Murder in the Dark, page 9
She suddenly stopped and looked at me. ‘I just find it so sad that two people fell in love and thought it was for ever, only to find it wasn’t. I don’t want something like that to happen to us, Ishmael.’
‘Hey, hey …’ I said. ‘Where did that come from? What makes you think anything’s going to go wrong between us? We’re not part of any triangle. Unless you’ve been seeing the Colonel on the side …’
‘Idiot!’ she said, smiling. ‘No, it just made me think about my parents. I grew up with Mummy and Daddy quarrelling all the time. And there are just so many things that separate you and me. You told me you haven’t aged a day since you first appeared in this world, back in 1963. You won’t grow old, but I’m going to. So will you still love me when I’m sixty-four?’
‘I love you, now and for ever,’ I said. ‘Believe me, I have no intention of ever leaving you.’
‘But you’ll have to eventually,’ she said. ‘Or to be more exact, I’ll have to leave you. Because even after I’m dead you’ll still be here.’ She laughed briefly. ‘You know, other people don’t have conversations like this.’
‘Probably just as well,’ I said.
And then we both looked round sharply. Something was moving, out in the night. Hidden in the darkness beyond the camp’s circle of light. We both got to our feet and quickly looked around. The darkness threw back my gaze almost contemptuously, and whatever movements Penny and I had heard had stopped.
But there was still something out there. I could feel it looking back at me.
‘I definitely heard something,’ Penny said quietly. ‘What did you hear?’
‘It might have been footsteps,’ I said, not taking my eyes off the dark.
‘Human?’
‘Maybe.’
‘Could it be one of the scientists moving about?’ said Penny, glancing back at the tents.
‘Why wouldn’t they announce themselves?’ I said. ‘And besides, I didn’t hear any of the tent flaps being undone.’
We both broke off, as we heard something moving again. The sounds seemed heavier, more deliberate this time. As though they wanted to be heard. Prowling around the perimeter of the camp, but never entering the light. Drawing closer and then falling back. Taunting us. I still couldn’t get any sense of what was out there. Just a presence in the night.
‘That’s not the local wildlife,’ I said. ‘It sounds large. Heavy.’
‘Human?’ Penny said again.
‘I don’t think so. There’s something wrong … about the way it moves.’
‘You think it’s a threat?’
‘Why else would it be hiding in the dark?’
Penny caught her breath. ‘Could it be the Beast?’
‘I can’t see anything,’ I said. ‘It’s too dark out there, even for me. Maybe if I shut off all the lights, my eyes would adapt.’
‘Don’t you dare!’ said Penny.
We both stood very still, listening hard. Whatever it was moved slowly along the perimeter. I turned slowly, following the sounds, trying to get a fix on where it was. The sounds stopped, abruptly. I was listening so hard now that Penny’s breathing and her racing heartbeat were almost deafening.
‘I’m not seeing anything,’ said Penny, after a while. ‘Is it still out there, standing still, watching us? Or could we have scared it away?’
‘It’s still there,’ I said.
‘Could it be the Beast?’ said Penny, lowering her voice to a whisper.
‘Stay here,’ I said. ‘I’ll go out there and take a look.’
‘Are you kidding me?’ Penny said fiercely. ‘I’m not staying here on my own while you go strolling off into the night to face God knows what! You’re not going anywhere without me.’
‘Then stick close,’ I said.
‘Should we take a burning branch from the fire?’ said Penny.
‘I wouldn’t advise it,’ I said. ‘Out there in the dark, the light would make you a target.’
Penny glanced at the fire, and thought better of it. I strode across the camp to the nearest perimeter and stopped at the furthest point the light could reach. I stared out into the darkness. I can usually see something, no matter how dark it gets; but out in the countryside, with hardly any moon, it was like looking at a featureless black wall. There were no more sounds and no movements. I couldn’t even get a sense of something out there.
‘It wanted us to know it was there,’ I said quietly. ‘It made those sounds deliberately. So why is it being quiet now?’
