Skin and Bones (2 page)

Must have been a robbery, she thought. She peered into the back of
the van, but it told her nothing. There were several grey sacks of mail,
but plenty of space where other sacks might have lain.

The blood on the road was fresh, glistening like resin in the sunshine.
That meant it had happened recently. She hadn't seen or heard any
vehicles, so the killer must have escaped on foot.

The implication of this wasn't lost on Julia. She turned slowly,
searching for signs of anything else out of place.

The village was roughly rectangular, with the cottages she'd just
passed forming the eastern flank from the shop up to the sturdy
Norman church of St Mary. Next to the church was the Rectory, and
then the Green Man, a handsome Tudor inn. Then Hurst Lane, a
private road which ran north for half a mile to Chilton Manor and
Hurst Farm.

On the other side of the lane was the Old Schoolhouse, home to
NIMBY activist Philip Walker. After that came Arundel Crescent, a
line of grand Georgian houses which ran down the western flank and
gave way to another terrace of smaller homes, ending opposite the
shop back at the southern tip.

Chilton's centrepiece was the village green, complete with pond
and a magnificent yew tree said to be over six hundred years old. The
pond was partially frozen, and a couple of seagulls paced the perimeter,
jostling smaller birds like hooligans on a day trip. They were the only
living things in sight.

It's too quiet, Julia thought. Eight o'clock on a Saturday, someone
should be out here, walking their dog, going shopping, ferrying the
kids to football. Her brother and his wife were like a full-time taxi
service for their children at the weekend. And surely someone would
have heard gunshots and come out to investigate?

Something's very wrong.

Because she'd only intended to pop to the shop, she had left her
handbag and mobile phone in the car, along with the cardboard boxes
and plastic sacks for packing up her parents' belongings. Not that her
mobile would have helped, she remembered. The village action group
had fought off plans for a phone mast. She would have to find a landline.

Or you could walk away
, a tiny, shameful voice spoke up. The
postman's dead. You can't help him. Just turn round and go back to
your car. It doesn't have to be your problem.

For a moment she might have succumbed. How wonderful to get
in her Mini, start the engine and drive away. She'd been through
enough trauma lately. Let someone else deal with this.

Then she imagined how her parents would have regarded such
cowardice. She didn't really believe in an afterlife, but since their
deaths she'd often envisaged them watching over her, judging her or
passing comment on her choices and decisions. Now they would expect
her to do whatever she could to help.

She ran on shaky legs to the nearest house, in the terrace next to
the churchyard. The garden gate creaked as she opened it, underscoring
the oppressive silence of the morning. The front door was
painted a cheery red, with a small handwritten sign at eye level:
Doorbell not working. Please knock
.

So she did. Leaning close to the door, she could hear music playing
inside: something melodic, with a Sixties twang.

There was no response. She knocked again, thumping the door
hard enough to rattle the hinges. 'Please!' she called. 'It's an emergency!'

Her cry provoked mournful cawing from the rooks in the trees
around the church. Julia felt her skin crawl and cast an anxious glance
over her shoulder, suddenly convinced she was being watched. Had
she sensed movement in Hurst Lane?

She waited a few more seconds, debating whether to run back to
the shop. She knew Moira was a nervy creature, and certainly not the
coolest of heads in a crisis. Besides, the postman might be a friend of
hers. Better to spare her that if she could.

St Mary's was a safer bet. Someone was bound to be up and about
by now. And if not, there might at least be a phone.

The churchyard was enclosed by a waist-high wall of Sussex flint.
She passed through the lych gate and followed the gravel path to the
entrance porch. Her route was lined by weathered gravestones, listing
at drunken angles.

To her relief, one of the heavy oak doors was open. She stepped
into the vestibule and saw another of Philip Walker's posters on the
noticeboard, alongside lists of services, cleaning rotas, an advert for a
jumble sale.

Pushing through a second set of doors, she entered the nave and
immediately felt calmed by the soft light and atmosphere of peaceful
reflection. The air smelled of dust and damp stone. And possibly something
else, but she refused to acknowledge it.

A wave of dizziness swept over her. She grabbed the back of a pew
and eased herself down. Leaning forward, she rested her head against
the pew in front, her hair falling across her face like a fan. Slowly the
other smell permeated her senses: something sharp and foul and
metallic.

This is no good, she told herself. You have to find a phone.

She repressed an urge to vomit, made herself breathe through her
mouth, slowly and deeply. It was at the mid-point, the breath suspended
in her lungs, when she heard it.

A soft, scrabbling sound. Something moving on the ancient stone
floor in front of the pews. Quiet, stealthy movement.

She sat upright, eyes locked on the point near the altar where the
noise had originated. Every muscle was rigid with terror. She couldn't
even release her breath.

If the killer was here, lying in wait, she would never outrun him.
She would never get out in time.

It was a simple, inescapable fact. If he was inside the church, then
she was already dead.

She heard it again. A scraping noise, a heel scuffing over stone.

