Darke

by Matt Hilton

  Their gazes met, and held. And both knew what the other was.

  His mouth split in a tusky grin, and his deep-set eyes glittered.

  That was the only warning Kerry got.

  He was so large, and dressed in heavy coat and mud-clotted boots, he should have been cumbersome. But he came at her like a juggernaut, emitting a roar as he swung the spade overhead. Kerry tried to retreat, but her feet refused to move. She screamed in defiance, all the frustration and anger of twenty-plus years energizing her, and she struck at him with the branch, aiming to smash his face to pulp. Unfortunately, it was the branch that shattered into dozens of pieces, and he shrugged off its impact against his shoulder as if it was a fly’s bite. He swung the spade down, and she got her left arm under the haft, but his force was elemental. She was battered down, and was sure her left arm was as pulverised as the exploded branch. The steel blade only caught her a glancing blow to the side of her head, but it still felt as if her skull had been laid open. She collapsed, falling away from him and into the bramble patch, where she got hung up and could do nothing but glare up at her would-be murderer. He spun to follow her, hauling the spade up again, but this time with the blade angled down.

  She wouldn’t plead for her life, but a plea of sorts did screech out. ‘What did you do to Sally?’

  He paused, blinking down at her.

  The name had taken him aback, but it was doubtful he’d recall a victim from all those years ago. Maybe he had expected her to demand to know about Hayley or Courtney…but Sally?

  He shrugged. Raised the spade again, and then rammed it down at her exposed throat.

  49

  She was dead. Decapitated. The latest victim of the deranged monster she called the Fell Man. All those years had been wasted chasing the beast, hoping for answers, for closure, and she’d failed to learn anything at her last gasp. She would never know who he was, or what had become of her sister, or of any of the other girls snatched, abused and ultimately killed by the evil bastard.

  In that instant, that’s what should have been.

  Two things denied fate.

  As it had moments ago to her plan of retreat, nature conspired to thwart his kill. The brambles gave way under Kerry, and she collapsed fully onto her back, so that the spade stabbed through empty air, then bit into the dirt beyond the crown of her head. At the same time, Girl flew at the Fell Man, a fluttering, ragged-winged mass that screeched even as it clawed at his face with sharp nails. She was under his hood, engulfing his face, invading his eyes and mouth. He dropped the spade to swipe her away. He grasped, and crushed, and hurled something away from him. It clattered wetly through branches many feet away.

  No. It wasn’t Girl, but a crow startled by her from its roost in the thicket, that had collided momentarily with him and fought for freedom when it got snagged under his hood. It didn’t matter. His brief fight had taken him metres away, and Kerry was still alive. Her head still rang from the swipe of the spade, and her left arm was all but useless, but the primitive instinct to run or fight flooded through her, and she scrambled, mindless of the thorns digging and scraping into her flesh and clothing as she scuttled deeper under the thicket.

  The Fell Man stomped after her, but she kicked backwards with both heels and flung herself under the protection of the mass of barbs. The brambles offered only brief respite. In his heavy rubber coat and boots the thorns were no deterrent, only the creepers and trailers thwarted him from grasping hold of her ankles and dragging her out. He cast around, snatched up the spade and began hacking them aside as he forced a path into the brambles. Kerry rolled to her hands and knees, cringing at the white-hot explosion of agony in her left forearm, and plunged away from him. Under the snarl of creepers was a natural dome, and she huddled there for a moment, gasping for breath, trying to shake lucidity into eyes suddenly grown blurry. Her ears whistled and popped. The Fell Man roared at her, but his voice was muted, and sounded like a rushing flume. She scrambled further out of reach of the scything sweep of the blade.

  He abruptly backed away, re-evaluated his attack, and raced around the side of the thicket to cut off escape. Immediately Kerry spun and charged back the way she’d just come, and threw herself through the final mesh of slashed and hacked creepers. She sprang up, and away, snagged by trailing lengths of cut bramble, that rattled and clattered in her wake. She couldn’t head towards the house, already the Fell Man had doubled back to cut her off, so she went the other direction, running frantically past where he’d dug the ground. She only took a passing glance, but her heart pinched at the sight of a small figure wrapped in opaque plastic dumped at the bottom of the shallow trench. The sight of his forlorn victim was almost enough to halt her in her tracks, and send her into a do or die fight to avenge her. Except it was a fight she wasn’t equipped to win. Injured, her arm definitely broken, she was in no fit state to fight the spade-wielding brute, not physically. She had to outfox him, lead him on a chase until her colleagues could arrive. Yes. Stay ahead of him, lead him in circles, and then back off when coppers equipped with Tasers and batons could take him down.

