Skin and Bones (5 page)

The first media report was broadcast at 9 a.m., by a local independent
radio station. The BBC picked it up shortly afterwards and prepared
to insert a mention into the next round of headlines. At this stage it
was merely a brief, unconfirmed report of a shooting in a small Sussex
village. News producers monitored the situation before deciding
whether to break into regular programming.

Craig didn't hear the first bulletin. He was watching
Spongebob
Squarepants
and refereeing between his children. Usually goodnatured
and co-operative, this morning they seemed to have picked
up on his irritable mood and were determined to push him over the
edge.

Nina had gone to the office again. Christmas aside, she'd worked
something like seven out of the past eight weekends. Usually Saturday
mornings, but once or twice the whole day, and a couple of Sunday
afternoons.

'I need to do it,' she had said. 'My career matters to me.'

'More than your family?' he'd retorted. He stopped short of saying,
More than your marriage
?

'No. And don't try emotional blackmail. Have I ever complained
when work took you away for days or even weeks at a time?'

'That's why I went freelance, to have more control over my life.'
But it was a valid point. 'Isn't it something you can do here?'

'I already work from home two days a week. I can hardly object to
a few hours at the weekend.'

She left the house at eight. Her office was in the centre of Crawley,
a ten-minute drive away. She gave him a perfunctory kiss on the cheek
and promised to be back as soon as she could.

'Give me a rough idea,' he said as she opened the front door. Clad
only in jogging trousers and a t-shirt, the freezing cold air was a pleasurable
shock.

'I don't know. One o'clock. Two at the latest.'

'Two at the latest,' he repeated, as if her own words might bind her.

She nodded, unlocked the car and got in. There was something
unreadable on her face as she backed off the driveway. A look he was
seeing more and more frequently, and didn't like at all.

During the ad break he got up to make coffee and asked if the children
wanted another drink.

'More juice, please,' said Maddie, thrusting her cup at him.

'Can we turn over?' said Tom. He reached for the remote control,
only to find his sister snatching at it. In doing so she slopped the dregs
of her orange juice over the sofa.

'Bloody hell!' Craig roared. Loud enough to make both children
flinch. He was a big man, six feet tall and broad-shouldered, and often
he was clumsy himself. Part of him knew he was overreacting even
as he took the cup from her, but then Tom grabbed the remote control.
'You're not having that, either,' Craig said, and Tom, seeing the look
on his face, meekly handed it over.

'Fetch a cloth to wipe this up,' he said. Maddie hurried from the
room, bottom lip trembling. Craig felt the familiar pang of guilt that
his anger had upset them, and made sure he thanked her when she
returned with a hand towel. Not what he'd asked for, but it would do.

'Go and play upstairs,' he suggested. 'Better still, tidy your bedrooms.'

Alone in the room, he did some idle channel-hopping. On
News
24
a grim-faced presenter said, '. . . village of Chilton.' He'd already
pressed the remote again, and had to wait for it to go back. This time
he caught, 'More on that as soon as we have it.'

The newsreader went on to the next story. Craig sat forward,
watching the ticker flow along the bottom of the screen:
Bush declares
real improvements in Iraq
. Then, beneath the banner of BREAKING
NEWS:
Reports of a serious shooting incident in a Sussex village.
Emergency services are at the scene
.

At first the words didn't sink in. Chilton was practically the most
sedate place he'd ever been. He could only imagine that someone
had committed suicide with a shotgun.

There was a cordless phone on the unit next to the TV. He picked
it up and pressed number four on the speed dial. Heard the rapid set of
bleeps and then a moment's silence. Instead of a ringing sound, a recorded
voice announced, 'Sorry, we have been unable to connect your call.'

He got a dialling tone and tried again. Same result. He tried dialling
the number from memory, in case the programmed number was
wrong. Same result.

It didn't mean anything, necessarily. Far too early to think the worst.
But still he felt a shiver. A small but robust conviction that something
was very, very wrong.

The phone book wasn't in any of its usual locations. He grew frantic,
running around the house. He found it in Nina's office, hidden in a
stack of paperwork beneath her desk. He knelt on the carpet and
riffled through the pages. Stupidly, the name of the pub deserted him.
Was it the Green Man or the Long Man?

It was the Green Man. He used the phone in Nina's office and
rang the number. Got the same result: no connection possible.

He found a number for the village store and tried that. Same
result. He stared at the phone book, then swiped it shut. This was
absurd. Probably just a technical fault. And the TV must have the
wrong place.

