Woodhill Wood

by David Harris Wilson

  He sat on the bed and did what he could of the Maths exercises that Stewart had set. Luckily the answers were at the back of the book, so, even if he did them wrong, at least he knew that the answers were right. Gurde tried to make it as difficult as possible to read the working-out section just in case Stewart tried to check how he had done them.

  He munched through another few chocolate bars from the drawer and hid the empty wrappers inside one of the clean socks. Apart from the constant, distant drone of the television the house was silent. It was strange to think that, although they were in different rooms, the parents were sitting only a few feet apart. Gurde hadn't heard a word pass between them for a week, not since the mother had chased him into the bathroom. Gurde turned on the radio by the bed and lay on top of the covers staring up at the ceiling.

  Gurde went downstairs later in the evening to get some food. Ben had already clattered his way into bed and Gurde guessed that the mother was still doing whatever she did in the sitting room. He made a bowl of soup and carried it through into the living room. The father was sitting in his chair at the back of the room waiting for the News to come on the television. A spaghetti-sauce-stained plate lay on the floor by his feet.

  "Hello, Matt."

  "You finished working?"

  "Nearly. I've just got an hour or so to go tonight."

  Gurde carried the bowl of soup past the father and sat down with it on the floor.

  "Is it still the Jenkinson case?" Gurde asked him.

  "Amongst others."

  Gurde slurped a taste of tomato from the spoon. It was still too hot to gulp down.

  "How's your week been then, son?"

  "All right."

  "No trouble?"

  "No. Why?"

  "No reason."

  Gurde hesitated for a second. "What's wrong with Mum?"

  "That's a good question."

  There was a longer pause while we watched the introduction to the News.

  "Er... you were working early this morning Dad."

  "I wasn't home last night."

  "No?"

  "I stayed near the office."

  "Working on the case?"

  "Not exactly. Now, let's watch the News."

  Gurde took half a spoonful of soup and swallowed it as quietly as he could.

  The newscaster grinned his welcome then forced a serious expression. "Tonight's main story: Another child has been murdered in Kent tonight. Police say that the killing may be linked with the ritual killing of Michael Thompson whose body was found last Saturday night. The body of Kenneth Morris, aged fourteen, was also found near his school, St Thomas', in Gravesend..."

  "That's funny," Dad said, "that's my old school."

  Gurde felt a tug inside his head.

  "...been badly mutilated. Kenneth went missing this afternoon while walking home from school. His body was discovered by the school caretaker. Our Home Affairs correspondent, Frank Graham, is at the scene now. Frank? Any further developments?"

  "Well, I have with me Inspector Peter Murphy. Is it correct you suspect the same man is responsible for both murders?"

  "There are reasons to suspect a connection, yes."

  "Can you tell us what those are? Did he damage the hand of this boy too?"

  "I don't think that it would be appropriate to comment on that at the present time."

  "Do you have any idea of a motive?"

  "Our investigations are continuing but I would ask all parents in the area to be particularly alert. I would also appeal to anybody watching who has any information..."

  Gurde put the bowl of soup on the floor. "Dad?"

  "Yes, Matt?"

  "Which school were you at before that one?"

  "I went straight to St Thomas' from primary school."

  "Which one? Which primary school?"

  "Why do you ask?"

  "Just wondering."

  "Let me think. Um... It was Green Valley Primary. It was a long time ago."

  Gurde's heart was thumping as he sprinted up the stairs to the bedroom. He threw open the bedroom door and lunged for the News of the World that still lay tucked behind the chest of drawers.

  He knew what was there, his memory had already found it, but Gurde had to see it written down. He scanned down the columns, trying to spot the words. And there they were, standing out from the page as if they had been printed in a different colour. The first boy to be killed had been found outside Green Valley Primary in Kent. That's what had bothered him when Gurde had first read about the murder: Green Valley was the father's old school. He had seen the photograph of the class. It was on the study wall. Now a second boy had died in some ritual outside another of the father's schools. Gurde reassured himself that it was just a coincidence. Hundreds of boys would have been to both schools over the years. He crept downstairs and went back into the living room. The News had moved on to talking about what the Queen had been doing.

