Cold Vengeance

by Douglas Preston

  Then the officer came over and took the wing chair next to Esterhazy. “Chief Inspector Balfour of the Northern Constabulary,” he said quietly, not offering his hand, but leaning forward, elbows on his knees. “And you are Judson Esterhazy?”

  “That’s right.”

  He slipped out a small steno pad. “All right, Dr. Esterhazy. Tell me what happened.”

  Esterhazy went through the story from beginning to end, pausing frequently to collect himself or choke back tears, while Balfour took notes. When he was done, Balfour shut the pad. “We’re going to the scene of the accident. You’re coming with us.”

  “I’m not sure…” Esterhazy swallowed. “… that I’m up to it.”

  “I’m quite sure you are,” said Balfour crisply. “We’ve two bloodhounds. And Mr. Grant will be coming with us as well. He knows the byways of the Mire.” He stood up, consulting a large marine watch. “We’ve five hours of daylight left.”

  Esterhazy got up with a long, mournful face and a show of reluctance. Outside, the team was gearing up with packs, ropes, and other equipment. At the end of the graveled drive, a dog handler was exercising two leashed bloodhounds around the greensward.

  An hour later, they had tramped over the side of Beinn Dearg and arrived at the edge of the Foulmire, the boggy ground marked by a ragged line of boulders. A mist lay over the moors. The sun was already sinking in the sky, the endless landscape disappearing into gray nothingness, the dark pools lying motionless in the heavy air. There was a faint smell of vegetal decay.

  “Dr. Esterhazy?” Balfour looked at him, frowning, arms folded over his chest. “Which way?”

  Esterhazy glanced around, his face a blank. “It all looks the same.” No point in giving them too much help.

  Balfour shook his head sadly.

  “The dogs have a scent over here, Inspector.” The thick brogue of the gamekeeper drifted through the mist. “And I see a bit of sign.”

  “Is that where you went into the Mire?” Balfour asked.

  “I think so.”

  “All right. The dogs will lead the way. Mr. Grant, you stay with them up front. The rest of you follow. Dr. Esterhazy and I will come last. Mr. Grant knows the good ground; follow in his footsteps at all times.” The inspector took a moment to remove a pipe, which had been pre-packed, and lit it. “If anyone gets mired, don’t the rest of you rush in like damn fools and get mired yourself. The team has ropes, lifesaver rings, and telescoping hooks for retrieving any who get stuck in quicksand.”

  He puffed away, looking around. “Mr. Grant, do you have anything to add?”

  “I do,” said the small, wizened man, leaning on his walking stick, his voice almost as high as a girl’s. “If you do get caught in it, don’t struggle. Lean back into it gently, let your body float up.” He fixed a bushy eye on Esterhazy, glaring. “I’ve got a question for Dr. Esterhazy: when you were traipsing over the Mire after that stag, did ye see any landmarks?”

  “Like what?” Esterhazy said, his voice confused and uncertain. “It seemed awfully empty to me.”

  “There’s ruins, cairns, and standing stones.”

  “Ruins… yes, it seems we passed by some ruins.”

  “What’d they look like?”

  “If I remember correctly—” Esterhazy frowned in mock recollection—“they appeared to be a stone corral and a shelter on a sort of hill, with the marshes beyond and to the left.”

  “Aye. The old Coombe Hut.” Without another word the gamekeeper turned and began tramping through the grass, moss, and heather, the bloodhounds with their handler hurrying to keep up. He walked fast with his head down, his short legs churning, walking stick swinging, his shaggy hair like a white halo around a tweed cap perched on top.

  For a quarter of an hour they moved in silence, interrupted only by the snuffling and whining of the dogs and the murmured instructions of their handler. As the clouds thickened again and a premature gloaming fell over the moors, some of the men took out powerful flashlights and switched them on. The beams lanced through the cold mists. Esterhazy, who had been feigning ignorance and confusion, began to wonder if they hadn’t gotten lost for real. Everything looked strange and he recognized nothing.

  As they descended into yet another lonely hollow, the dogs suddenly stopped, snuffled all around in circles, and then charged forward on a scent, straining their leashes.