* * *

By the time he got downstairs, the situation had escalated. It was now
the lead story. The background image was a distant shot of an idyllic
rural village: red tile roofs and a church tower peeking from a stand
of oaks. The news ticker read: SUSSEX SHOOTING: MAJOR INCIDENT
DECLARED.

There were two presenters, a middle-aged man and a much younger
woman. The man looked grey and tired. The woman was perky and
over-made-up.

The man said, '. . . have now confirmed a serious shooting in the
Sussex village of Chilton. As yet the extent of the casualties remains
uncertain, but we do know that emergency services are at the scene
in significant numbers, and the Major Incident Plan for Sussex has
been initiated.' The words tumbled around inside Craig's head and
finally made sense. He picked up the phone to try Dad again, then
had a better idea. Abby.

The number he wanted was on his mobile, and that was in the
kitchen. He discovered the kids had grown bored upstairs and were
watching
High School Musical 2
on the little TV/DVD player.

'I'm hungry,' Maddie announced.

'Get yourself some sweets.'

She gave him a sharp look. Such instant capitulation was unheard
of. It prompted a reminder from Tom: 'Mum says we're not allowed
until after tea.'

'Is Mum here?' Craig said.

Tom shrugged. Good enough for him.

On TV the presenters were speaking to a retired chief constable.
While they nudged him towards ever more newsworthy speculation,
Craig listened to a phone ringing. And ringing.

Then a slightly peeved voice said, 'Craig? It's been a while.'

'Did I wake you?'

'Don't be silly. I have a living to earn.'

Now he made out the hum of traffic in the background. 'Where
are you?'

A gentle laugh. 'Classified, my dear. I could tell you . . .'

'I'm watching
News 24
. Something about a shooting in Chilton.'

Her tone quickly changed. 'That's where I'm headed. What have
you heard?'

'Nothing. I was hoping you'd know.'

'Sketchy, but the word is another Hungerford.'

There was a brief, blunt silence. Hungerford is a small market town
in Berkshire. In 1987 a man named Michael Ryan had gone on the
rampage, killing . . . how many?

Abby said, 'So what's your interest?'

He went to speak, but his tongue sat like a dry sock in his mouth.
It was almost a surprise when he heard himself say, 'My dad lives there.'

Abby Clark was a journalist on
The Times
. Fifteen years ago she and
Craig had started out together on a local paper in Hampshire. Contact
had been pretty sporadic in the past few years, which was entirely
Craig's fault. She had been greatly amused to hear of his move into
features and sports writing, without knowing much about the reasons
that lay behind it. 'Always in search of the easy life, eh?'

He hadn't taken offence. He never did with Abby. She could say
the most outrageous things to him and get away with it. 'Because
you've got a crush on me,' she'd once teased him, and she was probably
right.

Now she sought to reassure him. 'I'm sure it's not on the scale of
Hungerford at all. You know what the initial stage is like. All kinds
of rumours buzzing around. Terrorism, accidents, organised crime.'
If that was supposed to allay his fears, it didn't succeed. 'I've tried
phoning but the whole village seems to be cut off.'

'The police have probably taken the lines down. Or commandeered
them for their own use.'

'Maybe,' he said. There was another reason why the police would
cut off the phones, but neither of them said it aloud. A hostage
situation.

'I'm sure he's fine,' Abby said. 'I'll call you the moment I hear
anything. Okay?'

Despite everything, he smiled. Her concern was quite sincere, but
this was also work. She couldn't afford to have her mobile tied up for
too long on a personal call.

He tried his father's number again. No connection. On TV there
was a link to a local correspondent in Lewes, standing outside police
headquarters. The correspondent had been told unofficially that casualty
numbers were believed to be 'significant'. The interview
concluded and the presenter gave a brief, unnecessary recap, emphasising
the words
significant
and
casualties
with particular relish.

'Quiet news day, was it?' Craig muttered. He could well imagine the
excitement filtering through news agencies and TV stations across the
country, perhaps even the world. Tragedy meant a story. It wasn't
personal, and Craig knew that as well as anyone. He couldn't really
blame them for sounding thrilled by what might transpire to be the
death of his father.

It was the first time he'd admitted that possibility to himself, and
it brought him up with a jolt. Although in his seventies, his father
was still fit and active. After a long legal career as a QC, circuit judge
and finally a spell as Attorney General on the island of Montserrat,
in retirement he'd found a new lease of life as a dedicated guardian
of the village he had made home. If Abby was right, and someone
had gone on the rampage, there was very little chance that Dad would
have settled for running or hiding. Whatever the risk, he would see
it as his duty to confront the gunman.

Craig sighed. No point thinking the worst. He jabbed the remote
control and the screen went blank. In the silence that followed he
registered what he'd been hearing subliminally for some time, but had
attributed to the TV.

