SCOUT

by Sanjiv Lingard

  And so that is how I ended up snuggled against the naked body of Mike ‘Woody’ Forrester. Inside Molly’s capacious parka, I hugged him to me, my heat slowly warming him up.

  “Th-thanks,” Mike stuttered, as I pressed my head against his chest. My lips rested against his hard muscles.

  I have to admit, it wasn’t so bad.

  “M-Moy,” shivered Mike. “There’s a h-hatch.”

  “Where?” he asked.

  “At the bottom. I think he put the boy down there, and then flooded the hopper to disguise his hiding place.”

  Moyheddin cursed, and sprinted towards the empty hopper. He peered over the edge. I called to him over Mike’s shoulder.

  “What can you see?”

  “He’s right – there’s a hatch down at the bottom.”

  “No body?”

  “No – the pool’s empty. If the boy’s down here, he’s under the hatch. I’m gonna try to open it.”

  “Moyheddin!” I shouted.

  What was it with men? Once one of them had shown off his bravery, the other had to follow.

  I twisted the four-footed Mike/Scout/parka-monster about so that both of us could watch as Moyheddin swung himself over the lip of the pool and found a foothold on the ladder. He grinned as he climbed out of sight.

  “Be careful!” I shouted.

  We couldn’t leave the circle of the fire. Once away from its heat, the air was solid with cold. Mike was a lump of ice in my arms. Not only that, I daren’t move. As we’d turned, my hand had fallen to rest on the gentle curve at the top of his ass. I didn’t know what to do – if I snatched my hand away now, I might draw attention to its proximity. But if I left my hand there, it would be presumptuous. I just hoped that he was too numb to feel anything.

  “There’s a handle!” shouted Moyheddin, his voice echoing around the steel bowl.

  “Can you open it?” I asked.

  “It’s locked solid, but I’ll try.”

  I tried not think of what Moyheddin would find beneath that doorway. I could hear him grunt as he put his weight behind the lever and pushed to open it.

  “It’s moving,” came the report from down below. Moyheddin groaned some more, and I could hear his feet skittering on wet metal. “Moving…”

  There was a loud CRACK!

  But the sound did not come from the bottom of the pool. Something shifted in the shadows high in the roof. I could hear a soft ‘whoosh’ as an object fell at speed.

  “Moyheddin!” I screamed in warning.

  “It’s open!” he shouted back.

  This was what the killer had been waiting for. He had laid a trap, and unsuspecting Moyheddin had triggered it.

  A steel girder swung into the firelight, suspended on chains. It shot over our heads and plunged into the hopper, where it detonated against the metal walls.

  The hopper rang like a bell tolling for the dead.

  Chapter 37

  “Moyheddin!”

  I lurched from under Mike’s parka. He wanted to come with me, but I pushed him away -

  “You stay by the fire!”

  “You must be joking,” Mike said, staggering after me like a frozen zombie.

  The girder rocked on its chains, slowing down as it thudded against the sides of the hopper. Each tuneless collision reverberated through the empty mill.

  “Moy!” I shouted, throwing myself across the lip of the pool. Moyheddin was sprawled on the floor, the length of steel swinging above him like a pendulum. It skimmed just inches from his chest, but he was safe as long as he remained prone.

  “Are you hit?”

  Moyheddin shifted uncomfortably, hypnotised by the mass of steel suspended over his face.

  “It caught my shoulder,” he hissed. “It’s broken. I think.”

  He slid on the rusty ooze, trying to squirm away from the trap that had so nearly taken his life.

  “I’ll get him,” said Mike, collapsing next to me. His face was so pale that I could see veins through his skin.

  “You put some clothes on first,” I said. Mike tried to protest, but he didn’t have the strength. I told him to get back to the fire. Too stubborn to listen, he hung over the side of the hopper and watched me climb down to Moyheddin.

  The ladder was slick and almost impossible to grip. My feet slid on the rungs, and I tumbled the last few feet. I crashed into a corner of the hopper.

