Devil's in a Different Dress

by Chris Barraclough

  “What are you doing,” he said. “Have you gone crazy? What’s all this noise?”

  “Shut up,” Pieter mumbled, his smile dropping. “I’m not crazy. I’m better than you. I’ve always been better than you and you just can’t stand it! That’s why she wanted me, not you!”

  “Listen to yourself,” Arndt hissed as he stepped around me and Pieter backed off a step, almost bumping into the wall. “You need to calm down, son.”

  “I am calm!” Pieter yelled, then he pushed past his father and half-stomped, half-limped back across the room and out into the hallway. Arndt glanced down at me, then he turned and followed his son and I sat there, breathing hard and wondering what had just happened. They were each as crazy as the other one. Even now, I could hear them still arguing as they headed downstairs, their voices rising until they were almost screaming at each other. But then, another sound made my heart skip. Over their shouting, I heard a dog barking somewhere just outside the house. And straight away I knew that it was Katz. He’d followed my scent here and now he was confused, wondering why I was locked away inside this house.

  “No,” I said, biting my lip. “No, Katz, keep away, boy. They’ll kill you. They’ll kill you!”

  Once more I tried to struggle against the ropes, but all I managed to do was rock back and forth, almost tipping the chair again. My chest was burning now, my throat too. I waited for the chair to settle and then I tried a different approach. This time I pushed my toes into the floor and then I jerked my body, forcing my left shoulder forwards and then my right, over and over. Each time, the chair scraped an inch across the floorboards. I kept at it, wriggling my way closer and closer to the door, an inch at a time. It was painfully slow and the effort made my spine hurt but I kept at it, clenching my teeth and trying my best to ignore the pain. I was terrified that the sound of the chair legs scratching the bare wood would bring Pieter or his father back, but for now they were still arguing downstairs. So I kept at it, grunting and whimpering until finally I reached the open door and edged out into the hallway.

  I glanced around and saw that I’d been left in the room opposite Pieter’s bedroom. The stairs were just to my right, the argument still drifting up from the downstairs corridor. With horror, I realised that they were talking about Katz.

  “We can’t have that thing out there barking,” Arndt said and I could hear the panic in his voice.

  “I’ll sort him out,” was Pieter’s reply. “He’s soft as anything and he likes me. Quick knife to the throat’ll shut him up.” He sounded so pleased with himself and I felt a sharp stab in my gut as his words sunk in. Immediately I started to shuffle forwards again, aiming for Pieter’s bedroom.

  “No, lure him to the back,” Arndt said. “We can’t risk someone coming by and seeing.”

  “Coming by? No one ever comes by, not now you strangled Loriett!”

  “Listen to me, you stupid boy! The library is closed so I could be here to deal with this! If someone sees it shut they might come here instead, thinking I’ve dropped dead or who knows what!”

  “Okay then, fine,” Pieter said. “I’ll go do it around the back.”

  I was edging into Pieter’s room when I heard a door slam shut downstairs and my stomach leapt into my throat. The bastard was right. Katz looked fierce as anything and he’d rip smaller animals to shreds in a heartbeat, but he trusted humans. It was my fault for helping to raise him. He wouldn’t stand a chance against Pieter. Desperate and terrified, I inched my way into the bastard’s bedroom and my head swung back and forth. All I needed was a sharp edge, something to cut through the rope. I was hoping to see Pieter’s craft knife or something else just lying on his bed or maybe on the floor, but there was nothing. I slumped forwards and let out a soft moan. Useless. They were going to kill Katz and then kill me too and no one would probably ever know. Maybe Captain King would wonder what had happened to me, for a moment. Then he’d probably just figure that I’d moved on, not knowing that my bones were buried somewhere close by.

