The Devil's Claw

by Lara Dearman

  Noise from above, scraping and clanging. And then light, through the first tunnel. She looked behind her, bit her lip, held back a cry as she jarred her shoulder.

  ‘Jenny! Are you down there, Jenny?’ Michael, his voice hoarse.

  She could see Roger, in silhouette. He turned to her, raised a finger to his lips, pointed the gun towards the tunnel. She continued to move, crawling, towards Lisa. Roger remained fixated on the tunnel, as Michael headed towards a bullet.

  ‘Stop, Michael!’ she screamed and simultaneously pushed herself to her feet, grabbing Lisa under the shoulders. Tiny bursts of light flashed and floated in front of her eyes as the pain from her wound caused a wave of nausea and dizziness and she stumbled and lurched and screamed as she dragged Lisa into the tunnel behind them.

  There was a yowling, like an injured animal behind her, but she kept moving, kept dragging Lisa, first with two hands, then with one as she clutched at her mangled shoulder, trying to protect it. They scraped through the narrow passageway and she cried in pain as she bumped into the walls over and over again. Finally, she could go no further and she let Lisa drop to the floor, sat next to her, sobbed, completely disorientated. She had no idea how far they’d come. She strained her eyes, looking for the faintest glimmer of light, and it was then that the panic was unleashed, so that her next cry was not one of pain but of fear. She got back to her feet, stumbling, unsure at first which way was forward and which was back. She felt for Lisa’s arms and screamed as she touched not human flesh but warm, damp fur, heard the shrieking of a rat as it scurried away. She stretched an arm out again, wondering what other terrors could be hidden in the blackness, until she found a hand. It was cold and lifeless, but she took hold of it, dragged with all her might, walking backwards, checking in front of her every few steps until finally, there, just ahead, steps. She could see them. She took a breath in, the first in what felt like minutes and tasted the fresh air. She cried, ‘Michael’ and scrambled forwards, leaving Lisa, who was moaning softly. Shouts up ahead and behind, a gunshot, but Jenny didn’t stop. She threw herself up the steps and grabbed at the metal bars which lay between her and safety, cried out again, and then Michael’s voice, rough and broken, ‘We’ll cut through it, just hang on!’

  ‘I have the keys.’ She pushed them through the grille.

  Moments later she was sitting in a field and it was light as day, the glare from headlights and flashing sirens as welcome as the morning sun.

  45

  Jenny

  A murmur of voices. The crackling of the fire. Newspaper rustling. Dad. Watching the news and reading the paper at the same time. It must be teatime. He always caught up on the day’s news before tea. He’d have been out on the boat. He’d be tired. He was getting too old for it really, her mum was right. Jenny should talk to him about it. It was time he thought about retiring. He and Mum could take a cruise. They’d talked about it enough. Although you’d think he’d have had enough of boats to last a lifetime. She smiled, still more than half asleep and shifted on the sofa. It was hard to get comfortable. Her shoulder ached. It ached and throbbed. She forced her heavy eyelids fully open and sat up, wiping a trail of saliva from her cheek as she did so. An open paperback, one of Margaret’s romances, which had been resting on her chest, fell to the floor.

  ‘Let me get that for you.’ Not her dad. Of course not.

  ‘Thank you.’ Her throat was dry. ‘How long have you been here?’

  ‘Oh, a little while. I was chatting to your mum; she said you’ve not been sleeping too well at night so I didn’t want to wake you.’ Michael examined the book before placing it next to her. ‘Funny, I’d have had you down as more of a thriller reader.’

  ‘Mum suggested something a bit less dramatic than my usual reading matter. She thought it might help me to relax.’ She glanced at her watch. ‘Sarah’s coming over soon to take me out for a walk.’ She snorted a laugh. ‘An afternoon nap followed by a little stroll. Clearly I’ve skipped turning into my mum and gone straight for my granny.’ She winced as she jarred her shoulder. ‘So what’s new? How’s Lisa?’

