Grave Doubts (45 page)

He eased his weight onto the edge of the first step and waited for the creak. It remained quiet. The next step moaned a little but it was a whisper of sound, soon lost in the blackness. He started to feel more confident and eased his weight forward.

Nightingale groaned softly into her pillow as the clock woke her from the doze she had managed to drift into. Normally she would sleep right through but this wasn’t a regular night. She peered hard at her watch and saw it was two-ten. The old clock was running slow, as always. Stifling a yawn, she stretched beneath the bedclothes, willing sleep to return and tried to ignore the fact that the clock would chime again on the hour for the rest of the night.

There was a click from downstairs, faint but distinct, not one of the customary house noises. It must have been the kettle cooling, or the claws of a heavy mouse. Nightingale listened for the noise to come again so that she could identify the source more accurately and dismiss it. Silence. She breathed in deeply. As she exhaled there was a sharp creak that brought her sitting upright in bed. That was a sound she could place exactly. The third step of the hall stairs protested like that when weight depressed it. If she were right, there would be a softer noise as the boards were released.

There it was, unmistakable. Someone was climbing the stairs. She waited. Although the fourth step was silent, the fifth was as good as a burglar alarm.

The image of Griffiths floated in the greyness before her but she dismissed it. He was locked up. Could it be his partner, the man called Smith that Fenwick had been trying to warn her about? That was impossible. He would never find her here. It had to be a random intruder. But there was no reason why a casual thief would bother with a house like this. Unless it wasn’t a thief but someone who had heard of a stupid woman living on her own and had decided to have some fun.

Despite her attempts to remain logical and keep calm, the hairs were standing up at the back of her neck as she lifted her feet carefully out of bed and into her trainers. The gardening shorts she had worn earlier were on a chair. To reach them she had to cross the old floorboards – impossible to do silently. Her mind was divided in two, hearing focused on the stairs, every other brain cell on trying to remember where she had left her car keys. She remembered and shook her head at her stupidity. They were downstairs in the drawer of the dresser where she always left them.

There was another creak, the fifth step. The intruder was almost at the corner of the stairs. She had to decide quickly: run, fight or hide. Nightingale discounted the last two. She was unarmed and he could have a knife, even a gun. And as for hiding – where? The room was almost bare.

To run. Jump from the window? It was a sheer drop onto a stone path. If she hurt herself it would be over. So she had to dare the landing, which meant she needed a weapon. There was an oil lamp by the bed with a heavy metal base; it would have to do. She picked it up and moved towards the door at a crouch to peer through the crack between wood and frame into the relative darkness of the landing. It was empty but the night pooled dark shadows in the corners, large enough to hide a man waiting to jump on her as she passed.

Nightingale was terrified. The courage she had always relied on deserted her and she realised that in the past it had been fuelled by a reckless indifference to her fate that had been replaced with a determination to live a life of her own choosing. She started to shake. The tremor was so violent that it rattled the glass in the lamp and she had to still it with her hand. She felt helpless, a victim, but anger at her weakness forced her to confront her fear. She would
not
become another incident to be reported and pitied. The thought of her body on the slab waiting for a ‘Y’ incision filled her with disgust. If she stayed where she was she would probably be raped or die, so she had to move. She decided to count to three as she had done as a child then run. With the taste of salt on her lips she began.

Smith held his breath and finished counting to twenty. The last shriek from the old wood was so loud that he was sure it must have disturbed her. On the final count he listened but apart from the faintest rattle of glass the house was quiet.

The fantasy he had had, of finding her naked in bed, asleep and vulnerable, made him careful but he had never felt so strong or invincible. There was a smile on his face as he took his next step, cautious as ever. No sound. He took the next one and there was the barest creak. There was a turn in the stair two steps ahead, then a shorter flight up the landing. He was so close. The weight of the penknife in his pocket was like an erection against his thigh. A trace of light caught the blade of the sheath knife in his hand.

There was a rush of air and a white blur above him. A shape darted along the landing, pale as moonlight. Smith let out a cry of rage and sprang forward to catch at the ankle only inches from his hand. His left foot descended heavily on the corner stair, breaking the weakened wood with an audible snap. He fell forward, his leg dangling in the air below. Shouting in frustration he pulled his leg up, wincing in pain as the splinters tore through his trousers. His foot wedged itself in the gap and he twisted it, scraping the bare flesh of his calf but it was stuck fast. He stabbed the rotten wood with his sheath knife until the gap was large enough for him to jerk his leg free.

