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<h1>16</h1>
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<p><em>Interlude:</em></p>
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<p>"The trail had gone cold by the time we really started looking,"
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Angus McNicol explained. "By God, it was difficult then and the
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whole town was in a panic. People were sending their kids away,
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rather than have them around here, and nobody could blame them.</p>
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<p>"What threw us was the fact that the Rankine boy had fallen off
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the quarry and at first it looked just like an accident. There were
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always boys coming off the Castle ramparts or the Langmuir Crags,
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risking life and limb for the sake of birds eggs. You'll have done
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the same eh?"</p>
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<p>His face broke into a knowing smile before he cocked an eye at
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the spinning reel in the Dictaphone and started talking again.</p>
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<p>"We didn't start the search for young Whalen until night and we
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got the floodlights set up. It was well after midnight by the time
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the frogmen came. The dogs had scoured the whole of the quarry and
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there was no sign of the boy, but that didn't mean he wasn't there.
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Then there was the business with that boot and the severed foot
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which gave that frogman a right old scare.</p>
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<p>"Anyhow, it was back down to the station in the early hours of
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the morning. We were coming round to the notion that the other boy
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hadn't fallen and maybe he'd had such a scare when his friend
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tumbled that he'd taken off in a panic. So, at that moment, we had
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a missing boy who had probably made himself missing. He'd be out at
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some friend's place, or hiding in a gang hut and he'd come home
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when he got hungry and even more scared..</p>
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<p>"Then Hector Kelso came in now that the boy had been gone for
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well over twelve hours.</p>
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<p>"Hector got a brief from the inspector. I remember he listened
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with a straight face. He asked where the boy's bag was, and said
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that if young Rankine had been dodging off school, then he'd likely
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have his bag with him unless he'd stashed it someplace. We did
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another search of the place and that took us the rest of the day. I
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could see Hector Kelso was getting worried, for Whalen never turned
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up on the second night and I spent a bit of time with the boy's
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mother. That's not a pleasant job, I can tell you. As every minute
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ticked away, you could see her nerves getting wound up tighter and
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tighter. There was something in her eyes that I'll never forget,
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and I swear to you that it was beginning to dawn on her, long
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before it dawned on anybody else with the exception maybe of Kelso,
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that she would never see the boy again. Not alive, that is.</p>
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<p>"Then Crawford Rankine came round in the hospital. "The boy had
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a fractured skull and for a while they thought his brains would be
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like porridge in there, but he was pretty clear about what had
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happened. He told us about the railway wagon and how he'd been
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chased and had gone running. He remembered the man all right.</p>
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<p>"I recall thinking the boy had a stammer. He was saying
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<em>twi-twi-twi</em> like a sparrow with a stutter. Took me a
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second to work out he was trying to say <em>Twitchy Eyes</em>..
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He'd known who was chasing him.</p>
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<p>"We got back to the hill behind the school and down that track
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between the pigeon shacks, Kelso, myself, big John Fallon and a
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couple of others. I remember a big beast of a terrier trying to get
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at us through the fence and later Fallon had it put down, for there
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was a big septic ulcer on its nose where it had been pushing
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through the wire. We went down to the hut and inside we saw the
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blood handprint and all of us knew then that the killer had taken
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young Whalen away. The boy was gone and the next week was murder I
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can tell you, in more ways than one. By the next morning there was
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a team of pressmen camped outside the station and you couldn't move
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for flashguns popping in front of your eyes.</p>
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<p>"That was in June, fairly close to the beginning of the month.
