The Body Under the Bridge

by Paul McCuster

  “How about a ‘Chronicle’?”

  “What is it, a newspaper?”

  “It’s a written record of the Woodrich Society. Maybe it’s buried in your family papers.”

  “It doesn’t mean anything to me, but you’re welcome to look.” He stood up with great effort. “Come back to my house while I pack a few things.”

  Father Gilbert was suspicious – and must have looked it, because Todd narrowed his eyes. “I won’t do a runner. We’ll go into the house, get what we need, and leave again. I’m not interested in staying there any longer than is necessary. And I’m certainly not keen to be seen in public right now.”

  “We’ll have to take a taxi.”

  A grin from Todd. “You still don’t have a car?”

  “It’s in the—”

  “Garage. Yeah. The whole town knows.”

  * * *

  Todd used a code to open the garage door. Father Gilbert noticed that the red Peugeot was in the second bay, but the white car was gone.

  “Where’s your other car?” Father Gilbert asked.

  “It must be at the police station,” Todd said.

  “The police let you drive to the station when they arrested you?”

  “No,” he said. “I had the mechanic from the garage pick it up for servicing. They do that all the time. You’re not the only one with car troubles.”

  Father Gilbert knew he was lying, but decided not to press the issue.

  They entered through the kitchen. It didn’t look as if anything had changed since Father Gilbert had last been there.

  “I’ll run up to the attic. That’s where I keep our family keepsakes.” Todd started through the sitting room and stopped. He swore loudly.

  “Something wrong?” Father Gilbert asked.

  Todd was looking at the wall with the framed photos. Father Gilbert stepped into the room. The photos were now hanging up, but some were hanging upside down, some of the glass in the frames had spiderweb fractures, as if they’d been shot, and others were missing the photos they were supposed to contain. He glanced down at the floor and saw anthill-sized piles, with the tiniest bits of paper meticulously torn up.

  More expletives from Todd. “Wilton and his gang of thugs,” he said.

  “I don’t think so.” Father Gilbert knelt to look at the piles. The edges of the remains of the photos were ragged. They hadn’t been cut up with scissors. But he couldn’t imagine how a pair of hands had torn them into such small pieces. “Does anyone else have a key to the house?”

  “No,” said Todd. He had gone pale, making the red in his eyes that much brighter.

  “Why would anyone vandalize your family photos?”

  With a shake of his head, Todd moved for the stairs. “A cup of tea wouldn’t go amiss,” he shouted over his shoulder.

  Father Gilbert looked at the photos to see if any pattern emerged in how they were arranged or defaced. Nothing came to mind.

  He heard footsteps in the kitchen, then the scrape of a chair on the floor.

  “Hello?” he said as he walked in. The kitchen was bright and warm from the noonday light. No one was there. A single chair had been pulled away from the table.

  There was something oppressive about the house. Father Gilbert felt it hang on him, like air saturated with a foul clamminess. More than that was the presence: a feeling of someone or something sneering at him from deep inside the upper-middle-class veneer.

  As he put on the kettle, he looked out the window to the garden and woods beyond. A tyre-swing hung by a rope from a tall tree branch. It moved back and forth. But there was no hint of a breeze at all.

  Father Gilbert froze. Just beyond the swing, a man in a long, dark coat stood among the trees. He was facing the priest, but the details of the face were shadowed. The arm lifted up, a black hand – maybe gloved – pointed at him.

  A pane in the window cracked. A lightbulb just above his head exploded. Father Gilbert flinched and jumped to one side. The water in the kettle boiled over like a witch’s cauldron. Pots and pans, hanging by hooks on a metal square above the counter, swayed and shook, banging one another. Then they stopped as if suddenly held still by an unseen hand.

  Father Gilbert looked through the window. The man was gone.

  He reached for the power switch on the wall and the water from the kettle splashed on his hand. The water was still cold. He flipped the switch. The kettle calmed down.

  He stood for a moment, trying to think through what had just happened. He knew of these kinds of paranormal manifestations first-hand. Why here? Now he wondered about David Todd.

