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<div class="section" id="xhtmldocuments">
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<h2>26</h2>
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<p>Sirens whooped and howled like beasts in the gathering night and
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the wind howled along with them, singing in the wires that
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stretched from pole to pole along Jack Park’s home straight
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track. It caught under the eaves of the barn and rattled at the
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slates of the farmhouse roof, whipping off a spindrift of snow and
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leaving miniature cornices along the ridging. The dogs howled in
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sympathy, snapping and snarling at each other from the backs of the
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vans.</p>
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<p>“Useless bastards,” the chief inspector rasped,
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drawing hard on his thin cheroot and blowing smoke down his nose,
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trying to cauterise his nostrils to burn away the stench. Even
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though it was midwinter, the mess Jack Park had left of himself on
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the walls was still putrid. The first wagon with his remains
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wrapped now in plastic was on its way, lights whirling as it
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jounced along the track. Inside the farm, men were measuring,
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dusting, sampling.</p>
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<p>“So who the hell is that?” he demanded, jerking his
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thumb towards the barn.</p>
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<p>“It’s the girl we’ve been looking for,”
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David told him. “At least as far as I can tell. The coat
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matches, plus the shoe and the ring on her finger.”</p>
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<p>Little else matched. The girl’s emaciated body had been
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found sprawled on the tight-packed bales, and if Helen Lamont had
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been the first to see it she would have recognised the ghastly
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twitching in the belly. Sergeant Holleran, who first discovered the
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corpse swore without repetition for almost a minute as he beat with
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frantic flails of his night stick at the scurrying bodies which
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emerged in panic from the hole in the chest cavity. He missed them
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all in the attempt.</p>
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<p>The big, grizzled policeman had swung the flashlight beam round
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and saw her face, mouth wide open and thick with congealed blood.
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There was a gap in the teeth where several were missing and for an
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instant he thought he’d found an old skeleton. He leaned
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forward and saw the crumpled, drying eyes and realised that what
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he’d taken for bone was actually tightly-drawn skin over an
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emaciated skull. The girl’s hair, rat-tailed and filthy, was
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spread out to one side, its golden waves now a bedraggled grey.
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After his quite instinctive and frenzied attack on the scurrying
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rodents, he had taken a good look at the corpse. The woman was
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lying in an old coat, a skirt and a blouse which was rucked up and
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unbuttoned far enough to show a wizened, wrinkled breast. He
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assumed he was looking at the corpse of some old woman who had
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crawled in here to die.</p>
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<p>He clambered down the bales and crossed to the door where he
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shouted to one of his men to fetch the boss. Some time after that,
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David took a look at the body and in that first glance, his
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impression was the same as that of the big jug-eared sergeant. This
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looked like an old crone.</p>
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<p>But she was wearing the same coat that Ginny Marsden had worn.
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One of the shoes were off, leaving a bare foot with toes that had
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been nibbled by the hungry rats. The other was a fashionable winter
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walking shoe with a gold chain on the side. It was the same kind of
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footwear the missing girl had been wearing as she strode into the
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shopping mall. He remembered what other people had said.
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She’d grown older. In ten days, since John Barclay’s
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camera had picked up her lithe walk in the mall, she’d turned
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into a hag. Now she was aa corpse.</p>
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<p>“So she’s not from around here?”</p>
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<p>David shook his head, eyes fixed on the girl. He shivered, but
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not from the cold. Whatever it was that could cause such a drastic
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metamorphosis in such a short time, it was frightening. He
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remembered Hardingwell’s description of the long-chain
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molecular cells in the dead woman’s blood. Could it have been
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this? Had she been carrying a dreadful, wasting disease that
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she’d passed on to the girl?</p>
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<p>Was the baby the vector?</p>
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<p>David shook his head, he’s seen Helen’s face in the
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barn. The blood had drained out of it and she had been shivering in
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shock. She had seen the baby, and that had almost driven her
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crazy.</p>
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<p>What were they now hunting? All he had were questions. He had to
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find the answers.</p>
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<p>Helen came towards them, sipping hot coffee from a polystyrene
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cup. The senior man beckoned them both aside, to the far end of the
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barn. “Right. I think I should know what the fuck’s
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going on here. I want to know what you two are doing on my patch,
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and how the hell you turn up here at this
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slaughterhouse.”</p>
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<p>David told him, speaking quickly. He left out much of it,
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sticking only to the bare bones of the story and omitting all of
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the history. They had been on the trail of a girl who had gone
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missing, and they believed she had stolen a baby. They had traced
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her to Barloan Harbour, to the bed and breakfast run by old Mrs
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Cosgrove. They had followed the constable up the hill on a
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hunch.</p>
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<p>“Some hunch,” Bert Millar said, swinging his eyes
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between them. “And if this is her, where in the name of
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Christ is the baby? Huh?”</p>
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<p>David looked at Helen, she looked back. The Chief Inspector
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looked at both of them. “There’s something you’re
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not telling me,” he said. “I don’t want to be a
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pain in the arse, but I’ve just walked into a madhouse here.
