by Will Harker
My gaze swept other shelves where framed photographs stood among knick-knacks I didn’t recognise. Nothing much from our Oxford flat; it seemed that his records were among the few survivors from those days. I saw a couple of familiar photos, though: a cherubic Haz in the arms of the beaming mother who had died when he was too young to remember her and holiday snaps from his teens—Barcelona, Cape Town, Sydney, a boy shy and sun-flushed. No pictures of the music teacher father from whom he had inherited his passion.
“How long have you been here?” I asked.
He looked up from the stove. “A year. Just over.”
I peered through the lounge window to the bungalow opposite. A sign similar to the one I’d seen earlier was staked a little drunkenly into the lawn: SAY NO TO THE NEW MOSQUE! KEEP ENGLAND PURE!
“Lovely neighbours,” I observed.
“Oh yes,” he agreed, following my gaze. “They’re charmers all right. There’s going to be some kind of demo against the opening of the mosque this week. There’ll be quite a crowd, I reckon.”
“First a library protest and now this,” I said. “What a vocal lot these Bradburians are.”
“Yup.” He went back to his bubbling pans. “It pains me to say it, but a small minority will be protesting at both. Pro-library and anti-Muslim. Makes me wonder if they’ve actually read any of the books they say they want to protect. You know, I think for some of them it isn’t the library itself they’re interested in saving, it’s the simple fact that the building has been there for so many years. Its venerability is the thing that makes it valuable in their eyes, not its purpose.”
I nodded. “Libraries are revolutionary. When they first started spreading in the 1800s, they were seen as the working man’s university. It’s no wonder authoritarian governments have never liked them.”
“I remember that speech.” He chuckled. “I think I got it every time you dragged me around to a new one.”
I smiled. “Well, I guess you can’t have hated me all that much after we finished. I mean, you ended up working in the places I love.”
I’d said it lightly, no edge at all, but my words were met with silence. When I looked over, Harry was standing with his palms planted on the countertop. He kept his head down, as if checking the two steaming plates in front of him.
“Don’t you understand what happened back then, Scott? Don’t you know why…?” When I took a step towards him, he looked up, his eyes bright. “Doesn’t matter. Let’s eat.”
“Haz.”
His look became hard—an alien expression for Harry Moorhouse. “Let’s just eat.”
And so we did. Swedish meatballs with mashed potato and lingonberry jam, his Nordic grandmother’s recipe and a treat he would rustle up whenever I’d felt down. It tasted just as good as ever and coaxed more memories, harsh as lemon juice in a cut. I ate and tried to divert my mind from the past.
Today had been a wash-out. I’d intended to spend it on local research, laying the historical foundations for the investigation, trying to find any telling detail in the bridge tragedy that Campbell might have missed. I hadn’t known then that he had his own researcher on the spot and that everything to be found in the library archive was already in the file. It was time to move on. The crime scene photos Campbell had obtained were all well and good, but I knew from experience that even a cold location can give up its secrets. Tomorrow, I’d head for Anglesey and the scene of the first murder.
“How is it?” Harry asked.
I held up a speared meatball. “Good as ever. And prepared in lightning speed.”
“I had some ready-made in the freezer.”
“Because it was my favourite and you were expecting me?”
“By the way,” he said, scraping his spoon around the plate. “There is one other source on Travellers Bridge we could try. Gerald Roebuck. He’s a local eccentric and a bit of an old nightmare, really. He runs a kind of unofficial museum out of his front room. Got some interesting stuff amid all the clutter. Anyway, he was my first port of call when Professor Campbell got in touch. There isn’t much Roebuck doesn’t know about Bradbury End, plus he’s a mine of juicy conspiracy theories.”
“Conspiracy theories?”
“You’ll find out.” Harry grinned. “But I’m afraid he’s away for a few days. He came in last week and told us his sister up north had been taken ill. Should be back by the time the fair’s here, though. I know he’s keen to interview the showpeople for his archive on the tragedy.”
