Dancing On the Grave, page 4
He’d taught Edith to shoot when she was barely big enough to get the butt into her shoulder. She’d always been fascinated by the AK but he’d never let her touch it.
Looks like she finally helped herself.
In her haste, Edith had put the rifle back with the strap twisted. For someone who’d happily let his wife pick up his dirty towels and discarded underwear, Jim Airey was meticulous when it came to his firearms.
He spun back to face her, triumphant, and waved the cartridge casing in front of her face again.
“Did you honestly think I wouldn’t know my own?” he repeated, quietly furious now. Her reply was more racking sobs.
He turned the casing over in his hands, smoothing his thumb across its surface. Pure luck he’d been sent to walk the field boundary, that his foot scuffed against the spent brass as he’d trudged through the long grass. It had been worth scrabbling through that nettle patch after all.
Because if that snobby redhead had got hold of this casing, it would have tied the gun straight back to him. He knew the casing was marked just as uniquely by the firing pin and the ejector mechanism of each gun as the bullet was by its passage through the barrel.
Not only that, but Airey reloaded his own ammunition. So each casing bore the marks of the clamps and tools used to repack it with propellant and the fresh projectile. Wasn’t easy, getting hold of bullets for a gun that had never been legal in this country, and he had all the kit for putting together his own, so why take the risk?
Only now it was another nail in his coffin.
He tried to work out if anyone at the station had ever seen any of his reloads, but he didn’t think so. With the incriminating evidence in his hand, he was free and clear.
So that just left Edith, and the fact that she had wilfully taken one of his guns and used it to kill an animal connected to someone with influence. Someone who could make real trouble for them. For that alone, he was seething.
He tossed the cartridge casing into a plastic storage tray that was already half full with empty brass, hiding one among the many. His daughter was still crying noisily, but when he glanced at her sharply he found she was watching him from behind her lank hair.
“I should wash my hands of you for this,” he growled. “How could you be so thick?”
“It was killing lambs,” she muttered, hanging her head further so all he could see now was the prominent vertebra at the back of her neck. Her voice rose to a wail. “They should’ve been grateful.”
“Grateful? Ha! Don’t you know whose dog that was?” He let out his breath on a snort. “’Course you do. After all that trouble at Christmas, she wants your hide, you stupid girl, and I’ve half a mind to give it to her.”
“You wouldn’t.” Her face jerked up then, a mess of tears and snot. Some women could cry with dignity but Edith wasn’t one of them. Who’d want to comfort that?
Airey sighed. At the end of the day, she was still his flesh and blood. Took after her mother, of course, but still bore his name. And he was protective of that, if nothing else.
“They’ve got nothing. All right?” She took her time about nodding and he glared at her until she did. “Now, hand it over.”
“What?”
“The key, Edith. Don’t test my patience, girl.”
Slowly, reluctantly, she dug down the front of her shirt and pulled out a thin silver chain. The copy key, when she placed it defiantly in his outstretched palm, was still warm to the touch. Airey stared at it, then jerked his head towards the cellar steps.
“Go on. And you better ask my permission before you set one foot on those stairs in future. Got it?”
She mumbled something that he took to be assent and flounced back up to the kitchen. As they reached the top, Airey’s radio crackled into life. He recognised Danny Robertshaw, agitatedly asking his location. Just for a moment, he considered ignoring the call.
“I said I’d not be more than half an hour, Danny. Can’t it wait?” he demanded, tilting the microphone towards his mouth without taking his eyes off Edith.
“Er, not really,” came the cautious reply. “Er, DC Weston needs you back here sharpish, mate.”
“Well, make some excuse, can’t you?” Airey snapped.
There was a pause, then an entirely different voice came on. “What kind of an excuse would that be?” it asked, the pleasant tone not quite masking the underlying threat. Airey’s stomach sank. “I’d hate to have to report you to your inspector,” the voice went on, still calm and reasonable, “for unauthorised use of a police vehicle.”
Airey let go of the transmit button long enough to swear under his breath. All right, don’t get your knickers in a twist. “Yeah, er, sorry about that. I’m on me way.”
Weston knows, Airey thought, feeling the panic gorge on itself. He flicked a glance at Edith, just in case she was finding the slightest amusement in his discomfort. But she was just standing there, apparently oblivious, staring at the lino under her shuffling feet, her pointed little shoulders hunched and shivering.
He glared at her, even so. “We’ll have words about this later, Edith,” he warned darkly. “Understand?”
She gave an unwilling nod without raising her head. Airey eyed her for a moment longer before his impatience got the better of him and he turned for the door.
“There was somebody up there,” she said, bringing him up short. “On Orton Scar. Lying hidden with a rifle, watching it all.”
He wheeled back to find she’d finally got her chin off her chest far enough to look him in the eye, defiance in her face now.
“Somebody lying, eh? I’ll bet. But I’d lay money there’s no mystery man up on Orton Scar.”
“There was!” Edith burst out, colour flooding her face now. “He had a long gun—a big rifle—with a sight on it, and a sort of big square block on the end, and it was on bipod legs. I saw him—”
“That’s. Enough.”
