by Matt Hilton
Question: What is evil?
Answer: Man, by virtue of his actions and his thoughts.
Simple when you think about it.
Question: “How the fuck do you expect me to shoot evil?”
Answer: “The only way to be sure? Two in the heart and one in the head.”
THIRTEEN
Near Ura Taing
It was divine retribution, Shelly decided. Had to be. Punishment for transgressing the laws of the patron saint of non-smokers. It was her own fault, she just had to go and light up. She was weak-willed, a pitiless wretch who could not abstain as she had sworn to. She had promised on the memory of her mother, dead from lung cancer these past three months, two weeks and four days. As her mum had succumbed, lying there with drips and feeds futilely urging her to hold on to life, Shelly had held her hand and made the silent oath. No more cigarettes for me, Mum. Don’t you worry; I won’t touch a single one as long as I live. Tiny and frail in the hospital bed, her skin puckered and thin enough to tear, looking thirty years beyond her fifty-five, her mother had opened her eyes. “You promise, Shell?” The surprise was outweighed by her grief at the time, and it was only later that Shelly was positive that her mum hadn’t spoken out loud. That only strengthened her resolve, verified to her that there was a greater power in the universe, that, even as the big man in the sky reached down a gentle hand, her mother had heard her oath. And obviously held her to it.
The cigarette she’d smoked in the car alongside Bob Harris had been a betrayal of both her mum and the divine spirit who’d allowed them those final words together. And for that betrayal she was now being brought to bear. How else could she explain the horror unfolding in front of her now?
For a sergeant she was young in service. Less than five years. But she had worked hard to attain the position, and continued to work hard to demonstrate that she was up to the promotion. Her two years of probation, and a further thirteen months of independent patrol, had been spent on the streets and dockyards of Aberdeen. The city had highlighted the depravity to which some members of the public could stoop, had given her a shocking lesson in life’s dirtier ways. But nothing of the beatings or robberies, the drug overdoses, or the drunken car wrecks had prepared her for this.
Neither, she supposed, had the last twenty-two months since she’d transferred to the Shetlands. A year on the mainland based at Lerwick, as she’d concentrated on passing her sergeant’s exams, and then ten months here on Conn chasing sheep off the road and rousting drunk fishermen from after-hours ‘lock-ins’ at the Muckle Ram Inn. Up until this the most gruesome thing she’d had to contend with was - ironically enough - the drowning of George Stewart and his cousin, Alan Dougherty, when their boat had capsized off Quillan’s Point last year and she’d joined the recovery effort to pull their water-logged corpses from the jagged reef.
Her heart went out to poor Catherine Stewart. To lose your husband was one thing, but to lose a child must be the most awful situation imaginable. Especially when her wee boy, James, had been literally dismembered and his body parts strewn across the hillside.
“I’m sorry, Mum,” Shelly whispered as she lit up another cigarette offered to her by Bob Harris.
She was leaning against the trunk of a fir tree, the boughs heavy with needles that threatened to knock the hat off her head. The god-awful rain persisted and the trees were the only source of shelter in this terrain. The downside was the trickling runnels and the shedding needles falling down her back, which still managed to invade her waterproof high-visibility jacket at her neckline. She shivered, the reaction induced by a cold droplet worming its way down her spine, but more than that she squirmed at the realisation that her first test as a commanding officer was going to shit.
Her vow to never smoke again, which she had so easily broken - twice now - was the least of her concerns. In the big picture she could be forgiven for turning to the emotional crutch of nicotine to get by the shock of what she’d witnessed. But, how in creation was she going to justify passing out cold on the grass, causing Constable Harris to not only have to contend with a traumatised mother but also with his unconscious supposed supervisor? It was no secret among some of her staff that they viewed her as too young, and too inexperienced, to win their respect. That was always going to be a problem, and she’d worked hard to get past the misconceptions, to a point that, yes, she wouldn’t win their respect but she’d damn well earn it. But now, having ended up face down in the dirt, she could kiss goodbye to that idea.
