The Wood

Twelve

Detective-Sergeant Jim Fillery had managed to snatch an hour's sleep in the chair in his temporary headquarters, a fitful slumber disturbed by the constant jangling of the telephone, people moving about, talking. He had learned to cat-nap, recharge his batteries in the minimum amount of time available to him, and his superiors begrudged him even that. He stirred, saw that it was starting to get light. The pressure was really on him now, the media, everybody baying for his blood. You've lost five people and Foster is still at large. One wood, permanently cordoned off and you know they're in there. What the fuck are you playing at?

One more hunt, the biggest in recent history concentrated on such a small area. And if that didn't produce results… he didn't have any answer to that one. Today they would drag that wood out, uproot every tree and bush if they had to. But he still had that nagging feeling that they would not find anything. Your thinking's negative, he reprimanded himself. Think positively*. We're bloody well going to find 'em, all of 'em, including Foster. He poured himself a cup of black coffee, swigged it down. Calls were coming in all the time, the switchboard a non-stop panel of activity. Cranks, you always got 'em. I raped and killed the girl, please believe me, officer. I'll put it in writing and you can lock me away for the rest of my life; I don't mind so long as you believe what I say and give me the credit, tell the newspapers. There were a hundred confessions for every murder but you still had to sift through 'em until you found the one who denied the lot.,You got hunches, followed 'em. Instinct. But right now Jim Fillery's instinct had dried up. The whole of the county force, every man that could be spared and a lot who couldn't, had converged on Droy. The burglars and the car thieves would have a field day and good luck to them. The minute it was light enough they were going to rip that bloody wood wide open. A copper had gone missing and that counted for an awful lot where the boys were concerned, in some cases more than the two girls. Some bastard had got one of your colleagues, you might be the next… So you moved heaven and earth to find the killer. Fillery couldn't work it out about PC Lee. One of the most promising young detectives in the force yet there was evidence that he had raped the decoy girl; they had both fled into the wood. We'll rip the fucking place right open, Fillery told himself. The way we're going to scour it today a vole couldn't escape undetected.

Damn this fog, wasn't it ever going to shift! Now its tentacles had stretched right up to the village, a vaporised monster extending its territory. These villagers were scared, most of 'em skulking in their cottages and flatly refusing to assist in any way.

'You won't get anybody from Droy to join in the hunt, Sarge.' Eddie Farnett, the sub-postmaster, shook his head slowly, a half-burned cigarette perpetually bobbing in the centre of his thick lips. 'None of 'em will go within half a mile of the wood. It doesn't bother me, personally, but I can't get away from the post office. My wife doesn't like the post office work, she'll only look after the shop part, if you see what I mean. When we go on holiday or I'm ill, I have to get a temp in. But you can't get temps at a moment's notice, if you see what I mean. And you can't shut a post office up, can you?'

Excuses on tap, a ready-made cocoon. Jim Fillery saw what he meant all right, only too well. Just two locals amongst the large gathering on the road adjoining the wood. PC Houliston because he didn't have any choice; Roy Bean because secretly he resented this intrusion of his game preserves. He didn't go to Droy Wood in the course of his work but he objected to anybody else going there. They were trespassers whichever way you looked at it. Dogs in any woodland were a bloody nuisance except on shooting days; they ran about barking and disturbing every species of wildlife. In a way the wood was a useful reserve. Pheasants could breed safely in there during the summer months; the wood had its uses and today was going to undo all of them. Muffin seemed strangely lethargic today, not even straining at the leash, keeping close to his heels as they split up in bunches for briefing. She didn't like the set-up, that was only too clear. Cringing, tail between her legs. Silly bitch, but he felt uneasy, too. Like something was going to happen today, something awful.

A three-pronged 'attack' was planned for today; Houliston had already left with fifty men, skirted the perimeter of the wood and gone out to the marsh. They would move inland, due north. Two lines of searchers, one from the east, the other from the west, everybody in due course converging in the centre, approximately where the ruined house stood. Thirty dogs in all, a net which nobody could slip through, Fillery had told them and tried to sound confident. And after that they were going to drag every pool. Nobody mentioned the bogs because you couldn't do anything about them.