  "Dad?" he said.

  "Yes."

  "Did you have many friends at school?"

  "That's a strange question, young man. What's the problem?"

  "Well." Gurde thought fast. He could look stupid if the father knew why he was asking. "Well, I haven't got many friends here and I was wondering..."

  "If it ran in the family?" The father smiled. "No. Don't worry. You'll make friends in time. Yes, I had quite a few friends at school."

  "Did you make them at primary or secondary school?"

  "Well. I made some friends at primary but then your grandfather changed jobs so I had to start again at secondary school, although it wasn't called a secondary in my day."

  "But.. I thought both schools were in Kent?"

  "They were. It's a big county, you know. We moved right down to the south. Down to the coast."

  "Oh, you moved house and so you had to go to another school a long way away? You lost all of your old friends?"

  "Yes. But I soon made new ones. Don't worry about it, Matt. Things'll be fine."

  "Yes."

  "Right. I'd better get back to work."

  The father carried his plate back through to the kitchen. Gurde watched him until he walked out of sight, then climbed the stairs to bed.

  Gurde stared at the red numbers on the clock, trying to bore himself back to sleep, but the longer he stared at the time, the longer it seemed to take for the clock to change from one minute to the next. He kept telling himself to forget about the nightmares and think about moving the pole. But all the time his ears were on full power, listening to every sound as the house cooled and shifted.

  He woke for the last time as the curtains began to take on an orange glow. Once the birds were singing, he stopped listening to the house and listened only to them.

  It was hunger that drove him out of bed, the half-bowl of soup the night before had not been enough and his stomach gurgled as he sat up. He liked being up early because the house smelt at its best. All the faint scents that had built up over the years had a chance to linger in the still air.

  Gurde dressed for the Woodhill: an old pair of patched trousers and a thick woollen jumper with a tear in the shoulder. The sooner he got on to the hill, the better he would feel.

  Not wanting to disturb the parents by stomping down the stairs, he carried the walking boots down into the kitchen before pulling them on. His stomach groaned again. There was just enough milk in the fridge to make the Weetabix soggy. As soon as the bowl was empty he tossed it into the sink, put a saucepan full of tomato soup on to the cooker, and went to find a thermos flask.

  By the time Gurde had dug the flask out of the cupboard and carried it back to the kitchen, the soup was starting to boil. He poured the soup in carefully, screwed on the lid, squashed the thermos into the little rucksack and slipped out into the breeze.

  He had one job to do before going up the hill. He hurried down the drive and turned towards town. The street lights were still on, even though the sun was now over the horizon, catching the underside of the few clouds and tu
rning them pink. It didn't take long to reach the deserted main street.

  Gurde hurried along to the Newsagents and slipped inside to see Mr MacKenzie in his usual chair reading a paper. He glanced up, put the newspaper on to the floor and levered himself on to his feet.

  "Mornin', Matthew," he said. "What can I do for you this early on a Saturday mornin'?"

  Gurde looked along the headlines lying along the counter. He took a copy of the Sun and a copy of the Daily Record. "Just these please."

  "No sweets this time?"

  "No thanks. Just these."

  "You'll still be eatin' the last lot, eh?"

  "Yes. Yes."

  "Right you are. That'll be twenty pence young man."

  Gurde reached into his pocket and pulled out some of the money that should have gone on fish and chips the night before.

  "Terrible business," the old man said.

  "Aye," Gurde replied.

  Mr MacKenzie handed over the change and the papers.

  "Cheerio."

  Gurde snatched the papers, tucked them under his arm and stepped outside on to the empty pavement. He stopped to look at the front pages. The headlines were similar but the Sun was the more direct: RANDOM CHILD KILLER.