  “Scout!” shouted Mike.

  I could see his white face peering over the lip. The girder swung lazily past. It would have hit me if I had still been on my feet.

  I crawled across to Moyheddin, staying low in the zone of safety.

  “Hiya, buddy,” I said, hands fluttering above him, searching for a wound. “Just the shoulder?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “We’ve got to get you out of the way. Can you kick?”

  “Yeah.”

  “We’re both gonna slide back.”

  Each movement was torture. I could tell, because Moy gripped my hand tight enough to pull it off as we slithered through the red muck. I pulled Moyheddin the final few inches until we were safe from the arc of the steel girder.

  “Can you get to the hatch?” shouted Mike.

  At the centre of the hopper lay the open hatch. Opening it had triggered the booby trap. The man who had taken Daniel had rigged it as a sadistic joke to catch anyone who pierced the camouflage of the ice-covered pool. He could have set other tricks beyond the dark entrance to the hole.

  I pulled myself towards it and looked down. Beneath me was a short tube which bent at ninety degrees so that I could not see where it led. The stale air made my head spin with panic and fear.

  Repulsed, I jerked back.

  “Scout!” shouted Moyheddin.

  Almost too late did I remember the deadly pendulum. I ducked, and a ton of metal passed by with not so much as a rattle of its chains. I flattened myself on the floor.

  “Is he down there?!” shouted Mike.

  “He was brought here, but I can’t see him,” I called back. “The trail leads down the pipe and out of sight.”

  Mike wanted me to wait, but clinging to the steel plates I could see the trail of Daniel’s despair as he had been thrown into the pipe. I could not endure his fear.

  “Moyheddin,” I said, “pass me the flashlight.”

  Moy skimmed it across the floor of the hopper, a tide of red gunk following in its wake. Along with the flashlight I got a mouthful of rust. It tasted like blood.

  Mike was saying something – warning me, I think. But the call of the trail was too strong.

  I could hear the music.

  It echoed within the narrow tube, like a demonic symphony. I lowered myself down, feet first. There were no handholds. The workers probably had to wear a safety wire. I had nothing to protect me, and my hands were numb with cold and slippery with waste.

  My feet hit bottom, and I discovered that there was just enough room to kneel and turn about. I shone the flashlight ahead of me. The pipe levelled out and was wide and dry. As I crawled along it, the chill of the open factory mellowed into pleasant warmth.

  And still my head buzzed with that mysterious tune.

  The man had played it to the boy, lulling him as he was carried to a hidden door. It wasn’t a full-size door, but one of those bulkhead hatches that you see in a submarine. There were four locks, one on each of the corners. Daniel had rested here, hypnotised by the music. The fight had gone out of the boy, and all he wanted was to sleep.

  Don’t sleep! I thought. I’ll lose you!

  I could just about stand, though my head was bent against the curved roof. I placed the flashlight on the floor and put my weight behind the first of the locks.

  What if it’s another trap?

  The lock yielded in a cloud of rust, the squeal ec
hoing around the pipe. I moved on to the second.

  What if the killer is waiting for this moment?

  He could be watching from the shadows, I thought. Neither Moy nor Mike had the strength to resist him if he attacked. He could kill them, and could slam shut the trapdoor. Once the hopper was flooded again no one would know that I was down here.

  I would be trapped, forever.

  The second lock opened easily enough, but it was difficult to find leverage for the lower pair. I slid down the curved wall and pushed with my legs. My calf, so recently injured by cramp, sang out in pain.

  “Screw you!” I shouted. I hated this man with a vengeance.

  The final two locks gave way.

  There was no flood of water, or surge of flame. No ton-weight of steel to crush bones. The door swung open, onto a room that was snug and warm. Air was refreshed from an outlet in the roof, as if it had been built as a shelter. An electric light burnt in the ceiling, and on the walls were shelves with food supplies.

