Dead Man Walking. Paul Finch

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ dunno.’ Heck shrugged again. ‘Strange sounds in these mountains. I’ve only been here two and a half months, but I’ve already realised how deceptive things can be.’

      ‘Sure you weren’t dreaming?’

      ‘I can’t definitively rule that out, either.’

      ‘I can make some calls later, if you want,’ she said. ‘We’ve got a list of all licence-holders.’

      ‘Yeah, do that. Ask some searching questions – like what the hell they thought they were doing discharging firearms in the wee small hours. Go at them hard, M-E. Make it sound like we know they were up to something. Even if they were shooting rats in a barn or something, they’re unlikely to cough unless we press them, and we can’t dismiss them from any enquiry otherwise … unless we find something nasty out here of course, in which case it’s a whole new ball game.’

      Heck didn’t hold out much hope for that, but they were now approaching the tarn’s eastern banks, so Mary-Ellen cut the engine and lifted the propeller, letting them drift inshore. There were no proper landing places on this side of the tarn, no quays, no jetties – in fact there were no paths or roads either, though it wasn’t impossible to explore this shore on foot. Further back from the water’s edge, pines grew through the scree, creating a narrow belt of woodland. This was just about visible as Mary-Ellen kept a steady course from north to south, the vague outlines of trees standing spectral in the mist.

      ‘Jane Dawson! Tara Cook!’ Heck said, putting the loudhailer to his lips. ‘This is the police … can you hear us?’

      He waited thirty seconds for a response, but there was nothing. Without the engine, the silence was immense, broken only by the lapping of wavelets against the rocks.

      ‘Jane Dawson, Tara Cook!’ he hailed again. ‘This is the police. Can you respond please? Even if you’re injured and unable to speak … throw a stone, bang a piece of wood on another piece of wood. Anything.’

      The lack of response was ear-pummelling.

      ‘Can you get us a tad closer inshore?’ Heck said.

      ‘I’ll try. Just be prepared for the worrying sound of grinding, cracking timbers.’

      ‘Don’t even joke about that.’

      ‘Who’s joking?’

      They veered a few yards to port. Heck could clearly see the submerged juts and edges, like serrated teeth, no more than a couple of feet below the surface. Meanwhile, the rocks exposed along the waterline were piled on top of each other haphazardly and yet resembled those huge, manmade defences that guarded the entrances to Elizabethan-age harbours.

      ‘Okay, that’s far enough,’ he said, grabbing the boat-pole.

      Mary-Ellen corrected their course. They continued to glide forward, veils of murk opening in front of them. The shore and its rows of regimented pine trunks was a little more visible, but not greatly so.

      ‘Perhaps start up the engine, eh?’ Heck said over his shoulder. ‘The noise might let them know we’re here.’

      Mary-Ellen complied, while he hailed the girls another five times, always leaving thirty-second breaks in between. All they heard in response was the dull chug of the engine, until a few minutes had passed and this was subsumed by the rumble of churning water. Just ahead, the fog cleared around a protruding headland of vertical rock with a greenery-matted overhang about thirty feet above. Thanks to the heavy autumn rain, one of many temporary rivulets descending from the surrounding fells was pouring down over this in a minor cataract. The space beneath the overhang was filled with shadow. Heck directed his spotlight into it, just able to pick out a few clumps of shingle against the innermost wall. Normally, if memory served, there would be a small beach there, but the tarn’s high level had inundated it. Either way, no one was taking shelter.

      They pressed on, the cataract falling behind them, its roar dwindling into the all-absorbing vapour. They’d now traversed a quarter of the tarn’s length.

      ‘Starting to think this is a long shot,’ Mary-Ellen said. ‘Couldn’t we be more use back at the nick, manning the phones?’

      ‘Let’s go down as far as the Race,’ Heck replied. ‘After that, we’ll come back … hang on, what’s that?’

      Mary-Ellen stared where he was pointing, catching a glint of colour in the grey; a flash of orange. It could have been anything, a tangle of bobbing rubbish, a plastic shopping bag scrunched between two semi-submerged rocks – except that you didn’t as a rule find shopping bags or any other kind of rubbish in Witch Cradle Tarn, which normally was far beyond the reach of unconscientious slobs. Of course it could also have been a cagoule, and now they looked closely, they could distinguish a humanoid shape; two lengths of orange just below the surface (legs?), the main bulk of the orange (the torso?) above the water-level, thanks to the two boulders it was wedged between. When they drew even closer they saw that it wasn’t solely orange either, but spattered black and green by moss and dirt, and streaked with crimson – as was the third length of orange (an arm?) folded over the back of it.

      ‘Christ in a cartoon …’ Heck breathed. ‘They’re here! Or one of them is!’

      Quickly, Mary-Ellen cut the engine again. ‘The anchor!’ she shouted.

      He scrambled to the back of the craft, took the small anchor from the stern locker and threw it over the side, its chain rapidly unravelling. Other items of kit were also kept in the stern locker, including a zip-lock first-aid bag and two sets of rubberised overalls and boots, which the crew were supposed to don if they ever needed to wade out into deep water. There was no time now for a change of costume, but Heck grabbed the first-aid kit and moved to the gunwale, peering down. Heaped scree could still be discerned below. It wasn’t just jagged and sharp, it would be loose, slimy – ultra dangerous. But again, this was no time to start thinking about health and safety. Heck pulled on a pair of latex gloves, before zipping his phone inside the first-aid kit and then climbing over the gunwale and lowering himself down.

      The tarn’s gelid grip was beyond cold, but now the adrenaline was pumping. Heck’s boots found a purchase about three feet under. Holding the kit above his head, he pushed himself carefully away from the craft, pivoted around and lurched towards shore. Behind him, he heard Mary-Ellen shouting into the radio, asking for supervision and medical support. It was a futile gesture – there was usually no radio up here, but it had to be worth trying. A second later there was a splash as she followed him over the side. They struggled forward for several yards, closing the distance between themselves and the body – but actually making contact with it wasn’t easy, as it was lodged at the far end of a narrow passage between rocks, the floor of which constantly shifted, threatening to collapse at either side, creating suction currents strong enough to pull a person under. To counter this, they clambered on the rocks along the edges, slick and greasy though these proved to be.

      It was indeed a body, by the looks of it female, but in a woeful state: much more heavily bloodied than they’d seen from the boat, at first glance lying motionless and face-down in the water, its string-like fair hair swirling around its head. At the very least, its left arm, the one folded backward, was badly broken, while the other was concealed from view because the bedraggled form was wedged on its right side.

      Heck leaned down, placing two fingers to the neck. It was ice-cold and clammy; there was no discernible pulse.

      ‘Shit,’ he muttered. He felt around СКАЧАТЬ