by Michael Kerr
“Sure. I bet they do it all the time.”
“It’s a dying art, like thatching,” Jim said, now grinning broadly. “There’s not been a lot of call for it for centuries.”
They kept up the banter until the distant sound of sirens became a deafening two-tone wail outside. Within minutes the cottage was heaving with fire-fighters, paramedics and armed police. Under medical supervision, the beams were cut above and below Laura’s hands, and she was released from the wall with a block of wood still firmly nailed to each, that would be removed surgically on arrival at York District Hospital.
Jim led the police out into the wood, to where Hugh’s body was affixed to the lofty pine, before being taken to a second waiting ambulance, to once more face hospitalisation, surgery to his damaged hand, and treatment for the flesh wound from the bullet that had passed through his side.
CHAPTER FORTY-ONE
JIMMY Parker and his best pal Malcolm Briggs – who was known as ‘Frog’ by his peers, for the simple reason that he looked like one – had camped overnight in what was known locally as Bluebell Wood. The two teenagers had set off on a bike ride the day before from their homes in north Hull, and picked the secluded location to pitch their small tent as dusk fell, after riding along a bumpy, rutted access road that was only infrequently used by the employees of the company that owned the wood.
Frog was awake at dawn, and crawled shivering out of the tent. He stretched and moaned aloud. His whole body ached from the hard earth that both the ground sheet and his thin sleeping bag had failed to cushion him from, even though he and Jimmy had removed all the loose stones from the level patch of ground on which they had chosen to erect the tent in a small clearing.
Lighting a cigarette, Frog wandered into the bracken and unzipped his jeans, urgently needing to relieve his pounding bladder. Looking about him, as he let the strong stream play on a tree trunk, a small patch of pure white among the greenery caught his eye. Finishing up, he crept through the high ferns until he could make out what stood in the much larger clearing before him. It was a caravan, hitched to a Citroen car. He retraced his steps and crawled back inside the tent to shake Jimmy awake.
“Uh! What?” Jimmy grunted, lashing out to knock his pal’s hand away.
“Come see what I’ve found. Hurry up,” Frog said.
Jimmy sat up and groaned as his muscles complained, then yawned and combed his long mud-coloured hair back out of his bleary eyes with his fingers. “This’d better be good, Frog. I was dreamin’ that Adele was about to sit on my face.”
“Adele who?”
“The pop singer, dummy.”
“Yucch! Why would you wanna dream that?”
“Never mind. What’ve you found?”
Frog retraced his steps, with Jimmy sauntering along behind him, lighting a cigarette and coughing as he inhaled the first drag.
“Look, there it is,” Frog said, pointing at the caravan.
“What’s so interestin’ about a friggin’ caravan?” Jimmy said, shrugging, still only half awake, and starving; his stomach rumbling.
“Let’s check it out,” whispered Frog. “It’s probably been abandoned.”
They crept up to the edge of the clearing, then hunkered down and listened for voices or music from a radio. But apart from their breathing, and Jimmy’s belly gurgling, all was quiet.
“They might still be asleep,” Jimmy said.
“We can see in the window. There’s a gap in the curtains,” Frog said, moving out into what he thought of as no mans land; becoming Rambo in a jungle setting as he approached the enemy stronghold in a crouching run. Jimmy strolled out after him, hands stuffed in his pockets, eyes screwed against the smoke that curled up from the half-smoked cigarette dangling from the side of his mouth. He was not caught up in what Frog thought of as an adventure.
Jimmy was a skinny five-nine, three inches taller than Frog, and could look inside the vehicle without having to jump up or stretch.
“So, what can you see?” Frog asked.
“Nuthin’. Looks empty,” Jimmy replied, squinting into the dark interior, unable to see anyone.
“I told you. It’s been dumped. C’mon, let’s go in and see if they’ve left anythin’ worth havin’.”
“It hasn’t been dumped, dummy. It looks new, and the car’s in good nick.”
