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<h2>24</h2>
<p>The alarm woke him from a deep sleep while it was still dark.
Jack crawled out of bed groping for his dressing gown, feeling
drugged and dopy. The kitchen was cold and the glass on the window
to the back garden was glittering with a latticework of frost. A
faint sliver of moon on the horizon sent a glimmer of silver light
onto the snow which had stacked up against the fence. The garden
fork was still stuck into the ground, though only the haft was now
showing. No birds sang.</p>
<p>Tea and toast was all he could face. Jack felt he could have
done with another six hours sleep, but at least he <em>had</em>
slept some, and amazingly, the night had not been riven by the
dreams for the first time in a long time. While he took a hot
shower he thought about what he'd have to do today. The patrols had
picked up nothing, or he'd have got a call within the last six
hours. As he soaped himself down, he was thinking about the
suicides.</p>
<p>There was a pattern to them. They were all linked so far,
tenuously, but definitely. They were connected to the murder in
Cairn House that seemed to have taken place months ago, instead of
mere weeks. They had all been there, which meant they were
involved, to some extent, in the killing. Whether they had done it,
either singly or in a group, was another matter. So far the deaths
had come within days, even hours of abductions, strange deaths
following the bizarre, incomprehensible taking of children, if
young Carol Howard could be included as a child.</p>
<p>There were conundrums within riddles. Puzzles inside a maze.</p>
<p>The possibility of post-hypnotic suggestion crossed his mind. It
had been the stuff of a thousand detective novels. The evil doctor
and the mesmerised puppet ordered to do the evil bidding then
instructed to negate themselves after the event.</p>
<p>But if that was the case, who was giving the instructions? And
why?</p>
<p>And why had it all started with Marta Herkik? Jack decided he'd
give Andy Toye another call. There must be something missing from
the puzzle. Some piece that would fit with everything else and
connect all the other pieces and point the finger.</p>
<p>He came out of the shower and scrubbed himself dry with a crisp
towel. The kettle had boiled and the toast was standing to
attention in the toaster. He buttered some, made a cup of tea and
discovered he'd developed a surprising appetite. He made another
two slices, wolfed them down, and felt able to face the day.</p>
<p>"You're looking a lot better," Julia told him.</p>
<p>"I managed to get some sleep. It works wonders."</p>
<p>"You're overdoing things as usual," she said with sisterly,
almost motherly concern.</p>
<p>"That's because I've got plenty to overdo. It keeps me
awake."</p>
<p>"You should give yourself a break," she chided.</p>
<p>"I will. I've promised Davy I'll take him up Langmuir Hills at
the weekend. See if we can spot some mountain hares in the
snow."</p>
<p>"He'd love that. I hate keeping him cooped up all week."</p>
<p>"Just so long a you do keep him inside. This thing will stop
eventually, and then we'll only have the normal bunch of flashers
and peeping toms to worry about."</p>
<p>"Do you think you'll get him?"</p>
<p>Jack put his arm around her shoulder and gave her an encouraging
hug.</p>
<p>"Course I will. That's what I'm overdoing."</p>
<p>Down at the school, Davy went through his litany. Yes, he'd stay
in school. Yes, he'd wait for his mother. No, he wouldn't talk to
strange people. As he ran off past the pinch-faced mothers who were
reluctant to leave the school gates, Jack felt a warm surge of love
for the boy. He and Julia were the only family he had left.</p>
<p>Down at the station on Thursday morning, there were no urgent
messages. The sky in the east was showing a glimmer of dawn, and
there was a slough of dampness in the air.</p>
<p>Both Ralph and John were in the operations room adding to the
mass of information on the computers. Jack accepted a plastic cup
of coffee, sat down and the phone rang. The day got worse from that
moment.</p>
<p>Rolling Stock was supposed to open at nine, but Jim Deakin, the
manager, who lived in Lochend, had a job getting his car started in
the cold. It had finally coughed into life after he'd run the
battery flat and had to push it forty yards to a slope on the road
where it kick-started at the third attempt. When he got to the
parts store, the rest of the staff were standing in a huddle
outside the locked doors, swinging their hands under their armpits
in energetic self-hugs, trying to keep warm.</p>
<p>"Sorry guys, car problems," he said, forcing his way through the
small group of teenage girls and boys, jangling his bunch of keys.
He slipped the lock, pushed the outer door, scooped up a small pile
of mail and walked through to where an inner door kept the cold
out. Everybody followed him through.</p>
<p>"Hey, it's freezing in here," one of the lads who serviced the
bikes piped up.</p>
<p>"Put the heating on, Doreen," the manager told one of the girls.
