IF IT BLEEDS
Bernie Crosthwaite
© Bernie Crosthwaite 2019
Bernie Crosthwaite has asserted his rights under the Copyright, Design and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as the author of this work.
First published in 2019 by Endeavour Media Ltd.
Table of Contents
Prologue
One
Two
Three
Four
Five
Six
Seven
Eight
Nine
Ten
Eleven
Twelve
Thirteen
Fourteen
Fifteen
Sixteen
Seventeen
Eighteen
Nineteen
Twenty
Twenty-one
Twenty-two
Twenty-three
Twenty-four
Twenty-five
Twenty-six
Twenty-seven
Twenty-eight
Twenty-nine
Thirty
Prologue
Footsteps clattered along the high metal walkway. They echoed around the vast cavern of the press hall, a space packed with machinery, capable of producing thousands of copies of the Ravenbridge Evening Post six days a week, not to mention the weekly free newspaper and all types of private contracts — the presses were hardly ever still. But this was Saturday night, and for once the huge reels of paper had stopped turning. There was no night shift on Saturdays. Everything was silent but for the clang of heavy-soled boots on iron.
Despite the cold I was basted with sweat. My bra felt like a band of steel crushing my ribs at each painful intake of breath. An ancient Nikon camera, as heavy as a bag of stones, bumped painfully against my hip as I ran.
There’s nothing to fear but… nothing to fear but… The words kept turning in my head like a mantra. Blood pounded in my ears. My jeans were sticking to me like clingfilm. Nothing but… Nothing but what? Who said it, anyway? Some American president. Eisenhower? Kennedy? No, not them. Roosevelt. Of course. The one who’d had polio. The one they were only allowed to film from the waist up to hide his withered legs.
The only thing we have to fear is fear itself. That was it. I muttered it again and again and felt calmer. My headlong rush slowed to a trot. The clanging footsteps slackened too. With a rush of relief I realised they were made by my own boots, the sound amplified and distorted by the echo chamber of the press hall.
Nothing to fear. Just fear itself.
A draught of air breezed through the cavernous space, chilling my neck. The door from the plate-making room closed softly. Someone leaving? I held my breath, listening for every sound, but my ears detected nothing.
A second later came a clattering noise as someone stumbled in the dark. I swore under my breath, and the curse was eerily echoed aloud by my invisible pursuer. Clearly I wasn’t the only one who didn’t know their way around this unfamiliar territory.
I expected the racket of shoes on metal, as noisy as mine had been, but there was silence once more. My follower was standing still, waiting until they got their bearings in the profound gloom. Or so I thought. After a few seconds I sensed a vibration running along the metal floor and passing through my body.
It was easy to run noiselessly. It was simply a matter of removing your shoes.
Two could play at that game.
I bent down to unzip my boots and shoved them aside. In bare feet I pattered quietly along the upper walkway that encircled the press hall. It was almost pitch dark. Below me the presses were shadowy sleeping giants. I reached the end wall and took the narrow metal staircase to the lower level, the rail cold under my slippery hands.
Down here the blackness was as thick and tangible as velvet. I twirled round, disoriented. Then I caught a faint glow from Stan’s control room. That was where I would find what I was looking for.
A crash, a stumble and a loud expletive from somewhere above me. I cheered mentally that my boots had played their own small part.
As my eyes adjusted I could see the low square arches made by the legs of the conveyor belt that carried the river of newsprint around the works. The floor was sticky with oil and littered with open tubs of ink. Dipping under the arches, testing every step before moving on, at last I came to an open aisle, flanked by machinery on both sides. I broke into a run.
There was a thud in front of me, then another. I stumbled and fell headlong. Crawling on my knees, I felt around blindly. I could smell them — sodden with snow and sweat — before I touched them. I had fallen over my own boots, tossed contemptuously from the walkway above.
The only thing we have to fear is… nothing to fear but… I tried to chant it but breathing had become too complicated. Who was I trying to kid? A person who had killed before wouldn’t hesitate to do it again. I was certain of it.
Old FDR was right. Fear made your imagination go haywire, scrambled your thought processes, made you lose control.
I mustn’t lose control.
I moved forward into the gloom. The glow of Stan’s glass booth was fifty metres away, forty, thirty…
“Come out!”
The cry boomed from somewhere above me. It bounced from wall to wall. The silence that followed was ear-splitting.
I sank back into the maze of machinery.
“I know you’re down there.”
A wheel of white paper loomed up like an iceberg. It was bounded by a mesh cage on three sides, but there was a pocket of space between paper and wire. I squatted down, my back wedged against the roll of paper, and became foetal, arms tight around my knees.
Although I could hear nothing, I felt a disturbance in the air as someone passed by. My head dropped with exhaustion but not the kind that leads to sleep. My nerve endings were wired to detect danger and humming like tuning forks. In any case, it was bloody uncomfortable — something with sharp edges was digging into my side.
“I’m going to find you.”
The voice was much closer now.
“Can’t you see there’s no point in this?” The voice was distorted by anger, almost unrecognisable.
“We have to talk!”
