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<h2>32</h2>
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<p>The screams echoed round the room, desperate and shrill and
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conveying so powerful a fear that everybody visibly flinched. The
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sound cut off abruptly and they could hear the crashing sound of
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twigs being broken, of bracken crackling underfoot. There was a
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thump and an animal grunt which could have been human, could have
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been the sound a desperate woman might make when she fell heavily
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to the ground. A cracking sound of branches breaking. Another thud,
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like a sharp blow.</p>
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<p>A snuffling noise, like a dog in the dark, like a pig rooting in
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the undergrowth followed. It was a somehow unnatural whistle of
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panted breathing. Something, or someone gulped. A thudding sound
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came loud and clear, another hard blow landed against a rough
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surface.</p>
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<p>“No,” Helen’s panic bleated. “Oh God
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no....”</p>
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<p>“Jesus, turn it off.” David bent and put his head in
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his hands. His shoulders were twitching as if he was holding tight
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to prevent himself exploding into violence</p>
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<p>“David,” Helen screamed and he jerked back as if
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garrotted. “Help me. Please. Oh. <em>Help me!</em>” Her
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rending cry reverberated staccato as it bounced from one tree-trunk
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to another, fading all the time before dying completely. They heard
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her try to say something, heard the words choke in her throat.
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Something else snuffled once more like a hungry beast scenting
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prey. There was a harsh cry of pain that ululated high and soared
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to a crescendo, a pure and crystalline shriek of utter agony. It
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climbed to an unbelievable height, sounding more animal now than
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human. It continued for a stretched out minute and then it was cut
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off.</p>
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<p>They could hear frantic breathing and more grunting and that
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could have been anything at all. After a while the sound stopped
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altogether. There was a hard crack, presumably when the handset
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fell, and then a silence that fell like a physical weight. Somebody
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reached to put the recording off. David felt the violent shudder
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inside, a combination of anger and rage and impotent distress. At
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that moment every eye in the room was on him, all of them aware of
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his agony, all unable to reach and touch him at that moment. It was
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something he had to hear.</p>
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<p>“That tells us nothing,” Donal Bulloch said.
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“Nothing of any great help.” He looked at David and
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managed to convey his sympathy and understanding in the same
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glance.</p>
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<p>“Except that she was hunted down and raped.”</p>
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<p>“Oh, it tells us that all right,” Bulloch said.
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“Doctor Robinson tells us the same thing, more or less. The
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tape only lets us know when it happened. If her attacker had
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spoken, we might have got a voice-print. If there had been any
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background noise, we could have got a pattern, maybe even got a
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computer analysis. But there was nothing at all. He never said a
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word. The dogs found nothing at all. There’s no shoeprints,
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scraps of clothing, nothing under her nails. Some blood.”</p>
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<p>David winced, tried not to show it. Everybody in the room saw
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it.</p>
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<p>“<em>It’s hunting me it’s going to get me
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its</em>.....” Her voice continued in his mind. She had
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begged for help and no-one had known where she was.</p>
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<p>“<em>Get away. Get away from me. Oh Jees...”</em>
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Her desperate plea drilled into his head. He wanted to be sick. He
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cold feel the waves of nausea build up and subside again, like
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squeezes of pressure. His head was pounding in a dull, ceaseless
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ache.</p>
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<p>“Bruising and lacerations,” Bulloch continued.