He opened the door to his own office and slid out of his heavy
sheepskin car coat. He unlocked the safe and took out the rolls of
change for the tills. The lights on the main store came on with a
stuttering fluorescent flicker. One of the girls stuck a tape in
the deck and loud music started blaring out of the speakers.</p>
<p>Jim Deakin brought the tray of cash round and started filling
the register drawer. Doreen came back from the switch room, slid
into her swivel seat and started putting on enough lipstick to last
a week. She pouted into a small compact mirror and Jim thought she
looked as if she'd eaten raw liver.</p>
<p>Just at that moment there was a shout from up at the back of the
store. One of the lads, now in his sky-blue overalls came pounding
down between the aisles of oil cans and de-icer sprays.</p>
<p>"Hey, Jim. There's some bikes missing."</p>
<p>"So find them," the manager said, rattling coins into their
doo-cots.</p>
<p>"No. They're gone. Three Raleighs and an Apollo."</p>
<p>"How can they have gone? Are you taking the mickey?</p>
<p>"Course not." Donny Craig had left school at the same time as
young Carol Howard. They'd even sat next to each other in maths,
though she'd showed more aptitude than he had. His interest was
bikes. He could repair and service them, change tyres and refit
drive sprockets from dawn until dusk, which was what he was paid
for. He was also very good at it, because he knew his bikes. "They
were there last night in their stands, and now they're away."</p>
<p>He went back up the passage between the shelves. Deakin followed
him, and after a few seconds, Doreen finished her morning make-up,
slid off her seat, and came up behind them.</p>
<p>"Look," the boy was pointing to the empty brackets. "That's
where they were."</p>
<p>Doreen came up to stand beside the manager. She made a shivering
sound.</p>
<p>"It's really cold in here. Where's that draught coming
from?"</p>
<p>The manager turned round, about to tell her to go back to her
post at the till, when the fuzzy daub of day-glo paint on the wall
caught his eye.</p>
<p>"What the hell is that?" he barked, striding across past the
spaces where the bikes had stood. Then he noticed something else
further to the left, closer to the back of the shop.</p>
<p>"And that?" he said pointing. Doreen followed his pointing
finger.</p>
<p>"Somebody's painted the bloody wall."</p>
<p>Some distance from the yellow smudge of spray paint, the
breeze-block facing was smeared and smattered in dark red. It
looked as if someone had thrown several cans of primer right at the
wall.</p>
<p>"Oh, for heaven's sake," Jim said, standing hands on hips.</p>
<p>"Look up there," Doreen said. Everybody turned, raised their
eyes and saw the gaping skylight. A rope dangled down and looped
itself round the cross-spars.</p>
<p>"Bloody hell," Jim mouthed. "We've been turned over."</p>
<p>He strode briskly and officiously towards the wall where the
paint had been splattered, taking small, annoyed steps when his
heel skidded on a splash that stained the tiled flooring. His legs
went up in the air and the manager came down with a thump, one hand
sweeping a dozen aerosol cans from the nearest shelf.</p>
<p>Doreen tittered and Donny Craig was diplomatic enough to turn
away to hide his grin. Jim Deakin got to his feet. There was a damp
stain on his trousers from backside to heel. He glared at Donny
then rounded on Doreen.</p>
<p>"What the hell are you laughing at?" he blazed. "Go and call the
police."</p>
<p>Just beside him, one of the round children's helmets, as
stridently yellow as the paint on the wall, lay on its side a few
feet away. In a temper, the manager took a swing at it with his
foot. Instead of the light plastic dome flying off like a football
into the air, his toe connected with a solid crack. The helmet
rolled a few yards towards Doreen. Deakin yelled out in surprise
and the sudden pain flaring in his toes. He started to do a little
hopping dance, cursing vehemently. He slipped again on the slithery
patch of red and went down again with a clatter. His thick, heavy
rimmed glasses flew off and skittered away.</p>
<p>Donny Craig burst into helpless laughter. Doreen was holding her
sides and bent double.</p>
<p>Then she let out a piercing scream which soared up to the roof
and completely drowned out the noise the manager was making.</p>
<p>For a second the boy thought she was hysterical with laughter.
He was holding his knees with both hands. He looked up at her and
saw, not mirth, but utter shock stretched across the girl's
face.</p>
<p>Still giggling, he came across to her, reached out to touch her
shoulder and she jumped back from him as if she'd been scalded. All
the time, her squeal went on, an uncontrollable and incoherent
babble of sound. She was doing a jittery little dance as if she was
standing in a nest of ants and trying to stamp them all to death.
All the time she was pointing down at the floor.</p>
<p>Donny looked down and in that moment he felt the blood
physically drain out of his head. There was a ringing in his ears
and the whole store seemed to wobble around him.</p>
<p>A pair of light blue eyes stared up at him from inside the
biker's helmet. The strap was snugged tight under the chin, keeping
the mouth closed. There was not a mark on the face, but underneath
it there was a stringy congealed patch of red from which a thin,
ribbed tube protruded. It looked not unlike the plastic pipes which
fitted on the little hand-pumps Rolling Stock sold for syphoning
petrol, but instinctively Donny Craig realised it was not. Although
he had never seen a human windpipe in his life, he knew exactly
what it was.</p>
<p>He backed away, his face now paler than the gray one which
stared at him with dead eyes on the floor.</p>
<p>"Ung," he managed to say after several seconds. Jim Deakin was
standing on one foot, holding his other ankle in both hands,
weaving for balance and still swearing comprehensively.</p>
<p>"Suppose you think it's bloody funny," he said when the swearing
stopped.</p>
<p>"Ung," Donny repeated. His stomach was now going into spasms,
trying to squeeze its contents upwards. The boy swallowed hard,
took another two steps backwards and bumped into Doreen who was now
sliding sideways against a fortuitously positioned pile of car
mats.</p>
<p>"And what's up with that silly cow?" the manager demanded to
know. He came limping across to them. "Look at the state of me. And
I've probably broken my toes."</p>
<p>"Jim," the boy finally managed to say. "Look."</p>
<p>"What a bloody mess," the manager was saying. "Come on Doreen.