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You know I’ve got three bodies, two of them mutilated and a
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farm full of dead beasts including two wee Scottie terriers who
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look as if they’ve screwed each other to death. Santa Claus
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did <em>not</em> stop here at Christmas with peace and goodwill to
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all men.”</p>
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<p>He paused and smiled without any trace of humour. “Now you
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might think my head zips up at the back, but I’ve been
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running murder hunts since you were on the potty. I can spot a lie
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a mile away and I’m spotting one now. So what you two are
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going to do, is to come with me, sit down, and tell me everything I
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want to know. From start to finish. Because what you’ve said
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so far doesn’t add up to a spoonful of shit as far as
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I’m concerned. You know it and I know it.”</p>
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<p>“It’s difficult,” David started to say, but
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Helen forestalled him.</p>
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<p>“We can tell you,” she said quietly. The scrape on
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her temple looked like a dark wedge close to her hairline.
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“But you won’t believe it.”</p>
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<p>“Well girl,” Bert Millar said. “We’re
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just going to have to see.”</p>
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<p>It was another twenty minutes and two cups of coffee from the
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dispenser in the mobile unit before David finished talking. He took
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the senior officer through the story from day one, from the death
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of he woman they’d assumed to be Thelma Quigley and the later
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discovery of the video shots showing Ginny Marsden who had by this
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time become the subject of Helen’s search. He spoke of the
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puzzling pathology in the autopsy and the inexplicable and
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confusing series of coincidences.</p>
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<p>At the end of it, the Chief Inspector drained his cup and lifted
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his head. “And you believe this? It’s some kind of
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mutant?”</p>
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<p>“It’s getting hard not to,” David finally
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conceded. “We’ve been on her tail for ten days. Heather
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McDougall had a baby and nobody knows where it came from. Ginny
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Marsden took her baby and now she’s dead. Nobody has ever
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really clapped eyes on this baby.”</p>
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<p>“Just the one?”</p>
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<p>“Who knows? There could be several,” David said,
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still instinctively prevaricating. No matter what he believed, he
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was aware of how it would appear. “If there’s just one,
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then it’s some kind of mutant, and it’s damned
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dangerous.”</p>
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<p>“I think it is, Chief,” Helen interjected. “We
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wanted to find her first, to make sure. But I can’t think of
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any other explanation. She’s been here, and now the baby,
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whatever it is, it’s gone.” The only thing she’d
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omitted was the confrontation in the hayloft, and that was only
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because she refused to even let her mind approach that. Every time
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her memory veered I that direction, a wave of panic began to swell
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inside her, threatening to engulf her completely and reduce her to
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a quivering, weeping child.</p>
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<p>“She’s been here,” David backed her up. He
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knew she’d seen another woman with another baby, some other
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<em>thing</em> in her arms, but he sensed, quite rightly that she
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was not willing to share that information with anyone else.
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“And earlier on, I thought I heard something over by that
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loft. There was nothing there by the time I got the door
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open,” he felt Helen tense against him, knowing he was lying,
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“but I’m sure there was. There was movement down by the
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hedge along the edge of the field. I couldn’t make it out,
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for it was snowing by then, and I thought it was best not to give
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chase on my own.”</p>
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<p>“So who could it have been?”</p>
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<p>“I think it could be another woman, maybe even the
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farmer’s wife. There’s no sign of the baby, is there?
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Nobody’s found her yet.?”</p>
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<p>Bert Millar thought about this. He had a long face and beetling
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black eyebrows which every now and again drew down so that his eyes
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were hidden. He looked as if he’d stood out on a lot of crime
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scenes on a lot of cold winters.</p>
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<p>“You say Phil Cutcheon goes along with this?”</p>
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<p>“He gave me the old man’s files,” David said.