Then a man's voice. Very weak, barely intelligible.

He said: 'Please . . .'

Then: 'Uhh.'

It was such a distinct exhalation, Julia immediately understood what
it meant. The man who made that noise had just lost his life, not
twenty feet from where she was sitting, paralysed with fear. She had
sat and heard a man die and done nothing.

She began to shake. She felt she might be going mad, and for a
few seconds it was almost a temptation. In shedding her sanity she
could shrug off all responsibility along with it.

Then the moment passed, and she rose to her feet and approached
the front of the church. She tried not to remember how the postman
had looked. Tried not to think about what she would see this time.

There were two bodies, lying several feet apart in the space between
the front pew and the chancel. The vicar was curled in a foetal position,
one hand reaching for the altar as though in a plea for clemency.
He'd been shot several times in the stomach. There was a smear of
blood on the floor where he had dragged himself towards the aisle.

His eyes were open, staring at Julia with sorrowful reproach.
You
didn't help
, he might have been saying.
You heard me and you didn't
help
.

A few feet beyond him was the body of a heavy grey-haired woman
in sweat pants and a blue fleece. She'd been shot in the back of the head.
The resulting debris lay around her like old porridge. A tin of Pledge
rested at her side, a blood-speckled yellow duster still gripped in her hand.

Julia backed away. Her imagination hardly dared to conclude what
was happening here. Paradoxically, the words that leapt into her head
made no sense, and yet they made perfect sense.

This wasn't a robbery. It was a massacre.

Slowly she came back to the present, aware that a few minutes had
passed. She had no recollection of returning to one of the pews, but
that was where she found herself. She was shivering, clutching herself
to try and stop the trembling.

Visions flooded her mind: a grisly panorama of the bodies she had
seen, jumbled together with news footage of Hungerford, Port Arthur,
Dunblane. The perpetrator invariably male, white, a troubled loner
nursing real or imagined grievances in a cauldron of paranoia.

She imagined him walking from house to house, knocking quietly.
The villagers readily opening their front doors, expecting to greet a
neighbour or perhaps the postman with a parcel. And instead, he was
killing them all
.
Wiping out an entire community.

Moira
.

It was the jolt Julia needed, the adrenalin rush like a blow to the
stomach. She jumped up and quickly checked the vestry, then a small
office next to it, but there was no phone. She knew she couldn't
remain in the church, but leaving by the main entrance was too risky.

Instead she made for the side door in the east chancel. It meant
passing the bodies of the vicar and the cleaner, but she forced herself
to do it. She had to keep moving, had to stay focused.

The heavy door creaked open, sounding horrifically loud. She
stepped out, blinking in the bright sunshine, and followed the path
diagonally across the churchyard. A gate in the wall led to a footpath
that ran behind the cottages, parallel to the High Street.

She was level with the first house, the one she'd tried earlier, when
she noticed the back door was ajar. She'd been intending to make
straight for the shop, but now she stopped. She could phone the police
from here.

There was a low fence at the back of the property, easily vaulted.
The garden was a narrow strip of turf, strewn with partially deflated
footballs and a plastic cricket set. There was a soiled cat litter tray by
the door.

Julia could hear the radio playing in the kitchen, the mindless
chatter of a DJ. She stepped inside and called, 'Hello? I need to use
the phone. Is anyone there?'

No one answered, but the sound of shifting crockery made her
jump.

The dishwasher. According to the display, it had eight minutes left
to run. There was a mug of herbal tea on the worktop. Julia felt it
with the back of her hand. Still warm.

Someone should be here.

She crept into the narrow hallway. The door to the living room
was open. She spotted the phone and the bodies simultaneously.

A young woman in a towelling dressing gown was sprawled over
her child, a small boy with glorious white-blond hair. Playmobil fire
trucks and figures were scattered around them. There was blood everywhere.
The woman had obviously tried to shield her son, and then
covered his eyes with her hand. She couldn't stop him dying, but at
least she could make sure he didn't see it happen.

Julia wobbled again. Felt she was breaking apart.
No one would
blame me
, she thought.

Turning away, she snatched the phone from its perch on the wall.
There was no dialling tone. She stabbed the call button. Listened.
Stabbed it again. Nothing.

The phone was dead. It couldn't be coincidence. It was part of the
plan.

Movement outside caught her attention. She took a cautious step
towards the window. Across the green, a door had opened in Arundel
Crescent, causing a flash of reflected sunlight. The man who emerged
was short and stocky, with spiky straw-coloured hair, wearing a denim
jacket and camouflage trousers. He held a pistol in one hand, and
there was a shotgun slung over his shoulder.

He closed the door behind him, then stopped and slowly surveyed
the scene. For a moment he seemed to be staring right at Julia. When
he smiled, she thought her heart would stop beating.

Then she realised he was looking at the postman's body. Admiring
his handiwork.

He strode away, disappearing behind the massive yew tree. The
direction he was taking would lead him to the shop.

