The Wilds (17 page)

Pearce looked at him. He lent forward.

‘Interview suspended at eight - twelve.’

He flicked off the recorder.

‘You know I’m right don’t you, Jon?’ Jason said. ‘You know there is some kind of wild animal out there. That’s why you’re armed all of a sudden. Where did you get those scratches anyway?’

Pearce put his hand to his face and brushed the stitched lines running across it.

‘You saw it, didn’t you?’ Jason said. ‘It attacked you and you’re still questioning me out of revenge. You’re fucking pathetic.’

Pearce lunged over the table. He jumped onto Jason, pushing him back out of his chair. The two of them ended up on the floor. Jason on his back with Pearce straddling his chest. Pearce pulled back his arm and punched Jason in the face.

Holly leapt to her feet and grabbed Pearce’s arm as he brought it back a second time. He looked at her, and for a split second it seemed as though he was about to turn his rage upon her.

‘Take a break, sir!,’ she said with an authority that shocked Pearce into lowering his fist. ‘Now!’

He looked down at Jason, whose lip was bleeding. Pearce got to his feet.

‘Alright,’ he said and without another word he left the room.

Holly helped Jason to his feet and then into his chair. She handed him a tissue for his lip. Jason took it and gently dabbed the spot that was bleeding.

‘Thanks, Holly,’ he said. ‘You know this is bullshit don’t you?’

Holly squeezed the bridge of her nose between her thumb and for finger, as if she was trying to shake of a headache. Eventually she looked at him.

‘Yes, I know you didn’t do this.’ she said.

‘Then please talk to Pearce,’ Jason said. ‘I need to get out of here and meet Karl before he goes looking for this thing on his own.’

Holly’s expression suggested that this was the last thing she wanted to do. Jason could hardly blame her for that, Pearce was so unpredictable.

‘Alright,’ she said. ‘You have to let this thing about your Dad go, though.’

Jason shook his head.

‘No, I can’t do that.’

‘Jason, when your Dad was arrested Pearce had only been out of training about two months. He wasn’t on duty when he was arrested, and he had nothing to do with the case against him.’

‘So he says.’

‘So the reports say,’ Holly said. ‘I looked them up. I wanted know if there was any truth in what you thought. There isn’t, though. Jon Pearce had nothing to do with your dad’s case. Just because they didn’t get on doesn’t mean he’s responsible for his death. Let’s not forget the reason they didn’t get on.’

Jason knew the reason. His father was not good enough for his mother. His father was, in the opinion of her family, untrustworthy. He had always resented the opinion they had held of his father, but he supposed that really they were trying to protect his mother. Even if they were wrong, their intentions had been good. Jon Pearce had only been looking out for his sister by not trusting her husband.

Karl had been stood outside the house for a long time. He checked his watch one more, it was ten to nine. It was twenty-five minute he had been waiting, and Jason was twenty minutes late. He checked his phone to see if he had missed a message from the reporter saying that something else had come up, but there were no messages.

At first he had been annoyed, thinking that Jason should have let him know he was going to be late. Karl had no problem with people being late, there were always things that got in the way, but he had always found it rude when people didn’t let you know they were running late.

His annoyance soon gave way to concern. What if Jason had done more searching the night before, after Karl had left him at the pub? What if he had gone back to the marsh, or the woods, or even that damn field on Maltham Lane? Karl began to feel nervous, if Jason had done any of these things then there was the chance that he had encountered the beast, and was now mauled and dead himself.

Karl brushed the thought away, he wasn’t thinking straight. They had made Tim agree not to go out there alone because of the potential danger. He doubted that Jason would ignore his own advice.

He got Jason’s number up on the screen of his mobile and pressed the green button to dial. There was a long pause, and then Jason’s voice began.

‘Hi, Jason Flynn here,’ the cheerful recording said. ‘I’m not available right now, but please leave a message and I’ll get back to you as soon as I can.’

Karl ended the call.

He thought about going back in the house and waiting, but he didn’t want to disturb his mother. After the events of this morning she needed some rest. Karl hoped, though, that they had hit a turning point, and that when she had rested she would wake up in a better mood than she had been in for days. She had been like a ghost haunting the house the last few days. She barely spoke, never looked at anyone and would just wail when she was alone.

