* * *
After breakfast the next day I went back to my room and started to write up some preliminary notes of what I’d heard so far. Then I took a drive back into the Cove. I decided to pop into The Lighthouse for a coffee before heading to the Johnson place. I’d looked on a road map back at the B&B, and although it was on the edge of town, it wasn’t far from the pub if I followed the coast road. I decided I could kill a bit of time over a coffee before I went there. The sky was a thin whitewash of cloud over the harbour, but the water rolled in smooth and gentle. There was no wind.
The pub was a little more active than the previous day. I recognised the two old farts from before, but now there were two tables of people enjoying sandwiches. From the snatches of conversation I caught, I determined that they were German tourists. No doubt just visiting for the day.
“Hello again,” the bar lady said.
“Hi,” I said. “By the way, I never did catch your name.”
“It’s Beth,” she said. “And I never caught yours.”
We shook hands. “Robert Dent.”
“So, Robert Dent, what can I get you?”
I sat down. “Just a coffee again, please.”
“So your usual,” she sniggered.
I laughed. “Yeah I suppose it is.”
“So are you here to ask more questions?” she asked.
I shook my head. “Nope. Just a coffee. I’m going to see the girl who was attacked. Sara Johnson.”
I checked my watch. I had about forty minutes. Just enough time to drink my coffee and drive the short distance to Sara Johnson’s house.
“Oh,” Beth said. “I know Diana Johnson. The Mother. I’m surprised she agreed to an interview, they’re private people. Keep themselves to themselves.”
“I spoke to her on the phone yesterday. I convinced her I’m not some kind of blood-sucking paparazzi.”
Beth laughed. She got a cloth and started wiping down the counter behind the bar. “Always good to hear. So do you think she’ll talk to you? The daughter I mean.”
“I hope so. I’m still unclear on what actually happened to her. How she came off her bike and ended up with her back torn open. The Chief Constable didn’t give me an inch,” I said.
“Doesn’t surprise me,” Beth said.
“How come?”
“Tourism. You might not think so, but we do a small but regular trade from visitors such as yourself. Even now in October,” she said, with a nod of her head to the Germans sitting across from us.
“Ah. So you think it’s like damage control on his part?”
Beth nodded. “I think so yeah. Call it having the town’s best interests at heart.”
I sipped from my mug and mulled that over. “I guess so. He did seem a bit of a power freak though, I’ve got to be honest.”
“Oh he is! I can’t stand him, myself,” Beth assured me. “But like I said, he’s probably just doing his job.”
I finished my coffee and thanked Beth.
“Any time, stranger,” she said as I left.
* * *
I was climbing into my car when I felt a tap on my shoulder. I turned around. It was one of the old men from inside the pub. “Excuse me,” he said.
“Oh. Hello. Can I help you?” I asked. I was aware of the time pushing on. I made a show of checking my watch although I wondered what the old geezer wanted.
“Yeah. Chester’s my name. I heard you talkin’ about that attack yesterday. I saw you in there a minute ago, and thought I might have something you want to hear,” he said.
I could smell the tang of the bitter on his breath.
“You know something about the attack?” I asked him.
He was short, fluffy white hair, and small charcoal eyes set deep in his wrinkly face. He looked around. “Not out here.”
I understood. I got in the car, leaned across and unlocked the passenger side. He shuffled around the car and got in.
“So, uh ...” I said, unsure how to kickstart the conversation.
“They’re passin’ that young woman’s injuries on a dog, ain’t they?” he asked.
I nodded. “Yes it seems that way.”
“Doesn’t surprise me,” he said with a shake of his head.
I checked my watch again. “I’m sorry to push you, but I’m really pressed for time. I’ve got to—”
He laid a hand on my wrist. His eyes were fixed on the horizon, on the line of the sea beyond the boats in the harbour. Those little black eyes peered through time as he spoke. “This happened about twenty years ago. There’s a long stretch of woodland lies above the cove, between the farms and the moors.”
