A Room Full Of Bones

Judy is still not very well disposed towards Caroline but right now she’d trust anyone who isn’t actually pointing a gun at her. She thinks of warm houses, lights, telephones. She starts to run.

As their feet touch the tarmac, the security lights come on, almost blinding them. The terrible noise reverberates again. It’s only a donkey, Judy tells herself, but it gives her the horrors all the same. Surely the noise must have roused someone up at the house. Randolph? The mysterious Lady Smith? Surely, any moment now, Len Harris will appear and shoot them down like vermin. But no one appears. They run through the car park, past sports cars and jeeps (Judy is now sure that the blue Ferrari belongs to Len Harris), and seconds later they’re pressing the bell marked ‘Visitors Please Report Here’.

Caroline takes some time to come to the door but, when she does, she is fully dressed in outdoor clothes. She looks different, Judy thinks. Perhaps it’s because she has her hair up.

‘Police,’ gasps Judy. ‘Need to use your phone.’

‘The lines are down,’ says Caroline. ‘It’s the storm.’

‘I’ve got my phone,’ says Clough. ‘Can we come in?’

Caroline stands aside. ‘I’ll get you some tea,’ she says.

‘You’re soaked through.’

She ushers them into the sitting room. Clough stabs away at his phone but can’t get a signal; Judy has lost hers. She collapses in a chair, feeling that nothing much matters any more.

‘How did you find me?’ she asks Clough.

He looks up. ‘You sent me a text, didn’t you? I was checking my phone every few minutes. Thought there might be news about the boss. I never thought you’d come down here on your own like Nancy bloody Drew. Jesus, Johnson, how could you be so stupid?’

‘I don’t know,’ says Judy. ‘I thought I’d solved the case. I thought I could do it all myself.’ She tells him about the mules. Clough whistles silently. ‘Of course, half the horses come from the Middle East. The perfect cover. Brilliant.’

‘Glad you think so,’ says a voice from the doorway. Len Harris is standing there, next to Caroline. Both are holding guns.

The voices have started. Voices coming from the sea. Nelson knows that he mustn’t listen to them. If you listen, you are lost. If you answer the knock at the door, you are lost. He sets his mind against the soft, beguiling whispers from the deep. Michelle, Ruth, Laura, Rebecca, his mother. Always women’s voices. He mustn’t give way to them. He must keep walking along the beach, walking beside Cathbad. One foot in front of the other. But it’s hard, the hardest thing he has ever had to do.

‘This way,’ says Caroline politely. An effect slightly ruined by the gun, which she is pointing directly at Judy’s chest.

‘You’re making a big mistake,’ says Clough, blusteringly, to Len Harris.

‘No, you’ve made the mistake,’ says Harris. He doesn’t sound out of breath at all. Has he just run through the woods or did he have a car waiting outside the gates? It must have been Caroline, Caroline who locked the gates and then opened them again for Harris, driving him round to her house as calmly and efficiently as a taxi. Caroline, Trace’s friend, whom Clough said they could trust.

Harris is smiling now, his leathery gnome’s face transformed into something far less benign. A goblin or a troll perhaps. ‘You wandered into the yard,’ he is saying, ‘and, sadly, became the victim of a tragic accident.’

He looks at Caroline. ‘The walker?’ she says.

‘Perfect.’

‘This way,’ he points the gun. Judy and Clough have no choice but to follow. Clough considers turning on Harris and trying to force the gun out of his hand, but the trouble is, if it works, Caroline will probably shoot Judy. If it doesn’t work, Harris will definitely kill him. Both of them look like people who know how to handle guns. He curses himself for not arranging back-up. He curses Judy even more.

They cross the yard, silent except for the sound of the wind. Judy thinks about shouting for help but who would hear her? The horses? The cat? The donkey? She wonders where Randolph and Romilly are, not that they’d be much help. Their feet squelch in the mud as they approach the horse walker. What is Harris planning to do to them? Surely if he wanted to kill them he’d have done it by now. Or does he have something more exciting in mind?

Harris kicks open the door of the horse walker and Judy and Clough are pushed into one of the compartments. They hear the door being locked and footsteps going away. They look at each other. They are shut in a triangular wooden box, just wide enough, at its widest, for two people standing abreast. Clough hurls himself against the door. The wood creaks but holds.

‘Have you still got your phone?’ asks Judy.

‘No. That bastard took it.’

‘What are they going to do to us?’

‘I don’t know,’ says Clough grimly.

‘I can’t believe Caroline’s in it too.’

‘Nor can I. Trace told me that she was a real airy-fairy type, loved all the birds and the little animals, that sort of thing. Wait till I tell her.’

They are both silent, both thinking the same thing. Will Clough ever have the chance to tell his girlfriend about Caroline’s perfidy? Funnily enough, Judy finds it harder to imagine Clough being killed than it is to imagine her own death. Is this because she feels so guilty that, in some way, she thinks she deserves to die?

The sound of hoof-beats recalls Judy to life. She looks at Clough, who tightens his lips and clenches his fists. He looks quite formidable. All these years Judy has deplored her colleague’s Neanderthal tendencies; now she’s glad of them. The hooves come closer. Then the door is unlocked and Len Harris stands in front of them, gun in hand. Next to him is Caroline, holding a large black horse by the halter. The horse arches his neck and paws the ground, reminding Judy of Nelson.

‘We’ve brought The Necromancer to keep you company,’ says Harris. ‘So sad. Two policemen, sorry police people, trampled to death by a wild horse. And, believe me, he is wild.’

Judy believes him. Close up, The Necromancer looks huge and very frightening. His eyes roll and he stamps his great hooves. In a few seconds they will be trapped in a tiny space with him. Clough looks terrified, all his swagger gone. He flattens himself against the side of the compartment. Harris sends the horse forward with a slap on his rump. Caroline drops the halter and the massive animal is inches away from Judy. She can see his red nostrils and rolling, hysterical eye. She smells his woody animal smell, the scent she remembers from her own pony and which, oddly enough, still has the power to comfort her.

‘Have fun!’ shouts Harris. The walker starts to move forward. Judy falls to the floor. The great horse looms over her.

CHAPTER 29

The stairs are suddenly just there, white stairs leading up from the black beach. And he’s climbing them, Cathbad just in front, purple cloak flapping. And even in this dream state or whatever the hell state he’s in, he knows that stairs have got to be a good sign. Going up has to be good. It’s not like the tunnel. Every fibre of his being told him that the tunnel was a bad idea. But stairs – white stairs – that’s got to mean progress, surely? And then, without warning, a great wave breaks over him. He staggers, losing his footing and then he’s drowning in the black water and there’s no one to save him.

Michelle thought the frenzied activity was bad but this sudden silence is worse. ‘What’s going on?’ she shouts, but no one answers her.

Judy struggles to her feet. Beside her Clough is panicking, battering at the wooden sides of the horse walker. The Necromancer turns on him, teeth bared, ears back.

‘Clough!’ shouts Judy. ‘For God’s sake, stay still. You’ll scare the horse.’

‘I’m scaring him?’ But Clough stops flailing about. He edges next to Judy, breathing hard. The Necromancer twists his head, snake-like, and tries to bite him.

‘Jesus Christ!’

‘Stay still.’