Wychwood

by George Mann

  There was silence from the audience as the Carrion King turned and stared up at them, triumphant. The horror of the moment was tangible.

  Elspeth turned to look at Peter, to see he was leaning forward, peering at the stage. He glanced at her, as if in sudden recognition. He’d seen it too. This was exactly how Patricia Graves had been found.

  There was a shrill scream from somewhere in the trees, just off-stage. Elspeth peered into the gloaming, trying to make out what was happening. Was this part of the show, the ealdorman’s wife running on stage to weep over his fallen remains?

  A woman emerged from the trees. She was wearing a blue dress. She ran onto the centre of the stage, so that the floodlights picked out her harrowed expression, the way she was wringing her hands, the tears flooding down her cheeks. It was Vanessa Eglington.

  “H… help,” she stuttered. “Please, someone help. Something terrible has happened. It’s Rose.”

  Peter was already up out of his seat, running towards the stage. As a rumble of concern spread throughout the audience behind her, Elspeth – heart lurching – threw her tea on the ground and hurried after him, hoping beyond all hope that what she feared would not – could not – be true.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  As Elspeth crashed through the trees behind the stage area, the full extent of the situation became horribly, brutally clear.

  Up ahead, Peter had skidded to a halt in a small clearing, and before him, a woman was on her knees, stark and statuesque in the twilight.

  At first, Elspeth couldn’t even make out who it was. She’d been hoping there’d been an accident; that they could send for an ambulance and everything would be okay… but then realisation dawned, and she knew that it was too late for any of that.

  Rose had been positioned on her knees, slumped forward, but restrained by her wrists, which had been tied behind her back and attached to a wooden stake. It was roughly hewn, and had been hammered deep into the soft loam. She was wearing jeans – now caked with mud – but her blouse had been removed, and she’d been dressed in a long woollen garment which looked primitive and uncomfortable.

  Her face was contorted into a kind of desperate, inhuman snarl, tinged with purple, and there was a thin, puckered slit around her throat that looked like the mark left behind by a ligature. Blood had seeped from the wound, dribbling down her chest like some obscene scarf. Most disturbingly, her lips had been sewn shut with thick black twine, and her swollen tongue had burst through the gaps between the stitches, jutting and pink and bloody.

  It was one of the most horrendous things Elspeth had ever seen. She sensed bile rising in her throat, and turned away, hacking, her hand clamped over her mouth. She fought down the vomit, her eyes streaming.

  “Oh God… oh no…” she stammered, stumbling forward, her hand to her mouth. She hadn’t known the woman for more than a few days, but Rose’s kindness at the office… The ground seemed to suddenly yawn open beneath her.

  People were streaming into the clearing behind her, members of the audience come to offer their assistance, or else to ogle at the terrible scene.

  Peter was bellowing at people to get back, to keep away from the crime scene, and Vanessa was leaning against a nearby tree, trembling in shock. She watched Peter make a quick call on his phone. It wouldn’t be long before the place was swarming with police, ambulance crews, SOCOs and more.

  She couldn’t take her eyes off the nightmarish scene before her. Her hands were shaking. The last few days had presented her with more horrors than she’d ever imagined she’d see, but despite it all, she’d managed to maintain some level of detachment – even after stumbling on the harrowing scene of Patricia Graves’s death.

  This, though, was different. This was someone she knew. Someone who might have become a friend.

  Elspeth heard someone walking towards her, and turned to see David Keel. He looked as white as a sheet, and kept running his hands through his hair. “The Confessor,” he said.

  Elspeth chewed her bottom lip. She felt sluggish – not through lethargy, but through a kind of spreading numbness, a growing sense of dissonance and unreality.

  Keel drew a deep breath. “Are you okay?”

  She stared at him. “No. But that’s beside the point. Rose…”

  He nodded. “I know. Come on. Let’s go back to the auditorium and wait for the police. I think your friend is going to be busy for a while.”

  She glanced at Peter, who was busy shepherding people away, trying to set up a makeshift perimeter around the body. Keel was right – she’d have to leave Peter to work.

  * * *

  A little while later she was back in her seat, curled underneath her throw and sipping hot tea, which the catering staff had valiantly been dishing out on trays – the stereotypical British response to a crisis. The sirens had come and gone, and what seemed like scores of uniformed men and women were now milling about amongst the audience members, taking down names and contact details, trying to piece together a picture of what had happened. She’d told them what she could – who she’d seen where during the interval, what had happened when she’d heard the scream, how David Keel had accompanied her back to her seat.

  She was frustrated with herself for her reaction, and grateful that, now, she was finally beginning to regain her composure. Nevertheless, her mind was still back in the clearing with Rose, trying to make sense of everything she’d seen. Who could have done it? They must have acted during the interval, while everyone else was milling about, chatting and drinking and smiling. Just the thought that someone had been doing that to Rose, just a short way from where she’d been sitting laughing with Peter… the thought made her nauseous. She glanced around the auditorium. It was likely that one of the faces here, or one of the cast and crew, was responsible. And that also meant they were likely involved in the murders of Geoffrey Altman and Lucy Adams, too. But who? There were over two hundred people here, including all the people that Peter had interviewed as potential suspects so far. The thought that the culprit might be looking at her now, and smiling, made her shudder.

