When the Dead Come Calling

by Helen Sedgwick

  WHEN THE DEAD

  COME CALLING

  WHEN THE DEAD

  COME CALLING

  THE BURROWHEAD MYSTERIES

  HELEN SEDGWICK

  For Hazel

  TUESDAY

  BREAK OF DAWN

  My hiding place is not a cave. It is a shrine.

  I can see that, now I’ve stopped running. I see it in the twigs bound together with twine, in the scratched crosses on the walls. Prayers barely legible chipped into stone: PLEASE HELP MY MAMMY; PD & RT 4EVER; RIP, everywhere RIP. I edge back to the entrance. Don’t want to be here. Can’t be. We used to whisper about this place – the cave that doesn’t exist – but here it is, cold and dark and stale, filled with the marks of people who have found it before me. Their words scrape the back of my neck but at least there is air at the front. My toes touch the pebbles of the beach, my heels the cave’s floor. My feet cross the threshold.

  The cliff face is steep either side of my head. Jagged. Rusting like tetanus. I don’t know where the red comes from in these rocks, only that the walls get closer as they rise, make a pointed cavern the width of my arm span and the height of a block of flats – emptied for demolition but left standing, to rot, repainted on the inside with bird shit. Shouldn’t have left those windows open. My breath is a staggered echo, distant, so close it makes my skin shrink. I don’t want to look behind me, don’t want to see inside. RIP. Gouged, carved. PLEASE HELP. Alone. Desperate.

  On the horizon: a military carrier. Fat and full. Smoke belching from the back of it, the waves useless against its hull. It’s a darker grey than the grey above and below it, charcoal deep, while the clouds are bruised and the sea below frothy and spitting. The waves and I are separated by dunes of rock and shingle, barnacled, sharp when you least expect it – I should know, I ran the miles over them to get here. Keep low to the stone, graze your knees, let broken shells puncture your soles, just keep moving. The rain will wash the blood from these rocks.

  Legs planted apart, stretching my arms out, one to the left, one to the right. This shaking has to stop. I keep my palms pointing outwards and close my eyes, control my breath. Roll my head back as far as it will go. Something clicks; joint, bone, cartilage. I open my eyes again. Straight ahead I can see through the gash of the cave’s entrance all the way to the sea.

  But they will not be coming from the sea.

  They will be coming from the cliffs.

  I press myself as flat as I can, peer back out the way I came. My hands are grazed and stinging now with the salt from the sea and my sweat. The wind scratches at my eyes but the beach is empty.

  Then, to my surprise, I see colour. There is a crate, a cage, for catching crab or lobster, blue rope, turquoise, with tendrils of black seaweed tangled through the holes. Abandoned. I think some of the rope has been broken. A creature has eaten its way out. So there it is, unexpected colour on this grey beach: soggy blue rope. Seaweed like matted hair. Messages scratched into stone. Whispers. Escape.

  BACK A SEVEN

  Georgie and Fergus sleep with their curtains open so they can see the sky, so they are wakened every morning by the sunrise. It’s so beautiful out here, they always say. But today Georgie has dozed, because it is a Tuesday and Tuesdays are usually the calmest days, the kindest sort of days, and so she is still a little sleep-muddled when Fergus kisses her forehead.

  ‘I made you some bacon, hon. And scrambled.’

  Georgie sits up in bed, just waking. ‘What’s the time, love?’ She feels a gurgle in her tummy; that bacon smells delicious.

  ‘Back a seven.’

  ‘Back of seven?’

  ‘Aye.’

  ‘I slept in.’

  She reaches up and strokes the side of his big, familiar face. He’s wearing the checked pyjama bottoms she got him last Christmas, and his favourite green T-shirt with the fox on it. Little tight round the waist nowadays, but that doesn’t bother either of them. You get to an age when you learn what’s important, and what’s not.

  ‘Smells good.’

  Georgie stretches, like she does every morning, full down to her toes to start, a circle of the ankles, before pulling her legs up to her chest, stretching out her spine. Fergus kisses the top of her head as she lies there, bundled and content. ‘Mmm,’ she says with the stretch, arms up over her head now, and he turns the handle of the mug on the bedside table towards her.

  ‘Tea first, hon?’ he says.

  ‘Tea first.’