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“No sign semen at all. There’s a possibility there were
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two of them, because she’s been held in a tight grip, hands
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and feet. More than a possibility. There probably were two, or
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more. It’s possible they were disturbed before they
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finished.”</p>
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<p>David kept hearing the dreadful screams. They overlaid
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everything else. Every time Bulloch paused, David could hear the
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frantic, demented shriek. Worse, he could hear the snuffling sound
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as Helen’s legs were forced apart and something sharp and
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spiked had been rammed inside her so hard it had ruptured the neck
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of her uterus and punctured her bowel.</p>
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<p>“I know it’s a tall order, but I’m sure
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you’ll agree that we have to get a description,” The
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Chief told David, keeping his voice even. “She hasn’t
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spoken to anybody at all, and we have to get some response if
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we’re going to find them. It’s possible you might get
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some reaction.”</p>
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<p>David looked at him blankly, trying to get his mind to switch
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off the interminable screaming. He cursed himself for being late,
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condemned himself for not picking up the signs quickly enough. He
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had arrived home, tired from a long day, looking forward to a good
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whisky and the chance to get the chill out of his bones. He parked
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the car, began to wall round the side of the house and stopped. For
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some reason, he turned. Had there been a smell on the air? He
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sniffed. There was a scent of spring growth, perhaps a hint of
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perfume from daffodils and primulas in the next door garden. Maybe
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something else, faint and almost gone.</p>
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<p>The hairs on his arms were crawling again. He could feel them
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brush the fabric of his shirt sleeves. A trickle of sweat ran down
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the sides of his ribs. It felt cold. His heart speeded up and a
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flush of odd, anxious emotion, like a quick anger, twisted inside
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him. He turned, sniffing the air again, recognising this odour yet
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scenting a different smell inside it.</p>
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<p>He was not alarmed, not yet, but the anxious sensation, and a
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new, odd and inexplicable feeling of foreboding, made him walk back
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through the gate. All of his senses, flagging and dragging only a
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moment before, were now wound up instantly to sharp alertness. He
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scanned the little yard, saw Helen’s car parked in the
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corner. There were no lights on in the house.</p>
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<p>He paused for a moment, then turned quickly and ran up to the
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front door. It was locked, and that would be usual if Helen had
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arrived home first. His heart gave a double beat, felt as if it
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turned over inside him. The key rattled on the outside of the lock
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and he cursed at the delay. Finally it slid home, clicked and the
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bolt slid back. He pushed the door open and got inside. It was
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cold. The heating had not been switched on. He called her name and
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the feeling of foreboding swelled blackly within him. She was not
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here.</p>
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<p>David did not hesitate. He went straight back outside,
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forgetting to close the door behind him. He ran to her car, found
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it locked. A breeze shivered the topmost branches of the trees in a
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whisper of sound. He turned, and the street lamp on the corner
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glinted on something on the ground. He bent, found the car keys
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only feet away from the door.</p>
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<p>His heart stopped.</p>
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<p>Two yards away, Helen’s bag was lying close to the hedge.
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It was wide open and the contents had spilled out.</p>
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<p>A dreadful premonition shivered through him. Without hesitation
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he reached for his own handset and called the office. In ten
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minutes four patrols were in the little yard, lights flashing on
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the walls of the surrounding houses.</p>
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<p>The tracker dogs were howling in the trees. One of the searchers
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fond the telephone. It was another six hours before they found
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Helen Lamont, bloody and bruised, huddling at the side of a disused
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boatshed close to the waterway. She had been unable to speak.</p>
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<p>The memory of her bruised and torn body hung with him, hooked
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into his heart, the way the terrible screams on the
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operator’s tape lanced through him. He told Bulloch, in a
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slow, mumbling voice, that he would do what he could. He got up
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from the room and left them, feeling their eyes on him, not caring
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at all.</p>
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<p>Helen was huddled on the bed. The clean white sheets showed up
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the scratches on her face and the bruises under her eyes. Her hair
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was jet-black against the pillow. Her eyes were open, staring at
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the wall. David sat down at the side of the bed.</p>
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<p>“We’ve managed to repair the damage,” Dr
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Robinson had told him. David wanted to kill. Her dark eyes were
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unfocussed, hollow smudges, bereft of their life and fire.
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Helen’s breathing was slow and measured, but every now and
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again, her chest would hitch as if she was about to burst into
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tears.</p>
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<p>The tears did not come. She said nothing.</p>
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<p>He held her listless hand, finding it difficult to comprehend
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the turmoil inside himself. She did not respond to his touch or to
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his presence and that too upset him. Bandages swaddled her wrists
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and her hands, badly scratched and abraded, stayed flaccid and
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flopped, not returning his grip the way they had before. She had
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always been a tactile woman, eager to touch, eager to hold and
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caress. Her hand was cool and the skin dry. Her eyes did not so
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much as flicker.</p>
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<p>He spoke to her, speaking low, leaning close so his words were
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private, just for the two of them. Her pupils remained fixed on
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some point far beyond the wall. He told her he loved her, promised
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her that everything would be fine, that they would be happy
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together. She did not react.</p>
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<p>Helen made no sound at all, except that when David was about to
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leave, she began to hum, very faintly, almost inaudible. A trickle
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of saliva drooled down from her slack lips and he thought she had
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groaned. He turned round, leaned close again, willing her to
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respond.</p>
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<p>She was humming tunelessly. He did not recognise the notes.</p>
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<p>For an instant though, her eyes flickered. She blinked slowly
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and she looked at him. For that instant he thought she was trying
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to reach out to him, to make some sort of contact and he took her
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hand again. Then the expression changed. The eyes slid away. A
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muscle twitched on her cheek, drawing her mouth into a small smile.
