Dead Man Walking

by Paul Finch

  ‘By sticking him with you we signed his death warrant?’ Heck said, wonderingly. ‘You had no choice?’

  Briefly, her mouth slammed shut, her jaw trembling violently. A fresh tear snaked a zigzag course down her left cheek.

  ‘Careful, M-E,’ he said. ‘You’re moving off script.’

  ‘The Stranger killed Ted Haveloc,’ she said tightly. ‘Everyone will see that. And I’ve had enough of this bullshit!’ She focused on Gemma again, raising the gun until it was level with her face. ‘The Stranger’s plan was to break you, DSU Piper, to ruin you professionally … but I’m sure he’ll be equally happy to see you dead …’

  ‘Course he will!’ Heck butted in. ‘He’s the lowest of the low, a sadistic pipsqueak!’

  ‘Shut up, Heck,’ she shouted. ‘You’re next, but how you get it is my choice.’

  ‘You know what a scrote he was better than anyone, don’t you, M-E!’

  Fleetingly, Mary-Ellen was distracted between the two of them; more tears poured profusely; tears of rage, regret, angst … who knew?

  ‘All those lonely years in that dirty, decrepit caravan,’ Heck said. ‘Just him and his perverted fantasies. And you of course. The little girl with the perfect dad.’

  ‘I said, shut the fuck up!’

  ‘Except no one could ever have been that perfect, Mary-Ellen. Especially not someone with a track record for sexual violence. Like I say … you know that better than anyone!’

  Her eyes flared like pits of burning oil as she swung the Python around, at which point Gemma snatched her own firearm from the shingle and levelled it with both hands. ‘Drop that weapon, PC O’Rourke! Right now!’

  Heck had been counting on this. Only a few seconds earlier, he’d glanced again at Gemma’s gun, and had suddenly thought its chunky black outline and big cylindrical barrel all wrong for a harmless starter pistol.

  Mary-Ellen smirked at Gemma with disbelief. ‘You on crack, ma’am? Thinking you can take me down with that silly toy?’

  Gemma locked gazes with her. ‘Don’t make me do it, Mary-Ellen.’

  And only now did Mary-Ellen seem to recognise that something might be wrong. That somehow or other she might not be fully in control of this situation.

  ‘You sneaky bitch!’ She swung the Colt Python back around.

  But Gemma fired first.

  The ‘starter pistol’, which was actually a single-shot flare gun, bucked in her hand, a ball of blistering light flashing the twenty yards between them, hitting the policewoman clean on her left side and engulfing her in flame; igniting her like a Roman Candle. With flames roaring up her legs and the whole left side of her body, Mary-Ellen ran headlong into the tarn, uttering muffled, incoherent shrieks, but still managing to get three thunderous shots off before the waters enveloped her in clouds of steam. Thanks to her frantic, stumbling flight, and the massive recoil of the Python, all three slugs went wide, though the two cops still threw themselves to the ground.

  As the tarn roiled and hissed, Heck snatched Gemma’s hood and yanked her to her feet. ‘This way,’ he said, hauling her along the shingle towards the clubhouse.

  ‘Tell me you got all that?’ Gemma shouted.

  Heck stuck his hand into the same pocket as before, where the Dictaphone was still running on ‘Record’. He hit the ‘Off’ switch through the sealed evidence bag.

  ‘Just hope it picked up something,’ he said. ‘It’s a souped-up model, so it ought to have. Good job these bags are airtight too. Otherwise, this thing would have died when the canoe went down …’

  They scrambled over the Boat Club fence, but there now came a squawk of outrage behind them. Whatever the fire had done to Mary-Ellen, they couldn’t tell – despite glancing back, in the murk and the smoke and the steam they had no detail. But she hadn’t relinquished her Python and now appeared to be kneeling upright in the water, levelling the weapon with both hands. Two more deafening shots followed, an entire plate-glass window on this side of the clubhouse disintegrating.

  Heck and Gemma ducked sideways, struggling and tripping between tables and chairs. The next thing they were on slick timber decking. Ahead of them, the Boat Club jetty tapered off into the fog.