This morning she had hit rock bottom. The fear and grief had turned to anger, and from there they had managed to talk, to clear the air. Karl had to admit that he felt good about finally telling his mother she had always put him second to Phil. It was a conversation he had wanted to have with her countless times, but had never had the courage. He hoped that from here they could work on things, and build a better relationship for the future.

He supposed that he could get in the car and drive down to the Pritchard farm and wait there for Jason. After all they had told Tim to meet them there, and he didn’t want the boy feeling like someone else had abandoned him. He pulled out his phone and called Jason again, this time after the answer phone message he spoke.

‘Hi Jason,’ he said. ‘It’s Karl. You’re not here so I guess you must have got held up. I’m going to take Mum’s car and I’ll meet you at the Pritchard Farm.’

He hung up and headed for the car.

Vera Pritchard stepped out into the daylight. The sun was brighter than she had expected and hurt her eyes a little. She felt her age that morning; her muscles ached from all of the work she had done cleaning up after Miko. She had also tended to the wound on his shoulder. Removing the bullet, cleaning the area, and stitching him up. He had of course howled in agony, and several times attempted to lash out at her. Vera knew he hadn’t meant it, though; he was just in pain and frightened. She remembered how she had got mad at him and struck him, and once again felt guilty. He had refused to leave her side all night after his wound was dealt with. He had even slept sprawled across the floor of her bedroom, he had not done that in years.

She had a lot of things to do that day as well. Poor Ben Lindley’s car was still stowed away in her tractor shed, she needed to get rid of that. She wasn’t sure exactly how she was going to dispose of it, perhaps take it out near the marsh and burn it out.

Firstly, though, she needed to make sure that there was no evidence left in the courtyard. She had cleaned the area thoroughly the previous night, but there always seemed to be something you missed that was revealed in sunlight.

The grass on the lawn, where Miko had been eating the young man, was clear of any blood or remains. This was a surprise. Miko usually made an awful mess while eating. This told Vera that he had done most of the damage to the boy elsewhere. Hopefully it was off her property.

She strolled down to where Ben had parked the night before. There was evidence that a car had been there, tire channels in the gravel, but that wasn’t incriminating. The smell of the disinfectant she had used, along with a stiff brush, to clean up the blood still lingered faintly in the air. A few of the pieces of gravel may have still had blood on them, but the brownish colour of the stones themselves disguised it. Still she would have to get the gravel up at some point and replace it.

She remembered the way the shot had ripped through the young police man when she shot him. The look of confusion, tinged with fear on his face. She was sorry that she had to do it. She had always liked Ben, even as a child he had been such a sweet helpful boy. If only he had just let her get the sack out of the boot. She wouldn’t have had to do it.

Protecting Miko was the important thing, though. She would have to get in touch with the rest of the family, see if one of them would look after him when she was gone. She loathed to think of him with them, but what choice did she have?

Holly saw Pearce smoking just outside the rear door of the station. Any other officers who had been out there having a cigarette had obviously had the good sense to leave him alone. As she approached she could see he was still raging.

‘Sir,’ she said forcing him to turn to her. ‘He’s right, isn’t he?’

Pearce’s eyes burned with anger.

‘Listen to me, Booth,’ he said. ‘I’m your superior, and if you want to continue in this career you need to stop questioning my authority.’

Holly felt herself flush with rage. How dare he threaten her like that. For the last four years she had done everything he had said. She had gone along with him even when she disagreed with his methods, and what reward did she get for that? A threat of losing her job the first time she stood up to him.

‘Well, perhaps I should take the matter up with your superiors,’ she said and turned to walk away.

Pearce grabbed her shoulder and spun her round to face him.

‘Are you threatening me, Booth?’ he said.

‘With all due respect, sir. We are well aware that there is something out there killing people, and I think you know more than you’ve told me. Maybe Flynn is right, maybe it’s a big cat. I think you are persecuting an innocent man out of some twisted form of revenge.’

‘How dare you?’ Pearce protested.

‘I dare because I don’t want to see an innocent man punished for nothing, and I don’t want to see a damn fine police officer ruin his career.’