“I’ve seen it,” I said, mystified.
“Every man I ever told this story to has just laughed at me. Called me a drunk. Called me a senile old man. But with you I think it’s different. I think you’ll listen and understand what I’m telling you,” he said. “I think you’ll have an open mind.”
“I do. Please, go on.”
He nodded. And then he started to tell me his story ...
* * *
As usual Chester Woodward was three sheets to the wind, though this time for good reason. The Burns had held a christening party at their farm up on the hill, and most of Jim Burns’ close mates were invited, including Chester. That was how Chester found himself shuffling along a country lane in the dark on his way back down to the Cove. Jim had offered him the sofa for the night, seeing as he was the last to leave, but he could be stubborn sometimes. He insisted on going home.
“You’re an old fool,” Jim told him. “A car will run you off the road, or more than likely they’ll find you in a ditch tomorrow morning.”
Chester waved him off and left.
So there he was, in the pitch black with only the orange glow at the end of his cigarette to light his way. That was until he heard the sound of a motor coming up behind him. He hurriedly pressed himself into the bushes to avoid getting hit as a 4x4 pulling a trailer sped past.
“Bloody idiot,” he mumbled under his breath as he pushed himself free of the bush and carried on walking. He heard the truck brake at the end of the road, saw the red lights at the back. Then it turned right, and cut through an opening in the hedge. The trailer at the back made a racket as it was bumped over the verge and into the adjacent field.
Chester could make out the sound of the 4x4 rattling across the field, and then it came to a dead stop. He got to the gap in the hedge and peered through at the vehicle, curious. The warm summer air and the excitement of spying on the truck and its trailer sobered him.
He watched as a man got out of the cab, took a long drink from a bottle of something Chester took to be vodka, and then threw the empty container into the darkness.
“Govno!” he spat.
Chester could make out the sign on the rear end. It said The Moscow Mule Travelling Circus in black lettering. The man staggered from side to side as he walked to the back of the trailer. He looked around, and Chester shrank back out of view. There wasn’t another soul around, only the night and the great wheel of stars turning over their heads.
“S’ebis’!” the man yelled as he unlocked the gate of the trailer. Chester could hear movement. The hairs stood up all over his body. Electricity prickled his skin.
“S’ebis’!” the man shouted again and stepped to one side.
He held his breath. A shape emerged from the darkness within the trailer, hesitated on the edge of the door and slid effortlessly into the long grass. Chester made out the striped coat and head of a tiger. He squinted in the darkness to see more clearly. The driver smacked the side of the trailer, spat something in drunken Russian, and a second form emerged. It too hesitated. As it turned its head from one way to the other, its eyes caught the moonlight and glimmered like silver coins. It sniffed the air before dropping into the grass to join the first one. The orange and black stripes of both beasts blended into the grass and the night as they moved off together away from the 4x4.
Chester�
��s heart hammered in his chest as he watched the man slam the back of the trailer shut and climb back inside the Rover. He drove in a wide circle and then headed for the hedge again. Chester scrambled away, as the 4x4 tore off down the road, drifting from one side to the other.
When it was gone from sight, Chester stepped out. He stood in front of the opening in the hedge, wondering if he had really seen what he thought he had. He studied the grass as it swayed from side to side. He heard a growl, and that was when he ran away as fast as his legs would carry him.
* * *
“I near on had a heart attack by the time I reached the bottom of the hill, let me tell you,” Chester said.
I thought about what he’d told me for a moment. “And nobody’s taken you seriously, all these years?”
Chester shook his head. “Nope. Not the police. Nobody. I’d given up telling people about it, till you walked through the door of the pub and started talking.”
I found myself unable to buy into his story for some reason. I don’t know if it was the slightly convenient nature of it, or that fact that he was half-cut now, telling me about something that happened to him when he was drunk.
“I used to be a seaman you know,” Chester said. “Was captain of my own boat.”
“Really?” I said.