The mist was thicker than ever, had the density of an old-fashioned

'pea-souper', a strange menacing purposeful-ness about the way it hung over the wood and the village, a deliberate obstruction to the hunters, hiding its terrible secrets. Elsewhere the atmosphere was dull and cloudy with normal visibility. That was what disturbed you most.

A long wait. Roy Bean tried to curb his own impatience. This was how the shooters felt when the beaters had to go out a long way in order to bring a patch of cover back towards them. Anticipation, then boredom. Today there was an added ingredient — fear!

At last they heard the whistle, a synchronisation of all their respective lines, looking to the men on either side of them. Keep me in sight all the time, you guys. For Christ's sake don't leave me on my own. Always was scared of the dark and if this fog gets any thicker it'll be as good as night. Moving forward, Alsatians, terriers unleashed and being encouraged to hunt for a scent. This time they just had to come up with something. It had taken Jock Houliston over an hour to reach the outskirts of Droy Marsh following a circuitous route over the adjoining pastureland, always hoping he was going in the right direction because the fog gave you a feeling that your own personal radar wasn't working any longer. At last, though, they reached the narrow foreshore, stood with their backs to the sea, heard the tide but couldn't see it, an eerie watery wilderness lapping against the rocks. It's trying to drive you back into the wood. That's ridiculous because we're going there, anyway. Hurry then. Everybody looking about them but they could not see anything, not even the murky outline of Droy Wood. A noise, one that you gradually became aware of, a splashing that wasn't just the waves on the shoreline. Rhythmic, forming a picture in your mind, a draw-by-dots kiddies' scene that had you pencilling, joining up the dots eagerly, wondering what was going to unfold. A seascape… a boat! Houliston hesitated, half turned back. Of course, nobody had tumbled to it, not even those smart-alec plainclothes detectives. It took an ordinary bobby in uniform to solve a case which had commanded the front pages of every daily newspaper for almost a week. Foster had a boat, had lain low and now was making his escape by sea!

The policeman's pulse raced and his hand went to his pocket radio. And stopped. No fear, not on your nellie! The bright boys would take all the credit with not a mention of your long-serving country copper. Well, this time they were going to end up with egg on their faces. PC Jock Houliston would make the arrest, he'd have the killer handcuffed before he… but he didn't have a boat and you couldn't chase anybody out to sea without one!

Swish. splash. swish. splash.

Louder! It should have grown fainter, as the boat gradually left the shore, barely discernible.

Swish. splash.

Houliston craned his neck, thought he could make out a shape in the fog; the boat, somebody hunched in it, heaving on a pair of heavy oars; coming this way

.

Unbelievable but it was true. Who ever it was they were now scraping the bottom of their craft on the beach, jumping out, pulling it up out of the water. More than one of them. peering again. Three of them. Foster and.

Five people had gone missing. Perm any three from five. Logically one of them had to be the rapist and that was all that mattered. The policeman glanced behind him; there was no sign of the rest of the search party, the fog having swallowed them up. Not a sound except for that made by those with the boat. His hand caressed the flat oblong shape of his radio again. Not bloody likely, this was his show!

He crouched down, tried to make himself as inconspicuous as possible. They would come this way, all he had to do was to wait, loom out of the mist in front of them. His hand went into his pocket, jangled a pair of handcuffs faintly. Oh yes, the country copper would show them a thing or two. Here they come now, two men and what looks like a boy. It might be one of the missing girls, a slip of a figure. No, Carol Embleton was a big girl, it couldn't be her. Thelma Brown then. Hell, it didn't matter just so long as one of them was James Foster, the most wanted man in Britain. Their feet squelched in waterlogged grass, and they were muttering to one another. Furtive, stopping every few yards as though they anticipated an ambush. Once they almost turned back, one man grabbing at the sleeve of the other, cursing him in low tones, the boy (?) cowering as though he expected to be struck. But they still came on, more wary and suspicious than ever. Cries of fear as Jock Houliston suddenly straightened up, a truncheon clasped in his hand.

