Murder in the Dark, page 19
I leant over Penny till my face was almost touching hers, and said her name. Her eyelids fluttered, as though my breath had disturbed them, and then her eyes opened. She smiled slowly, happy that I was the first thing she saw. She started to sit up, and I helped her. Then I held her to me like I would never let her go, and she held me. And everything was all right again.
After a while we let go of each other and got to our feet. I was ready to help her, but she made it clear without saying anything that she didn’t need any help. She’s always been fussy about things like that. She brushed herself down, in that automatic way women have, and looked at the hole and then at me.
‘All right! What the hell just happened?’
‘You don’t remember?’ I said.
‘No,’ she said, frowning. ‘I remember Paul grabbing me for no reason. And then running up the hill, carrying me. I fought him, but he was too strong … I remember you talking to Paul as we stood before the hole. And then it all went dark.’
‘He took you with him into the hole,’ I said. ‘So I went in after you.’
‘Of course you did,’ said Penny. She smiled at me dazzlingly, and then hit me with a stern look. ‘Of course I would have done the same for you …’
‘Of course,’ I said.
‘You don’t remember anything of what happened inside the hole?’ the Professor said incredulously.
‘No,’ said Penny.
‘Neither do I,’ I said firmly. It seemed the safest way to go.
Mike made a loud frustrated noise. ‘What a waste …’
I suddenly realized that my senses had returned to what they should have been all along. I could see all the way across the campsite, from one perimeter to the next, every detail sharp and clear. I could hear everyone’s heartbeat, and the gentle rasp of their breathing. I could smell their individual scents, underneath their chosen perfumes. It felt like I’d been walking around wearing blinkers and earmuffs. Which had finally been torn away, letting the world back in. I couldn’t believe I’d gone so long without being fully aware of the difference, without realizing the extent to which the hole had been messing with my head. I looked back at the hole, and saw immediately that it was smaller than it had been. The circle had shrunk from some seven feet in diameter to little more than five. The others saw the look on my face, followed my gaze, and made various sounds of shock and surprise.
‘The hole is shrinking!’ said the Professor. ‘Collapsing in on itself … We’re losing it!’
‘This isn’t going to end up like a black hole, is it?’ said Penny. ‘And drag the whole world in after it?’
‘No,’ I said. ‘There’s no increase in gravity. It’s just … going away.’
‘Just as you said it would, Professor,’ said Mike.
The Professor had nothing to say to any of us. All her attention was fixed on the slowly disappearing hole.
‘Does this mean we’re finally free of the damned thing?’ said Penny.
‘Looks that way,’ I said. I didn’t add that it wouldn’t be back. They’d only have wanted to know how I knew.
Penny sniffed loudly. ‘Good riddance!’
‘But now we’ll never know what it was,’ said the Professor. She stared at the gradually shrinking hole as though it was dying. ‘One of the great mysteries of the world, disappearing in front of our eyes.’
‘We know what it was,’ Mike said flatly. ‘It was a killing thing. We’re better off without it.’
The Professor rounded on him, with such anger in her face that Mike actually fell back a step. The Professor’s face was dangerously flushed, and her voice shook with open rage.
‘This was our chance to open up a whole new field of knowledge! To make our names in the scientific community! To go down in history as the greatest pioneers of our age!’
‘At least we’re still alive,’ said Mike.
‘Yes, but …’ said the Professor.
‘You said the hole would disappear, Professor,’ said Penny.
The Professor looked suddenly smaller, even defeated. ‘I wasn’t ready to let it go yet …’
‘I’m not sure it would have done us any good to have had our names attached to the hole,’ Mike said slowly. ‘It was always going to be a poisoned chalice after what it did here.’
‘It’s all right for you,’ said the Professor, not looking at him. ‘You’ve still got a career. This was my last chance.’
