The Wilds (13 page)

For the first time since he had learnt about the affair, he felt no disgust at her kiss. He felt no reminder of her betrayal; he just felt the love of his wife.

‘Ready to go Annie?’ he called into the back.

‘Yay!’ The little girl said excitedly.

‘Then let’s go,’ Leon said.

And with that the Hayes family departed, unaware of just how close they had come to facing a horror they could not even imagine.

Jason quickly found a trail of blood splatter after he left Karl and Tim. He followed it through the woods.

Several loud pops off in the distance attracted his attention. They echoed around the woods. At first he thought they were gunshots, but soon figured out it was probably just a bird scarer.

He could feel his heart beating in his chest. He had been investigating this story for months now, but was he finally getting some answers? Was he finally about to find some evidence that it would be impossible for Pearce to refute or was he blindly following a trail of blood that could lead him to a creature more than capable of killing him?

Though he believed in the existence of the big cat, the Darton beast as he had dubbed it, it had always been something he was removed from. As he followed the trail of blood, he noticed that the distance between him and the beast was disintegrating. He was now putting himself in harm’s way for the story. It wasn’t just the story, though, anymore. He felt a responsibility to Karl, and to a lesser degree Tim. He had promised them answers, and given what they had been through they deserved his commitment.

The trail of blood veered off the path and headed into a thick patch of brambles.

‘More thorns,’ he said to himself as he got down on his hands and knees and started to reach into the bush. The blood trail went a little way into the overgrown brambles. He was glad of his jacket. The thickness of the material protected his arms from the thorns, but his hands took a few scratches as he rooted around blindly in the tangled bush.

He felt his hand touch something cold and sticky. Instinctively, he jerked his hand back out. Congealing blood covered his fingers. There had been something in there, some frayed fabric or something; that was what was bloody.

There was the sound of voices behind him. Karl and Tim had begun to follow him. He moved fast to see what was in the bush. He didn’t think Tim would handle it if he saw anything else that suggested his girlfriend was dead.

Jason reached back into the bush and quickly found the moist, frayed fabric he had touched before. He started to pull, and was surprised at how much effort it took. Whatever the hell it was, it was heavy. He tugged harder until his hand became visible once more. A gasp escaped him as he saw that he was tugging on hair, brown hair.

His mind filled in the gaps, this was the body of either Tim’s girlfriend, or Karl’s brother. Either way, one of them was about to lose it completely. Jason believed that Karl, though distraught, would be easier to deal with that Tim, who was already on the verge of a breakdown.

‘Jason?’ he heard Karl calling from back along the path.

‘Yeah?’ he replied.

‘Have you found anything?’ Karl asked.

What could he say? He couldn’t lie, they had all come too far for that.

‘Yeah,’ he said.

Quickly he grabbed the blood-matted hair and began to tug with all his strength. He dug his heels into the ground, and used his body weight to drag the remains out. The muscles in his arms and back burned with the effort, but finally it slid.

As he looked down Jason felt an amazing mix of disgust and relief. Disgust at what he was seeing, what he was touching. Relief that it was not the remains of either missing person.

‘Fuck,’ Karl said, appearing at Jason’s shoulder.

Jason turned around and saw Karl stood behind him. Tim was hanging back, propping himself against a tree as though he couldn’t quite manage to stand unaided.

‘Is it her?’ Tim said without looking over. ‘Is it Julie?’

‘No,’ Jason said. ‘It’s just a cow.’

In truth, it was a cow,s head. The body was nowhere to be seen. The head looked as though it had been torn off by something with incredible strength.

‘A cow?’ Tim said in disbelief.

‘Just a cow,’ Karl said.

The young man slumped against the tree. that time his tears were ones of relief.

‘I guess we were following the wrong trail,’ Karl said turning to Jason.

Jason looked at his watch.

‘Yeah,’ he said. ‘It’s going to start getting dark soon. I think we should head back to the car.’

Their conversation was interrupted by the sound of the theme tune to the game Tetris. They looked around confused. Tim pulled his phone out of his pocket.

‘Hello,’ he said into the phone as he answered.

There was a pause.

‘Okay,’ he continued. ‘I’ll be there soon.’

Another pause.

‘Yeah. Bye.’

