Murderer in Shadow

by Ralph E. Vaughan

  “No, sir, I’m fine,” he said. “Can’t trust these prats to get the job done, can we?”

  Again, Ravyn thought, a measure of humour to ease the terror.

  The chief inspector examined the progress of the excavation. The soil was sparse, so plants came out easily. Two men, working shoulder to shoulder, pressed forward, tossing uprooted vegetation to their mates, who relayed them to a growing pile. A sharp cry of alarm split the air, and the two men scampered up, pushing others out of the way.

  “A hole Mr Ravyn!”

  “A bloody hole to hell!”

  Ravyn and Stark approached warily. The incline to the opening was not steep, but a layer of soil over the rocky base gave little purchase. There was no barrier to keep anyone from tumbling in.

  “Harold!” Ravyn called. “Harold Drinkwater!”

  All listened, not a breath drawn among them. After a moment a tiny moan rose into the still air. A heavy silence settled.

  “Harold!” It took several men to restrain Mildred.

  But Ravyn knew it might have been a breeze.

  “Anchor the rope to that stone.” He saw Ware not moving, just staring at the ancient, storied stone. “Stark.”

  Stark’s approach and reaching hands sparked Ware into motion. She pushed aside tales of cursed stones and chthonic monsters, tied off the rope, then yanked on it to test the knot, deliberately not looking up into the stone eye glaring down.

  “A natural sinkhole, not a proper well.”

  “You sure you want to do this, Stark?”

  “Don’t ask, sir.” He tied a harness. “Might come to my senses.”

  “Torch and radio?”

  Stark patted his pocket.

  “I can do it,” Ware offered. “I’m lighter.”

  “Don’t tempt me, Constable.” Stark gave her a grin. “Besides, I am sure a broken neck would mean failing probation.”

  “Be careful, Stark.” Ravyn looked back. “Keep that rope taut. Play it out slowly. Keep your ears open.”

  Stark slipped twice, but did not fall. He kept glancing over his shoulder. The hole was almost four feet across, a wound in the skin of the earth. He balanced on the edge, heels on the rim, between the abyss and salvation. Everybody was staring at him. It was his last chance to have them pull him back. Damned if Ravyn didn’t look almost worried. He stepped into space.

  For a terrifying instant, Stark fell. Then his feet pressed against the wall. The harness tightened. The rope was slowly played out.

  Stark recalled the time he rappelled down the side of a building during a training course at police college. This was nothing like that. There, he had been laden with full riot gear, but the real difference was that he had been descending to safety; here, he was suspended in the dark, entering a realm of demons and monsters.

  Damn villagers, Stark thought. Damn all the ignorant, inbred and idiotic prats and damn the stories they tell to gullible outsiders. And damn me for listening.

  He eased the torch out of his pocket, flicked it on, followed the beam down the sides, but saw nothing. The rock wall began to level and he called out to hold up.

  He swept the beam about, then thumbed his radio. “I’m on a ledge of sorts. No sign of the boy. Seems sheer, but I don’t think it’s too far down. Still, make sure no one has slippery hands.”

  “Understood,” Ravyn said. “We’ll let you down slowly as soon as we feel tension on the rope. Keep in contact.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  At the rim, he again shone the torch down, but saw nothing in the beam, not even the glimmer of water. He wondered if the hole had ever been used as a well, or was that yet another story about the horrible Strykers, something with which to frighten the kiddies? He put the torch away, reluctantly.

  Over the edge, the light above vanished. He felt a desperate urge to drop the radio and grab his torch. Darkness pressed around him like a glove. But he kept one hand gripped to the rope, the other on his radio.

  “Harold.” Echoes whispered around him. “Are you here? I’m from the police. Harold. Harold Drinkwater!”

  A faint whimper sounded just below him.

  He thought about letting those above know of the sound, then considered the desperate mother, not her hopes, but her fears. Better to wait until he was sure.

  “Slowly,” he said into the radio. “Not far now.”

  He felt rocks and packed sand beneath his feet.

  “Hold up, I’m down,” Stark said.

  He slipped out of the harness, dropped to one knee. He pressed his palm against damp sand, feeling evidence of hidden water. Its solidity was reassuring after the descent through unlit space.

