Dead Man's Gift and Other Stories

by Simon Kernick

  My poor, poor Crispin. Ruined and mutilated. Gone for ever.

  I cried out then and backed into the hallway, a hand covering my mouth as I tried to work out the logic of what I’d just seen. Someone had taken and killed Crispin without him having a chance to make a sound, then come into the lounge and stolen each of our knives, yet without making any attempt to kill any of us. It didn’t make sense. None of it did. And how on earth had the killer got in here?

  A hand grabbed me roughly on the shoulder and I swung round fast.

  It was Marla, looking concerned and alert. ‘What’s going on?’ she demanded. ‘Where’s Crispin?’

  She saw the look on my face and her eyes widened. ‘He’s not …’

  I nodded slowly. ‘He’s … He’s dead. In the toilet. Someone stabbed him.’

  She took a step back, breathing rapidly. Then her expression changed and she hurried past me, put her head round the toilet door, ignoring my protestations, and let out an ear-piercing scream, before racing back out into the hallway.

  ‘I don’t know what happened,’ I explained. ‘I must have fallen asleep.’

  But Marla wasn’t listening. She walked around me, keeping as far away as possible, never once taking her eyes off mine. ‘You killed him, didn’t you?’

  The accusation was like a physical blow. ‘No. No. Of course I didn’t. Why would I do that?’

  ‘Because you’re the killer. It’s you and Charlie. You’re working together. And now you’ve murdered Crispin, you bitch. But don’t try it with me, because if you do, I will fucking kill you.’

  As she backed away towards the lounge, Luke appeared in the doorway, rubbing his eyes. ‘What the hell’s going on?’

  Marla pointed at me. ‘Crispin’s dead. She killed him.’

  ‘I didn’t,’ I said desperately. ‘I just found him now. I fell asleep … I … Someone must have broken in.’ The words were falling out of my mouth in a desperate blur, but I could see that neither of them believed me. They stood together, mistrust pouring off them. And anger too.

  ‘You killed Cris?’ said Luke, aghast.

  ‘No. I didn’t.’

  ‘She did. She fucking did. It’s her knife sticking out of him. It’s her and Charlie. They planned this whole thing to get rid of us.’

  ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about. I’m nothing to do with this. And Charlie’s dead, remember? If you don’t believe me, take a look outside. The killer put his head on a pole next to Louise’s.’

  Doubt appeared – at least on Luke’s face.

  ‘Go on!’ I shouted. ‘Look!’

  Marla ran past me into the kitchen and pulled the curtains open. ‘Where?’ she demanded, staring out. ‘Where are these heads meant to be?’

  ‘On the back lawn. Right in front of you.’ But even before she closed the curtains with an angry flourish, I knew that the heads had been moved. Because whoever was behind this was deliberately trying to taunt me, and no one else.

  Just me.

  ‘They were there, I swear it.’ But I could hear the doubt in my own voice.

  As I was speaking, Luke put his head round the toilet door and let out a low keening sound, not dissimilar to a wounded animal, and when he turned back to look at me, his face was a mask of fury.

  ‘What have you done?’ he yelled, his voice reverberating round the whole house.

  ‘I haven’t done anything. Why would I kill Crispin? Or anyone?’

  Marla pointed an accusing finger at me. ‘The two of you are doing it to get rid of everyone else involved in Rachel’s death. That way it’s only you guys left.’

  ‘Bullshit!’ I pointed at Luke. ‘He’s got more of a motive than me. He was the one who hotwired Corridge’s car and helped bury Rachel’s body. And it was his room she died in. I was just in the wrong bloody place at the wrong bloody time. And Jesus, I’ve paid for it since.’

  Marla snorted. ‘Oh, yeah. Poor little innocent Karen. You think I don’t know about your dirty little secret?’

  ‘What secret?’ demanded Luke.

  ‘Why don’t you tell him, Karen?’

  ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’

  ‘You were just as implicated as Luke. Maybe even more so. Because you were sleeping with her, weren’t you?’ A cruel grin twisted across her lips. ‘Crispin told me. He said you were obsessed with her, and that the two of you almost broke up over it.’

