The Runner

by P. R. Black

  ‘Think about it. If you were to say that the daughter of the man who they put in jail for being the Woodcutter had contacted you, and just after that, someone left her a note, telling her where to find one of the bodies… It wouldn’t seem like the truth. Would it?’

  ‘It is the truth, though. And it was a mistake not to tell them. I shouldn’t have let you talk me into it.’

  ‘They would draw a line between me contacting my dad, and this information. It would keep him in jail. I don’t think the tip came from him, or one of his pen pals. It’s the real killer – someone who wants my dad kept in jail. That’s the clincher, for me. I think it’s the real killer. I know we’re withholding something from them. But I’m not revealing that just yet.’

  ‘He might have left some traces… witnesses, CCTV… something, surely.’

  ‘I went back to the forest… the arrows are gone. Totally cut out. The bark is shredded – so it’s a fresh wound, but it doesn’t look regular, as if some letters had been carved. You wouldn’t know it was there. Must have gone round with vinegar or sugar soap. Sneaky bastard. For all I know, he did it minutes after I saw it. Wouldn’t surprise me.’

  ‘There’s the other problem. You.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Security.’

  ‘Let me worry about that. Anyway… I would’ve thought you would be happy. You got your scoop. Was the picture of the skull really necessary on your site?’

  ‘Veritas. It was as it was. The papers paid a fortune for the pictures.’

  ‘Good for you,’ Freya said, curtly.

  ‘Hey, I’m in business like anyone else.’

  Freya resisted the temptation to hit the off switch. ‘Not sure I like that attitude.’

  ‘You seemed to like it just fine when you wrote an article for the Salvo.’

  ‘That was different.’

  ‘Not really. Anyway, we can go fifty-fifty if you like, on the profits. So long as you take fifty-fifty on the heat.’

  ‘The heat?’ she snorted. ‘Unless you put that skeleton there, there’s no heat. You’ve watched too many movies. You found a body. You told them about it. They’ve got something to work on.’

  ‘You weren’t there, in the interview room. The SIO’s name was Connor Tamm – same guy who tailed you on the farm track. Detective Inspector Tamm. Wavy hair. Streaks of white in it, like a superhero in a comic. Still looked far too young to be in the police. He was smart, though. No underestimating him. I had to rehearse what I was going to say a dozen times. He took me back and forth. I was throwing tells and tics all over the place. I couldn’t stop it. He got shouty at one point, him and the other officer.’

  ‘Do you think they believed you?’

  ‘As I said – no chance. I guess they spot liars a mile away.’

  ‘God. I’d hate that. Thank you.’ Freya had not wanted to be involved with the police – had been adamant that she wanted no part of the conversation, after Glenn had decided to tell them about the body. She knew it was a risk to her father – she saw the way it was being gamed out. How she was being played, in order to keep Gareth Solomon in prison, even to allow for a fresh investigation. They didn’t have much time to get their stories straight. They admitted, however, that they had separately pre-figured something out just in the off chance they were going to find something significant, and the resultant pooling of information went like this:

  Glenn had long wanted to explore the field near the Hanging Oak, as he was an enthusiast about all things horrible and murderous. This had the feeling of the Lord’s honest truth, as Glenn noted. All manner of things were reputedly buried there from the days when people would gather to watch someone have their neck stretched – coins, buckles, things that the plough would ordinarily have turned up, except the land was in dispute and uncultivated for more than a hundred years.

  The part which no one believed, and neither Glenn nor Freya expected them to believe, was that, a matter of days after the Woodcutter had appeared in the papers, while the man convicted of being said killer was appealing against his conviction, one of his missing victims’ bodies should show up. And not only that, but it would be uncovered by a blogger who they regarded as an irritant and sensationalist at best.

  ‘Any thoughts over who the body belonged to?’

  ‘I couldn’t say whether the skull was male or female. I don’t have the forensic skills to differentiate between the two on sight, though I do know one or two people who could help. But it wasn’t really the skull that got my interest. It was the axe.’

