She left him out in the open and walked the remaining few yards, alert for any sound or movement but hearing and seeing none. She circled the building, registering the intact padlock on the door and the impenetrable foliage. She peered inside, noting the murky leaded lights in the windows, smelling the mushroom damp from the interior.
Below her, the pond was an inky, motionless slick and she wrinkled her nose at its stagnant stench. She might have missed the gap in the surrounding wall were it not for a single broken branch of fern hanging, like a fractured limb, damaged by whatever had passed through that gap. Beckoning.
Anna moved quickly but cautiously. Stood on the pile of broken stones in the remains of an archway and saw the smaller building beyond. She took in the low hole in the wall, the removed metal grill lying to one side, and knew by the sudden juddering charge that shot through her arms and legs that this was the right place.
She stepped lightly over the stones and leaned down to look in through the hole in the wall and the flagstone floor. Artificial light spilled out from a large opening. She stepped inside warily, walked across and peered down.
Battery-operated lanterns, plastic sheeting on the floor, bones, hundreds of them, stacked and arranged neatly. She rocked back on her heels, sucking in air and blowing it out, knowing she was staring through a doorway into hell.
Something, a muffled noise, drew her attention. She looked up, into the dark corner of the ruined building, not seeing it clearly but aware of something moving. Anna got up and peered into the murk. Nothing but a shape, leaning against the wall. A large, oblong rucksack in grey and green camouflage.
‘Blair?’ said Anna. ‘Blair, is that you?’
The muffled sounds and movements increased in intensity. Another charge of adrenaline zipped through her and she quickly moved across.
‘It’s OK, Blair, it’s OK, I’m here to help. To get you out.’
The noise that came back to her through the bag was impossible to make out, but Anna knew it was desperation. Someone terrified and gagged. She fumbled with toggles and zips, preoccupied and desperate. But her need to do something, to ease the suffering, was her undoing.
For a big man, Starkey moved quickly. Anna felt hands grab her from behind. Felt herself lifted up and carried, feet flailing, clear off the floor, towards the opening. She struggled, kicking, hearing heavy breathing behind her, smelling sour breath and worse. She tried to find purchase on the lip of the opening, but something kicked at her knees and then she was tumbling through, ten feet to the floor beneath, landing heavily, trying to roll.
Above her, she heard scraping. The noise of a metal ladder being dragged up and then the scraping of stone on stone.
She looked up to see the gap narrowing. Someone was shutting off the entrance.
‘No,’ she screamed. ‘Kevin, stop this!’
She heard a grunt; another foot of gap disappeared.
‘Kevin…’
But it wasn’t her pleading that stopped Starkey from shutting her in completely. It was the clatter of blades chopping through the air as a helicopter passed low overhead.
Forty-Nine
Hawley looked up, waving his arms madly as the helicopter flew over. He didn’t know if he’d been seen, but the chopper slowed and banked in the air a mile away, looking like it was going to make another pass. Then a movement in his peripheral vision drew his attention and made him look down beyond the chapel ruins. There he saw a man in combat trousers and a brown T-shirt carrying a huge rucksack, heading towards the bottom of the dell. Moving steadily and unerringly towards the pond a few hundred yards beyond.
Where the hell was Anna?
‘Oy!’ called Hawley. ‘You there!’
The figure ignored him and continued, descending through the bracken determinedly.
‘Hey, hang on a minute.’ Hawley started moving down off the path but then hesitated. It crossed his mind for a fraction of a second that this might simply be someone on army manoeuvres yomping through the forest.
But even the army didn’t have backpacks that heavy. With a rush of horror, Hawley knew who this man was. Knew what was in that backpack.
He moved, picking up the pace, wading through the ferns and small trees at an angle to intercept the man twenty yards from the water’s edge.
He kept calling out, ‘Starkey, Kevin Starkey, listen to me.’
But there was no let-up in pace. Hawley emerged into a partial clearing a few yards from Starkey, who didn’t miss a step. Instead, he suddenly veered towards Hawley and swung a very large and vicious-looking knife in his direction. Hawley danced back with no more than a few inches between the knife’s tip and his chest.
‘It’s over,’ said Hawley. ‘They know you’re here. The helicopter’s seen us.’
Starkey said nothing. He half-turned, the knife outstretched towards Hawley, his back to the water. But still he took steps backwards, closing in on the pond, his eyes wild, his face unreadable.
‘Is she in there? Is she in there, you fuck?’ Hawley yelled. He looked at the ground, saw what he wanted and picked up a fist-sized stone. He ran forwards and threw it, hitting Starkey in the chest. The big man roared and lunged towards Hawley. But he was too slow and weighed down by the backpack.
‘Let her go, you bastard,’ Hawley spat and threw another rock. This close it was difficult to miss, and it hit Starkey’s shoulder, making him spin and wince with pain. The edge of the pond was a reed-filled swamp. Starkey went down on one knee and shrugged off one shoulder strap, leaning back so the other one came free.
‘Give it up. Give her up. There’s no way out for you,’ Hawley pleaded.
Starkey spoke for the first time, and his words, growled out like an angry dog, drilled into Hawley’s brain to lodge there forever.
‘It’s not yours. It’s mine. My bones to wash clean.’
Hawley let him have another rock, this one finding its mark on Starkey’s neck. But now the backpack was off, Starkey got to his feet quickly and took four large steps forward, causing Hawley to dance away again. But Starkey’s move was only so that he could gain some room. The moment Hawley backed away, Starkey turned back and grasped the backpack with a hand on both sides, stepped into the pond, wading quickly up to his thighs.
‘No. No. You sick bastard!’ yelled Hawley.
With a grunt, Starkey threw the heavy pack out into the dark water before turning back to face Hawley with a dreadful grin.
* * *
In the crypt Anna stared about her, taking in the cameras, the lights and the tools of Starkey’s terrifying trade with a shiver of disgust, looking for anything to use. In the end, she resorted to grabbing as many of the larger, stronger-looking bones and laying them in a rough cross-hatch pattern on the floor. She knew she was desecrating the crypt and what was probably a crime scene, but there was no choice. She worked until she had a pile about a foot tall in the tunnel under the opening, grabbed one of the duvets and threw it over the top. Gingerly, she stepped up, hearing cracks as some of the old calcified bones gave under her weight, praying that they might hold long enough for one jump. She threw up the backpack and, swaying, flexed her knees. Reaching up, she leaped, fingers extended towards the lip of the flagstones. They found their mark and she used the momentum to pull, flexing her elbows, feeling her jacket snag on the edge of the partially replaced stone lid, pushing through the restraint, hearing material tear as first her chest and then her hips appeared at the rim and she fell forwards, scrambling through, her hands covered in dirt and debris, her muscles trembling from the effort.