  “Easy, now,” the handler said, pulling back, but the dogs were too excited and began to bay, a deep-throated sound that echoed over the moors.

  “What’s with them?” Balfour said sharply.

  “I don’t know. Back. Back!”

  “For God’s sake,” shrilled Grant, “pull them back!”

  “Bloody hell!” The handler pulled on the leashes but the dogs responded by lunging forward, in full throat.

  “Watch out, there!” cried Grant.

  With a scream of pure terror the handler suddenly went down into a quagmire, breaking through a crust of sphagnum, slopping and struggling, and one of the dogs went in with him, the baying turning into a shriek. The dog churned, his head held up in terror.

  “Stop your struggling!” Grant hollered at the handler, his voice mingling with the cries of the dog. “Lean back!”

  But the handler was in too much of a panic to pay attention. “Help me!” he screamed, flailing away, splattering mud.

  “Bring the hook!” commanded Balfour.

  A member of the Special Services team had already dropped his pack and was untying a rod with a large rounded handle on one end and a broad loop of rope on the other. He snapped it out like a telescope and knelt at the edge of the bog, wrapped the rope around his waist, and extended the end with the handle.

  The dog yelped and paddled.

  “Help me!” the trapped man cried.

  “Grab hold, ye damn fool!” cried Grant.

  The high-pitched voice seemed to have penetrated and the man grasped its meaning. He reached out and grabbed the handle at the end of the rod.

  “Pull!”

  The rescuer leaned back, using his body to leverage the man out. The handler clung on desperately, his body emerging slowly with a sucking noise, and was dragged onto firmer ground, where he lay shivering and gasping for breath, covered with clinging muck.

  Meanwhile the dog was shrieking like a banshee, churning and slapping the bog with his front legs.

  “Lasso his front quarters!” shouted Grant.

  One of the men already had his rope out and was fashioning it into a loop. He tossed it toward the dog, but it fell short. The dog struggled and screamed, his eyes rolling white.

  “Again!”

  The man tossed it again, and this time it fell over the dog.

  “Tighten and pull!”

  He pulled but the dog, feeling the rope around his neck, twisted and struggled to avoid it, letting it slip off.

  Esterhazy watched in mingled horror and fascination.

  “He’s going under!” said the handler, who was slowly recovering from his fright.

  Another man readied a loop, this one tied with a slipknot, lasso-style, and he crouched at the bank, giving it a gentle toss. It missed. He pulled it in, loosened the noose, prepared to toss it again.

  But the dog was going down fast. Now only his neck was above the muck, every tendon popping, the mouth like a pink cavern from which came a sound that went beyond a scream into something not of this world.

  “Do something, for the love of God!” cried the handler.

  Ooowooo! Oooowooo! came the sound, horribly loud.

  “Again! Toss it again!”

  Again the man tossed the lasso; again he missed.

  And suddenly, without even a gurgle, there was silence. The sound of the dog’s last smothered cry echoed across the moorlands and died away. The muck closed up and its surface smoothed. A faint tremor shook the bog, and then it went still.

  The handler, who had risen to his feet, now sank to his knees. “My dog! Oh, great Christ!”

&
nbsp; Balfour fixed him with a stare and spoke quietly but with great force. “I’m very sorry. But we have to continue.”

  “You can’t just leave him!”

  Balfour turned to the gamekeeper. “Mr. Grant, lead on to the Coombe Hut. And you, sir, bring that other bloodhound. We still need him.”

  Without further ado they continued on, the dog handler, dripping with mud, his feet squelching, leading the remaining bloodhound, who was shaking and trembling, useless for work. Grant was once again walking like a demon on stubby legs, swinging his stick, stopping only occasionally to viciously stab the end of it at the ground with grunts of dissatisfaction.

  To Esterhazy’s surprise, they weren’t lost after all. The land began to rise and, against the faint light, he made out the ruins of the corral and hut.

  “Which way?” said Grant to him.

  “We passed through and went down the other side.”

  They climbed the hill and passed the ruins.

  “Here, I think, is where we split up,” said Esterhazy, indicating the place where he had departed from Pendergast’s trail in the effort to flank him.