  She ran, and got about twenty paces before a loop of bramble around her right ankle caught on a root. Her foot yanked out from under her, throwing her face down in the undergrowth. Howling in anger, she kicked free of the offending creeper, and battled back to her feet, her left elbow cupped in her right hand. She ducked just in time to avoid a third decapitation attempt, and lurched away, with the Fell Man pounding after her.

  Blindly she plunged through slick mud, and then she floundered into deeper water and immediately dove forward to make distance.

  History had its way of repeating, but often with a distinct contradiction. This time, instead of Jermaine Robson’s flight for freedom coming unstuck, it was her that was suddenly plunged under water and in fear of drowning. The Fell Man was more resolute in his pursuit than she’d been at Battersea Park, following immediately into the pond after his prey. Throwing aside the spade, which was an encumbrance, he’d grabbed her flailing left ankle and jerked her beneath the surface. He bore down on her, forcing her into the thick mud, expelling the oxygen from her lungs. There was little strength to fight back, when every iota of effort was spent on gaining life-saving air. She thrashed the water with both hands; even her broken arm flapped about spasmodically. She kicked, and squirmed, but his arms were thick pillars, inexorably forcing her down.

  Bubbles exploded around her face as the last oxygen was pressed from her lungs. Her eyes were wide, but she could see nothing but frothing murk. Her life didn’t flash before her. She heard words. ‘Yes, push him down. Go on. Do it. Push him down, keep him down, keep him under…drown him, Kerry. Fucking murder him.’ She could weep at the irony. History repeating had a nasty sense of humour.

  She was hauled out the water, one of the Fell Man’s hands round the nape of her neck, the other bunched in the back of her shirt. He lifted her as if she weighed less than a baby. She gagged, her chest constricting as her lungs almost imploded. She bucked, spasming in his grasp, and she dragged in a breath, which she couldn’t immediately expel again. Her lungs rebelled against her. She coughed and dirty water jetted from her nostrils. The next gasp for breath sounded like Swain’s keening wail as he’d plunged from the tower block. She was shaken, and the Fell Man jostled her around to peer into her mismatched eyes.

  ‘Who are you?’ he snarled.

  Kerry spluttered and coughed.

  To teach her obedience, he forced her under again, and water invaded her mouth and nostrils.

  He jerked her upright, holding her now with only his left fist bunched in her shirt. His other hand slapped her face, and her head snapped around at the blow, and she vomited out more scummy water.

  ‘I asked who you are?’ he said. ‘Answer me.’

  ‘I’m…I’m a…’ another coughing fit assailed her. She felt boneless.

  ‘You’re a copper. I know that, you stupid bitch. But who are you? Why is this so personal to you?’


  ‘I’m Detective Inspector Darke.’ Her words spilled from her in a hoarse flood.

  Her name meant nothing to him. He certainly wasn’t intimidated by her rank. He looked and acted like a dumb monster, but he was astute enough. ‘Why come here alone? Why not just wait for reinforcements?’

  ‘They’re coming,’ she admitted, hopeful that he’d elect to escape rather than continue down this murderous path.

  ‘No,’ he growled, but there was more meaning in his word than regret. ‘You came here alone. It means you’re an idiot, or you have something personal to prove.’

  ‘You’re the Fell Man,’ she told him. ‘And you took my sister Sally.’

  ‘Did I now?’ He thought about it, grunted. ‘Well I hope she was more fun to be with than you.’

  Abruptly he forced her backwards and, for the third time, Kerry was drowning.

  She flopped like a fish in his grasp. Kicked him between his legs, except there was such drag on her foot it lacked power. He was unaffected. He pushed her deeper. Her right hand grabbed and clawed for…anything. She found mud and weeds, rotted cloth, thin sticks and something domed and smooth. Her thumb sank into a circular hole, fingers curling over a jagged protrusion. She hoped it was a rock, but it was too light. It didn’t matter. It was something...a weapon. With every ounce left in her, she smashed the object directly in the Fell Man’s face.