  A thought came to me. I could shuffle back out into the hallway and drag the chair to the top of the staircase, before throwing myself down. Maybe the chair would shatter and I’d be free. I’d have a chance to save myself and Katz. Or maybe I’d break my neck and that’d be that. Either way, it was a better choice than sitting here, just waiting to die. I actually started to twist the chair back around, a painful act that made my neck ache worse than anything, but then I remembered why I’d come up here in the first place, the reason all of this had happened. The bow and sling of arrows. As fast as I could, I worked my way across the room to the far corner. My heart was going all out and the sight of the sling, still sat there where I’d left it, kept it pounding. Awkwardly I twisted around again. The sound of the chair legs thumping into the floorboards seemed horribly loud, but I had no choice. All I could do was tense every muscle and pray that no one downstairs heard the banging and came up to investigate. Finally I managed to get into position, my fingertips brushing the rough sack that the arrows were stashed away inside. I grabbed at the sling, fumbling it until my hand slipped inside the opening. A second later, one of the arrow heads cut into my palm, the sharp edge slicing through my skin like paper. I winced, but I didn’t pull away. I didn’t want to risk the whole lot falling out of reach. Instead, I carefully moved my hand to the side and gripped the arrow by its wooden shaft, then I shuffled forwards until the thing popped free.

  Right away, I got to work with the arrow head. My hand hurt like hell and was bleeding bad, but I sawed away at the ropes wrapped around my wrists, already feeling them start to fray. The more it hurt, the faster I cut.

  And then, from somewhere down below, I heard a gunshot.

  Twenty Seven (Adam)

  When we arrived at the library, I reached out and tugged the imposing iron handle that jutted out of the centre of the door. Nothing happened. I tried again, twisting both ways, but the bloody thing was locked up tight. I frowned and turned to Shaw.

  “No such luck,” I said with a shrug. “It’s closed.”

  “Closed?” Shaw returned my frown. “Funny time to close. Can’t still be on his lunch, surely.”

  “No idea.” I stepped up to the nearest window and cupped my hands against it, then pressed my nose up to the glass. The insides were dark but I could see just enough to realise that the place was empty. I was about to pull away again when I glanced up and noticed the paintings lining the walls, just over the bookcases. “Looks like our theory could be gold,” I called back. “The place is full of war portraits.”

  “See any from Schmidt’s place?” Shaw asked. I leaned back and shook my head.

  “Nope, but maybe they’re at the librarian’s house. We should go pay him a visit.”

  This time we got lucky with our stop-and-ask technique. The very first woman we interrupted not only spoke perfect English, she was also more than happy to reveal where the librarian lived.

  “It’s the big house just off the lake,” she told us. “On the north bank. Just follow this road and when you reach the water, you’ll see it on the other side.”

  We thanked her and followed the directions and sure enough, when we came to the lake, the house was in plain sight, stood alone on the opposite bank. I’d noticed it before, shining by the glow of dusk as we sat around on this side, drinking and smoking and playing cards. Of course, I’d never really paid it any attention, even though the bloody thing almost demanded it. Sat out there on its own, the house looked like it should have belonged to some kind of rich, brooding hermit rather than an elderly librarian.

  “Which way should we go around?” Shaw asked and I glanced right, towards the woods.

  “Let’s try that way.”

  The bank between the trees and the water was slightly spongy underfoot and a carpet of old footprints were imprinted in the dirt, as well as dozens of identical tracks. I stared at the grooves as we worked our way around the lake and this feeling in my gut, a feeling that we had found our man, bu
rned more fiercely than our evening bonfires.

  “Looks like cart tracks,” I said, licking my lips. “Thick and far apart, right?”

  “Yep,” Shaw replied. “No hooves or anything, so a hand-pulled cart I guess?”

  “Aye, must be. Thinking what I’m thinking?”

  “Uhh.” Shaw scratched his cheek and frowned, before turning to me wide-eyed. “Oh, Jesus. He could’ve killed the girl at his house and dragged her to the woods in that cart to dump the body.”

  “We were probably sat right over there when he did it,” I said, turning and nodding towards the south bank. “Too busy throwing back wine and whiskey.”

  “We’d never have seen him anyway,” Shaw said. “Not in the dark, at that distance.”

  “Your pistol loaded?” I asked and he nodded, patting the gun at his hip.

  “Reckon this old codger might give us some trouble?”

  “Chances are he’s already killed at least one person,” I muttered. “Probably two. I’m not taking any chances, not after Lane.”

  And not after Kelly, and everyone else I’ve ever failed.