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For another instant, for a brief flash of time, David thought he
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had seen that look on someone else.</p>
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<p>It was only when he was leaving the hospital that he recalled
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the last time he had seen the same, almost sly expression on
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another face. It had been when mad old Greta Simon had spoken to
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him in Blane Hospital, when she had begun to hum the old Gaelic
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tune.</p>
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<hr />
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<p>Helen sat in a world of strange and numbing sensations. She was
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Helen Lamont, a part of her understood, but she was more than that.
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It had looked into her eyes and it had connected with her depths
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and in that sharing she had touched them all, all of the past
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ones.</p>
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<p>Her mind had fragmented and shattered and at once she was among
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them, sharing with them all, down through the years, feeling their
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powerful need, needing their powerful presence. They were one. They
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had all had one purpose, driven to it, unable to escape it, but
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there had been a purpose and now it was different.</p>
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<p>Helen had reached into her new memory and had plucked out a song
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that she would sing to herself, and there were other songs, in
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words that she now understood, from far, far back. She hum these
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softly while these others clucked and fussed around her, seen as if
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through gauze curtains, heard as if through fog, part of a
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different world now. She had broken and shattered and fragmented
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and then all the scattered parts had coalesced once more and she
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was alive again.</p>
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<p>He had come to speak to her, murmuring words that she could not
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understand, trying to touch an emotion that she could no longer
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posses, because there was only one emotion. He had touched her hand
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and she could feel her skin crawl. He did not realise how she could
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not bear to be touched any more.</p>
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<p>None of them realised anything at all.</p>
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<p>She blinked slowly, turning away from the light, and turned in
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to herself, listening to the slow beat of her own heart and the
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rhythm of her own cycle.</p>
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<hr />
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<p>June’s parents both came round to David’s house the
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evening after he had been to the hospital and surprised him when
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they asked after their daughter. They had been surprised to learn
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that she and David had split up, for she had not mentioned the
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parting at all. In fact she had continued as if nothing had
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changed. They had wanted to know if she was staying with him, for
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they hadn’t heard from her in a few days. David was irritated
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by their presence, because it reminded him of a dead relationship
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while his own relationship had been shattered by Helen’s
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rape. He held himself in check, because they were a nice couple and
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he’d always liked them. The three of them went round to
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June’s flat, found the place cold and empty, with two
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day’s milk outside the door and two days mail behind it. He
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took them down to the station and helped them fill out a missing
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person report.</p>
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<p>Within himself, however, he harboured dark and irrational
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suspicions. Had June taken a revenge? Had she set Helen up in the
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hope that she could win David back? A miserable, smouldering anger
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started to twist inside him again and he could not quench it.</p>
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<p>The rapists were never found. Neither was June Whalen.</p>
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<p>David spent a couple of hours with Dr Mike Fitzgibbon, the
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psychiatrist who had taken him down to see Greta Simon, what seemed
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like years ago. David was hoping to get some answers.</p>
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<p>“She wants to forget what happened,” Mike told him.
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“It’s the brain’s way of coping with an overload
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of trauma. It is not catatonia, more a withdrawal. I’m sure
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she will pull out of it, with help and therapy and counselling.
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Your division’s got some good rape crisis people.”</p>
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<p>Mike explained David’s own feelings of panic and anger, of
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complete helplessness.</p>
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<p>“It’s another side effect of your own drive. You
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feel the need to protect your mate, and you consider that you have
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failed in that . If there was a visible threat, another human, you
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would fight him, but you cannot see it, only imagine it. Your brain
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is doing the fighting for you because you feel the overwhelming
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need to protect what is yours.</p>
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<p>“You asked me some time ago what sort of woman steals a
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baby and I explained about the mothering need. It is a primitive
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drive, a built-in instinct. Men sometimes have a corresponding
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drive which generally manifests itself after the birth of a child.
