Dead Man Walking

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Chapter 14 (#ufb45d9e6-46c5-5f8c-8bd2-b0b486d4a788)

‘Kill the lights!’ Heck shouted, as he charged along the landing, snapping his own torch off in the process. He met Hazel at the top of the stairs. She’d heard the shot and tried to grab hold of him, but he thrust her in the direction of the bedroom. ‘In there with Gemma, lie low …’

Before she could reply, he was galloping down the stairs and across the darkened lounge towards the open front door.

For half a second, he expected a black-clad figure to emerge through it, pistol levelled. But Heck reached it first, banging it closed with his shoulder, then scrabbling around for a lock. Rather to his surprise, his fingers alighted on a central bolt, which he rammed home with no difficulty. When he felt around the top of the door, there was one there too, which also moved freely and easily.

Heck threw himself to one side, flattened against the jamb.

Even through the thick farmhouse walls, he could hear the whistling. Though he’d been half expecting it, and though he’d heard it so many times before, Strangers in the Night had never sounded so menacing. Yet the song was fading – as if the whistler was already departing the scene. Half a minute later, sweat trickling down his face, Heck risked glancing from the window. Nothing moved out there, though the crumpled form of Dan Heggarty lay where he’d fallen, a dark pool spreading sluggishly around him.

Heck switched his torch back on, but kept its beam lowered as he crossed the lounge to the stairway passage, passing the staircase itself, and darting from one ground-floor room to the next. Most were dank and uninhabitable, draped in webs and crammed with all manner of aged junk. But currently he was more concerned about their doors and windows, and in the main these were securely locked, including the back door.

Overall, the house looked secure, though there was no guarantee of that.

He trotted up the stairs and back along to the bedroom. ‘It’s me,’ he said as he entered. The two women were well away from the window, crouched in separate corners. They waited expectantly while he squatted down. ‘I’m pretty sure Heggarty’s dead.’

Gemma nodded. ‘His body’s still out there … it hasn’t moved.’

There was a brief contemplative silence.

‘So …?’ Hazel had again been struggling to choke back sobs, but now sounded shocked. ‘You’re just going to leave him?’

‘Do you want to go out?’ Heck asked her. ‘The bastard’s probably working on the basis at least one of us will try.’ He mopped a sweaty hank of hair back from his brow. ‘He’s obviously been watching this place closely. Cragwood Vale, Fellstead Grange … he must have done that in order to identify Annie as a possible target.’

‘And?’ Hazel wondered again, sensing something else was coming.

‘Think about it,’ Heck said. ‘There are two bolts on the front door. They work properly. There’s no sign that door was broken open any time recently. Nor with the back door. I’ve checked all the windows too. They aren’t in brilliant condition, but no one has smashed any of them to get in here.’

Hazel shook her head. ‘What are you saying?’

‘I’m saying whoever this guy is, when he first got in here a couple of days ago, he didn’t have to break and enter.’

‘Annie may have left the door unlocked.’

‘She may have done,’ Gemma said, picking up on Heck’s thought process. ‘But how likely is that, living all the way out here on her own? Especially given that she was in bed when this attack took place.’

Hazel looked horrified. ‘You mean there’s another way in?’

‘Shit, this is not good.’ Heck’s voice was taut. ‘He’s up here in the hills. Watches Annie pottering around the farm. Sees her coming and going, identifies an entry point. Uses it when Annie’s in bed. Murders her, most likely while she’s asleep.’

‘Oh my God …’

‘It’s worse, I’m afraid. Somehow or other he knew we’d end up coming up here. Don’t ask me how …’

‘And that’s why he left the front door unlocked,’ Gemma interrupted. ‘To get us all into the house.’

‘Yeah.’ Heck felt fresh sweat on his brow. ‘To make us fish in a barrel.’

‘If you’re right,’ Hazel whimpered, ‘that means he could be here …’

Heck nodded. ‘I know … now!’

The door burst open, slamming the wall as a dim figure forced its way through.

‘Everyone down!’ Gemma shouted, throwing the shotgun to her shoulder. Heck dived to the floor, dragging Hazel with him. BOOM – the payload spread as it crossed the room, shredding the woodwork to either side of the entrance, and hitting the figure full-on, hurling it backward onto the landing.

Heck scrabbled after it on all fours, wafting at dust. He levered himself to his feet and flattened his body against the fragmented jamb, angling his head to peek around.

And seeing something incredible.

There wasn’t one body lying out there. There were two, one on top of the other.

The one on top was dead, though it would be more accurate to say it had never lived. It was the mannequin from downstairs. The shotgun blast had broken it in half. One of its arms had become detached. However, the body underneath it was fully intact, and far more animated. Even as Heck watched, it kicked aside what remained of the dummy and lurched quickly to its feet. Heck ducked back into the room, but caught a fleeting glimpse of heavy boots, dark waterproofs, a full-head leather mask, and in its gloved right hand, a six-shooter.

The bedroom door was only partially intact, and when Heck banged it closed, it came loose around the hinges, which had been mangled by shot.

‘The bed! Get me the sodding bed!’

The women jumped to their feet, though Hazel was too frozen with shock and horror to do much more. She goggled at the sight of Gemma unceremoniously throwing Annie Beckwith’s corpse to the floor, and inserting herself behind the heavy cast-iron bedframe as she tried to shove it across the room.

‘Give me a hand!’ Gemma gasped.

Belatedly, Hazel joined her. The bed screeched forward, its un-wheeled feet chewing through floorboards. Heck added his strength too, and they slid it into place, ramming it against the door – and not before time. Half a second later, there were three detonations, and a trio of holes was punched through the planking. Three corresponding impacts struck the far wall, knocking out fist-sized chunks.

‘Heck … I may have killed us here,’ Gemma panted. ‘I wasted our last cartridge.’

‘We’re not bloody beaten yet!’ He pivoted around, grabbed at the curtains and yanked them down in a mass of dust and rotted fabric.

The window beyond was deeply recessed, set into a stone wall that was at least three feet thick. But its four panes of glass, though heavy and grimy, relied on a central cruciform frame that was badly decayed.

‘Both of you get down,’ he said, tearing off his jacket and wrapping it around his fist. Behind him meanwhile, the door was assailed. Kicks and blows rained down with anger and exertion, then three more gunshots followed, ripping through the jamb.

‘He must have ammo to spare!’ Gemma shouted.

‘This whole thing’s been well planned.’ Heck drove his padded fist hard at the window, which exploded out in a cascade of jangling shards. A few teeth of glass remained in the aged frame, but he knocked these out too. ‘Okay … quickly!’

Hazel hung back like a frightened rabbit. ‘What … what’s on the other side?’

He didn’t answer, just grabbed her around the waist, lifted her up and placed her on all fours in the window embrasure, pushing her bottom until she vanished and he heard the double-thud of her feet alighting on a hollow surface.

‘You next, Gemma.’

‘No … you next,’ she said. ‘I’m the senior rank, and I screwed up. So it’s my arse.’

‘It’s your arse I’m thinking about. Be a hell of a shame to lose it.’