Craddock

by Paul Finch

  Craddock glanced back. Down on the muddy track, the black box of the police-carriage waited. The hefty shape of Rafferty was visible beside it, puffing on his pipe.

  “Is he close enough, should we need him?” Munro wondered.

  “Three’s a crowd,” Craddock said, after some consideration.

  Munro was about to reply, when he spotted something and fell instantly to a crouch. Craddock copied him – and saw that, perhaps two hundred yards to the west, a figure had emerged from a patch of scrub-thorn. By the hulking physique and tight, black suit, it was Krueger. They watched him tensely. He hadn’t seen them, and, likely as not, wouldn’t, because his attention was focussed on the slight form of Laura. He checked furtively around and began to follow her at a stroll.

  “He looks like a man who can’t believe his luck,” Munro whispered.

  “His luck’s about to run out,” Craddock said.

  Hurriedly, but keeping low, they pursued him. But it wasn’t easy. When Laura vanished into the colliery complex, Krueger began to run – at a lurching, predatory gait, his shoulders hunched forwards, his big arms pistoning. He covered the ground with powerful strides, and, in less than a moment, had gained half the distance on her.

  “I think we should’ve come armed,” Munro said.

  “Too late now,” Craddock replied. “Quickly!”

  They too began to run. Krueger also vanished from view, and in that same second there was a series of dreadful shrieks – the high-pitched tones of a young female.

  “Holy Mother of God!” Craddock gasped. He’d expected something to happen, but not so quickly. “Call Rafferty!”

  Munro stopped and turned. Placing his whistle to his lips, he blew a single shrill blast. It was ear-piercing, and, although the big sergeant was maybe half a mile away, he would easily hear it. Hopefully Krueger would too, and be warned off – but an instant later the girl’s screams were abruptly silenced.

  “If he’s harmed that child, I’ll crack his skull!” Craddock said.

  “All respect, sir,” Munro panted, “that skull will take some cracking.”

  However, by the time they reached the first ruined outbuildings, there was no sign either of Krueger or the girl. On all sides, broken doorways gaped, window-shutters hung loose on blank emptiness; the silence was suddenly shattering. Directly ahead lay the rusting rails of a former mineral-line. Eastwards, it led to the Top Lock junction and the abandoned railway shelters, while westwards, it wound past the pithead and through the screens and washery. There was no indication which way the miscreant might have run.

  Craddock pointed west. “That way, Jack. Go.”

  The major himself took the eastwards route, but nowhere in the overgrowth of thorns and weeds was there any sign that a person had recently passed. Of course, a veteran bush-ranger like Krueger was probably well-versed in covering his tracks, especially if the police-whistle had warned him that pursuit was close behind. Craddock cursed under his breath. He stopped to take new bearings. The brick shells of the maintenance shops stood to the left, and a few yards beyond those were the inky shadows under the railway shelters. That very morning, he’d balked at entering there. Its tar-paper canopies looked solid enough – doubtless a network of steel joists supported them, but all manner of rubble cluttered its floorway: rotted planking, loose bricks, not to mention the dislodged sections of rail and sleeper, all thick with rust or slimy with mildew. The darkness in its furthest recesses was opaque.

  Craddock felt a creeping sensation as he gazed in. Was that a rustle of movement he’d just heard? Was that a vague, child-like whimpering? The major suddenly realised that he was breathing very deeply, that the sweat on his neck was the clammy sweat of fear.

  Gripping his stick tightly, he took a cautious step forwards – then there was a wild clattering of rubble, a furious crashing and banging, and a snorting and a pawing of the ground. Craddock spun around violently, a shout of panic trapped in his throat.

  Rafferty could only apologise as he jumped down from the driver’s bench. He’d pulled the team up directly behind the major.

  “Sorry about that, sir,” he said. “Got here as quick as I could.”

  “Bring a lantern,” Craddock replied, stepping forwards again.

  Inspector Munro was on the path to the pithead when the attack began.