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All of these drives are linked to the great fundamental, which is
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more powerful and basic than the day-to-day survival instinct. Our
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whole lives, our very existence, revolves around the compulsion to
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reproduce. Everything is secondary to that, yet everything is
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linked to it. The reproductive urge is the most powerful force on
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the planet. Yours had been threatened, in a very literal sense.
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Humans suffer stress because of that. Helen is suffering enormous
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stress and so are you. The problem with humans is that we can
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think. We are not mindless animals. If we were, it might be
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easier.”</p>
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<p>David still wanted to lash out. He needed a target to hit.
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Something to kill.</p>
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<p>Helen Lamont came out of her fugue state after two days, but
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while she seemed more aware of her surroundings, she remained
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silent and unresponsive. She walked stiffly and painfully, wan and
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bloodless, her eyes huge in her pale face, still focused on the far
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distance. A battle weary soldier would have recognised that
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hopeless look into infinity. She looked more slight, more
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vulnerable than ever. A woman colleague of Mike Fitzgibbon, along
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with two rape specialists, tried to coax the story out of her, but
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Helen, when she spoke at all, haltingly, mumblingly, managed to
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convey to them that she remembered nothing at all. After another
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day, despite David’s panicked protests she signed herself out
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of the hospital. Failing to persuade her, he told her he would take
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her back to his place, which in recent times had become their
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place. She shook her head dumbly Helen refused to go to her
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mother’s house, or her sister’s place where he knew she
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would get love and care. She went back to her own apartment,
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sitting silent in the car as he drove her there, ignoring
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everything on the way, eyes fixed ahead of her. She let herself in
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with her key, easing the door closed on his hurt expression.</p>
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<hr />
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<p>At the beginning of May, two small boys found something in a
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dense coppice four miles along the waterway parkland. They were not
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sure what it was, but they said it had skeleton hands and it might
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be a body.</p>
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<p>David was merely going through the motions, unable to cope with
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what had happened to Helen. She was still unable to return to work
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and she still refused to communicate with him, or, it seemed,
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anyone else. Her mother had called on him, hoping for some help in
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getting through to her daughter, but he was as powerless as she
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was. Helen had simply withdrawn into a shell of her own world, into
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a cocoon of solitude. On the two occasions when she let him into
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her apartment, he picked up a sense of anxiety and more than a
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sense of dumb hostility towards him which he found as painful as a
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physical blow. Her eyes were dull and lustreless and she cocked her
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head to the side, absently listening to some imagined sound. He got
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the impression that she could hardly bear his closeness and only
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wanted him to leave. He wanted her to get medical help, but she
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told him in a flat, listless voice, that she neither wanted it or
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needed it. She only wanted to be alone.</p>
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<p>“What about us?” he asked, clumsily. She looked at
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him as if she did not quite understand. He got no reply to his
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question. In the breaks of conversation, breaks that could stretch
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out into dismal, uncomfortable minutes, she would hum to herself as
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if her mind was roaming elsewhere. Her hair was getting longer, but
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it was losing its shine. She was developing lines at the side of
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her mouth. The bags were still heavy dark curves under her eyes.
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Occasionally she would smile to herself, as if harbouring a secret.
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David wondered if she had simply gone insane. He felt impotent and
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angry and bewildered all at the same time, and added to that was
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the guilt he felt for harbouring such a selfish attitude.</p>
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<p>He tried to throw himself into his work and when the call came
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in that a body had been found in the woods on the parkland, he
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welcomed the chance to get on a case.</p>
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<p>“Over there,” the local policeman said when he
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arrived on the cycle track that shadowed the waterway.
