Skin and Bones

by Tom Bale

  While he waited, he listened to the radio. Top story on the local news was a serious fire at the home of 'Chilton spree killer Carl Forester'. Unconfirmed reports of a body found in the gutted building, though no word yet as to its identity.

  When the bulletin ended, the DJ and his sidekick took it upon themselves to speculate further. A tragic accident, they surmised. Or suicide. Peggy Forester was a lonely woman, an alcoholic, despised by the whole community. Who could blame her if she had taken her own life?

  The killer listened and laughed. Listened and laughed.

  They were in the café twenty minutes or so. Craig told her he'd asked his journalist friend to make some checks on James Vilner, which she agreed was a good idea. After that they said very little. Just kept exchanging tired smiles.

  Walking back to the car, he called his wife. Unconsciously Julia drifted to the other side of the pavement, giving him a little more privacy. At first he sounded cold and stilted, then his whole body and tone was transformed, and she guessed the phone had been passed to his children. There was something heart-rending about the way he pumped so much vitality and affection into his voice, as if that could compensate for his absence.

  Then Nina again. Craig kept nodding and saying, 'Yes. Yes.' Julia guessed he was being harangued about something. Finally he said, 'No, I haven't forgotten tomorrow. I'll be there.'

  He slipped the phone into his jacket. 'Nina's away on business tomorrow night, so I'm staying over.'

  'I'll bet your children can't wait till you're back for good.'

  He said something she couldn't decipher, then shook his head and turned away. It took a couple of seconds for the truth to dawn on her.

  'Oh God. I'm so slow on the uptake.' She laid a tentative hand on his shoulder.

  'My fault,' he said. 'We've separated. That's the real reason I'm at my dad's.'

  'With everything you've been through, it must have put a lot of strain on the marriage.'

  He gave a sarcastic laugh. 'That, and the fact she was screwing someone else.'

  'Oh.' She looked down. 'I'm sorry.'

  'It happens, doesn't it? Probably my fault as much as hers.'

  They reached the Golf. Away from the streetlights, the sky was studded with stars. Craig unlocked, but made no move to get in. They stared at each other across the roof of the car.

  'So what does Nina think about all this?'

  'What? My quest to find the truth?' He let out a hollow laugh. 'She thinks I'm on a fool's errand. And I'm starting to wonder if she's right.'

  'You're not suggesting we should give up?'

  'I don't know. You should, perhaps.' He shrugged, then examined her face as if seeing it for the first time. 'You look even worse than I feel.'

  Julia smiled. 'You say the nicest things.'

  There was a moment's silence, both of them suddenly a little selfconscious. Then Julia shook her head. Opened her door.

  'Come on, we're both exhausted. Let's get going.'

  The traffic thinned out as they moved east, into more remote countryside, then turned south towards the coast. Julia found her eyes growing heavy. Several times she jerked awake as her head bumped against the window.

  It was nearly six-thirty when the Golf turned into the hotel car park. The farewell was hurried and slightly awkward. No definite statement of intent or arrangements for the future; merely an exchange of mobile numbers and an agreement to speak again soon.

  'Thanks for coming with me,' Craig said, but there was more disappointment than gratitude in his voice, as if her presence had in some way fallen short of his expectations.

  Is that it? Julia found herself asking as she got out of the car. She felt an odd sense of loss, a sense that something worthwhile had been abandoned too early, without a struggle. Even though she had far more doubts about a Matheson conspiracy than Craig, it still saddened her to think their quest for the truth might be over almost before it had begun.

  Forty-Three

  Craig was aware of conflicting emotions as he watched Julia disappear into the hotel. Disappointment that the day had ended on such an unsatisfactory note, and also frustration that Julia hadn't embraced his theories about the massacre. Considering he was just about the only person who believed in her – and not to mention that he had very good reason to resent her – he thought she might have been a little more appreciative of his support.