In desperation Julia tried the phone again, but she knew it was
hopeless. The village was cut off from the rest of the world, just as
the killer intended.

She was on her own.

She ran back through the kitchen. On the radio the Rolling Stones
seemed to be mocking her:
You can't always get what you want
. The
words echoed in her head as she retraced her steps through the garden.
Again she thought of her parents. She hoped they would be proud of
her for overcoming the urge to flee.

She sprinted towards the shop, praying she would make it in time.
The path was a mixture of gravel, earth and weeds, and the crunch
of her pounding feet seemed to reverberate around the village.

The shop backed on to a yard containing several wheelie bins, a
stack of cardboard boxes and an old plastic crate. There were two
small opaque windows, protected by metal grilles. The back door was
solid timber and couldn't be opened from the outside.

Julia knocked as loudly as she dared. Another bout of giddiness
made her sway on her feet. Black spots danced in front of her eyes.
Her heart was thudding so loudly she thought it would explode from
her chest.

Then a voice: 'Who's there?'

Julia forced herself upright. 'Moira, it's Julia Trent. Open the door.'

She feared Moira might argue, or tell her to come round the front,
but she heard the thud of a bolt being drawn back. The door opened
and Moira peered out, reacting with alarm at the sight of Julia's face.

'Oh my word. What's happened, love?'

Julia tried to speak but was overcome by a flood of nausea. Her
chest heaved and she turned away, clutching her stomach and spitting
bile on to the dusty cement.

'You poor dear,' Moira said. 'Come on, let's get you indoors.'

Julia nodded, turned back and stepped into the stockroom. Moira
stroked her arm. 'You've had a shock. I told you it could happen,
didn't I?'

Julia tried to put her right but could only stammer, 'No, I . . . I've
g-got . . .'

Moira shushed her. 'Don't try and tell me yet. Just rest a minute.'
There was a clipboard lying on an old chair in the corner of the room.
Moira picked it up and dragged the chair towards Julia, causing a bell
to ring from somewhere. A
eureka
! moment, Julia thought, and
wondered if she had finally lost her mind.

Moira said, 'Here, sit yourself down while I pop the kettle on.'

Julia frowned. Why would moving a chair cause a bell to ring?

Then she understood, but panic overwhelmed her, short-circuiting
her brain. She knew what she had to say and do, but her body wouldn't
respond.

Some sort of noise must have emerged from her throat, for Moira
turned towards her in a strange kind of slow motion. At the same time
Julia had a clear line of sight through the shop. The man with spiky
hair was walking towards the counter. She saw he was young, no more
than mid-twenties. He had very pale eyes and an uneven growth of
bristles on his chin.

He saw her and smiled. His teeth were yellow and crooked, with
a distinctive left canine jutting out like a vampire's fang. He raised
the gun and Julia noticed the thick cylinder attached to the barrel. A
silencer. That's why no one had heard gunshots.

Moira was speaking again, making clucking noises of sympathy.
She noticed Julia's terrified gaze and turned to see what had provoked
it. There was a spitting noise and a spray of blood blew from her neck.
Moira's eyes widened, her mouth a perfect circle of surprise as she
toppled forward.

Another
phutt
and Julia felt the bullet brush past her hair, thudding
into the doorframe behind her. Then there was a moment where
Moira's falling body obscured her view of the killer. A third shot hit
the shopkeeper as she fell, and by then Julia's survival instinct had
kicked in.

She leapt out of the stockroom, dragging the door shut behind her.
Grabbed one of the wheelie bins and pulled it across the door. It
wasn't heavy enough to prevent him getting out, but it might gain her
a few seconds. But which way should she go?

She had two options. Back up the lane towards the church, or along
the alley by the side of the shop and rejoin the main road. That was
the one she favoured. Once on the High Street she could make a run
for her car. Fifty or sixty yards, she'd cover that in no time.

It was the wrong choice. She knew it when she heard the bell ring
again, but by then it was too late. She was only yards from the main
road, running too fast to stop. Her forward momentum sent her skidding
on to the narrow pavement just as the killer emerged from the
shop.

He had outguessed her. Then she registered his surprise and realised
it was worse than that. He'd just been lucky. Sometimes that's all it
came down to, she thought. He'd struck it lucky. She hadn't.

They stood a couple of feet apart, facing each other. There was no
way she could escape. This was the end.

She stuck out her jaw and tried to look defiant. She wasn't going
to beg for her life. In any case, she didn't trust herself to speak.

The killer made a dry snickering noise that brought to mind some
half-remembered cartoon character. He examined her for a long
second, his attention lingering on her body. Her jeans and jacket
couldn't disguise the fact that she was tall, slim, shapely.

Finally he met her gaze, and seemed to come to a decision. His
pale eyes gleamed. His smile hinted at the pleasures of anticipation,
and she knew all too well what that meant. He liked what he saw. He
wasn't going to kill her straight away.

She understood this perhaps half a second before he spoke.
A single word in a low, guttural whisper.

'Run.'