Dropping the remote, he got up and left the room. He was aware
of a breathlessness, his heart beating in peculiar rapid trills. When he
opened the front door the sound grew louder and unmistakable. Sirens.

Goosebumps rose on his skin as he stood on the driveway and
listened. The Maidenbower estate was situated on the south-eastern
edge of Crawley, and the road in which he lived was less than half a
mile from the M23 motorway. Sirens were simply part of the soundtrack
of their lives, barely noticeable any more, but Craig had never
heard anything like this. The noise was so intense, so unwavering, it
could only be a whole fleet of vehicles, speeding in convoy towards
their destination.

And their destination was Chilton. Craig had no doubt about that.

Briefly the sirens were drowned out by the deep throbbing burr of
a helicopter. It raced overhead, travelling south. A few seconds later
another followed. When someone grabbed his leg, Craig gave a start.
He looked down to see Maddie, gazing at him with a concerned
expression. The sound of the helicopters subsided, allowing the wailing
chorus of sirens to dominate again.

'Is that police cars, Daddy?'

'I think so, darling. Police or ambulance.'

'Or fire brigade.'

'Or fire brigade,' he conceded.

'There's lots of them. Has something really bad happened?'

Craig tried to look genuinely untroubled. Lying to his daughter
had never been such a challenge.

'I don't know.'

Julia regained consciousness once on the way to hospital. At first she
thought it was the man in black holding her down, and her relief at
being alive was tempered by the knowledge that he had taken her
prisoner. Terrified of being raped, she struggled against her restraints
and tried to scream, but there was something blocking her mouth. As
she thrashed in panic, she heard muffled voices, almost drowned out
by a deafening clatter of engines. Someone shouted, 'Whoa! Careful!'
and someone else said, 'Watch the IV. She'll pull it out.'

She was moving, but immobile. Strapped to a board, being manhandled
into a vehicle of some sort. She tried to open her eyes but
saw only blurs of light. Her senses were overloaded by noise and movement
and a terrible threatened pain. She could feel it lurking deep
within her, like a deadly animal barely held at bay. If it broke loose
it could kill her, and with this knowledge came an understanding that
she mustn't struggle. She must accept her fate.

She drifted away for a time, then opened her eyes again. Now it
was a little clearer. She saw people huddled beside her and recognised
them as paramedics. The terrible rhythmic noise increased, and
a slice of blue sky shifted oddly downwards.

She was on a helicopter. She was being rescued, not captured.

George Matheson sat in the waiting room, his mind blank. It was an
ability he had cultivated through years of interminable meetings and
seminars and tours of inspection. Rather like being in the royal family,
he imagined.

So he didn't think about Vanessa, or the prognosis. He didn't think
about the business, or how it might be wrenched from his grasp. He
didn't think about anything.

There were two other people in the room: the consultant's secretary
and one other patient. He ignored them as studiously as they
ignored him. There was an LCD television mounted on the wall
above the secretary's desk, but it was switched off. The only sound
was the occasional patter of keys from the secretary's laptop and the
rustle of the other patient's
Telegraph
.

Into this silence, the ringing of his mobile phone seemed a tasteless
intrusion. He'd neglected to switch it to vibrate. Cowed by
a sudden aura of disapproval, he nodded an apology and examined
the display. The number intrigued him, so he stood and walked to
the door before answering.

George was a burly man in his mid-fifties, with a thick torso and
hard, slightly rough features. He had been a keen amateur boxer
in his youth, and continued to exercise hard until only a few years
ago. The weight he'd gained recently had helped smooth out his
appearance, giving him a more cultured look, befitting a man who
had risen from nothing and built a billion-pound empire.

The caller was DI Terry Sullivan, a useful acquaintance of many
years' standing. And in no mood for pleasantries, evidently.

'Where are you?'

The question disarmed him. He was on the second floor of a
converted town house in Harley Street, in a waiting room whose low
leather sofas, Persian rugs and mood lighting were in stark contrast to
the consulting rooms beyond.
None of your business
, George thought.

'You're not in Sussex?' Sullivan added.

'No. We stayed in London last night.'

George heard a loud sigh. His frown deepened as he picked up
other sounds in the background: raised voices, sirens, something that
might have been a helicopter.

Sullivan said, 'There's been an incident in Chilton.'

'What do you mean?'

'Do you own a shotgun?'

George, startled, was about to repeat the detective's last word, but
managed to stop himself in time. He squeezed the phone a little
tighter and said, 'Yes, I do.'

