Beast of Robbers Wood

by Ralph E. Vaughan

  Stark uttered a breathy sigh.

  “I understand your confusion, Sergeant,” Hardwick said. “You are from a world where the oldest buildings are only a thousand years old or so, merely yesterday in the grand scale of time. The temple of the Beast is far older, maybe a hundred thousand years or more...much more.”

  Stark knew his strong suit was not history, but he knew enough to know there were no people, no human people at least, that long ago. He did not want to know about legends, about tree-worshiping madmen, or about the bloody Beast. He wanted to know what had happened to the girls, and he now wished the guv’nor had not told him all intimidation was to be ‘gentle.’ He was beginning to suspect this rustic toff knew much more than he was spilling, and all he needed was five minutes alone with him to find out everything they wanted to know.

  “The girls were acting oddly,” Stark said, his words filled with a mildness he did not feel. “Then what happened?”

  “They paused at the walk,” Hardwick said. “There was some sort of exchange between them. About what?” He shrugged. “I have no idea. Annie walked out of my field of vision. Lisa stood looking up the walk. I would not have been surprised had she started up Maple, but she did not. Less than a minute later she moved on, walking slowly. She walked past the cottage.”

  “She know you were watching her?” Stark asked.

  Hardwick pursed his lips at Stark’s tone. “No.”

  “Did she continue to glance at the woods?” Ravyn asked.

  “From time to time,” Hardwick said. “But she made no more outbursts. Mostly she looked ahead and down. She tried to take out a cigarette, but she seemed clumsy suddenly. She almost dropped the package. She put it back without pulling out a fag.”

  “And then?” Stark asked.

  Hardwick pointed out the widow, toward a gnarled tree at the far corner of his property. “She went out of sight, and that’s the last I saw of her. Autumn is only a few hundred yards further on.”

  “Yet she never made it,” Stark said. “Just five minutes between here and Autumn Lane, and she never made it.”

  Hardwick sighed. “Such are the vagaries of life, Sergeant.”

  “What did you do after she passed by?” Stark asked.

  “Sat here, sipping tea, watching the woods,” Hardwick replied. “Same as I do most afternoons and early evenings.”

  “You didn’t go out?”

  “No, of course I did not go out,” Hardwick said, snapping. “I just told you I sat here. I watched the woods as I often do in the late afternoon and evening. I am very much a creature of habit.”

  “You didn’t follow Lisa Martin?”

  “Why would I do…” Hardwick’s eyes narrowed to slits. “No, I did not leave my cottage, did not follow Lisa Martin, and did not do anything like what might be filling your nasty little mind.”

  “No witnesses?” Stark asked.

  “I live alone.”

  “Were you surprised when you heard that Lisa Martin had vanished?” Ravyn asked.

  “Frankly, no,” Hardwick admitted. “It’s been many years since the Beast took a victim. It was due. It is infuriating to me that she was taken only after she passed out of my sight, but it confirms what I have come to suspect.”

  “And what is that, Mr Hardwick?” Ravyn asked.

  “That the Beast is highly intelligent and fiendishly cunning,” Hardwick explained. “But I now also believe that it watches me, perhaps even more closely than I watch it.”

  Stark snorted. “Bollocks!”

  “Chief Inspector, Sergeant, may I show you something?”

  “Please.” Ravyn said.

  Hardwick led them out of the room and up a narrow flight of stairs. Usually Stark would have followed behind Ravyn, but he was not about to let the old man out of his sight for a second. At the top they entered a dim passage with three doors, two along one wall, the other at the end. All the doors were closed.

  At the final door, Hardwick fished a ring of brass keys from his pocket, inserted a heavy lever lock key into the ornate escutcheon plate and started to turn it. He paused.

  “I must ask you to keep everything I show you confidential,” Hardwick said. “There are people who would not understand.”

  “I cannot make such a promise in an investigation,” Ravyn said. “However, we will not reveal anything unless there is a valid and compelling reason to do so. It’s the best I can do.”

  “It seems I must then trust to your discretion.” He gave Stark a sharp glance. “Both of you.”