  He went to the front hall. “David?” he called out.

  No response.

  He could feel fragments of lightbulb in his hair. He saw the door to a small bathroom and went in. The mirror above the basin was tilted to one side. The shards of the lightbulb peppered his hair and had alighted on his shoulders like dandruff. Using a hand towel, he carefully dusted himself off, trying to get the pieces into the rubbish bin.

  A loud thump sounded above him. He went back to the hall and went to the foot of the stairs. “David! Are you all right?”

  Again, no answer.

  He crept up the stairs. They were covered in thick grey carpeting, padding his steps. He came to a landing and the staircase doubled back upwards. At the top, a hallway stretched in two directions. A door creaked down on the left. He listened, his muscles tight, ready. This was the moment in the movies when a cat suddenly leapt out from nowhere for no reason other than to scare the audience to death.

  The creaking door was half open. As he reached for the handle, the door slammed in his face. From the other side of the door came the sound of something scraping along the wood. He grabbed the knob and pushed the door open. The room – a guest room with bed, dresser, and wardrobe – was empty. A window on the far wall was open.

  “The wind,” Father Gilbert said to himself, though he felt no air moving and couldn’t account for the scraping noise.

  Back in the hall, he listened again. He heard a skittering sound, like mice in the walls. The hair stood up on the back of his neck. He was sure he heard whispering.

  “David?” he called out. His heart was pounding now. He felt silly being afraid.

  The doors to three other rooms stood open, each one vacant and undisturbed. He made his way in the other direction, passing the stairs. He saw a closed door at the end of the hall and headed for it. Suddenly David Todd stepped in front of him, carrying a cardboard file box.

  Both men cried out.

  “You scared me,” said Todd.

  “Where did you come from?” Father Gilbert asked.

  He tipped his head behind him. There was another staircase leading up. It had been a few inches out of Father Gilbert’s field of vision.

  “Were you talking to someone?” asked the priest.

  “No. Why?”

  “I thought I heard whispering.”

  Todd looked at him without surprise. “Just wind in the rafters,” he said.

  “What was that loud thump?”

  Todd chuckled nervously. “I knocked over an old wardrobe. I was trying to see if anything was behind it. Then I heard you call.” He looked at Father Gilbert’s head. “What’s in your hair?”

  “Bits of lightbulb,” he said. “You may want to check your electrics.”

  “Are you all right?”

  “Shaken, that’s all.”

  Todd offered the box to Father Gilbert. “If you’ll take this downstairs, I’ll grab the second one. Then we’ll get out of here.” He swung around and ascended the attic steps.

  Father Gilbert carried the box down the stairs and had reached the landing when he heard a noise at the front door. He froze where he was and watched. A silhouette moved in the glass. Then the mail slot opened and a single piece of paper was pushed through. Then the silhouette disappeared.

  He put the box down on the landing and leapt down the bottom flight of stairs.

  The paper
lay on the mat, the writing facing up.

  Take your place, it said.

  * * *

  “David! Call the police!” Father Gilbert shouted up the stairs and yanked the front door open. No one was in sight. He raced out to the pavement and looked around. The sun hit his eyes. He shielded them and caught something in his peripheral vision. He snapped his head to the left in time to see a figure disappear around the side of the house. Instinctively he gave chase, slowing at the front corner of the house to make sure the culprit wouldn’t surprise him. He peeked around. He saw bushes, an outstretched garden hose, the expanse of lawn, and nothing more. He ran into the back garden, giving the rear corner a wide berth. The back garden was empty. But the tyre was swinging back and forth on the rope.

  He ran to the edge of the woods and a sudden realization made him stop at the swinging tyre. The mysterious stranger could be hiding behind any one of those trees, ready to run him through with the Woodrich sword.

  He wasn’t prepared to risk his life to identify the writer of that note.

  Circling the house on the opposite side from which he’d come, he slowly turned, bracing himself for an attack. He passed the garage. The doors were closed, but there were enough windows for him to believe he was being watched. And laughed at.