  And yet, in spite of that, he also felt despondent at the thought of her walking away from the investigation. It was perplexing. He'd been quite prepared to carry the fight alone before Julia had entered the picture. Why should it be any different now? Almost without thinking, he reached for the bottle in the footwell. With the coffee and a sandwich in his system, another mouthful wouldn't do any harm. He glanced at the hotel, made sure no one was looking, and tipped the bottle back once, then again. The giddy hit of energy was desperately welcome.

  He turned left out of the car park. By now the roads were almost deserted, whereas back home in Crawley it would still be gridlock. He found himself wondering if he could convince Nina to move out this way, then remembered that they had separated. If things stayed as they were, he could live anywhere he wanted.

  Alone.

  The flare of headlights in his rear-view mirror jolted his attention back to the road. A car was suddenly riding on his bumper, then it swerved across the centre line and raced past. It was high and square, some sort of jeep. Must be doing at least seventy.

  'Boy racer,' he muttered in disgust, forgetting that Nina often levelled the same charge at him. He watched as the driver feathered the brakes on a tight left-hand bend and disappeared from sight. Glancing at the dashboard, he saw his own speed was around forty miles an hour: well below the limit.

  He accelerated slightly, but was careful to stay within the bounds of his visibility. There was no street lighting out here. The road ahead was a pale narrow ribbon, twisting and turning across the featureless landscape. Darkness pressed against his windows, making him feel isolated and exposed.

  This is all a mistake, he decided, experiencing a sudden longing for light and warmth and family. He should be at home, working to save his marriage, not chasing round the country trying to prove some ridiculous theory.

  Once again, Kate was lying in wait. Knowing how exhausted she looked, Julia was expecting to be scolded for overdoing it. Instead Kate's first words were: 'Peggy Forester's dead.'

  'What? She can't—' Julia just stopped herself from blurting out: We visited her this morning.

  'There was a fire at her house,' Kate went on. 'They found a body inside. Too badly burned to identify, but they think it's her. Good riddance, I say.'

  'When was this?'

  'Sometime this afternoon. Why?'

  Julia shook her head. 'No reason.'

  Now came the appraisal. Kate frowned. 'Do you want me to call a doctor?'

  'What?'

  'You look like you're about to flake out. The way you're going, you'll end up back in hospital. Or worse,' she added darkly.

  Julia was too weary to argue. 'I'll get an early night.'

  She made it to the stairs and gripped the banister, stifling the pain because Kate was still watching. A throbbing headache had started up, and her vision swam in and out of focus. Kate's right, she told herself. I do need to see a doctor.

  Somehow she made it to her room, where she dropped her father's diary on the bed and collapsed next to it, staring at the battered cover but seeing something quite different.

  The grimy, claustrophobic kitchen. The vodka. The cigarettes. Peggy's inebriation and erratic behaviour. Accident or suicide. It had to be one or the other, didn't it?

  But that idea niggled at her, along with something else. Something she couldn't pin down.

  Coincidence. Wasn't it a terrible coincidence? It also meant they were probably the last people to see her alive. That in itself had all kinds of implications, but right now she was too tired to work out what they were. Her last memory was of kicking off her
shoes, shuffling a little to get comfortable and closing her eyes, telling herself she would just rest for a minute or two.

  Once Craig started thinking about Tom and Maddie, he couldn't stop. He knew he was becoming maudlin and sentimental, but fears about their safety kept crowding in. Today he'd met Matheson and James Vilner. He'd seen the nature of the people he was up against. What was he playing at?

  There was a right-hand bend ahead, a couple of hundred yards away. He couldn't see the angle yet, but it looked to be tight. There was a large, unlit building on the inside corner, obscuring his view of any oncoming traffic. A barn, he guessed, probably a store for winter feed. There was a fence running along the perimeter to his right, and some distant ghostly blobs that might have been sheep or cattle.

  The fields to his left were unfenced, but separated from the road by a ditch. His headlights picked out tall reeds and the dark shimmer of water.