Hurry up, I thought. Time’s getting on.
Chester looked to the sea, his eyes glassy.
“I saw a lot of strange stuff. A conger eel, the biggest I’ve ever seen. It had to be thirty feet in length. We couldn’t even pull it onto the boat,” he said. “Fish I’ve never seen before, churned up from the deep in a storm. I even saw a dolphin once. Strangest thing. Must have gone astray somehow.”
I waited a moment and then said “Well, that’s a fascinating story. Thanks. So you’re really saying that two tigers were released into the fields over the Cove?”
Chester nodded. “A lot of that went on years ago. Things were let loose that shouldn’t have been. Who knows what’s out there, in our woods, in our fields? Who knows what’s in the darkness?”
“Well, no, I agree. Who knows?” I said. I told him I was running late, but that I’d drop by the pub later that day to talk to him further about it. Of course I had no plans to do so.
“Here,” I said, handing him a tenner from my pocket. “Get yourself a drink on me.”
Chester took it thankfully. “Cheers.”
He climbed out.
“Thanks Chester. You’ve been a great help,” I said.
“Anytime,” he said. He shot me a wink and shut the passenger side door.
I waited for him to walk clear of the car and pulled away. As I drove to the Johnsons, already fifteen minutes late, I chuckled to myself.
Everyone’s got a story, I thought.
* * *
Diana Johnson welcomed me inside.
“Sorry I’m late,” I said. “I got caught up.”
She shut the door. I looked at the shoes and trainers by the front door mat, and realised I was expected to remove my shoes. I slipped them off in front of her.
“You don’t have to do that,” she said, obviously impressed by my manners.
I shrugged as she led me through the house to the back room. “That’s okay.”
The back room was shut. She knocked on the door with the back of her hand. There was no answer. She looked at me, then knocked again. There was a muffled “Yeah?” from inside.
“Sara, honey. A man from a paper is here to talk to you,” Diana said.
There was an empty second or so when I thought Sara was going to decline, but then she said, “Okay.”
Diana nodded at me. “She said yes. But remember what I said. Just a short chat.”
I gave her my word that I wouldn’t be long. I didn’t tell her that above all else, more than knowing how the attack had happened, I wanted to see the injuries themselves.
Diana opened the door and I found myself in a dark room. The curtains were pulled shut, there was a dim lamp on in one corner. It looked to me like a guest room of some kind. Sara sat up in the bed, and she looked to me to be in intense physical pain.
“Hi, I’m Robert Dent. I’m a reporter for the Hopton Herald,” I said. The room smelled of antiseptic and something stale, sickness. I could see that Sara Johnson was normally a bright young lady, but what had happened to her seemed to have sucked the life out of her. She looked pale and shaky, and her Mother went straight to her side to fuss with the bed pillows.
I noticed she wore a big, baggy T-Shirt. Instinct told me she was bandaged up beneath all of that.
There goes my chances of seeing the wounds, I thought.
“Hello,” Sara said, wincing.
“I know this is an awkward time, and I promise I’ll be quick,” I said.
“It’s okay,” Sara said.
“I know a lot of what’s gone on,” I said. Sara’s eyes widened at that. I knew she must be thinking, as I was, of the barn at the Whearity place. “There’s just a few points I need clarification on. If you can help me, that’ll be great.”
She said nothing. With both her and her Mother watching me from the other side of the room, I felt under the spotlight a bit. I swallowed and pulled out my dictaphone. I switched it on.
“So ... you were cycling away from the Whearity Farm. It’s nighttime. Can you tell me what happened?”
Sara looked at her Mother, then started to speak.
“I cycled along by the bushes, and I was coming up on the bit where they thin out. I had my lights on and everything. So as I got to the end of them, I could hear this rustling from the other side,” she said. “I slowed down so that I could get a look. I was scared, you know. My heart was pounding. I looked to my left, and before I knew it something jumped out at me.”
“Something?”
