mirror of
https://gitlab.silvrtree.co.uk/martind2000/booksnew.git
synced 2025-01-11 20:55:08 +00:00
508 lines
26 KiB
HTML
508 lines
26 KiB
HTML
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
|
|
<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.1//EN"
|
|
"http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml11/DTD/xhtml11.dtd">
|
|
<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" xml:lang="en">
|
|
<head>
|
|
<meta name="generator" content=
|
|
"HTML Tidy for Windows (vers 14 February 2006), see www.w3.org" />
|
|
<title>14</title>
|
|
<link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="imperaWeb.css" />
|
|
<link rel="stylesheet" type=
|
|
"application/vnd.adobe-page-template+xml" href=
|
|
"page-template.xpgt" />
|
|
</head>
|
|
<body>
|
|
<div id="text">
|
|
<div class="section" id="xhtmldocuments">
|
|
<h1>14</h1>
|
|
|
|
<p><em>June:</em></p>
|
|
|
|
<p>In the dark he could hear his own breathing, a watery snuffle.
|
|
He could feel wet on his cheek and the dull throb that told him
|
|
he'd been cut, but as yet there was no pain there. Not for now. The
|
|
memory of pain hovered close in the darkness, but it was hard to
|
|
remember anything else.</p>
|
|
|
|
<p>He'd been with Crawford and Derek. No, not Derek; <em>he'd</em>
|
|
gone back on the other side of the fence, gone back to school.
|
|
Crawford had been there. Where was he now?</p>
|
|
|
|
<p>He tried to think, but it was difficult. The dark wavered and
|
|
broke up into small spangles of light when the numb dizziness came
|
|
swirling in on him again. Going fishing. Taking the day off to cast
|
|
a spinner in the river and test that big run of sea trout. Down the
|
|
path, teasing the dogs, then through the corrugated sheet fence and
|
|
past the tall weeds. The door had squealed open and he'd looked in
|
|
and something had - <em>a man</em> - grabbed him. Hit him. It had
|
|
happened so quickly that he hadn't even had time to react. Crawford
|
|
had said something. The noise had come from the shadows. An image
|
|
of balloon-like breasts hovered there on the wall and then the
|
|
looming shape coming out of the dark.</p>
|
|
|
|
<p>The pain had been unbelievable. The shadow had slashed out and
|
|
hit him right on the side of the head and the whole world had
|
|
exploded into a fountain of whirling sparks. The pain had punched
|
|
from one side of his skull to the other as his head smacked against
|
|
the wooden planks. Another explosion, more fiery, more volcanic
|
|
than the first, blossomed in a burst of heat and hurt.</p>
|
|
|
|
<p>"Look at the ti..." Crawford had said and then he'd stopped. To
|
|
Don he had sounded suddenly far away in the distance.</p>
|
|
|
|
<p>Something had him by the neck but there were sparks bursting in
|
|
front of his eyes and he couldn't see. All he could feel was the
|
|
pain in his head and the rolling nausea bubbling up inside him.
|
|
There was a pressure on his neck and he was flying into the air. He
|
|
could remember his eyes, blind with the whirling lights, bulging in
|
|
their sockets and he recalled the collapsing sensation of his
|
|
windpipe.</p>
|
|
|
|
<p>The pain in his throat was coming back now and his head was
|
|
throbbing. The metallic smell of blood was in his mouth and his
|
|
nose and when he tried to cry out he found he couldn't make a
|
|
sound.</p>
|
|
|
|
<p>Where was Crawford? Had something happened to him?</p>
|
|
|
|
<p>He tried to move but his shoulder screeched with pain so badly
|
|
that the little lights started orbiting in the dark again. Outside,
|
|
out there beyond the door, the angry sound of dogs barking started
|
|
up. Somebody yelled and another boy laughed.</p>
|
|
|
|
<p><em>Crawford</em>? Was he and Derek coming back? He turned and
|
|
smeared a trail of blood on the floor.</p>
|
|
|
|
<p>Somebody rattled a stick along a taut wire, making it jangle.
