Fell of Dark

by Reginald Hill

  He held out his arms beseechingly. I looked round.

  Standing in the doorway, backed by a whole posse of uniformed policemen, was Copley. I did not feel so inclined now to embrace his feet.

  He looked at the bloody scene before him with a dangerous glitter in his eyes. I was once again trying to struggle to my feet. Copley strode towards me. If I had been expecting assistance his face should have disabused me. His left hand thrust me back against the wall.

  ‘You bastard!’ he said, almost conversationally, as his right fist smashed twice into my stomach. I retched violently and fell forward as his left hand let go. The room was full of people now, I was dimly aware. I faintly heard a voice say, ‘Inspector! this man’s hands are tied.’

  ‘Let me see,’ came Copley’s rasping tones, and I was seized again and the cords round my wrists were pulled at savagely.

  There was an area of my mind still cool enough to realize that what Copley had believed – and now still hoped – was that I had killed Mervyn and somehow tied my own arms behind my back in an effort to demonstrate my innocence. He might even have got the cords off, had not he been interrupted.

  ‘I think perhaps there are too many people in this room, Inspector,’ said a voice I remembered.

  It was Melton.

  Copley stood up immediately and began to give orders rapidly, efficiently. I twisted my head round as the pain in my belly began to ease. Melton knelt beside me. His hands quickly, expertly, tested the bindings on my wrists, then he produced a pen-knife from his pocket and sawed through the cord.

  The pain I experienced as I tried to massage some life back into my hands was worse even than Copley’s assault. Melton led me out of the kitchen into the main hall. We had to step carefully round Mervyn’s body. I did not care to look.

  We sat down on hard chairs of the same type which Mervyn had smashed over my back. Melton offered me one of my own cigarettes, taking them from my pocket when he saw my ineffectual attempts to extract the packet. Then he leaned forward and adjusted his spectacles to the uttermost tip of his nose.

  ‘Now, Mr Bentink,’ he said. I recognized in that ‘now’ the beginnings of a lengthy, searching interrogation. I shook my head. It probably looked as if I was trying to clear my mind, but in fact it was a simple negative. I had had enough. I had been attacked, beaten, punched, bound, and terrified beyond despair. Let someone else give the answers.

  I said clearly and slowly, ‘Sam killed the girls. Ask the others.’

  Then I fainted. I had decided to faint in any case and refuse to open my eyes till I was in a hospital bed, drugged and bathed and hygienically wrapped. But once I made the decision, it proved to make no great call on my acting ability, and I slid away effortlessly into a welcome darkness.

  FOURTEEN

  I half woke from time to time I remember as I was moved to the hospital in Carlisle, but I resolutely fought my way back into oblivion until I found my head resting on a pillow and my body warm under bedclothes.

  At the bottom of the bed stood a police-constable. He looked down at me impassively. I felt I recognized him and half-smiled. He nodded carefully and went out of the door.

  I looked around and saw that I had a room to myself. This, I assumed, was one of the perks of being of interest to the police. The window curtains were still closed, but strong sunlight was obviously leaning up against them. I must have slept all night, I decided.

  The door opened and Jan came in. She looked very tired. She sat on the edge of the bed and for a few moments we said nothing.

  ‘Is it over?’ I finally asked.

  She shrugged.

  ‘I don’t think it will ever be over,’ she replied. I did not feel in the mood for philosophical analysis, so asked,

  ‘What happened last night?’

  ‘The police stopped me after a few miles. So much for my notion of getting right down to London.’

  ‘And then?’

  ‘They talked to me. That man Copley came. Then Melton. Finally I told them all I knew. And they headed back to Wyrton.’

  I thought this over carefully.

  ‘They didn’t seem very convinced of my innocence when they arrived.’

  She shrugged again. I could see she was very tired indeed.

  ‘Innocent, guilty, it seemed best in the end just to tell them where you were. They were beginning to have pretty firm suspicions anyway.’

  There was a tap at the door and Melton came in.

