He’d heard the rumour about the family who lived in Glen Turrit. The Slates. People saw them coming and going sometimes in a rusted white van. Kept themselves to themselves, but that was not unusual in the rural Highlands. Especially around Little Arklow, especially in the Affric Triangle. But the name had cropped up in his research. An old newspaper article that quoted a Mr Slate as saying he’d seen strange lights in the woods around the time a man called Colin Muir had gone missing in the area. Back in 1980. Euston had spotted the link with what had happened to the crofter he’d written about online. Perhaps Slate had seen something else? Something that could finally shed some light on the mysterious Affric Men?
On the previous afternoon Euston had driven up Glen Turrit looking for the Slates’ house, to see if it was really there. He’d gone almost as far as the dam but found nothing. Then, as he was leaving the glen, the white van had been by the gate, almost like it was waiting for him. The old man had climbed out and come to speak to him. He seemed friendly, interested. Asking where Euston lived, whether he was travelling alone.
‘It’s normally locked, you see. Not often someone comes along.’
‘I came to ask about Colin Muir.’
Slate’s face had changed, a tightness come into his body. He’d glanced back at the van. A teenage boy and an elderly woman were looking out at them. Him warily, her smiling. Slate said, ‘Long time ago all that. In the past.’
‘I think there’s something strange about these mountains,’ Euston had replied. ‘I’m trying to find out what. You saw lights in the forest? Was there anything else there?’
Slate had met his eyes then, as if deciding. Finally he’d glanced back at the people in the van, adjusted the tweed cap he was wearing.
‘Not with them.’
They’d arranged to meet the following night. At this lay-by, far from where they might be spotted. As he’d turned to walk to his van Slate had glanced back, an afterthought. ‘You won’t say to anyone?’
A ghost of movement in the forest on the other side of the deep ravine caught Euston’s eye. A shade of black against the dark. He peered at it, but nothing clearer would form. He shrugged and took another swallow of the whisky. The bottle almost empty now, it was time to start the long drive back down the glen towards Little Arklow. Slate was obviously frightened. Had decided not to come. Euston pressed the clutch down, put the vehicle into gear. He would wait until the morning, drive down Glen Turrit again. Find out once and for all what Slate had to tell him.
The figure appeared in the pickup’s headlights. Euston felt a flash of fear blossom in his chest. Numbed by the alcohol, it subsided a moment later. Slate. The old man was standing in the lights, holding his hand out to shield his eyes. With his other hand he made a spinning gesture: Wind down the window. Euston didn’t have time to wonder how Slate had got there, without him seeing or hearing any car. He opened the window, leaned out.
Slate said, ‘They’re over there. They’re coming. You’d better go.’ His voice was flat calm. Totally at odds with the words coming from his mouth.
‘What? Who are you talking about?’ Euston twisted his head back over his right shoulder. There was no one there. Just the dark of the lay-by lit red by the tail lights, then the darker forest beyond.
‘Who—’ Euston caught a glimpse of the other person in his peripheral vision. Crouched down at the side of his pickup. Directly beside the driver’s door. As he jerked his head instinctively back inside the cab, a series of thoughts rifled through his mind: Who? Why? How? They were cut short by the impact on his forehead. A flash of white light, then he was sitting, slumped back in the seat. He could feel a heaviness at the top of his head and tried to lift a hand to his face.
‘No. They’ll come looking … Better here.’
The words were muttered in a quiet, business-like way. The door opened and Euston realised Slate was leaning across his body. The truck must have stalled because he was moving the gearstick to neutral, then turning the key to restart the engine. Euston tried to say something. Slate didn’t seem to notice him though, as he slid the seat belt across his chest and clicked it home. Then pulled hard at the strap to lock it into place.
‘Old. Goes that tough, stringy way anyway.’
