The Dead Tracks (61 page)

    'You're
insane.'

    'You're
a killer, David. A reluctant one, I'll admit. But a killer nonetheless. I can
see it in you. I can read you just like you can read me. So, you and me… we're
the same.'

    Crane
winked so only I could see, and backed up a couple of steps, opening himself
out to the SFOs again. Above the sound from the woods and the whisper he'd been
speaking in, it would have been hard for them to hear anything. But they knew
something was up.

    'Don't
worry,' he continued, winking again, 'your secret's safe with me. But you might
want to try and remember what it felt like to, you know…' He made a gun sign
with one of his hands and pretended to fire it. You might want to reacquaint
yourself, is all I'm saying'

    I
looked at him
.
I might want to reacquaint myself with firing a gun
.

    'What
are you talking about?' I asked again, but he didn't reply, and out of the
woods came the search teams. They were finished. Phillips looked over at us,
suspicion in his face, and then everybody started to fall back into position.
'Phillips - wait.'

    He
fixed a stare on me. 'What
now?'

    'We
need to go back.'

    'Why?'

    I
glanced at Crane. He was staring at me, his face blank. 'He's got a plan. Some sort
of fucked-up plan. I don't know what it is, but someone's going to get hurt.'

    Phillips
looked between us, then at Hart. Hart was gazing at me, as if he believed I was
the one with the plan. What did he say?'

    'Something
about me needing to fire a gun.'

    'What?'

    'It's
riddles. Just a bunch of…' I glanced at Crane again. Nothing in his face now.
He'd wiped it clean. 'Look, I know you feel the same: everything about this is
off. We're walking into a trap, and until we figure out what it is, I think we
need to go back.'

    Phillips
scanned the group. Everybody was either staring at him or me, and I knew we
weren't about to turn around. He may have had the same instincts as me, but
this was a challenge to his decision-making. His planning. His position. If he
backed down now, he said to everyone here,
I made the wrong choice.

    'We
move on,' he said quietly.

    'This
is a big mistake, Phillips.'

    
'Raker,'
he spat back at me, 'you're not in charge here. You have no opinion. You have no
choices. You follow
my
orders and
that's it.
Are we clear?'

    'This
is a mistake.'

    'Are
we
clear
?'

    This
was for show now. He didn't deserve a reply. He believed exactly the same as
me, felt something was off just as I did, but he was overlooking it to save
face. I let my silence hang there, in between us, and then the group started
walking again.

    Phillips
turned to Crane again. 'Where's Jill, you weaselly piece of shite?'

    'It's
not far now.'

    'You
said that a quarter of a mile back.'

    'I
mean it this time.'

    The
rain started making a chattering sound against the canopy. As we moved across
another piece of rusting railway track, the wind picked up too, blowing in from
our right. Leaves snapped. Grass swayed. About a minute later, one of the
torches flashed past a patch of grass, coiled and twisted around the trunk of a
sycamore. Some of it had come loose and was moving, making a gentle sigh like a
voice. I watched a few of the team directing their lights towards it, as if
they thought they'd heard someone speaking. But it was just this place. The
buried secrets. The lost lives.

    Then
one of the torches passed a shape about sixty feet in front of us.

    The
light swung back: it was one of the crates from the hideout. Five feet square.
Cyrillic printed on the side. It sat on its own in an oval clearing on the
right of the trail, where the woods bent away and then came back in further
down. We all stopped.

    'What's
that?' Phillips asked.

    
'That,'
Crane replied, 'is Jill.'

    Everyone
stared at the crate and realized this was it. What we'd come out to the woods
for. Then Phillips started to organize things: he told one of the SFOs, one
handler, two uniforms with flashlights and the paramedic to follow him over.
Hart joined the group as well. The rest of us stayed put.

    I
glanced at Crane, stepping closer to him in case he tried to make a run for it.
I could feel dread worming its way through my chest.
What have you brought
us here for, you murdering prick?
He was almost side-on to me now, watching
closely, the corners of his mouth turned up in a trace of a smile.

    Except
he wasn't watching at all.

    As I
took a step forward, I could see his body was facing forward but his eyes were fixed
on the woods to our right. I followed his line of sight. The darkness was
thick. The dull glow from the nearest torch had lit the immediate area to the
edge of the trees. Beyond that, though, I couldn't see anything. No movement.
No sound. Nothing to warrant his attention.

    The
lull was disturbed by Phillips's voice again. At a distance of sixty feet, and
with the rain getting heavier every minute, it was hard to make out his words
clearly. But he was going around the group, telling each of them what he wanted
from them.

    I
made sure Crane hadn't moved. His eyes were still watching the woods to his
right, so I stepped level with him. He noticed me enter his field of vision.
The smile disappeared. He looked like he was trying to decide if he'd given
anything away.

    'Something
you want to share?' I asked him.

    His
smile returned. 'Just enjoying the show, David.'

    He
turned back to face what was unfolding in front of him, and we watched as
Phillips and his team pulled on forensic gloves. Phillips walked right up to
the crate. Placed his fingers around the lid. He nodded once to everyone
watching and went to lift it away. It didn't open. He looked from the lid to
Crane. Attempted to lift it away again.

    Nothing.

