Chapter Seventeen: Thursday
“A large cat, with a leopard-like face and pale, almost white fur, was sighted by Rob Simmons in 1992 in bushes on the outskirts of Aldridge. Simmons’ dog, normally a brave creature, made no attempt to pursue the animal.”
Unlike many of his contemporaries, Graham had been in no rush to learn how to drive simply in order to turn up for school in a conveyance guaranteed to be the envy of his non-vehicularly mobile classmates. For Graham, the walk from his house to the establishment of his education was a considerable joy, and a compensation for the hours of boredom and discomfort that he routinely suffered at the hands of his educators and fellow students. The twenty minutes stroll gave him the opportunity to think; to escape into a fantasy world beyond the humdrum parameters of his normal existence. Vince’s taunts, that he was a Gameboy addict, were not strictly true - his imagination never failed to take him to far more unlimited universes that he could ever hope to achieve with the aid of a computer program.
It was Vince that was largely on Graham’s mind this morning. He had seen very little of either his friend or Zoe since last Friday night, and on the couple of occasions that he had bumped into either of them at school, neither had been very forthcoming on the subject of the strange intruder who had so rudely put an abrupt end to their rituals that evening. Vince, in particular, had been unwilling to discuss the interloper, and this Graham had taken as being a sign that Vince knew far more about the alien presence than he was letting on. Graham was wise to many of Vince’s tricks: he knew that he added magnesium to the candles that he burned in order to produce strange smoke effects - the spirits as he liked to call them. He also suspected Vince of staging some of the sound effects that had interrupted their nightly gatherings; the piercing cry that they had all heard would have been easy enough to produce with the aid of a tape recorder and some loudspeaker equipment. Graham knew that Vince was no mystic: he was a showman and a fraud, but if it helped his friend in fooling Zoe then Graham was quite happy to play his part in the charade, besides he enjoyed the companionship which came from belonging to something akin to a secret society, and it allowed him to assume an element of superiority over non-cult members that he rarely experienced in any of his other relationships with his fellow students. And now Vince had something else planned: Graham was convinced of it. He had been approached by his friend the previous afternoon, in between lessons, telling him to keep Sunday evening free.
“Eight o’clock, usual place. Make sure you’re there, and remind Zoe too if you see her. I don’t want any excuses about rain, or anything. This is going to be the big one.”
“What is?” Graham had asked.
Vince had been deliberately enigmatic, “You’ll have to wait until Sunday.”
He obviously had a plan that he had no intention of revealing to his fellow conspirator. Graham just wondered what his own part in the proceedings was likely to be. Normally, he was happy to play the stooge to Vince’s taunts and jibes; content to look the fool if it allowed Vince to grandiose himself in front of the object of his desire, but Graham was only too aware that ultimately Vince was aiming to whittle down the membership of his cult to just two members, and it would not be Graham’s name that featured among the favoured duo. And yet Vince had described Sunday night as “the big one”: just what sort of finale did he have in mind?
•••
To the casual passer-by it would appear that James Leigh had arrived at work unusually early: only the night cleaner would be able to testify to the fact that he had never actually left the premises from the night before.
There had still been no leads on the whereabouts of David Sherry. Leigh had been over the evidence again and again, but had discovered nothing new that could give him a nod towards a fruitful course of enquiry. He had visited the farmer Mick Jones again, this time confronting him with the fact that the police knew that Sherry had been on his premises. Jones’s response had been a predictable one: he had shrugged his shoulders and told Leigh to “arrest Sherry then”, and to recover his property while he was about it. Leigh had also re-examined the report on the dead Alsatian dog that had been discovered the night after the break-in at the Jones’ small-holding. At the time, Leigh had wondered if there was any link between the dead animal and the missing convict: he had imagined a scenario where the desperate man had been trying to steal food or money from some of the caravans on the travellers’ encampment, only to be disturbed by the big dog, which he had then silenced in the most direct fashion he knew how. However, the forensic report of the travellers’ site could find no direct evidence to link Sherry to the area, and the post-mortem analysis of the hound had proved inconclusive - ‘death from massive blood loss caused by wounds inflicted by a creature of unknown origin’. Leigh secretly believed that someone in the autopsy laboratory had not taken this particular examination very seriously. The surveillance of Sherry’s brother’s last known residence had been called off. The only hope now rested with a poster campaign; on the chance that a member of the public would spot their man for them. Except that for Leigh, hope had run out last night. He knew what was coming the minute he had received the summons into D.I. Bacon’s office.