  He pulled out his torch. “Harold.”

  A whimper sounded. He saw in his beam a thin figure and the reflections of round wire-rim spectacles. His shirt and trousers were torn, his face dirty and scratched. He held his arm at an odd angle.

  “The boy’s here, seems okay.”

  Even at this depth, Stark heard the clamour, and smiled.

  “We’ll get you out of here.” The boy cringed, features showing not hope or relief, but terror. “It’s all right, lad. Come on over here. You’re safe now.”

  Harold made not the slightest movement. Stark started toward him, slowly, cautiously. He moved the light out of the boy’s eyes.

  “You’ve had a rough go of it, Harold, but everything is all right now,” Stark said. “Your mum is waiting for you.”

  Nothing seemed to penetrate Harold’s shock or lessen his dread. In the wash of light, Stark saw the boy stared not at him, but behind him. He turned his head, quickly swept the beam, but saw nothing to inspire fear.

  “I’m here to help you, Harold,” he said. “My name is Leo. I’m going to come to you. Is that okay?”

  He did not respond.

  “Harold!”

  The boy shifted his gaze to Stark. He blinked, as if surprised at the stranger’s presence. He nodded, once.

  Stark breathed a relieved sigh. He knew from other rescues in which he had participated that the task was made infinitely harder by hysteria. As he closed in, the boy launched himself, cleaving to him. He felt convulsions shaking the boy’s frame, heard sobbing in his ear. Awkwardly, he patted the boy’s back.

  “It’s okay, Harold.”

  “The Other!”

  Stark stiffened as he heard the boy’s hoarse whisper. His voice was so tight with terror he no longer sounded human.

  “The Other whispers.” Harold’s grip tightened. “He whispers to me now.”

  Stark listened but heard nothing. He pulled the boy’s arms from around him. He led him, pulled him to the dangling rope.

  “I’m going to tie this harness around you, so you can be pulled up,” Stark said. “You understand?”

  After a moment, Harold nodded.

  “Looks like you’ve broke your arm, so let’s get that tied fast.” He straightened Harold’s arm as gently as he could, then used long strips from the boy’s shirt to secure it to his side. He fastened the harness. “I’m going to have them pull you up. Use your legs to keep from hitting the wall. Understand?”

  “You?”

  “Once you’re safe, I’ll come up the same way.”

  “The Other,” Harold said. “Don’t listen to him.”

  “He’s ready to be pulled up,” Stark said into the radio. “Easy does it. Broken arm.”

  “Understood,” Ravyn said. “Ambulance is almost on site.”

  Harold instinctively grabbed the rope and used his feet as he was pulled up. Stark lit his way. The torch beam flickered…

  “Damn.”

  …then went out.

  “Bloody hell!”

  Stark stood motionless in the dark lest he stray from the rope that would soon, or at least eventually, return to lift him back into the light. He closed his eyes, controlling his breathing and trying to think of anything but choking darkness and enclosing walls.

  Something like a sigh came to him

  He for
ced open his eyes, saw a blackness that no longer seemed quite as absolute. An indistinct illumination infused the pit’s eternal night, almost like a greenish mist. Stark moved away from the wall, was almost to the opposite side when he realized the source of the vague light had to be somewhere behind him.

  He saw his outline on the wall, more distinct than he could see his body, as if it possessed a substance denied his physical form. He felt he had entered a realm of shadows. Other shades rose on the wall to menace him, fantastical shapes recalling to mind many of the outlandish legends he had heard over the past months.

  It’s not real, he thought as shadows surged toward him. It’s just Plato’s Cave. Turn around, you silly git!

  The shadows vanished when he turned, but dim light persisted. He moved to it, knelt and prised a skull from the mud and wet sand. It was smaller than an adult’s skull would have been. A jumble of bones surrounded it. A forensic examination would be made, but Stark already knew the truth, that Dale Stryker had not run away.

  No place to run, no place to hide, Stark thought. No place safe.

  Stark reached for his radio.

