David Raker 01 - Chasing the Dead (22 page)

‘
Please
,’ he sobbed.

Legion stepped away, his fingers like a nest of snakes, opening and closing. ‘And His wrath moves through
me
.’

His skin crawled – the feeling moving up his arms and across his chest – as he stared at the devil. Trying to make eye contact. Trying to look inside the mask, and seek out whatever goodness Legion had left. But as the man in the mask came at him, darkness swirling around him like a cloak, he realized something terrifying: there
was
no good in him.

Lochlanark was a small town halfway between Oban and Lochgilphead. It looked out over the islands of Scarba, Luing and Shuna, to the Firth of Lorn, and to the misty, grey Atlantic beyond. It took seven hours to drive up from London, and I stopped only twice the whole way. Once to fill up the car, and once to call in at a petrol station to make sure I was on the right track. They told me Old Tay was a one-street village about seven miles north, right on the edge of the sea.

When I got there, I found five cottages and a sloping village green that dropped all the way down to the ocean. Inland, there were woods. The rising peaks of Beinn Dubh were beyond, streaked black and green, small streams of snow in every fold.

And right at the end of the village was the entrance to the farm.

I parked in a frozen field, about a hundred yards from the entrance. The sun clawed its way up past the mountains behind me just before eight o’clock, and an hour later no one had come and no one had gone. The place – the farm, its surroundings – were deserted; as quiet and still as if the bomb had dropped.

Wire-mesh fencing circled the property and the main gate was locked. A CCTV camera was positioned

The second building, the farmhouse, was large enough to incorporate at least five bedrooms, and was much further down an uneven gravel track. Its windows were blacked out. The walls were peeling. If snow hadn’t been brushed into neat piles either side of the front door, it would have looked as if it had never been lived in. A third CCTV camera was bolted to the roof, pointed towards the front door.

The approach to the second, bigger building was untidy. Old, disused barns littered the path, full of frozen hay bales and rusting chunks of machinery. Beyond the farmhouse was the sea, crashing on to sand scattered with sheets of ice. Every time a wave reached for the shore, it pushed the smell of the place towards me on the back of a bitter Arctic wind.

I leaned over and flipped the glove compartment. Inside was a pair of wire cutters. I’d go in through the fence at the furthest end to the property, where the CCTV cameras weren’t trained, and then head into the first, smaller building.

From there, I’d figure out my next move.

I removed the wire cutters, checked them over, and

And the gun.

It was a fully loaded Beretta 92. The same series as the fake one Dad had got mail order. The same series as the one I’d found in a South African war zone, and from which I’d taken the bullet I always kept on me.

I undid my black jacket and took out the bullet from the inside pocket. Let it roll around in my hands. I remembered that day in the township: the gunfire; the fear; the sun melting the tarmac beneath our feet. Then I remembered my dad shadowing me, moving behind me as I headed into the forest. As a kid, I’d fired the Beretta to please him. Never with any passion, any commitment, any intention of taking it beyond the boundaries of the woodland we’d hunted in. Now I held a real one in my hands.

I’d fired a gun two days before and taken a life. And I still felt nothing for Zack. Nothing for Jason either, as he lay there with his brains leaking out of his head, his blood spattered across my clothes and my skin. A realization, a flutter maybe, but nothing more. It was why I couldn’t call the police. The reason I had to do this alone.

I’d killed twice already.

And I’d have to do it again.

The smaller building had an old cottage-style look to it: pale red windowsills and frames; trays of dead flowers; a nameplate next to the door that said
BETHANY
. I came in diagonally from the hole I cut in the fence, using the empty barns as cover. There was a second door at the back, blistered and old. I slid the gun into my belt, and pushed at it. The door shuddered and slowly creaked open.

Immediately inside was a kitchen. The sink was missing taps and parts of its plumbing. Some of the cupboards had been dismantled. A table had been chopped into pieces and left in the centre of the room. Off the kitchen were two doors: one to a pantry, the second to a living room without any furniture. A door in the living room led to the stairs.

I headed up.

