Sandman

by David Hodges

  Hayden saw the face of the moon appear through a hole in the mist at about the same moment as Roscoe and minutes later glimpsed the dark hump of Lowmoor through the tattered white clouds dissolving in front of him. It was only then that the scale of the task he had set himself really dawned on him.

  How on earth was he going to achieve it single-handed? OK, so from what Lessing had said, Kate had sprung him from a room in a big manor house at the far end of the village and there couldn’t be many big manor houses in a place the size of Lowmoor. But locating the premises was the easy part. Getting inside promised to be a lot more difficult and, even if he managed it, he still had to find Kate and there was no way of knowing whether she was hiding somewhere in the grounds, had succeeded in getting out, like Lessing, or had, in fact, been taken by the Sandman’s thugs.

  Not for the first time in his life, he regretted his impetuosity. He should have waited for Roscoe and the troops to arrive before doing anything, but true to form where Kate was concerned, he had allowed his heart to rule his head, and it was too late for regrets now; he just had to get on with the job as best he could and hope for the best. As if to reinforce the point, the dinghy then scraped on to solid tarmac where the road emerged above the surface of the water on the edge of the village itself.

  Hauling the inflatable out of the water and, unbeknown to him, dumping it on the same patch of grass Kate had used just hours before, he looked for any sign of life, but through the dissipating mist saw only a narrow, empty street touched by tentative fingers of moonlight and bordered on either side by rows of cottages, with lights burning behind curtained windows. There was no other sign of anyone and the only sound that intruded on the still air was the relentless gurgle of water pouring from overfull gutters, even though the rain had now stopped.

  Moving on, his torch in his hand, he passed the local inn, now shut up for the night and in total darkness, then the church, moonlight filtering through the thin skeins of mist to glitter on cold dark windows and touch tooth-like gravestones heeling over in the sodden earth as if silently mocking the holy ground in which they were embedded.

  In spite of the adrenalin which relentlessly drove him on, he could not repress a shiver at these grim reminders of his own mortality or quell the fear dominating his thoughts that maybe he had arrived too late for Kate. Maybe – perish the thought – she had already been taken from him and was lying stiff and lifeless on a cold stone floor or in a tangle of undergrowth somewhere.

  He clenched his free hand in an uncontrollable spasm in which both dread and a vengeful anger were equally mixed and it was then, just as he was about to press on past the church, that he heard something which stopped him in his tracks. It was the unmistakable bark of a firearm and it had come, he was sure, from within the very walls of that sacred place. Who on earth would be firing a gun inside a church? Swinging around, he pushed through the open gateway and headed for the building at a stumbling run.

  Kate had deliberately avoided making for the hole in the wall that Lessing had used; she was pretty sure it was the first place Tommy would look. Instead, she left the yard via the archway Horse had earlier marched her through at the point of his pistol. She realized that the stone outhouse was a more difficult escape route, but felt sure that if, as Horse had claimed, Ellie Landy had made use of it, there was a very good chance she could do the same thing. It was one hell of a gamble, but then so was living.

  There turned out to be no one lurking by the outhouse when she approached and, clambering on to the window sill, she was able to haul herself up on to the roof relatively easily. Several strands of wickedly sharp barbed wire ran along the top of the wall and they glinted in the moonlight as she peered over. About nine feet down, a rough track bordered the wall in both directions – to her left, cutting through woodland towards the gates of the house and the road in, and to her right, leading to heaven alone knew where. Directly below her, what looked like a leafless rowan tree sprouted from the foundations of the wall, reaching towards her like a three-fingered claw; her way out – if she didn’t break her neck in the process.

  Stripping off her anorak, she folded it to double its thickness and laid it over the wire, shivering as the cold damp air got to her bare flesh through her shredded blouse. Then, gingerly kneeling down on the wire, she tested the coat’s resilience. Despite the thickness of the material, she felt the barbs pressing through her jeans into her knee. She grimaced, but re-positioned the anorak after folding it over on itself and tried again. Slightly better, but still dodgy. Then she saw the strip of denim cloth clinging to the wire just inches from her hand and remembered the injury to Ellie Landy’s leg. Once again she thought, poor little Ellie had managed it, so why not her? It gave her all the incentive she needed.