  ‘She’s going to be fine. You saved her life. He’d given her so many sleeping pills it’s a wonder she was still breathing when you got there. Then there were the cans of petrol as well as all sorts of strange paraphernalia. Candles with weird symbols carved into them, a book of incantations. Seems he was going to try to raise the Devil.’ He looked at her. ‘Not that you need to worry about any of that.’

  ‘How could he have kept this hidden for so long? He’s completely insane. He managed to fool everyone. The whole island fell for it.’

  ‘There are a lot of questions need answering. His alibi, for example. We’re not sure how he did that, so we’re not sure if all of the logs can be trusted. Or all of the force, for that matter. The team from Hampshire is going to be here for a while. We’ve never seen anything like it here. Even the boys from the mainland seem overwhelmed. It would help, of course, if we could get him to talk, but that’s unlikely to happen.’

  ‘There’s no chance he’ll recover?’

  ‘Well, nobody knows for sure. But he shot half of his face off and he’s no spring chicken. Plus, who’s to say anything he told us would make any bloody sense? Honestly, the more we look at this, the more fucked-up it gets, Jenny. The man lived in a fantasy world, thought he was some kind of dark Messiah sent to save us from ourselves. Some of that material we found in his bunker…’ He stopped short as Margaret entered with tea and biscuits.

  ‘I hope you’re not upsetting Jenny with any of this. She’s under strict doctor’s orders to relax.’ She set down the cups and looked at them both. Jenny gave her the most relaxed smile she could muster.

  ‘I’m fine, Mother.’

  ‘Hm. Elliot called again. He’s adamant he’s coming to see you. I said tomorrow. All right?’

  Jenny nodded, remembering him at the hospital while she was groggy, stroking her forehead, telling her he’d kiss her but he was worried about his safety, leaving flowers on the bedside table, deep blue irises. It seemed he knew her well enough not to bring roses. She smiled. Margaret was still fussing.

  ‘Let me get you another pillow. Your neck isn’t properly supported on those cushions.’

  ‘You’re lucky to have her, you know. She really is a lovely lady.’ Michael avoided her eyes as he said it. ‘Anyway, as I was saying, we found some pretty disturbing stuff in that bunker. Including the original photographs of Elizabeth Mahy. He was the first officer on the scene. Only a young lad, then. Seems it had an effect on him, seeing her like that and well, you weren’t wrong to connect her with the others. I think she might have been his model, what he looked for in his victims.’

  ‘Do you think this is it?’

  ‘What do you mean?’ Michael looked confused.

  ‘I mean, he was on the police force for forty years, Michael. Do you think he was involved in other criminal activity, aside from murder and Devil worship?’

  ‘We’ll be looking into it. All the cases he worked, everything that went on while he was chief. It’s going to take years.’

  ‘What about my dad’s case? Will you be reviewing that?’

  ‘Jenny.’ He spoke gently. ‘Like I said, we’ll be looking at everything. Hundreds of cases. Your dad’s will be one of them. But you need to prepare yourself. Roger Wilson is insane. It’s more than likely he was playing mind games with you. Don’t let him win.’

  Jenny was unconvinced. ‘We need to talk about this some more, Michael, I’m not going to let it go.’

  ‘Don’t I know it! Right. One more thing. Your friend, Sarah. She told me you’d been getting some threatening emails.’ He stared at her, eyebrows arched, a disapproving look on his face. There was no point denying it. And after everything that had happened, the threats hardly seemed worth worrying about.

  ‘What about them?’

  ‘You should have reported them! You need to hand them over to us and we can look into them. I’m not h
aving you worried and stressed about this, trying to sort it out on your own. That’s what we’re here for, Jenny.’

  A knock at the door.

  ‘That will be Sarah now.’ Jenny moved slowly from the sofa.

  Michael stood and made to help her to her feet.

  ‘There’s nothing wrong with my legs,’ she huffed but let him hold her good elbow and help her on with her coat.

  ‘We’ll talk more next time. Try to get some rest. Do some Christmas shopping. Go to the office party. Do some normal young people stuff.’

  She would have bristled at the suggestion had it come from anyone else, but the look on his face was one of genuine care and concern. And he was right. She did need to relax.