  The tray is balanced on the chest by the door, and he reaches for it as she sips her tea. Fergus thinks breakfast in bed is a good thing, and there’s always time for a good thing. That’s one of his sayings. Georgie can hear it now, though he doesn’t say it out loud today. No need, between them. She tucks into her bacon, which is just the right side of crispy, and speaks with her mouth full, because there’s fun in that and certain rules can be bent, especially before you’re dressed in the morning.

  ‘Nice lenticular clouds this morning,’ she says.

  They are her favourite type of cloud. Always pleased to see them. Though today they are distant, away at the gold strip of horizon, and the sky is dark and bloated closer in. Windows already streaked with rain.

  ‘What’re your plans for today, love?’

  ‘Might walk over to the hill at Burrowhead Cross. If the weather lightens.’

  ‘Mmm?’

  ‘See if I can’t get some aerial photos, looking down over the village. You know, for the website. Or there’s the motte at Mungrid…’

  She raises her eyebrows. ‘It’s steep,’ she says, ‘that motte. I need the rope to climb up the side of it.’

  ‘I’ll use the rope too, hon, to get up it.’

  They sit together for a moment, Georgie under the covers and Fergus on the edge of the bed.

  ‘Any members signed up yet?’ she asks, though she regrets it as soon as she sees his face.

  ‘I’m going to bring my tray up,’ he says.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Breakfast in bed together, eh?’

  ‘Oh yes, of course.’

  She reaches for his hand and gives it a squeeze.

  ‘Those clouds…’ she says, staring away to the horizon. They are beautiful, smooth as satin, with the way they catch the morning light and glow, actually glow, beyond the charcoal overhead. It is understandable, to Georgie, that people might believe there’s more going on up there than air and water. She listens to Fergus’s footsteps down the stairs, hears the familiar almost-whistle under his breath that is the sound of him when he thinks no one is listening. He doesn’t make that whistle in public because his mum told him it was rude, when he was a little boy – what a thing to do. A child should be allowed to whistle all he likes. But then there is something about it being just for her.

  She chases the last of her scrambled eggs around her plate, picks up a final crunch of bacon with her fingers. A good way to start a day. Especially a Tuesday. Then her phone flashes beside her.

  The tone of Simon’s voice makes her heart sink down to her belly. She has to ask him to repeat the details, to let the full meaning sink in. It’s too awful. His words are fragmented, confused – the shock. Worse than that, too. She could hardly have believed it but for that terrible crack in his voice. She pushes back the duvet, stands for a minute looking towards the window, the rain beating against the glass. Stuff like this isn’t supposed to happen here. That’s why they chose it when they moved down from Scotland, her and Fergus. She’s standing on something small and sharp; bare feet on cold wood. God, why’d it have to be Simon who got there first? She can hear the shriek of the wind up on the cliffs.

  ‘I’m on my way, Si,’ she says. ‘You need to keep your distance
. Don’t do anything till I’m there.’

  ‘I know.’ His voice is gravel and pain.

  ‘I’m… I’m sorry. Cal will be on his way too. We need to get the scene secured, and fast.’

  The call disconnects.

  She reaches for her towel and meets Fergus at the top of the stairs on her way to the bathroom. He’s holding his tray of breakfast. He’s brought up a crocus from the garden in a little water glass.

  ‘Oh, love,’ she says. ‘Something awful… I’ve got to get to work, right now.’

  ‘What is it?’

  She swallows.

  ‘They’ve found… they’ve found a body.’

  He stands there, holding the breakfast tray.

  ‘What?’

  ‘They’ve found a body, under the swings.’

  ‘But what do you mean?’

  ‘They’ve found a dead body, love. Someone’s been killed.’

  ‘Not here in the village?’

  ‘I think so. I don’t know any more than that.’

  ‘It can’t be… Not here, in the village?’

  His throat’s turned red – that happens when he’s upset.

  ‘Guess it’s not much like a Tuesday after all.’ She shakes her head. ‘I’ve got to get to work.’ Turns to the bathroom, then back again. ‘This is lovely though.’ She nods at the flower. ‘Thank you. Such a pretty colour, that purple.’

  ‘Seemed a good morning for it. But now…’

  She reaches towards him then stops.

  ‘Do they know who it is?’ he asks.

  Georgie nods.

  ‘Young Dr Cosse.’