  The huge letters filled the page except for a few words at the bottom and the smiling face of the boy in the lower left-hand corner. The boy was wearing a school uniform that, in the black and white photograph, looked just like his own. He wondered what colour it really was. Gurde tore his eyes away from the smile, stuffed both newspapers into the rucksack and started the walk back towards the Wizard's Skull.

  As he walked past the bottom of the drive he knew the mother would be up, scrubbing some floor on her hands and knees, or polishing the banisters, keeping herself busy.

  Gurde climbed through the fence into the field and cut across the face of the hill. The flocks of sheep were nowhere to be seen. He assumed they must have moved higher up into the maze of bracken and gorse. As he moved on, a startled rabbit shot across the path ahead, and Gurde watched as its white tail bounced all the way down the steep slope to the road.

  The clouds had lost their warm colours and the cathedral that was the Woodhill grew closer. As he neared, Gurde could see shapes of the individual trees, each with its own mixture of colours, some red and yellow, some yellow and brown, a dwindling few still proudly green. Another few weeks and there would be no leaves left and the cliff would be naked to the wind, and Gurde would feel naked upon it.

  He reached the steep-sided glen down which a cascading stream, the Silver Burn, marking out the line where the hills merged. The water was indeed silver in the morning light, but it was the old mines that had given it its name. Hidden all around lay the wire-covered entrances to the tunnels, waiting like baited traps.

  For some reason Gurde turned off the path and clambered down to an overgrown entrance that he knew was hidden only a few yards below. It looked as if somebody had recently ventured in. One side of the wire mesh had been pulled back, and through the darkness he could just make out the dull colours of a crushed Pepsi can, lying on the muddy slope inside.

  The mines had lain abandoned for over a hundred years. Everyone knew the stories of those that had been into the tunnels and never come out, and those that had explored and returned having met the devil. But despite those tales he felt drawn to the gaping mouth. Gurde slipped off the rucksack, tossed it on to the grass and sat on the edge of the pit, full of desire to see the forbidden, to know that no part of the hill was forbidden to him.

  He rolled on to his chest and used both hands to grip a jagged boulder beside the hole, while he lowered his legs in under the wire.

  As his toes probed the sucking darkness, the grass around the entrance brushed his face, but Gurde didn't dare move his hands. He just managed to hold back the sneeze that would have sent him falling. The hole seemed bottomless as he hung there, afraid to look down, trying to remember what had drawn him there, and hoping he had the strength to get out if the darkness was too deep.

  At last a toe touched something solid. At full stretch, Gurde put some weight on it and heard the crunch of the empty Pepsi can. He released his fingers from the rock and slipped over the edge.

  As he dropped down to the tunnel floor his feet slid away and he fell forward. He managed to grab hold of a crack in the rock and was still for a few seconds. Then he dug his heels into the mud and carefully turned around, keeping a tight grip on the crack, to stare into the depths of nothingness.

  The mine stank of rotting wood and of dead sheep, and there were other, putrid smells that he could not name. The icy air was filled with the constant echo of water plipping from the ceiling into the underground lakes. A large drop landed squarely on top of his head and ran down inside his collar.

  Gurde took a few paces down the tunnel like a blind man, keeping one hand on the rock wall as a guide, thinking that a careless step into the blackness might be his last. The uncertainty grew as he began to see the shapes forming ahead, slight glistens from the splashes hitting the pools, lighter patches floating on the dark water, an even darker hole in the far wall.

  The more Gurde tried to stare at the blackness, the more he thought he could feel unseen eyes staring back. He wished he had brought a torch.

  He had been warned many times about going into the mines. The water that covered the floor looked shallow, but it could hide flooded vertical shafts that dropped for miles into the valley and not even a torch could light what lay beneath. The water in those shafts was so cold that it would be only a matter of minutes before they sapped all warmth. The damp rock against his fingers felt slimy and alive, and the stagnant air that filled his lungs sent a nervous shiver through his body.

