The Nightmare Man: (Child of the Vodyanoi)

by David Wiltshire

  The wind moaned in the branches as he made an effort to look around. He was giving up when something flashed white over to his right, beside a fallen tree whose branches formed the only bush in the long wooden corridors.

  He approached, and immediately realized it wasn’t the ball, but a bit of white cloth. Curiosity prompted him to insert the club head into the bottom branch and lift.

  There was a rustling, the weight decreased, and a human arm, hand curled up, fell silently out.

  Dunlop took a full second to grasp the awful implication. There could be no question that the victim, presumably of the fallen tree, was dead. The arm, particularly the curled fingers, was a waxy grey with deep blue veins of stagnated, clotted blood showing through.

  He braced himself for the ordeal and pulled a big branch aside.

  Despite his readiness, what he saw made him retch. He stumbled back, tripped up and rolled over to come to rest on his knees, body racked with great convulsions, as vomit pumped from his mouth.

  .. It was all done and over in seconds. Shakily he got to his. feet. Not a nervous man he nevertheless tensed at the brooding restless trees all around, and the memory of the crazed violence that had been wrought on the poor creature that had once been a woman and who was now mercifully concealed once again.

  Dunlop made to collect his golf club from where it still hung. He changed his mind and drew carefully back out to the fairway, now firmly back in control of himself.

  It took ten minutes to get back to the club house, a couple of •converted crofters’ cottages. There was nobody around in the .winter, each member having a key to the premises. The groundsman had long since gone home, and the barman only attended his caged, padlocked area on weekend lunchtimes.

  Dunlop let himself in and pushed the door shut against the .wind. Fixed, to the whitewashed stone wall was the telephone. He lifted the receiver and dialled 0. The familiar pleasant tone of Maria Bell, one of the town’s operators, came on the line.

  “Good afternoon, can I help you?”

  “Maria—Ian Dunlop here.”

  “Oh, hello Mr Dunlop. Not very nice weather, is it?”

  He agreed, trying to keep the urgency out of his voice. Dunlop knew that Maria, good soul that she was, would listen in if he demanded the police in a hurry. That way the whole town would know in the hour and it struck him that might not be a good thing. Somebody was responsible for what he had found, so if the police could get started first without warning the maniac, it might help to trap him. He felt sick again at the thought that their little community contained such an obscenity.

  “I’d like to speak to Mr Inskip please, Maria.”

  “Right away, Mr Dunlop.”

  He waited, listening to her get through to the small slate covered police station that boasted a total force of twenty men. She bantered quickly with the desk sergeant, Hamish Robertson, and then came back to him as the latter operated the old switchboard and rang Inspector Inskip’s extension.

  Maria chirped away in her sing-song voice.

  “Trying to connect you now, Mr Dunlop. Before I go I was wondering if I could come and see you Friday. It’s my day off this week and I’ve just lost a filling.”

  “Of course, Maria; give my receptionist a ring straight away and tell her to squeeze you in somewhere.”

  “Thank you, I’ll do just that,” she said as Duncan Inskip’s voice snapped out his own surname, the Glaswegian accent cutting across Maria’s soft lilt. Dunlop automatically sensed in his mind’s eye the red-haired Inspector who had a reputation for toughness, as many a summer yobbo had found out to his disadvantage.

  “Hello Duncan—Ian Dunlop here.”

  “Hello there. To what do I owe the honour of a wee word with you on your day off?”

  Inskip’s voice sounded relieved. Poor bugger, thought Dunlop, he thinks it’s a social call about one of their many shared activities.

  He took a deep breath.

  “Bad news I’m afraid.”

  Inskip’s voice still remained unguarded.

  “Aye?”

  “Yes, I’m up at the Golf Club.”

  The voice at the other end chuckled.

  “Having trouble with your back swing as usual?”

  Dunlop was too shocked to respond.

  “No, a bit more serious.”

  “Well?” Inskip was puzzled by his friend’s reticence.

  “I’ve just discovered a body of a woman—in the trees to the right of the seventh hole.”

  There was a fractional silence, and then the voice, now hard and professional, came back.

  “I see. I take it you’ve touched nothing?”

  “Only the absolute minimum. I was floundering around looking for my ball you realize.”

  “Is it anybody we know?”

  Dunlop shook his head.

  “I’ve no idea, but there’s something you should understand.”

  “Well?”

  Dunlop took a deep breath.

  “The poor thing has been savagely assaulted—torn to pieces. I’ve never seen anything like it. Duncan—the head is missing, it’s that bad.”

  3

  While he waited he looked lovingly at the whisky bottles on the shelves, safe behind their bars. The wind had increased, roaring in straight down the loch and howling around the eaves. When he tapped the barometer the needle dropped. It was also noticeably colder. The light faded rapidly and it was soon pitch black. He couldn’t help thinking of the woman out there, of her poor cold remains, and those last awful moments when she had known she was going to die.

  Dunlop knew little of formalized psychiatry, but there was no doubt in his mind that who had done that to another human being was a madman—in the true sense of the word. And possessing a madman’s awful strength.