“You okay, Sarge?”
She tilted her gaze up to the bluff features of Bob Harris, searching for any sign of reproof or sarcasm. He was forced to stoop beneath the branches, and he was clasping his peaked cap under an armpit. His generally light coloured hair was much darker and plastered to his forehead. His skin appeared bleached; apart from vivid patches of scarlet creeping up from his throat as the effects of the initial adrenalin rush began to abate now that they’d won a moment’s respite. The thing that struck her was the clarity of his eyes. Hers, she knew, must be bloodshot and red-rimmed, but Bob’s amber gaze was as calm as a pond in summer twilight.
“You’re going to tell them, Bob?”
He crinkled his nose. “Tell who what?”
Shelly lifted her chin towards the officers called in on overtime to stand guard over the crime scene while they waited the arrival of a back-up team from the mainland.
Bob made a big thing out of studying PC’s Charters, McCall, Brown and McGregor, fifty percent of Connor Island’s twenty-four-hour, seven-day-a-week, police resource. Of the island’s team, only Jorgenson and Petrie were missing. Both of them had accompanied Catherine Stewart in the air ambulance to the hospital over at West Sandwick on the neighbouring island of Yell. Not only was Catherine a distraught mother but she was also a suspect in the gratuitous slaying of her son, James. And possibly also that of her daughter, Bethany, who at that time was missing and presumed dead.
After a slow nod, Bob said, “I’ll tell them all they need to know.”
“Do they need to know about…?” She faltered. Couldn’t say ‘their sergeant collapsing out of fright’. She didn’t need to; Bob fully understood.
“Anybody would have been shocked, Sarge. It’s nothing to be ashamed of. I doubt any of them would have handled it any differently than the way we did.”
There was an emphasis on ‘we’ that Shelly fully appreciated. She suddenly began to see Bob with a fresh perspective. All right, he could be a miserable, surly old curmudgeon, but she had to admit, she’d never once heard him joining in with the parade room gossip his colleagues indulged in with almost Olympian effort. Often he was his own man, and appeared not to resist authority but work around it to his own taste, but she couldn’t recall a time when he was blatantly disrespectful of her either as a woman or as a senior officer. Maybe her secret would remain between the two of them. Only time would tell. The truth would probably come out as soon as Detective Inspector Marsh arrived from the mainland and demanded a report.
As if Bob read her thoughts he held out a clipboard that he’d secreted under his armpit alongside his hat. “Scene log, Sarge,” he said. “I’ve also set up a single approach path and positioned the others to protect it. Can’t say that the scene is easily protected in all this bloody rain, mind you.”
Shelly jammed her cigarette between her teeth. Lifted the clipboard. As she’d previously come to appreciate, Bob’s paperwork was always immaculate. Even under these conditions he’d taken the time to rule straight lines and the times and names on the sheet were written in small, concise letters. Shame that the rain had smudged the ink in places.
She flickered a glance at him. He was hunched over, but still came across as being an imposing figure. A casual observer would be forgiven for thinking that Bob was the superior officer in this duo. Even Shelly realised he was the image she’d always conjured of the staunch old beat sergeant when she’d dreamed of joining the force. She nodded in appreciation, more for his prese
nce than anything else. The log made no mention of her swan dive in the grass. Bob’s handing over of the log was his silent promise that only what was on the log would go into his report.
“Thanks, Bob,” she said, almost a whisper.
“Nae problem,” he said, and shot her a quick wink.
It seemed that allowing him to smoke in the car had won her a friend. Perhaps it was because her gesture had assured him that she was prepared to meet him on his own level, and for that he would reciprocate. More likely it was because she’d promised that she wouldn’t be running to tell tales that he’d decided that she too was worthy of his discretion.
This realisation gave her strength. She sucked in another lungful of smoke, then sent a ribbon of it into the tree boughs. Perhaps in her previously shaken state she’d have automatically flicked the finished stump away, but thinking clearer, she had the presence of mind to pinch the ash off and dropped the butt into her pocket to avoid contaminating the scene. She noticed the smile building behind Bob’s features as she watched him follow suit.