'You're under arrest, all three of you.' A pair of handcuffs were dangled ostentatiously. 'Now, James Foster, let's be having you. You're all going to accompany me to the police station where. '

Houliston's jubilant caution died away as he saw their faces for the first time, tried to match that police photo of Foster with one of them. Oh Christ Almighty, those hideous countenances belonged anywhere except in a civilised twentieth-century society, pock-marked scarred faces that even the mist failed miserably to hide. Wretched beings that cringed and whined, the boy on his knees covering his head with his hands as though he expected a blow. Ragged clothing torn in many places so that the flesh was visible beneath, skin that was a mass of blackheads, an unwashed poverty-stricken trio, their bare feet bleeding where they had scratched them on the stones.

'Have mercy on us, sir,' the taller of the two men cried. 'Take our boat, our cargo, but let us go, I beg of you for we only do this else we starve, and the Lord alone knows we are close to that now.'

Jock Houliston grunted. Certainly they spoke the truth but what the hell was going on? Bitter disappointment because none of these was the man he wanted, that much was clear. He found himself backing away a step, revolted at that which confronted him. An explanation, oh just give me a logical explanation for all this.

'What's going on?' he grunted.

They stared back at him in amazement, did not reply.

'Come on, I'm a police officer and I want to know what's going on!'

'You. don't know?' The tall man seemed to be their spokesman, one who trembled visibly, slobbered as he spoke. "Police? What's that? You're not Customs men, or is this a devilish trick?'

Houliston jangled the handcuffs, saw how they started, huddled together in sheer terror like sheep in a slaughterhouse smelling death.

'No, sir, not the dungeons, we beg you. Kill us, but not that!'

'You're stark raving bloody barmy,' the policeman muttered, and thought to himself 'and so am I'. Still holding the handcuffs he unclipped his radio, flicked a button. 'One-seven-one-five, come in please.'

There should have been an instant crackling, a voice answering him. There was nothing. With a chill of fear trickling up his back he realised that for some reason his radio was dead. No reason, just a lifeless object that could neither give nor receive messages; his link with civilisation was broken. He was on his own.

'Please, sur, take our boat, our cargo. '

I don't want your bloody boat or your cargo. I want James Foster and four other missing people. 'Look, let's start at the beginning, just tell me who you are and what you're doing here.'

Silence. Blank, terror-stricken stares, the boy starting to sob. He couldn't have been more than ten, Houliston thought. He'd been ill-treated, starved, should be taken into care. The police officer's flesh was prickling. He didn't want to be the one to do that, didn't want to have to touch any of them and he'd handled some pretty revolting corpses in his time. Like old Matthews, the hermit who had lived in that old pillbox down by the canal. He'd died one hot summer and hadn't been missed for almost a month. When Houliston found him the wasps had made quite a sizeable nest inside him. But rather that than this!

Maybe I could just leave them here, catch up with the others. I don't even have to say I've seen them, do I?

It was the boy who screamed, a piercing yell of soul-shattering terror, pointing into the mist behind Jock Houliston. Grunts and cries from the other two. They're here, we knew they were somewhere about. '

'It's the search party.' Houliston wheeled round, almost screamed himself, tried to shout 'I'm a police officer, d'you hear me', but no words would come. Shapes loomed out of the mist, figures that bore a faint resemblance to the human body until you saw their faces. Long coats, triangular hats pulled well down as though even they tried to spare you from looking upon their features. Grotesque, evil. Menacing; wielding clubs and pistols.

'Tak' them,' they chorused — a cry that embodied hate and sadistic lust, a tone that surely no human vocal chords could have issued. There must have been a dozen of them, perhaps more, running, shouting. A pistol boomed, its cloud of villainous sulphurous smoke turning the swirling mist yellow, giving off acrid fumes. Converging on the two men and the boy, vicious blows from raised cudgels splitting open the latter's head; you heard them, felt them. They were battering his skull into a mulch, but there was not a spot of blood to be seen! Seizing his companions; then turning to face this stranger who had no business skulking in the fog of a smugglers' marsh.

'Another 'un!' One of them grunted his surprise. Tak'!un, too.'