He climbed the remaining steps and ran after the woman who had disappeared into the darkness. The landing wasn’t level and he tripped headlong down a short drop, banging his head on the skirting board at the bottom. After that he used the torch and was more careful. The way before him was empty. To his left was a bathroom smelling of her soap; to the right an old bedroom with mould in the corners. There was a noise, coming from behind one of the doors. He swung it open and found stairs spiralling down. He launched himself at them and saw the glimmer of white below. With a yell he ran forward – to find an empty pillowcase, lying flat against a half-open door. He pushed through it and was in the kitchen, alone.

Nightingale crouched behind the stud wall in the little bedroom and watched for the torchlight to return. When she’d looked out of its window the sight of ripped wires trailing from the bonnet of her car had made her want to weep. Whoever was in her house wasn’t a stray burglar, of that she was now certain. It had to be Smith, though she hadn’t dared to look down the stairs as she’d made her escape. As he’d pulled his foot free she had acted quickly to drop her pillow into the kitchen in the hope that he would think she had escaped that way. Now she waited to see whether her deception had worked. The idea of running half-naked through the woods in the dark was ridiculous. She would tear her legs to shreds, probably break an ankle. She had acted quickly to set up her diversion as he pulled his foot free. Now she waited to see whether her deception had worked.

She was cowering in her childhood hiding place, a space between wall and eaves that ran the length of the old house. She had to balance carefully on the crossbeams to avoid falling through the plaster ceiling. The room the other side of the wall remained silent. There was a faint crack around the plasterboard that plugged the hole through which she would see any torchlight should he return.

As the minutes passed she began to relax and think about how long she should hide to be sure he was gone. At the count of one hundred and fifty-three a beam of light flicked across the join, bright through the gap. She closed her eyes instinctively and a red line crossed her vision, warning her that some of her night sight had gone. The passage in which she was hiding was low, less than half height. She froze in her crouch and waited for him to leave the bedroom. It was crazy that he was even searching for her. He should be outside and the fact that he wasn’t meant that she wasn’t out-thinking him. The light went away and she started to breathe again. Surely he would give up soon.

But Nightingale couldn’t know Smith’s cunning. It had taken him some time to be sure that she had not slipped through the windows, which were swollen shut with age or closed. Then he had checked the rooms downstairs meticulously before closing and securing the doors as he moved on. He grew certain that she was in the house. Even if she had made it to the kitchen in the time it had taken to free himself the locked door would have blocked her escape.

Despite the anti-climax he was starting to enjoy this game of cat and mouse. He had everything he needed, she nothing, perhaps not even clothes. The image of her running had been brief but he could recall long arms and bare legs punching the air. At the top of the stairs he found a chest of drawers which he dragged over to prevent her running downstairs behind him. If she tried the kitchen stairs she would find the door wedged shut from the other side with a chair. Slowly he was closing in.

The upstairs of the house was confusing. It was larger than the space below. He realised that some rooms must have been built over the farm outbuildings. That would complicate matters but he had all night and he could work methodically when he needed to.

She hadn’t returned to her bedroom. He sniffed her bedclothes, smiling, before securing the door. Very carefully, he searched each room, finding nothing. He started over again and it was then that he saw the faint scuff marks in the dust in the older part of the house. He followed them down steps and along to a small bedroom, tucked under the eaves. The room was empty, the windowpane cracked but closed fast. He tried to find further traces of her beyond the room but there were none so he went back inside, sat down on the floor and switched off his torch. He was always at his best in the homes of his victims and his instincts told him she was close by. She wouldn’t be able to wait long, no woman had that stamina, and when she moved he would hear her.

Nightingale had no idea how long she had been crouching in the pitch black of the eave’s passageway. At one point she thought she heard the clock strike but it was so muffled she couldn’t be sure. Had one hour gone by, two? It had to be longer since she’d woken to hear him creeping up the stairs. She decided to count to three thousand, and then move.

At four hundred and twenty she heard a noise in the room. She pushed her eye to the tiny crack but could see nothing so she put her nose there and sniffed silently. There was the overwhelming odour of dust and plasterboard but beyond that she could detect the unmistakeable taint of alien sweat.

She was hunched forward, face pressed to the wall when the tapping started right by her ear, forcing her to bite her knuckles to prevent a scream. The tapping moved away and along the wall. He was here and he suspected her hiding place. There was no option now but to move. She would have to crawl from beam to beam, her muscles were too tight to manage a crouching shuffle and she would need to leave her only weapon, the oil lamp, behind. She shuffled forward, her arms trembling with fear, praying that he wouldn’t find the gap that revealed the removable access panel behind the bed.