He heard Sullivan mutter an expletive. Then: 'Is there a TV where
you are?'

George glanced over his shoulder, saw both the receptionist and
the other patient staring at him. 'Uh, yes.'

'Turn it on. I'll ring you again in a minute.' George heard someone
shouting the policeman's name. 'If I can,' Sullivan added darkly. He
ended the call.

George went on staring at the display for a moment, then he offered
the secretary his most disarming smile.

'Would you mind putting the television on?'

There were four consulting rooms on the second floor, two each side
of a central corridor. Lavatories were at one end of the corridor, and
the waiting room at the other. Vanessa quietly closed the door to
consulting room number three and entered the ladies' cloakroom.

The room was empty, thankfully. She had no need of the toilet,
but a great need for solitude. Just for a minute or two. Long enough
to compose her thoughts.

She stood in front of the sink. There was a shelf above it, containing
a pretty little basket of soaps, each wrapped in shiny pink paper. Above
the shelf was a mirror, and in the mirror was a monster. It was no one
she recognised. She had given up on mirrors months ago, practically
as soon as the chemotherapy began.

The pointless, futile chemotherapy.

The secretary was the usual formidable creature these places seemed to
favour, but on this occasion she didn't say a word. She just did as she
was asked, and in silence all three of them watched the screen swim into
life, revealing a headline in bold red letters: SHOOTING IN SUSSEX VILLAGE.

There was a live camera feed from a helicopter, hovering somewhere
above Chilton's southern perimeter. It showed the road into
the village choked with emergency vehicles. Dark figures scurried in
the neighbouring fields. There was an unfamiliar white square on the
village green, and another on the road by the church. Forensic tents,
George realised. His phone rang again.

'You watching it?'

'What's going on?'

'We've got a lad dead on the village green. Shot in the head with
a Walther P22, complete with suppressor. There's also a Purdey shotgun
by the body.'

'I don't understand. Who did it?'

'Looks like he topped himself. I need to know if the gun is yours.'

'It could be,' said George. 'Does that mean . . . the house?'

'We've not been there yet. Got more than enough to occupy us in
the village. Communications are a bit of a bastard out here, but hopefully
we'll have the landlines fixed soon.'

George's attention was distracted by the sound of a door opening,
so he didn't quite catch what Sullivan said. Glancing round, he saw
Vanessa emerge from the corridor. She was walking as if on tiptoe,
every muscle tense but controlled. Her eyes met his for a moment,
bright and cold. Betrayed. He looked away. What did Sullivan mean
about fixing the landlines?

'There are other fatalities,' the policeman said.

'How many?'

'Dunno yet, but it's a lot.'

On screen the aerial image flickered and went black. They returned
to the studio, where the presenter looked unprepared and slightly
chastened. Apologising for the loss of picture, he briefly recapped the
situation. A gunman was believed to have carried out a shooting spree
in the Sussex village of Chilton.

He heard Vanessa gasp. She took a couple of steps forward and
grasped the reception desk for support. George turned away from her.
A buzzer sounded, and after a moment the secretary invited the other
patient to go through. Sullivan had been interrupted again, but he
came back on the line just as something else occurred to George.

'What about the farm?'

'What?'

'Hurst Farm. It's along the same road as the house. The Caplans
live there, Laura and Keith, with their daughter.'

Another curse from Sullivan, as if an impossible job had just got
harder still.

'We'll check it out.'

A hand touched his shoulder, and he heard Vanessa say, 'Can we go?'

He half turned, distracted and irritable, shrugging her off. Then he
remembered why they were here. 'What did he say?'

Vanessa sniffed; her contempt quite expected, and quite deserved.
'It can wait.'

'I'm sorry.' He gestured at the television. 'You can see why . . .'

There was a brief report from outside Sussex Police HQ, then it
was back to the aerial shot, this time a little further from the village.
It showed a helicopter taking off, while another waited its turn to land.

He heard a sigh, then felt Vanessa move around him. She clearly
intended to leave, no matter what he did. Reluctantly he followed her
out to the lobby.

'Terry Sullivan rang me,' he told her. 'He was worried we might be
there.'

'Do they know what happened?'

'Not really. Sounds like pandemonium at the moment. I just hope
the Caplans are all right.'

Vanessa pressed the button to summon the elevator, then turned
to face the doors.

George shook his head. 'Dreadful,' he muttered. Lost in thought,
he went on staring at his phone. 'Absolutely dreadful.'

'Eight to ten weeks.'

'What's that?' George looked up, confused.

'Mr Templeton's prognosis.' She swallowed loudly, moistened her
lips. 'I have two months to live. At best.'