  ‘Good morning, Mr Bentink. Better now, I hope, Mrs Bentink? You really ought to get some sleep now, you know.’

  ‘I’ll wait,’ said Janet.

  ‘Very well.’

  ‘What’s happened, Superintendent?’ I asked with a smile. I had decided not to rub it in too much that he had been mistaken from the start. I felt a vague general benevolence and stretched my limbs luxuriously under the sheets. Melton did not smile back.

  ‘We have questioned the other boys again. When they heard what had happened to the boy Mervyn they co-operated fully and we have the whole story. It does not make pleasant hearing.’

  ‘What will happen to the boys?’ Jan asked.

  ‘That is not up to me, Mrs Bentink. Some form of probationary care, an attempt to assess what damage this business has done to them. Their culpability is linked closely with their fear. They are very young and were very afraid. Of the deed. Of Sam.’

  ‘Of the police,’ I could not resist saying.

  ‘Of the police, certainly. But there are those much older with much less real cause for fear who have acted with as much, if not more, childish irrationality.’

  I sat up at this.

  ‘If that is meant for me, Superintendent …’

  ‘You must take it as you will, Mr Bentink. In any case you will be gratified to hear that it is unlikely that any charges will be brought against you.’

  I flung back the bedclothes and sat up on the edge of the bed. I was seething with an indignation which I tried hard to control before it became ludicrous to behold.

  ‘No charge against me? Well, thank you, Superintendent. I’m sorry I am not able to offer the police the same reassurance.’

  ‘I’m not sure what you mean, sir.’

  My benevolence had evaporated; my late resolve to be a good winner had disappeared entirely.

  ‘Listen, Superintendent. I have been wrongly arrested, I have been pursued at peril to my life and limb over some of the most dangerous countryside in the land, I have suffered privation and hardship, my friends and relatives have suffered considerable pain of mind at my predicament, and last but not least, I have been brutally assaulted by that man Copley who is totally unfit to be a police-officer.’

  Melton was quite unmoved by my outburst. He merely moved his spectacles an eighth of an inch up the bridge of his nose and walked across the room to draw the curtains. The morning sun flowed in and made me blink as it glistened off the starched whiteness of the bed-linen. A few minutes ago I might have taken this infusion of light and warmth as a symbol of the settlement of the affair. But now I was in no mood for symbols.

  ‘Well, Melton?’

  He turned round and sighed.

  ‘Mr Bentink, you say you were wrongfully arrested. You have never been arrested to the best of my knowledge.’

  I laughed.

  ‘A verbal quibble. Why, you even started to charge me.’

  ‘You must be mistaken. There is no record of a charge having been made.’

  ‘Only because you never finished it. I had the sense to get out.’

  He sighed patiently.

  ‘If I remember rightly, Mr Bentink, I interviewed you alone in Keswick. All the time. I could hardly charge you without a witness now, could I?’

  I remembered what Ferguson had said. But I still hadn’t finished.

  ‘You cannot deny the hunt for me. That was rather too public, wasn’t it?’

  ‘Of course we looked for you, Mr Bentink. Can you blame us? You are connected, however tenuously, with
a most brutal crime. You escape dramatically and go rushing off into the mountains. Of course we pursue you. We would not be doing our duty if we did not pursue you. You say we put your life and limbs in peril. You do not consider that by acting in this way, you put in danger the life of every man who joined in the search. They also had to scramble around the fells, you know.’

  I opened my mouth to speak, but he waved aside my attempt at interruption. He was more animated than I had seen him in our brief acquaintance.

  ‘As for bad publicity, that was of your own making too. If you feel you have a case for libel, take it up with the newspapers concerned. All the police do is hand out facts, descriptions. Nor can you blame us for causing mental pain to those close to you. You seem to be able to manage that very well without our aid, in any case.’

  There was a pause. Janet was looking steadfastly at the floor. Melton spoke again.

  ‘I’m sorry. I had no right to say that.’

  I didn’t want to enter into any kind of discussion on these lines. I tried to stir some fresh life into my flagging indignation.