  As if from nowhere, heavy feet came slogging across the cinders behind him, and, though he turned and grabbed the truncheon under his greatcoat, a forearm smashed into his teeth and nose, knocking him flat on his back. The world cavorted around him, and blood flowed into his mouth. For several seconds, the only thing he saw that made sense was the bear-like form of Krueger towering over him, and drawing out from under his coat a shiny, six-chambered Smith and Wesson. Though still dazed, Munro tried to regain his feet.

  With a grunt, the Boer lurched at him, kicking his belly hard, then slamming down with the revolver’s hilt. It caught Munro between the shoulder-blades, and a rib cracked. He gasped and twisted in agony, but had enough strength left to reach behind, snatch Krueger by the leg and yank him from his feet. The Boer landed heavily, the wind driven out of him. Munro seized the advantage. As an officer and gentleman, he’d long ago learned to box, but as a combat veteran he also knew there was a time and place for everything, and that this was no time for the Marquess of Queensbury. He swung his boot round into the Boer’s groin, and launched a right hook that might have knocked a normal man cold.

  Unfortunately, Krueger was far from normal.

  Spitting blood and teeth, he jumped back to his feet and took aim with the pistol. Munro kicked at it. The pistol flew free, but Krueger followed through with an enormous, slugging punch. It caught Munro square in the right eye, blotting out his vision. He tottered backwards, fists drawn up but legs wobbling. The Boer now struck with his fists clutched together. The first blow caught Munro in his already-broken ribs; the second crashed on the point of his chin. Munro fell into a senseless heap. A foot hooked beneath him and turned him over. Through a haze of blood, he saw that Krueger had retrieved his gun and was again taking aim. A broad grin split the brutal face. The hammer clicked back; a strong brown finger tightened on the trigger.

  “Wait!” came a booming voice.

  The tall shape of Reverend Pettigrew was approaching, his face a picture of wrath. Krueger lowered his gun, and Munro imagined that he’d been saved, only to notice – to his incredulity – that the clergyman was also armed. He carried a huge blunderbuss, one shot from which would have felled a charging elephant. He took position beside his man-servant, who grinned all the more, and spat out another fragment of tooth.

  Munro glanced from one to the other. For all his befuddlement, he knew death when he was staring it in the face.

  “You … you call yourself a man of the cloth, Pettigrew!” he stammered. “Yet you defend this murderer!”

  “Murderer?” the reverend retorted. “I see no murderer!”

  “Then you’re as bad as him … maybe worse.”

  “Ernst Krueger is my associate and friend. I won’t hear him slandered.”

  “He’s a killer!”

  “He’s a guardian. Or hasn’t that occurred to you? A protector.”

  Munro shook his head. “This … this is complete madness.”

  “All though the Cubango forest, he protected us,” Pettigrew said, “my family and I. All along the River Cuito, where the mosquitoes fly so thick only a fog-lamp will enable you to pass. Into the malarial depths of the Okavango, where the swamps steam, where every virus thrives, where with my own eyes I saw crocodiles so large they were virtually dinosaurs. When my young son went messing, Ernst Krueger went to search for him. For three whole days, entirely alone, he tracked the boy, never sleeping, never eating … until at last he found him lodged in a deep crevice in the very heart of that primeval jungle.”

  Pettigrew inclined his head towards his servant. “You should salute this man for his bravery, for he clambered down there … in the face of a
ravening multitude against which no blade or gun was proof, in a place so cursed only Satan himself could have put it on Earth!”

  Major Craddock and Sergeant Rafferty could only gaze in disbelief at the thing that hung in front of them. It had once been a human, but was now dried-out, crinkled, withered to a papery husk, as if every drop of juice had been forcibly drained. What was more, it was bound and suspended as though on a gibbet, though no gibbet Craddock recalled had ever been set up in the depths of a railway shed. The ropes binding the skeletal thing were ancient and frayed but ran tautly up into the high, black rafters, from which it was now plain other atrocities dangled. Rafferty held the lamp up in order to see. Some of them were high, some of them low, but in every case it was the same story: withered skin, exposed bones, shreds of old clothing.

  “Christ loves a Christian,” the sergeant breathed. “What evil are we seeing here?”