|
|
The greyhounds started up their hysterical barking once more.</p>
|
|
|
|
<p>"Skinny big buggers," a boy's voice bawled. Another boy
|
|
sniggered again. Not Crawford, not Derek. A metal sound, like a tin
|
|
can banged against something hard, rang out tunelessly. The dogs
|
|
went into a frenzy. He could hear the thud of running feet and the
|
|
whoops of schoolboys, sounding just like himself and his pals, but
|
|
they were out there, running up the track he had come down. They
|
|
were heading back to school and he was, he was...</p>
|
|
|
|
<p>The bit bull terrier roared savagely and he could hear the
|
|
protesting squeal of wire as it slammed against the fence, followed
|
|
by the jeering laughter of the boys going up the hill. He tried to
|
|
call out again but all he managed was a gurgle in the back of his
|
|
throat.</p>
|
|
|
|
<p>He shivered involuntarily, smearing blood against the floor
|
|
again and a bubble swelled at his nostril before bursting silently.
|
|
Far off in the distance, he could hear the clamour of kids up on
|
|
the hill behind the school, like the squalling of wheeling gulls,
|
|
faint but clear. Here and there he could make out an individual
|
|
hoarse cry, a higher yell. Somebody screamed like a girl. All the
|
|
normal noises of school at lunch time.</p>
|
|
|
|
<p>The scream came again, high and wavering, distant, but closer
|
|
than the school sounds. A moment later the bell rang, to tell
|
|
everyone to line up and get ready for the afternoon classes.
|
|
Crawford had disappeared. Don tried to think but he couldn't
|
|
remember. Had he run away? He must have. He must have seen what had
|
|
happened. He would be up there at the school getting help, getting
|
|
a doctor, calling for an ambulance. Help would be here soon.</p>
|
|
|
|
<p>He tried to stop shivering, but he couldn't find a way and the
|
|
heel of his black school shoe drummed an uneven rap on the hard
|
|
floor. His throat spasmed and a sudden dread overtook him that it
|
|
would lock shut and he would choke on the blood. He coughed and a
|
|
saw-blade of hurt rasped into his shoulder. Of a sudden, Don
|
|
Whalen's mind cleared enough to let him realise that he was in
|
|
awful danger. Very slowly he got a hand to the floor. He could
|
|
smell the blood and the dismal reek of human shit and he couldn't
|
|
tell whether it was his own.</p>
|
|
|
|
<p>Crawford had gone to get help. That was for sure. Wasn't it? He
|
|
eased his hand down. It pressed into a wet puddle that could have
|
|
been anything, and then he gingerly levered himself up from the
|
|
floor, one millimetre at a time, breath rasping, head pounding,
|
|
shoulder screeching in protest. He got to a sitting position, still
|
|
in the dark. The school sounds had faded, though they would have
|
|
been hard to hear over the laboured rasp of his breath. Don pulled
|
|
himself to the corner, where he thought the door would be and he
|
|
raised his hand to press it against the planking.</p>
|
|
|
|
<p>His fingers left an almost perfect hand print. It was the full
|
|
stop at the end of his tortuous two-yard crawl. Another smudge of
|
|
dried blood showed where the sickness and pain and exhaustion had
|
|
caused him to slip to the floor. Some time later, he couldn't tell
|
|
how long, thudding footsteps roused him out of the dizzy
|
|
stupor.</p>
|
|
|
|
<p>Don Whalen came almost awake when the door opened and a slender
|
|
column of light widened to a thick pillar before being cut off
|
|
again. The floor and the walls of the rail-wagon shuddered as the
|
|
door rolled back on its casters and slammed shut with an awful
|
|
finality. He still had not seen anything except the brief flash of
|
|
light.</p>
|
|
|
|
<p>In the dark he could hear the rough sound of breathing,
|
|
overlaying his own rasping breath and he knew he was not alone.</p>
|
|
|
|
<p>"Crawford?" he tried to say, though he somehow knew it was not
|
|
his friend. He lay there, frozen in the sudden clench of fear. The
|
|
breathing continued for a while, ragged and effortful, dreadfully