  ‘You bitch!’ Mary-Ellen screeched behind them. ‘He’ll do you for this!’

  At that shrill pitch, her voice barely sounded human; it was frothy and distorted. It was easy to picture the effects of the flames on her face and mouth. Not that she’d lost any of her demented rage. She was armed with a revolver, which only contained six shots. She’d now fired five. But if she was concerned about using her last, it didn’t show. The Python roared again, and the wooden handrail alongside them exploded.

  ‘You fucking bitch, Piper!’ Again, it was a barely human sound, as if her mouth was stuffed with sand.

  It was a near-certainty that having raided the strong-box in the firearms car, she’d have another weapon to hand, and indeed, as Heck and Gemma started along the jetty at a faltering, hobbling gait – not only was Gemma injured, but neither of them really knew where they were going – she opened fire again, and instead of the deafening bang of the Magnum, this time they heard the duller, flatter blam of a police-issue Glock nine millimetre. The shot whistled past, with inches to spare.

  ‘Heck, where the hell are we going?’ Gemma stammered. ‘I can’t even stand up, never mind swim …’

  ‘There are other boats along here.’

  ‘Another bloody boat!’

  ‘You got a better idea?’

  The only boat they found was about two-thirds of the way along the jetty, on its starboard side. It was a canoe, smaller than the previous one but with two paddles inside it. Quickly, Heck untied its line, and lowered Gemma down the ladder. Behind him, heavy feet were advancing along the jetty, along with a hoarse, raw breathing.

  He’d expected Mary-Ellen to open fire again by now, but they had a good fifty yards on her, and presumably, her thermal-imaging device had died either in the fire or the tarn.

  ‘You sodding bastards,’ she blathered. ‘He’ll scalp you for this … he’ll scalp you and he’ll fucking skin you …’

  Heck contemplated lying flat on the top of the jetty, hoping she’d have come alongside him before she realised he was there. He felt he could take her. Even with Mary-Ellen hurt, it would be a hell of a fight, but he’d have the element of surprise. However, when she started shooting again, blindly and indiscriminately, he changed his mind. With boards erupting and splintering around him, he rolled over the edge and swung himself down the ladder like an ape.

  ‘Nice touch with the flare gun,’ he said, as he paddled them away. Gemma was attempting to help, but was in so much pain that her efforts were sluggish and uncoordinated. ‘Just get comfortable,’ he said. ‘I’ve got this.’

  The Glock detonated thirty yards behind, and a slug slapped into the water a few feet to their left.

  ‘Are you kidding!’ Gemma said through gritted teeth. She struck hard with her paddle. ‘It’s two of us or none at all.’

  Heck didn’t argue. He was already breathing hard, feeling the strain in his chest and shoulders, though the canoe was moving swiftly and smoothly, cutting cleanly out into the south-central waters of the tarn. He still didn’t know where they were going, the fog slithering on all sides, masking everything. ‘Anyway, like I say, nice touch with the flare …’

  ‘Yeah, I heard you the first time.’

  ‘Better than a starter pistol.’

  ‘I couldn’t find the sodding starter pistol! But the flare gun was in an emergency kit in the club’s first-aid locker. I trashed the Club Secretary’s office in the process!’

  ‘That’ll be the least of his problems when the new season starts.’

  There was another bark of gunfire. A bullet whizzed closely past.

  ‘I don’t believe it,’ Heck said, glancing over his shoulder.

  Another boat was already on the water behind them. Barely visible, but gaining.

  ‘Don’t tell me,’ G
emma said. ‘She’s back in her kayak.’

  ‘Looks like she’s in yours, the single-hander. Doesn’t give up easily, does she?’

  ‘How can she afford to?’

  ‘I’ve met some headcases in my time …’

  ‘It’s about survival now, Heck.’

  ‘Call it what you want, she’s mad as a hatter!’

  They’d now managed to find a mutual rhythm, though Gemma winced with the pain and effort. Ahead of them, the fog seemed to be shifting. Heck had the feeling they were approaching a landmass of some sort; the southeast shore maybe.

  ‘Just think about it,’ he panted. ‘All this time, she’s been waiting her chance. I mean, it might never have come. But she was patient, infinitely patient, just biding her time … month after month, year after year.’