Smith knocked and listened. In some places the plaster was so rotten that his knuckles raised clouds of dust like phantoms in the moonlight. He worked his way around the room, testing the wall at shoulder and knee height at every pace. When he had completed a full circuit he paused and checked the footprints on the floor again, concerned that he had been mistaken.

No. She had run in here and not run out again. He crouched down and shone his torch along the floor to take a closer look. A line of tracks clear in the torchlight ran to the side of the sagging single bed. He inched forward, tapping the walls gently. By the side of the bed he noticed a faint shadow in the peeling wallpaper. The space behind the bed was too small for him to crawl into though she could have managed it. He dragged the old iron frame back with a screech. When he tested the wall behind it the hollow echo was obvious. With his penknife blade he traced the line of shadow, pressing through into a space behind. He levered the panel free. After several attempts he managed to push his muscled upper torso through and the rest of his body followed easily.

On the other side he paused for breath and to orientate himself. He was in a narrow void formed by the angle of the roof meeting lathe and plaster inner walls. There was barely room for him to crouch. When he tried to ease his body into a more comfortable position his head knocked tiles and dislodged dead spiders and dust onto his face.

He flashed his torch to the left towards the front of the house and saw the gap finish at a brick wall. He crawled along, suspicious that there might be a hiding place there but it was a dead end. That left only one direction. He twisted around and dropped into a low crouch, his torch gripped between his teeth, stretching his jaw. Before him the thick dust on the beams had recently been disturbed, leaving black smears of bare wood. With a low grunt of satisfaction he started to inch forward.

A quarter of a mile beyond the end of the tarmac the police car came to a crossroads where an unmade track intersected their own. The driver changed down to a lower gear as the hill rose steeply ahead of them and Fenwick raised MacIntyre on the radio.

‘We’ll be there within fifteen minutes. Can you send us the helicopter now? We need back up.’

‘We’re almost done here then the boys are all yours. Why don’t you wait?’

Fenwick closed the call without bothering to reply and looked at the driver and his colleague. Smith was only one man but he was a psychotic killer and he felt at a distinct disadvantage.

The driver had a gentle Devon accent. He looked about sixteen, and excited in a way that did nothing to inspire Fenwick’s confidence.

‘What’s your name?’ He stopped himself saying son.

‘Constable Penders, sir, Cal.’

‘When did you join the force, Cal?’

‘Eighteen months ago, same time as Pete here.’ He thumped his partner’s shoulder enthusiastically and was rewarded with a return punch. ‘Are we on our own, sir?’

‘For now. Lights off; we must be getting close.’

Pushing his doubts to one side, he started to consider his options as they crawled forward through the darkness.

Nightingale smothered a cough in the crook of her arm and tried to blink her eyes clear of dust. Up here above the old mill wheel, hundreds of years of corn husks coated every surface and she had to pause to catch her breath and avoid choking on the fine powder she raised every time she moved. It was pitch black in the roof void and she was lost. Somehow in the maze of passages she had missed the hatch above the stairs down to the dairy and instead she had crawled to the end of the extension that had been built out over the millstream. There was nowhere left to go and a murderer behind her. She knew that he was there. Less than a minute before she had seen an arc of torchlight on the ceiling before turning a corner into darkness, moving faster in a desperate attempt to outpace her pursuer.

She had to accept that there must be a deeper purpose to the break-in than simple theft. It wasn’t random. The man pursuing her had to be Smith, determined to find her. The thought filled her with terror for it meant that he had motive and wouldn’t simply go away. Nightingale had read of the hinted brutality of his crimes and knew that he would persist until he caught her. She backed up and turned into a tiny passage, comforted that it would be too narrow for him to enter. Near panic, she increased her speed despite the absolute dark in the void.

Without warning she slammed into a wall that reared up across her path. Stunned, she lowered her head and waited for the stars to clear from her eyes. She felt around for the next turning. There were brick walls on three sides and the roof above was solid. She had nowhere left to run. Behind here she thought she could hear a heavy shuffle and stifled a sob. With dread she turned and began to crawl backwards in case she had missed a way out. She caught her knee on a large splinter of wood but ignored the pain and moved on

To her right and left her fingers touched rough bricks and roofing slates as she retraced her route. Her feet stirred up eddies of thick chaff that caught in her eyes and throat making her choke and forcing her to pause for breath. Her muscles spasmed as she lay on her side and tried to breathe but the air was as thick and foul near the beams as it was beneath the tiles. She was suffocating.