  “Of course,” Ravyn said.

  Stark shrugged.

  Hardwick opened the door and reached inside. Before the light fixture flickered to life, Ravyn breathed deeply and understood the nature of Hardwick’s secret.

  “Bloody hell,” Stark murmured.

  Memories were Ravyn’s forever, subject to retrieval at any time, examined as necessary, perhaps with a greater understanding than when first formed. To hold the past at bay, he kept recollections compartmentalised, as if pigeon-holed in a vast mail-sorter. Some stimuli could dissolve the iron bands of his will, and the sense of smell was the most pervasive. A stray scent could trigger memories of found and lost love, a final visit to a dying aunt’s sickroom, or the discovery of his first body. This time, he was assailed by the pulpish mustiness of books, the acrid smell of old newsprint, the sharp tang of magazine paper, and the sour pong of photographic chemicals. He plunged into every public and private library, newspaper morgue and shadowed archive he had ever visited. He fought his way out of the morass of memory, back to the present.

  “What kind of game you playing at?” Stark demanded.

  “Please do not jump to the wrong conclusion, Sergeant,” the old man said. “Permit me to explain.”

  “Explain what?” Stark asked. “That you’re a kinky geezer who doesn’t mean no harm, or that you’re a victim of society?”

  “There’s a perfectly valid reason for this, Sergeant.”

  Ravyn swept his gaze over the room’s walls, taking in all the photos of girls walking Flintlock, the ordinance and antique maps, and the newspaper clippings. The photographs and clippings were connected to the maps and each other by strings of various colours. Tables along the walls held photographic equipment and stacks of newspapers and magazines. Bookcases held tomes of every sort, from mass market paperbacks to centuries old books bound in leather with iron fastenings.

  “Fine then,” Stark said. “Tell me why I shouldn’t clap bracelets on you and take you in for…”

  “You said you’ve investigated the Beast of Robbers Wood for more than sixty years, Mr Hardwick,” Ravyn said. “Why?”

  Hardwick sighed. “Nearly seventy really. When I was a wee lad, it was just a story. We dared the timid to enter the woods, even to find the temple. Just a hoary old legend whispered in our ears to keep us awake long winter nights. Then my sister, Lucy, was taken by the Beast.” He pointed to a yellowed clipping. “That was just after the war. Everything was in a state of flux. People said she ran off with a boy, even our parents after awhile, but I knew better.”

  “So, this is all about finding out what happened to your sister?” Stark looked at the clipping, then a monochrome photo pinned next to it. “This her?”

  Hardwick nodded. “She would never have run away. Her whole life was in Midriven.” He looked around his research room. “Of course, it’s about more than Lucy now. I know she’s no longer alive, that realisation was forced upon me long ago, but she was not the first and there have been others. I want to know what happened to all of them, and how to keep it from happening to others.”

  Ravyn pulled several books from the nearest bookcase. “Your interests transcend the Beast, I see.”

  “Local history, yes, all facets, and regional as well,” Hardwick said. “I thought my expertise as an historian would bring the sort of investigation to bear which I could not mount on my own. The books I wrote did not attract as much interest as I hoped they would, unfortunately.
I was passed off as a…well, a nutter.”

  “Can’t imagine why,” Stark murmured.

  “Do you mind if I…” Ravyn held the books up.

  “No, of course not,” Hardwick said. “Please keep them as long as necessary. I’m quite proud of them.”

  Ravyn began flipping through the books.

  “This a picture of Lisa Martin?” Stark asked.

  Hardwick nodded. “It was taken last month, from the window of the room we were in.”

  Stark looked at the other photos. All were of girls walking in Flintlock Lane. Some, like the snap of Lisa, had been taken from Hardwick’s cottage, but others were from various points along the lane. Most girls seemed oblivious they were being photographed, but smiles from others indicated at least tacit encouragement. The changing fashions were an indication of how long Hardwick had been at it. But had been at what, Stark wondered? Perhaps he was an historian, as he claimed, but Stark thought it equally possible, even more really, that he was also a twisted old geezer using a lost sister as an excuse to get his jollies.

