The Bone Keeper

by Luca Veste

  The nurse on duty looked as harassed as they usually did. There was a sense of familiarity between them – not that Louise had ever dealt with her in the past; just the sense of we do the same kind of job she felt when talking to anyone in any of the three emergency services.

  Louise kept a lid on the part of her that wanted to scream no we don’t, you have no idea what I’ve seen outside this hospital. The people I’ve met. The evil I’ve dealt with.

  ‘We’ve kept her in the same room,’ the nurse said, making notes on a clipboard as she spoke to them. ‘Didn’t think she would do well on a ward. Poor lass is still suffering. Night staff said she didn’t sleep much, until they gave her morphine. That gave her a few hours’ rest at least.’

  ‘Has she said anything more?’

  The nurse looked from her to Shipley with a raised eyebrow. ‘You mean other than the bogeyman coming to get her? No, not much else. Not that I’ve been in there very often. Just to keep an eye on her. She needs rest more than anything. Poor girl has been through the mill, that much is true.’

  Louise had to find another lid, in order to stop herself from saying something about the use of the word ‘poor’.

  ‘We won’t be in there too long,’ Shipley said for them both, stepping out of the way as people passed by them in the corridor. ‘We just need to ask a few more questions.’

  The nurse didn’t have anything else to add, leaving them to walk into the room alone. Louise felt as if it had grown darker in there in the hours since they’d been there last. The figure in the bed diminished somehow.

  ‘Hi Caroline,’ Louise said, forcing herself closer to the centre of the room. ‘Do you remember us from yesterday? DC Louise Henderson and DS Paul Shipley?’

  Caroline’s head turned in her direction, then settled back to her original position. Staring up at the ceiling, blinking sporadically. ‘Yes, I do. Have you found it yet?’

  ‘What?’ Shipley replied, taking up the space Louise vacated as she moved to the other side of the bed.

  ‘You know . . .’

  ‘Let’s take it from the beginning,’ Louise said, before Shipley could speak again. ‘Do you remember a bit more about what happened now?’

  Caroline nodded, so Louise continued. ‘When did this start?’

  ‘What day is it now?’

  Louise gave Shipley a quick glance, which she hoped would convey one word to him. Quiet. ‘Tuesday.’

  ‘It was two days ago,’ Caroline said, eyes still locked on the ceiling. ‘Sunday. I was walking somewhere. I can’t remember why. Probably for no reason. I sometimes do that. I don’t remember why I walked that way, but I think I wanted to look at the canal.’

  Louise had been right; Caroline was talking about the same woodland she’d pointed out to Shipley the previous night. The same land that was now being searched by uniformed officers.

  She decided it wasn’t the time to say I told you so to her superior.

  ‘What do you remember about that walk?’

  Caroline closed her eyes for a few seconds, then opened them and looked at Louise. ‘It was getting dark. I couldn’t really see where I was walking. There weren’t any lights on the canal path. I was starting to get further from the road, so I decided to head back. That’s when I could sense something.’

  ‘What did you hear?’

  ‘It wasn’t a sound. Not in the beginning. I could smell something first. I can’t describe it. It was horrible. It made me gag, almost like meat that’s gone off. Rotting or something. I couldn’t see where it was coming from, thought maybe an animal had died somewhere. A fox or whatever. I was retracing my steps when I heard my name being called.’

  Louise tried not to react, but a quick glance in Shipley’s direction told her she was being studied. She ignored it. ‘Your first name? Being called?’

  Caroline nodded, her hands shaking on the bed now. Her bottom lip joined in a second later. Quivering, as if it was acting on its own accord. ‘It was a whisper at first, but it was so quiet on that path I heard it easily. I turned, but there was no one there. I thought I’d imagined it, so I kept walking. Then I heard it again. Louder this time. When I turned this time, something was there.’

  ‘A man?’

  Caroline didn’t respond, but she didn’t need to. Louise could see she was in the right area. And not, at the same time. The lip quivered more, then tears sprang to Caroline’s eyes. ‘Yes . . . but it wasn’t like anything I’ve seen before. It wasn’t dark, but I couldn’t really see what it was. It didn’t look real. It was just . . . black.’