Tim ended the call and slipped the phone back into his pocket. Suddenly he noticed the two men looking at him.

‘That was my Mum,’ he said. ‘My tea is going to be ready in about an hour.’

Jason looked to Karl and they smiled at each other.

As they drove back towards town, Karl wondered if Tim would be okay. They had all walked back to the car park together, but Tim had lingered on the bank a little longer them. Jason had turned to Karl.

‘How do you think he’s doing?’ he had asked.

‘Badly,’ was the only way that Karl could reply. ‘He’s going to lose it big style sooner or later.’

Jason looked concerned. Karl had wondered if he was regretting letting the young man join their search. The things they had seen had certainly effected Tim more than they had either of them.

‘Come on, Tim,’ Jason shouted back to him from the car park. ‘Time to go.’

The young man had turned and looked at them, his gaze distant. Then he had slowly walked down the bank to join them. As he approached, Jason turned to Karl once again.

‘We have to try and make sure he doesn’t come out here on his own anymore,’ he said. ‘He’s putting himself in harm way.’

‘Should we tell him what we’re looking for?’ Karl had asked.

‘Not yet,’ Jason said. ‘I don’t think he could take it.’

Karl agreed. The young man seemed to be having enough trouble coping with the idea that ‘something’ had happened to his girlfriend. Adding a hungry big cat into the mix would only serve to speed up his inevitable breakdown.

As Tim neared them, Jason stepped forward, pulling his phone out of his pocket.

‘Tim, give me your mobile number, that way we can call you later and let you know what we found out.’ Jason said. ‘We have to keep you in the loop after all.’

‘Yeah, we’ll keep you informed,’ Karl added. ‘So you better not come back down here later, the signal here is shit. Okay?’

Tim nodded.

‘Okay,’ the young man agreed.

Then they said their farewells.

Sitting in the passenger seat of Jason’s car, though, he wondered if Tim would listen. He was desperate to know what had happened to his girlfriend, and something told Karl that he would be back at the marsh before too long. The state that the young man one was in made Karl feel a little guilty. Should he be more upset about Phil?

‘It’s weird,’ he said. ‘I know that my brother is probably dead, but somehow it doesn’t seem real.’

‘The mind is a weird and wonderful thing,’ Jason said. ‘At the moment you’re keeping your mind active, trying to solve a mystery. That’s all you have really, a mystery. It’ll hit you eventually, though, mate. Probably once there is some concrete evidence. If you need a friend when it happens, you know where I am.’

‘Thank you.’ Karl really did appreciate the sentiment. He had never had that many friends around here when he was young, and those that he did have had all escaped, like he did.

‘No problem,’ Jason said.

‘A journalist who cares, that’s unusual. Aren’t you supposed to be just out for your great story?’

Jason laughed.

‘Hey, I’m not saying that I don’t want a great story,’ he said with a smile. ‘To be honest with you, if we can prove it and maybe get this thing caught, there’s probably a book in it let alone a good story for the paper. That doesn’t mean I’m oblivious to the fact that people have suffered. The last thing I want to do is make people’s pain worse. I’m a journalist, not a bastard.’

Both men laughed out loud. Karl had been so tense these last few days, that the relief of the laughter felt good. He looked back to Jason, who had stopped laughing; he now had a confused expression on his face.

‘What’s wrong?’ Karl asked.

The car began to slow down as Jason pulled into an all too familiar layby and came to a stop behind a parked car. Karl thought he had seen the dark blue Ford before, but wasn’t sure where.

‘Why have we stopped here again?’ he asked, feeling a little uneasy at being in the place that the last evidence of his brother had been found, especially as the sun was starting it descent onto the horizon, and night was chasing the light away fast.

‘That’s Pearce’s car,’ Jason replied.

Without another word Jason opened his door and got out of the car. Karl followed him. Jason headed for the driver’s door, it was slightly ajar, as though it had not been shut properly. He looked around furtively before pulling the door wide open.

‘What are you doing?’ Karl asked. ‘He’ll probably be back any second.’

Jason smiled.

‘He should lock his doors, shouldn’t he?’ he said.

The reporter ducked his head and started rummaging through the articles that Pearce had left on the passenger seat. He grabbed a bunch of manila folders and stood up. Karl looked at him in disbelief.