  “So,” Stark said, “you’re saying that all the girls who vanished were taken by this monster of yours?”

  “By no means,” Hardwick said. “I’m no fool.”

  I wouldn’t bet on it, Stark thought.

  “I know not everyone is happy within the confines of a village, that some yearn for a faster, more exciting pace of life,” Hardwick said. “The present generation has no monopoly on dissatisfaction or angst. Cities have always presented an allurement that places like Midriven cannot match. Of course some girls run away, take off with some randy lad, but I’m not talking about those.”

  “You don’t think Lisa Martin is the type to run away?”

  “Even if she were, does it actually seem to you that she did?” Hardwick asked. “She walked pass my cottage, but never made it to Autumn Lane. She did not pass me a second time. Sometime during that five or ten minutes, she was taken.”

  “And you saw no one in the woods?” Stark persisted. “No trace at all, no sign of anyone? No flash of colour or movement?”

  Hardwick sighed. “As I already told you—no.”

  “We believe there was someone in the woods.” Stark glanced at Ravyn, but the guv’nor was swiftly turning page after page, almost fanning through the books. “There was an escape from Irongate a few days ago, a murderer, a killer whose victims were all…” He glanced at Lisa’s photo. “…young and blonde.”

  Hardwick shook his head. “It was the Beast. It happened to Lisa, just as it did to Lucy. The Beast is out there, and it waits, and it takes what it wants. It watches me! The Beast! Not a man!”

  “All right, calm down, Mr Hardwick,” Stark said. He shook his head. Hardwick was a nutter, no doubt about that, but he was a sincere one. “What about Annie Treadwell?”

  Hardwick wiped a drop of spittle from his lips. “What?” He looked confused. “What about…what about her?”

  “Have you seen her since yesterday?”

  “No,” Hardwick replied. “I don’t know what happened to her. The Beast does not leave the forest, but if she came near it…I guess it could have…I haven’t seen her.”

  “You’ve amassed quite a large amount of anecdotal evidence about the Beast.” Ravyn replaced the books, earning a gaze of wonderment from the old man. “But I note you did not write about any exploration of the woods.”

  Hardwick cast his gaze down. “Just the edges, Chief Inspector. I haven’t penetrated the depths. I don’t dare,”

  “Yet others have,” Ravyn said. “Zoriah Stoneman for one.”

  “I observe,” Hardwick said. “I don’t enter. It waits. It watches.”

  “Shall we go back down?” Ravyn said. “We’ve seen everything we need to see here. You’ve made your point.”

  “You won’t…” Hardwick’s voice faltered as he locked the door. “I mean…some people here might…they might misinterpret…”

  “We’ll hold it confidential,” Ravyn said, “for the time being.”

  “But stop taking photos of girls,” Stark said.

  Hardwick’s chin raised defiantly. “Why? I’m not breaking any law. They are in a public place, and they don’t mind.”

  “You inform them all they’re being photographed?”

  Hardwick frowned and bit his lip. “No.”

  “Then stop,” Stark said. “As you say, if it got out, some people might not understand it’s all for research. They might think you a mad old bugger, mightn’t they?”

  Hardwick looked to Ravyn for support against Stark’s bullying, but saw no encouragement. The chief inspector seemed deep in thought. It was impossible to believe the man had read through all those books in a few minutes, but his comments proved otherwise.

  “Very well, Sergeant,” Hardwick grumbled. “However, you would not have accurate information about those girls’ movements if not for my research. Photographic documentation is an essential part of my investigation into the nature of the Beast.”

  “You have been warned,” Stark reminded him. “Don’t make me say it again.”

  “Very well!” Hardwick clumped noisily down the stairs like a petulant child told ‘no’ for the first time in his life. “Strapper.”

  “Well done,” Ravyn said, his words only audible to Stark.

  “He knows more than he’s saying, sir,” Stark whispered.