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“Don’t know what the hell it is.” Two small boys,
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both red haired and freckled, obviously brothers, were sitting in a
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police car, looking scared yet puffed up with importance all at the
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same time. David spoke to them first then went into the coppice,
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pushing his way through the bramble runners and dog rose stems
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which clawed and tugged at his coat. Finally he reached the shape
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in the centre of the thicket.</p>
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<p>It looked at first like the decomposed body of a man.</p>
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<p>There was no wind here in the coppice, but the day was warm and
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the smell was overpowering. No direction was upwind. A horde of
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black buzzing flies crawled over the body. A long, thin hand
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reached out to grasp a sapling. The other one was stretched
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overhead, hooked onto a branch. The skin was purple and fluid, as
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if it had been burned or melted. Bones, long and slender, strangely
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gracile and oddly jointed showed through in places.</p>
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<p>“What in the name of Christ is that?” a uniformed
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sergeant who had followed him through the undergrowth wanted to
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know. David heard the man’s harsh gagging as he tried to cope
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with the smell of rot.</p>
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<p>He stepped closer and saw that whatever it was, it was not a
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man. It was more like a spider monkey, in a way, with those
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elongated arms and grasping fingers. The lower limbs were almost
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identical, slender and jointed, almost insectile. For a moment, the
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image of a mantis came to him. The feet were prehensile, each of
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them holding onto an upright stem. It hung there, head down on its
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narrow, ridged chest, an obscene Christ from a <em>Dali</em>
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nightmare. Flies crawled all over its flat face. David risked
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getting closer, shooed them away and they buzzed up in an angry
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cloud. Two wide sockets, each big as a fist, gaped in a flat
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face.</p>
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<p>There was no mouth at all.</p>
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<p>David stood a step back, suddenly nauseated, not so much by the
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smell, but by the dead thing’s hideous appearance. It defied
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the senses in a monstrous assault. It was an obscenity, an
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<em>offence</em> against the natural order of things.</p>
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<p>To David, the rotting carcass was a crime against nature, though
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its shape, thin and angular, was somehow familiar. But for the lack
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of mouth, it was just a larger, more elongated version of the thing
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that he had shoved down into the mud of the canal. Such a thing
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could never exist, not in this world, but it was there, decomposing
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in the shadow of the copse, suspended from the branches, a slender,
|
|
slatted horror with purpling, viscous skin which dripped onto the
|
|
brambles below it. Its proportions were all wrong, yet it looked
|
|
somehow deadly, somehow predatory. He could imagine it stalking,
|
|
like a mantis, like all other mindless creatures.</p>
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|
<p>Between its legs curved a spike which looked like bone. It
|
|
pointed outwards and upwards, a vicious stabbing thing.</p>
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|
<p>Donal Bulloch’s words came back to him. “Something
|
|
sharp and spiked has damaged the walls of her uterus and punctured
|
|
her bowel,” Bulloch had said after the tape had stopped
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|
playing and the silence had echoed with screams.</p>
|
|
<p>As soon as her recalled that, the image of the mantis faded. The
|
|
deadly insects killed only to eat, even to the extent of snatching
|
|
a potential suitor and tearing it to shreds. This thing without a
|
|
mouth was different. As he stared at it, his encyclopaedic
|
|
knowledge of the natural world dredged up for him a picture of a
|
|
male octopus, in a scene captured underwater by the camera of the
|
|
now dead Flora Spiers. It had copulated with the female and after
|
|
the successful fertilisation, its role in life done, it had ceased
|
|
to live. It had completed its purpose and it simply disintegrated
|
|
and died.</p>
|
|
<p>He remembered another picture, taken by himself when he was only
|
|
ten years old, of spent mayfly bodies on the still water of a river
|
|
pool. They had metamorphosed from larvae to emerge as adults for
|
|
their final flight, the incandescence of the breeding dance on the
|
|
summer air. They had fed all their lives and now the feeding was
|
|
over. They had emerged with only one drive, to find a mate. To
|
|
breed. They had no need of mouths, not any more.</p>
|
|
<p>“Oh sweet Jesus,” David muttered. He stumbled
|
|
backwards, his mouth open, eyes fixed on the dripping shape.</p>
|
|
<p>The clawed hands gripped the branches in a death lock. The feet
|
|
were hooked round the slender saplings. David now recognised the
|
|
bruising on Helen’s wrists and ankles.</p>
|
|
<p>And death it showed its living purpose, the stabbing spike
|
|
between its scrawny limbs curved up like a horn. It was only then
|
|
that he realised the cause of the dreadful rending wounds inside of
|
|
her. He stood back, groaning, eyes suddenly blinded by the violent,
|
|
uncontrollable pounding of his heart.</p>
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|
<p>Helen Lamont disappeared that day from her flat. She was never
|
|
seen again.</p>
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