I studied the hole carefully. I hoped the Voice had understood me and it would shut down all its spy holes. Unless … it was only responsible for this particular hole. In which case, who was watching us through the other holes? I’d have to talk to the Colonel about that, when I got back. I still wasn’t sure exactly how much I’d be putting in my official report. I’d discovered a great many things in this mission that the Colonel didn’t need to know. There was nothing in my agreement with the Organization that meant I had to give up my secrets, any more than the Organization had to be completely open with me.
And I had to wonder … If there were other holes, did that mean the other Paul could still come looking for me? Wearing another face, another body? He said he’d wait till Penny wasn’t around any more, that he could afford to be patient. But I wasn’t sure I believed him …
Penny tapped me lightly on the arm to get my attention, and when I looked round I found the Professor was glaring at me.
‘What happened to Paul? Why didn’t he come back with you?’
‘I don’t know,’ I said. ‘I remember going into the hole and coming out again. But that’s it. I suppose he must still be in there.’
‘So he won’t be coming back?’ said Mike.
‘If he was going to come back,’ I said, ‘I think he would have done so by now … How long were Penny and I gone?’
‘Just a few moments,’ said Mike. ‘We saw you dive in after them, but we’d only just got here when you and Penny came popping straight back out again. Almost like you’d been shot out by a catapult. Maybe the hole didn’t want you and Penny, just Paul. Though why anyone would want him …’ He looked at the hole with a surprisingly wistful expression. ‘Maybe he went all the way through, to the other end of the tunnel. If Ellie’s theory was right, he could be walking on some other world right now. I almost envy him. The things he must be seeing …’
‘At least now we can be sure who the murderer was,’ said the Professor.
We all looked at her.
‘We can?’ I said.
‘Of course!’ said the Professor. ‘It has to be Paul! Why else would he attack Penny? Though why he took her into the hole … Perhaps because he was losing control of the situation. Everything that’s happened here has been about control over the hole.’
‘Go on,’ I said.
‘He must have realized the game was over when Mike said he was going to check up on everyone’s background,’ said the Professor.
Mike nodded quickly. ‘Of course. I could have checked his face against the photo in his official file. That must have been what pushed him over the edge.’
‘But why did he throw himself into the hole? And why did he want to take me with him?’ said Penny.
‘He needed a hostage, to keep us from taking him down,’ said Mike. ‘And anyway, he must have been out of his mind by that point, after everything he’d done. You saw how oddly he was behaving, at the end.’
‘Odd, even for him,’ said the Professor. ‘But then he always was a bit too quiet for my liking.’
‘He must have been a ringer,’ Mike said wisely. ‘A secret agent for some foreign power.’
‘Well, possibly,’ said Penny. ‘But I still don’t see why he chose to jump into the hole.’
‘Once his cover was blown, his mission was over,’ said Mike. ‘He knew he couldn’t get away, and he couldn’t afford to be questioned and risk giving away who his superiors were.’
‘But why take me with him?’ said Penny.
‘I don’t know!’ said the Professor. ‘Maybe it was just spite and vindictiveness!’ She looked at me impatiently. ‘You’re security, you must understand these people and how they think.’
‘Sometimes …’ I said. ‘People can always surprise you. Let’s go back to the fire. Sit down and get some rest. It’s been a long night.’
‘Right,’ said the Professor. ‘We can finally relax, now the murderer is gone. No more worrying and looking over our shoulder. Though I’m still not sure what I’m going to say to Mr Carroll when he calls.’
Mike checked his watch. ‘It should be dawn soon. I’ll be so glad to see the sun come up. I was beginning to think this night would go on for ever.’
We made our way back down the hill, and settled ourselves around the camp fire. Penny leaned companionably against my shoulder. The fire was on the brink of going out, so Mike fed it some more branches. The flames flared up, warm and comforting. Mike held his hands out to them. They weren’t shaking any more. The Professor sat stiffly on her own, staring into the flames, intent on her own thoughts. I thought for a while too, turning things over in my mind and putting them together. Until finally I raised my voice to address everyone.
