Firetrap

by David Hodges

  Its lights came on as it pulled out on to the main road and she caught a glimpse of one red offside and one white nearside rear light before it turned towards Glastonbury and powered away into the night. Now Kate could see something projecting from the side of the Transit close to where the petrol filler pipe was located. At first she thought the filler pipe flap had been pulled open, which would have suggested the Land Rover driver had been intending to siphon off some fuel, but then she realized that there was actually something stuck on the side of the vehicle, something that seemed to be a lot more substantial than a projecting filler pipe flap.

  ‘What was all that about, Kate?’ Seldon queried over the radio. ‘Bugger did something to the Transit.’

  But Kate was now hot-footing it towards the vehicle to find out. The fact that she didn’t quite make it was due entirely to the searing blast that suddenly lifted her off her feet and flung her over the reeds into the rhyne as the Transit van was blown apart by a massive explosion.

  chapter 2

  TWISTER SWORE, JERKING the Land Rover to a halt a hundred yards or so from the mouth of the drove. He had seen the woman in his rear-view mirror at the last minute, just as he’d swung out on to the main road. Bloody hell! Where had the bitch come from? He had assumed the surveillance team were all inside the Transit when he’d placed his explosive. Yet there was this slender figure running towards the vehicle just as it went up. She must have seen him drive along the track and stop beside the van, which meant that, if he had unknowingly passed her on the approach, she would not only have got a good look at his Land Rover, but more importantly, caught a glimpse of his face.

  OK, so the chances were that she had been caught in the blast – she must have been close enough for that – which, if true, would solve his problem one hundred per cent, but what if she hadn’t? What if she was lying on the track nearby, injured, but conscious enough to call up her mates at the nick on her police radio? He had to find out one way or the other and that meant returning to the scene.

  He was tempted simply to reverse back, but then decided against it. If she had survived, maybe injured, she would be certain to hear his approach and would have time to hide somewhere, making his task a lot more difficult. So he pulled on to the verge instead and switched off. Then, grabbing a flashlight from the front seat, he sprinted back down the road, his feet slipping and sliding on the frosty surface as he ran. ‘Now, little lady,’ he panted, pausing on the corner of the drove, with one hand raised to shield his eyes from the glare of the funeral pyre he had created, ‘let’s see where you’ve got to, shall we?’

  Mud – sticky, heavy and deep. Kate had crashed through the thin layer of ice covering the rhyne and was sinking into it fast. The more she struggled, the more she seemed to sink as the evil-smelling water, now lit by the flames of the blazing Transit just feet above her head, sucked and spat around her like an ice-cold geyser. Again and again she tried to pull herself up the steep sides of the rhyne on to the drove, moaning and gasping in her panic, but her clawing fingers found only frosted crumbling mud and clumps of reeds or grass tufts that came away in her hands the moment she took hold of them.

  She was going to drown. The seeming inevitability of it all hit her with mind-numbing force. She had narrowly escaped the terrible death that had befallen poor Andy and Alf, only to face a slow painful asphyxiation as her lungs filled with the filthy water of the rhyne. It was as if Fate were playing with her like a cat plays with a mouse and enjoying every minute of it.

  The water was up to her waist now and still rising. She had just seconds left to do something, but her boots were so deeply embedded in the mud that there was no way she could extricate them without some form of leverage. And it was then that she turned her head and saw the shadow tracing a ragged line down the bank behind her, slightly to the right of where she was held fast. She had been so obsessed with trying to climb up the bank on the drove side of the rhyne that she had not thought about the opposite bank. Now turning her upper body round in the water, she saw the stunted tree growing out of a clump of reeds, just a couple of feet away. With a new sense of hope, she reached towards it, stretching her arm out until she felt her muscles were about to tear apart. At first her fingers only brushed the frozen bark, but on her second attempt, by leaning to her right as far as she could, she managed to get hold of a lower branch, then extend her reach up the branch towards the trunk. Twisted right round in an agonizing position, she was able to reach the branch with her other hand, more ice covering the surface of the rhyne fracturing with every movement. The tree bent towards her under her weight, but it seemed to be securely anchored to the bank and bit by bit she succeeded in pulling herself towards it until first one boot tore itself free of the mud and then the other. Hanging precariously from the branch for a few moments, she managed to dig the toe of her right boot into a hollow in the bank and pull herself upwards until she found a toe-hold with the left. Then she was clear of the water and, hauling herself up over the edge of the bank, collapsed on the grass in the moonlight, soaking wet and shivering uncontrollably.