  He came to a side door. It was locked. He continued around the house to the front door, which was still open. He stepped in and looked down for the note. It was gone.

  “David?” he shouted. Dead silence. Then he heard banging in the kitchen. He raced in. All of the cupboard doors had been thrown open.

  Calling out for Todd again, he crept up the stairs and passed the file box sitting on the landing where Todd had put it down. He continued on. The upstairs hall was perfectly quiet. A cardboard file box sat at the bottom of the attic stairs, the lid hanging off at an angle as if it had been dropped.

  “David!” he called up the stairs. “This is a bad time for hide and seek!”

  A feeling of dread came over him. Then he heard a loud scraping sound from the attic. He made his way up the stairs, his nerves jumping at the creak of every floorboard. The door to the attic was open an inch. He pushed it open with his foot.

  The attic was an unfinished loft conversion – as if Todd had started to turn the bare attic into a living space, but changed his mind. It was cluttered with boxes, junk, and old toys. Dust floated in the shaft of sunlight coming through the single skylight.

  A wardrobe lay prone on the floor. It was huge – tall and wide – big enough to put a body in. Father Gilbert frowned and stepped over to it lightly. The mirrored door faced up. He took hold of the handle and pulled up, swinging the door over. The wardrobe was empty.

  He ran his fingers through his hair, dislodging more lightbulb powder.

  Is this what Todd had knocked over?

  “David!” Father Gilbert shouted again.

  A few feet from the top of the fallen wardrobe, a small wooden box sat between an old briefcase, a hat box, and three ornate keepsake boxes. The small box was plain and square. The wood was scratched up.

  Father Gilbert wasn’t sure why it had caught his eye, with so much clutter around. Somehow it looked as if it had been dropped, while everything around it seemed purposefully placed. He knelt down and looked at the top of the wardrobe. A panel in the woodwork had come open, presumably from the wardrobe being knocked over. The small wooden box would have fitted perfectly inside the panel.

  Picking up the box, Father Gilbert stood up and took a closer look. A brass clasp held it closed. He had to fiddle with it to get it free. Then he lifted the lid. Inside, encased in felt, was a gold ring with a ruby in the centre.

  Father Gilbert thought of the style of the medallion – and instantly knew he’d found the Woodrich ring. It had been hidden in the wardrobe.

  He was about to call out for Todd again when he heard a low wolf-like growl behind him, pure animal and vicious. He spun around to look, just in time to see something large swinging towards his head. He threw his left arm up to deflect it, catching the brunt of its weight, but the force was enough to drive him to the right. He lost balance and fell into the collection of clutter. His head slammed against something. A bright supernova consumed his vision. Pain blasted through his head, swallowing the light and enveloping him in a numbing darkness.

  CHAPTER 34

  “Father Gilbert?”

  A very blurry Father Benson was kneeling over him.

  His head felt like someone had been tap-dancing on it.

  “Help me sit up,” he said. He lifted his left arm and a pain shot through his forearm. He withdrew it and offered his right arm instead.

  With careful effort, Benson helped Father Gilbert into a sitting position.

  He leaned back against the fallen wardrobe and gingerly touched his head. A knot, the size of a small knuckle, had grown there. “How long was I out?”

  “I don’t know. I got here only a few minutes ago.”

  He turned his head and felt a dull ache in his neck – probably a kind of whiplash from whatever he’d hit his head on. He looked to his right. A side table with a broken leg was toppled over nearby. “What happened?” Benson asked.

  Father Gilbert shook his head. “I was hit with something heavy.”

  “By that, I assume.” Benson pointed to a light-blue bowling bag sitting off to the side. “It’s got a ten-pound bowling ball in it.”

  “That sounds about right. I put my arm up. Got knocked over. I must’ve hit my head on that table on the way down.”

  “Lucky for you the bowling ball was wrapped up.”

  “I wish the table had been, too.” He touched his forearm, which was surely bruised. Then he felt the knock again. “Any blood?”

