The Runner

by P. R. Black

  Utterly unnerved, Freya reached for the crowbar, yanking it free. Then she fled, crouching behind one of the barrels.

  The figure above grunted. Then with a fourth terrific blow, the trapdoor split down the middle. A foot crashed down and sent both halves into the cellar.

  Freya couldn’t see who was up there. She heard heavy breathing – it was a man, surely, and one who’d exerted himself.

  ‘Well now,’ said a deep, gravelly voice. It was like someone snoring; the type that carried through walls from neighbours. ‘Who have we got down there, then?’

  Freya said nothing, clutching the torch with one hand, and the crowbar in the other.

  ‘Whoever’s down there, come out.’

  He stopped moving; stopped breathing, perhaps. There was an awful silence. Surely he could hear her very heartbeat. She clamped a hand over her nose and mouth.

  ‘I won’t hurt you.’

  The voice was familiar. But from where?

  Freya closed her eyes for a second, visualising the layout of the pub above. She tried to remember if there’d been a grille or metal hatchway outside; she couldn’t be sure if she’d imagined it, but was it to the left of the window?

  She took a chance, and ran over.

  There was a set of stairs there – metal, chrome-brushed, totally different to the stairs that led back to the bar. Freya clicked on her torch, having already broken cover. There, dangling from a similar latch to the trapdoor, was an old rusted padlock.

  Perfect.

  She made precise contact with the crowbar, hooking the padlock, and then snapping it with one wrench of her shoulders.

  The intruder clattered down the rest of the steps. Running, now. ‘Ahh, no you don’t, no you don’t…’

  Freya was at the top of the steps in an instant, barging her shoulder into the twin doors above her head. She rebounded with a thick, gonging sound.

  Directly ahead; a snib lock. She threw it, then got her shoulder against the hatch again, and then she was out into the sudden night.

  ‘Wait!’

  Freya did not wait. She hurled the twin doors back on the advancing figure, too dark to see any details.

  Then she was sprinting down the crooked old street, as the hatchway outside grated open behind her.

  On impulse she dodged down the side of one of the bungalows. Sprinting past a broken bathroom window with a mildewed shower curtain flapping around inside, she rounded a corner, fully intending to double back on herself.

  That’s when a hand reached out and grabbed her.

  25

  She shrieked – then gripped the figure by the throat, and drew back the crowbar.

  ‘Freya! It’s me, for God’s sake!’

  Glenn; Glenn’s shocked face. His upper incisors poked out from beneath his top lip, and Freya saw herself releasing, shattering them, then following through—

  ‘It’s Glenn!’ His other hand grabbed her wrist. She blinked, then lowered the crowbar. Her shoulders sagged. Thank God.

  ‘He’s there,’ Freya whispered. ‘Right behind me. We’ve got to think, think…’ She screwed her eyes shut, and tried to visualise the layout of the cabins. ‘One of those buildings just opposite is open. It’s not obvious but there’s a back door. It looks bolted shut, but it’s open. We can lie low in there.’

  ‘No… There’s two of us. You’ve still got your backpack, the shovel. This is a chance to take him down.’

  Freya shook her head. ‘No way. This is a multiple fucking murderer. He’s been in this situation before. No one’s ever escaped from him. We’re asking for it. I say we hide.’

  ‘What, we hide until he gets the drop on us? There are two of us. We work together.’

  ‘No,’ she said, turning away. ‘There’s just one of you. You come with me, or you’re on your own. This isn’t sensible.’

  Glenn grit his teeth, then followed after her. ‘Come back here. We can take him down. We can actually catch him.’

  ‘It’s not on; it’s not pragmatic. He’ll kill us! This isn’t a game. Come on!’

  Still protesting, Glenn followed her around the corner, hugging the back of the buildings. Rudiments of old gardens were apparent here, placed where fences had once stood. Underneath, ancient flagstones and patios were choked and dismembered by weeds. Overhead, the daylight had all but disappeared, and much of what remained had been soaked up by clouds the colour of tombstones.

  ‘In here, then, if we’re hiding,’ Glenn said, almost too low to hear. He indicated a dark door. Freya had an instinctive sense of repulsion to that gloomy portal. But she followed him.