“Maybe you want to take a walk down to the shore and wash your hands? We don’t want ol’ Marshy knowing you’ve had a fag.” Bob eyeballed her.
“Fuck him,” she said, feeling the rebel all over again. “I think we’ve earned a cigarette or two tonight, Bob.”
“Aye, and maybe a wee drink or twa, as well,” Bob added.
Shelly dry-coughed. “Aye, Bob. That sounds real good right about now.” She reached out and touched his wrist, an intimate gesture uncommon to them. “Later, eh?”
Bob sucked in his bottom lip, shrugged like a bashful youth. “Aye, Shelly, that would be nice.”
Shelly. Not Sarge or Sergeant McCusker. The walls were tumbling down. Before they were knee-deep in rubble, Shelly decided she had to get back in gear. There was police work to be done. Her social life could come later. Much later if necessary. Until she’d found the monster responsible for the death of this child – children - she had to get her sergeant’s head back on her shoulders. All thoughts of men must be put to the back of her mind. Even thoughts of her new found friend, Bob Harris. And of….and of….Carter Bailey.
Now why the hell had he invaded her thoughts again? She’d been distracted by him when this nightmare had first began, and now he was back. In particular the seething flicker behind his pale eyes. The eyes that she’d instantly recognised as those of something dangerous.
Call it coincidence, but wasn’t it strange that his arrival on Conn correlated way too neatly with this brutal murder?
Too neatly to ignore.
FOURTEEN
Near Broom’s Cottage
As the sun broke through watery clouds, I was standing on the pebble-strewn beach just above the high tide line. Drift wood, tattered netting, half an oil drum, all intertwined with decomposing seaweed in a swathe almost fifteen feet wide that stretched the length of the cove. Amongst the detritus tossed up by the sea I searched for viable targets. The half oil drum was an obvious choice, but the damn thing was buried in sand and gravel and way too much bother to attempt to haul out. Instead, I chose a tree limb that had been smoothed to a glistening sheen by the relentless motion of waves against shore. I hauled the branch out of the flotsam and carried it to the strip of land above the tide line. I drove one end into the sand and then strode away.
I over compensated with my first shot. Years of Hollywood brainwashing had me believing that the gun would jerk like a cannon, throwing it upwards as it recoiled from the blast. The gun did buck in my hand, but it was more to do with me holding it too stiffly than any recoil from the bullet leaping from the muzzle. I relaxed for my second shot. I stood with my right foot facing the target, my left foot behind and angled towards nine o’clock. I extended the gun with my right hand, cupping my elbow with the left. Instead of jerking the trigger I squeezed gently, sighting from the rear sight along the muzzle. The tree-limb sprouted a new hollow, and a puff of wood fragments drifted on the breeze. Silently chuffed with my prowess I allowed myself a sniff.
After that there was no holding back. Five more shots obliterated the upper portion of the branch, leaving splinters strewn on the sand. The gun held nine rounds and, yes, I was thinking in terms of the associated jargon already. I decided that the static target was too easily shot when standing taking aim. I shoved the gun into my waistband at the small of my back. Walked away a couple of paces. Then I turned, pulling the gun out and fired on instinct. The last I know is that the bullet flew off en route for Iceland. I was no “Billy the Kid” yet.
I went through the rigmarole a second time, and on this occasion shot the sand five feet to the right and ten feet behind my tree-limb target.
“Bull’s eye,” I snorted.
“No. Bull shit.”
Engrossed in my practice, I hadn’t heard Broom’s approach through the low dunes. I looked over my shoulder at him; saw him leaning on a walking pole, bolstering his weak leg on the unstable sand. He was grinning. Not at my ineptitude, but at the very fact I’d accepted the assignment he’d set me. This target practice was an end to a means only, but indicated to us both that I was taking his theory seriously that I must become proficient with the weapon.
“I take it you slept on my words and decided I’m not as mad as I first sounded,” he said.
