THE SOUL FIXER (A psychological thriller)

by D. M. Mitchell

  ‘Imagination?’ he thundered. He unzipped his coat and slid his arm out of the sleeve. It had been wrapped in a crude bandage of ripped material and was all but soaked in blood. ‘Am I imagining this, or the fact that if I don’t get it looked at soon the thing will go septic and I’ll lose my arm? Did I imagine them chasing after me, or shooting at me with their bloody shotguns, or that they found my boat and smashed it up so that I couldn’t ever get off this rock to tell anyone?’

  She sighed. ‘Do you want me to have a look at that?’ she said, nodding at his wound.

  ‘Are you a nurse?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Proficient in first aid?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘That answers your fucking question,’ he said, gently putting his arm back into the sleeve. He groaned, grimaced at the pain. ‘You got any food on you? A chocolate bar or anything?’

  She shook her head. ‘Sorry, no.’

  ‘You come out here into this type of environment without even being slightly prepared? You city people, you never learn.’

  ‘You need to get that wound seen to,’ she said. ‘You need help.’

  ‘You and me both, lady.’ In a thin, despairing voice he said, ‘We’re going to die here, all of us…’

  ‘I’d rather not. Start at the beginning. What’s your name?’

  ‘Does that matter?’

  ‘I’m in a cave with a strange man who’s talking about the possibility of being murdered without knowing a single thing about him. I think it matters.’

  Now she could see better she became aware of the remains of a small campfire bearing a few pieces of smouldering wood, discarded cellophane and plastic packets of food around it, a holdall, a couple of blankets and a sleeping bag stuffed against the cave wall, beyond which the tunnel snaked away into complete blackness behind him.

  Collins. Matthew Collins - Matty for short. And you are?’

  ‘Susan Carmichael. This is going to sound weird,’ she said, ‘but are you the Digger Man by any chance?’

  He glowered at her. ‘I’m an archaeologist,’ he admitted.

  ‘Guess that’s near enough,’ she said. ‘So what’s an archaeologist doing holed up in a cave, wounded in one arm and afraid for his life and demanding chocolate?’

  He smiled bleakly. ‘Yeah, sounds kinda strange when you say it like that…’ He swung his head to look at her. ‘Listen, I don’t know everything that’s going on. I haven’t got all the answers. Hell, I never expected any of this when I came here. This is fucking madness.’ He shuffled to get himself into a better position. ‘How confident are you that you weren’t followed?’

  ‘Fairly confident.’

  ‘Can’t risk it,’ he said. ‘We have to be moving soon, just in case.’

  ‘You’re getting sidetracked,’ she said.

  ‘Forgive me for wanting to save my arse, lady.’ He made his arm a little more comfortable. ‘OK, first thing, a potted island history. This place, Connalough Point, was first settled back in the Mesolithic Era, that’s around 6500 BC to you. The stone circle you saw out there – beautiful example, by the way – was raised in the later Neolithic Era and dates from the 3 millennium BC. Then we get the Picts coming over, followed by the Vikings, and in 1266 the Hebrides were given to the Kingdom of Scotland as part of the treaty of Perth. So we’re talking an island with a lot of history. A lot of ancient history. What makes Connalough Point a special place are the remarkably well preserved remains of a Bronze Age settlement – you might have come across it on the cliff edge, a collection of circular stone and earth structures. The settlement wasn’t always so close to the coast; over many thousands of years the sea has eroded the land, and what was once a mile inland is now teetering on the brink of a cliff.’ He pointed straight up. ‘Mostly straight over our heads, in fact. Are you with me so far?’

  She nodded. ‘Are these caves part of that settlement?’

  ‘They’re not caves. They’re tunnels that are part of a vast complex of Bronze Age burial chambers. See, this cave isn’t natural but was dug out of the earth and rock by an ancient people, supported by stone walls they built. As the sea has eroded the land so the insides of the chambers have been revealed and collapsed. What you’re sitting in now is really a part of a Bronze Age tomb. Yours-truly aside, you’re only the second person to have set foot in this place since it was sealed up thousands of years ago.’

