Spawn (32 page)

“What about this business with the grave?” he asked. “Were the three missing bodies ever found?”

“Not to my knowledge.”

Randall frowned, aware that what he was about to say was going to sound idiotic. He coughed.

“Is there any way a foetus could continue to grow once it had been removed from the womb?” he asked.

“No. Even in laboratory conditions it would be difficult. Not impossible but extremely unlikely.”

He exhaled deeply.

“Now I’m not sure what
I’m
trying to say,” he confessed. “But I know one thing, I’d like to talk to Harold Pierce.”

“How could he be linked with this?” she wanted to know.

“Maybe he knows what happened to those other three bodies.”

Maggie closed the files and stacked them on one corner of the desk. She got to her feet, switching off the lamp. The room was momentarily plunged into darkness.

“Perhaps we’ll both think straighter on a full stomach,” said Randall, opening the office door for her.

They walked out into the corridor, heading for the lift. Maggie looked worried and, as they reached the ground floor, she took his hand and held it tightly. The two of them walked out to the car park where Randall’s Chevette waited. As he opened the passenger door to let her in, Maggie seemed reluctant to let go of his hand. He touched her cheek gently and kissed her softly on the lips.

Inside the car, despite the warmth from the heater, both of them shivered.

They were back at Randall’s place in less than twenty minutes.

Neither of them ate much. They spoke quietly, as if afraid that their conversation would be overheard by someone. Again and again they discussed what had transpired at the hospital, as if repeated examination of the bizarre events would somehow lead to a solution. There was no need for either of them to suspect anything out of the ordinary but nevertheless an atmosphere of foreboding seemed to descend over them as they spoke. In the sitting room, Maggie sat close to Randall, glad to feel his arm around her shoulder. Still they talked and still they could find no answers.

“We could go on like this all night,” said Maggie, “and it still wouldn’t get us anywhere.” She smiled humourlessly. “Now I know what you feel like trying to find Paul Harvey.”

“There seems to be more than one needle in
this
haystack, though,” he said, taking a drag on the cigarette he’d just lit up. He got to his feet and crossed to a drinks cabinet where he poured them both a large measure of brandy.

Maggie glanced around the room. It was small and tidy. Randall obviously took care of the place. There was a pleasing smell of lemon in the room (from a carpet cleaner, she guessed) which further attested to its cleanliness. On the mantlepiece above the glowing gas fire there were three photos. The first was of Randall and his wife and daughter, the second and third of Fiona and Lisa alone. Maggie was struck by how attractive the dead woman had been. The little girl too, smiling out from behind the glass in the frame, sported two dimples which only added to the cheeky playfulness mirrored in her eyes.

“Your wife was very pretty,” said Maggie.

Randall smiled.,

“I know,” he said, handing her a drink. “Lisa looked a lot like her.” He crossed to the mantlepiece and lifted the photo of his daughter. “My little lady,” he said, smiling. He replaced the photo almost reluctantly and turned back to face Maggie.

“She would have thought the same about you.” He smiled and raised his glass.

He took a long swallow, allowing the amber fluid to burn its way down to his stomach. Maggie sipped at hers.

“So,” said Randall. “What else can you do about these deaths? Is there anything more the pathologist can tell you?”

Maggie shook her head.

“I don’t know, Lou,” she confessed. She gazed into the bottom of her glass and then up at him. “The only thing that bothers me is, if there’s no explanation for these two deaths, what’s to stop it happening to other women? Maybe even women who aren’t pregnant?”

“Why should it affect them?”

“If there was no foetus or embryo in the Fallopian tubes then, theoretically, it could happen to any woman of child-bearing age.”

“You can’t say that until you know the cause,” he protested.

“That’s the whole problem isn’t it? We don’t know the cause.”

They both lapsed into silence, a solitude broken by the strident ringing of the phone. Randall crossed to it and lifted the receiver to his ear.

“Randall.”

Maggie looked at him and could only guess at what the caller was saying but, from the expression on Randall’s face, it obviously wasn’t good news. She got to her feet and walked across to him.