  ‘That’s a lie!’ I yelled.

  ‘So you’re a lesbian?’ said Luke, more surprised than angry, it seemed, by this sudden revelation.

  ‘Are you saying you never slept with her? Is that what you’re saying, Karen?’

  I hesitated. It was enough.

  ‘You killed Rachel, didn’t you? Didn’t you, you fucking whore?’

  ‘No!’ I screamed, lunging forward and striking her hard round the face.

  Which was when Luke punched me in the side of the head, knocking me down.

  I cried out, hoping it would stop him from hurting me any more, but he pulled me to my feet by my hair and twisted an arm up behind my back.

  At the same time Marla rushed into the kitchen, pulling open drawers until she found what she was looking for – a serrated chopping knife. She marched up to me and held the blade close to my face.

  I tried to struggle free of Luke’s grip but he pushed my arm even higher up my back, making me wail with the pain.

  ‘Admit you killed Crispin,’ hissed Marla. ‘Admit it now, or I will cut you into fucking pieces.’

  ‘I didn’t. I swear I didn’t.’

  She pressed the blade against my cheek, and behind me I heard Luke’s sharp intake of breath. I thought he was going to say something – tell her to calm down or something – but he didn’t.

  ‘Please …’ I was weeping now, unable to quite understand what was happening to me.

  Marla stood there breathing heavily, her eyes full of rage, and I wondered whether or not she had it in her to carry out her threat. I wondered too whether she was actually the killer and was trying to put the blame on me, but that didn’t make sense, either.

  And then I saw the faintest flicker of doubt cross her face, and she moved the knife away. ‘We’ve got to get rid of her,’ she said to Luke. ‘I don’t trust her.’

  ‘Let’s lock her in the woodshed. Then we can get the fuck out of this place.’

  ‘No, please,’ I begged.

  But Luke was already marching me towards the back door, one hand pulling my head back by the hair, the other hand continuing to keep my arm right up my back. The pain was excruciating but still I tried to struggle, desperate not to be sent outside where I knew the killer lurked.

  ‘Don’t fight or I’ll break your fucking arm,’ he hissed in my ear, pushing my arm even higher so it felt like it was going to snap. ‘Open the door for me,’ he told Marla, moving aside to let her through.

  She unlocked the door and Luke dragged me out onto the back patio, manoeuvring me towards the woodshed.

  I wasn’t going in there. Not with Louise’s rotting headless corpse, and where I’d be at the mercy of the man who was intent on killing us all.

  I couldn’t. I had to survive.

  Luke momentarily eased the pressure on my arm while he went to unbolt the shed door, and I thrust my free hand between his legs and grabbed his balls, twisting hard. He yelped in pain, his grip immediately slackening, and I pulled myself free.

  ‘Bitch!’ he yelled, but I was already running.

  He was quick to recover, though, and I only just managed to throw open the side gate and run through it before I heard him right behind me. I accelerated, sprinting across the front lawn, heading for the safety of the trees. Except it wasn’t safe. This was where I’d seen Charlie’s ruined corpse. I desperately wanted to try to reason with Luke – to ask him why, if I was the killer, hadn’t I murdered him and Marla when they’d been fast asleep in the lounge? But I knew it was too late for that. He was only a yard or two away from me now, breathing h
eavily like an animal as he tried to run me down.

  I hit the tree line, tore straight through a ragged tangle of brambles, ignoring the thorns as they slashed my skin. Ignoring, too, the pressure building in my lungs. I just had to keep going, lose him in the woods, then plan my next move …

  I stumbled on something and was suddenly yanked backwards as Luke grabbed me by the hood of my top. The momentum sent us both sprawling to the ground, but he still had hold of me and, in one swift movement, he flipped me over so I was lying on my back, and jumped on top of me, his knees pinning down my arms. The murderous brutality of his expression told me there’d be no mercy from him, and there wasn’t. He placed his hands almost carefully round my neck and began squeezing.