  ‘Thanks, Ellie,’ she muttered and, gritting her teeth, held on to the wall over the folded anorak with both hands as she pivoted round on her right knee to face back towards the house and swung her left leg over the wall, feeling with the toe of her boot for a crook she had spotted in the top branch of the tree. She found it as one of the wire barbs cut into her knee through the anorak, making her cry out. She put all her weight on the branch, feeling it bend under her. Then, still gripping the wall with both hands, she raised herself up slightly to enable her to straighten her right leg sufficiently to slide it over the wall to join the left, ripping her jeans in the process and scrabbling for a few moments against the brickwork with her toe until she found another foothold on the branch which was now swaying and groaning alarmingly under her weight.

  For several seconds she clung to the top of the wall with one hand as she worked at freeing her anorak from the grip of the barbed wire with the other, while trying to balance on the branch at the same time. She managed the feat in the end, tearing her hands as well as the coat in the process, but the branch had had enough and the next instant it gave up on her, snapping in two and pitching her into space.

  A large shrub broke her fall, but she still hit the ground heavily and lay among the remains of the bush for a couple of minutes, all the wind knocked out of her sails. But then a distant shout – seemingly from inside the grounds of the house – galvanized her into action and, hauling herself to her feet, she extricated herself with difficulty from the clutches of the branches in which she had become entangled and staggered to her feet to face the wall, bruised but not seriously hurt.

  The track was like a white ribbon in the strengthening moonlight, still obscured in places by drifting patches of mist and stretching away on either side of her, following the line of the wall. It offered her a choice of direction and she was tempted to turn to what was now her left, deeper into the woodland, and find somewhere to hide, but she knew that that would be self-defeating. She couldn’t stay hidden for ever and there was every chance Tommy and his thuggish companions would find her after a concerted search anyway. No, her only real option was to turn right, towards the main gate, and hope that she could get past it before anyone from the house came out – though what she did after that was anyone’s guess.

  Pulling on her torn anorak, she set off at a run, now painfully conscious of the lacerations to her hands and leg from the barbed wire and the bruises she had sustained to her back and rib cage in her fall. She was also close to exhaustion after all that she had been through. There was a persistent thudding pain in her head and her legs had developed an involuntary shake that slowed her up and affected both her muscular control and her ability to keep on a straight course. Twice she stumbled off the track into the shrubbery and once cannoned into the wall, badly grazing the back of her left hand.

  But then she was off the track and on the approach road to the main gate of the house, the familiar voice in her brain urging her to ‘run faster’. She heard a rumbling sound and, glancing over her shoulder, saw the gate to the house sliding open. The next instant she was spotlighted by the powerful beam of a torch and she heard someone yell out. Heavy footsteps rang on the surface of the road behind her, but she incre
ased her pace, reaching the village main street well ahead of whoever was pursuing her. She glimpsed a narrow gap between two cottages on the other side of the road and, on impulse, sprang into it, crouching down in the shadows, panting heavily. Seconds later two figures, one a giant in a suit and the other shorter, thick-set and wearing a sweater, raced past, heading towards the church and the pub. Tommy and another man!

  Then she heard a dog growl in the gloom behind her and caught sight of a pair of eyes studying her through a slatted gate. Damn it! If the dog started to bark, it would bring the two thugs racing back. And even as she thought about that, the animal released a couple of loud yelps.

  She left her hiding place with another curse and stumbled across the street, looking for somewhere else to hide. But there was nowhere, just a terrace of cottages next to the passageway she had just left and, on the other side of the road, the village church with another terrace of cottages and the pub beyond.

  The church – that was it! It was her best bet and there had to be all manner of nooks and crannies in such an ancient building where she could conceal herself.