  Even in his gloves, Major Craddock reached only gingerly to touch the shrivelled face in front of them. Strands of carrot-red hair hung down over empty eye-sockets. Though all the features were creased and leathery, it was easy to see that the mouth was disfigured by a gruesome harelip.

  “This … this is Fred Childs,” Craddock said. “Good God, this boy’s only been dead a few days.”

  Rafferty shook his head. “That’s impossible!”

  “Something’s drunk him dry.”

  Again Rafferty held his lantern up. The other corpses were plainly older; little more than carrion, filthy with dust, coming apart at the seams. However, his eyes were now attuning to the darkness, and he was able to see better into the unlit spaces above.

  He breathed a profanity. “What in the name of Jesus …”

  Craddock looked up too, and felt a unique thrill of horror. The bonds in which the corpses were hanged formed part of a more complex structure: a vast, multi-levelled network of ropes and knotted ligatures, which spread out between the joists and rafters. But only now, as the darkness leached away, was the full size of it visible. It appeared to stretch from one side of the crumbling building to the other, encompassing every stanchion, every low-hung beam. In some places, guy-ropes were strung down to ground level, anchored in place by huge slabs of stone; in others, they had been knocked into the walls and jammed into place with broken bricks. To all parts of the roofing it ranged, no far corner too dark and dismal to be out of reach from it. But more shocking than the vast size of the rigging, was the visible nature of it - for though it was crude, and made from rotted old hemp rather than fine-spun silk, it had been woven together in such a way as to form a series of concentric circles, which radiated out from a central point in a symmetrical and clearly discernible pattern.

  “It’s like …” Rafferty seemed lost for words. “It’s like a bloody great spider’s web!”

  (v) Latrodectus is by far the deadliest genus in the pantheon of tropical arachnida. Death is inevitable, but only after excruciating pain – both local and abdominal – extreme muscular contractions and repeating tetanic seizures, which may in themselves be of sufficient intensity to result in fatal shock; though as Latrodectus venom is essentially a neuro-toxin, the most likely cause of death will be total respiratory failure. This, however, is only an eventuality after hours and hours of fever, malaise and slow, tortured madness.

  Reverend Pettigrew was still talking, but his eyes had glazed over as if he was hypnotised.

  “My boy was down there in the midst of them. For three whole days he’d been there, starved, wounded, delirious from a hundred bites or more, yet paralysed with terror. Unable even to move let alone climb out from that hellish place. On every leaf, every stem, every piece of stone, they clustered; from every crack in the rock they watched him with their myriad baleful eyes …”

  “You said he died!” Munro interrupted.

  “Are you not listening to me!” Pettigrew roared. “Of course he died … in his mind! Who wouldn’t, plunged defenceless into such a den of madness? A cruel trick of fate had created it, a fatal flaw in Africa’s ancient geography. Confined down there by landslide or earthquake, trapped in their own nightmare world, the equator’s deadliest hunters had had no option but to hunt each other … continually, voraciously, until only the fittest and most savage remained.” Pettigrew’s face twisted into a lupine grin. “You served in India, Inspector Munro. Doubtless, every moment you were there you were haunted by the memory of Calcutta’s Black Hole. But in all honesty, wouldn’t you prefer a dozen nights in that dreadful prison to just one in the place where my son was stranded?”

  “Is your son here now?” Munro asked. “On the brow?”

  Pettigrew clapped Krueger on his broad shoulder. “Why else should his saviour patrol this wretched place, if not to chase trespassers away? You called this man a murderer, but that’s far from the truth. It is ghastly and indescribable murder that he is charged to prevent.”

  Major Craddock and Sergeant Rafferty were doing their best to untangle the body of Fred Childs, when they heard the whimpering again; it came from somewhere high above. Craddock glanced up. He’d fancied he’d imagined it before. Now he knew differently.

  “Rafferty … the lamp!”

  Both men strained their eyes, scanning the vast web. At first, nothing seemed to be moving up there – then they both spotted something. Twenty feet up, among the other trussed corpses, in the very midst of that ghoulish larder – for that was surely what it was – they spied weak movement; a feeble kicking and struggling.