“I’m reassigning you.”
Leigh had tried to buy himself some more time, “Just give me to the weekend, sir. The local papers are running Sherry’s picture again this week, it might make a difference.”
“I’ve already let you run with this longer than I should. I’m putting Stanton in charge of this operation from now on. I need you elsewhere.”
“Stanton!”
“Yes. Is there a problem?”
“No, sir.”
Bacon pushed an incident report form across his desk for Leigh to scrutinize. “I want you looking after this. Chances are the young chap will just return of his own free will, but his parents are giving me grief on the phone every few minutes, so see what you can do.”
“A runaway.” Leigh sounded disgusted. “Can’t Stanton do this instead. Or Constable...”
Bacon’s voice was quiet but firm, “I want you to look into this. Keep me informed.”
His superior officer had already returned his attention to the pile of papers sitting on the desk in front of him. Leigh had taken the hint that as far as his boss was concerned their conversation was over and had left his office. He was annoyed, though; humiliated that he was being so publicly sidelined. He looked at the sheet of paper he held. A runaway. It was a nothing case. Kid has a row with his parents, spends a night at a friend’s house, and then comes home with his tail between his legs the next day. The young bloke - what was his name? Robert Waterhouse - he was probably already back in the bosom of his family by now, smiles all round, everything made up. Still, there was nothing else for it, he would have to go through the formalities with this one; it was clear that he would not get himself back into Bacon’s good books if he showed any sign of shirking the minor cases.
Leigh didn’t know why he hadn’t gone home the previous evening. Partly it was the disappointment of not being allowed the opportunity to resolve the Sherry case. He couldn’t understand quite why he felt this sense of failure so keenly: there had been other cases where he had screwed up; other times when he had been reassigned, times when he had been closer to solving a case than he could ever claim to being with this one and yet had still been sidelined before he could grab any credit or any glory. It was the nature of police work; a team effort, not just one man’s triumph. This case had got him intrigued, though; not so much the current man-hunt, more the history of the case. He would have liked to have spoken with David Sherry face-to-face, to judge for himself what sort of a man he was. History will always record him as a murderer; Leigh wasn’t so sure, from the evidence of the case notes he had read, that he wasn’t, instead, innocent of all crimes.
The second thing that had detained Leigh had been the consumption of half a bottle of whisky, with whi
ch he had attempted solitarily to drown his sorrows. It was good stuff. Very good stuff, he had concluded after the second and third glass. The latest visit to that scumbag Mick Jones hadn’t been so pointless after all: it had been the farmer who had given Leigh the whisky, noticing him admiring the label on the bottle in his kitchen - “take it, might clear a bit of the wool out from inside your head, and help you find the bloke who stole my gear, an’ stop you bothering me all the time” he had said, disrespectfully. It was a silly thing to have done to have accepted the gift, could have been seen as compromising himself, but after the fourth and then the fifth glass James had been less concerned with procedure.
Which lead to Thursday morning, a splitting headache, and a new case. The missing person report was still in front of him on his desk, where it had been when he finally rested his head upon it and dozed off to sleep the night before. Leigh looked at the brief words, unable to stifle a yawn.
“Robert Waterhouse,” he read to himself, “Age, twenty. Last seen on Tuesday afternoon. Reported missing on Tuesday evening by parents Gavin and Margaret.” Leigh read their address. Nice area, he mentally noted. “Did not come home on Tuesday night.” What was the day today? James was having difficulty remembering. Thursday. Chances are that he reappeared last night and the parents never bothered to notify them. He would ring the parents and find out. There number must be written down somewhere. No point doing anything else if their precious son was already safely back in his own bed.
James Leigh reached for the telephone and began to press the sequence of buttons.
•••
Rob had been amazed that he had managed to sleep at all, but in the end it was the weak rays of the morning sun, breaking through into his subterranean abode, which began to bring him back to wakefulness. The sun also provided him with the first glimmer of hope that he had experienced since entertaining thoughts that perhaps he had been buried alive: if the sunlight could reach him, so too could rescue.