Nightingale struggled for breath in the pitch blackness. Above her the roof pressed down like the lid of a tomb but she could just make out a thin line of light and inched towards it, one hand across her nose and mouth as a mask, the other bearing her weight on the beams. Below the light she could see that the roof lining had come away and there were stars visible in the gaps between the tiles. She used her elbow to punch a slate free from its rotting pins so that it hung at an angle. A draught of air blew in and she sucked at the freshness greedily until her head cleared. Outside she could see Orion low in the sky. The sound of running water was clear in the night. Perhaps she could break through the roof and escape. She felt confident of her strength after months of good food and physical activity and broke more tiles away easily. But the rafters were too close together to allow her body through.

To her left, the roofing came down across the passage but there was a gap, perhaps less than two feet from the floor, where some of the bricks had tumbled away. It was her only chance of escape. She was still trapped with nowhere to go but back and he was behind her, closing the gap even as she wasted time in this coffin-shaped void. He would search every inch of the house and, if he didn’t find her, she was certain that he would burn it down.

The image of being trapped in the roof whilst fire consumed the dried out wood and ignited the corn dust was more horrifying than confronting Smith. There was no option but to go back into the main passage she’d just left so hopefully and continue from there. She forced herself away from the moonlight into the menacing darkness, her eyes straining ahead for any sign of escape.

Just before she reached the junction with the main roof space she saw an object looming up on her right, black against the grey shadows. Her outstretched fingers touched wood, a thick slab, set at an angle. Reaching up, she found another, then another. It was the top of the mill wheel, huge, powerful, thrusting up into the roof space to reach the full height of the building. She must have passed it before in the darkness but the filter of moonlight was enough for her to see its outline.

There was a gap in the floor around the wheel, not big but maybe just enough for her to slide through. She tested the space with her hands. It was barely a foot wide but she was so desperate that she pushed her feet down into it without a second thought. Her hips and buttocks wedged tight but she forced them through, reaching out with her trainers to find purchase on one of the wooden slats below. Her waist glided down easily, then her breasts. She was trying to angle her head through sideways when light swung in from the entrance to the main eaves and blinded her. The torch swung up and around searching as she tried to push through, her chin pressed tight against the wood, the back of her skull wedged painfully into the hole in the floor. She waited helplessly as the torchlight came round in a lazy arc until its beam dazzled her straight in the face.

‘Ah, there you are.’ His tone was conversational, almost polite. ‘My, but what a mess you’re in. Stuck with nowhere to run to. This is a little narrow for me but I’ll be right with you. Don’t go away now.’

Nightingale heard herself scream. It was a strange sound, distorted by the pressure on her jaw but it was a scream she couldn’t control and he laughed in delight. Then his face disappeared and the torchlight vanished, leaving her night-blind and in darkness. He had gone to find another way through to her, whilst she was pinioned here, trapped by her skull.

‘Big head!’ she shouted, tears streaming down her face. ‘Stupid woman.
Do
something!’ She twisted and turned. At one acute angle her face moved through until the wood caught on her cheekbone. Her ears were compressed tight against her skull. It was agony but she pulled down against them, first one side then the other feeling the blood start to trickle down her neck as she scraped the skin raw. The right ear suddenly slipped below the floorboards. A moment later, the left one was through. Blood stained her T-shirt but she was finally free, clinging to the old mill wheel like a huge spider in a monstrous web.

Nightingale was crying now. He was coming for her. Her only hope was that he would get lost, as she had done, in the warren of roof space. Using the wooden struts she clambered down the wheel, passing through the second and first floors until she could jump onto the flagstones of the mill room. She paused to ease the cramp from her thighs and to cough up the contaminating dust from her lungs.

For the first time since he’d followed her into the eaves she allowed herself to believe that she might escape. She was at the very edge of the farm. All she needed to do was leave this building, cross the brook and then run into the woods where she would have a chance to outpace him.

Nightingale ran across the mossy floor and pulled open the door. As she sprinted across the yard, a dark shadow left the side of one of the outbuildings and sprang at her. He had been waiting for her! He hit her head hard enough to send her sprawling onto the cobbles and leapt down on her, his right arm raised to hit her again but she jerked upwards ramming her knee into his groin and butting him under the chin with her head. He howled in surprise as she punched him hard on the side of his head but he kept hold of her, using his weight to pin her down.