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“He says he thinks there’s something wrong. I know
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there’s something wrong. I don’t know the answer, but I
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think we came close to it.”</p>
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<p>“I worked for Phil,” the DCI finally said. “He
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was a straight arrow. Still is, I suppose, and he was never given
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to flights of fancy. But all this gives me a problem. I don’t
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believe in aliens and mutants and I don’t even waste my time
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watching them on television. I’ve never seen a UFO and I
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think Uri Geller’s a crank. That’s just to state my
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position so you know the kind of reports I submit. As far as
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I’m concerned you’ve got a missing baby. I’ve got
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a father and a child killed by some maniac and I’ve got the
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corpse of your runaway girl. I’m going to assume this baby of
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yours has been abducted yet again, because there’s no trace
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of it and there’s no trace of whoever left this place in a
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shambles. Now, until I know better, I’m going on the
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assumption that there’s been some leak, some contamination
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into the water supply. Maybe some old chemicals lying around that
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have killed the livestock, made it abort, and maybe caused some
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aberrant behaviour. That’s my official line and that is how
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this inquiry is going to proceed.”</p>
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<p>He dropped his voice. “But you two crazies had better keep
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on working on your own thing. You’re looking for a missing
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child and at the same time helping me with my investigation because
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the two are linked. I’ll speak to Donal Bulloch and get him
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to spare you for the duration. He’ll go along with that. Now
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believe me, we never had this conversation. I never heard a word
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about sixty year old babies, not a whisper about aliens and
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monsters. Okay?”</p>
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<p>He stood up. “When you heard something, out at the back of
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the hayloft, which direction would you have said it
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went?”</p>
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<p>“Down towards the trees,” David said.
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“Why?”</p>
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<p>“That’s where the dogs went berserk. The handlers
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couldn’t get them past the hedge. They sounded as if they
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were scared shitless.” His brows drew down again, hiding his
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eyes from them. “I think you two should think about where
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this baby might have gone, and who it might have gone with. Your
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right when you say we haven’t found the farmer’s wife.
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If she’s killed her own child and run off with another,
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there’s more of a chance that this really is down to some
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toxic leak. I’d honsestly prefer to believe that.”</p>
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<p>He turned to Helen. “Do you think she did this? Or was it
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the siege of Sunnybrooke Farm? I really want to know, and God help
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me, I’m beginning to think you two might be able to help
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me.”</p>
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<hr />
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<p><em>He heard the dog in the distance.</em></p>
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<p>He knew the frenzied sound from back in his past, so long ago
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that it was lost in the haze of all memories. The animals were too
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far away to pose a threat. The snow was thicker now and he burrowed
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under the mother’s coat, in against her flopping breasts,
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feeling the beat of her heart. It stuttered and staggered along
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with her and he knew she was flagging. He concentrated and goaded
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her onwards. They had reached the old railway, the one which used
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to carry the grain to the Littlebank distillery further beyond
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Bowling Harbour. The spur line had not been used for years, though
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in times past, he had travelled it, huddled against another mother.
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He had no way of recognising it or recalling the mother. It was too
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far away, too far in the past and all their scents and flavours
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merged.</p>
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<p>Some of the sleepers were still on the flat, but most were gone,
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leaving the hardpack grit which was overgrown and matted with moss.
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Most of the line was a pathway, used by small boys on bikes as a
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shortcut along behind the village in the summer. Now it was quiet,
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the sounds muffled by the falling snow. They had been moving for
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half an hour, she pushing along, moving in a swirl of pain and
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exhaustion, through brambles and rose thickets. Her legs were a
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mass of scratches and her twisted ankle kept giving way, but there
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was nothing for it. He had to get to shelter and he had to get to
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other people before she emptied and stopped.</p>
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<p>Almost as soon as he had broken through the ragged confines of
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the old skin, feeling the new surface shiny and slick and rippling
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with the strength of growing muscle, he had felt the start of yet
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another change. It was happening so quickly he had hardly time to
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act. Now he had to be away, away from the howling beasts and away
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from the others who had followed him.</p>
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<p>He recalled the shock that had come out from the female, the
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sudden burst of awareness when he had reached and touched. He had
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stretched out, stroked and felt the <em>rightness</em> of her, the
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ripeness of her, and the new hunger had raged within him. His
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glands had puffed up, filling themselves and the new-grown paart of
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him had swelled in readiness. Blinding sparks had fizzled inside of
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his head and the heat of contact had made all of his muscles quiver
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and vibrate in monstrous anticipation.</p>
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<p>And then he had missed her.</p>
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<p>It had been so close he could have had her, taken her right
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there and then. He could have snatched her and drooped this one to
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the ground with a twitch of his mind, and unbelievably, he had been
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thwarted. His anger swelled and he doused it instantly. She would
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come again and he would be prepared.</p>
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<p>They had come too far for him to be able to sense her now. But
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she had followed him down the days. From one den to another, from
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one hiding place to the next. She had followed him and he knew she
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was important.</p>
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<p>Darkness was beginning to fall now. His own eyes were closed,
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but he could sense it through the mother’s dulled reactions.