  ‘Yeah, yeah … just keep that tape recording safe …’

  ‘It may be classified as unreliable evidence, don’t you think?’

  ‘Improperly obtained,’ she replied, ‘but real enough. I think they’ll admit it …’

  The Glock barked again. But they barely heard. A rising rumble from somewhere ahead now drew all their attention. The fog broke apart like dim, dusty curtains, to reveal rising slopes clad with trees, and yet directly in front, a cleft in this hillside, and across that at ground level, a stone footbridge. The steel grating of the gate was raised, a cloud of spume hanging over it.

  Gemma grabbed the gunwales as she felt the current take them. ‘You think we can handle the Race?’

  ‘If the others made it, why can’t we?’

  ‘We don’t know whether they made it or not.’

  ‘We will in a few minutes …’

  They ducked down as they were sucked under the bridge. The white-water boomed in their ears. And then they were dropping, nose-diving downward into a chaos of noise and spray and rolling, tumbling waves.

  Chapter 34

  At first glance, Cragwood Race was like something manmade, the river roaring steeply downhill between high earthen banks and heaped, slab-like rocks, but with no central obstructions, nothing to impede the velocity of the water.

  The initial experience was of a frantic downhill chase through roaring foam. Little or no paddling was needed. In fact, the best thing was to keep one’s arms firmly to one’s body as the boat swerved around bends, constantly sideswiping the moss-clad embankments. Oftentimes Heck and Gemma hit rocks, only the thick layer of vegetation covering these hard surfaces preventing serious damage to the canoe, but the sheer force and noise of these collisions made them realise why modern day wildwater enthusiasts wore crash helmets. It was certainly impossible to steer. Wind hit their faces as well as spray, forcefully and constantly. Heck was already wet through, but now Gemma was drenched too, from head to foot.

  The foggy darkness persisted even down this hectic channel, which made all attempts to gauge the speed they were moving at pointless, though it was clear they’d quickly travelled several hundred yards downhill, merely having allowed the torrent to take them. The trouble was that they were now hitting a series of natural platforms, the river boiling monstrously over every level stretch before dropping sharply downward again. On each of these occasions, there was a tremendous backward surge which required strenuous paddling to get through and which always saw them deluged from behind, gallons of frothing, icy water pouring over them in sledgehammer cataracts. No sooner were they free of this than the canoe was driven forward furiously, rising, falling and rocking, bumping and scraping its way across submerged stones. For several seconds on the third platform, they were travelling sideways, like an airbed on an ocean wave. They shrieked in unison as they began to tilt, hurling their bodies the other way to right themselves, and paddling frantically for fear the boat would turn around and take them down the rest of the Race backward, or even worse, upside down. They pulled it around just in time as the gradient re-steepened, water like frothing milk exploding past and over the top of them, and shot down the next stretch like a cork from a bottle, battering the rocks along its sides, bodies jerking left to right, necks whiplashing.

  But it was only when they entered a deep canyon between pitted granite walls, with a tangle of roots, mosses and hanging grasses interlaced overhead, that they understood the true meaning of peril. Initially it was so dark in here that it was virtually a tunnel, but then a fiery flash seared the dripping walls, and though the roar of the torrent was amplified a hundred times, they still heard the dull blam.

  A slug whipped past Heck’s shoulder, ricocheted from the gully wall about twenty yards ahead, and with a flash of sparks, caromed from the opposite wall before vanishing into the maelstrom.

  ‘Jesus!’ Gemma shouted.

  ‘Guess again!’ Heck craned his neck to look behind.

  A dim form was descending the foam-filled channel at their rear. There was another flash-bang, and the slope dipped just in time as the round zipped past overhead. In front, the canyon turned sharply. This was the Switchback, Heck realised, the one Mary-Ellen had mentioned – supposedly the only really dangerous section. For several seconds, the rolling waterway turned glass-smooth, the current moving so fast it was broken by little more than ripples. But as they approached the turn, the river level rose rapidly and they were jolted upward and to the left, clinging for dear life as the Race banked around the tight corner. Briefly, they were horizontal, as if they were riding the Wall of Death in some crazy amusement park. But then they were dropping again, descending a muddy, root-filled throat, bouncing over another series of steps, the canoe elevating into mid-air with each one, then crash-landing again, the echoing impacts deadening their ears, the river raining over them from behind, rollback buffeting them from every side.