Frog ignored him and tried the door. It opened. He stepped up and entered furtively, waiting for Jimmy to join him before venturing any further.
Jimmy eased the door closed behind them, and they both moved forward into the dimly lit dinette.
“Check the back,” Frog said, noticing that the caravan was not unfurnished and stripped out as he had expected it to be. There was a portable TV on a work surface, and the clutter of occupation all around him. If the owners were just early risers and had taken a dog for a walk, then the shit would fly if they came back and found him and Jimmy on board. They may even still be in bed, though surely if they were, the door would have been locked.
Jimmy walked the few feet to the open door of the bedroom, then stopped, totally fazed at the sight before him, unable to move or speak, and unaware of the spreading warmth that stained the front of his jeans.
“What’s up?” Frog said, turning to see Jimmy rooted to the spot. “What’ve you found?”
Frog walked up behind his friend, looked round him, and saw the blonde-haired figure in the shadows, sitting upright on top of the bed against the headboard, staring back at him with a single bulging blue eye and a gaping, dark cavity where the other should have been. He joined Jimmy in stupefied horror, his brain trying to make sense of the mummified corpse. The face was creased and leathery, its mouth partly sealed by metal staples. Part of its nose was missing, disclosing yellowed bone, and the forearms and hands that were skeletal and birdlike under tatters of flaking skin, as was the one leg that jutted from the garment it was clothed in.
What had been Jennifer Parfitt was as Hugh had left it, reposed in a peach-coloured housecoat that belonged to Molly Champion. Hugh had, in his mind, left his mother watching the small, portable TV.
The spell broke, and both boys reeled backwards towards the door, fighting and gibbering with fear as they scrabbled at the handle, to fall out face down on the ground in a tangled heap of flailing arms and legs. They found their feet, crashed through the undergrowth and mounted their bikes, to pedal away down the track, not stopping until they had reached the road and ridden flat out for over a mile; the tent and all else abandoned as they imagined the atrocity in hot pursuit, gaining on them. Lungs burning and leg muscles aching, they finally dropped the bikes on to the verge and sat down on the grass next to them.
“W...What do we do?” Jimmy said, examining the now cold, wet patch at his crotch, as if it had appeared there by magic, not generated by unbridled fear.
“We phone the police and report it,” Frog replied. “But we don’t give our names. Then we forget about it. We never saw it.”
But they had seen it, and although they would never mention it again, even to each other, both boys would have nightmares and carry the picture of Hugh’s mother’s remains etched on their brains for the rest of their lives.
Half an hour after the anonymous phone call had been received, a police car pulled up near the clearing in Bluebell Wood, and a much relieved Molly and Eric Champion were found and released from the cramped wardrobe. Both were aching and dehydrated, but had survived their meeting with the man that they would soon learn had been the killer known as the Tacker. Their experience led to a change of lifestyle. Never again would the couple take to the open road on caravan holidays. They subsequently sold the Gazelle and joined the masses that took package holidays, believing, justifiably to their minds, that they would be far safer in the hotels of Florida or Spain, than parked up in a lay-by in the British countryside.
EPILOGUE
STANDING up against the guard-rail at Yavapai Point, they looked out across to the pink, gold and blue hues that were unveiled as t
he sun rose over the far rim of the Grand Canyon.
“This is...it’s just, well, it’s awesome,” Laura said.
“I know. There are no words that can do it justice,” Jim said, shivering slightly in the sharp, cold, dawn air and tightening his grip on Laura’s shoulder, to pull her closer to him. “It never looks the same twice.”
They had arrived the previous afternoon, late, just in time to see the sun sink from view over the western horizon in a blaze of deepening reds and purples, to be quickly devoured by the dark wedges of shadow that crept into the mile deep chasm and extinguished its beauty to human sight for another day.