  Suddenly she was floating free. She kicked away, and erupted from the pond, spluttering and blinking wildly. Dirty water washed her vision, but in that moment she felt surrounded, insubstantial grey figures encircling her — but not threatening her, they were in a defensive ring. She swiped at her face with her good arm, clearing her vision, but not of the dim motes that floated around her. They were the same shade as the drizzle, but had coalesced to something denser than the mist. Girls. A group of them.

  The Fell Man’s hood had fallen down. His head was bald, knotty in places with thick veins. Blood poured freely from a deep gash in his forehead. Kerry couldn’t see what damage she’d caused to his features because he cupped his face in both hands. Blood dripped between his fingers, and he moaned, deep in his chest. She glanced down at the improvised weapon snatched from the floor of the pond. It was broken, jagged where it had been a smooth dome before. Tanned brown by the peaty water. Bone. Her thumb was still inserted in an eye socket, fingers furled around the nasal cavity. It was a skull. The skull of a human child! Her hand spasmed and the skull sank below the turgid water. In horror, Kerry looked at the shades surrounding her, and knew who they were. Desperately she searched among them for Sally.

  ‘You’ve blinded me! Aaaah! You’ve fucking blinded me!’

  The Fell Man’s roar snapped her attention back on him. His left hand was slapped over his left eye. Blood poured from under it, down his chin and under the collar of his rain slicker. Another deep cut parted the skin over the bridge of his nose, also pulsing with blood, and the skin under his right eye gaped like a fish’s mouth.

  Her tumble down the stairs, followed by her fight with the monster, had taken its toll on her. Bumps, bruises, strains, half-drowned and a broken arm: he’d gotten off lightly by comparison. Whether his blinding was permanent or not, it didn’t make much difference to the probable outcome of their battle. He still outmatched her in size and strength, and couldn’t care less about the damage he inflicted. He was intent on murder, while she hoped to survive.

  She couldn’t speak. Her throat convulsed, attempting to expunge filthy pond water from her lungs. Likely there were no words he’d listen to anyway. He lowered his reddened palm, and stared at it with his remaining good eye. There was too much mess to tell if his injured eyeball was still whole, blood everywhere, the eyelids already swelling to the size of her fist. His mouth opened in dismay, and even his large teeth were slimy with blood. His head came up, and he quivered in rage as he stared at her with his one feverish eye. ‘I’m gonna rip for your fucking head off!’

  He was hip deep in the pond. Kerry’s scramble for freedom had taken her closer to shore, but her feet were sunk in the mire, surrounded by the broken bones of murdered children. Fallen trees at the pond’s edge blocked escape. To get away she had the choice of trying to swim, or somehow avoiding him, and reaching the place where she’d originally blundered into the pond. Her broken arm made swimming at speed impossible. He could wade after her in seconds and drag her under again. Her gaze darted everywhere, seeking anything to use as a weapon. There were no skulls in easy reach this time. No branches. No…wait!

  Kerry lunged to the right.

  The Fell Man was after her in an instant. He charged towards her, a frothing wake kicked up behind him: he roared wordlessly as he came.

  Suddenly, the wraith-girls flew at him, engulfing him. They swooped and darted like bats, large bats, swirling around him, tearing and clawing, latching onto his coat and head. If he was aware of the assault, the Fell Man gave no sign, but Kerry was paying him little heed at that moment. She kicked and stamped the last few feet, ploughing through sucking mud and grabbed at the handle of the spade he’d dropped. Her left hand was weak, but she cupped the handle, held it a few inches higher on the shaft with her right.

  ‘Keep away from me!’ Her bark was surprisingly loud, and sounded nothing like her voice. She jabbed the head of the spade at him.

  The Fell Man didn’t pause. If anything, he picked up speed as he surged through shallower water, still mobbed but unhindered by the infuriated girls.

  ‘I’m warning you…’

  His groping hands were seconds from her.

  At that moment Kerry wasn’t a detective inspector, she was simply a woman fighting for her life. She swung the spade up, and chopped down with everything she had.