  ‘That’s for sure. The way you behaved, it’s as if you’d found the bloody Lost Ark. The spear of destiny, or something.’

  ‘The spear of Longinus, you may be referring to. The one that supposedly pierced Christ’s side.’

  ‘Whatever, Glenn.’ She prepared to bite deep into a slice of toast; then thought better of it. In truth, she had been off her food. During a stint working in a care home, she had known death; had seen it close up, so many times that it became less scary. But the skull in the earth was something else, something darker. She’d slept with the lights on since that day.

  ‘I had to tell them that I touched the handle,’ Glenn said. ‘The minute you touch it, you could invalidate evidence.’

  ‘Or make you a suspect.’

  ‘Good work killing someone before I was born, you have to say.’

  ‘You were saying? About the victim?’

  ‘I think it was Max Dilworth. The ex-special forces guy.’

  ‘Special forces?’ Freya said. ‘I thought he was in the Royal Artillery.’

  ‘That’s what everyone wants you to think. He passed selection. They don’t advertise it.’ ‘How did you know… wait. Sources.’

  He tapped his forehead. ‘Exactly right.’

  They hadn’t seen any clothes that might indicate who the person in the field was; they weren’t even sure if there were any other body parts down there. All they had was those two mud-encrusted eyes, gazing up at them. In the five known Woodcutter cases, Max Dilworth had been the anomaly. He was the outlier, the only male victim of the five. There was still some doubt over how he had disappeared, with many believing that he had been kidnapped by the IRA, still very much in operation at the time, although this had been strenuously denied by the Republicans. Every other aspect of Max Dilworth’s disappearance tied in with the Woodcutter’s work, though. A man out on a run, on a lonely road (this time a canal bank), vanished without trace, with some people reporting a black transit van in the area.

  ‘What’s your reasoning?’

  ‘The dates and locations tie up – he was my main candidate. Remember, when we looked at the locations? The Hanging Oak is the closest point to where Dilworth was abducted. There’s something weird about the fact the axe was left there, though. It’s a message, almost. Or a taunt. The police were meant to find that, I think. Over time.’

  ‘Not sure that makes sense. June Caton-Bell was the last victim – that’s what led them to arrest my dad. Why would he leave the axe somewhere, and then kill someone else?’

  ‘I have to admit, that’s puzzled me. But there it is. The Woodcutter was a secretive killer – that’s why we only ever found one body. Maybe he was getting bolder, the more victims he had. A natural escalation. You see it in other killers. Maybe he was getting off on the attention from the press, once they got wind of what he was up to. Max Dilworth has always been the odd one out, though. The theory I buy into is that he set himself a challenge – he enjoyed the chase, and the thrill of catching them. An ex-forces guy would have been a scalp to take. Then once he catches up with them, there’s the frenzy, the overkill. It’s odd that there’s not much of a sexual element, or doesn’t appear to be. This is a different kind of sadism. It’s weird.’

  ‘He got off on the kill, though. And the fear.’

  Glenn was pensive for a moment. Then he smiled. ‘You’ve got me doing it, now.’

  ‘Doing what?’

  ‘Tal
king about the Woodcutter in the abstract. As if he’s not your dad.’

  ‘You said it yourself,’ she said, a trifle defensively. ‘Be open and rational. Admit to every possibility. One of these is that my dad was telling the truth. That he is in jail for something he didn’t do. That the Woodcutter is still out there, and he’s getting in touch with me. After I got in touch with my dad. Maybe it’s just self-preservation. Maybe it’s something personal. Whoever it was, wanted me to get in touch with the police, that’s clear. But there’s something missing. Some connection.’

  ‘I know.’ Glenn scratched the back of his neck. ‘There are so many rogue elements, here. Something missing in every theory. Something that casts doubt on what we think we know. A few things have to happen now. First, we’ve got to find Carol Ramirez. She’s been difficult to trace. Changed her name, I think. I’ve exhausted my sources. Second, we need to speak to Bernard Galvin. Now he’s easy to find. But not to speak to.’

  ‘This “we” you speak of… We definitely partners, yes?’

  ‘If you like.’

