Fell of Dark

by Reginald Hill

  Any purpose in my wanderings had long been lost. I did not know whether I had come five miles or fifty. All I did know was that after I left the sheep (had I lain there one hour or ten?) I became aware that I had reached a state where not even sitting and awaiting recapture was enough. If I was to survive, I had to go and find someone to capture me. My body was at the same time numb with cold and aching with pain and I could feel waves of fever racing through my skull.

  I was back among fir trees again and I laughed hysterically at the thought that I might have wandered all the way back to Whinlatter. That at least would mean the road was near. All I would have to do was lie across it till a car pulled up. Or didn’t pull up.

  Surrender, surrender, surrender, was the only thought, if thought it could be called, in my mind.

  So when I saw a light ahead, apparently very low down, I didn’t care whether it was cast by a torch, a window, or the gates of Hell itself. I headed straight for it.

  I had been coming downhill for some time now, proceeding in a series of painful rushes from one tree-trunk to the next. Now the angle of descent grew even steeper and a little rational area in my mind told me to take care, but my body was incapable of obeying mental instructions in any case. But the little rational area was not at all surprised when my feet slid away from under me and I skidded on my backside down a bank of shale into the small garden of a grey stone cottage whose windows glowed invitingly.

  I got to my feet, absurdly ran my fingers through my hair to straighten it, and made my way to the door. It opened at a touch and I found myself in a small kitchen. To my right was another door under which a line of light glowed.

  I pushed it open and stepped into a long low room. It was almost unfurnished, and there was nothing on the floor except for a line of disembodied heads. At the far end was a workbench cluttered up with various odds-and-ends, among which I recognized a potter’s turntable and a mound of clay. In a clamp at one end of the bench was a large piece of stone rough-hewn into the shape of a skull.

  And by the bench with a chisel in one hand and a mallet in the other was a woman.

  She looked at me in silence and I stared back. We were both interesting sights, I for obvious reasons, she because she wore a blue nylon overall unfastened down the front to reveal she was nude underneath.

  ‘Oh, it’s you,’ she said. ‘You’d better come in.’

  NINE

  I closed the door behind me and leaned against it. She put her mallet and chisel carefully down on the bench, then placed her hands on her hips inside the overall, thus pulling it open even wider.

  ‘Well?’ she said.

  ‘Well what?’

  ‘When does it begin? The rape?’

  She was a woman I could not have found attractive in any circumstances. She must have been about forty years old and her flesh was sagging badly. Her hair was almost the colour of tomato soup with one bright silver lock trailing over the rest like the spoor of a snail. Her face was broad and bold, like that of a prototype barmaid without the geniality. Her protruding underlip jutted like a ledge over the gentler slopes of her two chins.

  Her breasts hung from her rib-cage like boxing gloves on a gym wall and her nipples were almost invisible. Her belly sagged over a thatch of hair very different in colour from that on her head. And even her legs, which were long and shapely, in their very perfection looked incongruous forking out beneath that derelict torso.

  As I said, in no circumstances could I imagine myself being attracted to her. And at this particular moment not all the wiles of Cleopatra could have put the fire in my blood.

  ‘No rape,’ I said.

  She came right up to me then till her face was only a few inches from mine.

  ‘What’s with you, Bentink? Choosey who we rape, are we?’

  Absurdly, I found myself apologizing as if I had been misunderstood by my hostess at a party.

  ‘No, no, it isn’t that. Not at all. It’s just that I’m rather tired …’

  I stammered to a halt. She threw back her head and laughed as uninhibitedly as she dressed.

  ‘Perhaps later then, eh? When you’re better.’

  I smiled weakly. She could afford to joke.

  There was a telephone on the floor, I now noticed, in a far corner.

  Once again I turned fatalist, once again my legs gave out. This time I knew that it would need more than the stimulus of pursuit or a shower of rain to put strength back in them. I slid slowly down the door till I sat on the floor. Then I keeled over to my left and subsided slowly on to my side. My head came down alongside one of the disembodied heads I had noticed. I recognized it. It was Ferguson, done in a blue-veined stone.

  I winked a greeting, then closed my eyes. Distantly I felt a foot prod my stomach. Then a pair of hands fastened under my armpits and began to drag me across the floor.

  I smiled complacently. It would take more than that to disturb my slumbers. And I sank into a mountain-haunted sleep.

  I awoke under a blanket in a corner of the same room. The woman was still there chipping away at the stone in the vice. It might have been a mere couple of minutes since I had passed out and for a second I thought it was, but then the difference of light told me this was morning and a fine one. I raised myself on my elbow and realized that the tattered remains of my clothes had been removed. I was lying on two or three more blankets folded over to form an oblong.

  At my movement, she turned round and glanced down at me. She was dressed as before, and the fact that her overall now had a couple of buttons fastened hardly concealed her nakedness any more efficiently. I was more self-conscious and clung tightly to my blanket as I struggled to my feet. I felt rather feverish and my body was awash with aches and pains so that I grunted and groaned like an old man as I straightened out my limbs. The woman took a couple of steps towards me, reached out and whipped away my blanket.

