The Chemistry of Death

by Simon Beckett

  He’d brought her to the killing ground.

  He reappeared now, carrying a sack. Untying its neck, he upended it, spilling out a bundle of feathers close to her head. Jenny found herself staring into the terrified yellow eyes of an owl.

  He was smiling down at her now. ‘Wise bird. For a teacher.’

  Knife in hand, he reached down and grabbed hold of the owl by its feet. They were tethered, Jenny saw, but as he lifted the bird there was a sudden burst of movement. For a moment the owl seemed fastened to his hand. The knife clattered on the concrete floor as its wings beat wildly, then he dashed it hard against the wall. It fell to the ground in a soft explosion of feathers. He stared mutely at the wound on his palm, blood dripping from where its beak had ripped into his flesh. Good, a voice thrilled in her, as the room began to ripple out of focus. Then, as he sucked at the gouge, their eyes met. Not yet. Just a little longer. Then I won’t care what you do, she thought, seeing the intent blossom in them.

  But he was already coming towards her. ‘You’re on the owl’s side, aren’t you? Poor owl. Poor little owl.’

  He stood over her, his expression thoughtful. Suddenly he tilted his head, listening. Through the grey fog clouding her vision, she saw surprise blank his face. A moment later, filtering through the cotton wool enclosing her, Jenny heard it as well. A heavy bang, coming from above them.

  Someone was upstairs.

  CHAPTER 28

  A HUNDRED AND FIFTY years ago, the old windmill had been the pride of Manham. It was a wind-powered pump rather than a corn mill, one of hundreds used to drain the marshes across the Broads. Now it was a decaying husk that bore no sign of its former glory. All that was left of its stately vanes was a gap in the crumbling masonry where they’d once been set, and nature had once more reclaimed the land around it. Over the years the waterlogged ground had been steadily taken over by scrub woodland, until now the crumbling tower was all but hidden.

  But not unused.

  I was able to piece together what happened from what Mackenzie told me later. The plan had been to launch raids on the windmill, the Brenner house and the cottage where Dale Brenner lived all at the same time. The intention was to seize both men without giving either them or their family chance to issue a warning. Even though it would take longer to set up, it was thought that would give the best hope of recovering Jenny alive. If everything went according to plan, of course.

  I could have told them that nothing ever does.

  Mackenzie went with the tactical teams that would target the windmill itself. The day was settling into dusk as the cars and vans carrying police officers in body armour neared the target. An armed response unit was among them, as well as paramedics and an ambulance, ready to rush Jenny and anyone else to hospital. Because the only route to the windmill was down a narrow and overgrown track, it was decided to park up on the edge of the woods and make the final approach on foot.

  At the windmill they stayed in the treeline while teams were sent to cover doors and windows around the back. As he waited for them to get in place, Mackenzie studied the ruined building. An air of abandonment hung over it, and in the fading light its brickwork seemed to soak up the gathering dark. Then his radio hissed and a voice told him everyone was in position. Mackenzie looked at the officer heading the tactical teams. He gave a short nod.

  ‘Go.’

  At the time I was unaware of any of this. I was aware only of the agony of having to do nothing but wait. I knew Mackenzie was right. I’d seen enough botched police operations to know they had to be planned properly. That didn’t make it any easier, though.

  It was obvious I wasn’t welcome at the police trailer, even if I had wanted to stay. But I couldn’t bear the frustration of waiting there, trying to guess what was happening from the sombre faces. I went back to the Land Rover and called Ben. He’d be waiting to hear what had happened. My hands shook as I dialled his number.

  ‘Look, why don’t you come and wait over here?’ he said. ‘Help me finish the whisky. You don’t want to be alone right now.’

  I appreciated his concern, but declined. Alcohol was the last thing I wanted right now. Or company, come to that. I ended the call and stared out of the windscreen. The sky above Manham had dulled to the colour of burnt copper, and still darker clouds were rolling in. The air was pregnant with the promise of rain. With percipient timing, the heatwave was finally ending. Like a lot of other things.

