Читать книгу Two Evils: A DI Charlotte Savage Novel - Mark Sennen, Mark Sennen - Страница 7

Chapter One

Day One

Creepy, creepy, creepy-crawlies. Little black ticks running over my naked skin. Flies swarming in the air. I slide onto my front, burying my face in the softness of the pillow, but it’s no good, I’m awake now and can’t settle. I roll over. I realise there’s only one fly, not a swarm. Just one fly buzzing against the window. One too many. I don’t like flies. They give me nightmares. Flashbacks. I can recall every last detail. The smell of the sea. The sound of the surf. The blood on my hands.

I blink. The fly is still hurling itself against the window. I stare at the insect and wonder. Something isn’t right. I push myself up from the bed and swing my legs down onto the rough wooden floor. I walk out onto the landing and down the corridor. I knock on the door.

No answer.

I knock again and then turn the brass doorknob. The hinges creak as the door eases open. Inside, the window is unlatched, swung wide, the white net curtains billowing like waves breaking into a sea of foam. Sunbeams flicker in through the window and across the floor to the bed where she lies unmoving. I creep to the bed and where the sunlight strokes her face I bend and brush her cheek with my lips.

Nothing. I try again, this time pressing harder against the dry, cold skin. No reaction, not a twitch. Her eyes remain resolutely shut as if she is determined not to be disturbed by anyone ever again.

Day Two

This time the creepy-crawlies are real. A dozen flies swarming in the air. I open all the windows hoping they’ll go away. No such luck. More come, following their noses, the promise of decay drawing them in.

She’s begun to smell now, the weather warming, the summer heat growing by the day. Pieces of flesh lie loose on her face and her bare flabby arms and her room is full of insects. Droves. Swarms. Hordes. An odour of rotting cabbage, urine and meat gone bad permeates throughout the house. I sit at the foot of her bed and cry.

Day Three

The next day I rip up a dozen oak floorboards in her room. I fashion a coffin from the ancient planks. I’m good with tools. Woodworking. Metalworking. I kiss her on the lips one last time, aware as I do so of her cheek twitching and rippling. Maggots beneath the skin. Consuming her.

I roll her in a sheet and pull her from the bed and into the coffin. Slip, flop, thud. The coffin is heavy and I slide it from the room and down the stairs. Outside, I balance the coffin on a wheelbarrow and weave my way out to the orchard. Then I dig down into the soil and rock and bury her beneath the apple trees. A leaf flutters from above and falls into the grave like the first flake of snow in winter. Inside my chest my heart has turned to ice.

Day Four

Breakfast is a gruel of cold porridge served with a wooden spoon in a cracked bowl. A drop of honey sweetens the goo, but not the day. On the table beside the bowl is a notebook. My diary from years ago. I found the book in her room. Why she kept it I don’t know, but perhaps in some small way what was within helped her to understand where things went wrong.

I stare down at the book. I know I need to relive the events inside, but not now, not here.

Day Five

I knew I would return. The place has too many memories for me to stay away. I park my car and walk across fields, the notebook clasped tight in my right hand. There’s a copse in the distance. Green leaves in a sea of waving corn. I wade through the corn and reach an old fence which hangs between slanted posts. Within grows hazel and scrub and a huge tangle of laurel.

I step over the fence into another world, wandering the woodland until I find my secret place. As a young man I used to come here to meet my best friend. I’d talk to him about my problems, speak of my hopes and aspirations, tell him of my sorrows.

As I grew and matured I gradually weaned myself from my obsession. Life went on and I forgot about my secret place.

And yet here I am, looking for my friend, once more seeking help.

I kneel in the shadows, place the notebook on the ground, and begin to scrabble in the dirt. The brown covering of dead laurel leaves gives way to mulch and soil. My fingers reach down, pushing into the soft material and scraping away until I’ve dug a shallow hole. There it is, shining in the light. A hemisphere of bone, long ago cleaned of flesh and polished to a gleaming white. I pull the skull from the ground and hold it in front of me. In the right eye socket a large marble twinkles. A double cat’s eye whopper. There used to be a marble in each eye, but one dropped out and was lost.

‘Hello, Smirker,’ I say. ‘It’s been a long time.’

I kiss the wide bone of Smirker’s forehead and then I place him on a nearby brick so we can have a talk.

Smirker smiles at me with his perfect teeth and winks at me with his one good eye. I beam back at him. I can see he’s spotted the diary.

‘Ssshhh!’ I say, picking up the book and turning to the first page. ‘This was just a dream, right?’

Smirker smiles again, but I can see he doesn’t believe me.

To be honest, I’m not sure I do either.

The Shepherd sits in his rocking chair. He moves back and forth, the rocking soothing, almost as if he is once more a child in the arms of his mother. There’s a creak from the rockers on the bare boards of the floor. No carpet. The room is sparse with no floor covering except for a small hearth rug. Aside from the rocker there are a couple of wooden chairs with straight backs. A monk’s bench. A table, the surface much worn. To one side of the room stands a huge dresser, plain with no frills. There is a fireplace but no fire. Hasn’t been for years. Cold is something you get used to if you experience it for long enough.

From somewhere across the fields a bell chimes. Twelve strokes. Midnight. A new day beckoning.

The Shepherd nods to himself, the movement of his head matching the rhythm of the rocking chair. There is something mechanical about the action. Purposeful. Like the clock in the church ticking off the seconds. God marking the time until the sinners must face their day of judgement. The final toll of the bell fades and he realises that in the moment between yesterday and today something has changed. There’s been a subtle alteration in the ether. Perhaps the change is merely something physical, meteorological. Then again, perhaps the slight ripple in the air is something quite different. Perhaps it is the voice of God.

He puts his feet out to steady himself, to stop the movement of the chair. He sits in the silence of the night and listens.

God, he knows, doesn’t always announce Himself with a bang. His voice is sometimes not much more than a whisper. Only those prepared to listen can detect His presence.

The Shepherd pushes himself up from the chair and stands. He walks across to where the velvet curtains hang heavy. He draws one back and peers out into the small hours which lie like a suffocating blanket of silence across the valley. The air is still, not a branch or a leaf moving, the treetops reaching for a sky filled with crystal lights.

Just on the edge of perception he can hear singing. Two young boys performing a duet, their voices as clear as the night.

Oh, for the wings, for the wings of a dove

Far away, far away would I rove …

He closes the curtains, returns to the rocker and eases himself down into the chair. The music continues to play in his head until the final line.

And remain there forever at rest …

The last note hangs in the darkness before the terrible black of the night snuffs the sound out.

The Shepherd blinks. He knows the truth of it now. He realises that God has spoken directly to him. Those who have abased the pure of heart must be judged. Memories may fade but crimes are not lessened by the passage of time. The evidence must be weighed and the sinners must be punished.

And, the Shepherd thinks, the punishment must fit the crime.