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She pushed through a barrage of broom stems, scraping her ankle on
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a gnarled root, ignoring this little pain among so much of it.
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Ahead, over the iron bridge which spanned the canal, barely visible
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in the deepening shadows, was the old station. A dim and distant
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part of Kate Park recognised it. She had played here as a girl,
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climbing the trees with her brothers, and trying to catch fish in
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the small stream which ran parallel to the high track and emptied
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itself into Barloan Canal. That had been a lifetime ago.</p>
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<p>It had been her baby’s brief and incandescent lifetime
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ago. It had been Jack’s lifetime, ended as he spun, twitching
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to the floor. Now she was groping her way along this track with the
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beast that had made her kill him, with the beast that had clambered
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onto the baby’s crib. She was stumbling along and while this
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small, helpless part of herself knew it for what it was, its
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control was such that she clutched its weight against her and felt
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the smooth skin of a new-born baby. The compulsion was so powerful
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that she kept going, despite the rot of her flesh and the
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disintegration of her bones as it took all the succulence from her
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body and used it for itself.</p>
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<p>She reached the old ticket office, almost an exact duplicate of
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the still-used room down in the village where Ginny Marsden had sat
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by the cooling fire, resting for her next move. Here it was cold
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and damp, hidden by tall trees which kept out most of the wind, but
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let the snow billow round the trunks and build up on the west
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facing sides. As soon as she arrived, a family of magpies which had
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been sheltering under the canopy took off into the gloom with loud,
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racketing cries of alarm. Out beyond the track, a stoat sat up on
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its hind legs and sniffed at the air, sensing something more
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mindlessly hungry than its own self. Very quickly and silently, it
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turned and sinuously disappeared into a hole between the roots of a
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thick beech tree.</p>
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<p>The station door was closed, but the lock had long since fallen
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out of the rotted wood and Kate Park’s weight pushed it open.
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Inside, the air smelled of old fires and piss. An ancient mattress,
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helixed with rusted springs, jutted out from the corner near the
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fireplace. It smelled of worse, though Kate was unaware of it. She
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squeezed inside, out of the turbulent wind. Beyond the ticket
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office, through a wide open door, was another small room with a
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bench. The windows here were still intact. Kate stumbled to the
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seat and lowered herself down, eyes wide in the deepening darkness.
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She cuddled the thing in against her and it lowered its mouth onto
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her, taking another feed. She felt herself drain into it, every
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pulsing suck taking more of her, but she was helpless to
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resist.</p>
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<p>After a while her eyes closed and she gave herself to the
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unremitting waves of pain, holding onto them because that was the
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only part of her that was truly her own.</p>
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<p>As the night deepened she sat still, one foot bloated with
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infection and the other twisted to the side where the muscle had
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been wrenched. The layer of fat that had given her the substantial
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round sleekness had gone, sucked out of her and burned by the
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creature’s flaring metabolism. It left her angular and sharp,
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her cheek bones beginning to stand out the way Ginny
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Marsden’s had done. In less than three days, it had robbed
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her not only of her baby and her husband, but her very
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substance.</p>
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<p>And still she could do nothing. It held her tight and drained
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her dry.</p>
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<p>By a miracle, she survived the night, the deeply buried part of
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her re-reeling those deaths on a constant loop.</p>
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|
<p>In the morning, when the sun came up, she came awake from a kind
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of torpor, slowly aware of the sound of howling dogs. It too was
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awake and aware. It heard the dogs and knew that the danger was
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coming. It reached for her and made her move.</p>
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<p>Kate Park tottered to her feet and held the thing tight.</p>
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<hr />
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<p>The autopsies of Jack Park and his daughter Lucy were carried
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out simultaneously with the post mortem on the body in the barn.