“Didn’t do much sleeping,” I told him. I ejected the spent magazine and inserted a fresh one I’d earlier loaded.
Broom approached me through the sand. Around me were ejected casings. He busied himself with pressing them into the sand with the toe of his boot. “Best we leave no telltale evidence behind, eh?” He paused, lifting his gaze and flicking back his hair so he could see me. “You are aware that the SIG is illegal, aren’t you?”
I lifted the gun, pressed the trigger rapid-fire and shattered the remainder of the tree branch. Nine brass casings littered the beach around my feet. “The notion had crossed my mind.”
When I next glanced at Broom he was standing hunched over with his hands cupped over his ears. “Shit, Carter! You might have warned me you were going to do that.”
“Didn’t think about that,” I said.
“Obviously not,” he grunted. “Shit, I think I’m deaf.”
“You aren’t deaf; it’s just your ears reacting to the percussion. The displacement of the air pressure causes your eardrums to react.”
“Shit! You don’t say, Einstein? And here was me thinking it was all to do with those loud bangs.”
Leary twat. I gave him the dead eye. “You’ll be okay in a minute or two.”
“Says you…shit.”
“Is that your word of the day?”
He returned my weary expression with a hangdog look of his own. “What word?”
“Shit,” I told him. “Considering you’ve used the ‘S’ word just about every other since you got here, I assumed you were trying out as many possible variations of it to see how it would fit into your writing.”
He raised his brows. He said, “Sometimes you surprise me.”
“What? That I’m so astute and observant?”
He snorted out a humourless laugh. “No, Carter. If you had actually read any of my books you would be painfully aware that I never…never…use any form of profanity or rude words.”
“Just gratuitous violence and over the top horror clichés?”
I was pulling his leg and he knew it. Didn’t stop him prodding me in the gut with his walking pole. “I’m not the country’s fifteenth best-selling horror author for nothing, and that is if you ignore my eBook sales. People enjoy gratuitous violence and over the top horror. They expect it. What they don’t like is writing spattered with four letter words and reference to male genitalia. They can get as much of that as they want from the music they’re listening to.”
“Possibly,” I shrugged. “But then again, maybe if you stuck in a couple of swear words now and then, you’d bridge the music and writing gap and become the country’s fourteenth best-selling horror author.”
He prodded me again.
“You want me to sell out and attract the pimply teenage market, Carter? Shame on you.”
“Aren’t teenagers the mainstay of your market now?”
He looked scandalised. He lifted the walking pole like a rapier. “Take that back, Carter!”
I dodged his jabbing pole. “Easy, Broom. I’m armed too, remember.”
“I care not, lout! You have besmirched my honour. Have at you.”
I was jabbed and prodded all the way back to the house. We were like a couple of kids playing at Robin Hood or an under-populated Three Musketeers. Call Broom one whacky loon but he had a penchant for drawing me out of the doldrums. Made me wish that I had a stick of my own; I’d have given him a duel to remember. Stuck with the very lethal SIG Sauer, I had to shove it in my waistband and only go through the motions of parrying and thrusting. We were breathless and laughing like adolescents on helium by the time we tumbled into the kitchen.
Another of his ploys to cheer me up, a full fried breakfast was warming under the grill. I got stuck into it with a zealousness I couldn’t previously recall. Something about shooting guns and fun fighting was an appetite builder par excellence.
A couple of cups of coffee down and nothing left on my plate but gobbets of cooling fat and streaks of egg yolk, I sat back, hands on my gut.
“Want more toast?” Broom asked. “Island butter? Homemade damson jam?”
I blew out. “No, Broom. No more. I couldn’t handle another morsel.”
“Nonsense. You’re going to need all your strength.” He busied himself with loading more crusty bread into his industrial-sized toaster. I didn’t argue. He would see it as a personal insult if I didn’t allow him to feed me to bursting point. But not only that; his harmless remark had brought back to mind my reason for being there. Demon Magnet. Monster Slayer. Carter Bailey: The man who feels evil.