Now that it was illuminated Rob, by twisting his head around as far as he could physically, could see that he was in a large, earth burrow, tapering and rising slightly uphill, from the relative spaciousness of the bowl in which he currently lay, to a small opening through which the source of light now flooded. Little-by-little, by pushing his feet against one of the side walls of the tunnel and rocking himself backwards and forwards, Rob managed to successfully roll himself over, such that he was lying on his stomach and once again facing towards the only point of egress. It was a slower job to edge himself up the incline, particularly when he reached the point where the walls and ceiling had narrowed so dramatically that he was fearful that he would become wedged in the constricted space. His hands, still secured behind his back, where proving a particular problem, and he was unable to flatten them sufficiently against his body to prevent them constantly scraping against the roof of his earth prison, causing mini-cascades of dry mud and stones when they touched the unstable surround. One larger collapse caused a whole section of roof to fall in on him, momentarily blinding him and filling his nostrils with dirt, such that he was almost prevented from breathing. He expected to feel the unbearable pressure of earth embrace him at any moment, squeezing him slowly like a medieval torture, before squashing him flat, scorning his weak frame for being no Atlas, but instead the moment passed, stability was re-established, and he was left to shake off the loose soil, stones and myriad small insects and worms that had been unexpectedly precipitated from their world into his own.
Wriggling forward as best he could, Rob eventually reached the opening at the mouth of the tunnel. It was then that he realized his mistake. The opening had been blocked - apparently deliberately - by a large boulder, which Rob in his optimism had thought that he would be able to force backwards with the weight of his body. It was only now that he was next to the obstruction, his face pressed up against the cold stone, so that he could glimpse the world beyond, that he realized that he could not exert enough force from his current position to be able to budge the block an inch. If he had thought about it more clearly, he should have edged his way forward feet first, so that he could then use his body as a brace and lever the obstruction outwards with his lower limbs. To turn himself completely around now would mean returning to the lower chamber and starting his journey all over again. Perhaps later it would be something that he would contemplate, but for now he was too tired even to think about moving. Instead, there was nothing left to do other than to admire the view.
He was still in the woods, that much was clear. From his underground confines he could see a tangle of roots above him, bare, spreading branches stretching upwards and, just in one corner of his restricted view, a tiny glimpse of blue sky. How had he come to be in this place? He felt like Ariel trapped in a tree. Rob just hoped that he would not have to wait twelve years, like Shakespeare’s fairy, to be released, or that his captor, like Ariel’s Sycorax, should never return. In actual event, he did not have long to dwell on his literary thoughts, the sound of approaching footsteps was quite clear, even despite his ears feeling as though they were entirely clogged with dirt. If he had not still been gagged, he would have cried out, desperate that the walker should not pass him by unnoticed. He forced his tongue against the cloth in his mouth but it would not budge, and the only noises he could make through the material were low, guttural moans, emanating from deep in his throat, sounding like a poor parody of a ventriloquist's act; sounds more suggestive of a lovemaking couple than a trapped prisoner, and guaranteed to ensure the rambler’s wide berth rather than persuade him to investigate the source of the commotion.
Whether it was curiosity at the unusual noises or pure chance that caused the walker to halt in his tracks, but the view of sky that Rob could see was momentarily blocked out as a figure passed across his field of vision, stopping directly outside his underground dungeon, and the next thing that Rob knew was that the rock that sealed off the entrance to his prison was being rolled to one side. There was a blinding flood of daylight as the burrow was exposed to the full force of the morning sun and Rob felt a momentary rush of exhilaration and relief that rescue was at hand and that his captivity was over. The feelings were short-lived though when, much to his amazement Rob realized that, far from attempting to pull him out of the tunnel, the newcomer was actually pushing him backwards, further down into the depths from which he had crawled and, additionally, was preparing to enter the small burrow himself.
“Get back down,” said a man’s voice as, at the same time, Rob felt a firm hand pushing down on the top of his head, forcing him back into the bowl at the base of the passage.
Rob landed in an awkward ball, his legs buckled beneath him, and by the time he had straightened himself out and managed to obtain something approaching a sitting position, the other man was beside him. The newcomer had not replaced the stone across the entrance to the burrow allowing a degree of daylight into the chamber, and it came as a shock to Rob to realize that he recognized his fellow troglodyte; the close-cut hair and weather-beaten face were instantly familiar, although in his confused state, Rob could not quite assemble where he had seen the man before.
The new arrival was talking, at the same time he was untying the material that prevented Rob from speaking, “You keep quiet, you hear.”
Rob nodded weakly.
“You shit yourself?”
Rob looked blankly at his interrogator, unsure if he was talking metaphorically or scatologically, until his question was followed up by a swift tug at the top of Rob’s trousers. “Causes disease, you see,” the man added.