‘It has been a long night,’ I said, ‘and a lot has happened in the dark. Many things are now clear to me, though I have a feeling some may never be properly explained. But I am now ready to say who the murderer really is.’
Penny sat up straight. Mike looked startled, and then shocked. The Professor just stared at me blankly.
‘I thought we’d already decided the murderer had to be Paul?’ said Mike, almost plaintively.
‘No,’ I said. ‘The Professor’s accusation was a good try, but it doesn’t really hang together when you examine it closely. You accepted it because you wanted the killer to be gone, so you could relax. But the more I thought about it, the less the idea made sense. And if Paul wasn’t the murderer, that meant the killer had to be sitting here at the fire. And once I thought that, it all fell into place. It was you, Professor Bellman. You killed Robert and Ellie, and possibly Terry.’
‘What?’ said Mike. He scrambled away from the Professor, putting as much distance as he could between the two of them. The Professor didn’t move, didn’t react, didn’t say anything. Just stared unflinchingly back at me.
‘Something you said just now gave me the final clue,’ I said. ‘Helped me to piece it all together. You said everything that happened here was about control over the hole. And who did the hole matter to most?
‘As leader of this team you could be anywhere and never have to explain yourself. You could appear and disappear, because you had no distinct workstation to hold you in one place like the other scientists. And you were always on your own when someone was attacked. Everyone else had an alibi for at least one of the deaths. Apart from you, Professor.
‘You were the one moving around in the dark, luring Penny and me to the part of the site furthest from the hole, so you could sneak back to it and attack Robert.
‘You were the only one on your own when Ellie died. Paul was with Penny and me, Mike was in his tent. Also, you told me you’d looked into Ellie’s tent and found she wasn’t there, but when I looked I saw the tent flaps hadn’t been opened. And when we heard the scream at the hole, that turned out to have been you. Not Ellie. You screamed after Ellie was dead, to confuse us as to the time of her death.
‘To tie the deaths to the hole, you also made up that bit about the hole growing in size every time somebody died. All very clever, Professor, but all I had to do was put the clues together and they pointed straight to you.
‘As the leader of the team, you could approach any of your people, for what would seem like perfectly good reasons, and get them to go wherever you wanted. None of them would feel in any danger, until it was too late. That’s how you were able to persuade Ellie to go with you to the hole. You had the authority to order her to go. And like Robert before her, she didn’t understand how dangerous it was to turn her back on you. Until you shoved her up against the side of the hole. You used the razor-sharp edge because you had no access to proper weapons, and because it enabled you to blame the deaths on the hole. But using the edge of the hole was a giveaway in itself: because that was a weapon that didn’t need strength or skill, just cunning and determination.
‘I think I’m ready to accept Terry’s death as a well-intentioned accident, but you killed Robert and Ellie. I have to admit, I’m not really sure why. You said it was all about control of the hole. So that has to mean control of the research. Was that it? Did you just want all the glory for yourself?’
‘I wouldn’t expect you to understand,’ said the Professor. Her voice and face were eerily calm. ‘In the end, it’s all about survival. Publish or perish has always been the driving force in the scientific community. You have no idea of the pressures involved. All those bright young minds they gave me for this project, basing their work on my theories … Typical of the vicious young predators always biting at my heels and looking for a chance to stab me in the back.
‘I couldn’t compete any more, I knew that. I was months away from being forced into retirement. Then the Colonel threw me this second chance. This wonderful mystery, with all kinds of grants and work on offer to those who could solve it … I was ready to work with the team, but they weren’t interested in working with me. They ignored my advice, wouldn’t let me help them, denied me this final chance to attach my name to a triumph. Their names, their theories, would be the only ones to go into the official report, and no one would ever know how much I contributed. I couldn’t allow that.