  ‘You can’t deny Copley’s assault. And his aggressive attitude, Superintendent.’

  Now he exploded.

  ‘No, but I will justify it. More easily than I believe you can justify your assault of one of my constables in Keswick.’

  I shifted uneasily.

  ‘How is he?’

  ‘I thought you would never ask, Mr Bentink,’ he replied with heavy irony. ‘It’s not like a film on the television, you know, Mr Bentink. When you hit a man, or kick a man, the damage can be great. And permanent.’

  I felt sick.

  ‘Fortunately this was not the case here. Indeed you had the ocular proof of the constable’s well-being when you awoke this morning.’

  I remembered how familiar his face had been. No wonder he had not returned my smile.

  ‘Superintendent,’ I began.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Nothing.’

  Jan looked up.

  ‘I think that you have made my husband look at things in a new light, Superintendent. You seem to be sharing out responsibility between you. We know who killed the girls. But just who was responsible for the death of that boy last night?’

  This was the question I had wanted to ask. Melton had obviously thought about this too.

  ‘You will appreciate I am not speaking now as a police-officer, Mrs Bentink. Obviously part of the responsibility lies with your husband. He it was who directly initiated the events of last night. But their outcome was unforeseeable. By the same token, you yourself are in part responsible.’

  Janet started slightly, then nodded.

  ‘You could have acted with more common sense than you did; you could have co-operated more quickly when we stopped you; you could have put personal loyalty a little lower down the list – or a little higher perhaps.

  ‘But ultimately it is my responsibility and one I must bear alone. It makes things worse to admit I was not without suspicions. It makes things worse that one of my subordinates was so convinced of your guilt that he too readily accepted the boys’ corroborating story.’

  ‘And Sam himself. Whose responsibility is that?’

  ‘For what he is? I don’t know.’

  ‘And for what happens to him now?’

  ‘Not mine, I’m glad to say,’ Melton said with heartfelt relief.

  ‘Glad? For your sake? Or his?’

  ‘My own. And his too, I think. I saw those girls, talked to their parents. For all our sakes it’s better that someone else takes over now.’

  There was silence for a while, broken only when I stood up and walked to the window. It overlooked an unimaginatively laid-out garden in the hospital courtyard, but the brilliant sunshine touched everything with its magic. Even us, I supposed, feeling the warmth seeping through my pyjamas.

  ‘I’ll go now.’

  I turned and saw Melton at the door. I had the impression he had just said something to Jan.

  ‘There’s still a great deal we must talk about, Mr Bentink. But later will do. By the way, there were two other crimes of yours I didn’t mention.’

  There was a humorous twist to his lips. He was obviously going to exit on a joke.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Damaging a police-station. And the assault on Mrs Reckitt. You made quite a hole in that window. But I think our funds can run to a little glass.’

  ‘And Mrs Reckitt?’

  He grinned broadly. He looked quite different.

  ‘I began to have my doubts when I visited her myself to ask some questions. After ten minutes or so, she offered to re-enact the crime with me.’

  He went out chuckling.

  I didn’t laugh. Nothing in my memory of Moira Jane made me want to laugh. Nor did Janet, who now stood up in her turn.

  ‘I think I’ll go and get some sleep now, Harry.’

  ‘All right,’ I said.

  ‘We’ve got a lot to talk about and I’d like to be awake when we talk,’ she said.

  I made no move to stop her and she left.

  The next few days were very full. I was allowed out of bed and spent a great deal of time talking to Melton. I don’t think either of us became fonder of the other. He was just interested in sorting out facts for his records. I pursued my vendetta with Copley, trying to get Melton to admit that his inspector had put the idea of claiming they had seen us into the boys’ minds. But he remained adamant that the boys themselves had first mentioned seeing the girls with someone else at a distance.

  ‘It’s the kind of over-elaboration of detail the naïve criminal often invents to turn attention away from himself. It was an unhappy coincidence that you two did in fact meet the girls; and lied about it.’