‘Maybe we scared it away,’ said Penny.
‘I don’t think it’s scared,’ I said.
A scream broke the silence, from the direction of the hole. A very human scream, cut suddenly short. I turned and sprinted up the hill, heading for the hole. I could hear Penny pounding along behind me, but I couldn’t slow down to let her catch up. The scientists came stumbling out of their tents as I passed, demanding to know what was happening.
‘The hole!’ I shouted, not slowing down. ‘Someone’s been hurt at the hole!’
I ran on, leaving everyone else behind. It was obvious now that I’d been lured away by the movements in the dark. Decoyed to the part of the site furthest from the hole. And while I stood there, like an idiot, staring out into the dark, someone or something had moved quietly round the perimeter to its true target. The hole.
When I finally got there, Robert was lying sprawled on the ground, not moving. His left arm was gone, severed neatly at the shoulder. No blood pumped from the wound, not even a drop, and there was no sign of the arm itself anywhere. No blood on the grass beside the hole. Penny finally caught up with me, and then clutched my arm with both hands as she saw the body. Paul, Mike and Ellie stumbled to a halt beside us. The Professor was the last to arrive, breathing hard.
Ellie didn’t scream or cry when she saw what had happened to Robert. All the colour drained out of her face, and she made a sound that was as much a moan as anything else. Mike took her quietly by the shoulders and turned her away, to stop her staring at the body. She buried her face in his shoulder. He held her tightly, not looking at Robert. Paul looked from the body to the hole and then back again; as though he felt he should be doing something, but didn’t know what. The Professor looked at Robert for a long moment, her mouth working as she tried to decide what to say.
‘His arm must have been cut off by the hole’s edge,’ she said finally. ‘That’s the only thing that could have made a cut as clean as that. Perhaps he stumbled and stretched out his arm to stop himself falling … But what was he doing? I told everyone to stay behind the line!’
‘The hole took his arm the same way it took the end of the branch you showed me earlier,’ I said.
‘Why are the hole’s edges so incredibly sharp?’ said Penny, perhaps just to be asking something.
‘The hole isn’t part of our reality,’ said Paul. ‘It was punched through from somewhere else. The edge is where two different sets of rules meet and argue it out as to which of them is in charge.’
‘Why isn’t there any blood?’ said Penny.
‘The hole creates its own gravity, close up,’ said the Professor. ‘It would have sucked all the blood in. Along with the arm.’
‘Stop it!’ said Ellie, her face still buried in Mike’s shoulder. ‘Please, just stop being so … reasonable!’
‘We need to understand what’s happened, Ellie,’ said Mike.
‘We know what’s happened,’ said Ellie. ‘Robert’s dead. The hole killed him.’
‘But if he fell against the edge and the hole took his arm off,’ said Penny, ‘why didn’t all of him go in?’
‘That’s the question you’re going with?’ said Mike. ‘Really? Not what was he doing out here on his own? Or why he crossed the line? There’s only one answer that makes any sense. Someone must have pushed him in.’
‘Who would do that?’ said Ellie, raising her head from Mike’s shoulder.
A woman who was tired of him, I thought, but didn’t say.
‘Who would benefit from his death?’ said the Professor, looking at Mike.
‘I just got here,’ Mike said steadily. ‘You all saw me, just as I saw you. This is nothing to do with me.’
‘Robert had more sense than to go anywhere near the hole,’ said Ellie. ‘Someone must have done this to him.’
‘Why did he leave your tent?’ I said.
‘He couldn’t sleep. Neither could I. Then we thought we heard something moving around behind our tent.’ Ellie shook her head slowly. ‘He said he was going outside to take a look. I didn’t ask him to! I told him not to. He said he’d only be a minute. He just needed to make sure it was nothing, check it out for our peace of mind. He left the tent and I sat there, waiting for him to come back and tell me it was nothing. So we could laugh, and get some sleep at last. But he didn’t come back. And then … I heard him scream.’
‘We all heard him scream,’ said Mike.
‘You all came out of your tents fast enough,’ I said.