|
|
close in the dark. Then a footstep shivered the floor and the
|
|
breathing got louder.</p>
|
|
<hr />
|
|
<p>Derek Milne had turned back from the fence, got half-way to the
|
|
wall and then stopped and turned back again. He'd an essay to hand
|
|
in to Matt Bryson the English teacher, one which should have gone
|
|
in two days ago, but which he had pretended to have forgotten,
|
|
though in truth he hadn't even written it. His two friends had gone
|
|
down the track and in half an hour, he knew they'd be at the Pulpit
|
|
Pool on the river, casting for sea-trout.</p>
|
|
|
|
<p>Indecision stopped him in his tracks. It was a good June day,
|
|
late for a run of trout, but last week's rain had raised the river
|
|
level enough to give a decent head of water and bring fish in from
|
|
the estuary. The afternoon stretched dismally ahead of him. A dull
|
|
period of maths and another two, even duller, of English. He walked
|
|
ten yards, stopped, looked back at the fence. Beyond there, he
|
|
could hear the yapping of the greyhounds and the deeper growl of
|
|
another dog and he knew his friends would be at the bottom of the
|
|
track by now, heading past the quarry to get the fishing rods from
|
|
Crawford's garden hut.</p>
|
|
|
|
<p>He turned back to the fence, swithered some more, torn between
|
|
the desire to go fishing and the sense of self preservation which
|
|
demanded he get down to school and write the essay for Matt Bryson.
|
|
Derek even put his hands on the fence, ready to limbo under the
|
|
bottom bar, when he changed his mind again and ruefully turned
|
|
back, heading up the hill towards the Hump. He got over the rise
|
|
and saw the milling crowd that had swelled to three or four times
|
|
what it had been when he and the others had gone up the hill
|
|
together. As soon as he crested the shoulder of the hill the noise
|
|
had hit him like a physical force. Boys and girls too, were in the
|
|
crowd, crushed together in a swarm. In the nucleus, from his height
|
|
advantage, he could see a fist rise up and fall again. The crowd
|
|
growled, like a single entity, a strange and eerily fierce sound, a
|
|
mixture of alarm and primitive hunger.</p>
|
|
|
|
<p>"What's going on?" a man's voice bellowed. Mr Doyle, the junior
|
|
maths teacher came hurrying up the slope on short, sturdy legs.</p>
|
|
|
|
<p>"Stop that this minute," he shouted, quite ineffectually. Nobody
|
|
heard him. In the milling crowd, everybody was trying to get a
|
|
ringside view of the two combatants. Derek made his way down the
|
|
hill just as Mr Doyle was coming up. He got to the edge of the
|
|
crowd as it swelled and contracted with a life all of its own,
|
|
feeling the strange infection of excitement reach and invade
|
|
him.</p>
|
|
|
|
<p>"All of you, move back from there," the teacher snapped, peeved
|
|
at the lack of response. His face was red with effort as he came up
|
|
the hill at a trot. A few of the girls closest to him peeled away
|
|
from the crowd. One of them had lost a shoe and was hopping about
|
|
trying to keep her white ankle-sock off the ground.</p>
|
|
|
|
<p>Another fist flew and a sound like a mallet-strike cracked in
|
|
the air. The mob let out a collective groan of appreciation. A boy
|
|
yelled, high and vicious. Another cried out, angry but also
|
|
frightened.</p>
|
|
|
|
<p>Mr Doyle waded into the crowd, pulling bodies by the scruff of
|
|
their blazers and the hoods of their anoraks, shoving them aside as
|
|
he thrust his way to the nucleus. In a few seconds he was up to his
|
|
shoulders in the press of pupils, as much part of the crowd as they
|
|
were, jostled left and right by the wheeling mass. Finally he
|
|
reached the centre. Derek Milne saw him duck down. He was almost
|
|
knocked off his feet but he managed to steady himself and when he
|
|
came up again, he had a boy in each hand, fingers clenched on their
|
|
collars.</p>
|
|
|
|
<p>The crowd sighed its disappointment and immediately began to
|
|
fragment as if some physical attractant had been switched off.