  * * *

  They sat on the wall looking out over Pembroke Bay with an ice cream each. It was cold, but the fading afternoon sun warmed her face. Bright streaks of pink and gold adorned the otherwise pale sky. Sailor’s delight. A seagull landed next to her and hopped from one foot to another, its tiny yellow eye fixed on her cone. She broke off a piece and tossed it on to the sand, watched the bird dive for it and gulp it down before coming back and waiting for more.

  ‘When are you going back to work?’ Sarah asked.

  ‘I’m not sure if I am, yet.’

  ‘What are you talking about? Where else are you going to go? Not exactly spoilt for choice here, are you? Wait, you’re not leaving Guernsey, are you?’ She sounded incredulous at the idea.

  ‘No. Of course not. Why on earth would I want to leave this little slice of paradise? Best decision I ever made, leaving the mean streets of Hackney for the quiet island life, wasn’t it? It’s been a real tonic.’

  ‘All right. Fair point. What are you going to do?’

  ‘I was thinking about going freelance again. No reason why I can’t write for the nationals from here, not now that we’re well and truly on the news map. And it would give me a bit more flexibility to pursue other things.’

  ‘Like what happened to your dad, you mean?’

  ‘Maybe.’

  They sat in silence for several minutes, watching the setting sun and gulls wheeling in the twilight. Sarah jumped off the wall and held her hand out for her. ‘I’ve got to get back. My mum’s watching the kids and they’ll be doing her head in by now. Anyway, you’ve had enough excitement for one day. Let’s get you home.’

  ‘You go ahead. I’m going to take a minute here.’

  ‘Are you sure? Your mum said I wasn’t to leave you on your own. And the sun’s nearly set.’ She looked worried.

  ‘Stop fussing. I have a torch. I won’t be long.’

  * * *

  She climbed the ladder down on to the beach, holding on with her good arm, and leant against the wall while she pulled off her socks and shoes. Her shoulder was sore but the burning pain had been replaced with a dull, uncomfortable ache. She’d been lucky. The bullet had missed the bone, which would have been excruciating, and an artery, which would have been fatal. As it was, she would make a complete recovery. Whatever that meant.

  She pushed her feet into the wet sand, enjoying the sensation of the coarse, cold grains against her skin. She walked to the shoreline, sending a flurry of sandpipers running in her wake. The sea shone silver, a faint rosy glow just visible on the horizon. She stepped into it, her feet numbing instantly, and dug her toes into the soft, sticky sand. It sucked and smoothed around them, absorbing and embracing. She stared at her feet, planted there, and at the icy water lapping around her ankles. She could move. Back to the city. She could carve her way through the dirt and the noise, through the constant, beating movement of millions of disconnected people and make a life for herself there. She could do that. If she wanted to.

  She shook her feet loose and watched the sand slide back into the imprint she had made. Then she turned and walked barefoot along the shore, towards home.

  Acknowledgements

  They say it takes a village to raise a child – I would argue the same is true for a novel. It has taken the love, support, help and encouragement of so many people to conceive, bring forth and develop The Devil’s Claw from a twinkle in my eye to a real-life book. Here are the thank yous (by no means an exhaustive list).

  To David Savil, whose Creative Writing MA at St Mary’s University made all this possible. Turns out the brutal feedback was worth it in the end. To my fantastic agent, Sophie Lambert. Sophie championed The Devil’s Claw when it was little more than an MA dissertation, and, along with the rest of the team at C+W, Jake Smith-Bosanquet, Alexandra McNicholl and Luke Speed, has taken this book places I never dreamed it would go. To my editor, the fabulous, approachable, hilarious Sam Eades, and the team at Trapeze Books. Your enthusiasm and energy are boundless, I am so lucky to have you all on my side.

  In writing this book, I found myself inhabiting worlds I had little personal knowledge of. I am so very grateful to everybody who gave freely of their time to educate me on their various areas of expertise. Special thanks to Michael Watson, who knows all there is to know about policing on Guernsey (having policed it himself for many years), Nick Mann and Nicola Gibbons at the Guernsey Press and Tom Bradshaw, who has answered a hundred random questions on a hundred random subjects over the last couple of years.