His roar stopped Edith dead, looking hurt, of all things. As if he was going to believe that kind of fantasy.
“What did he look like, then, this bloke?” he demanded, and when she shrugged he rolled his eyes and jeered, “You’ll have to do better than that, Edith, if you saw him so clear.”
“Dunno,” she muttered. “He was covered in all camouflage stuff. Grass and weeds.”
“What—a ghillie suit?” Airey asked. He’d shown her pictures, years ago, of the methods used by Scottish ghillies to hunt game in the Highlands. They weaved in surrounding vegetation to blend so perfectly with the scenery that they could almost get close enough to touch their prey.
“Yes!” Edith latched on with suspicious eagerness. “He had a ghillie suit.”
“Seen many ten-point stags roaming majestically across Orton Scar, have you?” Airey said derisively and he turned away again.
“He wasn’t facing that way. He was pointed down the valley towards the village, and her house,” Edith grumbled.
Airey regarded her a moment longer, aware that the more he delayed, the more trouble he was in.
But, if Edith had seen something, that might go in his favour. He could claim he was following a lead, a hunch. Trouble was, if it turned out to be just another of the girl’s stories, he’d look twice the fool for repeating it. And what was there to shoot at in Orton? Nothing much to interest a serious poacher, that was for sure.
Damn the kid…
“You must think I’m all kinds of an idiot if I believe that fairytale,” he growled, annoyed as much with himself for giving it credence, however briefly. The finger stabbed out another warning. “You just keep your mouth shut and say nothing, all right? You can manage that, at least.” He regarded her with a final contemptuous glance before heading towards the door. “Never did have much to say worth listening to, anyway.”
“But—”
“Give it a rest, Edith.” Airey didn’t look back, exasperation making his voice harsh. “Just for once show me some respect and remember what I’ve said, will you?” And he slammed out of the house.
It was only as he gunned the Focus back up the narrow street that he realised in his anger he’d never asked Edith just what she’d been up to. What on earth had she been doing—out there in the fields at that time in the morning with a loaded AK-47? Whatever her original plans, the dog had not figured in them.
And the fact that Jim Airey’s palms felt suddenly clammy against the hard plastic of the steering wheel had little to do with the speed he was driving, nor the prospect of an ear-bashing from some jumped-up detective when he reached his destination.
7
I want to die!
Edith Airey flung herself onto the single bed in her mean little bedroom at the back of the house and listened to the harsh note of the patrol car engine dying into the distance.
When she’d left home that morning it had all seemed so clear—what she had to do, how she planned to do it. Going to the house of that cow had seemed the perfect location to end it all. She imagined Angela Inglis hearing the shot and running out to find Edith’s pale elegant corpse on her lawn. Oh, the self-recrimination, the wailing!
Taking the AK from her father’s illegal collection was the perfect crowning act of defiance. He might still treat her like a kid, but that would’ve taught him to take her seriously!
But reality never matched the images in Edith’s head. She’d been so caught up in planning her own demise that she hadn’t given much thought to the act itself. It had been like one of those old black-and-white war films her mother watched in the afternoons—stealing the key, getting it copied and putting the original back, planning her route across the fields so she wouldn’t be seen.
She was the tragic heroine, imagining herself in a long black Cossack coat and a fur hat, meeting her contact in a lonely wood or deserted church to accept a dangerous one-way mission.
Only, things hadn’t quite worked out like she planned. They never did, she thought mournfully. When she’d heard the frightened cries of the lambs, seen the dog running amok, she’d just had time for a burst of relief that she wouldn’t have to go through with it after all.
But even as she’d lined up the open sights—as some part of her brain had taken into account the direction of the dog’s run, the way the breeze was stirring the grass, the slight elevation—another part had recognised Ben and known there’d be hell to pay.
So she’d run. Abandoned her careful plan and turned tail like a coward, hoping she’d be able to get home and put the gun back without anyone realising.
Should’ve known I wouldn’t be that lucky.
The tears spilled hot down her pinched cheeks. They blurred the old film posters and the childish pattern of the wallpaper around the window on the far side of the room. She knew her father’s outburst was just the beginning. She hadn’t expected to be around to answer for anything.
Her parents, naturally, hadn’t noticed anything was amiss. And the more they’d breezily ignored her towering wordless rage, the more uncommunicative Edith had become, punishing them in advance for their indifference. She’d made her plans in sullen silence up in her cramped bedroom.
It wasn’t that they hated her—that, at least, would have been something to rail against. You can’t push against something that doesn’t push back.
They just don’t care. Nobody cares about, stupid, ugly, fat Edith.
She had no idea how her father had discovered her escapade so fast. Just her luck that he’d been out playing at policeman, today of all days. The memory of his words brought on a fresh wave of mortification and she buried her face in the pillow until the worst of it passed.
She fingered the empty silver chain around her neck. He’d guard the key more jealously after this, she knew, but there’d be another way. She clenched her fists until the nails dug painfully into her palms. There had to be another way.