  Our path joined a cracked and neglected old road, which swept around the west side of the lake and connected the house to the rest of town. As we made our way down the road, I heard the sound of a dog barking, but I didn’t pay it any attention. Not until we were almost at the house. I stopped beside the squat fence that marked the edge of the property and stretched an arm out, pushing it into Shaw’s chest. He stumbled to a halt and stared at me.

  “What is it?”

  “The barking,” I said. The sound was coming from somewhere behind the house. “That’s Katz.”

  “Katz?”

  “Katherine’s dog. Big old German Shepherd.” I flicked the cover from my holster and rested a palm on my revolver. Already my insides were churning and that familiar nausea grew in my gut, my mouth flooding with saliva. The bottle of pills were in my jacket pocket still, untouched since the previous night, but as hungry and as desperate as I was, I left them right there. Instead I turned my head to spit and then sucked down endless deep breaths, filling my lungs with the moist, warm air.

  “You okay?” Shaw asked and I nodded, wiping away the strands of spit clinging to my chin.

  “Let’s go.”

  We pushed through the front gate and had just started towards the door when the barking cut to a whimper, and then silence. Shaw and I paused and glanced at each other.

  “Not good,” he muttered. I turned and glanced across the garden, towards the corner of the house.

  “Let’s see if we can sneak around,” I said. I led the way, hugging the wall and ducking underneath the huge front window that overlooked the lake. We were in luck. Another gate connected the front and back gardens and I crept up and undid the latch, carefully easing it open. Thankfully the thing didn’t groan out loud and we slipped through, gently closing the gate behind us. At the far corner, I paused again and pulled my gun free, holding it tight so it didn’t slip against my sweaty palm. Shaw settled right behind me. I raised my hand and counted down from three on my fingers, then we pushed out into the back garden.

  The yard was enormous, half filled with vegetable patches arranged in long, tidy rows. The first thing I spotted was the cart, sat off to one side. Just as we thought, it was a simple hand-drawn affair, filled with old blankets and crap. Quickly I swept my eyes across the crops towards the back end of the house and that’s when I saw him, standing there with the bloody knife clutched in one hand, the sun gleaming off the blade. He was young, maybe only fifteen or so. He was stood almost facing me, but his face was lowered and he was staring at something down on the ground. I dropped my gaze and saw the sack of bloody hair and flesh spread just in front of his feet. The dog was still twitching, but I couldn’t tell if it was desperately clinging to life or if this was just the spasm of death, making it kick out with its paws.

  I pulled back the safety on my gun and stepped forwards, Shaw coming up to my side with his own weapon drawn. The kid’s head snapped up and his eyes darted between us. He still had the knife in his hand and I shouted out to him, told him to drop it in German and then in English, but he kept on staring at us, his mouth hanging open like he was some naughty child who couldn’t understand why his parents were screaming at him.

  “Put it down or we’ll shoot” Shaw ordered, but instead the kid turned and sprinted towards the house, his boots kicking up mud. Immediately Shaw took off after him, cursing to himself.

  “No, wait,” I yelled, breaking into a run. I could barely breathe after just five steps, my chest heaving like some useless broken-down machine, but I kept on going, watching as the boy slammed through the back door into the house. Shaw leapt over the dog and cleared the short distance to the house in no time, kicking open the door and aiming his gun inside. A second later a gunshot rang out, shattering the silence. Shaw staggered back a step and I came up behind him, wrapping an arm across his torso. I saw the wild-eyed old man stood inside the kitchen with a pistol in his hand and a grimace on his lips and he fired again just as I pulled Shaw to the side, dragging us down into the mud beside the door. As we fell, a red hot pain flashed across my bicep and I knew that the bullet had carved its way through my flesh, thankfully missing the bone. My first gunshot wound in months, and it was all thanks to a fucking librarian.

  “Shaw,” I gasped, rolling him onto his back while I kept my gun trained on the doorway. “How bad is it?”

  “Oh, bollocks,” was his reply, and he pressed a hand to his gut. “Bastard, shit!”

  “Alright, just keep pressure on it. Stay still, keep pressure, okay?”