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Professor Hartley was called down from St Enoch’s and Simpson
|
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Hardingwell arrived within the hour. By this time, the whole of
|
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Barloan Harbour had been blocked off and Bert Millar’s squads
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were methodically making door to door inquiries.</p>
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|
<p>Hartley got a positive identification on Ginny Marsden less than
|
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an hour after she’d been carried out of the barn, her limbs
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jutting like stiffened sticks. The identification needed dental
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records which were already on hand. Helen Lamont had got them on
|
|
the third day of her search for the missing girl, just in case they
|
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were needed. She hadn’t told the girl’s parents that,
|
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to spare their feelings. Now they would hear the worst. John
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Marsden would face the nightmare of identifying his ruined
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daughters corpse.</p>
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|
<p>Had it not been for the x-ray’s of her upper molars, even
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this first identification would have been difficult, because
|
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Hartley discovered the girl had lost eight teeth in her last few
|
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days. The gaps in the gums were frayed and swollen with infection.
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His notes said that the woman appeared to be middle aged and
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|
extremely emaciated. Apart from the gaping wound in her belly where
|
|
the rats had gnawed a tunnel into her liver, he found she had been
|
|
suffering from acute calcium and collagen deficiency in her
|
|
skeletal structure. Her skin was wrinkled and her hair thinning,
|
|
much of it turned grey. He remembered the woman who had died in the
|
|
mall and reflected on the similarity in their pathology.</p>
|
|
<p>In his notes he wrote: <em>“The inflammation in the
|
|
joints, caused by the abrasion and pitting of the calceous surfaces
|
|
due to bone degeneration, would have caused acute pain. It is
|
|
unlikely that this person was able to walk, at least for any
|
|
distance. Similar deterioration can be seen in the ligaments and
|
|
joints of hands and feet and out seems to have been spreading to
|
|
her skull and pelvis where a marked thinning of the skeletal
|
|
structure is apparent.”</em></p>
|
|
<p>Hartley noted the bite-marks all over the body’s upper
|
|
torso and the scarring of the skin on and around the breasts and
|
|
nipples. There was evidence of lactation, although each breast was
|
|
now wrinkled and empty. Ginny Marsden’s blood was devoid of
|
|
iron and magnesium, zinc and a host of vitamins. Her white cell
|
|
count was huge while the number of red cells was vastly below
|
|
normal. She was seriously anaemic. The muscle of her heart was thin
|
|
and the aorta had already become porous, leaking her dilute blood
|
|
slowly into her chest cavity. The mucosal membrane of her trachea
|
|
and throat had been stripped clean. Some of the bloody lining had
|
|
already been found on the hay of the barn. Simpson Hardingwell, the
|
|
microbiologist confirmed the presence of large polypeptide
|
|
molecules and clusters of unfamiliar cells which later proved to
|
|
contain unidentifiable chains of genetic DNA cells. Hartley
|
|
concluded that Ginny Marsden had died from blood loss and oxygen
|
|
starvation possibly caused by an unknown viral infection.</p>
|
|
<p>Simpson Hardingwell took samples of the cell material for later
|
|
study. Despite being kept frozen in liquid nitrogen, the clusters
|
|
of cells fragmented, spilling their genetic sugar-chains into a
|
|
soup of amino acids as soon as the samples were unfrozen.
