leave?”

  “As soon as they can replace me. Or in a month’s time. Whichever is soonest. Mrs McKenna will come in part-time to begin with, if necessary.”

  Dunlop played with his empty glass.

  “Would it do any good to follow you, get a job in Ayr?”

  Miserably she shook her head.

  Fiona suddenly pushed back her chair. Her voice was choking.

  “Excuse me—I’m just going to the loo.”

  While she was away he got his coat and left, closing the door quietly behind him.

  Doctor John Symonds was not a medical practitioner, the thesis for his Ph.D. had been on the embryonic development of two rare species of South American birds. Now he worked for the British Society for Birds, which was why he was sitting in a tent in the middle of a blizzard on an island off the Scottish Mainland.

  All day Symonds had been making counts of the proportion of adult to immature Barnacle Geese, assessing the breeding success in the previous summer, in their Arctic breeding areas in North East Greenland, Spitsbergen and Novaya Zemlya.

  And with dry humour he realized that was where the snow was probably coming from now, and was the reason why the black and grey geese with the diagnostic white faces had left the Machair, the springy turf sheltered from the sea by sand dunes, an hour before dusk, and headed south.

  But isolated as he was, he was not concerned for his safety. Around him in the tent were all the things he needed to live here for a week, which had been his intention when he had set up the hide.

  In any case, he had a short range radio in his baggage, just in case of emergencies like a broken leg or appendicitis. He’d used
it once, making sure it was working, calling the nearby coastguard station at Broughty Head by arrangement.

  The roof of the tent rippled and banged in the wind, but the sides were not quite still. He realized the snow was building up but remained unconcerned as he pumped his portable gas stove to full pressure and placed on a saucepanful of beans. While they heated he checked over his photographic equipment. He’d brought it into the hide because of the blizzard. It was expensive and rather special. Linked to his tape recorder and flash pack, it enabled him to build up a portrait in sound and vision of his chosen subjects for use in lecture tours.

  Now he tinkered with the leads, cleaning the plugs to the tape. It was as he reinserted them and switched on the tape deck to check it was still working that it happened: the accident.

  Right in his face the flash attachment fired, the burning magnesium sending its blue, brilliant light straight into his eyes, blinding him.

  Symonds dropped the tape deck and pushed his hands into his streaming eyes. The tape continued to revolve and the flash attachment to fire at regular intervals, synchronized to the camera propped on the sleeping bag facing the length of the tent interior.

  It stopped with a grunt. Something had occurred in the wilderness of white that had been different. The head turned as over to the right another vivid flash exposed the tent and the shadow of a man crouching inside.

  Symonds heard a peculiar noise and the sound of movement outside as his fuel cans were kicked over. Damn sheep, he thought, and then the noise did something that jolted hiin with fear. He lifted his head, eyes sore and wet from rubbing, and with double vision.

  “Who’s there? What’s going on?”

  Even as he said it the fabric of the tent was suddenly ripped through like rice paper, the snow whirling in, in a crazy disorientating frenzy.

  As he shrank back, arms raised across his face like a child, his bowels convulsed with animal terror at the sight of the figure reaching down for him through the blizzard.

  “No... no... Please God”

  His feet kicked over the stove, and beans covered the floor as he died, his struggles accompanied by flashes from the camera. When it was all over, and for half an hour afterwards, the tape kept on slowly revolving as the snow steadily settled on to it.