  In a small army cot was the shape of a body. It was curled up on itself, hidden by a grey blanket. A mop of dark hair rested on a grimy pillow, whilst a small hand poked out from the covers, clutching an asthma inhaler.

  Daniel.

  I knelt down and lifted the blanket from his face. As I did so, Daniel woke up, two blue eyes staring at me as in wonder.

  “Daniel! Don’t worry. I’m here to help.”

  The boy recoiled in terror. He had woken from sweet sleep into a living nightmare. He had been stored down here, with everything he needed to keep him alive for a while. His kidnapper had heard the wheeze of his lungs, and found medicine for his asthma. I didn’t mistake it for sympathy - the longer he kept the boy alive, the greater would be his pleasure.

  Daniel had no way of knowing that I meant him no harm, so I whipped off my woollen hat.

  “My name’s Scout,” I said, flashing my best smile. “I came to find you, Daniel, and now I’m gonna take you out of here, back to your mom and dad.”

  He didn’t believe me, not at first. All the trust had been beaten out of him, and he was afraid of everything. I didn’t make a grab for him, because I sensed that he would scurry for cover. Instead, I held out my hand and waited for him to make the first move.

  “Are you coming?” I asked.

  *

  The boys were waiting for us as we climbed through the manhole. Mike was dressed, thankfully, and some colour had returned to his face. He leant in and pulled Daniel from my arms. Moyheddin gave a yelp of triumph and hugged the child with his good arm.

  Mike knelt on the steel floor, and his strong grip lifted me from the depths of the pipe. My shins scraped on the edge of the hatchway as he set me on my feet. I didn’t care about the pain, because Mike held me in his arms.

  “You’re something else,” he said, his cold hand touching my face. “Something special.”

  He wanted to say more, but I didn’t find out what it was because he was interrupted by the thud of a helicopter. An arc light punched through the broken lattice of the mill, cutting short our moment. We stood in the corona of the searchlight, waving our arms and yelling at the tops of our voices.

  Other lights skidded around the inside of the Doughy Mill. The blue and red of the first responders. Feet clattered across the floor above us, and then a ring of faces peered down into the pool. Leading them was Molly.

  “Oh my God!” she cried. “You did it, Scout! You did it!”

  Chapter 38

  Things moved quickly after that. I discovered that, for minor celebrities, doors are opened and court cases are brought forward. In no time Shona Macready was able to get my case heard, and the welfare department pleaded ‘no contest’. It wouldn’t be good publicity to be seen to deny a heroine access to her mother.

  And so, just before Christmas, Mike drove me to the Bethesda Institute to collect Eileen. She was sitting on her bed, dressed for the trip. For Mom this meant that she was wearing a coat on top of her customary bathrobe and fluffy mules. She had been waiting all morning, telling everyone who came by that she was going home.

  “Scout!” she shouted, as if startled to see me. And then she noticed Mike standing in the doorway.

  “Who’s that?” she asked.

  “Eileen, this is Mike.”

  Mike came forward and shook her hand. Eileen smiled, shyly. I’d told Mike that she wouldn’t remember his visit to the house, and indeed there wasn’t a flicker of recognition in her eyes. But as before, she was charmed with him, and delighted when he offered to carry her bag.

  Mike walked ahead as I wheeled her down the long corridor towards the elevator.

  “He’s got great buns,” said Eileen.

  “Eileen!”

  “I say as I see.”

  Mike caught my eye as the elevator doors closed. He had heard every word. I felt the heat rise under my collar, not because of Eileen’s bluntness but because of the memory of my fingers brushing those frozen buns.

  I sat with Eileen in the back of the car, watching the white monotony of the frozen fields.

  “I didn’t know it’d snowed,” she said.

  “It’s Christmas Eve,” I said.

  “No? So late already? But I haven’t bought any presents!”

  “Don’t worry. Santa’ll take care of that.”

  She shivered, as excited as a young child, then thumped me on the shoulder.