|
|
Subsequent attempts to identify the cells proved fruitless.</p>
|
|
<p>The autopsy on Jack Park was easier. He died from shock and
|
|
haemorrhaging caused by the two gunshot wounds, first to his hands
|
|
and arms and then to his side which took away one kidney, some of
|
|
his liver and half of a lung.</p>
|
|
<p>The baby, little Lucy Park, only five weeks old, had died from
|
|
blood loss. The cause of that was more difficult to determine. The
|
|
pathologist found a small and roughly circular gash in her neck
|
|
where the flesh had been cut away. The striations on the skin and
|
|
muscle showed a scouring pattern unlike an animal bite. In fact it
|
|
was unlike anything in the experience of the young pathologist who
|
|
was working in the room next to Hartley. He wondered if there might
|
|
be some kind of farm implement which could have drilled such a
|
|
hole. Tests on the few centilitres of blood left in the tiny body
|
|
showed a type of anti-coagulant similar in chemical structure to
|
|
the kind produced by leeches to prevent clotting. He could give no
|
|
opinion as to how the substance was introduced to the body, other
|
|
than in a kind of bite. He was unable to offer an opinion as to
|
|
what kind of creature would bite in such a fashion or be the vector
|
|
of the blood-thinning compound.</p>
|
|
<p>While the autopsies were being carried out in the basement of
|
|
Lochend Hospital, Bert Millar had set up his incident caravan down
|
|
in the centre of Barloan Harbour, close to the railway station and
|
|
his teams were out knocking on doors. Jack and Helen had been
|
|
seconded, with the agreement of Donal Bulloch. The dog teams had
|
|
tried again up at the farm but the animals were unable to function
|
|
properly. They were confused and agitated, and none of them, it
|
|
seemed, could be persuaded to go down to the woods at the bottom of
|
|
the slope.</p>
|
|
<p>Two teams of searchers combed the thick belt of trees until
|
|
darkness fell and found nothing on the stretch between Middle Loan
|
|
farm and the railway line. The Chief Inspector posted guards on the
|
|
upper perimeter on the assumption that anybody leaving the town,
|
|
east or west, by road or rail, would be picked up. The road blocks
|
|
stayed on until the following afternoon.</p>
|
|
<p>Nothing turned up, except a poacher called Snib McFee, who was
|
|
ambushed by two big policemen as he came scuttling quickly down
|
|
through the trees beside the canal just before sunrise. The
|
|
unfortunate Snib was running at full tilt along the path and had
|
|
not expected a welcoming party, as was clear from the look on his
|
|
face as soon as the hand clamped upon his shoulder. The flashlight
|
|
beam caught his look of utter terror. His hand went to his chest,
|
|
and if the light had been better, his face would have been seen to
|
|
go a sickly bluish colour as he gasped for breath. The sack with
|
|
four hen peasants, all of them winter-plump fell to the ground with
|
|
a thump and Snib almost did the same.</p>
|
|
<p>“Holy mother of...” he gasped, hauling for breath.
|
|
“I’m having a fuckin’ heart attack.”</p>
|
|
<p>The burly policeman didn’t even hear the protest. All he
|
|
knew was that a killer was on the loose, a maniac who had shot a
|
|
man and killed his baby and he was taking no chances. Heart attack
|
|
or not, he was in no mood to take any chances. He swung his boot,
|
|
caught Snib in the crotch with such force that the small man, one
|
|
of a large family of poachers who plagued the landowners for a
|
|
radius of twenty miles, was lifted three inches above the path. He
|
|
doubled over, fell to the ground with both hands between his legs.
|
|
He was suddenly, violently sick. The policeman grabbed him by the
|
|
collar, dragged his hands away and cuffed them.</p>
|
|
<p>“Check the bag,” he rasped, hardly daring to take
|
|
his eyes off the gasping man. “If there’s a body in it
|
|
I’m going to cave this bastard’s head in.”</p>
|
|
<p>The pheasants rolled out heavily, their necks twisted at odd
|
|
angles.</p>
|
|
<p>It was to be more than an hour before Snib McFee finally got
|
|
someone to listen to him and by that time his testicles had swollen
|
|
to such an extent that he thought they might burst. Sergeant
|
|
Holleran wanted to lock him up, being the local cop and bearing the
|
|
considered opinion that poaching was just one degree beneath
|
|
treason in the eyes of the law. He and Jack Park had gone fishing
|
|
together up in the tarns on the hillside in the summer months.
|
|
He’d sat out on many a night trying to catch the McFee
|
|
boys.</p>
|
|
<p>A valuable hour was wasted before anybody listened to what the
|
|
little poacher had to say.</p>
|
|
<hr />
|
|
<p>Snib had been after the pheasants at Wester Farrow estate where
|
|
shooting parties gathered every autumn and winter for some of the
|
|
best woodland pheasants and high-moor grouse. The land was fenced
|
|
and well patrolled, but the quick and the brave could get in, snare
|
|
a couple of pheasants as they roosted in the branches of a thicket,
|
|
and be out again long before anybody noticed. It was simple enough.