  ‘So that means, we share our leads.’

  ‘If you like. It also means that you tell me whatever you’re planning to do with the papers.’

  ‘That’s different. That stuff’s personal – we didn’t investigate that.’

  ‘So far as I’m aware you didn’t do any research on the Hanging Oak, anything like that…’

  ‘Bugger off! I gave you the tip. I had the contact. You did nothing. A bloody internet search! Took you all of two minutes, if that.’

  ‘Fifty-fifty, then. That’s the way it has to be.’

  She nodded, reluctantly. ‘All right. Maybe we could write a book.’

  ‘I was thinking that. But there’s one other thing we need to do: make sure you’re safe.’

  ‘You don’t have to worry about me.’

  ‘I would stay somewhere else, if you can. Short-term. If you were in contact with the Woodcutter, he knows who you are, thanks to the newspaper article. That means he knows where you live.’

  ‘Think about it, Glenn. If he’d meant to do me some harm, he would have done it already. He wouldn’t have been dropping me cryptic clues.’

  ‘I still think you should tell the police about that.’

  ‘I’m not approaching the police with this, now. They’ve got what they need – something they’ve been looking for, for years. Whoever was down there, their poor family will get to have a decent burial.’

  ‘We’re talking about a psychopathic killer. Stay safe. Please.’

  ‘You don’t have to worry about me. I can take care of myself.’ She didn’t sound too sure of herself; the old diffidence had crept in. ‘Anyway. I’ve got things to think about. And I also have someone to speak to, today.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘My dad. Speak next time.’ Freya cut the connection, sat back in her seat, and yawned. Best get to work.

  Then she heard… not quite a creak. More of a shift; a someone light on their feet, disturbing rough carpeting, say.

  Rough carpeting, like the oatmeal stuff tacked to the hallway outside.

  The hair at the back of her neck roiled. She stood up from the seat, rigid. She held her breath and listened.

  Nothing. She waited, ten seconds, thirty, a minute, perhaps more. Then nothing.

  She took a step or two towards the door. Then she heard it again. A shift. Not someone upstairs. Not mice, not the neighbours through the walls. Someone padding around, outside the front door.

  But it was too subtle a sound to be absolutely sure. Freya had her finger on the “emergency call” button; then told herself off. Imagining things. Too much going on at the moment. Dead bodies and God knows what else. Plus my dad’s in jail for murder – fancy that.

  Nonetheless she crept through the hallway towards the door, and slid back the cover on the fish-eye lens.

  Now if a face had loomed into view at that particular moment, Freya would have screamed her head off. She might have left her skin, her body behind, and soared free. But no horror movie face appeared, and better yet, the weird bubble of peripheral vision showed there was no one at either side of the corridor, either. In order for someone to be hiding outside her front door, they’d have to be hiding behind the door at the end of the corridor. And that was too far for them to run, before Freya could get back into her front door.

  Freya crossed over to the coat rack, pausing for a moment on sight of the old jackets lined up there, which she hadn’t had the chance to get rid of, yet. Then she put on her own jacket, checked the security lens again, then unlocked the door.

  The instant she did so, the security door to the left burst open and a spindly man sprinted down the hall, too fast to focus on, like a spider suddenly breaking cover from beneath a couch.

  A man. Here, now, my flat.

  Him!

  She screamed, her hand scrambling on the door handle. She got it open and ran back in; but before she could slam the door shut, a foot blocked it over her threshold.

  Mick Harvie was right in her face, on the doorstop, his face set in a snarl, and close enough to feel his warm breath and spit on her cheeks.

  ‘Well, there she is,’ he growled. ‘There she is.’

  18

  Harvie’s snarl faded a little. His eyes darted, taking in Freya’s hair, her make-up.

  ‘Hey – Jesus. What have you done to your hair?’

  Freya leaned back, taking her weight on her standing leg, and then stabbed a vicious kick at Harvie’s mid-section.

  The effect was extraordinary – he barked out a cry of pain that echoed down the communal stairwell, buckled in the middle and slammed backwards into the whitewashed wall at his back.