  Abruptly, I jumped out of the car, intent on appealing to Mackenzie again, to try and persuade him to let me go with them. But I stopped before I reached the trailer. I knew what his answer would be, and I wouldn’t be helping Jenny by getting in the way now.

  And then the solution suddenly came to me. I might not be able actually to go with them to the windmill, but they couldn’t stop me from waiting nearby. I didn’t need to ask Mackenzie’s permission for that. I could take some insulin with me, be ready when they found Jenny. It wasn’t much of a plan, but at least it was better than doing nothing. I’d already lost Kara and Alice. I couldn’t just stand by idly while Jenny’s fate was decided.

  I didn’t carry insulin in my medical kit, but we kept a supply in the fridge back at the surgery. I ran back to the car and drove to Bank House, leaving the Land Rover engine running as I dashed inside. Evening clinic had finished, but Janice was still there. She looked up in surprise as I burst in.

  ‘Dr Hunter, I wasn’t expecting…I mean, have you heard anything?’

  I just shook my head, in too much of a hurry to answer. I rushed into Henry’s study and tore open the fridge. I didn’t look around as Henry wheeled himself in.

  ‘David, what on earth are you doing?’

  ‘Looking for the insulin.’ I scrabbled through the bottles and cartons. ‘Come on. Where the hell is it?’

  ‘Calm down, tell me what’s happened.’

  ‘It’s Carl Brenner and his cousin. They’ve got Jenny at the old windmill. The police are going to raid it.’

  ‘Carl Brenner?’ He took a moment to absorb the news. ‘So why do you need insulin?’

  ‘I’m going out there.’ The insulin was staring me in the face. I grabbed it and unlocked the steel cabinet for a syringe.

  ‘But won’t they have an ambulance with them?’

  I didn’t answer, stubbornly continued looking on the shelves for the disposable syringes.

  ‘David, just think about it. They’ll have properly equipped emergency teams, with insulin and everything else. What good are you going to do charging up there?’

  The question pierced my frenzy. All the manic energy that had been driving me seemed to leak away. I looked stupidly at the insulin and syringes in my hands.

  ‘I don’t know.’ My voice was hoarse.

  Henry sighed. ‘Put them back, David,’ he said, gently.

  I held out a moment longer, then did as he said.

  He took my arm. ‘Come and sit down. You look awful.’

  I let him lead me to the chair, but didn’t sit in it. ‘I can’t sit down. I need to do something.’

  He was looking at me with concern. ‘I know it’s hard. But sometimes there just isn’t anything you can do, no matter how much you might wish otherwise.’

  My throat had constricted. I could feel tears pricking at my eyes. ‘I want to be there. When they find her.’

  Henry didn’t speak for a moment. ‘David…’ He sounded reluctant. ‘I know you don’t want to hear this, but…well, don’t you think you ought to prepare yourself?’

  I felt as if something had punched me in the stomach. I couldn’t breathe.

  ‘I know how fond of her you are, but—’

  ‘Don’t say it.’

  He nodded, tiredly. ‘All right. Look, let me get you a drink.’

  ‘I don’t want a drink!’ I stopped myself. ‘I can’t sit around and wait. I just can’t.’

  Henry looked helpless. ‘I wish I knew what to say. I’m sorry.’

  ‘Give me something to do. Anything.’r />
  ‘There isn’t anything. There’s only one visit in the book, and—’

  ‘Who is it?’

  ‘Irene Williams, but it’s not urgent. You’d be better off staying here—’

  But I was already heading for the door. I went out without collecting the patient’s notes, barely aware of the worried look Janice gave me. I had to keep moving, had to distract myself from the fact that Jenny’s life was out of my hands. I tried to blank it from my mind as I drove to the small terraced cottage on the outskirts of the village where Irene Williams lived. A talkative woman in her seventies, she was waiting to have her arthritic hip replaced with stoic good humour. Normally I enjoyed visiting her, but this evening any small talk was beyond me.

  ‘You’re quiet. Cat got your tongue?’ she asked as I wrote out her prescription.