  He stumbled to a halt, hands dropping by his sides. His mouth hung open, then canted lower at one side. Kerry didn’t release her hold on the spade. Its steel head was embedded in the horrific wound above his too-wide-open mouth: his jawbone was severed, and part of his neck. There was no lucidity in his one good eye, as he sank to his knees in the muck. Only the pressure on the spade handle held him up. Kerry snatched her hands off it. He stumbled forward, but miraculously caught himself on one hand. His other plucked numbly at the spade’s shaft. And as though stunned by the violence, all the girls backed off. They stood again in a silent semi-circle around the fallen brute.

  Insanely, after swallowing all that pond water, Kerry couldn’t work any moisture into her mouth. She stood before him, also numbed by what she’d done.

  She told Erick Swain there was a line she wouldn’t cross, that she was incapable of murder. But she’d never been in a situation like this before. His words echoed mockingly in her brain. ‘Tell me that again once I set your hands on the Fell Man.’

  The spade fell loose, disappeared under water.

  Fresh blood gouted from the side of the child killer’s neck.

  He could only touch the wound tremulously, his strength flooding out with each beat of his heart. He tried to press his severed jaw back in line. The agony must have been incredible, but Kerry felt no pity. The girls stood silent and unmoving, mourners around an open grave. They were all looking at her, a silent prompt.

  ‘What did you do to Sally?’ Kerry rasped. ‘Do you hear me? What did you do to my sister?’

  He gurgled something unintelligible.

  Kerry moved closer. ‘Tell me, you monster. What did you do to Sally?’ She glanced briefly at their silent audience. All the girls hung their heads. Sally wasn’t among them. ‘You killed all these children! But there were others too, weren’t there? What did you do with them? Where is my sister?’

  Her shriek sparked something inside him. He knew he was dying, but killing was in his nature as strongly as his appetite for pre-pubescent girls. He launched at Kerry, intent on taking her with him.

  She sucked back her hips, slapped down with her right palm on the back of his neck, and drove him face first into the mud. He floundered, and she too went to her kne
es, but leaning over his wide back.

  ‘Yes, push him down,’ Swain’s voice exhorted her. ‘Go on. Do it. Push him down, keep him down, keep him under…’ She bore into him, keeping him flat in the muck, feeling him buck and convulse. ‘Drown him, Kerry. Fucking murder him.’

  She jerked up, appalled at the lengths she’d almost gone to.

  ‘Stamp on his fucking throat!’ Swain’s command echoed through her skull like the tolling of a bell, but she stumbled back, staring down at the submerged figure. His blood spread around him, soft bubbles of escaping air popping at the surface. The Fell Man deserved to die, but if he did, how would she ever learn what had happened to Sally? She scrambled to him again, grasped his hood with her good hand, and began dragging him to shore.

  He was too heavy; she was too weak. She sank down in the thick muck as her grip gave out. He no longer moved. There would be no answer from him.

  She sat gasping, shivering, her brain clogged with fog. She had survived, slain the bogeyman, and saved who knew how many future victims, but she felt wretched. She wept, cradling her broken arm against her abdomen, repeating over and over again, ‘I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry…’ Her words were for Sally and the other girls who moved in to huddle around her, not for the despicable creature buried face first in the pond slime.

  It was minutes before she finally crawled back to dry land. Using a tree limb to help her stand, she turned once to survey the pond. The drizzle had stopped, but the mist still hung over the wide expanse of murky water. Some of the girls had retreated further across the pond, and to right and left. They dissolved into the water, returning to their mortal remains sunken below. Others stood alongside Kerry, but when she looked at them they moved away, seeking their shallow graves among the trees. Dumbly, Kerry staggered after them, noting where each figure melted into the undergrowth, and the ground beneath. In their final moments, Kerry could make out the simplest of details, but none of those mouths that whispered their silent thanks was that of her sister. She continued, following two final figures. One of them paused at the freshly dug grave, and her shoulders hunched as she bent to inspect her corporeal form wrapped in dirty plastic. She glimpsed at Kerry, and her face was vivid for a second, before she smiled sadly too, then almost spilled like water into her temporary grave.