Shocked awareness flooded Jock Houliston's numbed brain. His common sense rebelled, demanded logic where there was none. I'm a policeman and I'm not standing for this. Twenty-five years of training, taught to cope with a thousand and one different situations, even if this one didn't slot into any particular niche. His instinct surfaced, defied surrealism; that time there had been a fancy-dress party and the guests had got drunk, run amok. It was like that now. He had arrested four of them single-handed then, locked them in the cells for the night to sober up.

He drove forward with his truncheon, a stabbing blow in the manner of a duelling swordsman, finding his target, the nearest man's solar plexus. It should have doubled his assailant up, had him writhing on the ground, clutching at his stomach. It didn't.

The blow jarred Jock Houliston's arm right up to his shoulder, had him almost dropping his weapon. The other seemed unaware that he had been struck, came on unhindered, strong cold fingers encircling the constable's throat. Squeezing, throttling. And more of them were coming in on the fray, sheer weight of numbers bearing him to the ground.

Jock Houliston fought in blind fear, swung his truncheon again but it was wrested from his grip, his arms pinioned behind him. Kicking, bone-jarring, toe-breaking blows that found their mark but brought not so much as a gasp of pain from his attackers. His legs were seized, his body lifted up. To the dungeons?' Someone asked the question in a lisping hollow voice.

'Nae.' There followed a pause as though the one to whom the question had been directed was thinking, forced to make an instant decision. 'There's things happenin' at the Castle, we'd better keep clear. Nae, ta the bog, 'tis quickest!'

Houliston was aware of being carried, borne over rough ground, jerked and shaken, his stomach threatening to erupt. His trained mind again; you're a policeman, they're assaulting you. The wood and the marsh is teeming with police, you'll be rescued any second.

But nobody came to his rescue. Wherever the search party had gone they were oblivious of his fate, a land of mist and silence, the only sound the steady tramping of feet across soggy terrain. Houliston closed his eyes. It was a nightmare and when he awoke it would be gone, just a few faint awful memories. Cat-napping on his bed in between double shifts, in the morning they were going to scour Droy Wood. It had played on his mind. His captors had stopped and the fingers that gripped him bit deep into his flesh, burned him with their cold. Lifting him again, above their heads into the fog, thick greyness everywhere.

He knew only too well what they were about to do, smelled the foul gases of some nearby bog. One last time he tried to struggle and gave up because they had him imprisoned at full stretch with their unbelievable strength. A shout, more of a whispered croak. 'I'm a police officer and you're under arrest.'

Next came a sudden sensation of freedom, a release from those bony manacles, a wave of vertigo as he was catapulted into the air. Going up, flailing the air with arms and legs, slowing as he reached his apex. Starting to fall, a kind of headlong dive, instinctively taking a breath and holding it. And then he hit the bog.

A splash as though the water had solidified, wallowing up to his thighs in slimy stinking mud. Struggling, sinking in another foot. Up to his waist now, floundering and trying not to panic. More than just a bog, quick sands with shallow-rooted rushes cunningly disguising it so that an unwary traveller might stumble into it. Nature's own death-trap.

The mist had eddied and for a few brief moments PC Jock Houliston saw his attackers again, ringed around the edge of the bog, their hideous faces masked by the shadows cast by their wide headgear. He could not see their expressions yet he felt their malevolence, a blast of sheer cold hate. Why, oh Jesus Christ, why are you doing this to me?

He sank in another few inches; it was too late to try and extricate himself by lying full length, he had gone in too deep. The mud stirred noisily, greedily, devouring him by the second, pulling him down avidly.

'Just bloody well tell me why.'

No answer. These creatures who roamed the mists of Droy Wood and its marshes answered to nobody for their actions. The laws were of their own making, since the days when they had been commanded to apprehend those who came ashore secretly, and they saw no reason to change anything. The policeman had resigned himself to death, did not even attempt to prolong his life when his chin slipped below the shifting mud. It was dark, night already, he had been in this bog for hours; it had seemed only minutes. And somewhere, not too far away, he could hear men shouting, dogs barking excitedly as they picked up a scent. One last flicker of hope had him opening his mouth, mustering his breath for a final scream that would bring the search party in this direction.

He almost made it, but his cry for help was drowned by a rush of foul liquid mud pouring into his open mouth.