“Some houses weren’t built atop tunnels,” Jessica said. “I’d guess the tunnels were dug under this house after it was put up. The buildings here and the mines have grown together. They’re intertwined. There’s a relationship in a village that depends on the people, but goes beyond us.”
“Couldn’t the tunnels have been dug around the houses?”
“The tunnels follow the seam. Coal is king here.”
“Good lord.”
“Are you all right?”
“Yes, thank you. I think you saved my life just then.”
“They shouldn’t have a chandelier in here anyway.”
“You know, I didn’t feel the tremor at all.”
“Perhaps it’s because you’ve been shaking so badly,” Jessica said. “You were shaking just as much as the house was.”
All at once, Hammersmith was no longer a stranger looking out through his own eyes. His body came back to him and he could feel the bitter cold in his limbs and across his chest; he could feel himself shaking so hard that he was driving his own body deeper into the cushions of the sofa, every muscle tensing so that it hurt.
“What’s happening?” he said.
“You’re sick,” Jessica said.
“I can’t be as sick as all that.”
“But you are. You can’t help it.”
“I can’t?”
“No. You must have drunk the water here.”
“What does the water have to do with anything?”
“I think it’s in the water.”
“What’s in the water?”
“I don’t know, but we’ve got to get you to your doctor right away. He’s the one who guessed.”
The last thing Hammersmith felt before he blacked out was Jessica grabbing him under the arms and hoisting him up. He tried to move his legs, tried to help her, but then he was gone.
33
The woods on this side of the village were more lush. The trees were farther away from the furnaces and, therefore, not as blackened. Fewer dead trunks, more new growth. Thick ash hadn’t fallen this far out, season after season, obscuring the ground cover, killing the green. The snowfall was irregular, soft drifting flakes giving way to occasional showers of ice and snow as the leaf canopy bent under the accumulation and let it all go in a sudden cascade of freezing white.
Day moved along quickly, already acclimated to walking in the forest. He followed their faint trail and caught up to the others within a few minutes. Calvin Campbell was moving easily through the trees and brush, obviously used to the terrain, and just as obviously moving slowly so that the others could keep up. Dr Denby was having the most trouble. He stopped every few yards to catch his breath, and Day worried about the possibility of another coughing spell.
“How far is it?” Day said. He had to shout because Campbell was several yards ahead, barely visible through the tangle of branches.
Campbell stopped and turned, waiting for Day and Denby to catch up. “Not far,” he said. “Not long ago, this would have seemed much closer to the back of the church. Where I’m taking you. The undergrowth would have been brittle and the leaves wouldn’t have grown in yet on all these trees.” He pointed up at the tops of the trees, but kept his eyes on Day. Deep shadows emphasized the cruel lines in the giant’s face. “Someone would have needed to come this far in to be sure nobody would see them from the church’s belfry.”
Day turned and looked back the way they’d come. It was hard to be sure, but he thought he might still be able to see the high grey stone walls of the church through the trees. But then he might have been looking at a small slice of the heavy sky.
“See who?” he said. “Who are you talking about?”
“I don’t know,” Campbell said. “Come, we’re almost there.”
Campbell turned and crashed away deeper into the woods. Day and Denby hurried after him. Day listened to the wilderness around him, on alert for some sort of attack. He still didn’t understand Campbell’s motives. But the only thing he could hear was Denby’s heavy breathing behind him. Campbell had left him behind in the woods the night before, and it was entirely possible that it was a habit with the bird-watcher. Then Day swept a springy branch out of the way and found Campbell just ahead of him, squatting down over something in a natural clearing in the forest.
He came up behind Campbell and could see the giant’s muscles ripple and tense, uncomfortable with his back to anyone, but he didn’t move away. Day took a step closer and saw something bulky, something pink and grey and soft, lying near the outer edge of the clearing.
Day reared back and bumped into Denby. The doctor craned his neck to see past Campbell, and Day saw the color drain from his face when he realized what he was looking at. The process of recognition took the doctor a few seconds longer than it had the inspector, but Denby was used to treating burns and scrapes and broken arms and fevers. Day was used to murder scenes and all that they entailed.
The mass of flesh that had been pushed up under some low-hanging branches was once a small pig. That much was clear from the shape of the remaining ragged ear that Day could see when he turned back for a second look. But the pig had been changed by the carpet of maggots that lay frozen in place across its skin and in its many gaping wounds. There was no blood. Not anymore. Animals had been at the body, tearing open the pig’s belly and carrying away most of the juicy internal organs. The brief early spring had helped the denizens of the woods break the pig’s corpse down into its various component parts, but the return to winter had interrupted that process. Still, its hindquarters had been burrowed into, and there were various exit points higher on the corpse where those burrowing creatures had come back up for sunlight and air.
Campbell broke a low branch off a nearby tree. It was thick with new green leaves. He used it as a brush, swiping at the pig’s corpse, scraping off the layer of crunchy white maggots until more of the pig’s skin was visible. He used his free hand to wave the doctor over. “What do you think?” he said.
Denby leaned over the body and then squatted to get a closer look. “Dead a week, at least,” he said.
“I thought maybe we could heal it,” Campbell said. His sarcasm was lost on the doctor. “Anything else you can tell us?”
Denby looked stricken. “What exactly would you like to know?”
“I’d like to know what killed it,” Campbell said. “Is that something you can tell from looking at it?”
“A knife. It was killed with a knife or some other small sharp object. A miner’s wedge, perhaps?”
“A lot of wounds there.”
“Someone timid did this. None of those wounds is deep. A lot of shallow work done.”
“Why would the pig sit still for that?” Day said.
“Bound by the feet. Ligature marks, front and back. The two front feet tied together and the same with the two back feet.”
“Trussed up?” Campbell said.
“No, not pulled up on a trestle or a branch, the way it might be if someone were hunting.”
“Then what?”
“Just tied.”
“Pig won’t sit still for a thing like that.”
“Well, a wild hog wouldn’t. But pigs are smart. If this one belonged to someone, it might wait, might trust its owner until it was too late to fight back.”
“Anything else?”
“I don’t know what you. .” Dr Denby doubled over with no warning and began to vomit, each spasm taking an apparent toll on his frail body. Pale brown liquid splashed into the snow. After a minute or two, he fell over on