  ‘So, while I appreciate the history lesson, what I want to know is what exactly you are doing here, and how come you ended up with a bloodied arm?’

  ‘My father was an archaeologist – that’s how I got the bug, and here I am following in his muddy footsteps. The Bronze Age was his speciality area and his passion – he wrote a number of books on the subject, too. In the 1980s, when there were still a few people still living on the island, he came to Connalough Point as part of a sponsored dig on behalf of his university that eventually uncovered and excavated much of the settlement you see out there today. He discovered these burial chambers, hitherto unknown. They’re special. They broke through into a chamber that contained a Bronze Age mummy. It turned out to be one of the oldest mummies ever found from the period, and there was evidence that similar chambers existed. But funding ran out, and what with the economic crises of the ‘Eighties and ‘Nineties there wasn’t any funding around to continue the dig. My father died, but before he went he begged me to get my arse back here to Connalough Point come hell or high water, because he was convinced he had been on the verge of a truly historic discovery. I grew up poring over his photographs and reading his journals and partly out of respect for my father’s wishes, partly because it was such an exciting prospect, I vowed that one day I’d get my chance to dig on the island and continue what he’d started.

  ‘But when the chance to make it happen arose we came up against a complete and unexpected resistance to the idea. The island’s new owners adamantly refused to allow a new dig to take place. Gave some half-baked argument that to do so would ruin it. They put their lawyers onto it and that was that. Nothing we could do. I was so bloody frustrated with the entire thing. In the end I took matters into my own hands. I planned to carry out a small-scale dig of my own. I packed what I needed for a month on the island – a tent, enough supplies to last, clothing, basic recording equipment including cameras – then I bought a boat, loaded up and made my way across, landing on this, the blind side of the island, hoping I could keep my head low, do my work for a month or so whilst the weather held, and then leave before it got bad with no one ever suspecting I’d been here.’ He grunted. ‘Things didn’t exactly go according to plan.’

  He stiffened, crawled by her to the mouth of the tunnel and looked out, craning his neck to see above him.

  ‘What is it?’ she asked in a hush.

  He came back inside. ‘It gets you like this,’ he said. ‘I hear things. I keep thinking it’s them again. It freaks me out; I’m a fucking nervous wreck.’ He gave his eyes a scrub with his balled fist. ‘I could murder something proper to eat,’ he said. ‘I’ve just about run out; I’ll be digging up and eating worms next.’ He eyed her. ‘Or pretty women that fall into my tunnel…’ He shuffled his back against the wall again.

  ‘Did you find the mummies?’ she asked tentatively.

  He ran his tongue over his cracked lips. ‘I found more than that,’ he said. ‘Much more.’

  ‘Like what?’

  ‘Better if you see for yourself.’

  He went to the holdall and took out a torch, flicked it on. ‘The batteries are getting low on juice so I’ve been conserving them.’ He shone it at the wall. ‘Not looking good,’ he said. ‘But adequate. Follow me.’

  Matthew Collins began to crawl along the tunnel, deeper into the cliff. Susan hung back for a second, then decided there was nothing for it but to do as she was told. The tunnel was lined with blocks of stone, hewn into rough squares stacked neatly on top of each other. The roof was stone, too, massive blocks that must have taken a Herculean effort
to put in place using only the most primitive and basic tools available to them. She regarded it all with a mixture of trepidation and wonder, musing on how these stones had been in place for thousands of years. Soon there was nothing but black behind and black up front, the void lit only by a small oasis of light from Matty’s torch. She kept close, the uncomfortable feeling that above her were thousands of tons of rock and stone. If it gave way now she’d be entombed like Matty’s Bronze Age mummies in the dead heart of a cliff.

  Eventually they passed into another chamber, large enough for them both to stand upright. Three more tunnels spiked off from it.

  ‘That way to the outside,’ he said, pointing. ‘That way to a burial chamber that contains two Bronze Age mummies. They’re magnificent. My father would have been beside himself with joy. Everything he’d ever hoped for. The chamber also contains a number of stunning artefacts the likes of which should by rights be in the British Museum. Pottery, weapons, everyday items, jewellery, even remnants of clothing; the peaty earth has helped preserve things wonderfully. But that’s not what I want to show you. That particular joy is down this tunnel, in another burial chamber.’