  After examining the ground, the gamekeeper grunted, nodded.

  “Lead on,” said Balfour.

  Esterhazy took the lead, with Grant right behind, holding a powerful electric torch. The yellow beam cut through the mist, illuminating the rushes and cattails along the edge of the marsh.

  “Here,” Esterhazy said, halting. “That’s… that’s where he went down.” He pointed to the broad, still pool at the verge of the marsh. His voice broke, he covered his face, and a sob escaped. “It was like a nightmare. God forgive me!”

  “Everyone stay back,” said Balfour, motioning the team with his hand. “We’re going to set up lights. You, Dr. Esterhazy, are going to show us exactly what happened. The forensic team will examine the ground, and then we’ll drag the pool.”

  “Drag the pool?” Esterhazy asked.

  Balfour glared at him. “That’s right. To recover the body.”

  CHAPTER 7

  ESTERHAZY WAITED BEHIND THE YELLOW TAPE laid on the ground as the forensic team, bent over like crones, finished combing the area for evidence under a battery of harsh lights that cast a ghastly illumination over the stark landscape.

  He had followed the evidence gathering with growing satisfaction. All was in order. They had found the one brass casing he’d deliberately left behind, and despite the heavy rains they managed to find some faint tracks of the stag, as well as to map some of the crushed marks in the heather made by himself and Pendergast. In addition, they had managed to confirm where the stag had burst through the reeds. Everything was consistent with the story he’d told.

  “All right, men,” Balfour called. “Pack away your kits and let’s drag the pool.”

  Esterhazy felt a shiver of both anticipation and revulsion. Gruesome as it was, it would be a relief to see his adversary’s corpse dragged up from the muck; it would provide that final act of closure, an epilogue to a titanic struggle.

  On a piece of graph paper, Balfour had sketched out the dimensions of the pool—a small area twelve feet by eighteen—and drawn a scheme of how it would be dragged. In the glare of the lights, the team clipped a claw-like grapnel to a rope, the long steel tines gleaming evilly, and then fixed a lead weight to the eye. Two men stood back, holding the coil of rope, while a third balanced himself on the pool’s edge. With Balfour consulting his drawing and murmuring directions, the third man gave the hook a toss over the shivering bog. It landed in the muck on the far side, the weight carrying it down. When it finally came to rest on the bottom, the other two behind began hauling it back in. As the grapnel inched through the bog, the rope straining and tightening, Esterhazy tensed involuntarily.

  A minute later the grapnel surfaced, trailing muck and weeds. Balfour, clipboard in hand, examined the tines with a latex-gloved hand, then shook his head.

  They moved eighteen inches along the shore and gave another toss, another pull. More weeds. They moved again, repeated the process.

  Esterhazy watched every emergence of the muck-coated grapnel, a knot of tension growing in the pit of his stomach. He ached all over, and his bitten hand throbbed. The men were approaching the spot where Pendergast had gone down. Finally the grapnel was tossed over the very spot, and the team began to retract it.

  It halted, arrested by a submerged object.

  “Got something,” one of the men said.

  Esterhazy held his breath.

  “Easy, now,” said Balfour, leaning forward, his body tense as bowed steel. “Slow and steady.”

  Another man joined the rope-line and they began to haul it in, hand over hand, with Balfour hovering over them and urging them not to rush things.

  “It’s coming,” grunted one.

  The surface of the bog swelled, the muck running to the sides as a long, log-like object emerged—mud-coated, misshapen.

  “Take it slow,” Balfour warned.

  As if they were landing a huge fish, the men held the corpse at the surface while they ran nylon straps and webbing under it.

  “All right. Bring it in.”

  With additional effort, they eased the corpse up, sliding it onto a plastic tarp laid on the ground. Mud drained away in thick rivers from it and a hideous stench of rotting meat suddenly washed over Esterhazy, propelling him a step back.

  “What in blazes?” murmured Balfour. He bent over the corpse, felt it with his gloved hand. Then he gestured at one of the team members. “Rinse this off.”

  One of the forensic team came over. Together they bent over the misshapen head of the carcass, the man washing the quicksand off with a squeeze bottle.