  He had to steady himself against the wall to stop himself pitching forward onto the floor, knees sagging. He clutched his hip where she’d hit him, his mossy chin agape. ‘What the fuck?’

  Freya was back in her flat, her reflexes utterly in control. She had turned the key and thrown the chain over the door without consciously processing that she had actually done it, then placed her eye against the fish-eye spyhole. A distorted Mick Harvie lurched forward, a caricature of his own bearded face, stretched out across her entire visual field.

  ‘What are you playing at? I came to talk!’

  ‘You could have phoned me. How did you get into this building?’

  Harvie fought for breath; the blood had drained from his face; he spat on the floor. She rather hoped he was sick, notwithstanding the inconvenience of cleaning up after him. ‘I followed the postie in. I had to make sure you wouldn’t hang up on me. Or slam the door in my face. Or try to kick me in the balls!’

  Freya heard the door across the way opening up, and the elderly woman who lived there said, querulously: ‘What’s going on out there? Do you need to leave a parcel?’

  Freya unlocked the door. ‘Get back,’ she said to Harvie, quietly. When he did so, Freya emerged from the doorway and lifted a hand to the frightened little face that appeared across the way. ‘It’s OK, Mrs Townsend. This is a friend of my mum’s. Sorry to disturb you.’

  ‘You never used to be this noisy!’

  ‘I’m awfully sorry. We were just heading out.’ She closed and locked the door behind her. ‘You going to be OK there, Uncle Mick?’

  He straightened back up, but it was clearly an effort. ‘Fine,’ he said, though not too convincingly.

  ‘Take care, Mrs Townsend,’ Freya said, waving. She stepped past Mick Harvie and opened the fire door, not waiting to see whether he followed, or whether Mrs Townsend had closed her door.

  ‘Never do that to me again,’ he growled in her ear. ‘Understand? Never.’

  She smiled over her shoulder. ‘Never spring out on me again – or you’ll get it worse. Got it, Uncle Mick?’

  ‘Where we going?’

  ‘A very safe, very public place.’

  *

  The playpark across the road was populated by a twitchy flock of mothers and fathers
taking their pre-schoolers out for some precarious activities on top of see-saws, roundabouts and safety swings. It also had two park benches, side by side. Freya had been quite clear that Mick Harvie should sit on one, while she should sit on the other, although she began to pace the moment he sat down.

  His cheeks pinched tight in discomfort as he did so. ‘Where did you learn the fancy skills? You into martial arts?’

  ‘No. I went to aikido when I was nine for a few weeks. I thought it was too rough, would you believe. Lot of nasty boys there, who didn’t like me. But my mum told me it was a good idea to learn one move really well. She was right. It’s like mastering a card trick. Some guy tried to break into the pub, one night. I got him as he was climbing through the broken window. He got off his mark, quick enough.’

  ‘I believe it.’

  ‘Don’t be keeping me in suspense, Mick. What do you want?’

  ‘First of all – I take it you’ve heard about the body they found the other day?’

  ‘Yeah. Couldn’t miss it, could I? They had an expert on to talk about it on the news. Said there’s every chance it’s one of the missing bodies in the Woodcutter case.’

  He nodded. ‘Yeah. That little twerp on the website found it, somehow. The guy who does the podcasts. Red Ink? Something like that?’

  ‘Yeah. An amateur, or something.’

  ‘Seems a bit of a coincidence, doesn’t it?’ He squinted at her through the late morning sunlight. ‘He happened to be looking for buried treasure, and he finds something connected to the Woodcutter. A few days after the Woodcutter appears in the press, again.’

  Freya shrugged. ‘I can’t control events.’

  ‘Maybe you can’t, but someone can. Have you spoken to Glenn Allander in the past few weeks?’

  ‘None of your business, Mick. I thought you wanted to talk about something? I know they’ve found a body. I know it might be Max Dilworth.’

  ‘It is Max Dilworth.’ He regarded her evenly. ‘And I’m pretty sure you’ve spoken to Glenn Allander.’

  ‘Big deal. You my dad or something?’