"The Lurkers" - читать интересную книгу автора (Smith Guy N)

8

It took Peter the best part of an hour to calm Janie. This time he didn't slap her face; he tried soothing tactics, and almost decided to call a doctor. Maybe he would have done so had they been anywhere except the wilds of the Welsh mountains. He didn't put the light on, because it seemed more peaceful in the half-moonlight.

Her outburst gradually subsided to a steady sobbing, her whole body shaking now that it had spent itself.

'I—can't stand it here any longer.' She dabbed at her eyes with a crumpled tissue, then blew her nose. This is the last, straw.'

'Some nutter,' Peter sighed, squeezing her hand. 'Doubtless it's the Wilsons again.'

'It—it wasn't kids' she said. 'I know it wasn't. It was something much more insidious than a practical joke. Not even an obscene call.'

'All part of this stupid campaign against the English/ he muttered. 'Look, I'll get on to Calvert first thing in the morning.'

'Lot of good he'll do' she scoffed. 'I note that there've been no developments in this biker business and I reckon he's more or less given up hope of finding the culprit who savaged our cat. It'll be the same again: "Leave it to me. I'll look into it. Any further trouble give me a buzz and I'll be right up!" Sure he'll come right away, but it'll just be a repeat performance of leaving it and looking into it.'

'We'll—'

'What's that'?' Janie struggled up to a sitting position, feeling her terror coming back.

The room was much lighter than it had been a minute or so ago. But it wasn't moonlight. The moon had waned, and before long the cold light of dawn would creep in to replace it. A strange iridescent glow came in through the frayed curtains, a flickering yellow and orange light that formed eerie patterns on the wall like an old-time magic lantern show—latticed squares that expanded and contracted; Peter's shadow misshapen as though some strange puppet had arrived to dominate the show; Janie's too, creating an eerie Punch and Judy performance, with jerky movements, arms raised in horror.

'What is it?' Janie screamed, clutching at Peter as though to keep him from going to the window to look.

He shook her off, went to the window and pulled the curtains wide. 'My God, just look at that'

Janie was at his side, clinging to him, not wanting to look but having to, shuddering as her strained nerves began to tremble again. 'It's a/ire!' she shouted. 'The stone circle's on fire!

There was no doubt in then—minds that that was where the fire was. The low cloud had not lifted, yet the leaping, dancing flames were clearly visible through the opaque fog and smoke, casting weird shadows, shapes that did not belong to this world.

'Somebody's started that fire/ Peter hissed, "no way could it start on its own.' Narrowing his eyes and staring, he thought he could make out moving shapes that might have been human. It was impossible to be sure. He felt his anger mounting, a burning fury directed at whoever had phoned Janie and started this blaze. But it couldn't have been the same people; it would have been impossible to get from a telephone to the circle in the time. The Wilsons; the younger ones to make the call, the older twins to ignite a pile of dry brushwood. Or even the old man. Or Bostock and Peters could have worked it between them. Or perhaps others . . .

Td better get up there and take a look.' He was reaching for his clothes when she dragged him back frantically.

'No, Peter. Not You can't go out there. Whoever or whatever they are, they're desperate. They'll kill you. Don't leave me. Ok God, don't leave me here alone'

He sighed, and knew he wouldn't go. Not because he was afraid—his fury surpassed any fear he might have had—but because he couldn't leave Janie. She was becoming hysterical again and there was no knowing what she might do.

He sighed again and went back to the window. The flames were higher now, licking at the lower branches of the firs, cascading sparks high into the sky. Whoever had lit the fire had used either paraffin or petrol, adding venom to the blaze. There was no way it could be stopped; it would have to burn itself out. Thank God the ground around was wet pasture-land, otherwise it might have spread and come leaping down towards the cottage. He thought he could feel the heat even from here but it might have been the anger that smouldered inside him.

They both stood and watched the conifer foliage wither, then burst into flames as it dried, shrivelling the branches immediately above. The climbing inferno denuded age-old trees, as though the spirits of long dead druids had returned to destroy their place of worship so that mortals could not desecrate it.

Peter's ears picked up something above the crackling of the flames—a harsher sound, familiar. It took him some seconds to recognise that it was the escalating drone of a vehicle with its engine running then being revved up.

'Christ, the bastards are still there.' He gripped the window ledge. 'They've got a vehicle!'

Then he saw it; an outline that was suddenly revealed in the smoky darkness as a burst of flames swept the circle of yellow light beyond its original perimeter. A Land Rover, a squat rugged vehicle that was even now beginning to move off, edging its way back into the shadows, the darkness swallowing it up as though evil was deliberately hiding evil. Then it was gone, its engine receding as it clipped down the slope of the hill beyond the stone circle.

Peter and Janie stood watching in silence. The dawn came and the fire began to die down as it met with the resistance of damp undergrowth, billowing its smoke and thickening the fog so that eventually they could see nothing at all.

'That was a Land Rover without a doubt,' Peter muttered at last. 'Which rules out a lot of things and makes a mockery of all our theories. I'm afraid we jumped to too many conclusions.'