She nodded. “I thought it was a man at first. It was that heavy. I was knocked sidewards off my bike. I hit the ground on my shoulder, then rolled over. I heard the bike clatter against the tarmac. It took me a few seconds to get moving. To get up and look around. I broke my arm in the fall, did you know that?”
I shook my head. “No I didn’t actually. It’s not been mentioned so far, until now.”
“I didn’t know till after. Didn’t even feel it. I wanted to see what had knocked me off the bike. I thought ... ” Sara’s voice faded away, and she looked down at her hands in her lap. Diana rested her hand on her head. Sara looked back up. “I thought I was going to be raped. But then I heard it.”
I cocked my head to one side. “Go on.”
“It growled. I heard its paws against the cold tarmac. I turned and saw a set of green eyes. They ... they ... sparkled...” she said, then started to cry.
Diana’s eyes pleaded with me to stop it.
“I’m sorry. I know this is difficult. What did you do? Did you run?” I asked.
Sara nodded. Diana handed her some tissues from a box on the side.
“And then what?”
“I tried to run. But it jumped on my back, pushed me down. My back was on fire. It felt like ... knives ... pushing into me. I screamed and I screamed. The thing roared. Then I heard something else. I think it heard it too, because it froze,” Sara said. “When the truck’s lights came into view, the thing got off of me. I heard it run off. I heard the grass as it ran through it. I couldn’t stop crying.”
* * *
Diana led me back out of the room and shut the door.
“I’m so sorry about that,” I whispered in the living room.
Diana dabbed a crumpled ball of tissue against the corners of her eyes.
“It’s all right,” she said.
I felt guilty. So guilty. “I really am sorry,” I said again.
Diana put a hand on my arm. I got the impression now that not a lot of people had been by the house since the accident, that not a lot of people had asked whether they were both okay. Although I was a stranger, and imposing on their time, I was still bothered whether they were both all right or not. Diana
could see that.
“Here, let me show you something,” she said. I followed her into the kitchen. She looked around to be sure Sara was still in the room, then opened a drawer next to the cooker. I saw scissors and an assortment of odd knives. She pulled out an envelope.
She handed it to me, and watched me intently as I lifted the flap and removed a set of three photographs. The breath caught in my throat.
They were shots from different angles of Sara’s back, and they showed the deep red grooves that ran from her shoulder blades and down for a good twenty or so inches. You could clearly see that they were claw marks, and that the beast responsible had pretty much torn her to shreds. She had a very lucky escape, but she’d be scarred for life.
I shook my head without realising I was doing it. I looked at all three, then decided I couldn’t look any longer. I slipped them back into the envelope and handed them to Diana.
Now in a perfect world, I would have told her “This clearly wasn’t a dog attack. This is what Chester down at The Lighthouse was talking about. This is a tiger or a lion, or a leopard. This is one of those big cats released into the wild years ago, like the Beast of Bodmin Moor.”
In a perfect world I’d have said “Don’t worry. Forget Chief Constable Binchley. I’m a journalist, and I’ll make sure the truth comes out. Leave it with me. I won’t let the people of this town hide the truth.”
But I didn’t. I couldn’t. Because this is real life, and in real life you don’t put yourself on offer as quick as that.
I felt guilty at having made Sara cry, and guilty at producing the same reaction from her Mother. But mostly I felt guilty about having wanted to see the injuries so badly before. Now I sort of wished I’d not seen them. Maybe then I might’ve continued to think Chester’s story was the rambling of another drunk old man. I might have turned a blind eye to the truth in the story, that beating heart I was always chasing in my dreams.
“I don’t know what to say,” I told her softly.
Diana put the envelope in the drawer and shut it. “Neither do I,” she said, her eyes heavy.
Then she covered her face with her hands.
* * *
I sat in the car. Numb.
I thought I was going to be raped. But then I heard it.
Carnival of Cryptids (Anthology to Raise Funds for the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children) (Kindle All-Stars Book 2) Page 3