Whispers of the Dead

by Simon Beckett

  I A large insect was mashed against the glass in a tangle of legs and wings. I stared at it, feeling the urgency begin to coalesce. Without thinking what I was doing, I stamped hard on the brake. Paul braced himself against the dashboard as he was flung against his seatbelt. He stared at me in bewilderment as the car screeched to a halt. 'Jesus, David!' He looked round, trying to see why we'd stopped. 'What's wrong?' I didn't answer. I sat gripping the steering wheel, my heart bumping against my ribs. I was still staring at the windscreen. The dragonfly was big, almost as long as my finger. It was badly mangled, but I could still make out the tiger-striped thoracic markings. Its eyes were unmistakable, just as JoshTalbot had said. The electric blue of Epiaeschna heros. A swamp darner. Paul was looking at me as though I'd gone mad as I put the car into reverse. 'What is it? What have you seen?' 'I'm not sure.' I twisted round in my seat to look through the rear window, scanning the woods on my side as I backed up the road.Talbot had said swamp darners liked wet, wooded habitats. And amongst all the insects, there had been a blue sparkle in the trees I'd been too distracted to notice. Not consciously, at least. Just look at those eyes! Incredible, aren't they? On a sunny day you can spot them a mile away. He'd been right. I pulled over on to the bank beside the road. Leaving the engine running, I got out and went to stand on the edge of the woods. A green, outdoor silence enveloped me. Sunlight shafted down between the tree trunks and branches, picking out mats of wild flowers growing through the grass. I saw nothing. 'David, for God's sake will you tell me what's going on?' Paul was standing by the open passenger door. The sour taste of anticlimax was in my mouth. 'That's a swamp darner on the windscreen. The same as the nymph we found in Harper's casket. I thought. . .' I tailed off, embarrassed. / thought I might have seen more of them. It seemed far-fetched now. 'Sorry,' I said, and turned to go back to the car. And saw a glint of blue among the green. 'There.' I pointed, my heart thudding. 'By the fallen pine.' The dragonfly zigzagged through patches of dappled sunlight, blue eyes shining like neon. As though they'd chosen that moment to appear, now I picked out others amongst the trees. 'I see them.' Paul was staring into the woods, blinking as though just waking up. 'You think it's important?' There was a tentative, almost pleading note to his voice, and I hated myself for raising his hopes. Swamp darners or not, York wouldn't have left Noah Harper's body so close to a road. And even if he had, I couldn't see how it would help Sam. Yet we knew York had headed out this way in the ambulance, and now here were the dragonflies as well. That couldn't just be coincidence. Could it? 'Talbot said they like standing water, didn't he?' Paul said, with an excitement born of desperation. 'There must be some round here somewhere, a lake or pond. Do you have a map in the car?' 'Not of the mountains.' He ran his hands through his hair. 'There's got to be something! Perhaps a slow moving creek or stream . . .' I was beginning to wish I'd not said anything. The mountains covered over half a million acres of wilder ness. The dragonflies could be migrating, for all I knew; might already be miles from wherever they'd hatched. Still... I looked round. A little further down the road I could see what looked like a turning on to a track. 'Why don't we take a look down there?' I said. Paul nodded, eager to seize even the slimmest hope. I felt another stab of guilt, knowing we were probably just clutching at straws. As he got back into the car I picked the dead dragonfly from the windscreen. When I turned on the wipers the water jets sluiced the remains from the glass, and it was as though it had never been there. The turning was little more than a dirt track running off through the trees. It didn't even merit a layer of gravel, and I had to slow to a crawl along the rutted, muddy surface. Branches and shrubs scratched at the windows. They grew thicker with every yard, until eventually I was forced to stop. The way ahead was completely blocked, maples and birches fighting for space with straggly laurel bushes. Wherever the track might have once led, we weren't going any further. Paul banged the dashboard with frustration.'Goddammit!' He climbed out of the car. I did the same, forcing open the door against the push of branches. I looked round, hoping to catch a glimpse of another swamp darner, anything that would tell me this wasn't a waste of time. But the woods were mockingly empty. Paul's shoulders had slumped in defeat as he contemplated the enclosing tangle of trees. The hope that had briefly fired him up had burned itself out. 