  He could just make out the edge of the first black pool and stared down at the thick ripples that oozed like oil against the shore. He was perhaps ten yards down the entrance tunnel. The father's warnings were not needed. Gurde would not willingly have taken another step. Those that had gone deeper and not come back could have expected nothing else.

  Something just under the surface caught his attention: a line of brightness trapped in the mud. Gurde crouched down and peered into the water, hesitated for a moment, then reached in carefully so as not to disturb the mud. He closed two fingers across the pale line. The water was so cold that it felt as if it was stripping off his skin but Gurde kept hold and slowly withdrew it from the shallows.

  It wasn't a line at all, but the top of a small silver lump that seemed to glint even though Gurde knew there could be no light upon it. He held the small mucky lump up to his face and tried to inspect it, but his eyes were beaten by the blackness. For that instant Gurde forgot the cold and the danger, and just stared at the narrow ring of silver that he gripped between finger and thumb.

  Then something moved in the darkness overhead. His body solidified. Gurde slipped the piece into his pocket and turned his ears upwards as panic split his spine and widened his eyes.

  The scratching sound came again, echoing around the cavern, and everything was black and wet and cold and Gurde was alone underground, alone beneath the cloak of the devil. He sprinted and scrambled back up the muddy slope towards the world with a cry jammed in the back of his throat.

  It was only ten yards to the rock wall below the entrance, but Gurde was already running fast enough to lunge towards the sky. His hands and head passed through the hole into the light and he prayed that the boulder would save him before gravity and the mines dragged him down. His fingers held.

  He was hanging over the edge again, dangling legs into the darkness, and expecting to feel the claws sinking in. He dragged himself forward, so that the boulder dug painfully into his chest, and crawled away over the wet grass.

  The air was fresh but Gurde could still smell the mine. He didn't look back. Instead he grabbed the rucksack and ran back to the path, splashed through the burn, and ran on up the grassy path on the far side, clambering over the stile and then into the trees.

&
nbsp; He stopped by the first trunk and turned to face the shadow behind him, but there was nothing. Only patches of bright sunshine breaking through the branches. He tried to remember what he had heard; probably the mines' echoes playing tricks. His heart was pounding but Gurde smiled and then laughed out loud. He had been stupid to go in. But he was back on the Woodhill where nothing could ever harm him.

  He pulled the heavy knobbly lump out of his pocket, rubbed away the remaining mud, and turned it. Its surface was twisted and dull. It was surely a nugget of pure silver. He wondered who could have lost such a thing. It had been lying too far down to have rolled from the entrance, so it must have been dropped beside the black lake, by a miner perhaps. Or perhaps it had been eroded from the cave roof and had dropped into the mud for him to find – now Gurde had a piece of the heart of the hill he could carry with him.

  The ground between the trees was a carpet of leaves and as he watched new threads drifted down from the branches to embroider it further. The view across the hill was quite different from his last visit of only a week before. As he walked over the soft golden cloth, Gurde relaxed. He was home again.

  There was a sudden burst of rustling up the slope to his left. The sound stopped, then a high-pitched bark identified the source and the rustling restarted closer than before. Gurde could hear Spike scuttling and bouncing around amongst the soft leaves, enjoying all the new rotten places he had to explore, all the new smells that he could dig for. There was no sign of Mr Gunn either but Gurde knew he couldn't be far away. Spike came sliding down the slope, trying desperately to regain his footing, and dropped, nose first, on to the path. The dog got to his feet, shook himself, and looked back down the path to see where his master had got to.

  "Hello, Spike," Gurde said.

  The little dog jumped into the air in surprise, span around and started barking furiously.

  "It's all right, Spike. It's only me."

  Spike growled and took two threatening steps forward. Gurde crouched down and offered an open hand. This obviously wasn't the reaction the dog had expected because he cocked his head to one side, turned, and sprinted back down the path, stirring up little puffs of leaves behind him as he went. The dog approached the first corner far too fast and Gurde could hardly bear to watch as the dog tried to turn, skidded over the loose surface, left the path and went crashing out of sight into the bushes.