Over two months had passed since the night at the cottage, from where Laura had escaped with her life, and Jim with his sanity. Most of the t’s had been crossed and i’s dotted on the Tacker case, and the world had moved on to new atrocities, acts of terrorism, mindless murder, natural disasters and violent loss of life in myriad other ways, that took place every day.
“We could split our time,” Jim suggested, his mind wandering from the canyon, his eyes finding more beauty in the equally natural wonder of Laura’s radiant face. “Maybe buy a place out here in Arizona, and keep my flat on in Windsor. What do you think?”
“I think we should go back to the lodge, have a hot shower, make love, and then discuss this at length over bacon, eggs over easy, hash browns and coffee,” Laura replied, lighting a cigarette and vowing to herself that she would kick the habit, sooner rather than later.
They walked back towards the holiday lodge, as close and as much in love as any two people could be. They had shared extremes of emotional highs and lows, which had formed an inseparable bond between them. There was no question of whether they would be together or not. It was just the fine details that needed to be ironed out.
Laura felt the dull ache in her palms – that was exacerbated by the low temperature of the wintry autumnal morning – and again contemplated the medical retirement and generous gratuity that was on the table, awaiting her decision. She could put it off for another few weeks, but sooner or later would have to sign the papers or return to duty. There was no real choice. She knew what she wanted, and also knew that the job came a poor second to Jim. She had done her stint, and owed the force nothing. It had nearly cost her everything, and had no further claim on her.
Stopping, she turned to Jim, tilted her head back and kissed him gently as he lowered his mouth to meet her slightly parted lips. At that moment, Jim’s idea of pond-hopping and working in public relations didn’t seem a half bad way to spend the foreseeable future. It was time to move on, embrace the book of life, and start writing a new page.
Neither Laura nor Jim could possibly know that an abyss so much deeper and darker than the natural wonder behind them, and one that they had both spent so much time at the edge of, would prove impossible to walk away from. You can’t run away from what and who you are. Like a slow moving storm on the horizon, events were conspiring that would involve them in as much if not more danger than they could possibly imagine.
About The Author
I write the type of original, action-packed, violent crime thrillers that I know I would enjoy reading if they were written by such authors as: Lee Child, David Baldacci, Simon Kernick, Harlan Coben, Michael Billingham and their ilk.
Over twenty years in the Prison Service proved great research into the minds of criminals, and especially into the dark world that serial killers - of who I have met quite a few - frequent.
I live in a cottage a mile from the nearest main road in the Yorkshire Wolds, enjoy photography, the wildlife, and of course creating new characters to place in dilemmas that my mind dreams up.
What makes a good read? Believable protagonists that you care about, set in a story that stirs all of your emotions.
If you like your crime fiction fast-paced, then I believe that the books I have already uploaded on Amazon/Kindle will keep you turning the pages.
Connect With Michael Kerr and discover other great titles.
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www.michaelkerr.org
Michael Kerr’s official site
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http://www.michaelkerr.org/amazon
Also By Michael Kerr
DI Matt Barnes Series
A REASON TO KILL
LETHAL INTENT
A NEED TO KILL
CHOSEN TO KILL
A PASSION TO KILL
The Joe Logan Series
AFTERMATH
ATONEMENT
ABSOLUTION
ALLEGIANCE
Other Crime Thrillers
DEADLY REPRISAL
DEADLY REQUITAL
BLACK ROCK BAY
A HUNGER WITHIN
THE SNAKE PIT (Read Sample Chapter at end of this book)
A DEADLY STATE OF MIND
TAKEN BY FORCE
DARK NEEDS AND EVIL DEEDS
Science Fiction / Horror
WAITING
CLOSE ENCOUNTERS OF THE STRANGE KIND
RE_EMERGENCE
Children’s Fiction
Adventures in Otherworld
PART ONE – THE CHALICE OF HOPE
PART TWO – THE FAIRY CROWN
THE SNAKE PIT - CHAPTER ONE
After luxuriating in a hot bath, almost dozing to a Beethoven piano concerto that was being piped through concealed speakers to every room in the apartment, Gerald Palmer rinsed off under the shower, stepped onto the black-tiled floor and towelled himself dry.