'This is useless,' he said, his face a carving of despair. 'We're miles from where York abandoned the ambulance. Hell, we're almost back at where he had the accident. We're wasting our time.' I almost gave up then. Almost got back in the car, accepted that I'd over-reacted. But Tom's words came back to me: You've got good instincts, David. You should learn to trust them more. For all my doubts, my instincts still told me this was important. 'Just give me a minute.' The branches overhead whispered as a breeze disturbed them, then fell silent again. I went to where a rotting tree trunk sprouted pale, plate-like fungi, and climbed on to it. The vantage point made little difference. Except for the overgrown track we'd followed there was nothing to see but trees. I was about to get down again when the branches overhead stirred and rustled as the breeze returned. And then I caught it. The faint, almost sweet taint of decomposing flesh. I turned my face to the breeze. 'Can you . . .' 'I smell it.' There was a tightness to his voice. It was an odour both of us were too familiar with to mistake. Then the breeze died, and the air held just the normal scents of the forest. Paul looked round frantically. 'Did you get where it was coming from?' I pointed across the hillside, in the direction the breeze seemed to have been blowing from. 'I think it was that way' Without a word, he strode off through the woods. I gave the car a last glance, then left it and hurried after him. The going was difficult. There was no path or trail, and neither of us was dressed for hiking. Branches plucked at us as we picked our way along the uneven ground, the thickets of bushes making it impossible to keep to a straight line. For a while we were able to use the car to keep our bearings, but once that was out of sight we had to rely on guesswork. 'If we go much further we're going to get lost,' I panted, when Paul stopped to disentangle his jacket from a low branch. 'There's no point just wandering about without knowing where we're going.' He scanned the trees around us, chest rising and falling as he gnawed at his lip. Desperate as he was for anything that would lead him to York and Sam, he knew as well as I did that it might just have been carrion we'd caught wind of. But before either of us could say anything else the branches around us shivered as the breeze picked up. We exchanged a look as we caught the odour again, stronger than ever. If it was carrion it was something big. Paul picked up a handful of pine needles and tossed them into the air, watching which way they were blown. 'That way.' We set off again, with more confidence this time. The smell of decay was noticeable even when the breeze dropped now. You don't need a detector to smell this, Tom. As though to confirm we were heading in the right direction I caught a metallic shimmer as a dragonfly flashed through the trees up ahead. Then we saw the fence. It was partly hidden by scrub pine and bushes, eight feet high wooden slats topped with razor wire. The slats were rotten, and what looked like a much older chain-link fence ran round the outside, rusted and sagging. Paul seemed charged with an almost feverish energy as we began to pick our way along the boundary. A little further along a pair of old stone gateposts had been incorporated into the fence, now blocked off with wooden slats. The ground in front was overgrown, but deep parallel grooves were still visible. 'Wheel ruts,' Paul said. 'If there're gateposts there must've been a road of some sort. Could be the same track we were following.' If it was it hadn't been used in a long time. The smell of decomposition was much stronger now, but neither of us made any comment. There was no need. Paul stepped over the sagging chain-link fence and took hold of one of the wooden slats. There was a splintering crack as the rotten wood came away in his hands. 'Wait, we need to tell Gardner,' I said, reaching for my phone. 'And say what?' He wrenched at the fence, grunting with exertion. 'You think he's going to drop everything and come running because we smelled something dead?' He kicked at a slat until it broke, then began furi