‘You can’t take those?’ Karl said nervously.

‘I just want a quick look,’ Jason said trying to calm the other man down. ‘You go and have a look near the flag, see if he’s over there. If he is, keep him busy for a few minutes.’

Karl looked for a moment like he was going to argue, but eventually he rolled his eyes.

‘I don’t like it,’ he said, ‘but okay.’

Jason watched as Karl crossed the road and walked into the long grass of the field, then he took the purloined folder back to his car and jumped into the driver seat. He flicked on the interior light and began to leaf through the files. The third folder down was clearly marked ‘MORGAN’.

Jason had hit the jackpot; contained within this folder could be the proof he needed to go after Pearce once more. Some evidence of his corruption perhaps, or at very least his incompetence. This was Jason’s goal, to pay Pearce back for all of the injustices, to teach him a lesson. Revenge, plain and simple.

As he read the file he saw the official report on the state of Phil Morgan’s car when it was discovered. The first part was just a description of the actual damage done to the car. Jason recognised that this was written in Ben Lindley’s hand writing. The description of the damage was severe, far worse than Pearce had made it out to be. The most telling thing on the report, though, was an addendum scrawled hurriedly at the bottom of the page. It simply read ‘Car almost certainly attacked from the outside.’ There it was, the proof he needed to push Pearce even more. The addendum was signed DCI Pearce.

‘Lying bastard,’ Jason muttered under his breath.

It was clear from this brief note that Pearce knew that someone, or something had attacked the car, and yet he was keeping that fact to himself. Jason wondered for what reason. It was clearly not incompetence. Pearce was covering something up.

He continued flicking through the folder. He soon came to a photograph of the car. The damage had been described to him by Ben, but to actually see it was unnerving. The sheer force of whatever had smashed up the car was frightening. What really caught his eye were the deep, parallel scratches in the paint work on and around the door. They looked undeniably like claw marks in the photograph. The next photograph was a close up of the damage on the door. The scratches here had been circled with red ink, the same red ink used to write the addendum on the report.

Jason looked around the outside of the car. There was no sign of Pearce or Karl. He quickly checked the rest of the folder. In one of those plastic binder pockets, at the back of the file was a small, leather bound notebook. Jason took it out and opened it. On the first page, written clearly, were the words ‘Philip Morgan Appointment.’

He flicked through the notebook, it dated back at least a year, noting all of the appointments that Phil made selling insurance. Each entry included the date, the address and a little note about the success of the meeting; in other words, if the potential customer had become and actual customer.

Three loud raps on the window next to him made Jason nearly jump out of his skin. He felt his heart stop beating for what felt like an eternal moment, and then felt it kick back in at a rhythm much faster than it should be. He turned to see Karl staring in at him. Jason unlocked the door and stepped out, clutching his chest.

‘What the fuck are you doing?’ he panted. ‘You scared the shit out of me.’

‘Sorry,’ Karl said. ‘There was no sign of him out there, and to be honest. I was getting a bit scared hanging around.’

Jason continued to hold his chest, but smiled a little.

‘I would be too now it’s getting dark,’ he said. ‘Come on, let’s get back to the pub. I’ve found some interesting stuff. I’m going to call Altman and get him to meet us there. I need his opinion on something.’

Karl and Jason were sat drinking their pints in silence. Jason had explained to Karl all of the things he had seen in the folders. He had not brought them into the pub, though, fearing that Pearce might make an appearance.

Altman walked in and spotted them. He wandered over.

‘Jason,’ he said as he arrived. ‘I’m so glad you called, what did you find?’

Jason looked up at Altman in disbelief. It seemed that sometimes his obsession with finding this creature left him with no time for pleasantries, or even tact for that matter.

‘Not much,’ he replied, then took a sip of his lager before continuing. ‘A few bits of torn fabric, that we believe came from the missing girls top, oh, and a mutilated cows head.’

‘My word,’ Altman exclaimed. ‘Do you have it with you?’

Jason shook his head. It was as though Altman was from another planet sometimes. He could certainly see why so few others took him seriously.

‘No I don’t,’ he said. ‘What was I supposed to do? Put it in the boot of my car?’

