The Runner

by P. R. Black

  Freya tightened the string at the bottom of her waterproof trousers. ‘Sure. What’s the deal here, do you even know what you’re looking for?’

  ‘Yeah. Safest place to stow a body.’ Glenn fixed a bulbous torch to a headband, giving him the look of someone who has been controlled by the Daleks.

  ‘Let’s do this. I’ll guide you through it.’

  ‘What about her?’ Freya nodded towards Levison.

  ‘She’s looking after the boat. Any trouble, she hits the horn, we come running.’

  ‘What about if we get in trouble?’

  ‘Then you climb fast, or you jump into the lake at the bottom,’ Levison said. She made her way back to stern and hopped back on board, scanning her surroundings somewhat uneasily.

  ‘That’s another reason you brought her along – extra pair of eyes,’ Freya said.

  Glenn nodded. ‘She has her uses, no doubt about it. A good person to have on the inside, all told.’

  The Bessie Bow was berthed alongside a walkway that passed over the weir. The drop down the other side of the elevated part of the canal was not especially steep, its man-made concrete stages looking much mellower than the sound would have had Freya believe. To fall off here would not necessarily be fatal, unless she landed on her head. The weir opened out onto another waterway, perpendicular to the canal up above – a broad, dark lake. There were no houses within sight, but there were some very distant street lights up at the hills. It was a dark, lonely spot, and Freya knew in her bones that Glenn had called it correctly.

  Glenn stepped off the boat and onto the concrete running alongside. He uncoiled a guide rope from around her shoulder, then fixed a harness to the white railings at the edge of the walkway. He gave Freya a harness, and attached them both to separate ropes, which he coiled down the side. ‘We just let ourselves down, now, bit by bit. It’s just insurance really – we won’t be going down a cliff face, it’s a short drop. Not much water, either. Slippery enough, I guess.’

  After one last check through with Levison – who maintained her poise, but had taken to chewing gum quicker than a sclerotic football manager, blatant even in the falling darkness – Glenn prepared to drop down onto the first stage of the mini-dam.

  He took hold of the rope, and dropped down onto the slick steps – a drop of about four feet. He landed solidly, bending his knees to absorb the shock.

  The weir was a set of four stages, stepping down into the dark water down below. Clearly designed to take the extra water. Freya imagined it was necessary for any overflow from the canal above, during bad weather. She remembered one of the old industrial canals where she used to live, and the constant dredging work that went on during prolonged rainfall – great brown scoops in the earth at the canal bank.

  Freya took hold of the rope and dropped down onto the first stony stage. ‘I can’t see what we’re looking for,’ she said. ‘Just looks like a set of steps. Big ones, all the same.’

  ‘We drop down one more level, then we’re at the main ramp. There’s a broad pipe, which turns into an aqueduct, stretching across the weir. I think it helps distribute the flow of water. Not sure where it runs off to…’

  ‘So, one down again?’ Freya asked.

  ‘Yep. Unless there’s something written here, somehow, some message we’re meant to follow…’

  Glenn played the blue beam of light across the water. Everything was slick, and there was a slight smell of vegetation that was hard to place – not quite a sea smell, and far from the scent of stagnant water, but not pleasant.

  ‘Nothing,’ Glenn said. ‘OK. Down we go.’

  They followed each other down the second stage. This was a much larger drop, eight feet or so, and the sporadic momentum of the water gained force, here. Freya had to imagine what it was like during overflow, with the white caps as the water surged over the stolid black stone and concrete. Glenn dropped down easily, his booted feet making contact with the wall just once, then landing just as easily as before.

  ‘You’re not going to like this,’ he said, ‘but I’m going to explain this really carefully. For Christ’s sake, don’t let go of the rope. Let it down inch by inch. I don’t want to have to call out an air ambulance because you’ve broken your back out here. Just take it step by step, hand over hand. It’s not very far.’

  Freya ground her teeth – irritated not only by the schoolmarmish, condescending tone, but also the knowledge that she needed the instruction. She gasped as she turned her back, and gravity clutched her shoulders. She bumped down in a very gauche, slow fashion, and Glenn compounded the humiliation by taking her weight briefly before she got to the bottom, then patting her on the back for her effort.