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Three dead, including young Whalen, all of them in the space of a
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couple of months or so. We had a pretty good so we had a fair idea
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of what the bastard looked like. The fingerprints matched the other
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sites and again there were pages of the bible crumpled about and
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not to clean either. Hector Kelso never liked the notion of anybody
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wiping his arse on the good book."</p>
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<p>Angus raised his eyebrows. "Some folk seemed to think that made
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it even worse, but as far as I was concerned it was only paper, and
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it was a clue. Anything was a clue, but despite that, the trail
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went cold very soon and Bryce, the criminal psychologist started
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talking about <em>burn-out</em>, saying that the killer could be so
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filled with remorse that he'd killed himself. Hector Kelso didn't
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put much stock in that, and neither did I, as I've said before. He
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said Bryce was talking through a hole in his backside. But the
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killings <em>did</em> stop. For the next month or so there was
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nothing, at least as far as we knew, and even Kelso could have been
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forgiven for relaxing a little at the end of July.</p>
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<p>"Then, sometime in August, just before the schools went back,
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Johnson McKay went up Blackwood Farm to find out why Ian McColl
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hadn't been picking up his mail from the box and the solids really
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hit the <em>punkah</em>, as the Commander used to say. What a
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mess."</p>
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<p>Angus stopped talking and rubbed his chin. He dunked a biscuit
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in his coffee, took a bite, washed it down with a mouthful and
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started talking again.</p>
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<p>"By this time, of course, we knew what happened to Whalen and we
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knew about the girl, and that took us by surprise. It must have
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been ten days later, less than a fortnight after the boy went
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missing. Once I've looked out my old papers from up in the loft
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I'll be able to tell you exactly.</p>
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<p>"We knew nothing about the girl until we found her, for she'd
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never been posted missing. "Sandra Walters, her name was. She was
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nineteen and came from Lochend, as you'll probably remember. By the
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time we found her, she'd been dead about two weeks, which means she
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was killed sometime in May, near the end of the month, and that
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figured with the story we got from the family. Some big argument
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with her father and she walked out. Now I was in on it when we
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questioned them, in a tenement flat about a hundred yards down from
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the railway station, I recall. Donald Walters, I remember thinking
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there was something funny about him. It was only after the body was
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found that the mother came to us to say she was missing and it was
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the dental records that finally confirmed who it was, for the face
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was pretty much eaten away by the flies and the rats.</p>
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<p>"Walters said she'd stormed out, but there was more to it than
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that. I got to know the look the more I worked on the force. There
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were three girls, two of them still in the house, about fifteen and
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thirteen, and the wife, she had the look of a mouse caught in a
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corner. The girls never looked at anybody, just sat there, heads
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down, scared to move, it seemed. Waters was cocky enough, a fast
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talking, skinny little runt of a fellow, and he was adamant the
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girl was a whore who'd been putting it about and he for one wasn't
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having any of that.</p>
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<p>"Now when the post mortem was done, there was plenty of evidence
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to show that the girl was no virgin. Dr Bell found old scarring on
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the walls of the uterus which he said was classic evidence of
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unlubricated sex, or forced entry as he described it unofficially.
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We couldn't put anything down to Donald Walters at the time and it
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was pretty clear he hadn't killed his daughter, but Hector Kelso
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was pretty suspicious. The other girls said nothing and the wife,
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well she would have backed up everything he said. He hung himself
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from the rafters nine months afterwards, and I had a notion Kelso
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had been leaning on the little bastard and I can't blame him for
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that. There was something queer about Walters. After that the
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family moved away.</p>
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<p>"Young Sandra, she'd been hirt bad. Awful. It didn't affect me
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as much as little Lucy Sunders broken and torn under the bridge,
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but this was bad. You'll get the details in the archives, and the
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pictures too, if you've the stomach for them. She's been terribly
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damage, and she had lasted a long time. Dr Bell showed us the marks
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around her ankles and wrists and the scarring on her throat where
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she'd pulled against a ligature. She broke the fuckin' rope. Pardon
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me for that, but after all this time I still don't like rememebring
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that."</p>
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<p>Angus paused again, his eyes inflamed with the recollection of
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the dreadful damage. He absently took another swallow of coffee and
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swirled it around in his mouth as if it would take away the
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taste.</p>
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<p>"Now there was another thing we knew about <em>Twitchy
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Eyes.</em> He was crazy and he was evil and he liked to cause pain.