ously working at another, prying it loose from a stubborn nail with a loud creak. Bushes poked through the gap from the other side, obscuring whatever else might be through there. Tearing away the last few splinters of wood, he spared me a brief glance. 'You don't have to come with me.' He began to climb through the fence. Within seconds there were just waving branches to show where he'd been. I hesitated. No one knew where we were, and God only knew what lay behind the fence. But I couldn't let Paul do this alone. I squeezed through the gap after him. My heart jumped as something caught hold of my jacket. I tugged at it in a panic until I saw I'd only snagged it on a nail. I pulled free and carried on. Bushes crowded right up to the fence on this side. Ahead of me I could hear snapping and rustling as Paul forced his way through them. I followed as best I could, shielding my face with one hand as twigs clawed at my eyes. Then I stepped clear and almost walked into him. We'd emerged into a large garden. Or, rather, what had once been a garden; now it was a wilderness in its own right. Ornamental shrubs and trees had run riot, crowding each other in the fight for space. We stood in the shade of a huge magnolia, the scent from its waxy white flowers cloying and sweet. Directly ahead of us stood an old laburnum, heavy branches dripping with clusters of yellow. Underneath it was a pond. It must have once been the garden's centrepiece, but now it was stagnant and rank. Its edges were slowly drying out and choked with reeds, while the viscous green water was filmed with scum. A cloud of midge-like insects danced above its surface like dust motes in the sunlight. Feeding on them were the dragonflies. There were dozens of them. Hundreds. The air hummed with their wings. Here and there I saw the iridescent colours of other, smaller species, but it was the tiger-striped swamp darners who ruled, eyes shining like sapphires as they darted in an intricate ballet above the water. I shifted to get a better view and felt something snap under my foot. Glancing down I saw a pale, green-white stick in the grass. No, two sticks, I thought. And then, like a picture coming into focus, what I was seeing resolved itself into the twin bones of a human forearm. I slowly stepped back. The body lay half hidden in the undergrowth by my feet. It was fully skeletonized, shoots of bright spring grass already growing through the moss-covered bones. Black female, adolescent: the assessment came automatically. As though it had been waiting for that moment, now the smell of decomposition reasserted itself over the thick scent of magnolia. Beside me, Paul spoke in a whisper. 'Oh, my God . . .' I slowly lifted my gaze. The dragonflies weren't the only inhabitants of this place. The garden was full of corpses. They were in the grass, under the trees, in the undergrowth. Many were little more than stripped bones lying in the greenery, but some were more recent; leathery intestines and cartilage still host to flies and maggots. No wonder none of York's earlier victims had been found. He'd created his own body farm. Paul's voice was unsteady.'Over there. There's a house.' Beyond the pond the ground rose into a tree-covered hillside. Towards its top, the angled lines of a roof were visible through the branches. I grabbed hold of Paul's arm as he started towards it. 'What are you doing?' He pulled free.'Sam might be in there!' 'I know, but we've got to tell Gardner--' 'So tell him,' he said, breaking into a run. I swore, the phone held in my hand. Gardner needed to know about this, but I had to stop Paul from doing anything stupid. I set off after him. The corpses were everywhere. They seemed to have been left with no pattern or purpose, as though York had simply dumped them here to rot. Dragonflies swooped and hovered as I ran through the garden, indifferent to the death all around. I saw a swamp darner gently fanning its wings as it rested on a skeletal finger, beautiful but alien. When another thrummed close to my head I batted it away in revulsion. Paul was still ahead of me, heading for the building we'd seen through the branches. Built on the sloping hillside, it rose up like a cliff, a sprawling timber structure three storeys high. I could see now that it was far too big to be a house, more like an old hotel of some sort. It must have been imposing once, but neglect had made it as rotten as the bodies in its grounds. Its foundations had shifted, giving it a skewed, twisted aspect. Holes gaped in the shingle roof, and cobwebbed windows stared sightlessly from the weathered grey face. Leaning against one corner like a drunk was an ancient weeping willow, its branches draped over the walls as though to hide their decay. Paul had reached a weed-choked terrace that ran along this entire side of the building. I was close behind him now, but not close enough to stop him as he ran to a pair of boarded-up French doors and wrenched on the handles. They didn't open, but the rattle shattered the garden's silence. I pulled him aside. 