|
|
The pheasants never flew at night, and a noose of wire on the end
|
|
of a pole would bring them down without a sound as they slept and
|
|
the birds would buy drinking money for any long weekend.</p>
|
|
<p>He’d heard the barking of the dogs in the distance, a
|
|
couple of miles west at Middle Loan, but he paid them no heed. Big
|
|
Jack Park was probably out for the foxes, and maybe even he’d
|
|
persuaded the gamekeeper at Wester Farrow to come along for the
|
|
fun. Snib preferred to hunt what he could eat or sell.</p>
|
|
<p>In and out. He’d been quick and he’d been quiet.
|
|
Just a flash of light from his maglight and another bird would come
|
|
down. Four was enough for a night. It had been cold and the wind
|
|
had shaken the trees in the early hours of the morning, dropping
|
|
the canopy of snow down in flurries and cascades which sounded like
|
|
footfalls in the dark. The dark did not bother Snib. It was his
|
|
cover. In and out without a sound.</p>
|
|
<p>He came down through the pines, following the edges of the
|
|
forest and the high fence until he came to the break he and his
|
|
brother had cut weeks before, hidden by a clump of rhododendrons.
|
|
Through that and into the beech forest, he had only a mile or so to
|
|
home if he used the railway track. Down on the level, he followed
|
|
the straight of the disused spur-line, his feet now silent on the
|
|
thick snow that had managed to get down through the trees. The wind
|
|
was still strong, rattling the bare twigs high overhead, but down
|
|
on the track he was protected from the worst of it. The pheasants
|
|
were still warm against his back.</p>
|
|
<p>He reached the old station, cupping a cigarette in his hand, and
|
|
followed the slope up to the abandoned platform. Here, it was more
|
|
exposed and he went round the side of the old ticket office and
|
|
stood in the lee for a moment, drawing hard on the smoke and
|
|
looking forward to the sharp burn of a dram of whisky when he got
|
|
home. He finished his smoke, hefted the sack again and turned round
|
|
the corner, into the wind, passing the shuttered window which
|
|
rattled softly in the bluster. He was just beyond the window when
|
|
he heard the noise.</p>
|
|
<p>He froze, one foot still suspended in the air, the way he would
|
|
while poaching, if he suspected the keeper was close. One wrong
|
|
foot in the forest could crack a twig and draw attention.</p>
|
|
<p>Snib froze, but at the same time, all the hairs on the back of
|
|
his neck suddenly crawled and the skin down his back puckered in a
|
|
cold twist.</p>
|
|
<p>The noise was just a groan, hardly heard above the whine of the
|
|
wind through the branches, but it had stopped Snib in his tracks.
|
|
Very slowly, he put his foot down onto the overlay of soft snow on
|
|
the platform, making not a sound. His heart had speeded up, quite
|
|
inexplicably, and something inside him wanted him be off and away
|
|
along the track. Snib was a creature at home with the night, and at
|
|
home with the trees in winter. Perhaps that gave him an added
|
|
sense, an alertness to threat or danger. Whatever it was, it gave
|
|
him a chill ripple of alarm.</p>
|
|
<p>Despite that, when the soft groan, a noise like a whimper, came
|
|
again, he could not prevent his feet from taking him back two steps
|
|
towards the window. He leaned towards the dusty glass which after
|
|
all the years of abandonment was still intact. Inside, it was black
|
|
as tar. He caught a flicker of his own reflection looming out at
|
|
him and started back in alarm. The feeling of sudden menace
|
|
inflated.</p>
|
|
<p>The sound came for a third time, a little louder and he could
|
|
not resist peering back again. He drew out the little torch and
|
|
twisted it until the bream shone, then raised it to the class. What
|
|
he expected, he could not have said. Maybe a fox, bleeding from a
|
|
gin-trap bite, possibly even a roe deer trapped inside. He swung
|
|
the thin beam round, following its pallid disc on the far wall, a
|
|
small moon arcing across the flat blank sky. It passed a dark
|
|
shape, moved on. He snapped it back.</p>
|
|
<p>The noise came again, that eerie, low moan and this time the
|
|
ripple down his back was a physical shudder of apprehension. A
|
|
dread sense of inexplicable danger settled on his shoulders. Yet
|
|
still he peered in. The torch beam flicked back onto the shapeless
|
|
huddle.</p>
|
|
<p>The woman’s face stared blindly at him. The light
|
|
reflected back from bloodshot eyes, making them look eerily pink
|
|
and somehow blind. Her mouth was open, slack and imbecilic. For a
|