Get on the phone and get the police round here. Damned vandals,
they should all be hung."</p>
<p>"No, Jim. You have to come and see," Donny said. His voice had
gone very soft, every word slow and dreamy.</p>
<p>"What is it now?" Deakin demanded. He hobbled across, Donny
pointed, and the manager shoved his glasses on to his face with an
irritated jerk. He peered down.</p>
<p>"What on earth?" he said incredulously. "Is this some sort of
a...?" he turned to Donny, looked at him strangely, bent down again
as if to confirm what his eyes had shown him and came back up
again.</p>
<p>Without looking back, he pointed at the helmet and the face
inside it, wagging his finger in a strange little emphasis.</p>
<p>"Its..."</p>
<p>Donny nodded blankly.</p>
<p>His boss turned and walked slowly down the aisle, shaking his
head as if by denying it he could make the thing go away. When he
got to the and of the aisle he turned and looked again. The helmet
was still there. Donny was standing stock still, hands at his
sides. Doreen slowly slid the last few inches as the car mats gave
way under her weight and they flopped to the floor with the girl on
top of them.</p>
<p>Sadie McLean, a middle aged woman with blue-grey hair in tight
permed curls came walking briskly out of the staff room. "What's
all the noise about," she called out. "I've just made the tea."</p>
<p>Jim Deakin came walking slowly towards her.</p>
<p>"Want a cup Jim?" Sadie asked brightly. He shook his head and
continued to shake it as he walked past her. She watched him turn,
shake his head again.</p>
<p>"You sure?"</p>
<p>"No." he came slowly towards her. "Sadie, there's been a wee
accident. Could you call the police?"</p>
<p>"Accident? What? Where?" The woman turned around and saw Doreen
lying on the pile of mats.</p>
<p>"What's happened to her?"</p>
<p>"Nothing. Just call the police, would you. Tell them there's
been a break-in and an accident. Tell them it's very urgent."</p>
<p>The squad car took fifteen minutes to arrive. Young Gordon
Pirie, Levenford's newest recruit, should have gone off duty at
eight, but he was grateful of the fact that there seemed to be an
unlimited amount of overtime available in the last week or so, even
if it meant being out at all hours of the night and attending
gruesome scenes where the bodies were in pieces, not like he'd ever
seen in all the real police movies. He was still a bit embarrassed
about the night before, but in the cold light of day, he knew he
could face anything. Policemen, he'd convinced himself got hardened
to that sort of thing. He drove into the spacious, almost
completely empty car park, pulled up beside Rolling Stock and
adjusted his helmet as he manfully shoved on the door.</p>
<p>The manager was leaning against the cash register, whey faced.
Close by, a woman was fussing around a young girl who was sitting
on the floor, her shoulders heaving in violent, but strangely
silent sobs.</p>
<p>"Good morning sir," Gordon said with brisk efficiency. "What
appears to be the problem."</p>
<p>"There's been a break in and a burglary," Jim Deakin said
lethargically.</p>
<p>"I see sir. And when did you discover it?" Gordon pulled out his
notebook and began writing.</p>
<p>"This morning."</p>
<p>"Oh tell him about the thing," Sadie snapped.</p>
<p>"Oh yes," Deakin said, nodding. "I'll have to show you."</p>
<p>Gordon put his notebook in his pocket and followed the small,
portly manager up the space between the shelves. His eager
policeman's eye noticed the daub of paint on the wall and the long
vertical splashes above it.</p>
<p>"Wonder how they got up there," he mused.</p>
<p>"Here it is," Jim Deakin said, pointing down.</p>
<p>For a second, Gordon Pirie thought it was a plastic model, a
mannequin's head, used to display the helmets. He lowered himself
slowly to hunker down, stopped when he had almost got there, then
jumped back up to his feet with a gasp of alarm. His foot slipped
and his toe nudged the helmet which rocked slowly back and forth,
the dead eyes scanning the ceiling in an eternal stare.</p>
<p>Across from them, there was a door with a small stylised figure
of a man stuck to the surface.</p>
<p>Gordon made it there in six big strides. He strong-armed it
open, crashed through to the washroom and donated his breakfast to
the sink.</p>
<p>Beside him a young man in dungarees was just rising from a
leaning position, as if he'd been washing his hair. He heard
Gordon's heaving splatter and sickly moan, and promptly dived his
own head back into the sink and retched explosively.</p>
<p>Five minutes after that, Jack Fallon got the call. In ten
minutes Rolling Stock was busier than it had ever been at that time
of a winter's morning.</p>
<p>Ralph Slater was directing Ronnie Jeffrey's camera. There were
two detectives up on ladders, taking samples of the splashes on the
wall. A third was up on the cross-spars close to the roof.</p>
<p>"Looks like they came in here, sir?" he called down. "That's a
tow rope. Two of them tied together."</p>
<p>A wheaten-faced Gordon Pirie was taking statements from the
staff. Somebody had put an empty cardboard box over the head in the
helmet.</p>
<p>"What a mess," Jack said."Maybe we should have done some padlock
rattling last night."</p>
<p>"I don't think we could have stopped this. The doors were
locked. Nobody would have seen a thing."</p>
<p>"And our men were looking in all the wrong places," Jack said,
feeling disgusted with himself.</p>
<p>From above, a voice called down.</p>
<p>"Sir, I think you should come up here and have a look."</p>
<p>Jack went to the ladder they'd borrowed from the do-it-yourself
store. It was a three-section affair, stretching up to the beams.
He started up reluctantly and when he got half-way there, he felt
the nauseous vertigo loop inside him. The ground was a long way
down. For a few seconds he paused to settle his breathing, holding
on white-knuckled to the uprights, then continued his ascent. It
was difficult for him to scramble through the tangle of struts.