  She felt a hand on her shoulder and nearly jumped out of her skin, slopping tea across the floor.

  “Whoa, whoa, I’m sorry.” It was Peter, looking weary and flustered. “I didn’t mean to startle you.”

  She shook her head. “No, it’s fine.”

  He looked as if he were about to ask her if she was okay. She held up a hand. “Don’t.”

  “I didn’t say a thing.” He waited for her to catch her breath.

  “What was that thing she was wearing?” she said, after a moment.

  “We’ll know more later,” he said. “Once the SOCOs have finished. I think I’m going to be here for a while.”

  “I guessed as much. You were great back then, taking charge like that. I… I kind of fell to pieces.”

  “You’re too hard on yourself,” said Peter. “I know you weren’t great friends or anything, but you knew her, and she was nice. She didn’t deserve that. It’s no surprise that you reacted how you did.”

  “No one deserves that,” said Elspeth. “I saw her lips. They were straight out of the woodcuts in my book.”

  “Yeah, I know. It has all the hallmarks of being related to the other murders.”

  “Which means the killer is most likely here,” said Elspeth.

  Peter shrugged. “It doesn’t help us narrow things down much, I’m afraid, unless we can track everyone’s movements. It’ll take a while to piece everything together.”

  “She was throttled?”

  Peter nodded his confirmation. “Looks that way. Choked with a ligature. The autopsy will tell us more.”

  Elspeth realised she was clenching her fist in her lap, and relaxed it. “We’re going to catch them,” she said. Her queasiness was already giving way to an upwelling of burning, ferocious anger. “We’re going to find them before they can do this to anyone else.”

  “We’re doing all we can,” said Peter. He sounded a litt
le defensive.

  “Well, we’re going to do more,” she said.

  He nodded. “I’m sorry. It must be difficult.”

  “I hardly knew her,” said Elspeth. “But she was kind, and funny, and this has happened to her just because of her part-time job at the paper.”

  “We can’t jump to conclusions yet,” said Peter.

  “It’s obvious!” said Elspeth. “The killer picked her because she’s an agony aunt. What do agony aunts do? They listen to people’s secrets, just like The Confessor in the myths.”

  “I know. And you’re probably right. But we need to look at everything. Trust me, I’m not going to let this rest.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  He felt the weariness in his bones: a deep, dull ache.

  It had been a long, difficult night, but his work was not yet done. From now until the end, he would not find rest. He had started along this lonely path, and he had no choice now but to see it to its conclusion. Only then could he be free from the pain, from the hatred that clouded his vision, from the shackles of morality and flesh that still bound him. Only then could he be reunited with his one true companion; the only one who had ever truly understood.

  Thomas waited beyond that veil, impatient and alone. He would find him, and return him to the light. That was his only goal. All of it – all of this – was simply the means to that end. Even his vengeance meant nothing when compared to that.

  The theatre had been predictably tiresome, the preening fools acting out the story – his story – without ever truly understanding its subtleties, its true meaning. The vacant cretins in the audience had showered them with praise, all the while ignorant of the man who sat in their midst – the true heir of the Carrion King, the only one of them who truly understood.

  Well, he had shown them what it meant to be the Carrion King. Now, The Confessor would be silent for eternity, her lips finally shut, his secrets safe. It had felt good to unburden himself to her as he did his work; to share with another person the horrors he had faced in his quest, the things he had been forced to do. He thought that, towards the end, as the needle slipped through her puckered lips and the twine pulled taut, she might even have begun to understand.

  The darkness here was near absolute. Dawn was still an hour away, and yet he knew she would be awake. He’d studied her routine, just as he had studied them all. The woman was so brimming with vanity that she would rise each morning before the break of day to fulfil her own little ritual, taking to her private gym to work her body with weights and machines, to attempt to stave off the inevitable toll of the years.

  Today, though, that would end. Today she would pay for her abandonment.

  She was the only one who might have understood, who might have helped him. He remembered her pretty face, the way she had laughed as she’d kicked about in the dry leaves of autumn, the day she had hosed him down with her water pistol, squealing in triumph as he lay on the ground, wet and breathless and laughing. Together, the three of them had been strong and brave, able to face the world and all its many trials.

  After Thomas was lost she had retreated from him, though, and when he thought of her now, he thought only of her silent, brooding expression, of her refusal to meet his eye, of the way in which she had turned her back on him in his hour of need.

  And now she had turned her back on her husband, too.

  After today, she would never turn her back on anyone again.

  He scanned the torch along the ground, keeping the beam low. He barely needed it; so long had he been walking these woods, so long had he prepared. The Wychwood, too, willed him on. He could sense it, whispering all around him, anxious and encouraging. It knew of his pain, of his journey; it recognised one of its own. Here, history was repeating itself, just like the turning of the seasons. The Carrion King would once again rise to power, and all would be right.

  Ahead, he spied the stump. He approached it and set down the torch. Then, taking up his staff, he scored a circle in the soft loam, disturbing roots and leaves. The ground seemed to recognise him, though, parting easily as it had before.