  One of the corpses was not a corpse at all – at least, not yet.

  The two policemen glanced at each other, thinking the same thing: that they were both now in middle age, and it was many years since either had done any serious exercise. Of the two, of course, Rafferty was the heavier and more ungainly; it was highly unlikely that he’d be able to climb so high.

  Craddock took off his gloves, topper and greatcoat. “Go and find the others,” he said. “As quick as you can. Just leave me the lantern.”

  Rafferty nodded and lumbered away. The major gazed up again. The last time he’d climbed anything, it had been a rope-ladder on the outer wall of the maharaja’s palace at Miani, and that had been nearly two decades ago. He tested the rope that had previously bound Fred Childs. It creaked loudly, but seemed sturdy enough.

  “Listen … whoever you are!” he shouted. “I don’t know if you can hear me, but I’m coming up to get you. Keep perfectly still and try not to panic.”

  Hooking the lantern onto his belt, thrusting his stick into the back of his waistcoat, he began to climb, steadily, hand over hand, clasping the rope with his feet and pushing himself from the ankles. It was slow, fatiguing work, and he was soon moist with sweat. The rope creaked again, turning and twisting. Dust trickled down onto him, the palms of his hands were burning. He’d worked hard in his youth to maintain a strong, robust physique, and much of that remained now, but this would have been a test for any man. Muscles he hadn’t used in years were stretching and tearing, his breath came hard and heavy, his heart throbbed in his chest.

  When he reached half-way, he dared to glance down – and almost went dizzy. The floor couldn’t have been more than fifteen feet away, but it already looked a perilous drop. Mopping sweat with his shirt sleeve, he continued. Soon, he was close enough to see the corpses clearly. As he and Rafferty had surmised, they were little more than rotted shells: bare ribs showed through rope harnesses; heads that were basically skulls wrapped in parchment, lolled sideways. But the one that was still alive was also clearly visible, and from this position – its bare feet dangling only a yard above the major’s head – it was obviously female. She was still moving, albeit weakly. Her whimpering was almost too faint to hear.

  “Laura,” he gasped, “I’m … I’m almost with you.”

  She heard him, but was in no position to respond, for she was lashed like a chicken, her hands tight at her sides, a length of rope pulled taut across her clamped-open mouth, serving as a gag.

  The major climb
ed on until he was in touching distance. He swore when he saw the condition she was in. Not only had she been stripped naked, but her lean body had been raked, as if by an animal’s claws. Blood trickled down her legs and dripped from her toes. The sight gave him fresh strength, and, with grunts of effort, he was able to make the remaining distance, then clamber off the rope into the rigging beside her. It swayed, but it held him. He glanced around. Several of the other victims were also in touching distance. They grinned at him through their bonds, their hollow bones clicking as they swung. The vast network from which they dangled was indeed like a web; on every side, it stretched away through the forest of rafters like a suspended ceiling. It must have taken hours and hours to weave. Craddock could only shake his head, perplexed.

  He turned back to the girl, who was watching him with tearful eyes, desperate for him to hurry. But it wasn’t that simple. The first problem was how to loosen her fetters and, at the same time, prevent her falling to her death. That was when the major heard something; an odd ‘twanging’ or ‘thrumming’, like the singing of rat-lines on a ship.

  A cold thrill passed through him – the web was vibrating.

  He turned slowly, holding up the lantern. The skin on his neck began to crawl. On the far side of the shed, perhaps forty feet away, a large and hideous shadow was moving through the rigging.

  Rafferty blew his whistle for the second time, as he wove through the ruins. He’d decided against bringing the carriage all the way in, as many of the paths and ginnels were too rough or narrow. However, there was no trace of his fellow officers. Coogan and Butterfield had been posted to the canal of course, and were likely out of earshot, even to the police-whistle, but Inspector Munro ought to be close by. And he was.

  Rafferty rounded a corner and found himself face to face with his senior officer. Munro was bloodied and bruised, his greatcoat ripped and spattered with mud. He was standing rigid, both his hands on his head. But when he saw the sergeant he flew into a panic.