From this height, the floor seemed impossibly far away and he tried
not to look down.</p>
<p>"Over here sir," the detective said. He was standing on a beam
with his head sticking out of the top of the roof. Jack reached him
cautiously, held onto the lip and craned out. The roof sloped away
gently. A few yards from the opening, where the window was lying
back on its hinges, four bikes lay in a sprawl, wheels shiny and
handlebars gleaming in the dawn light.</p>
<p><em>A big square hole on the ground. There's something lying
there. Like a bike. Yes. It</em> is <em>a bike. It went down
through there. I can hear it, like an animal.</em></p>
<p>Lorna's voice, sizzling with panic, came back to him with utter
clarity.</p>
<p>A big square hole in the ground. It was a big square hole in a
<em>roof.</em> No wonder she couldn't recognise it. Somehow, in
that weird second sight she had, that sixth sense, she had
<em>seen</em> this.</p>
<p>And she had seen more.</p>
<p><em>A cellar. Somewhere big and dark. There's shelves. It has
one of them. Two of them. Oh, there's blood all over, and the smell
is choking.</em></p>
<p>In the light of the early day, it was big but not dark. But
there were shelves, going from floor to dizzying roof height. Jack
closed his eyes and tried to picture this from the outside, and at
night. It would <em>look</em> like a cellar. And oh, there was
blood all over. Not paint, not car primer for old rusty jalopies,
but thick congealing blood which had dribbled in runnels down the
walls. The smell now was bad enough. It must have been
throat-gagging.</p>
<p>The bikes in their forlorn heap angled their wheels up to the
sky, thick tyres for bouncing along forest tracks and for whizzing
along with the wind in your hair on sunny Sunday afternoons. Boys
things.</p>
<p><em>Oh, Mr Fallon, they're only</em> boys.</p>
<p>While he stared out at the sky, Jack envisaged the nightmare
scene. Four boys Lorna had said. Whoever he was, <em>whatever</em>
it was, had come in, probably through the open skylight, the way
the boys had done.</p>
<p>Who were they? He'd find out soon enough, no doubt.</p>
<p>He, it, the killer had caught one of them, the one with the
helmet on? Then the next. <em>The others had seen it.</em> They'd
panicked. In his mind's eye, he could see their frantic scramble up
the sides of the shelves, no ladders, just angled metal bars to
hold on onto. One pushing the other, crying, screaming, bawling for
their mothers in the dark of the big gloomy store, while someone,
some <em>thing</em> came at their backs, still wet and slimy from
the blood of the others. Their feet would have slipped on the edges
of the shelves, their fingers scrabbled for purchase, fear freezing
their blood, freezing their muscles to turbid slowness. They'd have
crawled and clambered, whimpering, struggling to breathe over the
pounding of their hearts. Out through the window, one turning to
help the other, with their pursuer hot at their backs. He could
imagine the feeling of the boy inside, desperately hauling himself
upwards, the other one dragging at his jacket, imagining the killer
coming for him, close behind, maybe clattering across the
rails.</p>
<p>Had it been like that?</p>
<p>He could hear her words loud, desperate, in the telephone, as if
she were calling him now.</p>
<p><em>It has him. The other one is trying to pull him out. But it
has him. I can see his face. His eyes are looking at me. He</em>
knows.</p>
<p>The running commentary of a nightmare.</p>
<p><em>Oh god. It's pulling him down. He can't hold on. He's
crying. The pain in his leg. It's tearing him</em> apart.</p>
<p>She'd seen it, that was for sure. There could be no other
explanation. Four boys she'd said, down in a cellar, through a hole
in the ground which was a skylight in the roof. The bikes were
lying there as she'd told him. Who would think of mountain bikes on
a roof? Nobody. Not even Chief Inspector Jack Fallon. He'd sent the
men out last night to probe into high places, knowing within
himself that there would have been another disappearance. But they
hadn't checked <em>this</em> high place. As elevations went, it was
so low as to be negligible, probably not even visible from the spot
he'd stood on up on the roof of Castlebank Distillery. But it had
been high enough.</p>
<p>"Something here," the policeman said. Jack pulled his head in
from the fresh air. He could smell the blood again. Down below, the
ground seemed to sway and he had to hold on tightly as he
turned.</p>
<p>"Blood here," the man muttered, "And here and here." He gestured
with a finger.</p>
<p>"And what's this?" He held on with his left which he reached out
over a space with what Jack considered casual foolhardiness and
drew up a dark piece of cloth which had been draped over a
spar.</p>
<p>"Saturated," the detective said.</p>
<p>"What have you got?"</p>
<p>"Denim. Looks like a pair of jeans. Or the leg of one. It's been
ripped off."</p>
<p>He turned round, letting go his grip as he did, as if he was
only two feet from the ground instead of nearer forty. Jack's
stomach tried to do a quick somersault then steadied itself.</p>
<p>"Blood all over the place," the constable said.</p>
<p>The two of them headed back across the girders. One of Ralph's
men met them at the edge of the spars where the ladder leaned and
there was a moment of lurching vertigo as Jack squeezed past the
man who had his forensics equipment case slung over his shoulder.
