Tyack & Frayne Mysteries 01 - Once Upon A Haunted Moor (8 page)

Light broke over Gideon. It was lurid and harsh, and in its glare he blamed himself for a thousand missed gestures and looks.
A good uncle, a good brother-in-law...
Oh, Gideon was a proper old Cornishman too, setting his faith in the bonds of family and kinship. Sarah had married Alf, so Joe had been – what? Put out of the way? Neutered like a troublesome dog?

What have you done with her?
He wanted to bellow the question, run up the slope and shake out the answer like a rat from Joe’s throat. But whatever it was, it was done. And now he could see that part of the hunched-up shape was a gun, a hunting rifle. “And what happened? When you saw her?”

“O
h, she was in her bed – crying over that brat of hers. Pleased to see me at first, she was – old Joe, come to give the kids their teas and light the fire and explain why the police are after him.
It’s all a mistake
, she says to me, lying there. Beautiful, she is, even with her eyes all red and her hair in a mess.
It’s a mistake, isn’t it, Joe?
So I told her.”

“All right.” Gideon was listening intently, but he’d pushed his reflex of shame aside and his mind was clearing. He was sizing up the distance, the terrain between him and Joe. Best-in-class at downing an assailant, Gideon had always been, making the other lads on the refresher courses laugh, because out of all of them, who was least likely to need the skill?
What’ll you do with it in Armpit-on-the-Wold, Gid – tackle the grannies off their zimmers?
He’d laughed back at them. The grannies were safe, but he’d certainly enjoyed releasing his power and speed onto men of his own size. Joe Kemp was a big bloke, tough from his work in the fields. But Gideon had to get closer. “What did you tell her?”

“Parts you know already. You were there. How everyone laughed when she said she was marrying the Kemp lad, and it turned out she meant that scrawny rat Alf and not me. How they’d envied me until then.”

“Yes. I remember.”

“Then when she found out for herself what she’d done, how I solved her problem for her. I told her that. I didn’t mean to kill him, you know, Gid – just took him out here, down the hole I found when you helped me rescue that sheep. I was gonna let him get lost down here – he was bloody thick enough. But the stupid arsehole fell. Then when he wouldn’t stop screaming and begging me to help him, I – ”

“Stop, Joe. I know what you did.” Gideon had found what he’d been looking for, blindly feeling at the cavern wall – a hole in it big enough to take the torch. He moved out of the beam. Now the light would stay where it was, shining up into Joe’s face, while Gideon took one silent step and then another towards him. He lowered his voice to compensate. “You love the kids, don’t you? I know you love Lorna. You don’t need to say it out loud – what you did to Alf.”

“You’re wrong, you know.” Joe got warily to his feet, but his gaze remained fixed on the torch. “Why should I love Alf’s leavings? If Sarah had seen sense and married me, I’d have learned, but when I asked her she just laughed. She thought I was joking, you see, Gid. But I wasn’t. I only ever loved Sarah.”

“And with Alf gone, you thought...”

“Why wouldn’t I? But she’s as dumb in her way as one of old Trewarren’s Jersey cows
. As difficult to budge. She wasn’t even unhappy without Alf. She never turned to me. So I took her child.”

Gideon had heard enough. He was close enough, too. He’d always been a bit shy of his bulk. He’d never carried any fat, but his tiny frail mother had looked at him – still did to this day – in disbelief. Now he was glad of every ounce. He gathered it together: launched it all at Joe Kemp in one rush.

Joe crashed onto his back. Lee’s shout resounded in the darkness – a protest, a warning, then all Gideon could hear was the roar of his own blood as he tangled limb to limb with Joe on the cave floor. He got his hand round the barrel of the gun. He rolled Joe onto his front and yanked the weapon out of his grasp. Joe snarled in frustration and writhed like a muscular eel out from under. His boot connected hard with Gideon’s skull.

Through fireworks Gideon saw an olive-skinned hand dip down to snatch the rifle out of reach. He lurched onto his hands and knees. Joe was running flat out for the passage that led to the surface. Lee was upright, his face unrecognisable with rage. He’d tucked the rifle stock against his shoulder and was taking an expert aim on the running man. “Lee, no!”

“Why not? You’ve no
idea
how he scared her. Tormented her.”

“Still can’t risk a shot in here. Roof’s not stable.”

“
He
risked it. His brother pleaded like a baby, and he – ”

“Hush.” Gideon got up. Still half-blinded by sparks, he bore the rifle down. “It’s not your job. That’s a pretty pro grip you’ve got there, isn’t it?”

“I don’t come from a long line of TV psychics, you know! My dad’s a farmer out at Drift.”

“All right. All right.” Gideon planted a swift rough kiss on the brow that had to contain so many other peop
le’s horrors as well as its own. “I’ve got to get after him.”

“Yes. Go.”