  His thoughts were mercifully interrupted by the sudden appearance of two dull yellow ‘eyes’ as a car approached the building up the gravel road.

  It swung around the open parking space before the windows, its windscreen wipers struggling with the near horizontal rain. Doors flew open, caught by the wind, and four figures in long black macks struggled to the porchway. Waiting until the last moment, Dunlop pulled the door open.

  In a flurry of rain and cold air, the four men, stamping and blowing, came in. Dunlop closed the door swiftly, needing to put some weight behind it, and turned.

  Sergeant Robertson’s face, large and craggy, was shining with water, spots falling from the brim of his peaked cap with the black and white squares around the band. He slid off the chin strap, handkerchief ready to mop up.

  Duncan Inskip’s red hair was already ruffled as he slapped his wet trilby against his hand. His face was grim.

  “This is a terrible thing ye’re telling me, Ian. There can be no doubt in yer mind that it’s not an accident?”

  Dunlop shook his head.

  “You’ll see what I mean.”

  The big man scratched his nose.

  “Ay, right enough, though it could’na be worse, what with the dark and rain. We won’t be able to do much until morning, but it would’na be right to leave the poor girl alone another night.”

  He put his hand into his pocket and produced a bunch of keys.

  “I got these from Greg on the way up. Thought maybe you could do with a dram.”

  Dunlop ran the back of his hand across his mouth.

  “You’re damned right—thanks for the thought.”

  Inskip turned to the bar, unlocked the padlock and pulled up the grille. They gathered around as he produced a full unopened bottle of whisky from beneath the counter.

  “I’ll have this charged to the police—emergency issue.”

  He twisted off the cap, poured generous measures into five glasses, pushing them one by one towards the gathered men. There was no cheery toast, in Gaelic or English. Dunlop felt the liquid burning its way down, stopping the movement of his guts that had been present since his eyes had fallen on what had once been another’s.

&nb
sp; Inskip set his glass down.

  “We’d better get on with it. Sergeant, would you get your men to bring the equipment from the car?”

  Robertson, big as he was, placed the glass delicately on the counter.

  “Ay, sir, and thank ye for the nip. Come on you two.”

  The young constables followed him to the door, the wind lashing the room again before they got the door shut behind them.

  Inskip splashed some more of the pale, straw-coloured liquid into their glasses and then looked squarely at the dentist.

  “There’s one thing I don’t understand.”

  Dunlop looked back at him quizzically.

  “What?”

  “You seemed very upset on the ’phone. You’re not unused to the sight of blood—so why?”

  Before replying, Dunlop threw the whisky down his throat. “Not like this. I agree I’ve seen mangled bodies, dissected them even at hospital. But I’ve never seen a woman violated and…”

  He faltered.

  “It’s all so ghastly. Her pathetic bits and pieces, everyday things lying around ... and then the mess that was a body left just as it was used—except for the awful vandalism. That’s the really obscene part. Jesus, Duncan, who ever did it wasn’t' content to leave it at that, he went on…”

  He lapsed into silence.

  Inskip nodded.

  “I see. Tell me how you came to find the body.”

  Dunlop went through the brief events that led to the discovery. Inskip listened attentively until he had finished. “That sounds straight forward. I’ll have to ask you to make a statement of course, and it might be necessary to get your fingerprints.”

  Dunlop nodded numbly.

  Inskip set his glass down.

  “Come on then, let’s get it over with.”

  They struggled across the course, coats ripping in the gale, the rain driving into their collars, sending cold rivulets down under their shirts. The constables carried heavy duty electric lamps with standing brackets, the rain streaking white in the beams and reflecting back from the glistening grass.

  On the fairway of the seventh, with the wind suddenly dropping in the shelter of the restless trees, they stopped.

  Reluctantly, with the spotlights playing into the black abyss before them, Dunlop took the lead.

  It didn’t take long. Something flashed in the lights being played nervously all around. It was his club head, still hanging in the wet branch.

  He held his light on it, but made no effort to go any further. “There.”

  Inskip pushed past with Robertson, the constables following. They all gathered around the tree with their backs to him, but almost immediately one of the young men staggered away, body convulsing.

  Inskip came back.

  “Ay, it’s all you say it is—and more.”

  “What happens now?”

  Inskip shrugged into his coat.

  “Not much. Robertson is going to tie a canvas sheet over the area and the lads will stand guard for the first watch. There’s nothing constructive we can do here tonight, and there’s a lot of potential harm in blundering around in the dark.

  “I’ll telephone the Mainland and ask them to check on the passengers who left on tonight’s ferry. Tomorrow we’ll take care of that side of it ourselves. Nobody will leave the island without clearance.”

  Dunlop nodded and shuddered. “But I can’t get over the thought that somebody in our midst might have done this.”

  Inskip never answered.

  There was a sudden, uncharacteristic shout from Sergeant Robertson. They all dashed to where he was standing, holding a rope, one end of which was looped around a branch. He had been fixing the canvas shelter.

  When they got there, they couldn’t understand for a second why he was white faced and distressed, wiping his cheek with the back of his hand.