|
moment he thought she was dead until she moved and the moan escaped
|
|
her. Despite the alarm, Snib almost called out to her, for, poacher
|
|
though he might be, he was not a bad fellow and would never leave
|
|
anyone, human or animal, lying hurt.</p>
|
|
<p>He almost called out to her, until he saw something move just
|
|
under her chin. He lowered the beam and saw she was holding a
|
|
bundle of cloth up against herself. She blinked and in the dark the
|
|
torchlight caught the glint when her eyes opened again.</p>
|
|
<p>It was a baby, Snib realised and he let out a long breath. Just
|
|
a baby. She was holding the bundle against herself the way a mother
|
|
does with a child, keeping it warm. He raised the light to her face
|
|
again, wondering what the hell a woman was doing out in the
|
|
abandoned spur line station in the dead of a winter’s
|
|
mooring. The light caught her eyes and in that moment they stared
|
|
right at him and the look they conveyed was one of absolute and
|
|
utter loss. Instantly the sensation of menace fell on him again. He
|
|
lowered the light once more and saw the baby’s head squirm
|
|
round as if it was trying to free itself from the shawl. The cloth
|
|
fell away.</p>
|
|
<p>A wrinkled forehead puckered and a thick lid opened. A large,
|
|
flat, red eye stared into his and he felt a dreadful jolt of
|
|
baneful contact through the glass. Snib’s heart somersaulted
|
|
into his throat. He jerked back and the flashlight flicked out. The
|
|
pane of glass went black.</p>
|
|
<p>Snib took one step backwards, breathing hard. His foot slipped
|
|
on the snow and he went down on one knee. Just as quickly he was
|
|
back up again. Inside the ticket office he could hear a muffled
|
|
thumping sound and then a pattering scrape. It sounded like
|
|
dog’s nails on a hard floor. He reached out a hand to steady
|
|
himself, turning once again towards the window.</p>
|
|
<p>A nightmare face pressed up on the other side of the glass. Two
|
|
great red eyes bored into his. He saw a wrinkled demon face and a
|
|
round, puckered little mouth with thin, warted lips that pulled
|
|
back over a circle of glassy shards. In that instant he believed he
|
|
was looking at a devil from hell.</p>
|
|
<p>“Oh mammy,” he yelped, unaware that he had made a
|
|
sound, and oblivious of the fact that at the age of thirty, he had
|
|
reverted to the language of his childhood when he had called on his
|
|
mother to protect him from any hurt.</p>
|
|
<p>On the other side of the thin glass, the little beast glared at
|
|
him. A grey, thin hand came up and scratched at the pane and the
|
|
lips wavered back from the circlet of teeth. Inside that circle the
|
|
light flashed on another set of spines. For a second he thought he
|
|
must be going mad.</p>
|
|
<p>Then, behind the glaring nightmare face, he heard a
|
|
woman’s loud and hollow cry, a sound so pitiful and desperate
|
|
that even on the crest of his sudden primitive fear it touched a
|
|
chord within him and he knew he had heard the cry of the
|
|
damned.</p>
|
|
<p>The thing turned, showing him a flat profile and a receding jaw
|
|
topped by that alien, rounded mouth. As soon as its attention had
|
|
swept away from him, he could move again. Without a thought and
|
|
without a sound, Snib was off and running. He slipped on the snow
|
|
on the far slope of the old platform, rolled, got to his feet,
|
|
trying to keep the scream inside of him. He scurried along the
|
|
track, as fast as his feet could take him and if he’d been
|
|
thinking at all, he’d have dropped the sack, but his dread
|
|
was so great, the fear of a gargoyle-faced devil coming after him
|
|
through the dark of the trees, that the thought never crossed his
|
|
mind. He went haring along the track until he reached the turn,
|
|
threw himself to the left, feet thundering on the hard-pack under
|
|
the beech trees and raced downhill, narrowly missing all of the
|
|
tree-trunks on the slope. His breath panted, loud as the old steam
|
|
trains that had once run on the old line and his heart was kicking
|
|
like a horse inside his ribs. There was no sound behind him, but he
|
|
dared not stop to look. All he wanted to do was get home and lock
|
|
the door and get up to is bed and pull the blankets over his head
|
|
and wait until light.</p>
|
|
<p>Then a hand came reaching out of the shadows to clamp upon his
|
|
shoulder and Snib truly thought he was going to die on the spot.
|
|
When the foot came up and smashed into his groin, the pain was so
|
|
great that he hoped he would die.</p>
|
|
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