The Bone Field

by Simon Kernick

  This was all about speed now. With the dogs still barking, I picked up the shotgun, grabbed a couple of spare shells from the guy’s pouch, stuffing them in my pocket, and ran towards the barn where Mavalu and the other guy had taken Tina, half expecting to see the man in the hat aiming a gun at me. But I couldn’t see him anywhere, although with the noise the dogs were making he was going to realize something was wrong very soon.

  As I reached the barn door, I heard it. The unmistakable rattle of a chainsaw being fired up. Coming from inside. And I remembered what Dan Watts had told me about Jonas Mavalu, how he’d once supposedly dismembered a man with a chainsaw.

  I tried the door. It was open. Taking a deep breath as my heart beat loudly in my chest, I pushed it open the rest of the way and, with the shotgun raised in front of me, went inside.

  The room was large and gloomy, two skylights in the roof and a single bulb hanging down providing the only light. Tina was in the middle of the room. She was sitting with her back to me in a steel chair that had been bolted to the floor, a thick leather strap round her midriff holding her in place. Off to one side of her stood the man who’d helped Mavalu bring her in here. He was holding a dirty rag in one hand and a bucket in the other, and he was watching intently as Mavalu stood directly in front of Tina with the chainsaw raised in both hands, an unpleasant smile on his face which vanished the moment he saw me.

  I stood back against the door, propping the shotgun beneath my arm and searching for the lock with my free hand, all the time watching both men. I found the bolt, pulled it across, and stepped away from the door, aiming the shotgun at Mavalu, who seemed to be the only one who was armed.

  ‘Move back and put down the chainsaw,’ I shouted, taking another step forward.

  ‘It don’t work like that,’ he shouted back over the noise, moving the blade so it was only a few inches from Tina’s neck. The slightest movement and it would rip through her flesh, severing her jugular and killing her in a matter of seconds. ‘Put the gun down or I’ll kill her. Right now.’ He moved the blade even closer, until it was almost touching the skin. ‘Do you think I won’t do it? The only reason she’s alive is because I needed to find out who else was with her. Now I know. Which means she’s no use to me.’

  ‘Touch her and you die,’ I called out. ‘Put the chainsaw down and you live. The police are on the way.’

  Mavalu hung his head low and glared at me like a bull surveying a rival, the veins on his neck standing out. He shook his head, his huge hands steady on the handle. ‘You’ve got five seconds or I take off her head,’ he roared. ‘And I’ve had plenty of practice.’

  The thumping in my chest grew louder and I felt lightheaded. I could see the other guy inching towards me. He was young and looked determined. I had only seconds to resolve this situation but I didn’t know how I was going to do it without risking Tina’s life. I couldn’t even imagine what she was thinking right now, and I was thankful I couldn’t see her face, because I suspected her fear would have been infectious.

  If I put the gun down I was dead. We both were.

  ‘Four!’ yelled Mavalu. ‘Three!’

  I knew then I wasn’t going to lower the weapon, that I was almost certainly going to lose the only woman I’d had feelings for in the last five years. But I had no choice. If I died, the investigation was finished, and I couldn’t have that. I’d made a promise.

  ‘Two!’

  I kept the gun pointed at Mavalu’s chest, making calculations in my head. If I hit him in his right shoulder I might knock him and the chainsaw backwards and when it dropped it might just miss Tina. But I hadn’t fired a shotgun in years. I almost certainly wouldn’t get it right.

  Somewhere deep down I felt the panic building. Tina was going to die. I was going to be responsible.

  ‘Last chance, boy!’ roared Mavalu, his eyes alive with the thrill of violence.

  My finger tensed on the trigger and I moved the shotgun ever so slightly upwards. The man with the bucket inched further towards me. The chainsaw roared in my ears.

  In one movement I swung the gun sideways and shot the guy with the bucket in the chest, the blast echoing round the room as he went down like a lead weight, sending the bucket clattering. Then I swung the shotgun back towards Mavalu, who’d already thrown down the chainsaw and was pulling the pistol from the back of his jeans as instinct took over, just as I’d hoped. I didn’t have time to see if Tina was unhurt. I fired again, just as Mavalu cracked off a shot at me.