Jack made it slowly to the ground. Ralph was just rising from his
haunches beside the head in the plastic helmet.</p>
<p>"What do you think?"</p>
<p>"Damned if I know," Ralph said honestly.</p>
<p>"This took a lot of strength. It's not a clean cut, not like an
axe or a machete, but it's near enough. Something hit this laddie
one hell of a blow. Probably a single swipe. It came from the
left."</p>
<p>Ralph carefully turned the helmet round. The glazed, drying eyes
panned Jack with their infinity stare. The face was strangely
peaceful, in repose. On the left side, just above the ear, the
plastic was caved in. There were three deep indentations. Ralph
pointed them out with the tip of his pencil. At the base of each
little valley, the plastic was scored right through to the skull
beneath.</p>
<p>"I've seen these before," he said.</p>
<p>"On Shona Campbell." Jack said. Ralph nodded.</p>
<p>"Robbie Cattanach said it looked as if she'd been hit by a
bear."</p>
<p>"I'd like to see the bear that could have done this," Ralph said
drily.</p>
<p>"So how did it happen?" Jack asked. Out near the door, the two
women were hugging each other and sobbing loudly.</p>
<p>"Beats me. Probably came in the same way as the young fellow,
then hit him with something heavy and hooked. End of story."</p>
<p>"There was more than one," Jack said. "Maybe as many as four."
He explained about the mountain bikes up on the roof. Ralph's
assistant came forward with the soaked leg of denim now in a clear
plastic bag.</p>
<p>"We've got a name for him," the young man said. "He'd a card
inside his pocket." He handed it to Ralph who flipped the little
plastic folder open, then gave a dry chuckle which held no humour.
He passed it to Jack.</p>
<p>It was a little red wallet. Inside was a tin picture of St
Christopher stamped in relief and beside it a small card.</p>
<p>"In case of accident, please call Mrs Ena Redford, 52 Strowans
Crescent, Levenford." The card was signed: Edward J. Redford.</p>
<p>Tucked into the plastic was a photobooth picture of a
round-faced boy with freckles, grinning at the world.</p>
<p>"At least we can ID this one," the CID man said.</p>
<p>"Not this one. This isn't the same lad." Jack showed Ralph the
photo. He held it beside the staring face.</p>
<p>"Not the same boy," he agreed.</p>
<p>He got up and shook his head.</p>
<p>"So who's this?" he asked nobody in particular. "And what in the
name of Christ is going on?"</p>
<p>Jack left the scene of crimes team and the rest of the officers
in the hardware store and headed back for the car. He'd intended to
go straight to Clydeshore Avenue, get Lorna Breck and bring her
down here, no matter who saw them, but when he opened the car door,
the radio was squawking. He thumbed the button and Bobby Thomson's
gruff voice crackled out loudly. Jack got to the station in ten
minutes.</p>
<p>The front office looked busy. Bobby Thomson was talking to a man
and a woman and an elderly gentleman with a white moustache.
Another woman sat alone and pale-faced while another couple sat
together, holding hands, expressionless.</p>
<p>"This is Mr and Mrs Visotsky," Bobby introduced. "They've come
to report their son missing."</p>
<p>Jack's heart sank.</p>
<p>"Yes, it's our Votek," the man said. He was tall and dressed in
a smart blazer and slacks. His wife was slender, with mousy brown
hair. She kept biting her bottom lip, and kept a firm grip on the
crook of her husband's arm. The man said: "I'm Karl Visotsky, and
this is wife Jean and my father, also Votek. Our son didn't come
home last night."</p>
<p>Bobby leaned over the desk. "The others are with them too," he
said. "same problem."</p>
<p>He lifted the flap and came round and brought the women and the
other two people towards the desk.</p>
<p>"This is Mr Fallon," he said, offering no explanation. There
were few, if any in Levenford who did not know by now who was
leading the hunt.</p>
<p>Mr Visotsky's light blue eyes scanned Jack's face, and right at
that moment, Jack intuitively knew who the dead boy was. His father
had the same pale stare.</p>
<p>"Come with me," he said, leading them all into the interview
room, keeping his face impassive.</p>
<p>They filed in, staying close, but keeping a distance from each
other, as if they each of the parents was afraid to be contaminated
by what the others might have.</p>
<p>"I thought he was with Eddie," the fair haired woman with pallid
skin said before Jack was able to say something.</p>
<p>"And Eddie told me he was meeting your Charles," the other woman
with the silent husband replied, her voice shaking with
tension.</p>
<p>Jack held his hand up.</p>
<p>"We'd best hear it one at a time. Now, if you just give me your
names, I'm sure I can help." Jack said that automatically, though
he wasn't at all sure he'd be any help to these people. He was even
more sure that at the end of the day he'd be no assistance at all.
The man with the Polish name and the east-European eyes kept
staring at him and a visual recollection transposed the dead eyes
onto the worried father's face.</p>
<p>"I'm Ruby Black. This is my husband Angus," the pale woman said.
"It's our Charles. He didn't come home this morning. We didn't
worry last night, because he often stays out with his friends, but
when I called Ena here," she pointed at a plump woman with short
hair that had been grey but was now a faded red, "she said he
wasn't there."</p>
<p>"And Votek was supposed to be with the both of them," the
smartly dressed father said. "They're just boys. They have nothing
else to do but listen to records, and that sort of thing."</p>
<p>Between them, they got the story out. They'd all of them called
each other, and a woman called Galt in East Mains, but her husband,
who had answered the door, unshaven and still in his rumpled boxer
shorts, said he didn't know where his boy was, nor his wife, and at
that time in the morning, he couldn't give a damn where they were.
Jack took a note of the name and address. He picked up the internal
phone and called through to the front office, asked Bobby Thomson
to get a squad car out. He gave them the information and hung up.