  ‘What now – split up?’ Freya asked, indicating the dark tunnels at either side of the platform, disappearing into the step, overgrown hillsides at either side of the weir.

  ‘Not on your nelly,’ Glenn snorted. ‘Left or right?’

  ‘Left feels right to me.’

  ‘OK then.’ He started forward, picking his way carefully across the broad-stepped platform. Water trickled down from above, and sloshed unseen under their boots.

  ‘If the Woodcutter jumps out at us, here… assuming he gets you first, what should I do to get a hold of Levison?’

  ‘Shout – very loudly. And hope she’s clever enough to call the police before she gets brave. But personally speaking, I think she made the right call on the boat. I’d get the harness off, and jump down onto the final stage, then into the water. Swim hard, make the bank, run for your life. You’re a runner, right?’

  ‘Quite difficult to get this harness off while a maniac is running at me with an axe.’

  Glenn sighed. ‘That’s the best I’ve got. Come on, let’s do this.’

  Freya hesitated, rubbing her hands.

  The head torch blinded her for a second. ‘What’s up?’

  ‘Just… freaking out.’ She gave a small, nervous laugh. ‘I just realised I never want to see another body again. I…’ Her voice caught. Glenn came forward, instinctively, taking her hand. ‘I’m not just doing it for my dad. I’m doing it for them. I’ve gotten to know them, in a way. Been reading about them. I’ve had nightmares. Some nights I’ve slept with the lights on, like a kid. I’m telling myself it’s the right thing to do. It’s a way of getting to the truth. It’s a way of bringing those girls home.’

  ‘And catching the guy who did it,’ Glenn said, quietly. He still had her hand. She gave it a squeeze.

  ‘Damn right. There’s a sicko out there. I think we can stop him.’

  ‘Let’s crack on. Yeah?’

  She nodded. ‘Yeah.’

  The head torch beam lit up the tunnel ahead. It was, regrettably, big enough to walk through, if you crouched. Glenn moved forward slowly. The sound of water echoed off the smooth, circular side of the tunnel. Here, there was no doubt that the water had become stagnant, and there was a smell of carrion here, too. As if some birds had died, Freya thought. And then she thought about it some more.

  ‘Hang on,’ he said. ‘You see this?’

  ‘No.’ Freya came forward, and stared over Glenn’s shoulder. Just inside the tunnel, the light disappeared. It was difficult to say what was blocking the way; Glenn’s beam showed something matted, some sort of black, fibrous material. It didn’t block the entire tunnel – it stretched from the roof, until about six inches from the floor of the tunnel. There was a three-quarter eclipse effect, with the top of the tunnel completely blacked out.

  ‘There’s metal down there,’ Freya said. ‘Some kind of trellis, or something?’

  ‘Looks like a sluice gate. A natural barrier.’

  ‘To stop dead things getting in,’ Freya muttered. ‘What in God’s name is that stuff on the top?’

  ‘It’s really mouldy, discoloured, and disgusting,’ Glenn said, with distaste. ‘Some kind of blanket, or a carpet or something. Hard to say. It’s black and slimy and probably full of critters.’

  ‘Nice. Take a bite, for a
million pounds?’

  The head torch beam lit up Freya’s face, and she tried to smile through it. ‘Not for two million,’ Glenn answered, finally. ‘This is tricky… I think we should go through.’

  ‘How we going to do that – limbo dance?’

  ‘No,’ Glenn said, properly irritated now, ‘we pull aside this material or the sluice gate or whatever, and we go through.’

  ‘What if it’s bolted?’

  ‘Then, we check the other side, and if it’s the same, then we’ve made a mistake.’

  ‘What if it’s something in the lake at the bottom? That’s my guess.’

  ‘Then, Freya, you can come back with some scuba gear and take the fucking plunge, can’t you? Let’s give it a try.’

  ‘Maybe we should stand off the side, a little.’

  ‘Right,’ Glenn snarled, ‘you stand off to the side, and I’ll take the risk!’