There were three doors on the landing but no carpet. The first was for a bedroom. An ‘A’ was carved into the door. Inside, about halfway along, a square chimney flue ran from floor to ceiling, coming out of the wall about three feet. At the windows, there were no curtains, just sheets. They moved in the breeze as I stepped up to the door. No beds. No cupboards. Water trails ran down one of the walls, coming from holes in the ceiling.

help me
. I leaned in closer. In the grooves of the letters were pieces of fingernail.

I backed out, and turned to face the third door.

The bathroom.

It had most of its fixtures, and a basin, toilet and bath. The bath was filthy – full of hair and broken pieces of tile – but the basin was clean, used recently, droplets of water next to the plughole. There was a mirror on the wall above. I moved to it. The bruises on my cheeks, and at the side of my head, had faded a little. But my eye was still full of blood. I leaned into the mirror to take a closer look.

Then, behind me, I spotted something.

The bath panelling didn’t fit properly. I knelt down and pushed. It popped and wobbled, then regained its shape. I pushed again. This time the corners of the panel came away. The edges were slightly serrated, all the way around, like they’d been cut using a saw.

Inside the bath, stacked around the half-oval shape of the tub, were hundreds of glass vials. They climbed as tall and as wide as the bath allowed, dark brown, opaque and identically labelled. Instructions for use were printed at the bottom of each vial in barely visible type, underneath the message
Caution: for veterinary use only
. At the top, printed in thick black lettering:
KETAMINE
.

I reached in and took one out.

Snap.

A noise from outside. Stones scattering.

I went to the window of the bathroom. Someone was approaching. A woman. She was young, probably nineteen or twenty. Dark brown hair in a ponytail. Pale, creamy skin. Tight denims, a red top and a white and pink ski jacket. On her feet was a pair of chunky, fur-lined boots. She crunched along in the snow, kicking loose pieces of gravel into the fields.

I didn’t have time to get out – didn’t even have time to get down to the pantry – so I put the bath panel back and moved into Room B, the room with the rings. Behind the door, I took out the Beretta and flipped the safety off. My hands were clammy despite the cold.

Then I remembered the extra bullets.

Still in the car, buried in the glove compartment.

Shit.

I heard the squeak of the bath panel being removed. Vials clinking together. Then she started humming to herself. I moved out from behind the door, took a big stride from the door of the bedroom to the door of the bathroom and placed the gun at the back of her head.

‘Don’t move.’

She jolted, as if a current had just cut her in two. Her eyes swivelled into the corners of her skull. She looked back over her shoulder at me without moving.

‘Get up.’

She stood slowly, three vials clasped in one hand, her other outstretched to tell me she wasn’t going to be any trouble.

‘What’s your name?’

‘Sarah,’ she said quietly.

‘Okay, Sarah. Now tell me: what the fuck is going on here?’

She didn’t reply, so I lowered the gun and grabbed her by the back of the neck. The sudden movement made her drop the vials. They smashed against the bathroom floor. She winced, as if I was about to hit her, and did so again when I turned her around and pushed her into Room B. I forced her downwards, so she was almost doubled over. Her face was right in front of the
help me
message.

She nodded. Her breathing was short and sharp. Scared.

‘Good. So you speak English. Someone carved that message in the wall and left half their fingernails in there. You can see their fingernails, can’t you?’

She nodded again.

‘Speak up, I can’t hear you.’

‘Yes.’

‘Good. You any idea how painful that is? You any idea how desperate someone has to be to carve a message in a wall with their own
fingernails
?’

She didn’t move.

‘Sarah?’

‘Yes.’

‘Yes what?’

‘Yes, I know.’

‘Good. Which is why you’re going to start answering some questions for me. Because if you don’t, you’re going to scratch a new message in the door next to it, with your fingernails. Got it?’

She nodded.

I pulled her up and guided her out of the room. I couldn’t stand the smell any longer.

On the landing, I forced her to kneel down facing one of the walls. For a moment, I caught a glimpse of myself in the bathroom mirror, and didn’t like the person I was seeing. But things had changed now.
I
had changed. There was no going back to the man I’d been before. Not now. They’d made certain of that.

will
hurt you if you don’t give me what I want.’