He turned back to the group again and the phone rang.</p>
<p>"That name you've asked for," the desk sergeant said. "I thought
it rang a bell. There was a lad hurt on Castlebank Street. Old
Wattie Dickson picked him up. They took him up to Lochend, injured,
but not thought to be too serious."</p>
<p>"Get on to them pronto. I'll want somebody to speak to him. let
me know the minute you've got anything."</p>
<p>He turned back to the group. Mrs Redford was sitting off to the
side wringing her hands nervously.</p>
<p>According to the parents, their sons had been pals since they'd
been at infant school. They had all left school together, none of
them greatly qualified and because of the lack of jobs, none of
them was in work, although Votek Visotsky went along at weekends to
clean the cars in the dealership his father managed. They stayed at
each other's houses most nights, played football at weekends, and
did nothing much of anything else. Just boys.</p>
<p>None of the parents knew where their sons had been the previous
night.</p>
<p>"They just go out," Ruby Black said. "They never say where
they're going. You know what boys are like."</p>
<p>Jack did. He'd been one. Even though he'd been fond of his old
man, seventeen and eighteen had been the years of minimal
information, one word replies, great secrecy even when there was
nothing to keep secret. He'd stolen his share of apples and he'd
scaled the battlements down on the Castle Rock and braved the
undertow to swim across the river down at keelyard Lane. He'd done
a lot more besides.</p>
<p>"Haven't you heard the warnings? Read them in the papers?" he
asked brusquely, a little unkindly. He regretted it as soon as the
words were out of his mouth. There was one dead boy, two almost
certainly, and if Lorna Breck was right, a third. There was a wall
splattered with blood and a pool of the stuff on the floor, and a
head in a silly day-glo yellow bike-bandit helmet rolling around on
a tiled floor. Each and any of these parents might have lost a son
that night. From the cheap plastic wallet in the sodden
trouser-leg, Ena Redford had lost hers. What were warnings
worth?</p>
<p>In case of accident please call the police and the scene of
crimes team, and then Robbie Cattanach down at the slab.</p>
<p>"But that's just for wee kiddies," Angus Black spoke for the
first time. "Charles is a big boy." Beside him his wife began to
sniffle.</p>
<p>The phone rang again. Bobby Thomson told him the boy had been
taken up to Keltyburn Hospital suffering from some kind of
acid-burn. The hospital was famed the world over for plastic
surgery.</p>
<p>Jack asked Bobby to get John McColl in as soon as he could, and
turned back to the parents.</p>
<p>"We have had word of an incident," he said, keeping his voice
light. "A boy slightly injured, possibly in a road accident. He's
suffered some burns."</p>
<p>They all sat up straight. Slightly injured. That was better than
<em>injured,</em> and a whole lot better than the other words they
used on the bulletins, like serious and badly and critical. Jack
could see the hope in each of their eyes.</p>
<p>"Is it Charlie?" Ruby Black asked haltingly.</p>
<p>"No. I don't have details yet, but it seems to be Gerald
Galt."</p>
<p>The women visibly wilted.</p>
<p>"But this morning, we were called to another incident, a
possible break in. It is possible that two of the boys, at least
two of them, were involved."</p>
<p>"What? Are they under arrest?" This from the man with the polish
eyes.</p>
<p>"I'm afraid not, Mr Visotsky. I'm afraid one boy has been badly
injured. He has not been identified yet."</p>
<p>"Well, when will we know?"</p>
<p>"As soon as we do. Rest assured, we will be doing everything we
can to locate the others."</p>
<p>They all sat, none of them looking at each other, taking in what
Jack had said.</p>
<p><em>Badly</em> injured. <em>He has not been identified.</em></p>
<p>Did that mean he was dead? The stark question was evident in all
of their faces.</p>
<p>My boy? My Eddie? My Charlie? My Votek?</p>
<p>Jack hauled his eyes away from theirs, shoved his seat back and
stood. "If you could all wait here for a moment, I'll have somebody
bring you a cup of tea. I'll be back as soon as I can. In the
meantime," he beckoned over to Karl Visotsky, "could you come with
me for a moment sir?"</p>
<p>The man leaned sideways and patted his wife on the hand. The old
man with them reached across to touch his son in a poignant moment
of contact. Then Karl Visotsky followed Jack from the room.</p>
<p>"What is it Superintendent?"</p>
<p>Jack let the mis-rank go.</p>
<p>"I'd like you to help me here. I've a difficult thing for you to
do, and I can't be sure until you tell me. When I said in there
that the boy had been badly injured, I wanted to spare the women's
feelings, however briefly. In point of fact, one of the boys is
dead."</p>
<p>The man took a step backwards as if an invisible hand had pushed
him on the chest.</p>
<p>"Is it Votek?"</p>
<p>"That's where I need your help. At the moment, no positive
identification is possible."</p>
<p>"Why? Has he been burned too?"</p>
<p>"Well, sir," Jack put his hand on the man's shoulder and gripped
firmly, the way a man does when he's telling another man to get
strong and take it on the chin. "No he's not been burned. But there
is another problem. Not all of the body has been found."</p>
<p>"Oh my god," the man said, jamming the words together in a rush.