  There was hardly any light in the hallway; the floorboards creaked, Hammer Horror-movie style, and they both froze. ‘Come on,’ he whispered. They trooped into what must have been someone’s front room. In the faint light Freya could make out a pile of wooden panels and brass fittings, as if a bed had simply flown apart in despair. Dark, jagged smears streaked the length of the far wall, surely of dark provenance. Bizarrely, a TV set was in the corner, a big-ticket purchase from about forty years ago, blocky and wood-panelled. The screen had been completely destroyed, not even baby-teeth shards remaining, with the space inside floored with straw. The place had a near-unbearable animal stink.

  ‘Under the windowsill,’ he said. The window was broad and fully intact, though coated with an accumulated patina of grime. Someone had run a finger across this substance, but only once, and not for long. The grime admitted only a thin grey light, smudging the far wall, illuminating a white circle where a wall clock had once ticked.

  They both huddled down. The sill was broad, and anyone passing by would not be able to see who was in there.

  ‘He might search the whole place,’ Freya said. As quietly as she dared – and still too loud.

  ‘He won’t,’ Glenn replied. ‘It’s a waste of time. We’ve found a body – this isn’t safe for him.’

  ‘What’s he playing at? Why’s he letting everyone know where the bodies are, after all this time?’

  ‘Vanity? Messing with people? Who knows what’s going on in his head? Maybe he’s got a bigger plan. Maybe he’s coming out of retirement.’

  ‘This has got to prove, beyond a doubt, that my dad isn’t the Woodcutter.’

  ‘That’s an assumption.’

  Freya gripped Glenn’s arm. ‘Quiet…’

  They sat on their haunches, listening to the creak and whistle of the wind through the house. The door rattled in a stiff breeze; a steady drip beat out its rhythm in the floor above.

  Then they heard the footsteps outside.

  It was a steady gait, utterly unconcerned about making a noise, on the pavement. Freya shrank against the peeling wallpaper. Her senses had been invaded not just by the smell of damp, but by the sense of it – everywhere. She covered her nose and mouth with her hands. She wanted to say it, again and again, a prayer or an incantation: I don’t want to be here. I don’t want to be here…

  On the far wall, the smudge of light changed. A clear, thin shadow appeared. Then it became more distinct, and the footsteps came closer.

  He was coming towards the window.

  Freya let one hand drop down to the crowbar at her side. Her eyes met Glenn’s for a moment. They were like hers; wide open, scared.

  The window frame rattled once – not a blow, just someone testing the frame for any give. Not much was apparent. Then there was a moment of complete and utter silence, presided over by that terrible, thin shadow.

  Then it slowly withdrew, and the footsteps receded.

  Glenn reached for his backpack, but Freya shook her head, tapping her ear. They both listened to the footsteps recede. Then Freya pointed to her watch. Two minutes, she mouthed.

  Once it had elapsed, Freya scuttled across to the far side of the room, still clinging close to the wall housing the window frame. ‘I think that’s it. He’s gone.’

  ‘I wouldn’t be sure,’ Glenn said. He dared a look over his shoulder, as he fit his arms into the backpack.
‘Can’t see anyone.’

  ‘All clear from here. Get on over.’

  ‘I can’t be sure. He might be able to see you from an angle, over there.’

  ‘Look, Glenn, I’ll explain to you how light works another time. I can’t see him. He’s gone. Anyway, I don’t think he wants to kill us. What’s the point?’

  ‘Yeah. No point giving us bodies to find, and then offing us.’ Glenn began to crawl commando-style towards Freya. His backpack bobbed on his back, the world’s most awkward armadillo. ‘Maybe he’s just trying to size us up, find out what he’s dealing with. And scare us.’

  The window erupted. Shards of glass exploded into the room; the entire pane disintegrated.

  Freya covered her head, and screamed. Glenn rolled across the floor, scrambling for his pack. The shovel slithered out of his hands, and clanged on the floor.

  Torchlight flooded the room, a keen, pale blue laser light that dazzled Glenn.

  ‘For God’s sake,’ a voice said, almost on a chuckle. ‘What are you doing in there?’