‘I don’t think any of us were sleeping,’ said Paul.
‘Did the rest of you hear movements in the night?’ I said. ‘Did you hear Robert leave his tent? Or anyone else leave theirs?’
They all looked at each other. None of them appeared certain about anything. It seemed likely that, despite their protestations, they’d all been at least half-asleep. In the time it had taken them to get out of their sleeping bags and out of their tents, any one of them could have made their way back from the hole.
‘You were on guard!’ the Professor said angrily to me. ‘Didn’t you see anything?’
‘Penny and I were decoyed to the other side of the camp,’ I said.
‘Could something have come out of the hole and attacked Robert?’ said Mike.
‘More likely it was somebody,’ said the Professor.
‘You mean one of us?’ said Ellie.
The three scientists stared at the Professor, but she wouldn’t back down.
‘You were all thinking it,’ she said flatly. ‘It has to be more likely that it was one of you than some unknown alien or a legendary Beast. Any of you could have left your tent quietly, and the others wouldn’t have known anything about it.’
‘Including you,’ said Mike.
She didn’t quite laugh in his face. ‘You really think a woman my age could overcome someone Robert’s size?’
‘You wouldn’t need to,’ said Mike. ‘He wouldn’t have seen you as a threat. All you had to do was get behind him and push.’
‘Stop it!’ said Ellie. ‘Please, Mike, you’re not helping.’
‘Robert heard something,’ the Professor said doggedly. ‘Something that lured him out of his tent, and all the way over to the hole. And while he was concentrating on that, he could have been caught off guard by anyone.’
‘But what if something did come out of the hole?’ Paul said slowly. ‘Some unknown thing that tried to take him. And he struggled and the attacker settled for just an arm?’
‘How can you talk like that, with Robert lying dead at our feet?’ said Ellie, her voice rising.
‘We’re scientists,’ the Professor said steadily. ‘We have to look at the evidence before us calmly and objectively.’
‘You heartless cow!’ said Ellie.
‘Hush, Ellie, hush,’ said Mike.
She broke away from him. He started to reach out to her, but she wouldn’t even look at him. He shrugged uncertainly.
‘We’re just trying to figure out what happened, Ellie. It’s what we do.’
They were all doing their best to be calm and scientific, but none of them were used to sudden death and the cold realities of bodies. It probably helped a little that the dark hole and the flat fierce light made the scene seem almost unreal.
‘I told you we should have barricaded the hole,’ said Ellie.
‘It wouldn’t have stopped an invader,’ said Paul.
‘You really think that’s what happened here?’ said Mike.
‘Don’t you?’ said Ellie.
The Professor made a flat, disgusted sound. ‘You want it to be an alien predator, because that has to be preferable to the idea that one of us is a cold-blooded killer.’
Ellie turned abruptly to glare at me. ‘How could you let this happen? You were supposed to be on guard!’
‘We heard movements, too,’ I said. ‘We were lured away, just so this could happen.’
‘What kind of movements?’ said Mike.
‘Something large and heavy, circling the camp in the dark,’ said Penny. ‘Might have been human, might not.’
‘If it was out there in the dark, how could it see?’ said Paul.
‘We were in the light,’ I said. ‘And after that, all it had to do was follow the perimeter to the hole.’
‘Could it have been the Beast?’ said Ellie.
She desperately wanted me to say ‘No, of course not!’, but I couldn’t say that. She shook her head, disappointed, and turned away. We all stared out at the heavy night surrounding the camp’s pitifully small circle of light. The night stared back at us, silent and menacing. A darkness so absolute it could hide anything. Anything at all.
‘I think we need to leave right now,’ said Mike.
‘Leave?’ said the Professor. ‘And give up on the greatest scientific find of our time? Over what could be just another stupid accident? Get a grip on yourself, Mike!’
‘The hole isn’t worth dying over!’ said Mike.
‘We’re not in any danger, as long as we keep our heads,’ said the Professor.
‘And how likely is that, given that Robert’s just lost his arm?’