  In his light they saw the second rope, the one which had swung on to his face as he threw his up.

  The men instinctively drew nearer in revulsion and disbelief.

  The branches were festooned with shiny, yellow-green ribbons. It was human viscera.

  It was three miles to the town, which was situated on the other side of the loch, under the lee of the steep mountains that came down to the water’s edge. Dunlop drove his own car, following the tail lights of the police car. His thoughts were with the two young constables, guarding the grisly remains. The case would be all over the front pages of the national papers he guessed as soon as the news reached the Mainland.

  The cars splashed along the inadequately lit narrow streets, the puddles reflecting in the dull street lights and the occasional shop window that cast a warmer shaft out into the cold night.

  Dunlop glanced at his watch. It was a quarter to six. In less than the hour only the street lamps would be left alight, swinging in the wind that was moving the fishing boats moored in the sheltered tiny harbour, their masts weaving like pointing knitting needles.

  The street gave out into the main square with the squat weathered church dominating the south side, surrounded by railings and a low privet hedge.

  On the north side was the two storied police headquarters, water pouring from a broken gutter and splashing to one side of the four steps that led up to the door.

  They passed into the hall and up the stairs to Inskip’s office on the first floor.:

  Inskip pointed to a chair by the window.

  ‘‘Bring that over here, Ian—it won’t take long.” He sat down and reached for his desk inter-com. “McCallum, get through to Mainland H.Q., and send somebody in here with a notebook—I want a statement taken.”

  He put the phone down.

  “Like a cup of tea?”

  Dunlop shook his head.

  “No thanks, Duncan.” He took a look at his watch. “How long am I likely to be?”

  Inskip gave a grunt.

  “Ten minutes. Fiona waiting for you is she?”

  Dunlop nodded glumly.

  “We’re supposed to be meeting at seven. Our regular midweek treat is Old Cruickshank’s Scampi, though my appetite is a bit blunted.”

  Inskip pulled a pad towards him.

  “Don’t be so daft—do you good.”

  ' He started to write, frowned, and reached for the inter-com again.

  “McCallum, are there any reports of missing people- islanders—in the last few days?”

  “I’ll see, sir, but none come to mind.”

  “Right. And I want Doctor Mackay on the line as soon as I’ve finished with the Mainland. Have you got them yet?”

  “Not yet, sir, the lines are full. The exchange is ringing back.”

  Inskip banged his palm on the desk in exasperation.

  “God dammit, man, this is urgent—did ye no’ realize that?”

  He switched off and turned back to Dunlop, his face strained.

  Dunlop nodded at the inter-com.

  “How will you go about finding who she is?”

  Inskip sighed.

  “We can soon check the local populace. If she’s not one of us, she must have come in on the ferry—and be staying somewhere. If we can find her head in the morning that will help.”

  He passed a hand through his hair, his face suddenly looking older and tired.

  “This is one hell of a thing to happen in a place like this. It’s all right maybe in Glasgow or London. Places that size are big enough and anonymous enough to soften the blow. But here…”

  He shook his head sadly.

  “The scars may never heal in our lifetime. I can only hope the maniac is not one of us, but one thing is for sure right enough. We’ve got to get him. That ...” He hesitated. “... man ... is not even a normal psychopath, and if he is here on this island, every man, woman and child goes in peril of their life.”

  4

  He took a hurried shower, knowing he was going to be late. But Ian Dunlop had to cleanse himself of all that had gone before.

  When he finally arrived at Fiona Patterson’s flat ab
ove the- chemist shop which she managed, and was the dispenser, he was fully twenty minutes late.

  He ran up the iron outside stairs at the side of the building and pressed the bell marked “Private. F. Patterson. Emergency Prescriptions only.”

  He waited, looking down through the mesh steel floor to the ferns growing below. Illuminated by the red light passing through the enormous, old fashioned chemist’s bottle standing in the shop side window, the delicate leaves glowed as if hot.

  The door swung open. Fiona Patterson, dark short hair brushed across her forehead, was clearly not happy, but even frowning she was, to Ian Dunlop, breathtaking.

  She gave a sniff.

  “Where the hell have you been? I’m hungry.”

  After the last few hours, her down to earth, if somewhat unromantic greeting was perfect. He took her in his arms and just hung on to her for a moment, thinking of the number of times perhaps that other poor woman had been hugged. She smelt of musty, earthy flowers that made his blood race.

  Fiona chuckled somewhere by his right ear.

  “If you think you’re going to get around me like this— you’re right.”

  She pulled back grinning and searched his face, her smile dying away.

  “What’s the matter?”

  Dunlop was thankful that Inskip had called him back as he was leaving his office:

  “Ian.”

  “Yes.”

  “You can tell Fiona. It would be unreasonable for me to expect you not to. But do stress that at the moment it must be kept strictly to yourselves. I want to control the game as long as possible.”

  Dunlop had thanked him—uncertainly. But as he had made his way to her flat he had realized that it would have been impossible not to tell her why he was so subdued. Inskip had realized that immediately.

  He forced a grin.