“I doubt they’ll be able to tell him much,” I said. “Travellers Bridge was only ever a bedtime story in our circles. I wasn’t even sure it was real myself until forty-eight hours ago.”
He stared at me. “You’ve only been working on this a couple of days? I don’t understand. If the showmen have no information on the Jericho story then why has Campbell employed you?”
“Local colour, maybe,” I said, returning my attention to my plate. “We might not be able to give him specifics on the tragedy, but we can bore him to death with stories about the old freakshows themselves. He seems like the obsessive type who’d want that sort of detail.”
Harry looked doubtful. “I suppose.”
After dinner, I helped him with the dishes. We stood side-by-side, hips almost touching as he swayed to Ella singing Summertime. It almost made me jealous, how he could lose himself like this. I wish I could still do the same with my books.
Twilight was reddening the kitchen when he suggested I take the spare bedroom.
. I shook my head. “I wouldn’t want to wake you. I’ve got an early start, and you remember what I’m like in the morning. Until my third coffee, I tend to crash into things. The bed in my trailer’s cosy enough. I could do with a quick shower, though.”
“Of course.” He tapped his temple. “I should’ve offered before dinner. Let me get you a towel.”
I let the shower run hot, bullets of scalding water scouring my flesh. My muscles ached from the exercise they’d taken that morning, dragging Kerrigan into the forest. I wondered again about the strange light that had caught his attention—that spark flashing waist-high between the trees. Something else nagged at me too—the cheap watch strapped around his wrist…
Dressed again, I rubbed an oval in the steamed mirror. My eyes seemed sharper but I could already feel the need for a Zopiclone nibbling at my nerves. I’d allow myself one sleeping tablet tonight and then see how tomorrow found me. Back in the hall, I called out a thank you to Harry and, receiving no response, guessed he’d already gone to bed. It was full dark as I left the house, stepping the short distance between the front door and my trailer.
Once inside, I acted on instinct. A single lamp silhouetted the man standing by my bed. He appeared to be going through my medications. I didn’t take the time to assess whether it was Kerrigan, one of the disgruntled officers from earlier, or some stranger who might just turn out to be the psychopath I was hunting. Before he had a chance to react, I had my forearm locked around his throat and was lifting him, choking and spluttering, from the ground.
It was his smell that told me I’d made a mistake. His natural warm scent that hadn’t changed since those nights we’d spent wrapped in each other’s arms. I let him down at once and helped him to the bed where he looked up at me, his eyes huge.
“Haz, I’m so sorry. I didn’t know it was you.”
“Christ,” he said, his voice almost a sob. “Jesus, Scott, what the fuck’s wrong with you?”
He got unsteadily to his feet, slapping my hand away when I attempted to help him. I followed him out of the trailer to the bungalow, trying to explain. He didn’t look back, just closed the door in my face and turned the key. I stood there on the step, not sure of what to do when the phone buzzed in my pocket.
“Scott, it’s Pete Garris,” he said before I could even speak. “I’ve got that information you wanted. Professor Ralph Campbell, former Cambridge don, defrocked—or whatever the hell they call it�
��after the police caught him in a kiddie porn ring. That led to the discovery of actual abuse against a string of minors. He served three years. Came out about eighteen months ago. Got a big compo pay-out after some other prisoners managed to corner him in his cell and cut off his nuts. Very public-spirited of them, if you ask me. Although they also gave him a pretty brutal kicking afterwards which resulted in some spinal damage. Anyway, I’ll text you all the grisly details. Scott…?”
“Yes. Thank you. Thank you, sir,” I mumbled, my palm flat against the jamb of the door. “I’m grateful.”
“Look, what exactly have you got yourself mixed up in?” A rare trace of concern tinted my old mentor’s voice. “Why do you need to know about some nutless old nonce living out in the sticks with his nanny? Scott, I think we should talk. Where are you?”
“Bradbury End,” I said hollowly.
“Where? You’re breaking up.”