    Briefly,
Crane's eyes flicked right again, then he was back to watching Phillips. He and
Hart were examining the crate, trying to work out what was preventing it from
opening.

    'Constable,'
I said to one of the uniforms holding a flashlight. He looked at me. 'Could you
shine your torch into the woods over there?'

    He
frowned, 'Why?'

    I
glanced at Crane. He was staring at me, his face stoic. 'Just for a second.'

    The
PC was young, mid twenties. He probably liked the fact I'd come along for the
ride because it meant he wasn't bottom of the food chain any more. He shook his
head. 'No. I do what DCI Phillips tells me, not you.'

    The
PC looked back up the trail to the group. Defiant.

    The
remaining SFO was standing behind me. I turned to him. 'Can you get him to
shine the torch into the woods?'

    'Why?'
he replied.

    The
PC turned back to face us.

    'Because
Crane doesn’t give a shit about what's happening up there,' I said, nodding to
the group at the crate. 'But he can't keep his eyes off the woods.'

    They
looked from me to Crane, then to the woods. Crane didn't meet their eyes. He
was staring up the trail, watching as Phillips, Hart and both uniforms tried to
prize the lid of the crate away. A crack sounded, and - beyond the fall of rain
- Hart said something. The lid had shifted.

    The
SFO watched me for a moment, MP 5 hanging diagonally across his waist. 'Okay,'
he said, and looked at the PC. 'Do what he says.'

    
Crack.

    The
lid had come away. Everybody stepped back, leaving Phillips on his own. He placed
his hands either side of the lid and lifted it up, dropping it on to the path
with a dull
whup.
The group stepped up to the crate and looked inside.

    'It's
empty!' I heard Hart shout from the crate.

    And
then the PC shone his light into the woods.

    About
fifteen feet in was the Hanging Tree, the distinctive T-shaped oak I'd seen in
photographs online, and the place Milton Sykes had built a treehouse as a
child. Tied to the trunk was Jill. She'd been bound and gagged. Rope had been
looped around her throat, pinning her to the bark, a semicircular piece of skin
hanging from the top of her face. It took me two or three seconds to realize
what it was: her forehead. The flap of skin covered one eye; the other was
closed. She had bruises everywhere: her face, her arms, around her collarbone.
Her clothes — a pair of jeans and a thin long-sleeve sweater — were soaked
through with blood and rainwater, the sweater torn, exposing her stomach.
Scrawled across her skin in black ink was
8.5.

    Phillips
sprinted towards us, his eyes fixed on Jill, and told me to hold back. I wanted
to get to Jill. I wanted to tear her down from the tree and rip Crane apart on
the way through. He was fully facing me now, his back to her. Finally I
couldn't wait any more: I stepped past him, about three feet from the tree
line, unable to take my eyes off the body strapped to the tree.

    'What
the fuck have you done?' I said.

    'I
didn't get time to finish her,' he replied in a matter-of- fact voice from
behind me, bringing his handcuffed wrists up to the side of his head and
scratching a spot next to his eye. 'So we'll call her eight and a half. Would
have been good to have had the time to sort out that terrible skin of hers. But
while I usually prefer to finish my work, I'll accept this one for what she
is.' He paused. His eyes drifted to the woods behind me. 'A marker.'

    A
second later he dropped to the floor.

    
Fnip.
Fnip
.

    To my
right, the SFO's head exploded into a shower of blood. His gun flipped off to the
side, landing with a thud in the grass.
Fnip.
Next to him, the PC went
down, a bullet pounding into his chest, close to the heart. I dropped to the
floor. Rolled towards the grass at the opposite tree line.

    
Fuck.
It's a set-up
.

    From behind
where I'd been standing two men in balaclavas emerged from the woods, both
armed with silence pistols. At the crate, the SFO lifted his MP 5.
Fnip.
Another
uniform went down, falling against the crate and crushing it beneath him.
Fnip.
Someone else. Maybe Hart. I couldn't tell any more.

    The
SFO started firing.

    It
was a thunderous noise, ripping across the woods and echoing away. The two men
retreated back into cover, into the trees and bushes. The remaining SFO was
left out in the open. One man against the darkness.

    I
grabbed the MP 5 lying on the ground next to the dead SFO and made a break for
the other side of the trail, where Jill was now disguised by the night again.
Fnip. Fnip.
Bullets hit the path close to my feet. My body automatically
tried to avoid them, and the move unbalanced me: I stumbled forward, hitting
the undergrowth hard beyond the tree line. A split second later, another bullet
hit a tree about six inches to my left. Bark spat out, dusting me as I tried to
move deeper into the darkness.

    
Fnip.
Fnip. Fnip
.

    Someone
cried out. A woman.

    The
paramedic.

    
Fnip.

    Close
to me, the sound of a body hitting the grass. Then the dogs barking. I wasn't
sure who was still standing and who was already dead. MP 5 gunfire erupted,
brief flashes of light illuminating the trail. I could see Crane flat to the
floor. Bodies strewn next to him. Torches on the ground — one facing off along
the path, one into the side of the woods the men were in.

    And
right on the edge of its light: a shape.

    He
was hunkered down behind a tree trunk. Changing magazines. The SFO wouldn't hit
him from the crate. He wouldn't even see him.