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But he also waited around with the bodies, sitting vigil with them,
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for at least three days, probably more. By then, they'd be pretty
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well blown and that didn't seem to bother him.</p>
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<p>"He waited until the maggots had hatched. He stayed until they
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were covered in flies."</p>
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<hr />
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<p><em>June:</em></p>
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<p>A match flared in the dark, blinding bright, cut a flaming arc
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in the blackness and stopped. Don Whalen watched it waver through a
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film of tears as his eyes watered. They trickled hot down his
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cheeks and ran cold onto his neck. The light floated and a
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candle-flame swelled slowly to life, hardly flickering at all. He
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blinked away the tears, trying to stay still, wishing his heart
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would stop thudding against his chest. His shoulder shrieked with
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every movement he made and his throat was on fire.</p>
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<p>He had listened to the sirens, huddled against the wall of the
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boxcar. The man had been there, a silent presence in the gloom, his
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breathing low and slow and unhurried. The sound of it carried
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infinite menace. Don tried to call out, tried to say something, but
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the pain in his throat burned in a caustic rasp and all he could
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manage was a hoarse whisper. It felt as if something was broken in
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there where the hand had squeezed him. The longer the silence went
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on, the more frightened Don Whalen became. He couldn't understand
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any of this. But the deadly silence was somehow even more
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frightening than the pain.</p>
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<p>The sirens had wailed in the distance, howling urgency and
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emergency. They'd stopped for a while and then they'd started up
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again, rising to a crescendo as they passed along Lochend Road,
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before fading as they got to the old bridge. The silence had
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descended then, broken only by the fluttering of pigeon flocks as
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they took off from the nearby huts, and by the savage rumbling
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growl of the pit bull terrier, like a leopard in a bush. Much
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later, the bell had rung and there had been shouts and calls and
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the sounds of school spilling out. A crowd of boys came down the
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track, made the terrier snarl and pound the fence, and then they
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went on their way. The man had gone out, opening the door quickly
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and rolling it closed. When he came back, some time later, the said
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nothing at all. He roughly grabbed Don about the waist, dumped him
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on the flat of the wagon and quickly wrapped him up tight in a roll
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of something that might have been an old carpet. He felt himself
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being picked up and slung over a broad back and carried away. The
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material covered his eyes and he couldn't tell whether it was day
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or night. Don could hear the twigs crackle underfoot and he knew he
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was in trees. There was some traffic noise close by and he figured
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he was being taken along Lochend Road, but through the belt of
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trees that bordered the winding route to the west side of the town.
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Out of the trees, he sensed the clamber over rough ground and then
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the descent down a flight of stairs. A door squealed open and Don
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Whalen was lowered to the flat surface.</p>
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<p>He was still wrapped tight in a rough bundle of thick material,
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slanted across a flat surface against a wall. Strong hands unrolled
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it. He felt his clothes ripped away from him until the cool air
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told him he was naked. The hands pushed him down onto a chair and
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then very quickly bound his hands behind him and tied his feet to
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upright posts that felt like chair legs. The smell in the air was
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dreadful, sickening and thick. The pain in his throat stopped him
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from retching.</p>
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<p>The match flared and a dark shape moved out of the light, and a
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faint humming sound rose stronger. Black stars floated in front of
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his eyes and for a moment he thought he was going to pass out
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before he realised they were not stars, but flies hundreds of them
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wheeling in the air, disturbed by the light. He turned his head,
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just a little, trying to see the man, scared to let his eyes light
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upon him, deadly afraid of him taking him unawares again. His eyes
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swept round.</p>
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<p>The thing on the table screamed silently at him.</p>
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<p>For a second his mind refused to accept what it had seen. His
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eyes continued their sweep and then jerked back at the shape on the
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table. A catastrophic fright exploded inside him and his heart
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kicked violently behind his ribs, one solid <em>thump</em> that was
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so powerful his body spasmed sideways.</p>
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<p>The head was twisted at the end of a scrawny neck and the mouth
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was open so wide it looked inhuman. An arm, grey in the dim light
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and bruise-mottled was stuck out straight, the fingers clawed.</p>
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<p>Absolute terror rocketed through him. He was trembling
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violently, shuddering as uncontrollable fear rampaged through him,
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making his head tap against the wall in a rapid staccato. The eyes
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were crawling with flies. The skin shimmered and rippled with a
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life of its own.</p>
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<p>The dead body's silent scream went on and on and on and the
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flies crawled over the skin. Don bucked against the string binding
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his wrists as the realisation hit him. He had been brought here by
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the man who had done that. His muscles convulsed in a violent
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contortion powerful enough to drive the thick twine into the skin
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of his wrists and open up two abraded lacerations.</p>
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<p>He heard himself gibbering uncontrollably, incomprehensibly,
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though hardly a sound escaped his throat. In his mind he called out
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for his mother and his father and he prayed to God to get him out
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of this and all of the time he knew there was no way out.</p>
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<p>The horror on the table screamed on and on and on and Don Whalen
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echoed that scream in his own mind. After a while the overload of
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terror and dread was too much and he passed out in a dead faint,
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banging his head against the wall, to leave yet another clue for
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Superintendent Hector Kelso.</p>
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<p>When he came round he was lying on the table and the man was
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leaning down towards him. The eyes were blinking rapidly and Don
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Whalen dimly realised this was something he should remember.</p>
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<p>He felt rough hands on him and tried fruitlessly to squirm away,
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His legs were spread-eagled and he knew his ankles were tied to the
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legs of the table and he felt a huge scream building up inside him.
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He twisted his head and saw the other scream, frozen and fly-blown,
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only a yard away, slanted against the back of the chair. The flies
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hummed busily and Don Whalen's pain began.</p>
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