'What are you doing? Jesus, do you want to get yourself killed?' But one look at his face gave me the answer: he didn't expect to find Sam alive. And if she wasn't, he didn't care about himself. Pushing me away, he ran towards the corner of the building where the old willow leaned against the walls. I couldn't let him get too far ahead, but I daren't wait any longer to call Gardner. I dialled as I ran, relieved to see that there was a weak signal even out here. It was more than I'd hoped for, but I swore when the TBI agent's number went straight to voicemail. There was no time to try Jacobsen; Paul had already vanished under the willow's trailing branches. Gasping out the words, I described where we were as best I could, then snapped my phone shut and sprinted after him. Up close, the building's rot was obvious. Its wooden siding was as soft as balsa, honeycombed with tiny holes.Thinking about the cloud of insects the dragonflies had been feeding on, I remembered what Josh Talbot had said: Swamp darners are partial to winged termites. They'd found a plentiful supply here. But I'd more pressing concerns just then. Paul was in sight again up ahead, running up an overgrown path along the side of the building. Chest burning, I made an extra effort and hauled him back before he reached the end of it. 'Get off of me!' A flailing elbow triggered a starburst of light in my eye, but I didn't let go. 'Just think, will you! What if he's got a gun?' He tried to throw me off. 'I don't care!' I struggled to hold on to him. 'If Sam's still alive we're her only chance! You want to waste it?' That reached him. The frenzy died in his eyes, and I felt the resistance ebb from him. Still wary, I let him go. 'I'm not waiting till Gardner gets here,' he breathed. 'I know, but we can't just go charging in. If York's in there let's not make it any easier for him.' I could see that everything in him wanted to tear down the walls until he found Sam, but he knew I was right. Even though York must know we were there by now, he might not realize there were only two of us. God knew, we didn't have much of an advantage, but announcing our approach would lose what little we had. Moving more cautiously, we went to the end of the path. We'd obviously come at the building from the back; now we found ourselves at the front. The spring sun was too low to creep above the high roof, casting a deep shadow. Walking into it was like stepping into cold water. Even the trees on this side seemed darker; towering pines and maples rather than the ornamental varieties at the back. Woodland had reclaimed whatever gardens there used to be, branches meeting over the muddy driveway to form a dark, claustrophobic tunnel that disappeared out of sight. At one side stood a warped timber sign. The lettering had faded to a ghostly blue that hinted at a long-ago optimism: Breathe Deep! You're at Cedar Heights Spa and Sanitarium! It looked to date from the 1950s, and judging by its dilapidation it might have been forgotten ever since. Though not by York. Several cars were parked haphazardly on the driveway, stolen along with their owners' lives. Most had obviously not been moved in ages, their roofs and windscreens covered with leaf mould and bird droppings, but two were cleaner than the rest. One was a huge black pick-up truck with darkly tinted windows. The other was a blue Chrysler SUV The realization of how York had fooled us rose like bile in my throat. He must have been almost back here when he'd had the accident. So rather than risk the inevitable search coming too close to Cedar Heights, he'd driven miles out of his way before abandoning the ambulance. Then he'd stolen a car and doubled back. The SUV was parked at the bottom of crazy-paved stone steps that led to a roofed veranda. At the top was a pair of tall double doors that had once been grand, but were now as dilapidated as everything else. One
of them stood open. Paul bent and picked up a wooden strut that had come loose from the veranda as we went up the steps. Through the open door at the top I could make out a large, shadowed foyer and the bottom of a wide staircase. Paul reached out to push the door all the way open. And my phone rang. It sounded shockingly loud. I grabbed it from my pocket and saw Gardner's name in the caller display. Jesus, not now! I fumbled to answer it but it took agonizing seconds before the piercing trill was silenced. Gardner's voice crackled unevenly 'Hunter? Where the hell are you?' But there was no time to answer. No time for anything, because at that moment there was a cry from deep inside the house. It quickly cut off, but Paul's restraint slipped. 'SAM! HOLD ON, I'M COMING!' he yelled, and barged through the doors. Oh, Christ. But there was no longer any choice. Ignoring Gardner's angry questions, I ran after Paul into the sanitarium.