  The stench was hideous, and Esterhazy felt the bile rise in his throat. Several of the men were hastily lighting cigars or pipes.

  Balfour abruptly straightened up. “It’s a sheep,” he said matter-of-factly. “Drag it off to the side, rinse this area down, and let’s continue.”

  The men worked in silence, and soon the grappling hook was back in the water. Again and again they dragged the pool; again and again the claws of the hook emerged from the muck with nothing more than weeds. The reek of the suppurating sheep, lying behind them, covered the scene like a pall. Esterhazy found the tension becoming unbearable. Why weren’t they finding the body?

  They reached the far end of the pool. Balfour called a discussion, the team conferring at one side in low tones. Then Balfour approached Esterhazy. “Are you sure this is where your brother-in-law went down?”

  “Of course I’m sure,” Esterhazy said, trying to control his voice, which was on the edge of breaking.

  “We don’t seem to be finding anything.”

  “He’s down there!” Esterhazy raised his voice. “You yourself found the shell from my shot, found the marks in the grass—you know this is the right place.”

  Balfour looked at him curiously. “It certainly seems so, but…” His voice trailed off.

  “You’ve got to find him! Drag it again, for God’s sake!”

  “We intend to, but you saw how thorough a job we made of it. If a body was down there…”

  “The currents,” said Esterhazy. “Maybe the currents took him away.”

  “There are no currents.”

  Esterhazy took a deep breath, desperately trying to master himself. He tried to speak calmly, but could not quite get the tremor out of his voice. “Look, Mr. Balfour. I know the body’s there. I saw him go down.”

  A sharp nod and Balfour turned to the men. “Drag it again—at right angles this time.”

  A murmur of protests. But soon the process began all over again, the grappling hook being tossed in from another side of the pool, while Esterhazy watched, the bile cooking in his throat. As the last of the light drained from the sky, the mists thickened, the sodium lamps casting ghastly bars of white in which shadowy figures moved about, indistinct, throwing bizarre shadows, like the damned milling about in the lowest circle of hell. It was im
possible, Esterhazy thought. There was absolutely no way Pendergast could have survived and gotten away. No way.

  He should have stayed. He should have waited to the bitter end… He turned to Balfour. “Look, is it at all possible someone could manage to get out—extract themselves from this kind of mire?”

  The man’s blade-like face turned to him. “But you saw him go down. Am I correct?”

  “Yes, yes! But I was so upset, and the fogs were so thick… Maybe he could have gotten out.”

  “Highly doubtful,” said Balfour, staring at him with narrowed eyes. “Unless, of course, you left him while he was still struggling.”

  “No, no, I tried to rescue him, just as I said. But the thing is, my brother-in-law’s incredibly resourceful. Just maybe—” He tried to inject a hopeful tone into his voice, to cover up his panic. “Just maybe he got out. I want to think he got out.”

  “Dr. Esterhazy,” said Balfour, not unsympathetically, “I’m afraid there isn’t much hope. But you’re right, we need to give that possibility serious consideration. Unfortunately the remaining bloodhound is too traumatized to work, but we have two experts who can help.” He turned. “Mr. Grant? Mr. Chase?”

  The gamekeeper came over, with another man whom Esterhazy recognized as the head of the forensic team. “Yes, sir?”

  “I’d like you both to examine the larger area around the bog here. I want you to look for any evidence—any at all—that the victim might have extracted himself and gone off. Search everywhere and cut for sign.”

  “Yes, sir.” They disappeared into the darkness, just the beams of their flashlights remaining visible, stabbing about in the murk.

  Esterhazy waited in silence, the mists congealing into fog. Finally, the two men returned. “There’s no sign, sir,” Chase said. “Of course, we’ve had very heavy rains that would have destroyed anything subtle. But a wounded man, shot, perhaps crawling, bleeding profusely, covered with mud—he would have left some evidence. It’s not possible the man escaped the Mire.”

  Balfour turned to Esterhazy. “There you have your answer.” Then he added: “I think we’ll be winding up here. Dr. Esterhazy, I’m afraid I’m going to have to ask you to remain in the area until the inquest.” He removed a handkerchief, dabbed at his running nose, put it away. “Do you understand?”