‘So, first rule of academia. Get them before they get you. You’re right, of course, I had nothing to do with Terry’s death. He took care of that all by himself, because he wouldn’t listen to me. Though I have to wonder what he saw inside the hole that you didn’t … Anyway, his death gave me the idea. If that appeared suspicious, why not use it to get rid of all the people who were against me? The hole was such a mystery it could be blamed for anything. And it did help that the locals had this wonderfully vague legend about a Beast that I could use to confuse things. This was my chance to seize the fame and fortune that should always have been mine. I was damned if I’d let them force me into retirement.’
‘You killed my Ellie!’
Mike threw himself at the Professor, his outstretched hands going for her throat. I grabbed him out of mid-air, slammed him back into place, and then held him there until the fight went out of him. The Professor didn’t move, didn’t even flinch. When I finally let go of Mike, he just sat where he was, his face twisted with grief.
‘She killed my Ellie …’
‘But you’re not a killer,’ I said. ‘Don’t let her make you into one. The Professor will stand trial, and then be locked away in a cage in some secret security establishment until she rots. Her name and her work will be forgotten. That’s punishment enough for her.’
Penny looked disbelievingly at the Professor. ‘You killed Robert and Ellie, in that horrible fashion, just so you would get the credit for the work here?’
The Professor smiled. A slow, quietly satisfied smile.
‘The more deaths associated with the hole, the better. I was going to kill all of you, one by one. You’d never have seen it coming. Especially after I blamed it all on Paul. You’d never have dreamed a dried-up old thing like me could be a threat. And when I was the only one left, the poor traumatized survivor of a terrible tragedy, I could tell any story I wanted …’
She stopped, and looked at me coldly. ‘But you had to take it all away from me. Well, to hell with them and to hell with you! You’re not putting me in prison … not while there’s a new world waiting.’
She jumped to her feet and ran up the hillside, heading for the hole. We all got to our feet and ran after her. I could have caught up with her easily, despite her head start, but I didn’t. The Professor reached the hole ahead of us. She didn’t slow down, didn’t hesitate. Just jumped into the hole, and the darkness closed over her without a single ripple.
We all came to a halt before the hole, and it disappeared. As though one last sacrifice had been enough.
‘She could come back,’ Penny said finally. ‘We did.’
‘No,’ I said. ‘I don’t think so.’
Penny shot me a look, hearing something in my voice that told her I knew more than I was telling, but she didn’t say anything. Mike didn’t notice the look. He was still staring at the brightly lit spot on the hillside where the hole used to be.
‘Now we’ll never know what it was,’ he said finally. ‘Still, there is an awful lot of recorded data. Enough for me to spend my whole life working on. And whatever papers I write, I’ll make sure Ellie’s name is always right there with mine.’
‘She’d have done the same for you,’ said Penny.
Mike smiled. ‘Actually, she almost certainly wouldn’t. Ellie was always very competitive.’
The smile disappeared as he kept looking at the hole. ‘I suppose it’s possible the Professor could end up wherever Paul went. Is it very wrong of me to hope it’s the same awful place Terry saw?’
‘No,’ I said. ‘Not wrong. Just human.’
‘Ah well,’ said Mike. ‘Nobody’s perfect.’
He turned his back on where the hole used to be and set off down the hill, heading back to the fire. Penny moved in beside me.
‘At least you saved one, this time,’ she said. ‘Tell me, Ishmael … what did happen, inside the hole?’
‘I’ll tell you later,’ I said. ‘When we’re alone.’
‘Who’s going to hear us out here, on the side of a hill?’
‘You never know who might be listening,’ I said, looking at where the hole used to be. I was already wondering how much it would be safe for her to know. Not for my protection, but for hers.
And then we both looked round sharply, as we heard Mike raise his voice in surprise. We raced back down the hill, to find Mike staring open-mouthed at Paul, who was sitting beside the fire looking very confused.
‘Where did you go?’ he said. ‘I nodded off by the fire, and when I opened my eyes everyone had vanished.’