Surely life couldn’t get any better than this, Gerald thought, admiring his tanned body in the full-length wall mirror. He ran his fingers through thick, steel-grey hair and smiled at the reflection that showed a slim, good-looking man who had kept in shape and could have been forty-five or fifty; certainly not the sixty-two-year-old that he in fact was.
Pulling on a robe, he went through to the bedroom, where only an hour before he had been laying in the arms of a delicious, tawny-coloured rent boy of indeterminate origin, whose firm, young body had sated his ardour.
Pouring a large measure of Glenmorangie into a handcrafted full lead crystal glass, Gerald walked over to the large picture window to stand and savour both the pure malt whisky and the magnificent view of the city by night. From his twelfth-floor eyrie he looked down at the River Thames that meandered below, illuminated by reflected light. And in all its floodlit splendour, Tower Bridge never ceased to please his eyes. It was late, and he was slightly inebriated, sexually appeased, and pleasantly tired. He turned the music system off, drained the glass and placed it on the bedside cabinet, then slipped off his robe and climbed into bed. Turning off the lamp, he sighed with contentment and stretched out between the cool silk sheets, unaware of the life-threatening danger that was moving ever closer towards him. He was oblivious to the fact that he was on a countdown that had begun two years previously, and now had less than an hour left to run.
As Errol Bishop had let himself out of the high-rise apartment block into the humid heat of a July night, a tall, slim, middle-aged man pushed past him, quickly entering the building before the self-locking door had time to close. Errol turned and watched as the man, carrying a holdall, limped across the foyer and pressed the lift call button.
Not his business. He didn’t live here, and he wasn’t a fuckin’ doorman! Stuffing both hands into his cargo pants pockets, he shrugged and walked away, unconcerned as to who the man with the gammy leg was, or whether he had any right to be in Carlton Court Towers or not.
Not bad for an hour in the sack, Errol mused, tightly clutching the hundred quid that the old shirt-lifter had paid up front for his services. The geezer had even asked him for his mobile number, so might end up being a regular. Biting the pillow in a swank riverside pad was far better than giving blowjobs to drunks in back alleys at a tenner a time.
On the twelfth floor, the lift door sighed closed behind him, and without hesitation he made his
way along the carpeted corridor – the affected limp dispensed with – to the door of an unoccupied apartment. He placed the bag gently on the floor, withdrew a soft leather wallet from his inside pocket, selected the appropriate picks and worked the lock. It took less than a minute to raise all the pin tumblers to their shear point and clear the channel. He then opened the door, slid the bag in with his foot and quickly entered. Once inside, he replaced the feeler pick and tension tool into the wallet and slipped it back in his pocket.
Time to kill, literally. Sitting on the floor in the gloom with his back against the wall, he closed his eyes and let the minutes tick by. He was in no hurry to make his move. After two years and a great deal of planning, there was no need to rush. Better to give the bastard plenty of time to go to sleep. Gerald Palmer would soon pay the ultimate price. It would be an eye for an eye, or more aptly, a life for a life. The QC was to be the first on his list of fourteen to suffer the sentence of death, that he had passed on them in absentia after finding them guilty of causing his brother, mother and himself such heartbreaking grief. He had read somewhere that revenge was a dish best served cold. How true that was.
It was one a.m. when he slipped the strap of the sports bag over his shoulder and went back out into the corridor. He picked the lock of Palmer’s apartment door, opened it an inch and used a small pair of metal cutters to snip through the security chain. God, he felt wired as he entered and quickly checked that there was no one but his intended victim in the apartment. Palmer’s bedroom door was open, and in the ambient moonlight that penetrated the window, he could see his quarry lying supine on the bed with a sheet up to his waist. He was asleep, lightly snoring.