|
|
Derek Milne strolled down the hill past the scattering clumps of
|
|
pupils. The two boys were still charged up with anger and
|
|
adrenaline and despite the dire warnings from the young teacher
|
|
they were still trying to aim kicks at each other. Both of them had
|
|
bloodied noses and their clothes were slick with mud. The taller of
|
|
the two had a black eye swollen and closed over. The stockier one
|
|
had a thin trail of blood leaking from his ear.</p>
|
|
|
|
<p>Derek moved past them, feeling the hot and somehow dangerous
|
|
elation drain away from him, and walked down, bag swinging on his
|
|
hip, towards the school.</p>
|
|
|
|
<p>Just as he reached the wall a girl screeched from the top of the
|
|
Hump, up beyond where the fight had been. He turned and saw that Mr
|
|
Doyle had stopped. The girl screamed again, but from the distance,
|
|
Derek couldn't make out what she said. Mr Doyle let the boys go and
|
|
went up the hill. They made good their escape before he had got ten
|
|
yards. Derek grinned and turned into the doorway just as the bell
|
|
rang shrill, heading for the maths class where, with some luck, he
|
|
could sit at the back and write his essay. It was not until the
|
|
middle of the afternoon that he heard the news.</p>
|
|
|
|
<p>"Rankine's fell off the quarry."</p>
|
|
|
|
<p>Derek stopped in his tracks. He was just coming out of the maths
|
|
class and about to go up the stairs to Matt Bryson's room to
|
|
present his delayed and hastily scrawled work when he heard a boy
|
|
tell another with obvious shuddery relish:</p>
|
|
|
|
<p>"Broke his neck, so he did. There's blood all over the place, I
|
|
heard."</p>
|
|
|
|
<p>"What's that?" Derek asked, more curious, not sure of what he
|
|
had heard.</p>
|
|
|
|
<p>"Didn't you hear? Your pal Rankine fell of the quarry. Took a
|
|
header."</p>
|
|
|
|
<p>"Nah," Derek said, "he couldn't have. He was nowhere near the
|
|
quarry..." he stopped again. Crawford and Don had gone down the
|
|
track to the back road. They would only have been yards away from
|
|
the old quarry entrance.</p>
|
|
|
|
<p>"It's true, honest. Brian Grittan and big Brenda Fortucci saw
|
|
him. They were up on the other side of the fence. She's down at the
|
|
nurse screaming her head off."</p>
|
|
|
|
<p>"When did..." Derek started. "I mean..?"</p>
|
|
|
|
<p>The other boys looked at him. Everybody was buzzing with the
|
|
news, the little horror that had happened to somebody else, all the
|
|
more shivery and exciting because it had happened to somebody they
|
|
knew. He got to the top of the stairs where the rest of the class
|
|
were lined up outside the English room. Everybody was looking at
|
|
him expectantly.</p>
|
|
|
|
<p>"Didn't you and Don go up to the fence with Craw?" somebody
|
|
asked. Matt Bryson popped his head out of the doorway. Derek just
|
|
turned round and ran down the steps.</p>
|
|
|
|
<p>"Milne, get yourself back here boy!" the teacher bellowed. "And
|
|
you'd better have that essay."</p>
|
|
|
|
<p>Derek threw himself down the stairs and along the corridor,
|
|
pushing smaller kids out of the way. He got to the east exit and
|
|
went out, running hard now and by the time he got to the top of the
|
|
Hump, he was gasping for breath. On the other side of the fence,
|
|
the janitor and two of the teachers were standing close to the drop
|
|
off. Beyond the tip, Derek could see nothing, but the blue winking
|
|
light of an ambulance reflected repetitively from the damp stone
|
|
face on the other side.</p>
|
|
|
|
<p>"Sir," he called out. One of the teachers turned round. "Sir,
|
|
who was it got hurt?"</p>
|
|
|
|
<p>"Shouldn't you be in class?" Mr Doyle asked.</p>
|
|
|
|
<p>"Yes sir, but you have to tell me. Who was it?"</p>