Pearce smiled.

‘You know, Booth,’ he said. ‘I’ve been waiting years for you to show me you had some backbone.’

Holly was shocked by the sudden compliment. Had he been giving her all this shit all of these years to try and force a reaction out of her, a show of strength?

‘What about Jason?’ she said.

Pearce dropped his eyes to the floor and sighed.

‘You’re right. He’s innocent,’ he said. ‘He’s just been a thorn in my side for so long, I wanted to show him who was in charge.’

‘He’s your nephew, sir,’ Holly said. ‘He needs you to be his uncle, not an enemy.’

Pearce shook his head.

‘It’s been a long time since he thought about me that way,’ he said

‘Don’t you think his vendetta against you stems from how much he cared about you?’ Holly said.

‘What I want to know,’ Pearce said. ‘Is what exactly is going on between you and Jason?’

Booth looked to the ground, not wanting to meet his gaze.

‘I’m not sure what you mean, sir.’

Pearce laughed.

‘I’m a damn good detective, Booth,’ he said, ‘but I don’t need to be to see you two are more than just friends.’

Holly sighed.

‘It’s complicated,’ she said, then she put her hand to her stomach, ‘and going to get more complicated soon.’

Karl pulled into the courtyard of the Pritchard Farm. Mrs Pritchard was stood throwing rubbish onto a bonfire. He walked over to her, she smiled and waved as he approached.

‘Hello again, Mr?’ She looked embarrassed that she could not remember his name.

‘Morgan,’ he said with a smile. ‘Hello, Mrs Pritchard.’

‘Has your brother turned up yet?’ she asked.

‘Not yet, no,’ he replied.

She looked at him sympathetically.

‘I’m sorry to hear that, I shall pray for him,’ she said. ‘How can I help you anyway?’

She stepped away from the fire and began to walk towards the car parked in the courtyard. Karl followed her.

‘I know this is going to sound strange,’ he said. ‘I know you spoke to Mr Altman the other day.’

Mrs Pritchard smiled and rolled her eyes.

‘Oh yes,’ she said. ‘That man and his silly big cat stories.’

She shook her head as if she thought the idea was utter nonsense. Nothing more than the ramblings of man she clearly thought was stupid. Karl wasn’t sure how to proceed. If she thought Altman, a qualified vet, was stupid, what was she going to think of him?

‘Yes,’ he said ‘ Maybe those stories aren’t as silly as they seem, Mrs Pritchard. We’ve found a lot of evidence in the last few days to suggest that Dr Altman could be right.’

He was surprised to see she was looking at him with genuine interest, and not mocking disbelief.

‘Really?’ she said.

Karl nodded

‘It seems that this big cat may be using the woods around your farm as its home. So I wondered if you’d seen or heard anything unusual?’

Mrs Pritchard let out a loud belly laugh. Karl was not sure what was so funny in what he had said, and found her reaction a little alarming. Something was suddenly making him feel uneasy.

‘Mr Morgan,’ she said. ‘I know you’ve been living in the city for some time and may have forgotten, but you see and hear a lot of unusual things living out in the country. Eventually you stop paying any attention to them.’

Karl was about to respond when he heard a howl from inside the house. It sound like a cry of frustration or pain, it was followed by a loud thud. Karl jumped at the sound. He spun around on his heel and looked at the house. Then he turned back to Mrs Pritchard. She looked uncomfortable.

‘What was that?’ Karl asked.

‘Oh, that’s just my son,’ she said. ‘He had an accident last night, and he’s in quite a bit of pain. I’ll just go and check on him. Would you mind waiting here Mr Morgan? I won’t be a few minutes.’

Karl supposed an injured son could explain her unease, but it seemed more than that to him. He nodded.

‘No problem,’ he said. ‘Could you ask him if he’s seen anything unusual?’

‘I will,’ she said. ‘He’s probably in too much pain to be any help at the moment.’

She walked off towards the house. As he watched her go inside, Karl felt a chill despite the sunshine. He wasn’t sure what, but he knew something was very wrong at the Pritchard Farm. He wished he had stayed waiting outside his mother’s house for Jason. He regretted coming out here alone.