Dead Man Walking. Paul Finch

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СКАЧАТЬ clambered down here, nine hours was more than enough to locate the corpse, establish death and high-tail it away again.

      Again though, that question – what if he didn’t want to high-tail it?

      And what about the other girl? Heck knew one thing for certain – he’d only heard a single shot. Then of course there was Mary-Ellen – where the hell was she?

      He stopped again. In this direction, what looked like straight avenues lay between the ranks of waterside trees, though a little further ahead progress was impeded by several trunks that had fallen over. This wouldn’t have been completely unusual in a wood at the foot of a scree-cliff – heavy chunks of rock would occasionally fall, smashing and flattening the timber; but they made difficult obstacles. He climbed over the first diagonal trunk, and crawled underneath the second, increasingly suspecting that Mary-Ellen would not have gone to so much trouble to make a quick, cursory inspection of the shoreline. Beyond the fallen pines, the woods seemed to close in, the rising ground on the left steepening, and on the right falling away towards the tarn’s edge. Heck veered in the latter direction until he was virtually on the waterline. As before, the smooth surface rolled away from him, flat as a mirror, black as smoke. At this time of year there wasn’t a plop or plink; neither frog, newt nor fish to disturb the peace.

      Further progress was impossible in these conditions, he concluded.

      He turned back, but it was as he stooped to clamber underneath the first fallen tree that he heard the whisper.

      If it was a whisper.

      It could have been the wind sighing through meshed evergreen boughs. That was entirely possible too. But it had sounded like a whisper.

      Heck whirled around, unable to see very much of anything, until …

      Had that been a faint, dark shape that had just stepped out of sight about twenty yards away on his left? Heck’s heartbeat accelerated; his scalp prickled.

      Suddenly it seemed like a very bad idea to be here on his own, especially as this character was armed. He set off forward, moving parallel with the tarn, heading back in the direction of the boat, eyes fixed on the spot where he thought he’d spied movement. And now he heard a sound behind him – a snap, as though a fallen branch had been stepped on. He twirled around again, straining his eyes to penetrate the vapour, unable to distinguish anything. When he turned back to the front, someone in dark clothes was standing nearby, leaning against a tree-trunk.

      At first Heck went cold – but just as quickly he relaxed again.

      Recognising Mary-Ellen, he walked forward. For some reason she’d removed her luminous coat. To lay over a second body maybe? Except that these days you weren’t supposed to do that. And now, having advanced a few yards, he saw that he wasn’t approaching Mary-Ellen after all. A bundle of interwoven twigs and bark hung down alongside the trunk. The outline they formed was vaguely human, but was mainly an optical illusion, enhanced by a shaft of light diffusing through the wood from the boat and exposing the place where the bark had fallen, which had created the impression of a face.

      Heck heard another whisper.

      This time there was no doubt about it.

      He glanced right. It had come from somewhere in the direction of the upward slope. Ten seconds later, it seemed to be answered by a second whisper, this time from behind, though this second one had been less like a whisper and more like a snicker – a hoarse, guttural snicker. Heck gazed into the vapour as he pivoted around, wondering in bewilderment if all this could be his imagination.

      For a few seconds, there was no further sound. He took several wary steps towards the upward slope, the rank autumnal foliage opening to admit him – and then closing again. Needle-footed ants scurried across his skin as the fog seemed to thicken, wrapping itself around him, melding tightly to his form. For a heart-stopping second he had the overwhelming sensation that someone else was really very close indeed, perhaps no more than a foot away, watching him silently and yet rendered completely invisible. Heck turned circles as he blundered, fists clenched to his chest, boxer fashion. He wanted to call out, but his throat was too dry to make sounds.

      More alert than he’d ever been in his life, Heck backtracked in the direction of the waterline; this at least was possible owing to the slant of the ground. When he got there, he pivoted slowly around – to find someone directly alongside him.

      ‘Coast appears to be clear, sarge,’ Mary-Ellen said.

      Heck did his best to conceal his shock – though he still almost jumped out of his skin. ‘What the … Jesus wept!’

      ‘What’s the matter with you?’

      ‘Creep up on me, why don’t you!’

      ‘Sorry … heard you clumping around. I presumed you heard me.’

      ‘Well, I bloody didn’t!’

      ‘Getting jumpy in your old age, or what?’

      ‘Don’t give me that bollocks. Why didn’t you reply when I shouted?’

      ‘Sorry.’ Mary-Ellen shrugged. ‘Never heard you.’

      ‘Hmmm. Suppose these acoustics are all over the place,’ he grunted. They trudged back to the boat. ‘You didn’t hear anything else, though? No one farting around?’

      ‘Farting around?’

      ‘Whispering … chuckling.’

      She looked fascinated. ‘For real?’

      ‘Shit, I don’t know.’ He glanced back into the opaque gloom. ‘More atmospheric weirdness, maybe. Or the local wildlife. The main thing is there’s no second corpse?’

      ‘Didn’t find one.’

      ‘Well we can’t get any help up here to do a proper pattern-search until this weather clears.’

      They’d emerged onto the bank, back into the glare of the outboard’s spotlight. Tara Cook lay as before. Heck angled back towards her, and knelt. He didn’t want to disturb the scene more than he already had and would avoid making further contact if possible, but it had belatedly occurred to him to check for any lividity marks, maybe even signs of rigor mortis, as either of those could give a clearer indication how long the girl had been dead. He reached down towards her and suddenly the body twitched. Heck froze. For several helpless seconds he knelt rigid, as, without warning, the ‘corpse’ reached a violently shuddering hand towards his face, and drew five carmine finger-trails down his cheek. Still, neither he nor Mary-Ellen were able to respond.

      Tara Cook’s head now lolled onto her shoulder. Her puffy eyes were still swollen closed, but slowly, almost imperceptibly, she opened her mouth. A low moan surged out, along with globs of fresh blood, which spattered down the front of her filthy cagoule.

      ‘Good Christ!’ Mary-Ellen breathed.

      ‘Good Christ indeed!’ Heck said urgently. ‘She’s only bloody alive!’

      As they worked frantically on the girl, her moan rose in volume and intensity until it was a prolonged, keening screech, which rebounded from the cliffs overhead and all across the misted, semi-frozen lake.

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