“Yes, Pete, I think we should talk. I might need…”
I almost cried out. A warm, wet tongue was lapping at the back of my hand. Glancing down, I could hardly believe what I was seeing. Garris was still talking when I cancelled the call and dropped to my haunches in front of the elderly boxer. My dad’s old juk whined as I scratched behind his tattered ear.
“Webster? What the hell are you doing here?”
As if in answer, he turned his doleful head and cast sad eyes at the car idling across the street. The driver sat in a band of shadow and I couldn’t make out his face. A splash of orange paint ran above the front wheel arch, stark against the Volkswagen’s black bodywork. A detail so vivid it had to deliberate, as if he wanted to be noticed. Beside me, Webster whimpered again, and I suddenly noticed the cardboard container, a little larger than a ring box, attached to his collar. An eye still on the car, I unclipped the box and opened the flaps.
I very nearly dropped the contents.
Wrapped in grease-proof paper was a triangular wedge of human flesh. A piece of Adya Mahal, I had no doubt, for upon the curling skin was a marker pen scrawl—a single letter ‘A’ for ‘Animus’, the third word in the Traveller Bridge dedication. I straightened up and glanced back across the road, locking eyes with the killer who had found me.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
I MOVED SLOWLY AT FIRST, as if the murderer were an animal I didn’t want to startle. Reaching over, I unclipped the trailer door and ushered Webster inside. He went peacefully enough, lumbering up the steps and collapsing almost immediately by the locker settee. Then, the little cardboard coffin still in my hand, I started towards the road.
It was a dry, airless night. Not a breath of wind to stir the pruned bushes and crew-cut lawns of the cul-de-sac. With the moon behind it, Harry’s side of the street hugged every scrap of darkness while the windows opposite, and those of the killer’s car, dazzled.
My heart hammered. In my mind, I flipped through the images of the file: McAllister strung to the tree, his dog’s head lolling from the spike screwed into his torso; Agatha Poole, in her electrified tin bath, her arm like an incinerated twig; Adya Mahal caught in the apparent act of eating herself alive. Here was the author of those outrages and, at the thought of meeting him, I again felt that dark thrill.
His headlights blazed when I reached the roadside. The engine roared. Of course, he wasn’t going to just sit there and let me come for him. The three murders he had committed with such measured brutality were only part of a larger design. Although my understanding remained hazy, I sensed that completeness was vital to his MO, and there were still two Jericho freaks to recreate before this masterpiece was done.
Turning to my Merc, I heard a squeal of tyres as the Volkswagen shot out of the cul-de-sac. Luckily, I had my keys in my pocket and was behind the wheel in seconds. I threw the box of flesh onto the passenger seat, feeling a brief stab of guilt as I did so, as if I’d somehow disrespected the remains of a victim who’d already suffered enough. My headlights washed over the sleeping bungalows as I hit the throttle and swept out of Harry’s drive.
Two red eyes, smoky in the exhaust fumes, flared at the junction. Then the brake lights blinked out and the Volkswagen tore into the streets beyond. In its prime, my Merc might have made up the ground relatively easily. I’d bought it for a song from old Tom Radlett after coming out a prison; a favour to my dad who, in those early days, had imagined I might need a car. Perhaps if I’d looked after it instead of letting it rust while I wallowed in nightmares and self-pity, it wouldn’t be groaning and juddering around me now. As it was, all I could do was push the bleating engine to its limit.
We flew on. Careered around darkened streets where austerity had doused the light from every lamppost. My eyes scanned the spaces between cars from which some late-night dog walker might suddenly emerge. I’d taken an advanced driver course during my time in uniform and, as those old lessons came back to me, so did the constraints spelled out by our instructor. The roles of pursuer and pursued are not equal in these situations. When a sociopath is behind the wheel, whoever hunts him will always be at a disadvantage. For a killer who not only saw human life as expendable but delighted in its destruction, the chances of capture were slim.