  ‘A black guy?’ Shipley said, louder than the two women had been talking. He seemed to realise he’d broken into something and lowered his voice. ‘He was a black man?’

  Caroline didn’t look away from Louise, but shook her head violently on the pillow. ‘No, no. I don’t know. It wasn’t anything human. It was just darkness. Black, horrible darkness. Like a black hole, only real.’

  ‘What happened when you saw him, Caroline?’ Louise said, leaning closer to her.

  ‘I wanted to run, but I . . . I couldn’t move. It was like I was stuck there. My feet wouldn’t move. It seemed to get even darker, so that I couldn’t see a thing. Something moved towards me and . . .’

  ‘Go on, Caroline,’ Louise said, as Caroline’s words faltered and her chest began to hitch. Tears were now flowing more freely down her cheeks as the memory of what had happened to her seemed to take hold. ‘You’re safe now.’

  ‘That’s it. That’s all I can properly remember. Just . . . flashes. There was pain, so much pain. No words, no nothing. I could see eyes though. I’ll never forget them. They were lifeless, soulless. There’s nothing else.’

  Louise caught something, a flash across Caroline’s eyes as she shook her head. She recognised that moment, when a memory was suddenly there but was pushed away. Ground down into nothingness, as her mind tried to protect itself. She noticed movement in her peripheral vision; Shipley was shifting away from them – a quick glance in his direction showed him backing out of the room. She ignored it and kept talking. ‘What happened in those flashes, Caroline? What do you remember?’

  ‘Trees, woods. Being tied down. Or up, I can’t really remember. I couldn’t scream, even though I wanted to. There was something over my mouth.’

  There would be more details in time, Louise thought. Caroline would spend months remembering small details, building a picture of what happened to her in the twenty-four hours she was held captive. The memories would perhaps resurface, or she would spend years battling to never remember. For this moment however, Louise was glad she couldn’t remember all that much.

  The memory would begin to hurt more over time. The helplessness, the vulnerability. Losing whatever power she had before. Those feelings would only be compounded by time.

  That was how it worked. Louise knew that better than she cared to.

  ‘How did you get away, Caroline?’ Louise asked, not taking her eyes off the woman in the bed. ‘How did you end up on that road?’

  Caroline shook her head, blinking away more tears. ‘I don’t know. I don’t remember. I was just suddenly . . . out. I must have broke whatever was holding me.’

  There were a few seconds of silence, as Louise considered how to try to question that part of her story more.

  She didn’t believe her story. Something didn’t feel right, especially how she came to be there in the first place. Caroline didn’t look the sort to just go for walks by a strange canal. Not alone, in a place she didn’t really know all that well. She was someone with a job, Louise thought. A family who would be worried about her.

  Before she had a chance to say anything, Caroline spoke again.

  ‘It wasn’t there. I know that.’

  ‘You didn’t see him? He left you there?’

  ‘No,’ Caroline replied, looking back towards the ceiling now. Her voice became stronger, more sure of itself. ‘No, not that. I just know. It was going to kill me. There’s no way it would
have let me go. No one ever gets away from it.’

  ‘Caroline,’ Louise began after a few moments of silence, bracing herself for an answer she didn’t want, to a question she never liked to ask. ‘Was there anything else he did? Anything—’

  ‘Sexual?’ Caroline cut in, almost whispering. ‘No, nothing like that. It wasn’t that kind of thing. I don’t think so anyway. I felt strokes, on my arm, my stomach. Nothing else.’

  ‘You must have had some visitors since yesterday,’ Louise said, changing the subject as quickly as she could. ‘Lot of people worried about you? A partner?’

  ‘I’m single . . .’

  ‘Your mum and dad then? Brothers and sisters, friends?’

  Caroline shook her head, but didn’t say anything.