  She was through the gate into the graveyard moments before she heard heavy feet running back towards her from the direction of the pub. She made the shadows of the porch and froze as a giant figure stopped beside the gate and peered through into the graveyard. Tommy again, but alone this time; no doubt he had left his companion to check out the pub and other properties at the far end of the street.

  Very carefully she raised the latch of the right-hand door and eased it open. To her relief it made hardly any sound. Then she saw Tommy coming through the gate into the graveyard, directing his torch into the clusters of gravestones. Holding her breath, she slipped sideways through the part-open door. Unlike Tommy, she had no torch – they had taken that from her at the house when she had been searched – but the moonlight stealing into the church through its stain-glass windows lightened some of the gloom and she was able to see enough to cross the stone floor to the far wall, resisting the urge to run. She probably had just a couple of minutes before Tommy finished checking the graveyard and actually came into the building. She had to find somewhere to hide before then or she was done for.

  She saw the door to the sacristy and started towards it, then changed her mind. It was too obvious and from her knowledge of churches, she knew that there was unlikely to be anything in the room, save maybe a cupboard holding the sacred artefacts, a locker for the priest’s robes and a chair. Absolutely nowhere to hide. Her eyes searched for the door to the tower, found it, but then dismissed that as well. She had no desire to play hide-and-seek with Tommy among the bells or end up trapped at the top of the tower until he found her and threw her off.

  But then suddenly she had run out of time as the main door crashed back and Tommy stood there, framed in the opening, like some grotesque monster from the pages of mythology.

  She just had the presence of mind to duck behind a row of pews a split second before the beam of his torch traced a line across the wall where she had been standing and then she heard his feet moving slowly towards her, grit on his leather-soled shoes scraping on the stone floor with each measured step.

  ‘I know you’re in here, bitch,’ he said softly, ‘and I’ll find you, you can count on it, just like I found Ellie Landy.’

  Her heart was making strange squishy noises and she desperately tried to regulate her breathing and hold back the panicky gasps that were forming in her throat. She was also conscious of a painful cramp developing in her left leg and, doing her best to manage the pain, she gripped the shelf running along the back of the pew she was sheltering behind to stop herself losing her balance.

  Silence. Tommy’s feet were no longer scraping on the floor. He had stopped. Why? And where the hell had he gone?

  The cramp in her leg was becoming unbearable and, to make matters worse, the shakes in both legs had now returned with a vengeance. She knew she couldn’t remain in the same crouched position for much longer. She had to make a move.

  Very carefully, she turned sideways and stretched out her left leg to flex it, gritting her teeth when the calf muscles knotted in an agonising spasm. As she waited for the spasm to pass, the shakes in her right leg – now bearing all her weight – produced a wobble at the knee, which she found difficult to control. Forced to try and change her crouched position completely, she lost her grip on the shelf of the pew she was hiding behind and cannoned into it with enough noise to wake every bat in the vaulted roof.

  At once came the rapid clump of leather shoes on the stone floor as Tommy ran in the direction of the sound. Then the footsteps stopped and the beam of his torch passed over her head, probing the shadows at the far end of the church. She could hear his harsh breathing and guessed he was standing in the middle of the nave, which meant that there were just two rows of pews between the pair of them. If he decided to walk down the aisle from where she had ducked into the pew which was now sheltering her, he could not fail to see her. She needed to move to the other side of the church as quickly as she could.

  Turning sideways again, she managed this time to change her crouched position and get down on her hands and knees, pausing for a few moments as Tommy’s torch swung over her head for a second time, spotlighting something that had attracted his attention, before swinging back again. She heard him snarl in frustration, but he stayed where he was, obviously watching and listening.

  She moved off very slowly, still on her hands and knees, heading in the direction of the porch doors and lifting her feet at each stage to prevent the toes of her boots scraping on the floor behind her.

  ‘You wait till I get hold of you,’ Tommy shouted. ‘Then you’ll be sorry.’