Euston tried again to move, to say something. But the words came out in a slurred mess. He heard the engine revving, sensed that the vehicle was moving. After a moment it began to pick up speed. The door slammed shut. Fractured images were caught in the headlights. Trees. Rocks. He realised his foot was pressed on the throttle and shifted it off. Managed to pump the brake. But the pickup was on a slope. The brakes locked out, and it bounced and skidded on down. For a moment it was airborne. Euston stared down at the churning black water under the lights. In that long second he was taken back to his childhood. The space films he’d loved: It Came From Outer Space, The Forbidden Planet. As the water rushed up to meet him he pictured reality splitting open. Just like a starship going into warp speed.
The pickup seemed to hang, suspended in space. Like there might be any number of dimensions, any number of realities. But for Euston there was only this one. He squeezed his eyes tight shut as the truck hit the water.
CHAPTER 34
Annabelle sank back into the wheelchair and stared at the bathroom door in disbelief. A moment later it juddered and strained as Marcus tried to pull it open.
‘Annabelle?’ His voice was hardly audible through the thick wood. ‘You’ll regret this. Believe me.’
Annabelle sat almost motionless under the electric lights in the corridor. She glanced down the slope to where the tunnel disappeared into the shadows deep below. She remembered Scott, his cries, and thought about trying to find him. Maybe he could even help her to escape? The bolt rattled, then creaked as Marcus began kicking at the door.
She dropped her shaking hands to the wheels. There was no time to look for Scott. If she could phone the police they would find him. She turned the chair and started to push as hard as she could up the gentle incline of the slope. Her injured leg bounced uncontrollably on the rest. Adrenaline was coursing through her body, masking the pain. She pushed hard towards the door at the top of the corridor. The squeaking from the chair echoed down the tunnel along with the sound of her own panting breath. All the time she expected to hear the door burst open, to hear Marcus’s footsteps pounding the tarmac behind her. Somehow she made it to the door at the top. Solid metal. There were two bolts pushed across, but mercifully no lock, no padlock.
‘Thank you, thank you, thank you,’ Annabelle murmured to the damp tunnel. She reached up and pulled them back one after the other. The door sagged open and Annabelle was met with just a hint of breeze. Unbelievably clear and delicious after the days and nights underground.
She pulled the door further open and wheeled herself inside. By the light of two slatted windows at the far end she could see she was in a small wooden building. They were thick with cobwebs, but through the dirty glass the sky was visible. Unmistakably blue. She rolled across to the wooden door. The door was old but reinforced with horizontal slats, it was held shut by a single bolt. Annabelle reached to pull it back, began to wheel herself out.
The sound echoed up from the tunnel. A splitting sound of wood cracking under blows. Marcus was coming. Annabelle pushed the door closed behind her and desperately ran her hands over the wooden panels, searching for a bolt. There wasn’t one though, just two metal hoops that you could click a padlock through.
She glanced wildly around. Taking her location in properly for the first time. The building she had emerged from was a kind of shed built against a cliff face. On either side of the shed, ferns and brambles, overhung by trees, grew thickly. To one side, through the woods, Annabelle could make out the chimney stack of a building. Beside it a flag was fluttering from a pole. Yellow background with what looked like a red monster on it. That must be where Marcus lives, she decided, as if referring to a casual acquaintance. Beyond the house the horizon was dominated by a row of
mountains, dark and dusted with fresh snow. The same mountains that she’d seen those days before from her car. Picture postcard. Only now they seemed to radiate a terrifying sense of her insignificance.
She shook her head to dispel the momentary paralysis. Block the door! You need to stop him! The voice in her head shrieked. With what though? She glanced around again. The ground was littered with sticks – branches fallen from the trees.
Annabelle stretched her arm to pick one up, tested the wood between her hands. It snapped easily. She swore, felt tears of frustration rolling down her cheeks again. Fucking, fucking thing! She reached again, more quickly this time. The chair rocked and tipped worryingly, threatening to dump her on the ground. Well, if she didn’t manage to stop Marcus it wouldn’t matter anyway. As if to reiterate the point the sound of his footsteps carried up to her from the tunnel. Close, almost like he was right outside the metal door.