  Surprisingly, at least to me, I hit his right shoulder, taking out a big hunk of flesh, while his round missed me. The gun flew out of his hand, clattering across the floor, as he staggered backwards, staring at the injury in shock.

  His hesitation gave me a valuable headstart and I sprinted over towards the gun, swinging the shotgun round my head one-handed and flinging it at him.

  Mavalu ducked as it flew past his head then he too ran for the gun.

  He was closer but I was faster, and I literally dived the last few feet, acting on instinct rather than judgement, knowing that if I got this wrong I was probably dead. I hit the ground chest-first with a jarring thud, reached out, my fingers finding the trigger guard, and rolled round as he loomed above me, launching a ferocious kick into my ribs that knocked me bodily along the floor. I felt the wind come flying out of me but I had the wherewithal to keep my grip on the gun and start firing.

  Mavalu still had momentum from his charge and he veered away from me and ran back towards the chainsaw, which was vibrating loudly on the floor a couple of yards from Tina’s feet.

  I aimed the gun at his back and fired in rapid succession, hitting him at least three times, and he fell to his knees. Even then he still had the strength and purpose to reach over and grab the chainsaw. I saw Tina’s face, frozen in panic as she struggled vainly in the metal seat.

  With a roar louder than the noise of the saw, and still on his knees, Mavalu lifted it one-handed above his head even as I shot him a fourth and a fifth time.

  Tina screamed and I fired again, the sixth bullet taking off the top of Mavalu’s head in a fine cloud of brain and bone just as he threw the chainsaw at Tina.

  It seemed to arc through the air in slow motion, passing millimetres from her leg before bouncing across the floor towards the far wall; but then I saw the expression on Tina’s face change to one of pain, and I realized it had made contact.

  I was on my feet in an instant as Mavalu toppled forward, dead. As soon as I got to Tina I could see the cut on the top of her thigh leaking blood through the ripped fabric of her jeans and I prayed that it hadn’t severed an artery. ‘Don’t move,’ I said, forcing myself to stay calm as I removed the leather strap round her midriff and wrapped it as tightly as I could round her thigh.

  ‘I’m all right,’ she said quietly as I did up the strap. ‘I think it only just caught me.’

  I looked up at her and was relieved to see that she didn’t seem to be going into shock. ‘You need medical help and fast. Have you got a signal here?’

  She reached into her jeans pocket and pulled out her phone. ‘No.’

  ‘Can you stand?’

  She nodded, and I helped her to her feet.

  I released the clip on Mavalu’s handgun and checked the number of rounds I had left as Tina limped over to the chainsaw and switched it off. I handed her the gun. ‘There are three rounds left in here. Take it, and as soon as you get a signal dial 999.’

  Tina shook her head. ‘There’s still at least one of them left. It’s the same man who killed Charlotte in France.’

  ‘Leave him to me.’

  I took out the two spare shells I’d grabbed from the guy at the kennels and fed them into the shotgun.

  ‘You take the pistol,’ she said, limping back over. ‘You’ll need it against him. I’ll take the shotgun.’

  I thought about arguing but decided against it, and we exchanged weapons.

  ‘The guy in the house must have heard the gunfire, so he might be
waiting for us out there. Follow me, OK?’

  Tina nodded, and we approached the door on either side. Tightening my grip on the handgun, I unbolted it and flung it open, moving quickly out of the way.

  No shots came, and after a few seconds I peered slowly round the doorframe. The courtyard was empty and I couldn’t see anyone in the windows of the main house. I moved my head out further, looking round.

  ‘What can you see?’ Tina whispered.

  ‘Nothing.’

  ‘Be careful. This bastard’s good. And he’s cool with it.’

  I continued looking and listening but everything was silent bar the occasional birdcall. ‘OK,’ I said after a few seconds, ‘follow me out.’ I stepped out on to the gravel, checking the windows of the house again, and heard Tina come out behind me.