“Yeah. When? Whereabouts?” He pulled a pad towards him and wrote something on it. As he listened, the policeman was drawing small circles on the pad with his pencil.

“What’s wrong?” Maggie whispered.

“A murder,” he told her, handing her the note which bore the location. “But we’ve got a witness.”

She swallowed hard, watching him as he listened, the pencil still performing its spyrographic rotations on the pad.

“Willis,” said Randall. “Did the victim have any ID on him?”

“No, guv.” The sergeant’s voice sounded strained. “We did some finger-print tests just to be sure. We double-checked. Triple-checked.”

“Checked what for Christ’s sake?” Randall demanded.

Willis sighed.

“The victim was decapitated.”

Randall’s pencil snapped with a loud crunch.

“What’s that got to do with bloody fingerprints?” he demanded.

“The victim was Paul Harvey.”

Randall brought the Chevette to a screeching halt, the tyres spinning for a second on the wet tarmac. Across the street he could see an ambulance, its blue light spinning noiselessly, and two Panda cars. Uniformed men moved around in the darkness and, as he pushed open the door, the Inspector saw that much of the far side of the road was lined with trees. Beyond them was a narrow pathway which led between two houses. The pathway was masked by high hedges on both sides. There were lights on in both of the houses and also in some further down the street. Indeed, some people had even braved the rain to stand at their gates in an effort to see what was going on.

Maggie got out too, slamming her door behind her. Together they crossed to the scene of feverish activity. Randall caught sight of PC Higgins and called him over.

“Where’s the body?” he said.

“This way, guv,” he said. “We didn’t move anything until you arrived.” He led them a little way down the narrow path to a sheet shrouded object. Randall knelt and pulled back one corner of the covering, wincing as he did so.

“Shit,” he muttered.

Maggie too looked at the headless body, letting out a long, slow breath.

“Where’s the witness?” the inspector wanted to know.

“He’s in the ambulance. Some old girl from the house next door gave him a cup of tea. The poor sod’s in quite a state. He’s only a kid.”

Randall and Maggie followed Higgins to the ambulance, the Inspector hauling himself up into the back of the vehicle. The youth, no more than fifteen, was milk white and shaking like a leaf. He held a mug of tea in both hands as if not quite sure what to do with it.

He looked up anxiously as Randall joined him in the back of the ambulance. Maggie climbed in behind him.

“What’s your name, son?” Randall asked him.

The lad picked nervously at one of the spots on his chin and swallowed hard.

“M-Mark Rawlings,” he stammered.

“I just want to know what you saw,” said Randall, softly.

The youth tried to stop himself shaking but found it an impossible task. Some of the tea slopped over the lip of the mug and burned his hand. Maggie took it from him.

“Well,” he began. “I was coming home from the pictures, I’d just left my girlfriend. She only lives round the corner see. So I thought I’d take a short-cut up the lane. I saw this bloke with a knife.”

“In the alley?” Randall asked.

“Yeah. He was bending over something. I just saw him lifting the knife. Then I saw that there was a body there. He cut the fucking head off.” The youth turned even paler and clenched his teeth together. “I saw him pick it up. He put it in a sack or bag or something. He didn’t see me.”

“But you got a look at
his
face? The man with the knife?” Randall said.

“Yeah. I know it was dark but, well he had this great big scar or something all down one side of his face.

Randall shot Maggie an anxious glance, the same thought registering in their minds.

“He looked like something out of a fucking horror film,” Rawlings continued. “Like he’d been burned or something.”

Randall got to his feet, patted the youth on the shoulder and jumped down from the ambulance, helping Maggie down after him. Neither of them spoke. They didn’t have to. Randall had a quick word with Sergeant Willis then led Maggie back to the Chevette. They both climbed in, sitting there for a moment, the Inspector breathing heavily.

“When Pierce left the hospital,” he said. “Where did he go?”

“I told you before, Lou, nobody knew,” Maggie told him.

Randall banged the steering wheel angrily but then, his initial anger subsided. He looked at her.

“He was locked up in that asylum for more than thirty years, wasn’t he?”

