by Chris Dolley
Five minutes later the police arrived, lights flashing, siren wailing. He tried to flag them down but they drove past, stopping outside the Hall gate. He crossed over and ran towards them, calling. He had to warn them.
They were outside when he caught up to them. Two uniformed officers. Was that enough?
"Stop!" he shouted, slowing to a breathless halt. "He might still be in there."
"Who?" said the older of the two officers, eyeing Nick suspiciously.
"Pendennis," said Nick. "He's escaped."
The two policemen looked at each other. "Peter Pendennis?"
"Yes, Peter Pendennis. Look, there's a body in there with its nose ripped off. Who does that remind you of? And he's severed both hands. He must have been cutting the body up when I disturbed him. He might still be in there."
All three men turned to look at the house. It sat grey and silent, set back from the road and bathed in shadow.
The two policemen conferred. One went back to the vehicle. Hopefully to call for back up. The other switched on his lapel recorder.
"Now, sir, for the record, what's your name?"
Nick gave his statement, glancing towards the house whenever he thought he heard a sound or caught a flash of something moving out of the corner of his eye.
The other policemen called over from the car. "Nothing on the system about Pendennis breaking loose."
"Call Upper Heywood," said Nick. "They might not have missed him yet. And get a car over to Lower Hillside Farm, Mickleton. Check that Louise Callander's okay. Pendennis threatened her. He attacked her this afternoon."
Another shared glance between the two officers, followed by a click as the lapel recorder was turned off.
"I think you should show us the body first."
Great, thought Nick. They don't believe me. "Ring Upper Heywood. They'll confirm it. Or the A&E at Oxford General. They treated her."
A hand propelled him from behind. They were going to force him back into the house. Playing into Pendennis's hands, they were going to walk in unprepared.
"At least arm yourselves," he begged. "He could be anywhere."
The older policeman patted the baton strapped to his belt. "Don't worry, sir. Anyone gets out of order . . . we know what to do."
Even better, not only didn't they believe him but they were getting ready to take him round the back and play bad cop, bad cop on his ribs.
"I'm telling the truth!"
"Of course you are, sir."
They walked in silence. Nick pushed from behind into the lead, steering a course along the exact centre of the gravel drive, wary of every shrub and shadow. He skirted past his van, reached the open door and ushered the officers through.
"Second floor, turn left, second door on your right."
"We'll follow you."
Nick closed his eyes. He could be walking to his death. No one would care. The police would blame Pendennis. Our officers couldn't have foreseen the danger. A tragic turn of events for all concerned.
Not that it was much safer on the porch. Pendennis could be under the van, waiting for the police to move off.
He took a deep breath and pushed the front door wider. At least the lights were still on. He stepped though, his eyes zigzagging, trying to cover every inch of the hallway. Empty. Except for the imager he'd dropped earlier. He bent down to pick it up.
"Is that a camera?"
"Yes, it's mine. I dropped it earlier." He set it down on a windowsill and looked towards the stairs.
"The police are here," he shouted. "More are on their way."
"Come on," said the younger officer, nudging Nick in the back. "The sooner you show us this body the sooner you can get out of here."
Nick began the climb, trying to think positively. At least with the lights on, anyone hiding would cast a shadow. That thought took him to the first half-landing where another thought was waiting. What if Peter was hiding behind a door or perched on an upstairs banister waiting to jump on him from above.
Nick crouched instinctively, and looked up. Nothing.
"What's the matter?" said a voice from behind.
"Nothing," he lied. What was the point? They wouldn't take him seriously until they saw the body. Or Pendennis jumped them. Scenes from every horror film he'd ever watched, fluttered to mind. The hero walking into a trap. Deranged killer lurking in the shadows. Cue suspenseful music, cue unexpected death. What was the betting if he turned around now he'd find only one officer left? The other garrotted and whisked silently away, only to reappear in a future scene, cut up and flayed.
He'd never—ever—watch another horror film again.
He listened, straining to hear two footfalls following his.
Or was one Peter's?
He glanced back—he had to. Two policemen were in his wake.
For now.
Calm down. You're nearly there. All the lights are on. Pendennis'll be miles away by now.
Encouraging words. But one floor away was a mutilated body. Dozens of hiding places in between. And a crazed killer who could be hiding behind every door.
"Come on," urged a voice from behind. "We haven't got all night."
Nick ascended, swallowing hard, the first floor landing approaching, his eyes darted from side to side. Was that a shadow? Was that a footstep?
He hovered on the top stair then took off, grabbing onto the handrail and pulling himself across the landing and up onto the next flight of stairs, away from every door and hiding place, as quick as he could.
Then slowed. Deep breaths. Nearly there. One flight of stairs, one corridor and five doors to go. Another glance back. Still two policemen behind him. No crazed axe-man rushing at them from the shadows.
Yet.
More deep breaths. His mouth was dry and why had that window stopped banging? Had the wind dropped? Or had someone closed it?
A creak made him start. He looked up, trying to judge if it came from the attic or the landing above. Roof timbers settling or a floorboard shifting under a killer's bloodstained foot?
Calm down. One step at a time. Nearly there.