  If that wasn’t enough, as soon as Mary-Ellen rounded the Switchback, she opened fire again, twice. Both projectiles struck blistering sparks along the underside of a leaning, egg-shaped boulder even as Heck and Gemma were bowing their heads to pass beneath it.

  ‘You’re right!’ Gemma cried. ‘She’s out of her bloody mind!’

  The river now veered to the left, but beyond this, the descent flattened out, and the route unexpectedly broadened. They decelerated as the canyon walls fell away, and found themselves in open space. They were back on a level stretch, and this time it persisted, though they were still moving fast. They got to it with their paddles, doing the best they could to create another effective rhythm. The problem was they were novices at this, while Mary-Ellen had done it several times before. Heck glanced back again, though now saw only white-water and fog. Had she come unstuck?

  The answer came quickly, with another dim gun-flash, and the whining impact of lead striking a boulder, this one tooth-like and jutting up just ahead of them. In anticipation of rapids, the water began to boil. They swerved around the obstruction, but could see more outcrops beyond it.

  ‘Shit!’ Heck shouted. If Switchback Canyon was the only dangerous part, he didn’t know what this was supposed to be.

  They attempted to steer with their paddles, but crashed and bounced around one boulder after another. If they got through this, he reckoned, it would mainly be due to the force of the flow, which rose and fell and swelled and burst over them in storms of spray. And yet shortly, when they had passed it, the downhill race recommenced, shunting them over another series of stair-like platforms, the heavy edges of rock hammering the underside of the canoe with such nauseating force that it left them groggy. When a brackish wave swamped them from the left, all but capsizing them, it did less to revive them and more to half-drown them. They now drooped limply in their seats, lifeless and exhausted like broken dolls, when the course of the river changed dramatically, surging around a few more S-bends but now at a gentler, almost meandering rate.

  Heck mopped water from his face, but had to blink to make sure he wasn’t seeing things. The fog had lessened. It was still a notable presence, but not as all-enveloping as it had been. It helped that they were suddenly on very level ground, but he realised he could
see tens of yards beyond the banks of the river, into sparse woodland, skeletal underbrush and the pillars of ivy-clad tree-trunks stretching away in all directions.

  There was another hairy moment when the boat grated over hidden surfaces, lurching side to side – it seemed they were among rapids again – but these were actually a minor issue: a few scattered cobblestones cluttering the decelerating flow.

  ‘I think … I think we’ve made it,’ Heck risked saying. ‘Look, there!’ Some thirty yards ahead, a stone-built structure arched over the channel. ‘That bridge carries the B5343. The other side of that and we’re into Langdale Beck.’

  ‘You sure?’ Gemma gasped. Again, she was rigid with pain, her torso angled left.

  ‘It must be … there’s no other road along here.’ His jubilant tone faltered. ‘Trouble is …’ He glanced back. Despite the receding fog, there was no sign of Mary-Ellen, but how far behind could she be? ‘Now we’ve really got to work.’

  They paddled strenuously again, passing under the B5343. It was tempting to try and run the vessel aground, get out and climb up to the road. But the embankment looked steep and in any case, even if they made it, they’d still be in the middle of nowhere, with miles to go before the next habitation.

  Perhaps forty yards past the bridge, now amid open, flattish farmland, increasingly more of which was visible thanks to the dwindling fog, they joined Langdale Beck, a broad, slow-moving stream. Even in the dimness, it was so shallow – no more than two or three feet – and so clean and clear they could see the layers of pebbles at the bottom. However, its eastward current was laboriously slow, so they had to paddle even harder – until Gemma stopped abruptly, the paddle slipping from her shuddering grasp, dropping into the water. ‘Shit, Heck … I’ve really hurt my back …’

  ‘I know,’ he said. ‘Don’t worry. We’re almost there. We’ll get you to hospital ASAP.’