  “Right, right,” he said, the artery in his neck jutting from the skin as he clenched his jaw. “Just go get that arsehole.”

  I grabbed a rock from the dirt and took a step backwards, then I swung back and hurled the thing at a window to my left. The rock smashed through the glass, shattering the whole pane into a million tiny pieces. As the fragments rained down I was already hurling myself at the doorway, my body hunched up to make myself as small as possible. The moment I dove inside, I had a millisecond to react. The old man was stood in the same position, his head twisted towards the broken window, a look of shock creasing his face. That was all the distraction I needed. I squeezed the trigger twice, ducking to my right as the other gun came swinging back towards me, but he didn’t get a chance to fire off another shot. My bullets struck him in the chest, knocking him into the wall. He stood there for a moment, his arms dropped to his sides and blood seeping down his waistcoat, before the life seemed to leave his legs. Then he sank to his knees and slumped sideways, his bright blue eyes still fixed on me.

  The first thing I did was grab his gun and slip it into my pocket, or at least half slip it in; the thing was too large, so the handle was jutting out. Our librarian was still breathing and I didn’t want to take the chance of leaving him alone with a loaded weapon nearby. That done, I crept into the next room in search of a phone. I found myself in a lounge that doubled as a dining room, filled with all kinds of war memorabilia and paintings like Schmidt’s. The telephone was stuck away in a corner, beside a battered old helmet stuck to a standing post. I crammed myself into the corner, almost knocking the stand over, then I lodged the handset between my cheek and my shoulder and dialled with one hand, keeping my gun in the other. After three rings, the Major picked up.

  “Major Stevenson.”

  “Major, it’s Captain King,” I gasped, still fighting for breath. “Lieutenant Shaw has been shot, we need medical to the old house on the north bank of the lake.”

  “Shot? Did you say shot?”

  “Yes, sir, he needs assistance quick.”

  “What the hell are you doing? What’s going-”

  “Thank you, sir,” I said, then I dropped the handset back onto the cradle and dragged a sleeve across my brow. It came away soaked in sweat. I swallowed back the bile that was spurting into my throat and then I headed for the hallway, eig
ht bullets still to spend.

  Twenty Eight (Katherine)

  There were more gunshots from downstairs, but what panicked me even more was the sound of footsteps racing up the stairs. I didn’t know what was going on, but I couldn’t let them catch me in here. I prayed for whoever it was to stay away from Pieter’s bedroom and I kept on working the rope with the arrow head, feeling more and more strands springing free. My fingers were numb and I was terrified of dropping the arrow, now wet and slippery from my blood. The footsteps were louder, closer, and then Pieter staggered into the room, clutching his injured leg and wincing. The moment he glanced across and saw me, his face dropped.

  “What are you doing in here?” he asked, limping his way towards me, his boots stomping over the bare floorboards. I braced myself, every muscle tensed, but then I felt the rope around my wrists give way and suddenly my arms were free. Pieter was almost on me, raising a knife and pointing the blade at my chest. I let him get just two steps away, then I cried out and swung the arrow with all my strength. The tip buried itself in the bastard’s hand, slicing right through to other side. He screamed and dropped the knife, staring down at the bloody arrow head poking out of his palm, and I didn’t waste any time watching. My ankles were still tied to the chair legs, so I had to throw myself forwards off the seat and land on my knees, scrabbling for the knife. Pieter saw what I was doing and grabbed my hair with his other hand, yanking my head back, but I already had the knife in my grasp. I stared up at him, teeth bared, and then I sank the blade into his stomach as far as it would go. He didn’t scream again, or make any noise at all. He just peered down, like he couldn’t believe what I’d done, before his fingers slipped through my hair and I was free again. I tugged the knife out and then I drove it into his gut again, a little higher up. This time he moaned, stumbling backwards. I kept a hold of the knife and the blade slipped out as Pieter staggered away, legs trembling like he was drunk. Finally he dropped to the floor, landing on his arse and slumping back against the wall. The bastard was still staring at me while I sliced through the ropes around my feet, but by the time I cut through them and pulled myself free, his head had tilted forwards so his chin was resting on his chest. I could still hear him grunting as he tried to breathe, but I knew he was done for.