  He ducked down into the tunnel. She followed. They were able to progress at a crouch, the tunnel again lined with worked stone and packed earth. It struck out in a straight line, narrowing so that it became difficult to pass down without turning to the side. Then it opened out into another chamber.

  Matty tapped the torch to encourage a little more brightness. ‘Don’t worry, I’ve got spare batteries, just in case you’re thinking we’ll be in total darkness down here.’

  ‘It did cross my mind,’ she said shakily.

  He stood facing her. ‘I broke into this chamber having followed the route we’ve just taken. That way,’ he pointed to a black hole, ‘leads up to the outside. I know that, because that’s where someone else found their way into this chamber and brought these along with them.’

  He shone his torch into the far corner of the room. It lit up six decomposed bodies in various stages of decay. The flesh of one had almost disappeared from the skeleton, its skull lying turned to one side, its mouth agape, the jaw broken and teeth missing, the result of a fearful impact. The ribs of the empty chest cavity had a few shreds of soiled clothing draped over it like some kind of gruesome tent.

  ‘Oh my God!’ said Susan, putting a hand to her mouth.

  Some of the corpses had skin stretched over the bones, hair loosely attached to the skulls, the eye sockets empty, some bearing evidence of rotted clothing, others naked. She’d only ever seen such horrors in news reports of genocide and it made her feel sick with revulsion.

  She backed away, till she came up against the wall. Then she threw up.

  ‘Not a pretty sight, huh?’ said Matty. ‘Trust me, they aren’t Bronze Age mummies. They’re recent and they’ve been murdered,’ he said coldly. ‘Plain and simple. They’ve been bringing people to this island for some reason, then when they’ve finished with them they dump them here, out of the way. That’s not all; when the bodies have rotted down to bare bones they come back for them, take them out to sea and dump them, a bit over here, a bit over there. You get the picture. No chance of a body being washed up somewhere then, is there? These people just disappeared never to be found again.’

  She sank to her knees. ‘Oh my God, Silas was right…’ she said. ‘They’re planning on murdering Paul and me.’

  ‘Silas?’

  ‘Silas Blake,’ she said. ‘He tried to warn me.’ Becky’s warnings also flashed through her mind. ‘We came here because they could put us in contact with the dead…’

  A humourless laugh twisted his lips. ‘They sure did that! Don’t trust him, this Silas. The Blakes are the ones responsible for this,’ he said. ‘They own the island, resisted anyone coming here. They obviously didn’t want anyone snooping around and accidentally finding out what went on. That’s why they tried to kill me.’ He rubbed his arm, as if the memory of it increased the pain. ‘I knew I had to get off the island and report the bodies, but before I could scarper I was spotted out in the open by one of them. I ran, he chased me and took shots at me. That’s when I took one in the arm. Confirmed something pretty nasty was going on here. I got away, obviously, but he must have known he hadn’t killed me with the shot. I left enough blood around for him to think it was quite serious and that I probably wouldn’t last long in a hostile place like this. But I’d already stashed away a few of the things I’d brought along in one of the chambers, and thankfully I did, because whoever it was that took a shot at me smashed up my boat just in case. They didn’t want me getting off the island. I’ve been hiding in the chambers and surrounding hills ever since, but they haven’t made an effort to track me down. I guess they were waiting for winter to force me out of hiding, when it got too cold or my food ran out. Then they’d finish me off.’

  ‘What’s over there?’ she asked, seeing two shapes lying on the ground just out of reach of the torch beam.

  He swung the light over. There was no mistaking the familiar humps of what could only be more dead bodies covered by tarpaulin. ‘That’s the latest addition to the family,’ he said. He went over to one of the bodies and peeled back the corner of the tarpaulin.

  It revealed Iris Donovan’s white, hollow-cheeked face, her milky, sightless eyes wide open, and looking upon her own private vision of hell.

  * * * *

  20

  Sorry

  ‘We have to get off this island,’ she said.