  “He’s a good driver,” she said. “Very smooth. What’s his name?”

  “Mike.”

  She furrowed her brow, trying to remember where she had heard the name before.

  “It’s a good name,” she said. “A very good name.”

  And then she drifted away to the blank line of the horizon.

  *

  The man who had taken Daniel Taber was still out there. He was like a phantom, flitting on the wind, impossible to grasp.

  Molly took me back to the mill the morning after we had become a news sensation. There was no way to keep the visit private. It was national news.

  A camera ‘copter hovered overhead, and the roads were lined with outside broadcast trucks, their dishes pointed to satellites in the sky. Rolling news demanded a constant stream of words and pictures. The lenses zoomed in as Molly led me from the car.

  The official story was that Mike, Moyheddin and I had been goofing around in the old factory, lighting a fire and drinking beer, when we heard the boy’s cries for help. Most people bought the story, because most people would not believe that I had used special abilities to track Daniel to an underground chamber.

  The news teams were not allowed inside, and there were only so many wide shots to be had of a decrepit mill. So when Molly brought back one of the teenage heroes, I became the focus of their attention -

  “Can this teenage girl shed new light on the mystery?” asked the breathless commentary.

  “Does Lauren Mann know more than she is telling?”

  Daniel was out of view, in a secure ward at Mercy Hospital, too sick and too young to give a description of the man who had taken him. With nothing else to fill the airtime, I became the story. The reporters, puffing hot air but saying nothing, speculated that I might know more about the boy’s disappearance than I had admitted. They inferred, as subtly as possible so as to avoid lawsuits, that – perhaps – I knew that the boy had been there all along.

  They had slurred Eileen in the same way thirty years before. It’s called ‘shooting the messenger’.

  The ‘copter went crazy when I started to follow the man’s trail. The machine came barrelling out from behind the Doughy Doughy Boy, the camera pod under its nose swivelling to catch me tramping with Molly and a couple of dog handlers across the snowy wastes. It was a TV director’s wet dream, a swooping long shot of four figures isolated by white, tracking with us as we walked.

  “
Get that freakin’ chopper out of my face!” snarled Molly into her radio. “You tell him that if he pulls that stunt again, I’m gonna roast his balls with the chestnuts at Christmas!”

  I picked up the trail easily enough. The area around the hopper, and the secret compartment, was swarming with forensic crew, dressed in white like the scientists in E.T. They wouldn’t let me anywhere close to what they called the ‘epicentre’. Molly told them she had brought me here in the hope of jogging my memory.

  The killer had not loitered by his buried treasure. Of that, I was glad. I couldn’t bear the thought that he had been watching us the previous night, seeing our faces, knowing who we were. As soon as he had locked Daniel in the underground chamber, and flooded the overhead hopper, he had struck out across the field. He left behind a truck stolen from the Highways Department. The wind had long since obliterated his footsteps in the snow.

  “I thought you should know that he didn’t touch the boy,” said Molly, as we waded in drifts up to our knees.

  “I don’t want to know,” I said.

  “It’s just that Daniel’s okay. You got to him in time. And there’s something else. It’s unofficial, for the time being, but there’re similarities between this crime scene and those in the 1980s.”

  “It’s the same guy?”

  “I can’t say, Scout. We’ll find out soon enough.”

  “Why would he come back after all this time?”

  Molly shrugged. She told me that it was impossible to know the mind of such a man. But a generation later, he’d come back to where he found such youthful excitement.

  “Age doesn’t stop this kind of man. Sometimes it makes them worse, like they’ve been worrying away at an obsession all their lives and now they can no longer control it. He may have a regular job, even a family. Don’t look so surprised. He might have kept his perversion under wraps for these last decades, and now the marriage is over, and the children grown up, it’s taken hold of him again.”

  *

  One of the dogs started yelping, and pulled his handler through the thick snow. The dog scratched away to reveal a nugget of dung.