|
|
|
|
<p>The teacher looked at him, considering. The boy was clearly
|
|
agitated. He have a little shrug which conveyed kindly intent more
|
|
than anything else.</p>
|
|
|
|
<p>"Crawford Rankine. Is he a friend of..."</p>
|
|
|
|
<p>"Sir is he dead?"</p>
|
|
|
|
<p>"That I can't tell you, sonny," Mr Doyle replied. Derek backed
|
|
away from the fence, hot tears beginning to swim and blur his
|
|
vision.</p>
|
|
<hr />
|
|
<p>Robert Doyle, known to the pupils as Wee Bob, had reacted very
|
|
quickly when he'd got to the top of the hill. The two combatants
|
|
escaped and ran away and he forgot all about them when he saw the
|
|
prostrate girl on the other side of the fence. He scaled it with
|
|
surprising agility and when he dropped to the far side where the
|
|
boy was kneeling over the girl, he smelt the sour stink of
|
|
vomit.</p>
|
|
|
|
<p>"What happened?" he asked. "Come on Brian, she's been sick. Has
|
|
she eaten something? Drunk something?" The boy mumbled and then he
|
|
threw up again. For a few seconds Bob Doyle thought they'd both
|
|
been sick. But the boy wiped his mouth.</p>
|
|
|
|
<p>"No sir, she's fainted." He jerked his thumb over his shoulder.
|
|
"It's the boy. He's dead."</p>
|
|
|
|
<p>The teacher looked at him, brows knitted together in puzzlement.
|
|
On the grass the girl moaned. A couple of her buttons had loosened
|
|
and a large white breast, marbled with blue veins, was trying to
|
|
pop out under the pressure of its own weight. Bob Doyle drew his
|
|
eyes away.</p>
|
|
|
|
<p>"Over there sir. He fell off the quarry." The boy's face
|
|
contorted and his mouth spasmed in a wide retching gape, but he
|
|
managed to contain it this time. "Brenda fainted. There's blood all
|
|
over the place," he added.</p>
|
|
|
|
<p>Just as he said that, the girl's eyes fluttered open and she
|
|
pushed herself upright. She took one look at Brian and fell back
|
|
against the grass again. Mr Doyle got to the edge of the quarry and
|
|
looked down. There was nothing to be seen down there. The base of
|
|
the old diggings was far below, hidden in the shade and the clumps
|
|
of brambles and tangled dog roses. The massive blocks of stone
|
|
heaped on each other in a series of giant steps leading to the
|
|
bottom. There was nobody down at the quarry bed, no bloody and
|
|
broken body.</p>
|
|
|
|
<p>Brian Grittan came stumbling over to join him and the teacher
|
|
grabbed the boy by the elbow, wondering if perhaps he and the girl
|
|
had been drinking. He began to lean inwards to smell the boy's
|
|
breath when the lad pointed down and to the left where the thick
|
|
ivy rooted in a crevice. Bob Doyle followed the pointed finger. The
|
|
flat surface of a block of red sandstone lay close to the vertical
|
|
wall. He blinked and everything jumped into focus. It was no red
|
|
sandstone. It was a red splash on the stone. The body lay
|
|
spread-eagled close to the edge. Palms up, white face tilted to the
|
|
blue sky.</p>
|
|
|
|
<p>"Oh my god," the teacher whispered.</p>
|
|
|
|
<p>He stared at the blood and at the still body for a few moments
|
|
longer. Then he turned, grabbed the boy by the arm and walked him
|
|
back to the fence. He told him to stay with the girl and not to let
|
|
her near the edge, fearful that she might wake up and stumble over
|
|
the precipice. That done, he clambered over the fence and ran down
|
|
the hill and into the school. The ambulance got to the quarry in
|
|
thirteen minutes and by the time the crew reached the flat rock,
|
|
Father O'Connor, the school chaplain who had been giving a
|
|
religious talk on the need for chastity in these devilish times,
|
|
had clambered down with Bob Doyle and Jake Dennink the physical