  26

  He kept them waiting out by his car. He did not invite them in, even when the rain began to fall heavier. Freya and Glenn kept their jackets zipped and their hoods tight over their heads. He kept a good distance from them, leaning against the side of his car. Freya realised she wanted to raise her hands; it was as if he held a gun on them.

  DI Connor Tamm didn’t bother with waterproofs, though he had a three-quarter-length wax jacket, walking trousers and heavy boots. Neither of these things looked as stained as they should have, while Freya and Glenn were daubed and pooled with mud in just about every angle of their joints.

  Tamm’s hair flitted about his head as the wind blew. ‘One of these days, Freya, we’ll meet somewhere where it’s warm and dry. In fact, I think that day is going to be tomorrow.’

  Freya had to speak up over the wind. ‘Did you drive up here with the lights off? Weird that we didn’t hear you drive in.’

  ‘You must have been busy over at the ghost town. Yeah, I drove up here. I had to keep the lights on, though. You kidding? I don’t want to end up over a cliff.’

  ‘Just happened to be passing the area?’ Glenn said, sourly.

  Tamm grinned. He had an easy posture on the car, his hands linked over his flat stomach. ‘I happened to be following you two. Call it a hunch.’

  ‘I call it stalking.’

  ‘This is a very serious investigation, Glenn,’ Tamm said. ‘It’s not a joke. Our department – and God knows I keep complaining about this – doesn’t have the money to carry out massive investigations. I’m doing the work on my own time. My wife is absolutely thrilled, I can tell you.’

  ‘We came by train,’ Freya said. ‘How did you know we’d be here?’

  ‘It’s easy to keep track of train ticket bookings, when you’re a policeman,’ Tamm said.

  ‘Remind me never to stiff a copper on eBay,’ Glenn muttered.

  Eager to draw Tamm’s attention from Glenn’s arch tone, Freya said: ‘I’m assuming it was you, following us over the old pub.’

  ‘It was me, all right. You had me spooked, I had to admit. I wasn’t quite sure what I was going to find in there.’

  ‘What did you find?’ she asked.

  ‘You tell me. I haven’t looked inside the drum. I’ve an idea it might be something unpleasant. And I can tell you that when we checked this site a few weeks ago, there was no sign of any drum. And no weird writing on the walls, either.’

  Freya and Glenn stayed silent.

  Tamm leaned forward a little, and said, conspiratorially: ‘Now. That’s something off-the-record, me to you. How about you give me something in return?’

  ‘We’ve nothing to give you,’ Glenn said.

  ‘Then you can answer my questions. How is it that a couple of days after I speak to you…’ he pointed at Glenn; Freya realised for the first time that he was wearing gloves ‘…about finding human remains in the middle of a field, in the middle of nowhere, that you’re in contact with the girl at the centre of the entire business, and then you arrive here, and find… what could well be another body? With another axe?’

  Freya and Glenn studiously avoided each other’s eyes. Freya said: ‘We had an anonymous tip-off.’

  Glenn tutted. Tamm glared at him for a second, but he said, in a kind tone: ‘Can you explain a little bit more about that, Freya?’

  She took a deep breath, and told him about the graffiti in the alleyway on her running route. ‘I don’t know where it came from. I got a tip to come out here…’

  ‘Was this by phone?’

  ‘I didn’t say it was by phone,’ Freya stammered.

  ‘Yeah, and if it was by phone, you’d know that already,’ Glenn sneered. ‘Policemen have ways of tracking phone calls.’

  Tamm ignored him. ‘Freya,’ the detective said, ‘this isn’t a courtroom drama on American television. If you know something and it’s related to a crime, you have to report it to me.’

  ‘That’s all I want to say,’ Freya said. ‘It pointed to this area, so we came out.’

  ‘How did you know to come to the pub?’

  ‘We didn’t,’ Glenn said. ‘We searched a few places. The pub was the most obvious building to go to.’

  ‘I wasn’t asking you,’ Tamm said. ‘Now, this tip-off… Did it mention that the police had been here recently to carry out a search?’

  ‘I don’t want to say anything about that,’ Freya said.

