From the Dark

by K. A. Richardson

  In a sudden jerking movement, he sat up sharply.

  Where the fuck is the bandage I used in the vaults?

  Frantically he searched the floor beneath him, and looked through the items he’d brought back with him.

  A feeling of utter dread settled in his stomach.

  The van – maybe it’s in the van!

  Hobbling outside, he flung the van door open and scoured the footwell first, then the back of the van.

  Nothing.

  Shit – I left it behind!

  The blood drained from Duke’s face. It was too late to go and retrieve it now – there’d be far too many people milling about for him to enter the vaults.

  Now he had no choice but to go in as a tourist. That piece of bloodied T-shirt was an absolute DNA match to him. He knew his DNA was on file with the police – had been since his arrest for assault three years before. How could you have been so stupid? Lee was right – you’re a fucking prick!

  Chapter 18

  22nd December, 0820 hours – vaults under The Royal Mile, Edinburgh

  William Edwards was co-owner of Sneaky Reekie Tours – he’d been in the vaults more times than he could count, even before the company had paid to make it safer by installing the faint lighting in the tunnel ceilings. The dark had never bothered him – he wasn’t even sure he believed in ghosts for all the folklore earned the company money by keeping the tourists coming. He’d never seen or felt a thing, despite the most popular ‘haunting’ show off the telly going into the vaults and allegedly finding a lot of ‘supernatural activity’. It was a load of codswallop in his mind. Hearsay meant to attract the suggestible. It does make for good business, though. He smiled to himself as he descended the first set of steps.

  He had some bulbs to replace before the first tour that started at 9am. After one of his guides had found a dead guy in one of the tunnels the week before, he’d made it his personal mission to make sure the tunnels were lit adequately before the tours started. Heather Copeland, the poor girl who’d found the body, hadn’t been back to work since. He could understand it – he’d actually rang her yesterday and told her to take time off until after Hogmanay. He was in his fifties and had never seen a dead body, let alone a mutilated one. She was only young and now had that image embedded in her brain. No one should have to see things like that. He shuddered, trying to erase the images suddenly popping into his brain.

  William had a brown bag slung over his shoulder. It contained a powerful stand-up torch, two boxes of spare bulbs and a small screwdriver set. The strip lights had screw-on covers over the bulbs to provide a glow rather than a harsh glare. It would make everything much harder to believe if the tourists could see into every nook and cranny in the vaults. Part of the suspense was from the darkness.

  The deeper he went, the duller the glow of the lights. This was a design feature – the bulbs used in the lower sections of the tunnels and vaults were low voltage, the strip lights scattered more scarcely. He had a notebook in his hand with the light numbers on – every strip light was allocated a number which was printed on the end – to made it easier to identify when one needed changing.

  A steady dripping sounded as he finally reached the lowest set of tunnels. This one was one above the very pit of the vaults. The old limestone walls often drew water from the surface, and little rivulets could be found all around the vaults.

  The air grew more stagnant and finally he stopped at the location he knew held the first dead bulb. It took just minutes for him to unscrew the cover, replace the dead bulb, and re-screw the cover into place. He’d be back on the surface in twenty minutes tops, he knew, and would just about have time to get changed into his tour garb. He’d told Heather not to worry about the shifts she had booked in – he was taking them over.

  Back when the company had first started, he and his partner had done all the tours. It was a rarity now that he got to perform the script and scare the tourists. He smiled in anticipation. It was always fun. Maybe in the new year I’ll go back to doing some tours. Beats paperwork and back office stuff any day of the week.

  He changed the next three bulbs in quick succession. Then he wandered down a set of six damp steps to the lowest portion of the vaults. The strip lights down here emitted a green glow – very faint but also very atmospheric.

  It always smelled musty and stone-like down here, but as William breathed in today, he picked up another scent. One unfamiliar to him. It was almost… metallic. He inhaled a deep breath trying to place the smell.

  The final bulb that needed changing was just outside what the staff and other tour guides lovingly called ‘the teddy room’. They were constantly getting toys mailed from all over the world in support of the little boy said to have died in that very room. He didn’t even remember where that particular legend had come from. The room had held toys well before he’d set the company up and bought these particular vaults. All he did now was swap them out occasionally, keeping only the ones originally present with each cycle of new ones. He’d never really understood what prompted people to add to the collection by sending toys in – but the hospital was always grateful when he took a bagful down for the kids on the children’s wards.

  The metallic smell grew stronger as he approached the archway into the teddy room. The light was on the tunnel wall opposite at the join with the ceiling. William set his torch down and turned it on, the bright light illuminating most of the tunnel. He made quick work of changing the last bulb, only turning towards the archway when he dropped the dead bulb and it rolled in that direction.

  The light from his torch was bright behind him, and some of the room was illuminated.

  William’s heart leapt into his mouth as he saw what he thought to be a hand laid across one of the larger rocks inside the room. Don’t be daft – get the torch and stop being a twit. Berating himself for the silliness of his thoughts was easy. There was nothing to be scared of down here. Not anymore. He could well imagine it had been back in the 1800s when people lived in these rooms and used the street he now classed as a tunnel. They’d have been crammed in, often twenty to a room. Some rooms had a little fire pit in the middle and some didn’t – either way, a large family crammed in each room was almost unthinkable in this day and age.