  “No. But I’ll take you to A&E. A blow hard enough to knock you down could cause all kinds of trouble.”

  “I’m all right,” he said.

  “Was it David Todd?”

  “I don’t know. I didn’t see him. Though whoever did it gave an uncanny impersonation of a wolf ’s snarl before hitting me.”

  “Wolf?” Benson said. “We’re dealing with werewolves now?”

  Father Gilbert smiled. Benson looked serious.

  Father Gilbert looked around him. “Do you see a small wooden box anywhere?”

  Benson stepped back to look. “How small?”

  “Jewellery-sized.”

  “In this mess? What’s it have in it – silver bullets?”

  “The Woodrich ring.”

  Benson’s eyebrows shot up. “You saw it? Here?”

  Father Gilbert nodded – and regretted moving his head at all.

  “Is that why David Todd came back to the house?” Benson asked.

  Father Gilbert tried a slight shrug. “Maybe. But why invite me along?”

  Benson wrapped his arms around himself. “Maybe he’s afraid of being here alone. There’s something about this place…”

  The priest struggled to his feet. He swayed with dizziness and grabbed a tall floor lamp to steady himself. The pain radiated from the side of his head to the back of his eyes. He blinked a few times, then searched around him for the ring.

  Benson joined in the search.

  Father Gilbert knew it was futile. The ring wasn’t there. Whoever, or whatever, had hit him would have taken it.

  He now wondered if it was possible that Todd hadn’t known the ring was hidden in the small compartment on top of the wardrobe. Had it become dislodged when David knocked the wardrobe over – and he hadn’t seen it?

  Perhaps Father Gilbert had interrupted Todd’s search. Or someone else had. He still had no idea if Todd had hit him and escaped, or if someone else had and taken Todd with him, or…?

  “Let’s look around the rest of the house,” Father Gilbert said.

  * * *

  Searching the house yielded very little. No one was there. The feeling of oppression, even the noises, had stopped.

  “Are the cars in the garage?” Benson asked as he swept
up the broken bits of lightbulb from the kitchen floor.

  “The red one,” Father Gilbert said, having checked again. “The white car wasn’t here when we arrived.”

  “Where is it?” Benson asked.

  “I don’t know.” He now wished he had pressed the question of the white car with Todd.

  Having completed their search, the two priests went to the front door, where Father Benson had put the two file boxes from the landing and the upper floor. Father Gilbert was relieved his assailant had left them. He stood by the front door while Benson squeezed the boxes into the back of his Mini.

  Father Gilbert took a deep breath. The day was pleasant – sunshine, fresh spring air, and birds calling to one another from the trees. All the same, he couldn’t get rid of a sense of impending darkness. Or his headache.

  Benson was walking back across the front lawn when he suddenly looked up. “There’s someone up there.”

  He bolted past Father Gilbert into the house and up the stairs.

  Father Gilbert followed, faltering on the landing as a wave of nausea hit him. He waited there as Benson went from room to room, searching for whoever it was he’d seen.

  “I know you’re here!” Benson shouted.

  Eventually he reappeared at the top of the stairs. He was winded. “I know I saw someone.”

  “What did he look like?”

  “Long black coat. A fedora-type hat, I think. Black gloves.”

  “Did you see his face?”

  He shook his head. “It was in a shadow.”

  Father Gilbert told him he’d seen the same figure in the woods behind the house. “I don’t think it was a human.”

  Benson went pale. “We’re leaving this house now,” he said.

  * * *

  “Did Todd run away – or was he kidnapped?” Benson asked Father Gilbert as they drove back to Adrian Scott’s bookshop.

  “Kidnapped? You saw for yourself. There was no evidence of him being taken by force. A man in Todd’s emotional condition would have fought. I’d have heard it.”

  “Could he have been nabbed when you ran outside?”

  “I wasn’t gone long enough for someone to knock Todd out and carry him down the stairs. And even if he’d been carried that far, how did they escape? There was no sound of a car.”