  Chapter 6

  Talking Bones

  The ambulance carrying Harold Drinkwater and his mother left for Stafford, and the searchers departed to the pub, taking with them fodder for new legends and tales. Ware returned Winsell to his cottage, as exonerated as he was shaken by the crushing sky. She stopped by her office for messages, then met two vans in the Broken Lance’s car park and led them, moody and silent, back to the farm.

  One van bore Dr Lena Penworthy, county pathologist, the other Scene of Crime Officer Angus Powell-Mavins and his forensic techs, who scurried about like questing spiders. A temporary shelter was erected for Dr Penworthy between farmhouse and sinkhole.

  A more secure form of access was rigged above the sinkhole. Floodlights and cables were lowered to the bottom, and bones, first photographed in situ, were removed to the tent.

  “You all right, Sergeant?” Penworthy looked up from the bones she and Andy, her assistant, were laying out on a long folding table.

  Stark forced a grin. “Yes, I’m fine, Doctor.”

  She returned to her work.

  “Doctor, when I was down there, the bones seemed to glow.”

  “No mystery there, Sergeant.” She lifted the skull and pointed to a faint discolouration. “A kind of luminescent lichen. Dampness promoted its growth over the years. Spooky, no doubt, but quite normal. Nothing supernatural about it.”

  Stark nodded, hesitantly.

  “You seem a bit pale,” she said. “I can give you something.”

  “Thank you, but no.”

  “Are you certain, Sergeant?”

  “Yes, quite.” Stark softened his tone. “I’m fine. Thank you for your concern. I appreciate it.”

  The pathologist gazed a moment longer, then returned to the bones recovered from the depths. Ravyn pushed aside the tent’s opening and entered. He glanced at Stark.

  “I’m fine, sir. Fully recovered. Sorry if I…”

  He nodded and looked to Penworthy. “Do you think the bones are those of Dale Stryker?”

  The doctor sighed. “You know I cannot give you a definite answer, Arthur.”

  “Not a definitive answer, but perhaps educated speculation.”

  “The clothing remnants Angus recovered might help more with establishing identity,” she said. “These bones have been down there a long time.”

  “But they can still speak to you,” Ravyn suggested.

  “They do tell a story, but not a name. You’ll have to wait. It depends on finding records with which I can compare them.”

  “I understand perfectly, Doctor.”

  She shot him a wary look. Of course he understood, but when did that stop him from trying to extract an opinion before all facts were in evidence? She could not count the number of times he expected her to climb out on a limb prior to a proper post mortem, only to discover some intuitive process had already led him to a similar conclusion, or that he had noticed something she had missed. This time he would damn well wait for a thorough examination. No special favours; no educated guesses, suppositions or conjectures. Whether he liked it or not, Chief Detective Inspector Arthur Ravyn would have to, like other mortals, wait for an official report, which she would issue in her own good time.

  “But they are the remains of an adolescent male, are they not?”

  “Well, yes, they are,” she admitted. That, at least, was apparent from even a cursory exam. She could hardly deny the obvious, but everything else would have to wait.

  “Something about pelvis bones, isn’t it?” Stark stood from the chair and joined his guv’nor. “Female’s more rounded, is it?”

  “An obvious difference, but not as pronounced here as it would be in an older individual,” Penworthy said. “Fortunately, there are other, more subtle, differences.”

  “Such as?” Ravyn said.

  Penworthy sighed.

  “I’d rather wait till I’m back in Stafford. I’m only arranging and labelling, not examining.” She added: “Not in any detail.”

  “But a young male, as you say,” Ravyn said. “Middle teens?”

  “The lack of development would suggest that.”

  “Girls develop faster than boys?” Stark frowned. “I thought that was just emotionally. Not that I really hold to it.”

  “Yes, it’s true, and physically as well,” she said. “Were these the remains of a female, they might be pre-teen, but the robustness of the bones argues a male, middle teens.”

  “Perhaps even fourteen,” Ravyn murmured.

  “At least your maths skills are…”

  “Cause of death?” Ravyn asked.

  “That must await a proper examination.” Her voice was as crisp as hoarfrost. “I insist.”

  “Several fractures, I notice.” Ravyn swept his gaze over the few long bones already laid out and labelled, and the many smaller ones waiting. “Could he have survived the fall?”