  ‘Just tired.’ I saw I’d made the prescription out for insulin instead of painkillers. I screwed it up and wrote another.

  She chuckled. ‘Don’t think I don’t know what’s wrong with you.’

  I could only stare at her. She smiled, her false teeth the only youthful feature in her wizened face.

  ‘You want to get a nice girl. That’d brighten you up a bit.’

  It was all I could do not to run out.

  Back in the safety of the Land Rover, I put my head on the steering wheel. I looked at my watch. Its fingers seemed to move with mocking slowness. It was still too soon to hear anything. I’d had enough experience of how the police worked to know they would probably still be talking, briefing the tactical teams and finalizing their plans.

  I checked my mobile anyway. The signal fluttered weakly, but there was enough reception for any calls or messages to have reached me. Nothing. I stared through the windscreen at the village. It struck me then how much I hated Manham. I hated the flint buildings, hated the flat, waterlogged landscape. Hated the suspicion and resentment that crowded the attitudes of its inhabitants. Hated that a perverted killer had managed to live here unnoticed, until his sickness was ready to declare itself. Most of all, I hated the fact that it had given me Jenny and then taken her away again. See this? This is what your lives could have been like.

  The almost feverish emotion faded as quickly as it came, leaving me sick and febrile in its wake. Dark clouds were blackening the sky like a spreading bruise as I started the car. There was nothing to do now but go back, and sit and wait for the phone call that terrified me. The thought of it was suffocating.

  And then I remembered there was something else after all. That morning when I’d gone to see Scarsdale in the churchyard, Tom Mason had told me about his grandfather’s bad back. It was a recurrent problem for the old man, the price of a lifetime spent stooped over other people’s flowerbeds. Calling to see him would take up a few more minutes, provide another distraction until I could expect to hear from Mackenzie. With relief bordering on desperation, I turned the car around and headed for the Masons’ house.

  Old George and his grandson lived on the edge of the woods by the lake, in what had once been the lodge for Manham Hall. The family had been gardeners there for generations, and as a young man George had worked at the hall himself until it had been demolished after the war. Now the lodge was all that remained, a few acres of neatness and cultivation surviving among the encroaching woodland.

  The gunmetal sheen of the lake was visible through the trees as I parked in the yard and went to knock on the door. It had a large, frosted glass panel that rattled slightly under my hand. When there was no answer I rapped again. As I waited the air vibrated with a rumble of thunder. I looked at the sky, surprised to notice how quickly the light had faded. The storm clouds rolling in overhead had brought a premature end to the day. It would be dark before much longer.

  I belatedly realized something else. There were no lights on in the house, which there should have been if anyone was home. There were only the two of them, Tom’s parents having died when he was a boy. So perhaps George had recovered enough to go to work after all. I started back towards the Land Rover, but only took a few paces before I stopped. Some awareness was nagging at me, a sense of something missed. The air seemed hushed with an eerie, pre-storm quiet. I looked around the yard, gripped by an uneasy feeling of imminence, that something was about to happen. Yet there was nothing I could see.

  I jumped as something struck my bare arm. A fat raindrop had spattered on it. A moment later the sky was lit up by a flat sheet of lightning. For an instant everything was bleached to a dazzling white. In the pregnant silence that followed I became aware of a sound more felt than heard. It was drowned out a moment later by the bellicose crack of thunder, but I knew I hadn’t imagined it. A low, almost subliminal hum that was all too familiar.

  Flies.

  And while recognition was dawning on me, several miles away, Mackenzie stood grim-faced, surrounded by cages of terrified birds and animals as a breathless police sergeant confirmed what he already knew.

  ‘We’ve checked everywhere,’ the man said. ‘There’s no-one here.’

  CHAPTER 29

  IT WAS DIFFICULT TO pinpoint where the sound of flies had come from. But I knew it was from the house. The darkened windows stared blindly down at me, offering no help. I went to the nearest and peered through. Inside I could dimly make out a kitchen, but little else. I tried the next. A living room, the dead screen of a television set facing two worn armchairs.