  The torch was heavy in his hand as he shone it in front of him and through the arch. William froze as he took in the sight before him. There was blood everywhere, sprayed over walls and toys alike. His eyes drifted to the very dead form of a young blond man, splayed out for all to see. The head was bent backwards exposing a cut so deep that he was surprised the head was still attached.

  William stumbled backwards, falling over his feet and then twisting as he threw up his not-so-healthy sausage and egg muffin breakfast all over the floor in the tunnel.

  His eyes were practically popping out of his head and he couldn’t have got the image out if he’d tried. He left everything he’d brought with him where it had fallen – the torch was still in his hand and he pegged it back through the tunnels and up to the surface, the beam from the torch flashing up walls and ceilings as he ran. He had to stop twice to throw up on his way back out – he’d never seen so much blood. It had curdled his stomach. That needless death would stay with him forever, he knew.

  He ran out of the entrance not far from the old church and didn’t stop running until he got to the office, a good five minutes away.

  Bursting in the door, the torch light bounced into the eyes of his partner, John, who cried out and yelled at him for having the torch on in the office. William ignored him, practically threw the torch on the floor and reached for the nearest phone, plugged 999 in the keypad, and waited for the connection.

  22nd December, 0910 hours – vaults under South Bridge, Edinburgh

  Mark inhaled slowly as he started his descent into the vaults. He’d been in the office since 7am, pacing up and down, waiting for the call he knew was incoming. He was surprised again at how quickly he’d become accepting of Toni’s psychic gi
ft – and a gift it was. Even if it did give her nightmares that meant she couldn’t sleep for the rest of the night. He’d left her at home baking Christmas cookies. Her tradition, she’d said.

  The anxiety he’d felt the first time he’d gone down the vaults hadn’t eased one bit. His chest was tight and he had beads of sweat on his forehead as he navigated using the wall for a guide. His heart was pounding in his ears like a drum and he found his steps keeping time with it as he focussed his vision straight ahead a few feet.

  The first police officer on scene had told the control room it was exceptionally grisly. All murders were in Mark’s opinion, but he’d assess it when he got there. Hearing footsteps coming towards him, he stiffened, consciously dragging himself away from the wall: the last thing he needed was for it to be spread round the nick how much of a wuss he was. Rumours spread like wild-fire round all the city police stations.

  The footsteps came closer and he didn’t know whether to make some noise to alert the person approaching that he was there. He didn’t need a heart attack on his conscience as well as everything else. Yelling would startle, however, so he coughed.

  ‘Bro, that you?’ Annie’s voice drifted around the corner, calming his frayed nerves almost instantly.

  ‘Yeah it’s me, Sis. You okay?’

  She turned the corner and he came face to face with her in the dim lights of the tunnel. She’d peeled the hood back off her scene suit and tied the arms round her waist.

  ‘I need to change when I get back anyway – cross-contamination. To be fair I’ve barely even started the lead-up shots. Hence me not leaving my suit there. No point packing it up when I’ve not even crossed the inner cordon yet. But I need more lighting. The strips down there have a horrid green glow that’s affecting my photography. I’ll be two minutes, just keep going round that corner, then down the small flight of steps. The loggist has set up shop at the bottom of the stairs.’

  Annie slid past him and wandered a short way up the incline before glancing back. ‘You know, Bro, there are people you can talk to about claustrophobia. My therapist is a great listener. I can give you her number if you like.’

  Mark gulped and stared at his sister. ‘How did you know?’ His voice came out more horrified croak than actual speech.

  ‘Let’s just say Ali and Alex locking us both under the stairs on occasion had the same effect on me too. I’m not so daft that I can’t pick it up, even without our twinection. The signs are there if you know what to look for. You hug the wall in any corridor, you touch it constantly so you don’t feel you’re losing control. If you’re anything like me, you’re sweating buckets right now despite it feeling about minus twenty down here, and your heart’s going like the clappers. They’re sorry, you know – they were being stupid kids. We all did shit like it. But when I told them how it had affected me, they were both devastated. You should talk to them, and my therapist.’

  Mark wasn’t really surprised Annie knew. He was more surprised she suffered too and hadn’t told him. As close as the family were, they weren’t the kind to discuss feelings like this. He realised quickly that she made perfect sense. His fear was irrational – he knew that. It had controlled him for long enough. ‘Give me the number later, I’ll give her a call in the new year. And Sis, thank you.’ He knew he didn’t have to add anything else. Annie got him. It was that simple.

  She grinned in the dull glow of the tunnel and started to make her way back up the incline, before pausing and turning back. ‘Something you should know about this one, Bro, the killer left your stolen warrant card on the floor near the body. I’m not sure of its significance yet but you need to know before you go down. You can’t pick it up or disturb it – not till I’ve processed the scene.’ Mark felt his mouth drop open in shock. If his card was there, that meant whoever had hit him had killed the young men. It had to be Wright! How the hell am I going to explain this one to the brass? Mark drew in several deep breaths, processing what Annie had told him, before navigating his way further into the depths of darkness.