  A sudden flash of movement on the second floor caught my eye. I looked up just in time to see the flash of a gun muzzle through the half-open window.

  Shots flew past my head and I immediately fired a round back as the figure in the window disappeared from view.

  ‘Are you OK?’ I shouted over my shoulder.

  ‘I’m fine,’ Tina called back.

  ‘Then go. Round the side of the barn, away from the house. I’ll cover you.’

  I stood in front of her acting as a shield, my eyes shifting from window to window as I waited for him to reappear. I took a rapid glance over my shoulder and saw Tina limping along the side of the barn, the shotgun in her hands, her progress faster than I’d been expecting. From the angle she was at, she couldn’t be seen from the house.

  As I turned back round I saw movement behind the door to the main house, and the next second the glass exploded as more shots rang out in my direction. I dived to the ground, and as I looked back up I saw a face behind the broken glass staring at me, and I swear he was smiling.

  Fifty-one

  Jumping to my feet, I yelled at Tina to keep moving and ran towards the house, gun outstretched in both hands. I crouched down beside the door and shoved it open, staying out of sight, then peered in.

  The door led into a large traditional kitchen with a wooden dining table on which there were half-eaten plates of food. The room was empty. I took a tentative step inside, then another, feeling myself being swallowed by the silence within.

  I kept moving, one slow step at a time, conscious that I was breathing far too heavily. A single bead of sweat ran down my forehead and into my eye. I blinked it away and continued through the kitchen and into a large hallway where a wide staircase zigzagged up to the next floor. I looked up but the balcony that ran round the top of it was empty. There were doors to my left and doors to my right, all half open. Strangely, even though I was putting every ounce of my concentration into trying to spot an ambush, I noticed that there were no pictures on the walls, or ornaments anywhere. The place was as empty as a show home.

  I stopped in the middle of the floor, the carpet soft beneath my feet. And that was when I heard it. A thin rasping sound, like someone trying to clear their throat, but harsher. More urgent.

  I walked slowly in the direction of the sound, my finger tense on the trigger, and saw that a door was open directly underneath the staircase leading down to the basement. The sound was coming from there.

  It stopped for a couple of seconds then started again, but this time it was the sound of someone choking and gasping for air. I moved closer, conscious that I had my back to one of the half-open doors, and that this could be a trap.

  Then I heard something else coming from down in the basement. A man’s voice, soft, and with the faintest foreign inflection, calling up to me. ‘Come down here, my friend,’ he said, his tone strangely welcoming.

  I stopped at the door and looked down into the darkness. At first I could see nothing; then, as my eyes adapted, I made out a steep flight of steps leading down to a room with an uneven cement floor. A feeling of claustrophobia swept through me as long-ago memories of a night trapped in a cupboard while my father tried to find me came racing to the fore.

  ‘I’m here, my friend,’ came the voice again. ‘Waiting for you.’

  And then, as I watched, a teenage girl, probably no more than seventeen, staggered into view. Her feet were bare and she was wearing a black dress. A steel collar, attached to a thick, rattling chain, had been placed round her neck, and when she looked up at me I saw that her mouth was open and full of blood. She was trying desperately to say something but no words would come out, and it took me a couple of seconds to realize that her tongue had been cut out.

  She spat out a mouthful of blood and tried to climb the steps but the chain only let her go as far as the second. There was such pain and pleading in her dark eyes that it made my stomach turn over. Instinctively I turned round to check that no one was coming up behind me, but the hallway remained empty.

  I knew it was a trap. It had to be. The guy was inviting me into the cellar. But I couldn’t just stand where I was, watching this girl, now on her knees as the blood poured down her chin, desperately trying to take the collar off her neck.

  I had to go down there.

  Into the blackness. Into a small dark space with no light. And if the door shut behind me, I’d be trapped down there for ever.