  ‘We can contact people for you, if you like?’ Louise continued, refusing to believe Caroline really wanted to be alone in that place. ‘The hospital really should have done that already—’

  ‘No,’ Caroline replied, her voice forceful, strong. Louise moved her hand instinctively, still remembering the way the other woman had grabbed her wrist the previous day. ‘I don’t want anyone knowing I’m here. I’ll be fine on my own.’

  ‘Are you sure?’ Louise said, wondering how far to push this with her. ‘You shouldn’t be going through this alone.’

  ‘I’m fine, honestly. I’d rather just heal up and forget this ever happened. I don’t want to worry anyone.’

  She knew they had been looking into Caroline’s circumstances and had found very little information about her. Nothing in the system to say she’d been in contact with the police previously. Nothing that flagged up any issues, domestically or otherwise. Just a normal woman, going about her normal life. Louise made a note to check to see if workmates had been spoken to, then opened her mouth to continue asking questions, but was stopped by the door opening with a loud smack. Her head shot up, seeing Shipley standing in the doorway beckoning to her. Caroline was looking the same way as she turned back to her and mumbled an apology as she crossed the room towards him.

  ‘They’ve found something,’ Shipley said as she reached him, barely able to keep the glee out of his tone. ‘Looks like you were right. There was a reason to find those woods.’

  ‘What is it?’ Louise replied, suspecting she knew the answer.

  ‘A body.’

  Six

  Louise and Shipley were back at the woodland within half an hour, but it looked like most of Merseyside police had beaten them to it. The place was crawling with uniformed officers, marked vehicles looking abandoned in the small road area which lay behind the Bootle Arms pub. They stretched along Rock Lane towards the church further up, where the road became even narrower.

  Another CSI van pulled up just as they got out of the car. The increased presence had attracted a small crowd of bystanders closer to try to see what was happening. Louise pulled the nearest uniform towards her, indicating the roadside. ‘Make sure there’s crime-scene tape up as far back as here.’

  The uniformed officer gave her a nod, his brow furrowed and sheened with sweat.

  ‘What have we got then?’ Shipley said to another detective constable, who had appeared as Louise moved around the car.

  ‘Body in a shallow grave,’ the DC replied, almost breathless as he tried to hide his excitement. ‘Dog unit found it. Another uniform identified him pretty quickly.’

  Shipley’s eyes lit up. ‘Really? That’s good luck at least.’

  ‘Whole scene is weird though,’ the DC said, looking back in the direction that the new CSI unit was walking towards. ‘Seems like whoever it was had cleared the space to do who knows what. If the woman you found yesterday was there, looks like she had a lucky escape.’

  ‘Who’s the body? And how was it identified so quickly?’

  ‘Nathan Coldfield. Apparently the uniform had dealt with him a few times in the past. Tattoo on his forearm of his mum’s face, that’s how he knew it was him. Once the dog started digging, he found his arm first. Not sure if lucky is the right term in this instance, but it’s definitely made our job easier.’

  ‘Where’s the site?’ Louise said, earning a questioning look from the DC, who then turned back to Shipley.

  ‘About two hundred yards into the treeline up there,’ the DC said, pointing in the direction of the woodland. ‘There’s farms on both sides, separated by these woods. You wouldn’t even know they were there from the roadside.’

  Louise knew that to be the case. There were hundreds of areas like this in the city. Thousands, maybe. Hidden pockets, where anyone could disappear and never be seen again. Or found. The thought chilled her bones, the idea that there could be anything out there, in the city. Disappeared, never to be found.

  Your bones he’ll keep.

  ‘We best go and have a look,’ Shipley said, not waiting for Louise to follow as he started moving. ‘Not that CSI will let us get too close.’

  ‘Won’t be a problem,’ the DC replied, leading the way. ‘There’s enough other stuff to see.’

  It didn’t take long for them to walk across the field, Louise stepping carefully as she moved. She wondered which direction Caroline would have run once she was released. She imagined it was the opposite way from where they were walking, towards the more noticeable buildings in the distance. Disorientated, she would have looked for lights. Signs of life. The direction from which Louise and the other two detectives had walked would have looked dark and uninviting even that early in the evening.