  His grip was vice-like, cutting my air off immediately. I was utterly helpless beneath his weight, and within seconds my vision began to cloud around the edges. Luke was going to kill me. He was actually going to kill me! I felt myself passing out, which was when I had a sudden chilling realization.

  Luke was definitely the killer. It made so much sense. He’d always been the most heavily implicated in Rachel’s murder, and now he was getting rid of the witnesses to the crime, just as Marla had accused me of doing.

  ‘You bastard!’ I thought with a mixture of fear, anger and resignation as I began to pass out. ‘You fucking treacherous bastard!’

  And then, just like that, his grip loosened and, as my vision began to clear, I saw why. Protruding from his mouth, like a long, forked tongue, was the end of a crossbow bolt. Blood collected in a pool on his lower lip before dripping down onto my face. He made a horrible gurgling sound, like an old man choking on phlegm, and his body began to sway slowly from side to side.

  More blood poured out of his mouth now, in a continuous flow. Sickened, I pushed his hands away and shoved him off me, adrenalin surging through my body.

  The killer stood in the shadow of a pine tree no more than ten yards away, blocking the way down to the sea. He was still dressed in black from head to toe, his face covered by a ski mask, just as it had been the previous day, and he was reloading the crossbow, his movements almost leisurely, as if he had all the time in the world.

  Scrambling to my feet, I ran back the way I’d come. Clearly the house wasn’t secure, but I had a better chance of defending myself inside than I had anywhere else. I prayed that Marla would let me back in because, if she didn’t, by the time she realized her mistake I’d be dead. My only other alternative was to make a break for the rocks, start climbing and hope for the best, but right now I could only think a few seconds ahead.

  I ran back through the side gate and round to the back door. I couldn’t see Marla through the window, and I was certain she would have re-locked the door, but I tried the handle anyway, not expecting it to open.

  It did.

  I was inside like a shot, locking and bolting the door behind me as I called Marla’s name.

  No answer.

  I ran through to the hallway, looking round wildly.

  And that was when I saw her emerging from the lounge, holding the knife with the serrated blade she’d threatened me with earlier.

  Something was wrong. Her expression was vague and distant, as if she was puzzled by something.

  Then I saw the long thin slash of red opening up along her throat and, as if by some off-stage cue, a curtain of blood poured out like something out of a horror film, engulfing her neck and chest. She began to topple, managed to put a hand against the banister to steady herself, then fell face-first to the floor and lay still, the blood seeping out from under her, staining the floorboards the colour of claret.

  The killer stepped out from behind her, a bloodied machete in his hand, staring at me from behind his ski mask, cold contempt in his eyes.

  For an interminably long moment I stood there, unable to believe my eyes. How on earth could he have got in? He’d been behind me when he’d killed Luke and he couldn’t have got in through the front door, which was still bolted from the inside.

  But in the end none of this mattered. What mattered was that I got out. As he raised the machete, I turned and bolted back the way I’d come, scrambling to unlock the back door before it was too late.

  As I threw it open, I stole a rapid glance over my shoulder and saw him walking steadily towards me, not even bothering to increase his pace.

  And then as I ran outside on to the patio, a shadow appeared in the corner of my eye and I was grabbed from behind in a tight chokehold and, before I could even properly compute the fact that there were two masked killers, not one, I blacked out.

  12

  I awoke in a room with bookshelves lining the walls and a long teak desk at one end. This was Charlie’s upstairs study. I remembered it vaguely from the time I’d come with him for the weekend all those years ago, although the room had been much more cluttered then.

  Sitting on the desk facing me, arranged in a neat row and draped over a white beach towel, were the severed heads of Louise, Charlie, Crispin, Luke and Marla. All had their eyes open as they stared vacantly into space, and for some reason they didn’t look real to me, or maybe it was because I’d seen so much horror these past thirty-six hours that I’d become inured to it. Instead, I focused on the video camera that was pointing at me from a central position between Crispin’s and Luke’s heads, trying hard not to wonder why it was there, before turning my gaze to an empty chair standing in front of the window. A length of rope with a noose attached hung down above it from a purpose-built metal joist in the ceiling.