  ‘Oh, Georgie…’ He shakes his head, like he doesn’t want his next thought to settle. ‘Oh my God. Simon?’

  ‘He’s there.’

  He closes his eyes against it. ‘Is it to do with all this stuff about, you know…’

  ‘I don’t know, Fergus.’ She leans forward and rests her forehead against his. They breathe, in unison. ‘I don’t know.’

  She straightens up and gives him a quick kiss, already backing away.

  ‘Will I get some coffee on?’ he says, with something hopeless in his voice.

  ‘I’ve not got time for coffee.’

  It’s an accidental snap, but she leaves it hanging.

  In the bathroom she locks the door, turns the shower on and steps in too soon. Ice-cold water hits the back of her shoulders and for a second it feels like the strike of a baton. Then she tilts her head back and lets it cascade down her face.

  08:15

  Burrowhead playground, the only one in the village of Burrowhead, has its back to the houses and its gaze out over the clifftop and beyond the rough shingle beach to the sea. From time to time the villagers get together for a meeting to discuss how this setup is unhelpful for the safety of the children: what if they swing too high and jump off, go cascading down the cliff’s edge? What if they’re dizzy from the roundabout? What if they fall? Georgie has been along to the meetings herself, once or twice. It’s important, when you’re part of a community, and perhaps they have a point. The bedrock itself seems barely attached to the rest of land, especially on a day like today – it would not be a surprise, to Georgie, if the whole headland were to slip over the edge any minute. The smudged, sodden grass around the roundabout, the faded English Wildlife information sign and all. Gone. It could happen. These things do happen.

  As she approaches, she has to hold her hat down over her eyes, the wind has got such a whip to it this morning. It’s carrying the rain like nettles. Dark too, the sky, the sea – none of that morning light left on the horizon. Spring takes a while to arrive after spring has supposedly arrived, up here in the borderlands, and there’s the salt in the air this side of the village. No wonder the roundabout squeaks and the swing chains are rusted. Cal and his team are already at work, the pale shapes of their suits hunched, crouched, hoods pockmarked by the rain. Beyond the cordon, at knee height, are two animals: a horse and donkey, attached to the ground via spiral springs of metal. Their chipped red and yellow paint makes a disturbing contrast to that angry grey sky. The roundabout, squeaking the way it does, seems to answer the wind. There’s no one on it, of course. It spins all on its own. It’s lasted though, that’s the thing. Still clinging on.

  Simon is standing a way off, but he’s staring over at the swings. His coat is open, fighting against the wind, his hair plastered across his forehead. And that shape he’s staring at on the ground. That’s the body. The angles of it look all wrong, even from here. Everything about it looks wrong. She keeps away though, lets Cal and his team do their work. Besides, she needs a minute with Simon, just the two of them. She puts her hand on his arm.

  His breath is ragged and his eyes are unable to hold her gaze.

  ‘Will you come over here with me, Si?’ she says. She has to raise her voice to be heard over the wind and those furious waves. God but this weather.

  He looks at her with his eyes such a pale blue she finds them unnerving, even now, but she doesn’t look away. He’s drenched but unflinching, like he’s not even aware of the rain.

  ‘Over to this bench here, okay?’

  The bench is dedicated to Abigail Moss, whom nobody knows. It faces away from the swings, out over the beach that on a summer’s day can be pebbled with red stone and yellow quartz but which today is a reflection of the clouds themselves, the black nimbostratus, all churned up and bitter.

  ‘I’m so sorry, Si,’ she says. The rain intensifies, stinging her face. She holds her hand up as a kind of shield, and water spills from her cuff down her arm. ‘What an awful thing. And for you to find him… You must be in shock.’

  Simon doesn’t reply. For a second she thinks she sees something soggy and misshapen out by the tideline with the seaweed and the drowned feathers, that dirty froth – but no, it’s just more of the rubbish that’s washed up with the storm.

  ‘I know how close you were,’ she says.

  She touches Simon’s hand, once, twice, then away. His fingers are like ice, like the sea itself. She pulls out her gloves and offers them to him. He’s got big hands, but then so has she, and she reckons the gloves would fit him nicely. He shakes his head, eyes down, and she puts them on herself instead, lets them absorb the water from her skin. They’re good gloves, padded and lined with that thermal insulating stuff, the same kind they use for mountaineers. Make her hands look giant, and she likes that too. She taps his hand again, her gloved palm dwarfing his fist this time.