  ‘It’s a bit late to be so bloody modest,’ she said, looking at me appraisingly.

  ‘Turn around.’

  I was too weak to refuse. When I had completed the full circle, she said, ‘Well, I’ve saved you from gangrene, I suppose, though you look a fine bloody sight I must say.’

  I looked down at myself and realized for the first time just how many cuts, scratches and abrasions I had collected in my flight.

  ‘I’d have put you in bed, but there’s only mine and you’re too bloody filthy. Go and have a shower. You stink the place up.’

  She turned back to her lump of stone. I had neither the inclination nor the energy to assert myself and turned and went out through the door, leaning against the wall for support.

  The cottage, I discovered, was built on a rather peculiar plan, or rather the ‘modernization’ of it (for economic reasons I supposed) had resulted in some peculiarities. It was a single-storey structure two-thirds of which was taken up by the room I had just come out of. The other third consisted of the kitchen through which I had entered the previous night and in which I now stood, and a bedroom which led off the kitchen also. The bedroom was almost sumptuous in its furnishings compared with the bareness of the living-room. A round bed stood in the middle of it and each of the four corners of the room was hidden, one by a full-length mirror, two by curtains which formed small wardrobe recesses and the fourth by a full-length picture which looked at first glance like a brass rubbing of an armoured knight, recumbent, with his arms crossed on his chest. But closer examination revealed that the picture was of the rear view of the knight and the arms crossed over his back obviously belonged to a woman underneath him. Even my rusty Latin was up to translating the beautifully lettered inscription …‘And the second thing I did on returning from the Crusade was to take my armour off …’

  This shutting off of the corners gave the room a circular shape which was accentuated by the bed in the middle. There was a small window, uncurtained, presumably to avoid interrupting the flow of the wall, but provided with small flush shutters on the inside. I opened these and looked out.
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  I found myself peering down over a great stretch of black water which I did not recognize. The hills facing me on the far side looked peculiarly menacing even to my over-menaced mind. They seemed to close in to my left and even to the right where the aspect was more open the silhouette of one ridge in particular, with two vicious-looking needles protruding into the washed blue of the sky, made me shudder. I decided that this must be Ennerdale Water. Any other lake within reach of my fevered wanderings I would have recognized. This, because of its beautiful remoteness, I had never visited before. I say ‘beautiful’ not because I was still in a state to appreciate the aesthetic appeal of sky, hills, and water, but because here at least I was away from the mainstream of walkers, climbers and casual tourists. The cottage was about thirty yards from the lake edge. There was no sign of life anywhere.

  I closed the shutters and opened the second door in the room. This led me into what had obviously once been the entrance hall to the cottage, with the kitchen straight ahead, the living-room (and probably another bedroom for I felt sure that the large room I had slept in must have been two rooms combined) and the present bedroom to the right, a simple enough plan. This small hall had now been made into a lavatory and shower. The old front door still existed, but heavily and unassailably bolted and barred, while the doors which had once existed to the kitchen and living-room had been removed and bricked in.

  I turned on the shower which ran hot with commendable speed. I stepped in and let my flesh bask in the delicious and soothing heat for several minutes before seizing a lump of soap and beginning the job of removing the grime from my skin.

  A quarter of an hour later I was feeling fit enough to start considering my situation again. The big enigma, of course, was just what I could expect from this woman. She could have no immediate intention of handing me over to the police otherwise she would have done it while I was asleep. On the other hand her attitude to me had not revealed any instinctive beliefs in my innocence or even any firm desire to help.

  I stepped out of the shower and looked for something to dry myself with.

  ‘Here, try this.’

  She was leaning against the door looking at me without emotion. She held out to me a large towel which I used both for drying and concealing.

  ‘It bothers you, doesn’t it?’ she said. ‘That’s a bit odd for a rapist surely.’

  I didn’t answer for a moment but finished off my towelling then tied the towel round my waist.

  ‘Look,’ I said, ‘let’s get one thing clear. I did not kill those girls. I had nothing to do with it. You’re in no danger from me.’

  She found this very amusing.

  ‘It’s you who’s in danger, Bentink. From me. If you’re so bloody innocent you won’t mind me ‘phoning the police.’

  I moved forward, uneasy. The sleep and the shower had refreshed me, yes, but I was in no condition to start running again. After what I had been through, it seemed stupid to let a woman turn me in while I stood inactive only a yard away. I reached out my hand. She did not move. I touched her arm. She let a small breath escape through her nose. I tightened my grip. A sudden stirring of lust moved in my stomach.

  The telephone rang.

  I turned away, filled suddenly with horror at myself. I realized how relative a thing my innocence was. This woman, whose body seemed so unattractive a thing, had stirred me to a lust which another minute might have turned to action.

  She was speaking now, coldly.

  ‘No. I don’t think I shall be back tomorrow. I’m doing some rather interesting work and I think I will stop on till it’s finished. Goodbye.’

  She replaced the receiver.