‘Mike, please!’ said Ellie.
‘Robert’s death was no accident,’ said Paul. ‘He had more sense.’
‘Exactly,’ said Mike. ‘Which means we’re all in danger. I say we get the hell out of here while we still can.’
‘If you leave, you know what to expect,’ the Professor said coldly. ‘You can forget all those generous research grants, and you can be sure the Government will find some way to punish you for running out on them.’
Mike hesitated, and then he looked at Ellie and his resolve settled. ‘I’m going, and Ellie’s going with me. Anyone else want to do the sane and sensible thing?’
‘Hold it!’ I said. ‘The only transport we have is Penny’s car, and that’s parked some way down the hill. You really want to leave the light and go stumbling off through the dark? How far do you think you’ll get if what we heard is still out there?’
Everyone looked at the darkness. Nobody moved.
‘We’re safer here, together,’ I said steadily. ‘Whatever’s going on. Let’s go back to the fire, where we can keep an eye on each other. I’ll put Robert’s body in with Terry. Then we just stick together until the night is over, and request reinforcements and protection from Mr Carroll when he makes his call.’
Mike looked at Ellie. ‘Is that what you want?’
She nodded silently. The others were nodding too. Penny moved in close beside me, and lowered her voice.
‘You still have your phone, Ishmael. You could call the Colonel right now. Have him send people in to secure the site and get the scientists out of here.’
‘I already thought of that,’ I said quietly. ‘I didn’t mention it because if one of these people is a murderer, I don’t want to risk them scattering once they’re away from here. And if there is some alien predator out there in the dark, I don’t want to risk offering it more targets of opportunity.’
‘They’re muttering again …’ said Mike.
‘Not now, Mike!’ said Ellie.
I looked at the Professor. ‘It’s your team. The Colonel put you in charge. What do you say?’
She looked at the hole. ‘If we leave, they’ll take this opportunity away from us. You know they will. I say we stay by the fire and wait for Mr Carroll’s call. We should be perfectly safe as long as we stay in the light.’
She set off down the hill. The others followed after her. I looked at Penny.
‘You know this is the only sensible thing to do.’
‘As long as we can keep them alive till morning,’ she said.
THREE
Something’s Watching
We sat round the fire, the scientists staring out into the night like cavemen fearful of the dark and all the unknown horrors it might hold. The entire campsite was bathed in a fierce glow from the perimeter lights, but the darkness outside had a force and power all its own. I’d made sure everyone was spread out around the fire. So we could be sure of seeing in every direction at once, so nothing could sneak up on us. I didn’t need to tell them. After a while, Mike picked up a handful of branches from the pile beside the fire.
‘The fire’s fine,’ I said. ‘Leave it be.’
‘The bigger the better, as far as I’m concerned,’ said Mike, finding some comfort in his usual role of always being up for an argument. ‘It’s getting pretty damned cold out here on the side of this hill, in case you hadn’t noticed. And what makes you such an expert on everything, anyway? You’re not even that great a security man, with two of us dead on your watch.’
‘Both of whom might still be alive if they’d listened to me,’ I said steadily. ‘We have to be careful with our supply of fuel. Because that’s all we’ve got to keep the fire going until the sun comes up and we can safely go out to look for more firewood. Unless you feel like wandering around in the dark on your own?’
‘No, he doesn’t,’ said Ellie. She gave Mike a stern look, and he dropped the branches back on the pile and looked away. Ellie managed a small smile for the rest of us. ‘He always feels the need to fix something when he can’t put right what really needs fixing.’
‘I’m sorry about Robert,’ I said. ‘And Terry. But there was nothing I could do for either of them.’
‘I know that,’ said Ellie.
‘How are you feeling, Ellie?’ said Mike.
She shrugged. ‘I feel … strange. I should be collapsing in a flood of tears, but that’s never been me. I just feel numb … like I’ve had my life kicked out of me. I thought I knew what I was doing, and where I was going. And now Robert is dead, and I don’t know anything.’