"What's happened?"</p>
<p>"We don't know yet. I've got a whole team of people working on
that just now."</p>
<p>"Can I see him?"</p>
<p>"Yes," Jack said, hating this even more. "But you will have to
prepare yourself Mr Visotsky."</p>
<p>The man nodded dumbly. Jack took him by the elbow, led him
through the swing doors and down beyond the cells to the police
mortuary. It was a small room with two Victorian tiled slabs and a
harsh smell of disinfectant. There were three little arched windows
close to the ceiling which let in little light. Somebody had pulled
the old fashioned cord mechanism which screwed the windows open on
ratcheted iron curves, but the ventilation did nothing to clear the
smell.</p>
<p>Along the walls, two filing-cabinets of long drawers stood side
by side. An antique freezer pump hissed and sighed.</p>
<p>"Is he?" the dazed father said, pointing at the rack, just as
Robbie Cattanach came through the far door in a flap of white. He
looked at Jack, who nodded, then introduced the man.</p>
<p>"As yet we don't know who this is. No matter what, it will be a
shock," Robbie said, keeping his voice low. " I have to tell you,
Mr Visotsky, we only have a part of a body here. You may recognise
it and you may not."</p>
<p>The man nodded quickly. His hands had started to shake. Robbie
opened a drawer which rumbled on its travel, with a sound of the
night-mail train clattering over the joins. Karl Visotsky moved
forward with glacial slowness as if the air in front of him had
become glutinous and thick. He put his hands on the edge of the
drawer. Just as slowly, his head turned, though his eyes were still
fixed on Robbie's face. Finally, with a dreadful roll, they swung
down. His son stared up at him with those pale blue-green eyes.</p>
<p>He stood staring in utter silence for several minutes, a father
carved in stone. Finally Jack reached forward and touched him on
the elbow and the man jumped as if he'd been bitten by a snake.</p>
<p>He swung round and Jack saw the knowledge in his eyes. He
himself had gone through that door to infinite understanding.</p>
<p>"Votek," The man whispered, his head dropping in confirmation.
"This is my Votek."</p>
<p>He turned away from the drawer, moving with senile deliberation.
Robbie closed it quickly and as silently as he could and watched as
the man reached the wooden chair beside one of the slabs.</p>
<p>"They took his body," the boy's father said. "They took my son's
body away."</p>
<p>He turned suddenly and glared at the two men.</p>
<p>"Who would do that to a boy? Eh? Tell me who would do that to a
big soft boy like my son?"</p>
<p>Jack had no answer to that. He was starting not to think in
terms of who, but of what.</p>
<p>And what would do a thing like that to a big soft boy like Votek
Visotsky, or to little Kerry Campbell, or to Carol Howard,
screaming for mercy and her life in a black lift shaft, he had no
idea at all.</p>
<p>He led the man away. Mr Visotsky moved like an automaton, as if
he was battery powered and the cells had just run flat. In the
space of the three yards from the freezer drawer and the door, the
son of the old Polish man who had seen, and lived through, terrible
things in the extermination camps of Auchswitz-Birkenau, aged
visibly. Give him a moustache and white hair and he would have
looked just like the man upstairs.</p>
<p>Ralph Slater was bustling in through the front door as Jack
reached the ground floor level. He had another set of plastic bags
with his samples and scrapings. He came across with his eyebrows
raised. Jack just nodded. He motioned to Ralph to wait there while
he went back to the interview room. Over at the desk, the duty
sergeant was taking notes while he answered the telephone. Jack
heard him say something about a church. He walked through the doors
behind the dead boy's father. Karl Visotsky shuffled forward as if
his feet were encased in cement and his wife read it all in his
eyes. She came towards him and they met like slow motion ballerinas
in a tragedy. The other two women in the room looked at them,
turned to each other, and Jack could see the dread begin to write
itself on their faces. He crossed to Ena Redford and eased her from
the seat. She pulled back as if he was a hangman, come to lead her
away, but he gently drew her to her feet.</p>
<p>Ralph had put all the bags in the operations room, ready for the
run to the lab. He came forward with a small bag in his hands.</p>
<p>"Mrs Redford," Jack asked as gently as he could.</p>
<p>"You've found him." she said blankly. "Is he?"</p>
<p>"No. I'm afraid we haven't found him, but I want you to take a
look at this." Ralph handed over the bag and Jack pulled out the
little wallet. He opened it and handed it to the woman. She took it
in trembling fingers, stared at it for a long time, breath hitching
hard.</p>
<p>"For his confirmation," she said. "That's when he got that. He
always had it in his pocket. It should have said somebody should
call a priest, but he put my name there."</p>
<p>"And is that Edward?" Jack said, taking the thing from her hand
and easing out the little photograph. Eddie grinned dumbly out from
the flat surface.</p>
<p>"Yes. That's Eddie," he said, voice cracking. "Where did
you...?"</p>
<p>"That was found this morning, at the scene of a break-in. We
don't know what has happened yet, but I'm trying to find out."</p>
<p>"A break in? When? Where? My Eddie wouldn't break in anywhere.