  He stopped and spoke with the loggist on the outer cordon – exactly where Annie had said he would be. Now he didn’t know whether to wait for Annie or have a look himself. He peeked around the corner and through the archway, the lights his sister had already set up partially illuminating the room.

  Mark gulped – he didn’t think he’d ever seen so much blood at a murder scene. And he’d seen quite a few. It was like something out of a movie. It glistened in the artificial lights and was up the walls and settled on the floor. Mark didn’t doubt that the ceiling would have blood on it too.

  Annie had placed stepping plates along the corridor to avoid disturbing evidence that might prove vital to the investigation. Deciding he needed a closer look, he stepped onto the first one and followed them to the archway itself.

  The dead guy was splayed out on the floor, his head hanging backwards exposing the deep wound to his neck. His face looked almost serene – as if death had brought him peace. Even his lips were curled up in the smallest of smiles. His blond hair was matted to his head, and he’d obviously been badly beaten. The ever-present postcard was positioned on his chest – the exact same one as all the other deaths. And his warrant card lay, picture-side up, next to the body.

  Mark fought the wave of absolute certainty that it was Wright responsible for these deaths, Toni’s wise words ringing in his ears. Assumption is the mother of all fuck-ups. His own thoughts rattled round his brain and he knew both that voice, and Toni’s were right. As hard as it was, he had to be objective. If Wright were responsible, he didn’t want the slightest bit of doubt in the decision, nothing that would allow Wright to get off again.

  So, I’ll follow the leads as they pan out. I won’t look with the directive of getting Wright arrested. His focus had to be on getting the person responsible. Nothing else. Even if it was plain the killer had left his warrant card there for him to find.

  The temperature suddenly dropped about ten degrees and he shivered inside his thick parka coat – that wasn’t anything to do with his claustrophobia and had everything to do with the creepy old vaults, he knew. He closed his eyes and gently pinched his still-tender nose, thinking.

  There had to be some significance to the postcards found on all the victims, the inference to Burke and Hare being back. He’d done some research since the first murder – knew none of the current kill methods matched the historic murders’ modus operandi. So where did the Burke and Hare reference come from? Was the killer that obsessed with history that he emulated serial killers in general? Or was it just the ones he’d left in the vaults? Maybe he had other victims elsewhere.

  Even the newspapers had knowledge of the postcards, not from any police leak he was certain. How had they got that information? That thought was like a lightbulb going off in his head – how had the newspapers heard about the postcards? The murderer had already been dubbed The Postcard Killer by the press. He acknowledged it was a pretty apt killer name based on the events, but he would never admit that to anyone.

  McPhee had lost it when the last article had been displayed in The Edinburgh Daily a few days ago, just after the second murder. He’d all but ran into the office, his voice already at a level best reserved for dogs and dolphins, demanding to know how the press had found out about the postcards.

  The image made Mark smile in the darkness. McPhee really was a dick sometimes. He should know his own team well enough to know nobody in major crimes would ever have leaked that to the press. They all hated reporters – it was almost ingrained into them. That didn’t answer how the press had got the details, though – it was only now when working this latest death, that the matter of how they’d come by the information popped into his brain.

  Someone had to have told them. And if not his colleagues, then who? One of the tour guides who’d found the bodies? Someone they’d told? For all the general public were advised not to discuss any cases which they were a part of, he knew how hard it was for most to keep the
ir mouths shut. Especially when they’d been faced with the trauma associated with seeing a dead body in such a state.

  Or maybe it was him… the killer.

  Mark let that thought fester for a minute. The killer wouldn’t be brazen enough to ring the press and leave tips – would he?

  He hopped back across the stepping plates, and all but ran past the loggist and back up the levels to the street. He remembered the name of the reporter on the last article and it was time to speak with them.

  22nd December, 0920 hours – street entrance, vaults under The Royal Mile

  Duke was standing on the edge of the crowd of people now hanging around the police tape that prevented access to the vaults via the street entrance. He stood in the shadow of the old church, knowing anyone watching the crowd wouldn’t see him from that angle. Pays to be aware.

  He was angry: the idiot tour guide had found the body before taking the tour down. Buying the ticket had been a complete waste of money – and he would have no opportunity to recover the bloody bandage. Fuck. What the hell am I going to do now?

  ‘Hey Duke, what’s going on here then?’ Francis’s voice cut through his panic, and he turned to face his ‘friend’ who stood past the church and in full view at the rear of the melee of people.

  ‘They found another body in the vaults.’ Duke was careful not to give anything away – he knew Francis didn’t believe he’d been responsible anyway. He wasn’t about to give him ammunition to change that belief. Not now anyway, no matter how strong the compulsion to tell him all about how Lee had screamed and writhed in agony before begging hysterically for his pathetic life. He needed Francis to be completely unaware so when the police came knocking, apportioning blame, Francis would wonder how he ended up being a suspect.

  ‘Oh? Another one? How many’s that now? Two?’ Francis’s voice was snide – Duke knew he was trying to catch him out. Anger simmered below the surface. Cheeky twat. I’m not that thick.