  She wouldn’t have wanted to go towards the unknown.

  There were uniformed officers moving towards them, but they paid them no attention. Focused only straight ahead, to what lay within the trees. What was hidden from view.

  A few minutes later, Louise was ducking beneath a branch, searching for a path that wasn’t there. ‘people don’t usually come into these woods,’ the DC said, falling back and walking next to her. ‘No paths or anything. We’ve been trying to keep to one place when walking, just in case.’

  ‘Lead the way then,’ Louise replied, stopping and waiting until the DC was ahead of them. She fell into line at the rear, glancing to either side as they walked further in, the trees becoming thicker around them.

  ‘We’ll have to wait here, but you can see through can’t you?’

  Shipley took up the space vacated by the DC, moving a low-hanging branch away a little and revealing a small clearing. The available space was being taken up by various people in forensic suits, as the operation began to take hold.

  ‘What am I looking at?’ Shipley asked the DC, but Louise didn’t need to be told. She had already spotted the markings on the trees opposite them.

  Inverted crosses, marked into the trunks of two or three trees. Then, more, as she continued to scan the wood. Louise held her breath, feeling her heart beat against her chest as she looked across the clearing. The horror of the scene in front of her.

  ‘He’s real,’ she whispered. Shipley shot her a questioning look, but she shook her head. ‘What are those marks?’ she said, diverting his attention as she could see him trying to work out what she’d said. He turned in the direction she was pointing.

  ‘Don’t know, but it looks like some kind of circle.’

  Louise absent-mindedly rubbed the top of her thigh as she struggled to take her eyes away from the marks.

  ‘It’s something inside a circle,’ Shipley continued, turning back towards her. ‘What the hell is this?’

  ‘Nothing good, sir,’ the DC said from Louise’s side. ‘Looks to me like some kind of devil-worshipping thing. They look familiar though.’

  Louise wanted to disagree, to tell him he was wrong. She had seen the marks before. Carved into school desks, onto the front of exercise books. They had been everywhere when she was younger. She imagined Shipley would recognise them eventually, he had surely experienced them before as well. Instead, she moved forward a step, bringing into view more of the clearing. There were more marks on the tree trunks surrounding t
he small area; the earth on the ground in the middle was well-trodden. Muddy and turned up.

  ‘How long until they remove the body?’

  Louise continued to scan the clearing as Shipley and the DC talked, looking for something she felt was missing. A sign that he’d been there. More than the marks. Some scent left behind. She thought of what Caroline had described. The rotting meat smell. She imagined it settling on the ground, the bark of the trees. Being absorbed and becoming one with the surroundings.

  It wasn’t there.

  ‘No idea, sir. I’ll get a CSI over.’

  She moved a little further over, but it was no use. There was no way of seeing any more without stepping into what was now a crime scene and incurring the wrath of some CSI.

  ‘Louise, are you coming?’

  ‘Yeah,’ she replied, forcing herself to tear her gaze away from the clearing and what lay there. ‘Sorry.’

  ‘That’s okay,’ Shipley said, softly as they traced their steps back towards the larger field. ‘This is turning into something unexpected. I guess we’re looking at a completely different case than I thought.’

  ‘I guess so. It’s about time you were wrong about one though.’

  ‘Doesn’t happen very often,’ Shipley said with a laugh. ‘Let’s get a move on before Major Crimes gets involved. We’ll be sidelined when they eventually turn up. You know what they’re like.’

  Louise murmured agreement, wondering if that was something she wanted or not. Whether being taken away from the case would be a good thing, or if she needed to stay close to it. To know what was happening at every step in the investigation. It was already moving in a direction she hadn’t really expected. A body found, without warning. What had begun as a young woman being found on the street assaulted, saying that name over and over, was now looking like a murder investigation.

  She could feel excitement within her, the chance to do something at last.

  ‘Are we going to do the death knock then?’ Louise said, once they were out of the woods and on the farmland. ‘even with just one uniform’s possibly dodgy identification?’