|
|
education teacher The priest was anointing the boy's bloodied head,
|
|
hoping to speed his soul through the searing, unavoidable cleansing
|
|
fires of purgatory.</p>
|
|
|
|
<p>As it happened, Crawford Rankine was not dead. He was one of the
|
|
few people who had come in contact with the man with the twitchy
|
|
eyes and survived. He lost four pints of blood and had a dreadful
|
|
depressed fracture in his skull. His pelvis and both elbows were
|
|
shattered and needed twenty seven pins in an operation described at
|
|
the time as 'pioneering'. But he was not dead.</p>
|
|
|
|
<p>It was a surprise to the police that he woke up two days later
|
|
and was able, despite his injury, to tell them what had happened,
|
|
up to the point of climbing up the quarry with the man hot on his
|
|
heels. After that, he could not remember anything. Neither did he
|
|
know what had happened to his friend Don Whalen. He thought the man
|
|
had hit him.</p>
|
|
|
|
<p>Derek Milne ran all the way to Crawford's place, still unable to
|
|
believe what had happened, that his friend had been killed in the
|
|
quarry. He sneaked in through the old wooden gate, hunching down
|
|
out of sight behind the trimmed privet hedge, and round to the
|
|
garden hut, knowing that the teacher had got it wrong, and that the
|
|
rods would be gone, and somebody else, somebody he didn't really
|
|
know, would be lying dead at the bottom of the cliff.</p>
|
|
|
|
<p>But the old Greenheart spinning rod and the even older
|
|
split-cane wand were angled in the corner of the shed.</p>
|
|
|
|
<p>By now Derek was badly frightened. He hadn't waited around to
|
|
ask what had happened to Don, but if he had been with Crawford in
|
|
the quarry, then he was probably hurt as well. No matter what had
|
|
happened, he himself, was in big trouble, because he knew they were
|
|
dodging off school to go fishing. He had condoned it. If he had
|
|
stopped them, Crawford would still be alive. (And if he'd gone with
|
|
them, he too could be smashed on a rock in the quarry) He went
|
|
round to Don's place and hung about, scared and guilty. His
|
|
friend's young sister came home after four and got the key on the
|
|
string inside the letterbox. She let herself in. Don waited for an
|
|
hour. Mrs Whalen came come, carrying two bags of groceries. Later,
|
|
Don's father came in, hands still black from the foundry. Derek
|
|
went home and his mother, who had been on the verge of calling the
|
|
police, demanded to know where he'd been. It was at this point that
|
|
Derek burst into real tears and he told his mother that his friend
|
|
had been killed.</p>
|
|
|
|
<p>At eight o'clock that night, Sergeant McNicol knocked on the
|
|
door. The big uniformed policeman who was with him accepted a cup
|
|
of tea and dwarfed Derek's father as they sat round the kitchen
|
|
table, with Derek's pale face between them.</p>
|
|
|
|
<p>Angus McNicol's face visibly brightened when he heard Derek's
|
|
story. It was bad, but it could have been worse.</p>
|
|
|
|
<p>"So the boys were going fishing and you turned back?"</p>
|
|
|
|
<p>Derek nodded.</p>
|
|
|
|
<p>"But they must have come back as well, taking the short cut to
|
|
school," Angus prompted and the boy nodded again. "So with a bit of
|
|
luck, then the other boy could still be in the quarry?"</p>
|
|
|
|
<p>Angus slapped the boy on the shoulder. He was grinning from ear
|
|
to ear because as soon as he heard a boy had gone missing, he had
|
|
feared the worst. Now there was a perfectly logical and reasonable
|
|
explanation. Both boys had scaled the face of the quarry. If one
|
|
had fallen, it was a fair assumption that the other had been with
|
|