  I went to the door, raised my hand to knock again, then let it fall. If anyone had been going to answer they would have. I paused on the step, uncertain what to do.

  But I knew what I’d heard. And I knew I couldn’t ignore it. My hand went to the door handle. If it was locked the decision would have been made for me. I turned it.

  The door opened.

  I hesitated, knowing I shouldn’t even be considering doing this. Then I caught the smell from inside the house. Fetid and faintly sweet, it was an odour I recognized only too well.

  I pushed the door fully open on to a dim hallway. The smell was unmistakable now. Dry-mouthed, I took out my phone to call the police. It was no longer a question of jumping at shadows. Something—someone—had died in here. I’d actually started to dial before I realized there was no signal. The Mason house was in a dead zone. I swore, wondering how long I’d been out of touch, if Mackenzie had been trying to reach me.

  That gave me another reason to go inside. But even if I hadn’t needed to find a landline, I didn’t have a choice. As little as I wanted to go into the house, there was no way now I could simply walk away.

  The smell immediately grew stronger. I stood in the hallway, trying to get a feel for the house. At first glance it seemed superficially tidy, but there was a thick covering of dust over everything.

  ‘Hello?’ I called.

  Nothing. There was a door off to my right. I opened it, found myself in the kitchen I’d seen through the window. Dirty dishes stacked in the sink, food left to congeal and rot on plates. A few fat flies were stirred into life, but not enough to account for the noise I’d heard earlier.

  The lounge was similarly untenanted. The same dusty armchairs I’d seen through the window faced the dead television. I couldn’t see a telephone. I came out and made my way to the stairs. The carpet running up them was old and threadbare, the top of them almost invisible in the gloom. I paused at the foot of the stairs, my hand on the banister.

  I didn’t want to go up there. But having come this far I couldn’t just leave. There was a light switch at the bottom. I flicked it, and jumped when the bulb popped and went out. Slowly, I made my way up. The smell became more pervasive with every step. And now it was joined by another, something cloying and tarry that pricked at my subconscious. But I didn’t have time to wonder about it now. The stairs ended in another hallway. In the near-darkness I could make out an empty, dingy bathroom, and two other doors. I went to the first, opened it. Inside was a rumpled single bed, standing on unpainted floorboards. I came out and went to the second door. The tarry smell was s
tronger here as I took hold of the handle. When I turned it the door stuck, and for a second I thought it was locked. Then the resistance suddenly gave way and I pushed it open.

  A black cloud of flies buffeted my face. I batted them away, almost gagging at the warm stench from the room. It was a smell I thought I’d become almost accustomed to, but this was overpowering. The flies were becoming less hysterical, beginning to settle again on a shape on the bed. Covering my mouth with my hands, I breathed in short gulps as I approached it.

  My first feeling was relief. The body was badly decomposed, and though it was impossible to tell at a glance whether it had been male or female, whoever it was had obviously been dead for some time. Certainly a lot longer than two days. Thank God, I thought, weakly.

  The flies covering it stirred irritably as I carefully moved closer. It was getting too dark for them to be active now. If I’d arrived at the house a little later, or lightning hadn’t chosen that moment to disturb them, I might never have heard their tell-tale drone. The window was slightly open, I saw now. Not enough to allow the air in the room to clear, but wide enough for flies attracted by the perfume of decay to enter and lay their eggs.

  The body was propped up on pillows, the arms lying limply outside the bedclothes. By the bed was an old wooden cabinet, on which was an empty glass and a motionless alarm clock. Next to them was a man’s watch and a small prescription bottle of pills. It was too dark to read the label, but then another flash of lightning lit up the room. It picked out features like a silent snapshot: faded floral wallpaper, a framed picture above the bed, and in its momentary glare I made out the printing on the bottle. Coproxamol painkillers, for George Mason.

  The old gardener’s back may well have been bad, but that wasn’t the reason he hadn’t been in the village lately. I remembered what Tom Mason had said in the churchyard when I’d asked him where his grandfather was. Still in bed. I wondered how long ago old George had died. And what it said about Manham that no-one had noticed his absence.