Altman looked at him as though he didn’t see what the problem with this idea was. Jason was sure that he would have absolutely no problem driving around the countryside with a rapidly decaying, bovine head in his car.

‘What about you?’ Karl said to Altman. ‘Did you find anything?’

Altman shook his head.

‘Not really, no. I sent those hairs off to a lab in Sheffield, but the rest of the day was a bit of a waste I’m afraid,’ he said in a disappointed tone, then he added. ‘Where did you find the head?’

‘In the woods out by the marsh,’ Jason answered.

‘The ones that back on to the Pritchard farm?’ Altman asked, there was something about the look on his face that Jason picked up on. Altman had an idea that there was some connection between the beast and that farm.

‘That’s right,’ Jason said. ‘Karl tells me you were out there today.’

‘Yes, I was,’ Altman confirmed. ‘I worked out that an unusually high percentage of the disappearances occur near those woods and that farm. I went out there to ask the old lady if she had noticed anything odd.’

‘Had she?’ Karl asked.

‘No. As she said, it’s not been a working farm for some time now so there is little there for it to damage, and no livestock for it to eat. Disappointing really.’ He paused, and looked at them both. ‘Lovely old lady, though. I think she thought I was a little strange to be honest.’

Jason tried to hide his smile.

‘Why on Earth would she think that?’ he said with only the hint of a smirk.

‘I don’t know,’ Altman replied, oblivious to the gentle ribbing in the question. ‘A lot of people scoff at these things, but we know the truth. Don’t we Jason?’

Jason pondered the question seriously for a few moments before replying.

‘No, not yet,’ he said eventually. ‘But I intend to find it out.’

‘I, for one, think the police know a lot more than they’re letting on,’ Altman said. ‘Have you noticed how many seem to be armed these days?’

Jason nodded.

‘Yeah, I saw Pearce was carrying a gun today.’

‘Is that even legal?’ Karl asked.

Altman shrugged.

‘It’s hard to say,’ Jason replied. ‘There are probably certain circumstances where it is allowed, and knowing Jon Pearce, he can wangle anything to get his own way. This is what I wanted to show you.’

Jason pulled the close up photograph of the damaged car out of his pocket, the one where Pearce had circled the scratches. He slid it across the desk to Altman who picked it up and looked at it intently.

‘Where did you get that?’ Karl asked.

‘It was in one of Pearce’s folders,’ Jason explained. ‘So tell me, do they look like scratches made by a big cat?’

Altman handed the photograph back to Jason and shrugged.

‘From a photograph it’s very hard to say. The alignment would be right for a big cat from the look of this, but also for a bear, or even a human being. I can’t say with any certainty, but it is certainly interesting.’

The three of them sat in silence for a few moments. Jason was still seething about Pearce, about his lies and his bullshit. He had to find a way to confront him about it. About the reports, and the photographs.

‘So if a big cat is roaming the wilds of Lincolnshire, killing people, where the hell did it come from?’ Karl asked, finally breaking the heavy silence.

‘That is the mystery, isn’t it?’ Altman said with a glint in his eyes. Jason had seen it before. He always had it when someone gave him the opportunity to talk about his favourite subject. Altman excitedly continued. ‘More than likely it was a pet. You hear about it occasionally, someone buys an unlicensed exotic pet, has it shipped over here. It’s all well and good when they are cute little cubs, but they quickly grow and get older. Then they become too dangerous, and rather than face the authorities, people just let them go in isolated areas.’

‘That’s just an urban legend,’ Jason said. ‘Like the crocodiles in the sewers of New York. You remember those stories from the eighties? People in New York were buying cute little baby crocodiles as pets, but when they started to grow they would just flush them down the toilet. They lived, though, and kept growing and eventually the sewerage system was overrun by man eating crocodiles.’

‘I think you’ll find they were alligators,’ Altman interjected.

‘Alligators, crocodiles, it makes no difference. The point is there has never been any real evidence to back these stories up. It’s a fiction, passed on as truth until people believe it. It’s only function is as a scary story. Just like your exotic pet theory.’

Altman looked a little hurt. Jason felt a little bad, the man had obviously believed he had found a kindred spirit in him, but Jason stood his ground.

‘Really?’ Altman said. ‘Then where do you suggest our big cat comes from?’