Too late for that, I mouthed silently.
When I did talk it would be front-page stuff, headline news. I was a photographer, not a reporter, but I’d tracked this story down like the keenest tabloid hack, and in the process I’d risked everything. The presses I was surrounded by would roll out every sordid detail. My boss, the editor of the Evening Post, would demand an exclusive, but this story was too big for a provincial paper alone. Within an hour nationwide TV and radio would include it in their bulletins. The national dailies wouldn’t be far behind. The headlines would shriek Press Snapper Jude Baxendale in Printworks Horror. A picture of me, exhausted and traumatised, would flash on the collective retina of the nation.
Of course I had to get out of here alive first.
No problem.
I began to giggle hysterically then slapped a hand over my mouth. Don’t lose control, remember?
The pressure at my side was becoming painful. It was my camera. I eased it forward. My faithful old Nikon. Not the neat digital model I used for work, but a 1978 Nikon F, a cumbersome black box with manual focus. Great for high-definition stuff and distance shots, especially for the kind of pictures I took when I wasn’t at work, just for myself. I never went anywhere without it even though it weighed a ton.
I traced the familiar buttons with my fingers. I probably wouldn’t be in such deep shit if it wasn’t for this thing. A few days ago I had been in the dark about the whole business. I had been blind and stupid. But truth, like a photographic image, had taken time to develop. Even now the picture w
as murky, the details lacked sharpness, but I knew enough. If I reached the exit before it was too late, I would tell the world about it.
If I didn’t, no one would ever know.
One
That morning, the day it began, I was woken by the cold, on the verge of losing my nose to frostbite. I pulled the duvet up to my eyebrows and lay listening to the tap with the loose washer dripping into the bath. Then the central heating spluttered into life and began its daily struggle to heat my draughty Victorian semi.
I ought to get up, I told myself. I was on early shift, which meant I had to be there by eight. As chief photographer of the Ravenbridge Evening Post I should be setting a good example to my team on our first day back after the New Year break. There had been no paper yesterday, and the edition for today, Tuesday January 2nd, was pretty much sorted, so we only had four more editions to pump out this week. The trouble was, there was never much news at this time of year, so it was going to be a struggle to cobble together a decent paper each day. Which meant more work for my department because pictures take up more space. But they weren’t all processed yet. In fact I knew there was a large backlog to catch up on. I groaned and rolled over.
As I lay there I reflected that, on the whole, despite a crap boss, long hours and constant pressure, I really liked my job. It was getting up I hated most, the thought of padding across the chilly floor, groping for the staircase, staggering into the cold kitchen to be greeted by the sight of last night’s dishes piled in the sink.
Nothing for it. I fumbled for the dressing gown that I took to bed with me in winter. A little trick I’d learnt. It was at least one degree warmer than if I’d left it exposed to the night air. I wriggled into it and tied the belt quickly to trap any residual warmth, then stepped into a pair of scruffy sheepskin slippers.
Standing bleary-eyed on the landing, scratching my head through its spiky crop to wake myself up, I could see that Daniel had left his lamp on all night. I crept into his room. The dim light made the pictures on his wall flicker and dance. Like the room of any typical eighteen-year-old male, there was lots of female flesh on show. But these weren’t posters of movie stars or pop princesses. The pictures were Daniel’s own work, mainly nudes, done in charcoal, pastels, oils. The best ones were of a girl called Lara, a wisp of a figure with a cloud of reddish-golden hair. She worked as an estate agent during the day, and occasionally as an artists’ model at night. Daniel had been drawing her for months, then a few weeks ago they started going out together. She was twenty, an older woman. My Mrs Robinson, Daniel called her.
Even in the gloom the pictures of Lara had a luminous quality. One in particular stood out, a new one I hadn’t seen before, that glowed as if lit by some inner light. Daniel had used oils to capture the pale pearly skin and hair like fine twists of copper wire. There was a lot of green and blue in the skin tones — that accounted for the unearthly glow. I touched the picture gently. The paint was still wet.
It was serious, then. Daniel had had girlfriends before, had even drawn or painted them, but I’d never seen anything of this intensity. The picture shimmered with something more than mere technique. I felt a little stab, the way mothers do when their children take yet another step into adulthood. It quickly evaporated. I wanted him to be happy, that was all that mattered.
Anyway, it might not last. In my experience, the relationships you had at his age were as transitory as snow. Then I remembered overhearing the pair of them on Christmas Eve, wrapping presents and giggling and talking about the future. Lara was thinking about giving up being an estate agent. After doing the job for three years she was bored. Maybe she could move in with Daniel when he went away to art college in September? I hadn’t taken the idea seriously then, now it seemed I should. I wiped the sticky oil paint on my dressing gown. I just hoped Lara didn’t break his heart.
Leaning down to switch off the lamp I saw there was a smudge of green across Daniel’s cheek. I gently removed the glasses that were perched crookedly across his temples, aware that I wouldn’t have him around much longer. My son the artist, my son the genius, my son the next big thing. Not that I was biased or anything.
He coughed. Was that a wheeze at the end of it?