She nodded.

“I don’t get you.”

“It’s the only home he’s ever known.” Randall started the engine.

She suddenly understood.

He put the car in gear and swung it round in the wide road. In a few minutes, they were heading out towards the road which would take them to the deserted asylum.

“
How can you be sure he’s here?” said Maggie as Randall stepped on the brake and brought the Chevette to a halt.

“I can’t,” he said, opening his door. “Let’s just hope this is one hunch that’s right.” The policeman clambered out from behind the wheel and walked across to the metal gates which barred the way to the asylum. In the darkness he could just discern three words on the stone archway above him.

E
XHAM
M
ENTAL
H
OSPITAL

There was a padlock on the gates and Randall tugged on it. The rusty gates creaked protestingly but didn’t budge. The Inspector looked round. The driveway was the only means of getting a car into the grounds but a man could slip through one of the many gaps in the hedge. Randall scanned the ground around him and finally spotted a large stone. He retrieved it and set about the padlock, striking it with all his strength. It eventually came free with a dull clang and dropped to the ground. The Inspector put his shoulder to one of the gates and pushed. It was heavier than it looked and the exertion made him sweat but he finally succeeded in opening it as far as it would go. He repeated the procedure with the other one then hurried back to the car. Starting the engine he guided the Chevette through the archway and along the drive towards the asylum itself.

Flanked on both sides by leafless trees, he estimated that the driveway must be at least half a mile long. He drove slowly, eyes alert for the slightest movement in the darkness.

“What are you going to do if Harold is here?” Maggie wanted to know.

“I’ll tell you that when I find him,” Randall told her, cryptically.

He brought the vehicle to a halt before the main entrance and both of them peered out at the building itself. It was an awesome sight, a Victorian edifice which, in the darkness, looked not as if it had been built with separate bricks but hewn from one enormous lump of granite. Five storeys high, it was built in the shape of an “E”, the apex of which rose like a church spire. The figure of the weather vane on the top surveyed the bleak and ghostly scene with indifference.

The policeman climbed out of the car. Maggie also pushed open her door but Randall held up a hand to stop her.

“You stay here,” he told her.

“But Lou, you don’t know for certain that he’s here,” she protested. “And, even if he is, at least
I
know him. I could talk to him.”

“The man’s a bloody maniac,” he said. “Now get back in the car, lock both doors and don’t move until I get back. If I’m not here in an hour use this.” He grabbed the two-way and held it up. “Contact the station and tell them where we are. Right?”

She didn’t speak.

“Right?” he said, more forcefully.

“All right. Lou, be careful.”

He nodded, slammed the door behind him and waited until he heard both locks drop then he made his way slowly towards what had once been the main entrance. As he’d suspected, the doors were locked so he moved along, peering at all the windows, eyes alert for any sign of a break-in, any tell-tale evidence of Pierce’s whereabouts. He rounded a corner and disappeared from Maggie’s view. She sat impatiently, hands clenched on her thighs.

Randall moved cautiously, noticing how many of the asylum windows had been broken but he could tell which had been smashed by kids. Just round holes in the panes showed where stones had been hurled. As yet, there was no sign of forced entry. He sucked in an impatient breath wondering if his hunch had been wrong. He rested his hand on one of the sills and felt something wet beneath his fingers. The Inspector turned and looked down. There was a dark stain on the peeling paint. Tentatively he raised his fingers to his nose, sniffing the substance. There was no mistaking the distinctive coppery odour of blood.

He looked up and saw that the dark liquid was puddled beneath a set of double windows, one of which had been broken about half-way up, near the handle. The policeman gripped both sides of the frame and hauled himself up onto the sill, perching there for a second before pushing the two windows. They swung open invitingly and he jumped down into the building itself.

The smell of damp was almost overpowering and the Inspector blinked hard in an effort to combat the cloying darkness. There was some natural light spilling through the windows, enough to reveal to him that he was in what had once been an office. Dust swirled around him, the particles irritating his nose and throat but he fought back the urge to cough, anxious not to alert anyone who might be hiding inside.