  ‘My husband. I am Moira Jane Reckitt. My husband is William Reckitt. He is a physicist. He works at the Calder Hall research establishment. We have a flat which has been provided for us by the Government. We have neighbours who have been provided for us by the Government. We also have this place, which helped me survive two and a half years up here. My husband bought it so we could get away. Now I use it so that I can get away from him. That’s my story, Bentink. You make an interesting change. That’s why I’m reluctant to give you up.’

  All of this except the last three sentences was spoken in a rapid monotone. It was only at the end that she resumed her old sardonic manner.

  All I could say was, ‘I didn’t kill those girls.’

  ‘Who cares?’ she asked. ‘Who bloody well cares whether you did or not? You’re on the run, aren’t you? Perfect innocence never ran away. Are you hungry?’

  ‘Why yes.’

  Why, yes indeed, I realized. I was almost starving.

  ‘Get yourself something to eat then,’ she said, and turned back to her stone.

  I turned to go, but stopped and turned back, partly to assert my independence from her casual authority and partly to ask a very real question.

  ‘Where are my clothes?’

  ‘Those rags? I burnt them in the kitchen stove.’

  That settled matters for the moment. I could hardly go scrambling over the fells dressed only in a bath towel.

  I cooked myself a great plateful of bacon and eggs and followed it up with two tins of vegetable soup and half a loaf of bread. This finished, I made a pot of coffee, picked up two mugs and returned to the living-room.

  She took the coffee without comment and went on with her work. I strolled around, looking at the heads on the floor.

  There was something very powerful about the stone heads with the broad brutal scars of the chisel left so openly on them. She was less successful in clay, and her dissatisfaction seemed to have expressed itself in caricature – a nose pulled down to meet a bloated lip, an eye so deeply set that it was like a Cyclops in his cave.

  ‘How long have you been doing this?’

  ‘Not long.’

  ‘Why did you start?’

  ‘Mind your own bloody business.’

  I stooped to the head of Ferguson I had noticed (I dimly recollected) the night before, and moved it over to get a better look.

  To my non-expert gaze, it looked a first-class piece of work, possessing all the power of the other pieces yet with a much greater delicacy and subtlety of delineation.

  ‘How long have you known Ferguson?’

  ‘Long enough.’

  ‘I think this is very good.’

  No reply.

  ‘Why is it better than the others?’

  A few taps with the mallet.

  ‘I suppose because he was better than the others.’

  ‘Better?’

  She snorted a laugh.

  ‘I thought every man knew that the artist always sleeps with his models. It works both ways.’

  I looked at the array of heads.

  ‘Most of them,’ she said.

  ‘Have you met Ferguson’s daughter?’

  ‘What do you think?’

  Once again, thoughts of Annie Ferguson made my hand stray to the back of my head and I suddenly felt rather giddy. I went over to the wall and sat down on the blanket which had acted as my mattress the previous night.

  ‘You still tired? Go to bed.’

  I looked at her uncomprehendingly for a second.

  ‘You’re clean enough now. Go to bed.’

  The thought of sheets and a real mattress was so seductive that I swallowed my annoyance at her ungracious command and without another word headed for the bedroom.

  It was as delightful as my mind had pictured and I sank into a sleep which even in its beginnings felt much more soothing than that of the previous night. It had been long, certainly, but just as when you have driven further than you should, the road unwinds before you all night, so the mountain tracks had been etched on my eyelids then. Now there was nothing except the darkness of silence.

  When I opened my eyes again, Moira Jane was lying beside me, her belly heaving against my thigh. I tried to pretend I was still asleep and turned away, but a powerful hand turned me back.

  ‘What’s the matte
r?’ she said. ‘You want me for a character witness or something? Come on.’

  Again I recognized that my absurd unreliable body was not at all loth to come on, and under Moira Jane’s expert direction all signs of physical reluctance quickly disappeared.

  I am not certain at what point enthusiasm becomes nymphomania, but Moira Jane certainly did not make any unreasonable physical demands on me. I stayed there for the next four nights and we never had it more than once a night. I got the impression that this was just the climactic point of a daily process which started when I got up in the morning and brought a jug of coffee into the bedroom. She lay there expressionlessly but I noticed her eyes followed my every movement. I took over the kitchen and did all the cooking and washing up while she chipped away.

  ‘When are you going to do my head?’ I asked.

  ‘You? For rapists I don’t do heads. I’m going to do your crutch.’

  Something in her attempts to shock reminded me of Jan. I found myself looking at her in horror at one point and thinking that this was what another ten years could make of Jan. Or perhaps it was what I could make of Jan in another ten years.

  I suppose when you react so unfavourably to a person at first sight as I had to Moira Jane, further acquaintance must often improve matters a little; and I found myself regarding her, if not with affection, at least with an effort at understanding. I discovered that though in fact her husband, a man of some influence it seemed, had bought the cottage from the Forestry Commission on whose land it stood, it had been Moira’s own money which had put it into its present shape. She obviously treasured the place above all else in her life.

  I foolishly said to her, ‘Didn’t I read somewhere that they are going to raise the level of the lake and make it a reservoir? Won’t that affect you?’