  That was when she saw him, standing on the drove, silhouetted against the still burning Transit; a sinister apocalyptic figure dressed in a long dark overcoat with a hood pulled up over his head. She could see nothing of his face, just a black featureless oval, as if there was nothing inside the hood at all, and, as she returned his stare, he raised one hand and pointed at her with a slow menacing deliberation that made the hairs rise up on the back of her neck. Then abruptly he wheeled round and began to run, shoulders hunched and head thrust forward like some creature from a horror film, following the edge of the rhyne back towards the mouth of the drove.

  In a second she forgot the cold, thrust aside the shock of what had happened to her colleagues, and scrambled to her feet in a rush. He was coming after her. The rhyne was much too wide for him to jump over and the only way into the field in which she now stood was via a five-bar gate she could see in the hedge to her left, adjoining the main road.

  Even as realization hit her, she was running; heading across the rough ground towards the very house she and her colleagues had been watching. Tripping over prominent mounds of grass and stumbling into ankle-wrenching hollows, she threw quick terrified glances over her shoulder to see if the nightmare man was on her heels.

  She couldn’t believe she was fleeing the scene of such a horrendous crime. She was a police officer, for pity’s sake, and two of her closest friends had been cremated right in front of her. She should have been chasing the killer, not the other way around. But this wasn’t a training school exercise – this was for real – and she knew from the size of the man that she wouldn’t stand a chance if he managed to overhaul her. He had already brutally murdered two police officers in what was plainly a premeditated hit, which meant that killing another one would be of little consequence to him.

  So she continued running – falling over twice and raking her thigh on a patch of low level brambles that seized her as she stumbled through them. But then she had reached the broken-down fence enclosing Terry Duval’s cottage and was following it along towards the far end of the field. The last place she wanted to seek refuge was the arsonist’s cottage. The hooded killer was more than likely Duval himself. After all, who else would have not only had a motive for wiping out the police surveillance team, but have known they were operating in the vicinity in the first place? So she kept going until she reached a belt of trees and was able to bury herself in the tangled undergrowth.

  She saw him again then. He had stopped in the middle of the field and was staring towards her. His arms were held out from his body like Somerset’s sinister Willow Man and he stood there motionless. She shuddered fitfully in her sodden clothes, thrusting her fist into her mouth to stop herself crying out in the hysteria of the moment. If he came for her now, she had nowhere to go. Behind her was another rhyne. She just prayed he didn’t know that and couldn’t see it through the trees.

  The minutes
passed. An animal of some sort – a mouse? – scuttled through the undergrowth beside her and she tensed, forcing herself to remain perfectly still. Then something exploded with a loud ‘crack’ from the direction of the drove and the hooded figure swung round, apparently startled. Kate saw a fiery tongue leap upwards from the burning Transit before abruptly dying. She could smell the acrid smoke even from where she lay and she felt her sobs starting again as she thought of Andy and Alf.

  Just then the killer moved again, turning back towards the main road, head thrust forward as before. Unbelievable as it seemed, he had actually given up. Kate breathed a trembling sigh of relief and watched him go through the gateway on to the road, close the gate after him and disappear behind the bordering hedges. Still she remained where she was. Might be a ruse; he could be waiting for her to emerge from hiding. But a few minutes later she heard a vehicle start up and over the low hedge glimpsed the chunky shape of a Land Rover moving off towards Glastonbury. He really had gone.