She sat up, scrubbing at her leaking eyes, determination chasing away the lassitude. If she couldn’t use one of her father’s illicit guns, there were plenty of others. Something bigger than her own little .22 Gaucher. Something guaranteed to do the job, instant. All kinds of people had firearms about the place in the country, if you just knew where to look…
Edith wondered where the unknown sniper on the hill had got his gun. Even though he’d disguised the weapon in strips of sacking and grass, she’d known right away she’d never seen anything like it. So, who was he? Some mysterious spy with a secret agenda of his own? For a moment she allowed herself the warm fantasy that her hated ex-employer was the object of the sniper’s deadly skill.
If only…
It still galled her that her father had thrown the information in her face, like she didn’t know what she’d seen. Like she was making it all up.
But she had seen it, just like she’d said. And if he was too stupid to listen, what did she care? It was his lookout, the sweaty old sod. Just another grievance. Another thing they’d be sorry about in the end.
If it was the last thing she did, Edith was determined to make sure of that.
8
High on Orton Scar, a man going by the name of Patrick Bardwell lay behind the scope of his rifle, motionless in the long grass.
He’d been there since before dawn, tabbing in until he was within sight of habitation and low-crawling into final position on his belly, moving a few inches at a time, towing the gun laboriously alongside him in a canvas drag bag.
Then he’d waited, patient, for a moment that never came, and so witnessed without emotion the massacre as it unfolded in the fields below.
Bardwell had never completed formal education beyond the basics at fifteen but he’d spent a good deal of his professional life waiting for action, in one corner of the world or another. When not undergoing constant training, he’d passed his free hours immersed in books and learning.
So, he knew that massacre was the right word to describe what he’d seen: indiscriminate slaughter, especially with cruelty.
Bardwell calculated he was roughly a thousand metres from the scene and, because of the topography, approximately sixty metres above it. Far enough that he couldn’t hear the cries of the lambs, despite the stillness of the morning air. What little breeze there was had come nominally out of the east, carrying any sounds off west of him. And for that, at least, he’d been grateful.
In ideal circumstances, Bardwell would have had a spotter with a laser range-finder to call the distances for him, but the circumstances weren’t ideal. So, he’d based his computations on features of the landscape, carefully noted during recon, drip-filtered through a lifetime of experience like water through rock.
Before the girl had appeared, Bardwell had considered taking out the dog himself. A tricky shot, but not impossible, and it presented some technical challenges that interested him. He’d got as far as sliding his right index finger inside the guard to caress the curve of the trigger itself, knowing exactly how much pressure was required for it to break.
He had allowed for the elevation. The sights were calibrated and set to eight hundred metres, but the extra was well within the capabilities of both man and weapon. At this distance, it was simple mathematics to work out the hold-off without adjusting the scope, to neutralise the target without compromising his position. He might even still be able to remain on station and complete his original mission.
And then the girl had walked into view, passing so close that he still couldn’t be sure she hadn’t seen him. She’d glanced over a few times, but had seemed nervy anyway. And when he’d recognised the rifle slung over her shoulder, he’d understood why.
There was something horribly familiar about the sight of her, bone thin, almost childlike, carrying a Kalashnikov. It brought back all kinds of memories, none of them good.
He had faith that the all-engulfing ghillie suit would keep him hidden from all but the most sustained search. He’d made it himself with care and minute attention to detail, using a pair of khaki coveralls as a base and building on it, layer by layer with narrow strips of camouflage material, long enough to sweep the ground when he was lying prone.
He’d added the final weave of real vegetation only after he’d arrived at his location to keep it alive for as long as possible, given the same treatment to a floppy wide-brimmed bush hat with a veil of cam netting to cover his face and a short train at the back that melded with the rest of the suit. Bardwell knew that from anything above a few metres away he was well-nigh invisible. At one time his life had depended upon it.
So he’d done nothing to take the offensive as he’d watched the girl walk down the hill towards the village, carrying her gun slung on its webbing strap. She’d had to get much closer to the field, of course, before she’d seen what was going on there.
And when she did so, she swung the rifle up to her shoulder with a practised ease that surprised him. It had only taken her a moment to work out that the distance was too great and she’d begun to run, awkward and ungainly, into the dip of the neighbouring field, then up to meet the wall, swift as any advancing soldier.
Without a moment’s hesitation, she’d levelled the rifle over the top of the old stones and bent her head to the sights.
Bardwell tracked the dog again, saw it pause, turn its head in the direction of the intruder. Blood coated its muzzle and dripped from its open jaws. Now it had the taste, would it change to human prey?
The corrected aiming point he’d selected on the crosshairs of the scope’s reticle pattern lined up perfectly on the killer’s chest.
But before he could fire she had beaten him to it. He jerked in conditioned response as the sound of the shot reached him. When he had eyes on the target again, it was to see the predator’s dying throes, one foreleg just visible above the softly waving grasses.
By the time Bardwell shifted the scope focus back to the girl, her own legs had folded under her. She’d slid down with her back against the wall, hand pressed to her mouth. It was only then, through the magnification of the scope, he realised that he knew her.