Up he went, hugging the wall, counting down the remaining steps. Nine, eight, seven. The landing looming, a moth fluttering around the bare light bulb at the head of the stairs. Three, two . . .
One.
He stopped. Every sense on alert – the slightest sound, the smallest movement.
The window banged.
He closed his eyes, one last deep breath and...
He was moving—swiftly, purposefully—along the corridor, jumping past the open doors, not pausing to think or breathe, just aiming for the other side of that doorway, that room.
He glanced inside as he leapt by. It was still there, lying on the floor. For one awful moment he'd expected to find it gone. But it wasn't.
"It's in there," he said, pointing into the room. "The vomit's mine."
It was a relief to be believed. Suddenly, action was taken. Back up was requested, CID, forensics. A car was sent to check on Louise. And, hopefully, Upper Heywood too. Within twenty minutes the Hall was alive with people and light and voices and away went the fear. Pendennis would be miles away by now.
Time dragged. Nick was put in the room across the corridor and told to wait, someone would interview him later. All his requests to be allowed to wait downstairs so he could check on his work were denied.
Great. Forty minutes ago he was on the verge of two major discoveries. Now, he was on the verge of none. The house crawling with heavy-handed coppers, poking into everything. What if someone pressed a reset button and cleared all his data?
Or had Pendennis already done that? Was that why he'd left the body? To lure Nick away so he could wipe all the data?
Shit! Shit! Shit!
The door opened. A man—plain clothes, early forties, sharp-featured—stepped inside. He reminded Nick of an old school teacher he'd once had. It was the glasses and the way he stared—a long, silent, appraising look as though he was looking deep int
o your soul and judging it flawed.
"DCI Marsh," said the man. "Are you ready to give a statement?"
Nick was more than ready. He waited for the lapel recorder to flash red then reeled off the events from the moment he entered the Hall that evening.
"Are you the owner of this property?"
"No, I'm from the University. We've been using the Hall."
"What for?"
Ah. This was not going in a good direction. One sniff of the word 'paranormal' and he'd be labelled a crackpot. The general public hadn't absorbed the huge advances that had been made in the last two years. Higher Dimensional Theory to them was still SHIFT and space travel. They didn't realise the extent of its application.
"Research," he said, hoping the interview could move elsewhere.
"Into what?"
"Astropsychology."
"Which is what in layman's terms?"
"The study of higher dimensional theory and its application to psychology."
There was a pause. If Marsh asked for an explanation of HDT he'd refer him to a textbook.
"Where does Framlingham Hall fit into that?"
Marsh was definitely like Nick's old teacher. He could never be deflected either.
"Look, I'm doing 'blue sky' research. I take an idea and run with it wherever it leads. This house is supposed to be haunted. I've been monitoring some of the rooms to see if there's a higher dimensional explanation."
He recognised the look. It may have been fleeting, but it was there. Who can trust a witness who sees ghosts for a living?
"And before you ask, I wasn't monitoring that room. You'll find my equipment in the room next door."
"Convenient. Did you recognise the victim?"
"No."
"You've never seen him before?"
"Never. Look, have you seen Louise Callander yet? Is she all right?"
"She is now. After two of my officers spent ten minutes reassuring her that Pendennis was still locked up."
"He is?"
Nick couldn't believe it. How . . .
And then another thought. Would Upper Heywood lie to protect their reputation? Stall the police until they'd got their stories straight? Or had someone sneaked Peter back in?
"Are you sure?" he asked. "Has anyone actually seen him?"
"We don't need to. Peter Pendennis is not part of this investigation."
"But it's his MO. The nose, everything."
Marsh shook his head. "The vic's too clean. Pendennis leaves his saliva over every body part. He licks them. This one's clean."
Nick swallowed. That was information he'd have been happier not knowing.
"And the body's intact," Marsh continued. "Peter likes to cut his up."
"He was interrupted."
The detective shook his head again. "That never bothered him before. That's how we caught him. We found him sitting on a basement floor with a severed head in his hands." He looked into the distance and clenched his fists. "He had its nose in his mouth, can you believe that? And he just looked at us. Didn't try to run or anything. Just looked up as though what was happening was the most normal thing in the world. And all the time his cheeks were going in and out as he sucked on that wretched girl's nose."
"Sucked?"
None of the holocasts had mentioned that. A stray synapse fired somewhere in Nick's brain. A connection. Something he'd read a long time ago. Rituals—Egyptian? Polynesian?—something to do with sucking the spirits of the dead out through their noses.
"And killers don't change their MO," said Marsh.
"Killers with MPD might. He's got twelve personalities so why not have twelve different MOs."
"You seem to know a lot about Peter Pendennis."
Back came the appraising stare.
"I was at Upper Heywood this afternoon. I saw him."
Marsh narrowed his eyes. "Do you often visit Mr. Pendennis?"
"No." Where was this going?
"My officers said you had a camera with you when you found the body. Were you taking pictures?"
"No! I was using it to see by. It's got night vision capabilities."
"Why not switch on a light?"
"I didn't want to risk losing the manifestation."
"You didn't want to risk losing the manifestation."