  Climbing to her feet, she felt for her police radio in its harness and depressed the call button. Nothing. She switched to mobile phone and dialled police headquarters. Still nothing. Pulling the radio free, she felt the water dribbling out on to her wrist. Damnation! The rhyne must have totalled the thing. She was stuffed, with no way of alerting her colleagues to her predicament. Were there any telephone kiosks anymore, she wondered, and if so, where was the nearest one? In the village of Mark or Burtle probably, but they had to be several miles away and in opposite directions. That meant a long trek via the main road and the risk of running into the killer again. But she couldn’t just stay where she was. She had to get help from somewhere.

  In the end, she decided to head back towards Mark. She would have to knock someone up and use their phone; it was the only thing she could do.

  She made the main road and paused a moment to study it in both directions before venturing out into the open. It seemed to be completely empty. She took a chance and turned towards the mouth of the drove, peering along the track through tear-filled eyes. The Transit was wreathed in black smoke now, flames still spurting through it. She knew no one could have survived the terrible blast she had witnessed, but she still had to check to make sure.

  She approached the burning vehicle hesitantly and almost on tiptoe, as if she half-expected someone to jump out on her from the smoke which choked the scene. But there was nothing, just the blackened shell, lit from inside by the flames which continued to feed off the seats, fabric and other combustible materials and licked round the frames of the shattered windows with slavering, spitting tongues.

  A vile stench hung in the air – a combination of burnt rubber, plastic and scorched metal, together with something much worse, smothering the usual stagnant earthy smell of the marsh and bringing the bile up in her throat in a series of retching spasms.

  There was no trace of Andy or Alf, but she hadn’t expected there would be. They had never stood a chance. She just hoped they had died instantly in the initial blast. Feeling strangely guilty about leaving her colleagues behind, even though they were dead, she turned on her heel and stumbled back towards the main road, conscious of smoky fingers from the blaze curling after her like spectral entities, driving her from the scene.

  Then suddenly she saw the headlights. They were travelling along the main road, coming from the direction of Glastonbury. She froze, wondering whether help was on its way – a late night reveller returning home perhaps, an HGV on an overnight delivery? Or there again, maybe the killer returning to look for her. But she never found out which, for the lights turned off what must have been at least half a mile away and she swore savagely. Couldn’t they see the fire? Weren’t they in the least bit curious? Damn, damn, damn! She felt so helpless and alone.

  Her boots slithered on the frosty road and it felt as if her legs and feet were coated in ice as she reluctantly began the long trek back towards civilization. Within yards the doubts started as to whether she would be able to summon enough stamina or will power to enable her to get there, but she knew she owed it to Andy and Alf to at least try.

  In fairness, she did manage about half a mile too, and the fact that she got no further than that had nothing at all to do with stamina or will power.

  How the Land Rover had got in front of her, she had no idea, but its lights snapped on with a suddenness that rooted her to the spot like a hare transfixed by lamping poachers. The killer had parked in a lay-by just yards away, patiently waiting for her to come within striking distance and even as she stared at those great burning orbs, the big beast erupted from the lay-by with an ear-splitting roar.

  It was the noise that shook her out of her reverie, but instead of throwing herself on to the adjacent grass verge, for some reason she dived the other way, crashing on to the hard tarmac and rolling over on to the far side of the road.

  The Land Rover very nearly ploughed through the hedge into the rhyne as the killer wrongly anticipated the evasive manoeuvre she was likely to make, tearing great chunks out of the hedge before swerving back on to the road. By then Kate had vaulted a wooden gate and was heading across another field, powered by reserves of panic. But her ordeal was far from over.

  The Land Rover burst through the same gate before she had gone more than a few yards. Glancing behind her, she glimpsed it lurching towards her along the track she was following, headlights rising and falling with the uneven contours of the ground.