She managed to steady the chair and scoop up another branch, this one a little thicker. Before she had the chance to test its strength between her hands the sound of creaking metal screeched out to her. She reached again and pushed the branch through the metal loops. There were footsteps from behind the wooden door. After a moment the door shook.
Annabelle stared with wide eyes as the branch flexed against the movement, but held.
‘Annabelle? Are you there? Let me out.’
Hardly daring to breathe, she slowly turned the chair away, then began to roll it down the slightly overgrown tarmac road.
Call the fucking police! Annabelle reached for her phone. For a moment she was certain that she had lost it somewhere in the chaos of the previous minutes. Thankfully it had slipped under her leg. With shaking fingers she held down the power buttons. Praying that the little sliver of battery life was still there. The screen jerked to life and she typed in the passcode, getting it wrong three times with her tired fingers before it was finally accepted. The battery was on four per cent.
She waited, heart almost bursting from her chest, as the phone searched for a signal. The sound came from behind her. Wood creaking under stress. The door was flimsy; he’d be through it in seconds. She stared at the screen, willing it to pick up some reception. The road sloped downhill towards the valley floor; if she went further down the chances of being able to call might diminish.
The little icon on the top left of the screen showed ‘O2-UK’ and one bar of reception. Annabelle punched in 999 and hit Dial. Praying silently.
Behind her the door creaked alarmingly like it might split open this time.
‘Which emergency service do you require?’ The sound of another voice, formal and authoritative after the days of chaos, was too much for Annabelle. She hesitated. The woman repeated, ‘Which emergency service do you require?’ Before she could reply the phone beeped three times and the call dropped out.
Annabelle almost screamed. The screen still showed one bar of reception. The door screeched again. She turned and saw that a metal rod had appeared through the gap between the door and the shed. Marcus was working to enlarge it, so he could fit his hand through and remove the stick.
Move! Now! You have to hide! She did what she was told and started to push the chair down the hill. The road was overgrown in places, and tufts of grass had broken through the tarmac as if it hadn’t been used in a long while. The wheelchair rattled along, picking up speed on a steeper section before the road levelled out and split in two. She chose the left-hand branch, still with thick forest on either side of it, her arms aching, hands stinging every time she touched the wheels.
She forced herself to push on until she was out of sight of the fork in the road. There was a fifty-fifty chance now that Marcus would go the wrong way. She reached for the phone again, her heart pumping like it could burst. Still one bar of reception. She dialled 999. The phone beeped in her ear and cut off.
She suppressed a sob of pure frustration. Switched to the text message function. Mum never checked her phone and Miss Albright only had a landline. She searched for ‘Dad’, but somehow couldn’t find him. You deleted his contact details at his wedding. Don’t you remember? She squeezed her eyes tight shut. Behind her it had gone ominously quiet. Marcus was out and he would be looking for her. Why, why, why had she been so stupid as to delete him? Because you were angry. In a weird way that’s why you came here. After everything with your new stepbrother. And the answer was right here. He lived up here. He was in the police. Ben Fisher. She pictured his face at the wedding. Dark hair, combed into a precise side parting. He had seemed as bemused as her by the wedding. His mum in a white dress and her dad in a white suit, like an eighteen-year-old footballer.
She typed out a hurried message: ‘I’m being held hostage but I’ve escaped. I’m in the Highlands near Inverness. One of the valleys you can drive through. There’s a yellow and red flag outside.’
She read back over the message. It barely made sense. What was the name of this place? Glen Turrit. She remembered seeing it on the sign.
A twig snapped and Annabelle looked up. The little girl was standing among a patch of ferns by the side of the road, in the shadows of the trees. A pillar of sunlight was cutting through the canopy close beside her, flecks of dust floating slowly in the golden light. The girl was thin with blonde hair. Despite the chilled mountain air she was wearing only a dirty white T-shirt and cut-off jeans. It was the girl from the road, the one who had stepped out in front of her car.