  ‘I don’t want to set off a trap or something. This fucker is sneaky. I don’t think he’s trying to kill us, but I can’t rule it out, either. I don’t know what the endgame is. Especially when we get to the last of the bodies.’

  ‘Let’s find out! One… two…’ Grimacing, Glenn took hold of the black material, and pulled.

  43

  ‘Ugh! Jesus!’

  Glenn staggered back, towards the drop to the third level. Freya reached out instinctively and grabbed him; they steadied themselves. Glenn’s light ricocheted off the dark, dripping concrete tunnel exposed beneath the sheeting, a frantic fairy light rebounding off all surfaces.

  Eventually the beam settled, and Freya saw what had startled Glenn.

  It was a skull – grimy, mouldy, and placed on a bed of bricks on top of a rib cage. The lower jaw was missing. Cutting across one eye socket, moving diagonally across the nasal cavities and ending in a gap in the front teeth, there was one single, obvious cut.

  ‘Christ,’ Glenn said. ‘No prizes for guessing how they got that wound.’

  Freya’s voice was a croak. She had begun to shiver, uncontrollably. She felt a sense of disgust down to the marrow, at the idea of stepping into this very water. ‘They’ve been cut in half. Look at the spinal column. Down there… that’s a pelvis. I hope to God this person wasn’t alive when it happened.’

  They let this thought wander for a few moments, as the beam traced the contours of the skull.

  ‘Shut it off,’ Freya said. ‘I don’t want to look at it any more.’

  ‘I doubt this has been here for twenty-five years or so, do you?’ Glenn said.

  ‘No.’ Freya took a step forward, her heart still thumping. She took a quick glance up towards the lip of the weir, up above. Water dripped down; the rope wriggled as Glenn shifted his position. ‘The bones would have been moved, surely… and whatever the hell that material was, it’s fairly new-looking, to me. I’d say whoever placed the remains here has been here very recently.’

  ‘Look,’ Glenn said, moving closer. He pointed past the skull, to the slick darkness behind it. ‘Something’s written on the wall of the tunnel.’

  Freya came forward, grimacing at the close proximity of the skull. She bent forward, shining her light on the curved concrete that fed into the hillside.

  Written in black paint, across the curve of the tunnel, was the message: NO HALF MEASURES.

  ‘Bloody comedian,’ Glenn said, grimly. ‘Not sure I like this guy.’

  Their breathing was laboured, echoing out in that cramped space, as they struggled to recover themselves.

  ‘How old is this part of the weir?’ Freya asked.

  ‘I don’t think this section is even that old. Neither’s the sheeting – you’re right. It’s been done recently, all right. By someone who really knew what they were doing.’

  ‘It’s freaking me out,’ Freya said. ‘It looks like there’s a finger bone, in there. Is it… pointing?’

  ‘Not at us.’ Glenn nodded in the same direction the nude fingerbones indicated. ‘Over at the other end of the drainage pipe. Far side.’

  ‘You’re joking.’

  ‘I’ll go first.’

  He passed in front of Freya, the rope coiling in front of her shoes, a treacherous creature in the wet half-light. Glenn padded over the concrete platform, pausing for a moment to stare down at the drop below. ‘Can you feel a bit of a breeze?’

  ‘No. Not that I’m aware of. Why?’

  ‘I think we had a bit of run-off come down, there. Seems a bit wetter, anyway.’ He moved on towards the second drainage pipe.

  They both edged closer in the darkness. Something that Freya might have sworn was a bat flew overhead, startling her; something wispy and indistinct, like an ember thrown into the breeze.

  ‘I can’t see a grille there, either,’ Glenn whispered. ‘All clear. There’s something in the tunnel, though – written on the walls. Can you make it out? My eyesight’s pretty good, but…’

  She trained the beam on the writing edged into the wall. It was smaller than the writing they’d encountered before. ‘Hang on a minute,’ Freya said, ‘let’s have a look… It says TO ME… TO YOU?’

  ‘Not sure,’ Glenn replied. ‘I’ll have to move further inside.’

  Freya placed a firm hand on his elbow. ‘Don’t do that, please.’

  ‘We need to know, don’t we? I can just about make it out. TO ME… TO YOU. You’re right. Let’s take a look; there might be something further ahead.’