Jason took a long sip of his drink, enjoying building the tension before revealing his theory.

‘My guess is it’s a circus cat,’ he said

‘What?’ Karl asked.

‘Think about it,’ Jason replied. ‘When I was a kid every circus had lions and tigers, as well as countless other animals, but it was always the big cats people wanted to see, so every circus had them if nothing else. Then in the nineties all of these new regulations came in for circuses about what animals they could keep and how they had to keep them. I think that the circuses that couldn’t afford to comply with the new laws just let their animals go.’

Jason leant back in his chair. He felt great pride in this theory; it was far more believable to him than someone paying a fortune for an exotic pet they didn’t realise would grow up.

‘Interesting theory, my boy,’ Altman said with a smile. ‘One question, though, why do we never hear stories about elephants roaming the countryside?’

‘I guess they didn’t let any go,’ Jason answered. ‘I mean, let’s face it, if you let a lion or tiger go in the countryside there’s a good chance it won’t get discovered until long after your circus has left the area, but a fucking great big elephant will get spotted in a second.’

‘So in other words no one really has any clue where it came from?’ Karl asked.

Jason looked to Altman, who was looking back at him. He could feel the cryptozoologist egging him on to field the question, but he had no more answers to give. Eventually both of them shook their heads. Karl laughed, Jason and Altman joined in.

‘Well, who wants another drink?’ Karl asked, standing up.

‘Yeah, one more won’t hurt,’ Jason said, finishing the dregs of his pint.

‘Not for me,’ Altman said. ‘I had best be going.’

They said their goodbyes to Altman and Jason watched as Karl went to the bar for their next drink. He looked around the bar and saw many familiar faces, too many if he was honest. Darton was a small town, and the only time new faces appeared in the pub was when another load of kids became old enough, or at least looked old enough, to get served. He tried to avoid going out in the evenings, preferring to stay at home and work, or at least do research. There were so few of his old friends left around. Many had gone off to university like him, and had not returned. He on the other hand had.

Those who had stayed were all married with kids and rarely came out anyway. The only person he could think of was Holly Booth, and being a detective kept her too busy to go gallivanting around town.

He realised that the thought of her still made him feel warm inside. It had been years since they were officially an item, but if he was honest there had not been anyone who he had felt about as strongly since her. He believed that she still felt something for him. She tried to hide it. In her professional life she had to, Pearce would not take kindly to her fraternising with Jason. Yet sometimes, when she thought no one was looking, he had caught her looking at him the same way she used to.

Why else did they have their arrangement? She liked to make out that it was just that she needed the sex, and her career didn’t allow her much time to find or keep a boyfriend, but Jason thought there was more to it than that. Her job maybe did make it difficult to find and maintain a relationship, but she was a beautiful woman, and if it was just about sex, then she would have no problem finding a willing partner. Yet it was always him, he seemed to be her first and last port of call. He was sure that she felt the same way he did, and was certain that one day she would admit it to him, and more importantly, herself.

He spotted Karl retuning from the bar, and shifted Holly Booth to the back of his mind, where she always was.

‘Altman is a little too enthusiastic about this big cat stuff isn’t he?’ Karl said as he set the drinks down.

‘It’s become pretty much his reason for being,’ Jason replied. ‘He needs to prove it exists to prove to himself that he hasn’t been wasting his life.’

Jason pulled out the note book from his pocket.

‘He might be onto something with this whole connection to the area near the Pritchard farm, though,’ he said, handing the book to Karl. ‘This is your brother’s appointment book, I found it in Pearce’s car. Look at the last appointment your brother made.’

He waited as Karl flicked through to the last page that was written on. He saw the look his face as he read it.

‘It was his last appointment,’ Karl said. ‘He was out there the night he went missing. He must have been on his way back from there when it happened.’

‘Yet the old lady told you he hadn’t been out there for weeks,’ Jason said

‘Why would she lie?’ Karl asked.

‘I don’t know,’ Jason said. ‘Maybe she didn’t, she could have dementia or something, but I think we should pay her another visit. I haven’t seen the old girl in a long time.’

‘When?’ Karl asked.

‘Tomorrow morning.’

Karl nodded.

‘You’d better call Tim. Going to see an old lady is one way of keeping him out of harm’s way.’