‘Please be quiet,’ Annabelle whispered to the little girl as she tried to operate the phone. Footsteps were drawing closer. ‘Please be quiet.’
In reply the girl stared expressionlessly back at Annabelle. Then, slowly, she raised her index finger until it was pointing between Annabelle’s eyes and began to scream.
CHAPTER 35
Fisher held the phone up for Monica and the others to see: ‘I’m being held hostage but I’ve escaped. I’m in the Highlands near Inverness. One of the valleys you can drive through. There’s a yellow and red flag outside.’
Fisher was right, Monica thought. For a joke it was creepy, particularly given the investigation they were working on. They knew the murdered men had been held hostage and tortured. She glanced around the office again, half expecting to see someone smirking over in Fisher’s direction. None of the officers in the room seemed to be paying attention to them though.
‘You into some kind of role play, Fisher?’ Crawford asked, sliding his hands behind his head and glancing at DC Khan to check her response to his attempt at wit. ‘Chase me through the Highland glens?’
‘I take it there’s no name? No other message?’ Monica asked, joining Khan in ignoring Crawford’s quips.
‘No, it’s not a number I recognise. This is my private phone anyway,’ Fisher said sniffily. ‘No one in here should even know the number.’ He glanced suspiciously at Crawford as if he might be responsible for the message.
Crawford arched his back slightly in mock outrage. ‘I was sitting right here.’ He seemed to have recovered from his chaotic start to the day anyway. Maybe his quadruple espresso had done the trick.
‘You don’t know anyone … Anyone …’ Monica searched around for the right words. For some reason they wouldn’t come. The message just seemed so strange. ‘I don’t know. Anyone who has your number? Who might be in trouble?’
‘Could it be someone who isn’t local?’ Khan chipped in. ‘Otherwise they wouldn’t have mentioned being in the Highlands.’
Monica nodded. It was a good point, and both women looked at Fisher. He touched a hand to the yellow bruise on his cheek then shook his head abruptly. ‘I told you – it’s my personal number. I’d know if it was someone who knew me.’ He shook his head again, hit Delete and dropped the phone into his pocket. ‘I’ll keep looking into Theo Gall’s previous convictions, put a list of known associates together,’ he said, clearly regretting showing them the message and keen to pretend it had never happened.
Monica glanced back at him. He was probably right though.
It was someone’s idea of a joke. ‘Well, keep me posted. Especially anyone who’s got previous for serious violent crime.’ She nodded to Crawford and turned to go, keen to finally track down Heather Sinclair. But as she crossed the office Monica found her mind wandering back to Lucy. To the dream the kid had mentioned, the one about the woman trapped somewhere, needing help. She cleared her throat and turned back to Fisher. ‘Can you get that message back?’
He looked up at her and adjusted his glasses, suddenly wary. For a moment she couldn’t help feeling sorry for him, despite his irritating pedantry. Working serious crimes could be a lonely job.
‘Yes, why?’ he said slowly. Like she might be about to ridicule him in some way.
‘Put in a trace with the phone company.’ Monica forced a reassuring smile. ‘Find out where it came from.’
Monica checked her own phone for messages as Crawford pulled the Volvo across the roundabout onto the A96. The road led east from Inverness along the coast towards Nairn, and Elgin, skirting the Cairngorms before finally reaching the city of Aberdeen a hundred miles away. There were no new messages from her mum and she put the phone back into her pocket. Thinking about Lucy’s dream had inevitably reminded her of the sleepwalking the previous night. The way the kid had gone so rigid in her arms. Almost like her mind wasn’t there at all. It was frightening just how vulnerable Lucy made her. How could she ever go on living if something happened to her daughter? If it turned out that the kid’s little idiosyncrasies somehow heralded something dark and terrifying but shockingly everyday like a brain tumour? You’d go on living somehow, the harsh voice at the back of her head piped up. If not, you’d waste away and die.
She sighed and glanced over to Crawford. It was possible he shouldn’t even be driving if he’d been drinking the night before.
Dark Waters Page 12