'Like what?' She looked strained and white in the grey light. Her hysteria had gone, simmered to a fear that was gnawing away inside her like a malignant growth.

'Well, certainly neither the Wilsons nor those two poachers possess a Land Rover. I guess that narrows the field. I'll have another chat with Calvert, but first I want to go up to the circle and have a look round. It'll be full daylight in twenty minutes or so.'

Then I'm coming with you,' she said.

'You don't have to. . . '

'I'm coming, and don't try to stop me, Peter.' She glanced at the alarm clock on the bedside table. 'It's barely half past seven. We can be back in time to get Gavin up for school, if he's well enough to go.'

'All right.' He began to get dressed. 'I don't expect there's much to see, but I'd like to take a look before I talk to the police.'

It was noticeable as they began the steep climb up to the circle that the cloud was beginning to lift; a freshening westerly breeze was dispersing it as though the evil was gone and the mantle that had cloaked it was needed no more.

'Ugh!' Janie shivered. 'I get the feeling that the cloud came down this last couple of days to screen whatever evil was taking place.'

'That's nonsense.' He stopped, then scanned the horizon through the patchy wisps of remaining mist. 'Hey, look, up there by the forest!'

She followed his pointing finger and caught her breath at what she saw. 'Deer! Peter, there must be fifty or sixty of them.'

The distant herd was grazing close to the edge of the big wood. A majestic looking male of the species stood some distance from the others, head erect, alert: the guardian on watch, scenting the air for the slightest sign of danger.

'They're absolutely magnificent,' Janie breathed, and for one brief moment the nightmare of Hodre was forgotten. 'Oh, look at that one on the right, it appears to be limping. It's injured.'

Sure enough, the beast in question was having difficulty in walking, taking jerky, uncertain steps, staggering, almost falling. Then suddenly the grazing animals were tense, heads up, looking towards their leader. The danger signal, obeyed in unison; they retreated, and the trees swallowed them up. There was just one straggler—the cripple—but it made it to safety.

'They're nervous about something,' Peter muttered. 'Edgy as hell. We're a good half mile from them, but that buck spotted us and he wasn't taking any chances. In all probability the fire has upset them. They smelled the smoke and they're frightened of being caught in a forest fire. Anyway, we'd better get a move on.'

A few minutes later they reached the stone circle, a charred smouldering area of blackened pine skeletons. Even the topmost branches of the pines beyond the reach of the leaping flames were withered and drooping, the tree-trunks were now pillars of charcoal, and the ground beneath them was deep in flaked ash.

'How awful!' Janie wrinkled her nose and coughed. She backed away, smelling a stench more acrid, more nauseating than the stink of burned undergrowth, one that rasped in her throat and doubled her up in a spasm of retching. 'Whatever—whatever is that smell, Peter?'

'I don't know . . . ' That was true to start with anyway; it took several seconds before he came up with the answer. Then he looked away so that Janie would not see the expression of revulsion on his rugged features. There could be no mistake. It was the stench of burned flesh!

'What is it, Peter?'

He didn't answer, just poked at the ashes with a length of broken branch and stirred up a cloud of fine dust; he touched something solid and pushed hard at it, forcing it up to the surface.

Janie's scream of terror shattered the stillness of the smoky atmosphere and echoed across the valley below. She recoiled, wanting to hide her eyes so that she did not nave to look, wanting to flee blindly down the steep hillside. But for some inexplicable reason she stayed. And she looked.

There was no mistaking the partially incinerated animal corpse, the blackened smouldering flesh and bared bone, the patches of hair that had somehow only been singed in the inferno. Ash spilled from an open gut, like a taxidermist's burst specimen. Janie tried to tell herself that it was that rabbit or hare which she'd seen hopping about the fields, that it had somehow been trapped by the blaze and burned alive. Or a fox. But in the end every avenue was a dead-end, every alternative an excuse, a lie. There was only one feasible explanation, only one possible answer.

'It's—it's Snowy Only when she made this final analysis from the volume of ridiculous possibilities which she tried to force her brain to accept without success, was she able to turn her head away. 'Oh, how terrible!'

'Yes, it's Snowy.' Peter jabbed his stick into the embers. 'No doubt about that. I guess I didn't look very hard for him yesterday. The rope must have snapped under the weight of his body and it's only coincidence that his corpse got burned. At least he was dead, he didn't suffer—not in the flames, anyway.'

'You're lying!' Her accusation was bordering on hysteria again, her features deathly white, her usually immaculate denim suit crumpled and smeared with ash. 'You know damned well you didn't find the cat here yesterday, Peter, because it had disappeared. There's not enough undergrowth beneath these trees to conceal a mouse. Whoever committed this terrible atrocity took the mutilated cat and then brought it back here to burn it when they started the fire. Can't you see that, or are you going to offer some other feeble excuse to try and blind me from the truth? D'you think anything human could have done this? Well I don't; it was some kind of blood sacrifice by whatever still exists in this stone circle!' Her voice trailed off. She was breathless and shaking, wide-eyed, glancing about her as though she expected some evil entity to rise like a phoenix out of the ashes and claim her.