  He was less than a hundred yards away, shifting to third gear, when the car burst into view. A familiar shape: high and square, some sort of jeep. And coming right at him. Straddling the centre line, it straightened out of the corner but made no effort to move over. It was gaining speed, its main beams high and blinding, filling his windscreen with light.

  Craig reacted on pure instinct. Wrenched the steering hard left and sent the Golf bumping across the narrow verge. He stamped on the brake, but the wheels had already lost traction on the wet grass. The bonnet tipped forward and he felt a choking pain across his torso as the seatbelt reeled him in. His head smashed against the side window and he blacked out.

  Forty-Four

  Julia was woken by noise: loud, urgent, indistinct. Her mind scrambled to process the sounds. While still emerging from sleep she'd heard smashing glass, thumping feet, and screams. She'd heard people screaming.

  Now she was awake, and people were still screaming. She could hear running, doors slamming, and over it all an alarm was blaring, high-pitched and insistent, drilling through her brain. She had a feeling it was still early in the evening, that she hadn't slept long. She felt groggy and nauseous and confused. If it was a dream, why hadn't the noises stopped?

  If it wasn't a dream, what was it?

  None of it made sense until she pulled in a breath and felt the tickle of smoke in her nostrils.

  There was a fire. She had to get out.

  But when she went to act on that impulse, nothing happened. It felt as though a fast-acting concrete had been poured on to her body. She tried frantically to make her limbs obey. She could feel her muscles tense and relax, tense and relax, but it did no good. She couldn't move. She was going to lie here, conscious but immobile, and burn to death.

  Craig was cold. Freezing cold. Icy water seeping through his jeans. Something warmer trickling in his hair.

  He opened his eyes to utter darkness. He thought he'd gone blind. Quelling a rush of panic, he blinked a few times and moved his head. It hurt. There was a powerful throbbing just above his right ear. A hot tearing pain at the base of his skull, as though someone had tried to rip his head off.

  Gradually his vision adjusted to the dark. The first thing he saw was the spent airbag, draped over the steering wheel like a monstrous condom. The Golf had nosedived into the ditch, and all the front windows had shattered. He was in muddy water up to his waist, chips of glass sprinkled on the surface like diamonds.

  He flexed his leg muscles, tentatively lifting and twisting his feet. To his relief, he didn't seem to have any broken bones. He tried turning the ignition off, but the steering column must have distorted, jamming the key. He had to settle for wrenching the rest of the keys free. His other hand plunged into the water and groped for the seatbelt catch. He felt his ribs protest as the belt released and his body pitched forward. He grabbed the doorframe and swore as grains of glass punctured his skin.

  Next he tried opening the door. It moved a couple of inches, then jammed. Either it had met resistance in the ditch, or the frame was buckled. Using his elbow to sweep the frame clear of glass, he levered himself into a crouching position on the seat. As he did the car shifted slightly, sliding a few inches deeper into the muddy water. With a sudden irrational vision of the whole car going under, he reached out of the driver's window, gripped the roof and hauled himself up and out. He left a wet muddy smear across the roof as he pulled himself over the back of the car and then half jumped, half fell on to the grassy bank.

  He lay still for a minute, gasping for breath, tears in his eyes, cold and wet and hurting in a dozen places, but more grateful to be alive than he would have thought possible. He pressed his face into the grass and inhaled its sweet aroma and the rich loamy scent of the soil beneath.

  Then he became aware of a low vibrating rumble through the earth. Seconds later headlights speared the darkness. A car. He was about to jump to his feet and flag it down when self-preservation kicked in. He had two very good reasons to stay hidden.

  Firstly, the car that forced him off the road had followed him from the hotel, overtaken at high speed, then turned round and driven back towards him. It might still be in the area.

  The second reason lay in pieces in the flooded footwell. When he licked his lips he could taste a hint of Scotch. Maybe not enough in his bloodstream to get him disqualified, but he couldn't take the chance.

  He waited for the car to pass, the rasp of its tyres taking an age to recede. Then he got to his feet and did his best to check himself over.