  He set the mirror upon the stump and lit a candle before it, its flame dancing in the gentle breeze. He extinguished the torch. Around him, the woods seemed reverentially silent.

  With the tip of a stick he made the sacred symbols in the earth just within the circle, careful to remain within the bounds of its power, to keep the circle unbroken.

  Then, discarding the stick, he adopted the correct pose, peered into the mirror, and waited.

  Five minutes later he was rewarded with the sight of the woman. She was wearing tight leggings and a white T-shirt, and for a moment he felt the stirring of voyeuristic arousal. He breathed deeply, clearing his mind of such things. He watched the woman throw a towel over the handlebars of her exercise bike, and then stand before the mirrored wall, stretching as she warmed her muscles and ligaments. He remained still and silent, patiently awaiting his opportunity.

  A few moments later she went to collect her dumbbells and brought them back before the mirror, planting her feet firmly on the mat. She began her routine, holding them before her chest, then thrusting out to the sides, before bringing them back again and repeating the motion. He allowed her to continue with this for a moment. Then, deciding the moment had arrived, he moved his hand, at first mirroring her motion, and then arresting it, the dumbbell in her right hand held outstretched, her arm locked into position.

  He saw the familiar look of confusion cross her face, swiftly replaced by panic as she tried, unsuccessfully, to move her arm. She dropped the other dumbbell on the floor.

  He moved his other arm, twisting and raising it, so that both of his hands were clasped together. The woman followed suit, grabbing onto the dumbbell with both hands. She was screaming now, but he knew that no one could hear her – her husband had long ago taken to sleeping elsewhere, away from this harridan of a wife.

  He considered taunting her, drawing it out, but then dismissed the idea. Better that it was done. Raising his outstretched arms, he held them above his head for a moment, and then brought them down, swiftly and violently, towards his head.

  In the mirror, the woman brought the dumbbell crashing down into her skull with a force that cracked it open like a fragile egg. She tumbled to the floor before the mirror, blood pooling on the mat. The dumbbell rolled away, catching on the edge of the exercise bike.

  He cocked his head to one side, staring for a moment, fascinated by the look in her still-open eyes. It was as if he could see the light going out in them.

  Then he leaned over, breaking the circle, and blew the candle out with a single sharp breath.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  “Ellie?”

  “Ungh. What is it?”

  “It’s Peter. Are you there?”

  Elspeth rolled onto her back, squinted up at the screen on her phone – which seemed exceptionally bright – and then pressed it to her ear. “I’m here,” she croaked. “What’s the matter?”

  “I’m sorry to call. I know it’s early. I wanted to check if you were okay.”

  Elspeth propped herself up on one elbow and rubbed blearily at her eyes. “Yeah. I’m okay. It was just the shock, you know?”

  “I know. So you got home alright?”

  “In the end. It was late, but it was fine. Can’t say I got much sleep. How about you?”

  “No. We were working through the night. I’m on my way home now to try to get a couple of hours in.”

  “Any developments?”

  “No, the SOCO report is going to take a while. There’s a lot to be done.” Peter’s voice sounded tired on the other end of the phone. “But I’ve arranged to meet with Byron Miller again this afternoon, to see what he can tell us about The Confessor, and the other apostles, too.”

  “You’re heading back to Oxford, then?” said Elspeth. She felt dog-tired. After getting home a few hours earlier, she’d undressed and lain on her bed, trying to go to sleep, but her wan
dering mind fought her at every juncture. No matter what she tried to focus on, every time she closed her eyes she saw only Rose, dead and on her knees, her lips stitched shut with coarse twine. The image made her stomach churn.

  “No, not Oxford,” said Peter. “He’s coming to Heighton.”

  “To the station?” asked Elspeth.

  “No. I’m meeting him at The Reading Stop, the book café on Postgate.” He paused, as though unsure whether to continue. “Do you want to come?”

  Elspeth heaved a mental sigh of relief. She’d wondered, after the previous night, whether he’d grown cold on the idea of involving her in the investigation. If Byron Miller’s strange, fable-like stories could help to shed any light on what had happened to Rose, or why, then she wanted to hear it. “Yes,” she said. “I’d like to come.”

  “Are you sure you’re up to it?”

  “Don’t mollycoddle me, Peter. I’m sure.”

  “Alright, then. Let’s meet beforehand outside Lenny’s. Say, one o’clock?”

  She glanced at the time on her phone. It was only just after nine. “Perfect,” she said. “It’ll give me a chance to finish up with the file you loaned me.”

  “Yeah. You’d better bring that with you, too.”

  “Okay.”

  “I’ll be glad when all this is over, Ellie. I really will.” He cut the connection.

  Elspeth dropped her phone on the bed and fell back onto her pillow, but she knew she wouldn’t be able to get back to sleep.

  Dorothy would already be out at work.

  Still feeling sluggish and wishing she could escape from the terrible feeling of inertia that had set upon her after seeing Rose’s corpse, she climbed off the bed, pulled a dressing gown on and wandered down to the living room, where she flopped in front of the television to watch a rerun of Antiques Road Trip before she had to worry about making herself look presentable again.