  “Fell, pushed or jumped,” Stark quipped, then wished he had left the old adage alone.

  Penworthy paused, then said: “I think so. In fact, probably. The bones are severely fractured, but the body can, as you well know, recover from tremendous trauma. However, had he survived the fall, he would not have survived the precipitating event.”

  Ravyn raised his eyebrows quizzically.

  With a sigh, Penworthy offered a large rectangular magnifying glass and indicated an array of unattached ribs. He leaned forward, examining them, then moved his attention to a section of vertebrae. He handed the glass to Stark.

  “A nick that size indicates a large knife, underhand thrust.”

  “Maybe a butcher’s knife, sir.”

  “Certainly a knife of some sort,” Penworthy said.

  “We’ll know once the point of the knife is removed from the spine and analyzed by forensics,” Ravyn said.

  Penworthy grabbed the glass from Stark. “Yes, I’ll give that to Angus after the post mortem.” She paused. “In Stafford.”

  “Of course,” Ravyn agreed. “Some things cannot be rushed.”

  Any retort from the good doctor was interrupted when SOCO’s head pushed through the tent opening. The disembodied head was adorned by a shock of ginger hair and its teeth clenched a massive pipe, black with age but which was rarely ever lit.

  “Arthur, you better come have a look.”

  “More bones, Angus?” Penworthy asked.

  “Nay, you got all me lads and lasses could find down in that hellhole.” He turned his attention back to Ravyn. “This is something altogether different…very different.”

  “At the bottom of the sinkhole?”

  “Aye.”

  “Thank you, Doctor.” Ravyn looked to Stark. “Coming?”

  Stark thought of his long descent into blackness, of walls that crushed. He recalled frozen breaths and sounds in the ebony silence.

  “Right behind you, sir.”

  A
s the three departed, Penworthy blew out an exasperated snort.

  Andy looked up.

  “Most vexatious man in the world,” she said.

  Andy smiled and returned to his task.

  “We didn’t notice them at first,” Powell-Mavins said. “Hold on to the guide ropes. The loose dirt makes the ground a bit slippery. Aye, there you go. We were so concentrating on finding every bit of bone we didn’t much heed the walls till we were photographing and doing up a site map.”

  “What about the walls?” Ravyn asked.

  They reached the edge of the sinkhole. A winch had been set up and anchored down.

  “Best you see on your own,” the forensics chief said. “One at a time now. You first, Arthur?” At a nod from Ravyn, he said: “Don’t know why I asked.”

  Ravyn slipped into a harness clipped to the rope.

  Powell-Mavins pointed to a panel built into the chest portion of the harness. “Green button down, white up and red stops you: left, right and centre. When you’re all the way down, slip off the harness, hit the white button, send it up. Okay?”

  Ravyn nodded and pulled a torch from his pocket.

  “Won’t need it,” Powell-Mavins said. “Floodlights are full on.”

  Ravyn retained the torch. He touched the green button, pushed off and vanished into the shadow of the rim. When he felt the ledge under his feet, he backed to the edge and kept descending. As he lost the late afternoon light, a pure, white radiance rose from below. The torch found its way back to his pocket.

  His feet touched moist, hard-packed sand. He pressed the red button. The electric winch ceased instantly. Helping hands took off the harness and the forensic tech sent it up.

  “Good afternoon, Chief Inspector.” The tech, from her speech, was a Hammershire girl. It explained, Ravyn thought, the tiny beads of nervous perspiration on her brow. “There is what Angus wanted you to see. That way. Please.”

  He was not surprised when she failed to follow. Even were this her first excursion to Knight’s Crossing, she would have been raised on stories of dark magicians and the terrors they conjured, of forests of hanging men, and, of course, the doom that had come to Stryker Farm. He glanced back at the technician, who seemed to him much like a mouse before a rising cobra. The cursed Strykers, Ravyn mused, murdered by young Dale, but really done in, everyone knew, by their own magical hubris. He thought of the bones brought up to the light of day – most certainly Dale Stryker’s, despite Lena’s reluctance, and Dale murdered by the same hand that slaughtered his family – a man’s hand, not a demon’s.