him. He could have tumbled, fallen into a crevice and if that was
|
|
true, the chances were that he'd be hurt too, but possibly still
|
|
alive. Even if he was dead, McNicol thought pragmatically, it would
|
|
be better for all, better for the town if he'd fallen off a cliff
|
|
and died, rather than been killed by the maniac who had taken the
|
|
lives of Neil Hopkirk and little Lucy Saunders. Most likely, Angus
|
|
thought to himself, as he admitted many years later, Don Whalen had
|
|
got such a scare, seeing his pal crash onto the rock, that he'd
|
|
simply run away and was hiding somewhere, probably still in a state
|
|
of shock. He'd turn up.</p>
|
|
|
|
<p>"I've got good news, sonny," he told the pale and snivelling
|
|
lad. "Young Crawford's hurt pretty sore, but he's still alive. You
|
|
did the right thing not dodging school, especially with this bad
|
|
fellow around the town, but I hope you've learned a lesson. You've
|
|
got to stay with your mates, stay close, and don't be bunking off
|
|
anywhere out of sight. This man's a nasty piece of work."</p>
|
|
|
|
<p>"Don't worry sergeant," Derek's father said. "He certainly has
|
|
learned a lesson."</p>
|
|
|
|
<p>The police set up floodlights on the top of the quarry and
|
|
angled them down, bathing the whole workings in silvery light and
|
|
sending harsh shadows behind every bush and clump of ivy. The
|
|
lights glistened from the damp sheen on the vertical faces. They
|
|
brought the dogs in to search all over and a team of divers from
|
|
the navy base came down in a big blue truck and searched all night
|
|
in the narrow shafts that were filled with water. They found the
|
|
carcass of a black Labrador dog that had fallen in and was now
|
|
bloated with gas. At the bottom of one shaft they found a human
|
|
foot, now bare bones, inside a remarkably well preserved boot and
|
|
at first the police thought they had another murder hunt on their
|
|
hands until it was proven to be fifty years old. It's former owner,
|
|
a seventy five-year-old retired quarrier who stayed with his
|
|
daughter in the far end of town, had lost it in a blasting accident
|
|
just after the first world war and the foot had never been
|
|
discovered until now.</p>
|
|
|
|
<p>There was no sign at all of Don Whalen.</p>
|
|
|
|
<p>Two days later, Crawford Rankine woke up and told the police
|
|
about the man who had chased him. A tall man with dark eyes and
|
|
thick black hair hanging below his collar and Hector Kelso, who was
|
|
in charge of the murder hunt knew the man with the twitchy eyes had
|
|
struck again.</p>
|
|
|
|
<p>"We're looking for a body," he told the team.</p>
|
|
|
|
<p>They did not find it for ten days.</p>
|
|
|
|
<p>Police Superintendent Kelso, using his genius for reconstructing
|
|
the scene, worked out what had happened. The door of the railway
|
|
truck was wide open, letting in the bright sunlight. He'd put down
|
|
folded newspapers where he wanted to put his feet, even after the
|
|
place had been sampled and dusted by the forensics team. He pointed
|
|
out where the boy had been knocked against the wood, and where his
|
|
shoe had hit the other side, leaving a scuff of mud.</p>
|
|
|
|
<p>"My guess is that the man came back pretty quickly," Kelso had
|
|
said. "Maybe if the boy had more time, even just a couple of
|
|
minutes, he'd have found the door, but I don't think he'd have
|
|
opened it. But he was moving on his own all right. These prints are
|
|
clean, not smeared, and you can see where he's been pushing himself
|
|
along. He was hurt, but not dead. You can rely on that." Kelso
|
|
looked around at the rest of them. "But I won't take any bets that
|
|
he's alive now."</p>
|
|
</div>
|
|
</div>
|
|
</body>
|
|
</html>
|