The pain galvanised her. She couldn’t understand why he wasn’t using a knife or gun. It was as if he wanted to knock her unconscious rather than kill her outright. The thought of what this might mean terrified her and she pushed up against his weight. He had an arm across her throat now, choking her, whilst the other held one of her arms useless to her side. He was like a wild animal, his eyes wide, pupils surrounded by blood-stained whites, his mouth drawn into a snarl. Despite the injuries she could see along his jaw and neck he was agile and aggressive, fuelled by his hatred of her and, perhaps, some sort of chemical stimulant that was dulling the pain and boosting his strength. He was the stuff of nightmares.

Black spots started to break in front of her eyes as he choked her; blood drummed in her ears. Her right arm was trapped beneath the weight of his body, the left was held uselessly in his grip. She was going to black out. A desperate will to live surged through her. She pulled her legs up, braced her feet against the cobbles and thrust her hips upward with every atom of strength she still possessed.

He rocked sideways but held her fast. She thrust again, in a sick mockery of the sex act and he pressed back against her. Something hard pushed into her hip and she took it for his erection. Then he shifted and the way it moved was wrong. It slid down, across her hip, away from his groin. She realised that it was something in his pocket.

Her arm was still trapped by her side. With what remained of her wits she pretended she was unconscious. Her head lolled to one side, eyes closed. In the blackness, with her lungs compressed and a fire in her throat she knew how close her masquerade was to truth.

He held her still for a long moment. Her tongue filled her mouth and she started to fall down within herself. Then he leaned back and she could breathe again. She could sense him watching her, ready to squeeze again so she drew in breaths slowly, despite the protest of her body and kept her eyes shut. Satisfied that she really was out cold, she felt him start to rise. In her mind she visualised his body, that pocket with the hard shape inside. Whatever it was, it was her only chance to seize an advantage.

As he rose she took a deep breath and launched upwards, her head catching his chin hard enough to make him weave to the side. Her hand slipped into his pocket and clasped the smooth plastic she found there. From the feel of it she had his cigarette lighter. She could burn him.

He thrust his weight back down on her trapping both her arms between their bodies. She wriggled and managed to bring a leg free but his hands were around her throat now, squeezing her back towards oblivion. On the cobbles beside them she could see his knife ready for use. She tried to remember her self-defence classes. Eyes and groin; go for them. With her arms trapped like this she couldn’t reach his face but her hands had to be mere inches from his crotch.

He had angled up slightly, the better to choke her. She thrust a hand down, found his balls and squeezed hard. Smith let out a yelp and his grip loosened. She brought her arms up and pushed them wide, breaking his hold. Then she kneed him again for good measure and rolled away, choking for breath.

He was on his feet faster than she expected and he went straight for his knife.

‘Have it your own way, you fucking bitch. You die right here and now.’

He aimed a kick at her side but she swayed away, keeping her eyes on him and the blade in his hand. It was a sheath knife about five inches long.

‘Try it, you sick bastard.’ She staggered to her knees and raised one leg to leverage herself up but her head started to spin so she lowered it again, like a bull baited but not beaten.

He was smiling now, circling around her, swinging his knife from side to side.

‘Don’t try to fool me. You’re shit scared and you know it.’

The laugh she let out didn’t sound right but it made her feel better. This man wanted to see her terrified and begging for her life before he killed her. Well he was going to be disappointed. Now that the worst was happening she was filled with renewed courage rooted in the desire to live.

‘You’re pathetic.’ She wanted to goad him closer so that she could flash the flame of the lighter in his face but he kept his distance. He was describing what he was going to do to her alive and dead. She let him, ignoring the words because they were giving time for her head to clear. Without drawing attention to what she was doing, she felt over the surface of the object in her hand, searching for the flint wheel and switch. When she encountered nothing but smooth plastic and a metal trim, she risked a glimpse down.

It wasn’t a lighter but a penknife. At first she was disappointed. The plan to raise the flame and burn him was so clear in her mind. But then she realised what she had and new hope filled her. She had a blade to fight a blade. It didn’t make them even but she felt her confidence grow. Her lack of fear would be a major advantage, as she doubted he had ever encountered a victim more angry or determined.

Without warning he made a lunge for her. She rolled easily, rising into a crouch when she stopped. He came again, knife thrust forward to strike her. She waited until he was close, then twisted and sliced down with her own blade. There was a yelp of surprise and she saw blood on her arm. He had cut her but there was blood on her knife too and she turned to see him sucking his wrist and searching his pocket.