He's not like that."</p>
<p>Jack put his hand on her shoulder. There was nothing else to say
at a time like this. As far as he was concerned, the boy was dead,
but until he found a body, she would continue to hope.</p>
<p>"No. We're doing our best to find out what happened. I'll get a
car to take you home."</p>
<p>Mrs Visotsky was wailing when her husband and father-in-law led
her out. Ruby Black and Ena Redford were silent, grey, and holding
on to each other as if they might fall. Angus Black walked behind
them, his face set and grim.</p>
<p>John McColl was in the operations room. He followed Jack out to
the car and got in the passenger seat.</p>
<p>"Where to now?"</p>
<p>"Keltyburn," Jack said. "We might have a witness."</p>
<p>He took the back road, avoiding the city traffic, hurling the
car round the ends, straddling the centre line. John McColl looked
at him uneasily.</p>
<p>"Are we in a rush?"</p>
<p>"We missed Tomlin."</p>
<p>"By about four days," John said. "You'll never make that up no
matter how fast you drive." He checked his seat belt, just to be
sure. They pulled in through the ornate wrought iron gates of the
hospital in twenty minutes.</p>
<p>Jed Galt was awake. His mother, a tall woman with big breasts
and blonde hair piled up in a tangle was leaning over the bed
holding her boy's free hand. The other was held away from his body
on a pulley. It was covered in slimy gel and had the colour and
sheen of frog skin.</p>
<p>"He's had an anaesthetic," the ward sister told Jack. "He might
not be much help at the moment."</p>
<p>The two men sat down on the other side of the bed. Jack made the
introductions and the woman let go her grip on her son's hand to
shake theirs.</p>
<p>"We don't know what happened," she said. " I got a call from the
hospital last night. I had to get a taxi."</p>
<p>"Has he said anything?"</p>
<p>"No, he's been sleeping most of the time. He was talking in his
sleep, but it was just gibberish. The nurse said he might be
delirious." She reached forward and felt her son's forehead. He was
a good-looking youngster, with jet black hair not unlike like
Jack's. His eyes were closed and he seemed to be asleep. On his
cheek, there were two angry spots, shiny with gel.</p>
<p>At his mother's touch the boy stirred, and then drowsily opened
his eyes. They rolled dopily for a moment, then seemed to come to
focus.</p>
<p>"What's happening?" he asked tiredly. "What's this place?"</p>
<p>"It's alright Gerald, " Cathy Galt said. "You've had an
accident, but they're looking after you."</p>
<p>The boy's dark eyes swivelled around and saw Jack sitting
opposite his mother.</p>
<p>"Do you feel well enough to tell us what happened?"</p>
<p>He gave a little nod, then winced when it sent a vibration down
his arm.</p>
<p>"I had a terrible dream," he said, voice barely above a whisper.
His eyes darted left and right. "Where's Chalky and Eddie? And
Votek. Are they here?"</p>
<p>"No. They're not. You were found on Castlebank Street last
night. It looked as if you'd been in an accident."</p>
<p>"Accident?" The boy turned to Jack. "No. I was...we were..."</p>
<p>Then his eyes flicked wide open and he came completely awake. He
jerked back against the pillow and his mouth opened as if he was
going to scream, but he just started gasping for air, like someone
who had run just a marathon. His mother patted his hand and told
him it was alright.</p>
<p>"No," the boy moaned. He gave a little shudder and didn't seem
to notice the vibration this time. His eyes were now staring up at
the ceiling and his face had gone rigid. His left hand went into a
spasm and gripped his mother's fingers so hard Jack could hear the
knuckles pop.</p>
<p>"It was...it was chasing us," he finally blurted through
clenched teeth. "It hit Chalky. Hit him right off the ground."</p>
<p>John McColl leaned forward to ask something, but Jack stayed him
with a motion of his hand.</p>
<p>"It came down the wall. I thought it was a shadow. It went all
dark and it came down the wall. It got Chalky, but Votek didn't see
it. He was asking Chalky what he was playing at and the thing came
down. It was like the <em>night</em> moving. So fast, Jesus. It
reached out and hit Votek and his hat came off but it wasn't his
hat, and Votek was standing there and the blood went all over the
place."</p>
<p>The words were getting faster and faster and the boy pushed
himself back against the pillow, as if backing away from what he
was remembering.</p>
<p>"It was coming after us. We climbed up the shelves. Me and
Eddie. He couldn't move and I had to shove him and it was coming. I
could hear it behind me, and <em>oh god</em> it was catching up on
us. We got up to the roof and I got through first and Eddie was
climbing up after me. He could have made it. I had him by the arm
and pulled him and then it came behind him and pulled him back. Oh
man I could hear it. He was looking at me and I could hear it break
him and I couldn't hold him any longer."</p>
<p>The woman on the other side of the bed looked at the two
policemen in a state of confusion. Jack said nothing. The boy had
revved up to full speed. There was no stopping him.</p>
<p>"He went down inside and it got him and then it came out after
me. It was black and it moved so <em>fast</em>. It reached out and
I got the drill. I couldn't stop. It got Chalky and Eddie and Votek
and it was coming for me and I stuck it in the eye. I got that
fucker right in the fuckin' eye. I thought it was a dream, but it
wasn't. It was real, and it was going to kill me, so I drilled the
bastard, and all this stuff came out of its eye and on my hand. I
didn't even feel it until I came down. The drill was all bust. It
was screaming at me. I could hear it inside my head, roaring and
screaming."</p>
<p>"Who was it?" Cathy Galt blurted. "Who did this to you?"</p>
<p>The boy seemed to jerk back to the present.</p>
<p>"What?"</p>
<p>"What was it? Who did it?"</p>
<p>"I don't know Ma. It was too dark. It was black. It looked like
a shadow on the wall, but you could hear it and it smelled like
something had died. But I got it. I drilled it right in its
eye."</p>
<p>"You didn't get a good look?" John McColl asked.</p>
<p>The boy shook his head.</p>
<p>"It was black, and then it opened its eyes. Man, they were big.
Yellow. That was all. When it looked at me, I could hear it, inside
my head. It wanted to eat me."</p>
<p>"So this man killed the others?"</p>
<p>"No. It wasn't a man. I don't know what it was, but it wasn't a
man. It was a fuckin' <em>monster</em>."</p>
<p>The boy twisted his head and started to cry. Big tears came
rolling down his cheeks and dribbled down his face. He turned his
face in to the pillow, away from the two men.</p>
<p>"I'm sorry Ma. We were just having a bit of fun."</p>
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