  ‘You need to head home,’ she says, kindly.

  He looks up at last. ‘Please no,’ he says. ‘I want to… I don’t want…’

  ‘No choice, you know that.’

  ‘I can’t be at home right now.’

  Georgie sighs. ‘You can wait for me at the station, if you like.’

  ‘Thanks.’

  She shakes her head.

  ‘We’ll need to take your statement, Si. That’s all.’ The squawk of seagulls sounds like it’s always been there, but Georgie is fairly sure the gulls were silent when she arrived. She watches them circling the putrid line of seaweed that marks the high tide, here, whatever the time of day, whatever the season. The smell of it down on the rocks is sickening but up here it barely reaches them, just a waft, now and then, of something rotting, something carried on the wind.

  ‘Can you see anything down there?’ she says with a frown, and Simon stares up at her, pleading. ‘Look,’ she points, standing. ‘The way they’re circling.’ The rain’s in her eyes now, dripping down her neck.

  ‘Could be a dead crab or something.’ His voice sounds like he has to force it out of his throat. ‘They like to pick the carcass.’ He swallows.

  Georgie hears a car pull up behind her, the slam of a door – Trish, good, they need to get to work.

  ‘You head off, Si. It’s important.’

  He stands, starts to walk away. God, but he looks broken.

  ‘Jesus, Si,’ says Trish, watching him. Her padded coat is zipped
from her knees to over her chin, the huge hood hiding her cropped hair. ‘This is…’ She moves towards him like she wants to give him a hug but he shakes his head, starts the walk back to the village alone. ‘Fucking hell,’ Trish says, once he’s out of earshot. ‘This is the worst thing…’ Her hands are in fists. ‘Where do we start?’

  Georgie’s hat is soaked now, not keeping the rain off so much as bathing her head in it.

  ‘See down at the shore there, Trish?’ Georgie’s voice is gentle. ‘Can you see anything?’

  Trish holds her hand over her eyes, trying to keep the water out. ‘What, down there?’ she shouts over the wind.

  The path to the beach is a long scratch of stones and mud zigzagging down the cliffs. You can slip even in the summer but now… Well, Trish is steady on her feet, and keen too.

  ‘Shall I head down?’

  Georgie shakes her head. ‘I’ll get Cal to send a couple. You’re with me.’

  He hears her say it – Cal’s good like that – and already two of his team are ducking under the cordon and heading to the cliff’s edge. They move fast; the rain is against them, the wind, the tide. Still, Georgie gives herself a moment to look over at the swings. To take it all in.

  Dr Alexis Cosse, whom she knew, who was a part of their village, whom she’s fairly sure Simon was in love with, is lying dead in Burrowhead playground. She nods at Trish and they walk closer. For a second the only sound is waves breaking.

  His tanned face is soaked, but strangely perfect. Washed clean in the rain – not a speck of blood on it. Like he was lying down here to get a better view of the sky. Except for how his eyes are gone. It’s pooled above his collarbone, though, the blood. His shirt is slashed where the knife went in and came out again. In and out five, perhaps six times. She doesn’t know. Hasn’t seen anything like this for years. She’d hoped never to again. There’s a flap of what was the pale green fabric of his designer shirt – he always liked to be smartly dressed, took pride in it, though some people laughed about it behind his back. His shirt is stained dark brown now, drenched and torn, and his chest hair is thick and matted, showing in places through the shirt’s ripped front. Matted with blood, of course. Sticky with it. Like the St Christopher around his neck on a slim gold chain. One of his arms is pointing straight up at the sky. His wrist is entangled in the triangle of metal links that attaches to the swing seat. Georgie follows the line of his arm up to the desperate clouds and to something lying beyond them. It feels to her like they’re being watched. It is not a good feeling. There’s a flock of geese flying in a jagged V, so high above the wind they’re nothing but specks of grit. As the wind gusts, the swing curves around and the seat is forced almost vertical because of how it’s attached to his body. There’s the taste of ancient salt on her lips. The noise: a rising groan of wind as it hits the cliffs and is channelled into the village, and the screech of the swing’s metal chains against its rusted bolts. Georgie doesn’t want to look back at the eye sockets.