  A rabbit started across the field from almost under her thudding feet and a couple of sheep raced across her path like ghosts. To her right, a skeletal barn reared up stark and ominous in the moonlight. Then quite suddenly it was gone as the moon itself was briefly obscured by scudding clouds. She immediately changed direction, having mentally pinpointed the barn’s position. She missed the cattle trough, but apparently the Land Rover didn’t and she had the satisfaction of hearing the crash behind her as it ploughed into it a split second afterwards. This gave her some precious time and she reached the barn while the Land Rover was still reversing back from the trough with a harsh crashing of gears before resuming its pursuit.

  The huge double doors at the front of the building were not closed properly, but jammed in position and she had only just managed to force herself through the narrow gap before the roar of a powerful diesel engine announced the arrival of her pursuer. She had to find a place to hide and probably had just seconds to make her choice. The barn seemed to be filled with rotting hay and it stank, but she could hardly see a thing, let alone find a hiding-place. She collided with a machine of some sort and swore, then froze as she heard someone trying to force the double doors open. At least being slim had its advantages; the size of her pursuer meant he couldn’t squeeze through the gap. But he had strength on his side and it wouldn’t take him long to gain an entry through sheer brute force.

  Hide. Quickly. But where? She groped around in the gloom, but found only the cold touch of metal on one side and slimy hay bales on the other. Behind her the door shook violently and then she heard a cracking sound. She shrank further into the barn, her throat dry and perspiration pouring down her face despite the coldness of the night air.

  Then quite suddenly the moon reappeared from behind the clouds, flooding the place with pale opalescent light through holes in the roof. At once she saw the arm and part of a leg pushing through the gap between the double doors and heard the groan of the door as the killer pushed against it. Throwing wild glances around her, she spotted the ladder at the far end of the building giving access to a loft supported by wooden pillars. The likelihood was that the whole thing was rotten like the rest of the barn, but she had no alternative other than to chance it – unless she fancied burying herself among the bales of hay.

  The ladder was also made of wood and the lowest rung snapped the moment she stepped on it. Behind her a splintering crash indicated that one of the barn doors had finally capitulated. In a panic, she went for the next rung, felt it give and transferred her weight to the one above, whic
h also snapped. Halfway up and hanging precariously from the sides of the ladder, she heard the shuddering groan of the barn door being hauled back. With nothing to lose, she went for broke, clambering up the remaining rungs at speed, almost losing her footing as every other one snapped or started to give as she went. But then she was within reach of the loft floor and had pulled herself up over the edge as a powerful flashlight blazed a trail down the middle of the barn like a tongue of fire.

  Pressing into the floor, she heard the killer’s heavy footsteps advancing down the barn, his flashlight swinging left and right, probing every nook and cranny. She held her breath as he paused at the foot of the ladder, feeling the loft floor tremble as he shook the ladder experimentally. Then the beam of the flashlight grazed the criss-cross of beams supporting the remains of the roof as it traced a path along the edge of the loft floor, pausing for an anxious few seconds just in front of where Kate lay before being withdrawn.

  Silence for a moment and then a despairing creak. Hell’s bells! He was going for the ladder! Kate eased herself further back across the loft, then froze again at the sound of a sharp crack from below, followed by a scrabbling sound and a loud oath. Another of the rungs had snapped. She breathed a sigh of relief. Thank heavens for rot.

  He didn’t try again after that, apparently satisfied that she couldn’t have climbed up into the loft by that route, and turned his attention to the rest of the barn instead. Shortly afterwards the barn doors shuddered and, peering over the edge of the loft, she saw his sinister figure framed in the opening for a second before he disappeared, leaving her alone among the shards of moonlight.

  But she wasn’t fooled by his apparent departure. She felt sure he was still out there in the shadows, waiting patiently for her to show herself, so for what seemed like an age she continued to lay there and it wasn’t until she heard the diesel engine actually start up that she realized he was going.