  My legs felt like lead; the fear crawled up my spine like cold fingers; but I confronted it and forced it back down, as I’d always had to do, and began descending into the darkness.

  The girl looked at me. The blood was everywhere now and I knew that there was no way she could survive this. That my coming down here was pointless.

  I mouthed the words ‘Is he there?’ and she took a quick glance and shook her head wildly, motioning for me to get the collar off her.

  I raced down the last of the steps and she grabbed me in her arms as I stepped into the basement, looking round in both directions. The room was big, the size of my apartment, and straight away my eyes focused on the huge bed with chains attached to it against the far wall. Even in the gloom I could make out the pentacle above it with the flowing ‘M’ inside – the symbol of the killers of Dana Brennan and Kitty Sinn. Beside it a doorway led through into another, even darker room.

  The girl was wriggling in my arms, making frightened, gurgling noises, and I could feel her blood soaking into my shirt. Knowing I only had a very short time to save her, I felt round her collar looking for a release but could only find a heavy lock that was going to be too hard to break. I needed a rag or something to stop the bleeding.

  That was when I smelled it. Petrol. The girl’s dress was wet with it.

  In that same moment the room beyond the doorway was lit up by a single flame from a lighter, and in the shadows the flame threw up I saw a pale, ghostlike face smiling at me from beneath the brim of a hat.

  I fired a shot, the noise almost deafening in the confines of the room, but the face had already been swallowed up by the darkness, while the flame seemed to sail through the air before hitting the floor and becoming a line of fire racing towards me as the fuel was ignited.

  Instinct took over. I threw myself free of the girl as she burst into flames, making a sound from deep inside her that I will hear in my nightmares for ever, then raced up the stairs as the entire basement became a wall of fire and heat.

  And then, as I reached the top step, an explosion shook the building and I was thrown headfirst across the floor with such force that I ended up smashing through one of the half-open doors and into another room.

  Rolling on to my back, I turned and saw a ball of flame like a dragon’s breath erupting from the basement door and scorching the wall opposite. I was out of range of the flames but I knew I had to get out fast.

  Still dazed by the blast, I realized that I’d lost the gun, and there was still one bullet left in it. I got to my feet and looked around, saw the gun a few feet away, and picked it up. There must be another exit from the basement, which meant that the man in the hat had to be close by and like me, he was going to want to get as far away from this house as he could.


  I ran out into the hallway, reeling against the heat, through the kitchen and back out of the door.

  The man in the hat was over by the kennels, putting a bullet into the prone body of the man I’d knocked unconscious earlier.

  I ran towards him, holding the gun two-handed, knowing I had to get a perfect shot, but he’d already opened the kennel door and suddenly the two Rottweilers were out and running at me, barking ferociously.

  The man in the hat lifted his gun, fired two shots my way with a casual nonchalance that suggested he didn’t really care if he hit me or not, and then I was forced to concentrate all my attention on the dogs. The first one was already leaping at my throat as I pulled the trigger, taking it somewhere in the chest. Momentum still drove it into me, knocking me to the ground, and the next moment the second dog was on me, its jaws only inches from my face as I put both hands round its huge neck in a desperate bid to hold it off.

  My arms quivered, began to give … and then another shot rang out. The dog let out a pitiful yelp and fell off me.

  Still lying where I’d fallen, I looked up and saw Tina limping towards me, the shotgun in her hand.

  ‘The police are on their way,’ she said, stopping in front of me.

  Slowly I clambered to my feet and looked over to the kennels and the orchard beyond. There was no sign of the man in the hat.

  ‘He got away,’ I said, panting from the shock and exertion of the last few minutes. ‘And the girl’s dead. I failed.’

  Tina shook her head. ‘We’re alive, Ray, and I’d call that success. They’ll find the guy, especially if he’s taken off on foot.’

  ‘I hope so,’ I said, but I wasn’t sure I believed it.

  She took my arm and together we half walked, half staggered up the driveway as behind us explosions ripped through the farm buildings, destroying the evidence of what had gone on there.

  For the moment at least, the battle was over.