  ‘No shit, Sherlock.’ He watched her as she stared out of the chamber to the crashing sea outside, as if she could reach out across the miles and touch the safety of home. ‘You might not have noticed, but three things are getting in the way. They have the only boat on the island, they have the only shotguns on the island, and the weather is against us for the next few days. How do you suggest we do that, exactly?’

  With a shrug, she said, ‘We have to do something. My husband’s in danger. I have to go to him. Come back with me.’

  He shook his head. ‘No way, lady. Sorry, but somehow I think I’d rather be a rabbit in a hole than a lamb in the lions’ den.’

  ‘If you stay here they’ll find you eventually, or, like you say, hunger and the cold will drive you out. If the gangrene that might already be setting in doesn’t get to you first.’

  ‘You’ve really brightened up my day,’ he rumbled. He ran a hand through his beard, his tired eyes blank. ‘Sorry, I can’t go with you…’

  ‘I need your help. You know how to sail a boat, we don’t.’

  ‘You’ll never get your hands on it. They’ve got guns, remember. And you told me earlier that your husband has damaged his foot, so he’s not exactly in fighting form, is he? Look at me, my arm’s a mess. I’m so weak I can hardly hold myself up. We’re not exactly the A-Team between us, are we?’

  She groaned in exasperation. ‘So what are we supposed to do? Wait until they pick us off one by one?’

  ‘No one knows any of us are on this island. Time’s on their side, and it’s only a matter of time, one way or the other, before they get us.’

  ‘You’ve resigned yourself to it, is that it?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Are you going to give in so easily? Do you really want to end up as a corpse lying alongside your Bronze Age mummies? Don’t be so lily-livered. Well, I for one don’t intend to finish up like those back there in that chamber. Show me the way out of here.’

  ‘You’ll be killed.’

  She stared at him. The sound of the boiling sea filled the silence. But curiously, amid the tearing of the wind and the waves she heard voices, distant whispers that seemed to float in and out of range of her hearing. Many voices, desperate, fearful, clamouring. ‘Do you hear that?’ she said.

  ‘I don’t hear anything.’

  ‘Voices…’

  He stiffened, listened intently. ‘Maybe they followed you.’

  ‘No, they’re calling for help. Can’t you h
ear it?’

  His face remained puzzled. ‘Not a thing. It’s the sea. The chamber plays around with the sounds, amplifies them.’

  Then the voices faded until she could hear them no more, and she couldn’t be certain whether they’d been real or not. She shook her head of them, putting it down to the discordant sounds of the weather, the seashell effect of the low chamber.

  ‘Show me the way out,’ she demanded again.

  ‘They’ll get you, you know.’

  ‘I don’t care. I’ve got to get back to Paul. Bring him back here.’

  ‘No way.’

  ‘It’s the safest place for now.’

  ‘Safe until they discover where I’ve been holing up and descend on it.’

  ‘You’re not in a position to argue. Look at you; you’ll be dead soon if we don’t do something. Together we might have a chance of getting off Connalough Point alive.’

  ‘Can you bring food?’

  ‘I’ll try.’

  He sighed. ‘OK, we have to go back to the burial chamber, then through the passage that leads up to the surface.’

  The cottage was empty.

  Susan Carmichael felt her chest tighten as she called out her husband’s name and received no answer. Everything looked to be in order. No sign of a struggle. His coat and walking-boots were missing.

  She stepped outside and Douglas MacLeod was standing there, dressed in his oilskins, the shotgun leaning against his shoulder. He regarded her quietly, adjusted the weight of the gun.

  ‘We were getting worried,’ he said evenly. ‘You’ve been gone about three hours, according to Paul.’

  She detected the faint waft of alcohol on the air. ‘Where is he?’ she said, and was aware her voice might betray her anxiety. She struggled to calm herself.

  He nodded back in the direction of the house. ‘He’s having lunch. He managed to get himself across, said his foot was much better today. You look in a bit of a state,’ he said, eyeing the smears of mud on her coat and jeans. ‘Run into a bit of trouble on your little jaunt?’