  To my writing group, Louise Fein, Jennifer Small, Magdalena Duke, Alex Dugarte, Gwen Emmerson, Andy Howden and Chris Bowden. Your feedback was invaluable, the moral support even more so. I miss you all. Thank you also to Joanne Dickinson, who gave me so much encouragement and industry insight, from the moment I pitched the idea of The Devil’s Claw, all the way through to pitching to publishers.

  It turns out that doing an MA and writing a book while being a stay-at-home mum with three small kids is quite tough. There have been so many occasions when I wanted to give up, when it really felt like I’d bitten off more than I could chew. To Pilar Ferreira, you are beautiful inside and out and so much nicer to my children than I am – I wouldn’t have been able to do this without your help. To my in-laws, Heather and Alan Dearman, thank you for all the last-minute babysitting – especially since your grandchildren are a trans-Atlantic flight away. I credit my wonderful friends with providing encouragement, tea, wine, cake, chocolate and cheese whenever called for – a special thank you to Hanna McCarthy, Zeta McDonald, Emma Robinson, on one side of the Atlantic, and Tricia Alcamo, Louise Barclay and Tina Sherwood on the other.

  Thank you to mum and dad for the books and the stories and the walks through the woods, fields, beaches, bunkers and caves of Guernsey. I’m not convinced they are all actually haunted, but thank you for telling me that they were. Consider the dark side of my imagination well and truly overdeveloped.

  Finally, thank you to Andrew, Lily, Charlie and Lena. It is not easy having a tortured writer as a wife and mother. You have all endured bad moods, frayed tempers and borderline neglect over the last two years. And that was just on the good days. Thank you for not only putting up with me, but supporting me, even when you secretly thought this was a waste of time. I love you all more than anything. Now let me get on with the next book, will you?

  Glossary

  Bean jar – A casserole made with beans and a pig’s trotter.

  Crapaud – Toad. A derogatory term for a person from Jersey.

  Crown and Anchor – A simple dice game, traditionally played by sailors in the Royal Navy. Still popular in the Channel Islands but can only be played legally on certain occasions.

  Deputy – A member of the States of Deliberation, elected every four years by popular vote.

  Douzaine – The main administrative body of each parish, usually made up of twelve members known as Douzeniers.

  Douzenier – Parish representatives with civil and administrative responsibilities such as supervision of polls during elections, rubbish collections, the granting of building and dog licences.

  Euchre – A trick-taking card game, originating in Cornwall. Popular in Guernsey where it is played competitively in leagues.

  Gâch
e – A bread made with dried fruits and candied peel.

  Her Majesty’s Greffier (commonly referred to as “The Greffe”) The office of the clerk of the Royal Court and Registrar General of births, marriages and deaths.

  Guernsey Biscuit – A bread roll, usually served toasted.

  Jerry-bag – A woman who fraternised with German soldiers during the Nazi Occupation of the Channel Islands.

  Loophole tower – Towers built by the British in the late eighteenth century to defend Guernsey from French invasion. Each tower has two floors above ground and ‘loopholes’ to allow musket fire to cover all approaches.

  Ruette Tranquilles – A network of back lanes with a fifteen mile per hour speed limit where cars must give way to pedestrians and cyclists.

  The States of Deliberation (commonly referred to as “The States”) – Guernsey’s government, made up of deputies from each of the island’s ten parishes.

  States’ House – Council house

  Vraic – Seaweed found in the Channel Islands. Traditionally gathered and spread on crops as fertiliser.

  Guernsey French Translations

  Collymouchon – A snail

  Cor chapin! – Good gracious!

  Cor dammie lar! – An exclamation of surprise or incredulity

  P’tite goute – A tipple

  N’faut pas faire lè cotin dèvant què lè viau set naï – One must not build the crib until the calf is born

  Reading Group Guide

  TOPICS FOR DISCUSSION