“I’ll have to help you hoist the kid up that sheer bit into the passage. That’s how he’s kept her captive here – he could come and go easily, but – ”

“She tried.” Lorna had shot out from the shadows and attached herself to Lee’s belt and jacket like a terrified monkey. Lee put a hand on her skull, and went on, as simply as if he were reading from a book, “She had a little keyring torch. She didn’t dare go down the other caves or
she’d get lost, but she got as far as here. Then he came back. He caught her, threw the torch away and left her in the cleft where you found us. In the dark.”

“I’m going to get him,” Gideon vowed. He put his hand on top of Lee’s and briefly caressed him and the child. “Lee, you stay back with her, but first let’s get you both out of here – I am not leaving anyone behind in this damn cave.”

***

Gideon came to a breathless halt on the rock-strewn turf. The moon had risen, casting diffuse silver light through the mist, and just as well: he’d left his torch behind with Lee. God knew how he’d been meaning to pursue a criminal across the moors without it.

He wasn’t sure he could do it in this. The light shifted and blurred, casting cobweb veils over the rocks. Still, Joe Kemp was subject to the same handicap. He couldn’t have got far. The faintest rattle – feet on stones? – gave him a direction, and he set off.

“Gideon, wait.”

He turned impatiently. Lee was scrambling out from between the rocks, Lorna in his arms. “Are you okay? I’ve got to go, Lee – I think he’s down there.”

“No. Something’s coming. Stay here.”

Gideon listened. Yes – movement in the shapeshifting mist, large and very close. Primitive impulses fired in his brain, switching him from hunting mode to last-ditch defence – of home, hearth, offspring – he didn’t know, but it all stood represented by Lee Tyack and the child. He ran back upslope to them. “Christ, what is it? Not Joe...”

“No, not Joe.”

“Get the kid and stay behind me.”

“Not this time.”

No. It wouldn’t work. What the hell would, against the unseen vastness stirring so close to them? “Put her between us. Shelter her. Now!” Gideon twisted round to face them. He threw his arms around them both. He ducked his head, buried his face in Lee’s hair. “Hang on,” he whispered. “Don’t move. Don’t breathe.”

Again came the rattle of stones, faint and far off down the hill. The presence in the mist became immobile, and a listening silence so deep it could have swallowed all Cornwall came down.

The air moved. A breeze became a rush became a sudden roaring passage of unleashed energy, a buffet hard and close enough to knock Gideon down: he spared a hand to grab at the rocks, Lee and the child hanging on to him.

Then the presence was gone. Off in the mist, a man cried out once and was silent.

They were a sorry procession, Gideon supposed. Not Lee, still tirelessly bearing Lorna along, his back straight and his head high with the joy and relief of bringing her home. He looked fine. What Gideon had to carry was a dog. Isolde had crawled out from under the gorse at the foot of the crag. She wasn’t much hurt, as far as a torchlight check could reveal, but she was done up, all her heroics spent, unwilling or unable to take another step. He’d picked her up. His mobile had come to life where he’d expected it to, and he’d summoned the forces of order and light now waiting at the bottom of the track – ambulance, police Rover, search-and-rescue truck, a pool of circling
lights casting dervish shadows from the standing stones nearby.

This was as far as road vehicles could get. The search team were unloading their quad bike and kit. Two officers with tracker dogs were already halfway up the southern cliff, the dogs this time barking and straining at the leash. Gideon was almost home. To his infinite r
elief, he saw Sarah Kemp sitting hunched in the police truck’s open rear door. She was wrapped in a blanket, a paramedic and a female officer looking after her. She jerked her head up as Gideon took the dog into one arm for long enough to open the last gate and usher Lee through it ahead of him. The blanket fell. She staggered upright and began to run. “Gideon! Gideon!”

“All right, love. We’re coming down to you.”

“He came for me – Joe did! He tried to take me away, but I...” She stumbled and went down on one knee, allowing the WPC to catch up with her. “I bashed him with a pan. I locked myself in the cellar. Oh, Gideon – have you got my girl? Have you got my girl?”

***

Gideon sat in the back of the ambulance, between the open doors. His arm was round Lee Tyack, who was also wrapped in a blanket now, leaning against him tiredly while a medic checked the rope marks on his wrists and shone a light into his eyes. “You should test his blood,” Gideon told the medic, who gave him the expected look for his advice. “He was given the same drug as the kid. And the only drugs Joe Kemp had access to, he got from the vet.”

“Don’t you worry, PC Frayne. Mr Tyack’s going in for a night’s observation. They’ll test him for everything then.”

Lee raised his head. “What? I don’t need – ”

“You’ll shut up,” Gideon informed him with muted ferocity, “and do as you’re damn well told.”

A new set of headlights approached unsteadily up the moorland track. The vehicle pulled to a stop, and Gideon’s inspector from Truro got out. He looked sleepy and dishevelled, but clearly could command the fancy car and driver at any hour he chose. For a moment Gideon considered the privileges of rank, and dismissed them. He couldn’t imagine wanting anything more in the world than he had right now.