'Druids don't go about in Land Rovers.' He tried to laugh, but it was a pathetic attempt, a smoke-dried cackle that sounded eerie in the early morning stillness. 'And whoever is responsible for this outrage used a Land Rover. Unfortunately the ground is too hard to leave tracks, but at least we've got something to go on. Let's get back. The sooner I speak to our friendly local bobby, the better.'

Gavin insisted on going to school. White-faced, with deep lines gouged beneath his eyes, he had the appearance of one who was either ill or suffering from lack of sleep. Yet he was adamant about attending school, and was already dressed when Peter and Janie got back to the cottage.

'Where've you been, Mum?'

'Nothing to worry about, Gavin.' Janie busied herself tipping cornflakes into cereal bowls; she spilled some because her hand was shaking. 'There was a heath fire up on the hill last night. Fortunately it didn't get very far because the ground was too wet.'

He sat there in silence. Maybe he detected the lie and didn't want to embarrass his parents by forcing them to lie again.

Tm going to Gran's today.' Peter started visibly at Janie's unexpected announcement. 'Don't worry, I'll be back at teatime. I could do with a break.'

Peter's brow furrowed. Janie's visits to her parents were infrequent. She had been threatening to move there with Gavin these past few days. Was this the beginning, a talk-it-over-with-Mum-and-Dad visit? Well, she'd come back tonight, for Gavin if for no other reason. That in itself was small consolation.

Weak sunlight was beginning to spread across the distant beacons as Peter drove in the direction of Woodside. Gavin was silent, staring out of the window, seeing but not comprehending, buried in his own dismal thoughts. Peter accelerated and the Saab picked up speed. The atmosphere was embarrassing; there were things they both ought to be saying but neither would break the silence. The lane dipped, narrowed, then levelled out on an acute left-hand bend that was partly screened by an overhanging larch tree. Peter had just made up his mind and found the courage to say something that was non-committal: the rabbit, was it OK by Gavin if they brought it indoors because Janie thought it would be better than—

In an instinctive reflex action, Peter's foot came off the accelerator and slammed down on the brake pedal. Wheels locked and tyres screeched their protest as they skidded on loose chippings. The front of the car slewed, headed towards the opposite hedgerow, then stopped with only inches to spare between the—Saab's bumper and the heavy steel girder-like fender of a Land Rover. It was all over before Peter's nerves had time to absorb the sudden shock; the seat-belts bounced him and Gavin forward, then hurled them back into their seats.

'Christ alive!' Peter bent forward and looked up at the windscreen of the vehicle which had almost crushed them back into the ditch. 'What the devil does that bloke think he's doing driving round these lanes at that speed?'

The other driver stared back, a hostile expression on his face. Aristocratic features, handsome in a wild son of way: silver-grey hair that flopped over his wide brow, a hooked nose that reminded Peter of a huge bird of prey that hunted in wild terrain, a regal flowing beard set against a background of skin tanned the colour of mahogany, eyes that bored into him and had him wanting to look away in case their owner read the darkest secrets of his mind. Dominant, physically powerful, arrogant.

Only after he had noted all these details did Peter find himself looking at the vehicle. A Land Rover. There were hundreds of them in this pan of the country. Even humble smallholders seemed to be able to afford to run one. Four colours to choose from—green, blue, white or grey. This one was blue, a short wheelbase with a ragged canvas top, battered and muddy. Well-used over rugged land. Like going up that steep hillside to the stone circle in the blackness of night, thick fog throuring back the headlight beams so that the driver was unable to see more than a few yards ahead of him. A task that required nerves of steel—the kind of nerves a man like this would have!

You're jumping to conclusions again, Fogg, he told himself. Now that the Wilsons and Bostock and Peters have been ruled out, you're looking for another scapegoat. He looked up again, met those steely eyes, and almost winced. Arrogance and a lot more besides—contempt.

Peter had already reversed and got the Saab's nearside wheels right up on the verge until he felt the hedge scraping the paintwork. What the hell am I doing? It's that bugger who should be backing up!

But the Land Rover was already forcing its way through, the rugged squat vehicle taking on the personality of its driver, eager to ride roughshod over anything that stood in its way. Then it was clear, picking up speed, its rear wheels spraying a parting shower of mud over the Saab: a final insult that might have been deliberate.

'He was in a hurry, wasn't he, Dad?' Gavin was visibly shaken. 'He'd got more room than us to reverse. Couldn't wait a second.'

'He just bulldozed us out of the way.' Peter was angry now, more at the way he had conceded ground than at the unknown driver's rudeness. But he couldn't get that Land Rover out of his mind. He saw it again, silhouetted against an orange smoky background, slinking away, its evil deed completed. Anonymous malevolence, a thing of the dark hours that came and went whilst others slept. The ultimate in cruelty, transporting men who knew no mercy, who disembowelled cats whilst they still lived, removed the corpses, then brought them back to burn in a nocturnal fire. Madness. But sane or mad, they lurked out there. Waiting. But for what?

Peter shuddered. He understood how Janie felt. Last night it was a cat. Tonight it might be a human blood victim. Janie. Gavin. Himself. There was no reason, no way of knowing until it happened.

And then it would be too late.