  By the time they returned to the sitting room, Hardwick’s calm and distant demeanour had returned. He had hoped that sharing the reason for his interest in the woods and the girls who walked along Flintlock Lane would allay their suspicions about him. But, now, he was not sure if he had hurt or helped his cause. The sergeant was antagonistic and blunt, perhaps even more wary of him than he had been before, but the man was a strapper, so, obviously, any hope for intelligence or understanding was perhaps doomed from the start. The chief inspector, however, remained an enigma to him. The fact that he was a Man of Hammershire (though he could just as easily be a Hammershire Man, depending on his birthplace) had given him hope for appreciation and sympathy, but he still had no idea of where he stood. Well, he thought, he had tried his best, and if they still could not comprehend the obvious, that was too bloody bad.

  “You don’t hold James Treadwell in high regard,” Ravyn said. “Why is that?”

  “When did I ever say that?”

  “What you said was, ‘There goes the daughter of that ponce James Treadwell, the poor girl,’ which is not complementary in the least,” Ravyn said.

  Hardwick scowled. He hardly recalled what he had tossed off when asked about the Treadwell girl, but he did resent it being tossed back at him. The sergeant was as sharp as a river pebble, but Hardwick now realised he would have to be very careful what he said within Ravyn’s hearing.

  “He’s not the most pleasant of men, that’s certainly no secret,” Hardwick said. “His father, whom I knew very well, was not at all the same way, an example of the apple falling on the other side of the fence, I suppose. Young Jimmy—later on he insisted on being called James—was a terror to the other children, quite the tyrant. If he saw something he wanted, he took it, which, I suppose is how he came to marry a girl like Ella Goodway. Sad day, that. She was very nice.” He thought about his photos of her, but there was no need to share that with them. “I steer clear of Little Jimmy when I can, as, I suppose, most decent folk of Midriven do.”

  “Who doesn’t?” Ravyn asked.

  “What?” Hardwick looked confused. “Who doesn’t what?”

  “If decent folk avoid him, who seeks him out? And why?”

  “Fools,” the old man said with a dismissive wave of his hand. “People who think he can give them what they want. Those over whom he has some kind of hold. I don’t involve myself with sordid village politics.”

  “What about PC Vainglory?” Ravyn asked.

  “Worthless git,” Hardwick said. “But, yes, they are thick.”

  “And why is that?”

  Hardwick shrugg
ed. “I’m sure I don’t know.”

  “Sir.” Stark gestured out the window. “Something’s up.”

  Ravyn left Hardwick to look outside. He had other questions to put to the historian, for he knew Hardwick was leaving out more than he was telling, but Stark was correct. Two constables ran out of the woods, each to his car. A moment later Stark’s mobile chimed.

  “Stark.” He listened a long moment. “Cordon off the scene and do not let anyone near it. Call Stafford and…” He listened a moment longer. “Very good, Sergeant. Protect the scene until they arrive, and have someone ready to guide them in. DCI Ravyn and I will be with you in a few minutes. Yes. Thank you.”

  Ravyn did not turn from the window. “What is it, Stark?”

  “A body, sir,” he replied. “They found a body in the woods.”

  “The Beast!” Hardwick shot to his feet. He caught up with the two detectives already at the door. “Victims of the Beast are rarely found. I must see what…”

  “Stay here, Mr Hardwick.” Ravyn’s tone was quiet, but sharp.

  “But…” He paused at the door, then started after them.

  Stark whirled about. “Don’t give me cause to toss you in the nick. Right now, nothing would give me greater pleasure.”

  Frustrated and angry, Hardwick watched the two detectives head toward the parked cars. He rubbed his jaw thoughtfully. A body, the sergeant had said, but whose?

  Chapter 7

  Body

  DCI Ravyn looked westward, into the dark heart of Robbers Wood. It was a bright day, the sky washed a milky white, but almost nothing of that illumination penetrated the interlaced boughs. The forest floor was thick with fallen leaves. Toppled logs and thrusting shafts of ancient stone were heavily layered with moss. Anything beyond twenty yards off was lost in a gloom deeper than a moonless midnight. In the slow search through the forest, the men had carried torches and lanterns, at all times staying almost within touching distance of each other.

  Et stabit in limine tenebrarum, he thought. But even the old Roman never encountered a darkness as deep as this. Or as ancient.