Still, I aimed to give him a good scare. I owed that much to his victims. And so, cautious as I could be, I sent the Merc shrieking on its way. He led me on a white-knuckle dance around those suburban streets; a chase that made the blood pound in my ears and drove all thoughts of Harry from my head. Jagging out of the estate, we hit a long stretch of road lined with takeaways and convenience stores. Faces made deathly by the fluorescent light of bus shelters stared out at us, and I had no choice but to toe the brake.
The killer did not slow. He slalomed between speed bumps, the Volkswagen’s boot bouncing into the air when he caught one. Now illuminated, I saw that his licence plate had been obscured by mud. Not a patch of dirt on the rest of the car. Still, I knew this to be a blind. Like many of his kind, it was clear that this creature indulged in a strange mix of caution and hubris. The total absence of DNA at the crime scenes was telling and yet he had taken the risk of goading me with Webster and the box. He had been working away unappreciated without an audience and now he had one. That would stoke his ego—he wanted to be noticed, hence that flash of orange paint over the wheel arch—but that didn’t mean he wanted to be caught. Not yet. And so, although the Volkswagen had almost certainly been stolen, the licence plate was obscured to make me think it was, in fact, his own car.
Leaving town, we plunged into rolling country lanes. As field and meadow flashed by, I wondered again: how had he become aware of me? I’d been on the case just over twenty-four hours and apart from Campbell I hadn’t spoken to anyone about it.
Except that wasn’t quite true. To varying degrees, six people knew I was either interested in the Travellers Bridge tragedy or actively investigating a case connected to it. Campbell himself and Miss Barton; Sal Myers and my father; Jeremy Worth, who had delivered the professor’s message; and now Harry. It might not seem like all that many, but any CID detective will tell you that, as far as an active investigation is concerned, that’s a pretty leaky ship. Even if none of them were directly involved—and, for different reasons, it was hard to see how any of them could be—a stray word might have been enough to alert the murderer.
That brought me back to possible suspects. It still seemed that there were only two pools from which to draw: the travelling community or someone in Bradbury End. It was possible, of course, that a random researcher like Campbell had become morbidly fascinated with the story of the drowned freaks, but that seemed like a long shot. Had word spread from Sal or my father, then? Or could Campbell, Miss Barton, or possibly my dad have mentioned something to someone in Bradbury? Someone who had organised the anniversary celebration, perhaps?
These ideas ricocheted through my head as we sped into a tangle of moonlit roads. Branches swatted my window. Trees came together, blocking out the sky. There were passing places every few hundred yards but o
therwise, an oncoming vehicle would have no chance. Still, the killer didn’t slow. I wondered then how alike we might be and if he too was feeling the exhilaration of the chase. I didn’t like the idea and tried my best to bury it.
All at once, we came out of the tree tunnel and onto a double lane that pointed arrow-straight for a mile or more. Cornfields stood on either side, frozen in the breathless night. Only a slight flutter of stalks as they were caught in the killer’s slipstream.
My eyes narrowed. Up ahead, two blinking lights had appeared out of the dark.
My head snapped right and I saw the oncoming rush the signal warned of.
“Fuck.”
I kicked down on the throttle.
The Volkswagen also put on an extra burst of speed.
Our engines bellowed at each other as we ate up the road. I thought I might have gained a fraction but another glance across the field turned my blood to ice water. A square of light in the driver’s cab and then the impossibly long hulk of the goods train rocketing behind. Sweat tracked down my brow. I swallowed hard. The red crossing lights pulsed ever larger as the flimsy barrier started its trembling descent across the road.
My speedometer shivered at seventy. The opportunity to brake was closing. One way or another, I’d have to commit. Meanwhile, my quarry seemed to have made his decision and started to pull away again. Seconds now, metres in which to decide. So close, I could see the red and white stripes on the arm of the barrier; could see the oil-black gleam of the tracks.
The train gave an outraged wail as the Volkswagen flashed across its path, sparks leaping into the night as the barrier met the roof of the car. I’d been too slow. I had no choice. All I could now was pray that I’d stop in time. My hands cemented themselves around the wheel. In the same instant, my left foot abandoned the throttle and I slammed on the brake.