  ‘So let’s assume they did. That is interesting.’ Tamm scratched his chin. ‘We kept it very secret. All that search business. A former officer told us that he’d always had an inkling that there was a body hidden up here. Came from an eyewitness account of a black van being seen in the area, not long after Coleen Arden vanished. He never quite followed it up, he said. He’d been going over his notes, and found a reference. This tip-off – it didn’t come from one of your acquaintances in the press, did it?’

  Freya said nothing.

  ‘Well. Never mind. I’ll ask these questions again, but in a more formal setting. I can promise you one thing, though. A nice cup of tea.’

  Tamm nodded to a point over Freya’s shoulder. She turned around, in time to see the blue lights scoring pale strobing trenches along the winding road to the old mine.

  27

  Tamm’s sidekick’s name was Detective Sergeant Hunter, and he looked like a convict, rather than a policeman. His thumb-like features were squashed flat, with stubble on his head and chin the only thing delineating any features. He said very little in the interview room. Tamm said enough for both of them.

  The detective inspector never became adversarial, but his tone wasn’t quite as warm as Freya remembered. ‘So you don’t have any idea of your source? All you got was a piece of graffiti?’

  ‘All of this was complete speculation.’ Freya had gone beyond fear, now, somewhat reassured by Tamm’s presence. ‘We just put two and two together and, it looks like we got four.’

  ‘One more time… What day did you get the tip-off?’

  ‘It was the other day. Wednesday. I was going through one of my running routes…’

  Tamm took up his pen, and fixed his notepad underneath his finger. ‘Be specific. What route?’

  ‘It’s off Marley Street, a row of nice new houses – four and five apartments, red brick, detached. Fancy cars in the drive. There’s an alleyway, connecting two estates. Quite narrow. There’s some boarded fencing on either side.’ None of this was a lie, of course. Tamm would know, she supposed, if she did lie. ‘My name was written on the boarding. Then it had the cryptic message, just as I said.’

  ‘And if I was to send someone down there now, it’d still be there?’

  ‘It’s surely been removed now. But sure – have a look.’

  Tamm leaned back in his seat. ‘I would put it to you that it’s quite odd that you didn’t think to share this with us.’

  ‘For all I know it was a crank. I have been in the pape
rs. I’ve drawn attention to myself. That doesn’t excuse anyone taking liberties, but it’s a fact of life that it can happen.’

  ‘You reckon you’ve got a stalker?’

  ‘I reckon that the person who left the graffiti is the actual Woodcutter,’ Freya said, carefully.

  ‘And he may be stalking me, yes. But he’s also sending me a message.’

  ‘He’s also sending the location of bodies to you.’

  ‘Then there’s a body in the barrel?’

  Tamm nodded.

  DS Hunter folded his arms, and chewed the inside of his mouth. Then he tutted, and said: ‘I’d have an alternative theory, Freya. I’d say, it’s possible that you left the graffiti yourself.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘It’s just a theory, as I say. I’d suggest, you left the graffiti yourself. You hook up with Glenn Allander, and together you go to the old slate mine and the ghost town, and you somehow find the body in there. A body, in a place where the police had combed over just a few weeks before. So you make it look like someone’s given you the information, but really, you had it all along. I’d also suggest that maybe you were Glenn’s original source, when he somehow found this clue that took him to the Hanging Oak, and the first body. This is because you’ve been in contact with the only man ever convicted of being the Woodcutter – your father. It’s awfully convenient that all this has come out after you found out he was your father, and then visited him in prison. Isn’t it?’

  Freya’s eyes brimmed with tears, and her cheeks burned. She was embarrassed about letting her anger escape, but something about Hunter’s demeanour demanded it. ‘That’s a load of bollocks – and you know it. How could my father have told me where to find bodies without anyone in the prison service or elsewhere knowing it? This is nonsense. I’m telling you the truth. What you believe is up to you.’

  ‘I believe your father is the Woodcutter,’ Hunter said. ‘And he’s feeding you information.’

  ‘You can believe what you like.’ She looked towards Tamm. No… Don’t do that. Looking for reassurance, help or shelter from the big kind doggie? This is exactly what they want. They’re playing a game, and you’re going along with it.