I paused, let her take it in. She nodded.

‘Okay. First. What is the room with the rings used for?’

A little hesitation, then: ‘Acclimatization.’

‘What the hell does that mean?’

‘We bring them here to dry them out.’

‘Dry them out?’

‘Yes.’

‘What are they –
drug
addicts?’

She nodded again.

‘We’re not doing sign language any more. Yes or no?’

‘Some, yes.’

‘Some, but not all?’

‘Not all. But most.’

‘You’re running a drug programme?’

‘Kind of.’

‘You are or you aren’t?’

‘We are. But it’s not…’

‘Not what?’

‘Not like a normal programme.’

I glanced into the room with the rings. Saw the handcuffs, the blood spatters. Smelt the decay and the sickness.

‘No kidding,’ I said. ‘So, what is it then?’

‘It’s a way to help people forget.’

‘Forget what?’

‘The things they’ve seen, and the things they’ve done.’

She paused, finally dropped her hand away from the wall, and turned her head slightly so she could look at me.

‘I’m not sure you’d understand.’

‘I guess we’ll see.’

Another pause. She turned back to the wall.

‘They’ve all suffered traumas,’ she said.

‘Like what?’

‘Life-affecting traumas.’

‘Specifics,’ I said.

She turned her head again, and this time her eyes fixed on mine. They moved across my face, flashing. In her expression, I could see the fear I’d glimpsed after I’d surprised her. But now, somehow, it looked less convincing… as if she might be playing me. As if all of this – the scared little girl, the soft voice – might be how she turned the game on its head.

‘Life-affecting traumas like what?’ I said.

She smiled a little, sadly. ‘Like Derryn.’

I grabbed her by the neck and pressed her head into the wall. A puff of plaster spat out at her face, forcing her to close her eyes. She coughed.

I leaned into her ear.

‘Don’t try to get inside my head. Don’t mention her name. Don’t ever try to use her as a way to get at me. I hear you say her name again, I’ll fucking kill you.’

She nodded.

I released the pressure on her neck and she opened her eyes again.

She frowned, as if she didn’t understand.

‘Keep your eyes
closed
.’

She shut them.

‘Specifics,’ I repeated. ‘Give me specifi–’

‘Sarah?’

A man’s voice at the front of the house. The crunch of snow underfoot. It sounded like he was coming around towards the back door. I leaned in close to her.

‘Don’t make a sound, got it?’

Those eyes snapped open again and she looked at me. She wasn’t beautiful, but her face had a hypnotic quality. It lured you in, and forced you to lose precious seconds.

‘Sarah?’

He was inside the house. I covered her mouth and hauled her to her feet, then slowly backed up, with her in front of me, into Room A.

‘Sarah?’

A creak on the stairs.

I pushed her into the centre of the room, and moved back, behind the door. She looked at me and saw what I was telling her:
don’t do anything stupid
.

‘Sarah?’

She faced the door. ‘I’m up here.’

I looked through the gap in the door, to the stairs. A head appeared, but slowly, as if he knew something was up.

‘You okay?’ he said.

‘Yeah, fine.’

Eastern European accent.

He stopped short of the top of the stairs and looked around. I could see snatches of his face between the bars on the staircase. His eyes were darting between the doors.

‘Just getting the supplies.’

He took another step.

‘What’s taking so long?’

She paused. Looked at me.

I could see the man’s face now. It was Stephen Myzwik. Older than in the mugshots, but leaner and more focused. He had a hand placed at the back of his trousers as he stepped up on to the landing. Reaching for a gun.

‘It’s warm in here.’

I shot a look at Sarah.
What the hell are you talking about?
She just stared back at me. Didn’t move. Didn’t say anything else. When I glanced back in Myzwik’s direction, I could see his gun was up in front of him, aimed in the direction of the bedrooms. His eyes flicked left to the smashed vials on the bathroom floor as he moved across the landing almost silently.

‘Where?’

‘Room A,’ she said.

They were speaking in code.

I gripped the gun, and watched as Myzwik moved to the door, then stopped. He looked in at Sarah. And without her saying anything, he seemed to immediately know where I was.