Marsh sounded like a cross-examining barrister echoing Nick's testimony to an incredulous jury. Nick squirmed. Okay, so all the other HDT researchers were out there doing sensible things with their imagers like helping develop stronger, lighter, cheaper alloys. And, yes, he was having fun, pointing his imagers at anything and everything he could think of. But that's what real scientists were supposed to do—to shine light where no one had ever thought to look before, to push, probe and question.
There was a knock at the door. A young man leaned into the room. "Sorry to disturb you, sir, but we've got an ID on the vic."
"Sergeant Kelly enters the room," said Marsh for the benefit of the recording. "Close the door, Mike. What have you got?"
The sergeant closed the door and read from a note pad. "Name's Vince Culley, twenty-nine, local man with two previous convictions for burglary. Petty, opportunist stuff. Probably after the cameras downstairs. They're easy to spot from outside."
A burglar? Nick hadn't considered his imagers a target. Though, thinking about it, he should have.
"So, if the cameras are downstairs," asked Marsh, "why was his body found up here?"
"The window was open in the room I found him in," said Nick. "It still is."
The sergeant shook his head. "Unlikely point of entry for our Vince. He's strictly a ground floor, brick-through-the-window type of crim. And we found a broken pane in a door at the back."
"So," said Marsh, eyeing Nick like a predator about to strike. "He breaks in downstairs to steal the cameras. You catch him at it. There's a chase."
Nick started to remonstrate. Marsh ignored him, raising his voice to drown out Nick's objections.
"You trap him in the room opposite. There's a fight. You hit him too hard, panic, then try to make it look like Pendennis. Is that how it happened?"
"Where's the blood?" Nick shouted, holding out his hands, showing his nails, gesturing to his clothes. "Whoever cut off his ears must be covered in the stuff."
"We'll check the bathrooms," said Marsh. "And the bins. If you cleaned yourself up we'll know."
An hour later was Nick was formally arrested and taken to the station at Summertown where he was scanned, DNA swabbed and had his fingernails cleaned. Then he was given a virtual lawyer, who explained his rights and talked him through the procedures. Don't say anything, don't sign anything and don't let them search your property. Probably the wisest words he'd heard all day.
A succession of detectives took it in turns to interview him. Nick sat through it all, biting his tongue. He'd tried the co-operative route and look where that had got him.
He was released at 9:00 am the next day without charge. No apology, no explanation, just a grudging, 'you can go,' from the desk sergeant.
Once outside, he called Louise. Had the police really spoken to her yesterday? They'd spun so many stories at him the previous night he didn't know what to believe.
The dial tone rang endlessly. Where the hell was she? He left another message then called a taxi. He'd pick up his van from the Hall then drive to Louise's.
The cold bit through his clothes. He wasn't dressed for being outside. He folded his arms and tried to squeeze some warmth into his chest. The taxi arrived, he climbed inside.
"Framlingham Hall," he said. "And turn the heater up as far as it'll go."
Streets flashed by. Inside, Nick rubbed his hands and replayed scenarios. What the hell was happening? Was Pendennis on the loose or paying a copycat? Some sick scheme to re-open his case?
And had the police impounded Nick's equipment? Had he lost all the data from the night before?
The taxi slowed as the Hall came into view. There was a police car blocking the entrance, a tape strung
across the drive.
"Drive past," said Nick. "I'll get out around the corner."
The taxi dropped Nick off a block away. He cut down a side street and over to an alley that led to the back of Hall. There was a door in the long stone wall that ringed the Hall grounds. Nick slipped inside, out of sight of the police at the main entrance, and ran across the rough grass towards the back of the house.
Great, the grass was wet. He looked down at his trousers—soaked from the knees down. So much for looking inconspicuous. He made his way to the back door by the kitchen. The police had said Culley had broken a pane in the back door. Would anyone have fixed it overnight?
No one had. He stood by the door and listened. It didn't sound like anyone was inside. He slipped a hand through the broken pane, turned the key in the lock and gently opened the door.
He stepped through, closed the door behind him and tip-toed to the front of the house. Still no sounds of life within the Hall. He paused at the bottom of the stairs, looking up, senses on high alert. The police must have gone, left a couple of officers to sit outside to keep the onlookers away.
Damn! He noticed the empty windowsill. He'd left one of the imagers there last night.
He ran to the front room. How much had they taken?
An array of imagers, monitors and processors filled one corner of the room. Were they all there? He counted them; walking around, checking they hadn't been damaged or reset. Only the one imager was missing.
He rummaged through one of the boxes looking for a blank data cube, found one and quickly inserted it into the main processor. The download began. He glanced to the window. Anyone walking by would see him. Were the two officers supposed to patrol the grounds?
He tapped his fingers on the top of the unit. Come on! A few more seconds . . .
The data cube ejected. He thrust it into a pocket. And stopped.
Curiosity. He was here, the data was here, the monitors were here. Okay, the data hadn't been fully processed yet. But the imager data would have been merged, enough for a composite picture. Could he wait another hour?
He ran to the side of the window, squatted down, peered back towards the gate. The police car was still there, nothing moving.