  It took me a few moments to realize that I was secured to a chair myself, with my wrists bound behind my back and two further loops of rope securing my arms to my side. I tested the bonds. They were pretty tight but I had a tiny bit of wriggle room, although that wasn’t going to help me much unless I could free my hands.

  Before I had a chance to dwell too much on what was being planned for me, the door to the room opened and the man in black walked in, still wearing his ski mask. He appeared to be unarmed, which gave me at least a tiny bit of relief.

  He stood in front of me and, as I got a better look at the eyes behind the mask, I realized that, even though I hadn’t seen him in over twenty years, I knew exactly who it was.

  Danny Corridge pulled off the ski mask with a flourish and gave me a sadistic smile. ‘Remember me, Karen?’ he asked, bringing his face close. ‘The man whose life you wrecked?’

  ‘I’m so sorry,’ I said quietly, because in the end what else could I say?

  His laugh was loud and empty. ‘Yeah, I fucking bet you are.’

  ‘I am. I never wanted it to be like this.’

  ‘Shut the fuck up or I’ll cut your eyes out.’

  I stopped speaking as cold fingers of dread crawled slowly up my spine.

  ‘You know what’s going to happen now, don’t you?’ continued Corridge, his face so close to mine that I could smell the acid in his breath. ‘We’re going to hang you. But it ain’t going to be a nice quick snap of the neck. Oh no. Not for you. For you, it’s going to be nice and slow. The knot’s positioned so it’ll throttle you slowly, and while you’re choking out your last pathetic breaths we’re going to film the whole thing.’

  I wondered who the ‘we’ he kept referring to was, and the question was at least partly answered for me when a second man walked into the room.

  So there had been two killers. It seemed almost too much to believe.

  And then he too removed his mask and my shock deepened as Charlie’s caretaker, Pat, was revealed.

  ‘Thank God for that,’ he said, chucking the mask on the floor. ‘I was getting bloody hot wearing that the whole time.’ He gave me a playful half smile, no longer the taciturn man who had brought me here by boat. Now he seemed confident and in control. ‘So, how have you been enjoying your weekend, Karen?’

  For what felt like a long time I didn’t say anything. It was all just too much.

  ‘What’s wrong, Karen?’ asked Corridge with a grin. ‘Cat got
your tongue?’

  They were standing next to each other now, watching me like a couple of sadistic school bullies.

  ‘You know why you’re here, don’t you?’ said Pat. ‘Why you’re the last one left alive?’

  ‘No, I don’t. Please. I didn’t do anything …’ There were tears in my eyes now as fear and despair engulfed me. I was throwing myself at their mercy, even though I knew it wasn’t going to do any good. These men were the most horrific kind of killers, yet what else could I do?

  ‘You killed Rachel, Karen,’ said Pat. It was a statement, not a question. ‘And the reason I know that is because Charlie told me.’ He smiled. ‘I can see I’m going to have to start at the beginning, aren’t I? You see, it was Charlie and I who set this whole thing up. He knew a while back that Danny here was going to get released, him being a big politician and all. He also knew that – even though he’d never admit a thing about what happened with Rachel – he couldn’t trust one or more of the rest of you not to fold under questioning and implicate him. He was scared he’d lose everything, and Charlie couldn’t have that. He had big plans for himself, even one day being Prime Minister and lording over the country.’ Pat gave a dismissive grunt before continuing.

  ‘The plan was simple. He and I would get rid of you one at a time, incinerate the corpses and bury whatever was left on the island. Because the whole weekend was going to be kept secret, and no one knew any of you were here, suspicion would never fall on him. But that was Charlie for you. A clever man, but not half as clever as he thought he was. The plan would never have worked, but I wasn’t going to tell him that. So I let him kill Louise on that first night, even though I really wasn’t sure he could go through with it. He insisted, though. He actually wanted to kill her – I think the thought of it turned him on.’ He shrugged. ‘And credit to him, he did the job well. All that shit he used to give in Parliament about being a principled man standing up for morality and decency, and he stabbed a mother of two through the heart when she was least expecting it, all to save his own filthy skin.’