  He was a mess. Jeans and most of his jacket soaked. Mud everywhere. Blood in his hair and on his face. His right palm dotted with small incisions, now throbbing even more urgently than his head wound. He patted his pockets and found his wallet and phone intact. The phone still worked, but there was no signal.

  'Who am I gonna call?' he asked himself.

  He turned and examined the ditch. In darkness the car was almost impossible to see. It was pitched at such an angle that dipped headlights would miss the reflectors at close range, so there was a good chance it wouldn't be discovered until morning.

  He set off back the way he'd come, feet squelching on the road, pumping his arms to try and generate some warmth. There was a small chain of lights in the distance, one of which must be Julia's hotel. He figured he'd driven a couple of miles on a meandering route. In a dead straight line it was probably a lot less, but going cross-country in the dark presented its own hazards: ditches, fences, animals.

  After a couple of hundred yards he reached a layby and sat down. A sporty hatchback screamed past, pumping bass from its speakers like a gigantic heart. He glimpsed three or four kids who looked scarcely old enough to drive. One of them gleefully gave him the finger. Craig laughed.

  He took off his shoes, wrung out his socks and put them back on. It didn't make a lot of difference, but he felt better for it. Gazing along the road, he noticed a sign with an arrow indicating a footpath. There were symbols for parking, toilets and the sea, along with the words: '1 Mile.'

  A mile to the coast, then he'd turn left and head along the beach to the hotel. He looked at his watch, which had also survived intact. It was seven o'clock. He pictured Julia warm and relaxed as she sat down to dinner. He started fantasising about a hot bath and a mug of coffee.

  The path was uneven and overgrown with weeds. He had to pick his way carefully, but his eyes were now accustomed to the dark, and he found he could see quite well. The sky was clear and full of stars, the sea a faint silvery glimmer on the horizon.

  Then a bright yellow-orange flare caught his attention. It was coming from the western end of the chain of lights. It seemed to grow and fade in strength, with a pulsing, sinuous movement. The sky above it had grown hazy, blotting out the stars. That's when he put it together. He started to run.

  Forty-Five

  Someone was shouting her name. Julia tried to respond, but the sound that emerged was too weak to be heard over the alarm. In despair she shut her eyes and let her body go limp, and as she did a kind of nervous spasm caused her leg to move. She flex
ed it, and managed to swing one foot off the bed.

  From the hall, Kate called her name again, her voice tight with fear and desperation. There was an urgent thumping on her door.

  'Julia? Are you in there? Wake up!'

  'I'm here,' Julia croaked, desperately afraid that Kate would give up and leave her. 'I'm coming.'

  Regaining command of her body, she made a tremendous effort to raise herself, first on to her elbows, and then virtually slithered off the bed. She could feel control of her muscles gradually returning, and she was able to get upright. She felt woozy and disorientated, and there was an uncomfortable dull ache in her abdomen, but at least she could move.

  Thank God she was still dressed, she thought. There was no way she would be capable of putting clothes on in a hurry. Glancing back at the bed, she noticed her father's diary and picked it up, then stumbled towards the door. Kate was shouting and knocking again.

  Julia unlocked the door and was almost bowled over as Kate burst in. The air behind her was murky with smoke. The whole building seemed to be vibrating with the commotion of raised voices, thumping footsteps and the muffled roar of the fire.

  'Come on,' Kate said, grabbing her arm and pulling her out of the room. There was no time for explanation. Julia did her best to run, one hand cupping her mouth to reduce the effect of the foul, choking air.

  With Kate virtually propping her up, she descended the stairs into thicker smoke, billowing from the front doorway and the residents' lounge. A figure backed out of the room, holding a fire extinguisher. It was Sandy, the chef. She turned towards them, her face bright red, tears streaming from her eyes. She shook her head.

  'No good. It's spreading too quickly.' From inside the room they heard two small explosions. Bottles of spirits igniting.

  'Upstairs is clear,' Kate shouted. 'Just get out.'

  Sandy nodded, gesturing towards the kitchens. 'That way.'