My son the asthmatic.
I shook him roughly awake.
“Do you need your inhaler?”
“What? What time is it?”
“You were coughing and wheezing.”
He stared at his clock. “Five past seven? For god’s sake, Mum. I don’t go back to school till tomorrow.”
“Where’s your inhaler?”
“I’m fine. Bog off.”
He disappeared under the quilt.
“Right,” I said. “I’ll do that.”
*
The path was so icy with frost I was glad of my thick-soled boots. The three steps down to the gate were even more treacherous. I nearly went down on my backside a couple of times. I was dragging the gate shut when I heard shouting. I glanced up at the house that was the Siamese twin of my own, the grey-gold stone slightly forbidding when not mellowed by sun. The light was on in the front bedroom, and I could clearly hear raised voices, one deep and angry, the other high and defensive. My heart sank. Rob and Denise were a lovely young couple, but they’d been having a rough time lately, ever since Rob’s accident, and the slanging matches were becoming more frequent and intense. I hoped they could hold it together — they were friends as well as neighbours, and I worried what would happen to their little girl Hayley if her parents split up.
I got in the car and flung my camera bag on to the back seat of my beloved red Triumph Herald. Daniel had customised it for me as a birthday surprise by painting a shark’s mouth with razor-sharp teeth all over the bonnet and sides. When I switched on the ignition the engine wouldn’t start. Yet again. Despite Daniel’s wonderful artwork, on cold mornings like this, when it hawked and spluttered but wouldn’t move, I cursed the car with a passion.
The best thing to do was to get out and give it a few kicks. I was just about to slide back behind the steering wheel when I caught sight of Hayley running out of her gate. She shot across the road, heedless of traffic, her short legs cutting the air like scissors. She turned on to Weavers’ Field, a sloping patch of land too scruffy to be called a park, where owners walked their dogs and boys played football. It led down to the River Raven, at a point just past one of the weirs, where the water was often high and full, especially after heavy rain, racing over jagged rocks to create treacherous whirlpools.
“Hayley! Wait!”
I sprinted after her. She was running frantically round the frosty grass.
I caught her by the arm. “Hayley! What’s wrong?” She looked pinched and drawn, as if she hadn’t slept well.
“It’s my ferret! It’s escaped!”
“From that big cage? How did that happen?”
“There was a hole in the wire mesh.” She pulled away, nearly in tears. “There, look!”
She pointed at a flash of silky gold and brown fur undulating through a mulch of leaves. It took a drunken zigzag path, almost impossible to track, then disappeared.
“Where’s the damn thing gone?” I muttered.
“It’s climbing that tree!”
“Ferrets don’t climb trees, Hayley.”
“This one does. Dad says it’s been crossed with a polecat.”
“Great.”
We peered up into the bare branches.
“There he is,” whispered Hayley. The ferret was clinging to the top of the trunk, its short legs spread out so that it looked like a skinned pelt hung up to dry. “You’ll have to climb up and get it.” She looked at me with wide trusting eyes.
“I suppose I will,” I said, like someone hypnotised.
I dropped my leather jacket on the ground. Gripping the tree with both hands,
I began to climb, aware that Hayley was watching my every move. Luckily the trunk was gnarled and knotty, providing plenty of footholds, and the branches were close enoug
h together for me to haul myself from one to another. As I inched upwards I knew no one was going to give me any marks for speed or grace, but once I’d started, nothing was going to stop me retrieving the pesky thing, whatever it cost. I was a metre or so away from the creature when I felt the front of my white shirt snag and heard it rip. The cost of a new shirt for one thing.
My heart was hammering by the time I came level with the rigid ferret. Extending my left arm I reached out to grab it. But I was a touch slow. It gave a sudden twist and sank its needle teeth into my hand.
“Bugger!”
The next time I was lightning-fast and got a grip on its neck. It dangled from my outstretched left arm, turning its lithe body and baring its tiny fangs. Now what?
“You got it?”
“Yes, Hayley, I’ve got it.”
“Come down then.”
“Give me a chance.”
I was tempted to drop the ferret into Hayley’s waiting arms — but what if I missed or she dropped it and it ran away and the whole thing started over again? There was no alternative but to climb down one-handed. A few more rips, a scraped chin, arms and legs twanging with the unaccustomed exercise, and I was down. Hayley took the animal from me, plunging her face into its rank fur. “I thought I’d lost him forever,” came her muffled voice.
“Let’s get you both back home.”
I picked up my jacket, noticing that beads of blood were seeping from the bite on my hand. Holding Hayley lightly by the shoulders, I guided her across the busy road. She trotted through her gate, the ferret limp and docile in her arms.
I glanced at my watch. “Dammit.” No time to change my shirt. I was going to hit the worst of the rush-hour congestion as it was. I jumped into the Triumph Herald. At the first turn of the key the engine coughed into life, proving my theory that most machines like a good kicking every now and then.
I screeched down Weaver Street. By the time I had forced my way into the near-solid stream of traffic on the main road I was already half an hour late and counting.
If It Bleeds Page 1