  Kate gnawed her lip, trying not to be spooked into making a sudden noise by crawling any faster. Then she was at the end of the pew, peering out into the aisle and across to the porch doors. She hadn’t heard the scrape of Tommy’s shoes again and guessed he was still standing motionless on the other side of the pews, waiting for her to crack first and give her position away. She tensed, focusing on the porch doors. They were only around ten to twelve feet away. She felt sure she could be through the unbolted door ahead of Tommy in a couple of bounds, slamming it behind her and streaking out of the gate before he could even get his Neanderthal brain in gear – but what if she was wrong? She grimaced. Only one way to find out and she couldn’t stay crouched in the pew for ever.

  Raising herself up on her haunches like an Olympic runner at the starting block, she counted to three, then four, then five – and suddenly went for it, throwing herself at the porch doors with the desperation of a hunted animal in its last burst of energy.

  She heard Tommy erupt behind her, but got there before he was even halfway across the church, throwing the unbolted door open, then abruptly slamming to a stop before the figure standing in the porch in front of her.

  ‘Going somewhere?’ the man in the sweater said quietly, the pistol in his hand levelled at her stomach. ‘I don’t think so.’

  CHAPTER 20

  Tommy was grinning like a psychotic on a double dose of happy pills when he came up behind Kate and peered over her shoulder into her face. He had patched up his knife wound with a large square of sticking plaster, but it was still leaking and below the plaster his face and neck glistened in the moonlight as the blood continued to stream down his lower cheek and neck into the collar of his shirt. After such a nasty injury, any normal man would have been severely incapacitated – maybe even have passed out – but Tommy was no normal man and, as Kate’s gaze involuntarily flicked sideways, drawn towards that bestial disfigured face by some kind of macabre fascination, she saw her own cruel lingering death reflected in his mad gloating eyes.

  ‘You’d better get back to the house,’ Tommy told the man in the sweater. ‘Boss will want to know what’s happening.’

  ‘What about her?’ the other queried.

  Tommy laughed – an inane unhinged sound that made Kate’s flesh crawl
. ‘You leave her to me,’ he replied. ‘I’ve got a real special treat for our lady cop.’

  As ‘Sweater’ shrugged and turned around to head back down the path to the gate, Kate felt something hard – obviously a pistol of some sort – press into the base of her spine and Tommy bent close to her ear, blood from his leaking wound smearing her own face. ‘Back inside,’ he said. ‘Any tricks and I’ll put a nine millimetre round in your pretty little arse.’

  Kate inwardly shuddered and, well aware of the damage that a nine millimetre shell would do to her at such close range, she obediently turned back into the church, allowing him to prod her forward towards the centre aisle.

  ‘Turn left towards the altar,’ he ordered and, as she complied, he laughed again. ‘You could try saying a prayer while you’re here,’ he mocked, ‘but it won’t do you any good.’

  She didn’t answer, but kept walking through an opening in a carved wooden screen into what she knew to be the chancel. There were rows of choir stalls on either side and the brass cross on the altar in front of her glinted in a river of moonlight which was now streaming through the high rose window above it.

  ‘Left again,’ Tommy ordered, tapping her on the back of the neck none too gently with his pistol.

  There was a small low-level door there that she hadn’t noticed before and he reached past her with his free hand to open it. ‘After you,’ he mocked and directed the beam of his torch past her through the doorway.

  Kate detected the smell of damp stonework and stagnant water as she ducked through the opening and she found herself on a steep stone staircase, curving to her left as it dropped away into an oppressive darkness. At once realization dawned and she felt her stomach tighten. The crypt; they were going down into the crypt – the very crypt where Ellie Landy had met her death! By a cruel irony, she was about to retrace the same final steps Ellie had taken before she was murdered. So Tommy had a sense of humour after all – but that of a sadistic psychopath – and she knew that this time only a miracle could prevent her suffering the same horrific fate as the hapless journalist.