Kinver made his way across to the ambulance. He gave a traditional Cornish policeman’s onceover to the tableau
in front of him – one of his finest coppers, firmly hanging on to Lee Tyack, who was all very well in his way and certainly had been most helpful, but still was undeniably another man. Gideon felt not the least desire to move his arm. “Good evening, sir.”

“Good morning, I believe you mean.” Kinver peered into the ambulance, where the paramedics were tending the little girl as best they could around her mother, who had turned into an octopus and was clearly never letting go of her again. Sounds of laughter and crying spilled like music out into the night. “I gather you’ve done well, PC Frayne. Is that...?”

“Lorna Kemp,” Gideon said, with absolute exhausted satisfaction. “Yes. The missing child.”

“Would you like to own a dog?”

Lee Tyack lay back in his hospital bed. He looked up at Gideon in amusement. “This dog,” he said thoughtfully. “A bit on the plump side? A touch of a problem with gas?”

“That would be her.” Isolde had begun to howl the moment Gideon had handed her over to a neighbour for the night, and it hadn’t been for him. “You’re her all-time favourite human.”

“Well, I’d love to own a dog. Only my flat’s quite small, so it might be better...”

“If she lived with me, and you came to visit?”

“Something like that. But I’d only feel happy with living apart from my dog if they were pretty frequent visits, say...”

“A couple of times a week?”

“Make it three and we have a deal, copper.”

Gideon beamed. Lee had been admitted to a public ward at Trelowarren, so he couldn’t express his pleasure any more directly than that. “Done. It might become a local euphemism, you know. Where’s Lee Tyack? He’s...”

“He’s gone to visit his dog.”

They both burst out laughing. It was three in the morning, the ward lights turned down dim, and a nurse across the way gave them a look of reproach. Quickly they hushed one another. “How are you feeling?” Gideon asked unsteadily. “I talked to one of the docs. That was some kind of horse tranquilliser Kemp used.”

“Christ. I’m okay, but the poor kid...”

“She’s fine too, somehow. She’s just down the corridor getting checked over. Sarah wants your name strung up in lights across the village square.”

“Yours too, I should think.”

“She’s appreciative, yeah. But I told her how I got the clues to find the girl. Nothing would have happened without you.”

“I don’t know. I feel like you drew it out of me somehow, and kept me sane while it was coming. The whole thing was much, much easier with you around. I meant it when I said we made a good team.”

“Well, you know – maybe on one of your visits to your dog...”

Lee’s mouth quirked. “Don’t start me off again. I’m serious. I’d like to work with you again if I could.”

“Okay, but please not in my village. I don’t want Dark turning into Midsomer.” Gideon sobered. “I’d love to work with you too. Oh, by the way – I have to give something back to you.” He drew out of his pocket the silver chain. “That was a good call, dropping that for me.”

“I had a job, letting it go where Joe wouldn’t spot it. I knew you would.”

“How did you know? Psychic thing?”

“No, not at all. You’re an observant man, Gideon. You’re smart, and you’ve got a great big pair of balls on you, coming down alone to find me and Lorna like that. You’re a good copper. Surely you know that.”

“I’m not sure. I used to know once. Losing the kid – feeling that helpless – made me question everything.” Gideon began to hand the silver chain to Lee. But he was newly confident about some things, and when Lee raised his chin a bit and looked at him, he leaned in close instead and fastened the chain around his neck. Hesitated one moment, breathing his warm scent through the antiseptic hospital smells, and sealed his work with a kiss. Lee shivered in pleasure. He returned the gesture – one soft press of his mouth to Gideon’s cheek. Reluctantly Gideon eased back. He wasn’t about to hide anything about himself ever again, but some things deserved peace and closed doors for everyone. “Just wait,” he whispered. “Wait for your visit to your dog.”

“It had better be my first visit.”

“The very first.”

Gideon sat down. The nurse wasn’t looking, so he carefully perched on the bed. “Lee
,” he said softly. “You saw the same things I did out there. What did we meet on the moor?”

“
If I could answer that... I’d know what came scratching at your door the night we met. But I don’t, Gid. I think sometimes places like the moor – they have their secrets, and they’ll always keep them.” Lee took Gideon’s hand, rubbing the knuckles as Gideon had for him when they’d turned back the Beast from the door. “But I don’t think you’ll be troubled any more.”

“Can you do that? Look into the future as well?”

“No.” He made a face. “God forbid. The past and the present are more than enough.”

“I bet. I’d like to foretell a few things, though.”

“Oh?”

“I’m pretty sure that tomorrow I’m going to go into the village and see if that nice, boring, modern little house I lived in before my parents
got ill is still available for rent. And my dad can’t take anything in any more, but my mother can. I’m going to go and see her. We need to talk.”

Lee’s grip tightened. “Your crystal ball’s in good shape, Constable. Anything else?”

“One thing. Joe Kemp will never be seen or heard of again.”

“Not hide nor
a hair. Not a scrap.”