  ‘But you can’t deny the boys’ minds were directed to us?’

  ‘Yes, I’m sorry to say. That I must admit. Someone said too much too early. But if you had told the truth in the first place, you realize that their alleged sighting over an hour later would have in fact provided you with some kind of alibi?’

  I couldn’t argue with this. Melton did, however, gratify me by telling me he did not think I would be required to give any evidence other than my statement. I had no desire to see Sam again.

  I spent even more time talking to Janet; perhaps too much. We were both desperately eager to capitalize on the renewed intimacy of the past few days. But, as we had feared, the momentum was failing and there were things between us which talking could not destroy. Whereas earlier she had appeared to take Moira Reckitt and Annie Ferguson in her stride, now she kept on coming back to them and probing to her own pain and my irritation. I had a note from Moira inviting me to visit her. I did not go. As for Annie, her father had taken her off to a conference of birdmen in America with a haste that indicated to me he wanted to keep her out of my way for as long as possible. At least that made matters a little simpler.

  But the biggest obstacle was still Peter. He was no longer in the prison hospital, of course, but had returned to the nursing home for more treatment. I was anxious to visit him but when I mentioned this to Jan, she shook her head firmly.

  ‘No,’ she said. ‘No. I’d rather you didn’t.’

  She was trembling. I was taken aback by her opposition.

  ‘Look,’ I explained, ‘I just want to see him. He’s sick. I feel I’m partly responsible. But he’ll never come between us again, I promise you. I just want to make this one visit, to explain if possible. If not, to say “goodbye”.’

  But she would not budge.

  ‘If you go, it starts again,’ she said. ‘I know. It’s too soon. You must give him a chance to be himself by himself. It’s too soon, Harry, I know.’

  ‘You talk as if you’d seen him,’ I said.

  ‘I have. Last week. You mustn’t go, Harry. We need to recover as much as Peter. Give us a chance together. If you don’t, I may have to look for it alone. Don’t go yet.’

  Superboy could not resist such a challenge. I we
nt the next day.

  I was taken by a male nurse to a small room at the blank end of a long corridor.

  ‘He knows you’re coming,’ said the nurse. ‘He’s been very excited all day.’

  I opened the door and went in. Peter was combing his hair in front of a metal mirror. His eyes filled with delight as he turned and saw me.

  ‘Harry,’ he said, ‘Harry. This is great. Come and sit down. Let’s talk.’

  We talked for half an hour, carefully never touching upon the murders. It was easier than I expected and I was impressed by his appearance of normality. He was a little thinner, a little paler, but in every other respect quite himself. Several times I was on the brink of referring to the Lake District, but the doctor I had seen had been very positive that I must not do this, so I kept silence. But I resolved to have another word with the doctor before I left.

  Also the task of explaining to Peter that I put Janet before him, that in order to save my marriage I must see considerably less of him, began to seem fairly easy. I had not discussed this with the doctor, but in the end I took my courage in my hands and told him.

  His reaction was perfectly normal. He looked a little downcast, but then smiled at me and said, ‘Of course, I understand, Harry. You’re quite right. But I will still see you sometimes, won’t I?’

  I reassured him, then with a sense of a job well done, I stood up to go.

  ‘Goodbye, Peter,’ I said.

  ‘Goodbye, Harry.’

  I turned. His hand caught at my arm.

  ‘Harry,’ he said in a low voice, ‘don’t forget me. We’ve been through a lot together. Do you remember how we killed the sheep? And then the girls? Do you remember that, Harry? The sheep. Those girls. Remember!’

  His voice had risen and his grip on my arm tightened till it was painful. I broke away, the door opened and the nurse came in.

  ‘Don’t leave me yet, Harry,’ said Peter. ‘Don’t leave me. You will come back, won’t you? Please come back.’

  I went out into the corridor and his voice followed me, made even more moving by the curious flat quality given it by the yielding walls.

  The doctor listened attentively to my account. To my surprise he did not seem very perturbed when I told him of Peter’s final words.