Rob emitted a high pitched squeal, like the sound of a frightened pig, as the man first touched him, but then said, “No. No, I haven’t,” when he realized that his ministrations were purely hygienic and not in any way sexual.
“You hungry?”
Rob had not even considered the matter, so bemused had he been with the reason behind his confinement, although now
, with the gag removed from his mouth, he suddenly realized that his throat was desperately dry. “Thirsty,” he croaked.
“Here.” The stranger produced a large, grubby-looking plastic bottle from a bag he carried and upended the container into Rob’s mouth, causing the refreshing water to overspill, running down Rob’s chin and dampening his clothes. Rob gulped down mouthfuls of the liquid greedily, finally having to pull his head away, fearful of being drowned by the incessant torrent, unable to keep swallowing at the same rate that the water was flowing.
“Save some,” said the man, as he reverted the bottle. “You want some too, don’t you?”
Rob could not think who his companion was talking to, and was now convinced that his captor must be quite mad, until the man delved deep inside his expansive overcoat and removed from one of the interior pockets a tiny kitten, which he proceeded to set down on the floor of the burrow. He cupped one of his hands and poured water into it and allowed the miniature cat to drink from the makeshift bowl. The stranger fondled the back of the cat’s neck with obvious affection, ruffling the fur backwards so that it stood on end in a punk-like ridge. The kitten purred contentedly, before suddenly growing bored of the attention and making a feint towards the tunnel exit. The man caught the small creature by its tail and pulled it back, before once again slipping it beneath the enveloping folds of his overcoat.
“What do you want?” Rob was taking advantage of his freedom to speak by voicing the question that had him most baffled. The other man looked equally surprised, turning towards Rob as though he barely remembered his existence.
“What? I don't want anything. What do you mean?”
“Why are you keeping me here?”
A look of enlightenment crossed the man’s features, “Oh. I’m sorry. Of course, this must be frightening for you.”
“Frightening!” Rob had raised his voice, repeating, “What do you want?”
The older man seemed momentarily lost in thought again, and Rob thought that he was not going to receive an answer to his question, before finally his companion said, “I want my freedom. It’s not too much to ask, is it?”
•••
Tal had seen the man pause and kneel down by the large tree roots from his hiding place behind an uprooted and ivy-clad beech stump. He bent low to make sure that he was not spotted and continued to watch with interest. Initially, he had thought that the man was just bending down to tie up the laces of his shoes, so it came as some surprise to him when his quarry suddenly disappeared from sight entirely.
Tal had been following the man since he saw him leaving Janet’s barge earlier that morning. He had seen him hanging around once or twice before, usually late at night, usually behaving as though he did not want to be spotted. That in itself was reason enough to be curious about what he was up to; the fact that he clearly had some link to Janet and her family made him even more interesting to Tal.
It had been hard keeping pace with his man whilst maintaining his own secrecy at the same time. The route his adversary had taken had not been on any of the conventional forest trails, indeed he seemed to be deliberately avoiding the main paths, walking instead through the roughest and most impenetrable undergrowth where the chances of meeting anyone else were significantly reduced. Breaking down some of the short trees and bushes to form a passage was a noisy business and Tal was concerned that he would be heard in his pursuit, but the man in front was too absorbed with picking his own path through the encroaching trees and did not once turn around, obviously oblivious to the fact that he was being followed: neither once did he stop or perceptibly slow down: either his knowledge of his woodland environment was intimate or he was walking blindly, with no particular end goal in mind. It was just as Tal had decided this second alternative must be the reality, and that it was pointless to continue following someone that he did not know to an unspecified objective, particularly when in the process he was becoming increasingly bruised and battered by the resisting flora, which had indicated in no uncertain terms that they resented his intrusion into their environment, that he realized that his quarry had stopped and then vanished.
It did not seem possible. There was nowhere for the man to go. It was as though the ground had just swallowed him up. He had not just walked around the tree, Tal was certain of that, he could not have failed to notice him. The only explanation was a tunnel. But what was a tunnel doing out here in the middle of the woods? The one thing that Tal knew was that the fugitive had not wanted to be seen, and he was also quite sure that he would not want his hidey-hole to be discovered too. The expression ‘knowledge is power’ came to Tal’s mind again, except this time he was not so sure of the veracity of the phrase. An animal, base sense of self-preservation warned Tal that sometimes it was better to turn a blind eye, and that as far as acquaintance with this man and his stash - whatever it might be - were concerned, ignorance was healthier and knowledge might possibly mean death.
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