  ‘Are you joking?’

  The light shone into Freya’s face.

  ‘Do I look as if I’m joking?’ he snapped.

  ‘Well you sound like you’re joking, sometimes! Is this some sort of dare? A bet you’ve got with yourself?’

  He ignored this, and took a half-step into the dripping tunnel ahead. ‘You coming?’

  Freya shook her head. ‘No,’ she said, simply. ‘No to everything.’

  ‘You what?’

  ‘Stop what you’re doing. No more investigations. I’ve had enough. It’s obvious that there’s another body in this tunnel. He’s placed the final two bodies down here. Maybe he’s in a hurry. That’s up to him.’

  ‘We have to check – we have to be sure. You of all people, Freya…’

  ‘It’s not our job, Glenn. It’s the police’s job. We’ve messed with evidence already – we can talk our way out of that. Or you can. But if we then mess with another body site, that puts us on dodgy ground.’

  ‘I say we should be sure. You want to know, don’t you?’

  ‘It’ll come out, one way or the other. Or is it just that you want to know? To get the scoop, for your blog?’ She gestured in disgust. ‘I’m done with it. It’s over.’

  Glenn lowered his head a moment, the torch beam threading the moving water with pale blue lightning. He considered this a moment, then said: ‘Maybe you’re right. It’s been getting to me… It’s definitely been getting to you.’

  ‘It’d get to anyone. We’re messing with evil, evil stuff. Maybe it’s all over now. I’m kinda glad.’

  ‘What about your dad?’

  ‘That’s for the courts to decide, now.’

  Glenn nodded towards the channel. ‘That’s the pair of them, I’d bet. We’ve found the last two victims. Unless the Woodcutter’s sprung a surprise, and this isn’t who we think it is. So, what’s next?’

  Freya said: ‘We call Tamm. Like you said. You’ll get your shot at him, now. It’s game over. Let’s get out of this disgusting place.’

  ‘But what about Levison?’

  ‘She can agree, or walk the fucking plank.’

  44

  Later that evening, more blue lights, fairy garlands for the trees, meandering gas jets on the choppy water.

  Tamm handed Freya a coffee. ‘No doughnuts, I’m afraid. Something of a cliché. But we do have bad coffee.’

  ‘Yeah, I remember.’

  They were stood on the B-road adjoining the canal, behind a cordon that had been set up with commendable speed. Freya had already had a statement taken, and she
had pretty much told the truth. She was expecting another long night of questioning, although Tamm had appeared to take everything at face value. The police sometimes know when you’re lying, she reminded herself. She still wore the same clothes; she and Levison had thankfully escaped a soaking.

  ‘I don’t know where this ends,’ Tamm said to her. ‘Four bodies have turned up, recently, connected to the old case; now there’s two new bodies.’

  ‘Two?’ Freya glanced up sharply. ‘There’s another one?’

  ‘Yeah. Found near a canal bank, Lancashire,’ he said, grimly. ‘It’s hard to know what to make of it. What do you make of it?’

  ‘Hard to say,’ Freya said. ‘Other than it proving my dad’s innocence.’

  ‘You’re sure about that?’

  ‘Who else could be leaving messages, spray-painting graffiti, and God knows what else?’

  ‘Could be someone connected to your dad. It doesn’t mean your dad didn’t do it. Could be the same person who killed the two new girls. Might not. I keep an open mind.’

  ‘So do I. But don’t argue against the obvious. We know my dad didn’t kill the two new girls. That’s a fact.’

  ‘We can say that with confidence, yes.’ Tamm swirled what was left of his coffee in the cup. In the gloom he was a curious figure. The long hair might have been stylish a long time ago – say, the mid-1990s – but Tamm was far too old for long hair. He’d washed it that day, but not brushed it, and the light of the street lamps on the nearby street gave him a cosy, fluffy appearance, which he surely didn’t intend. Freya wanted to put clips in – the sight was driving her mad.

  Or mad-ish.

  ‘So,’ Freya continued, grimacing at her own coffee, ‘it seems an amazing coincidence that a new phantom tells us about the old bodies, at the same times as new ones start dropping.’