In the Devil's Name Page 16

  Griff’s parents were rarely in town, but that wasn’t the reason I wouldn’t go to them either. Unlike Sam’s folks, Des and Sheena Griffiths were practically strangers despite the fact that Griff had been friends with us for years. On the rare occasions I’d met them, both had seemed cold and faintly disapproving, and Sam, Cairnsey and I had very seldom set foot in Griffiths Hall. Although Griff’s folks were frequently away from home and a parent free stately home would be like Christmas for four teenage lads, we’d never had parties or hung around at his place. The massive old mansion had a distinctly unwelcoming feel to it that had always made us acutely uncomfortable.

  That left Cairnsey’s family. His mum had left before Cairnsey had learned to walk, and his dad Tony, to put it delicately, was a cunt. He worked at the local garage and was a skinny little rat of a man with slightly less intelligence. He had a taste for Bells whisky and a mean temper, which in the past he’d often take out with his fists on his two sons. When we were kids in primary school, Cairnsey would show up with bruised arms and black eyes every once in a while, but had never made a big deal about it. He’d refused to tell a teacher about the abuse when we’d urged him to, and he’d made us promise not to say anything either. He and his elder brother Grant would sort it out themselves, he’d say.

  Sure enough, the bruises had stopped appearing about the same time Tony Cairns spent a few days in hospital, recovering from a serious beating he claimed he’d received at the hands of four big guys who’d jumped him coming home from the pub one night. The bruises on Cairnsey and Grant’s knuckles told a different story.

  As we grew older, Cairnsey barely even mentioned his old man, as if the prick was an unwanted, but unfortunately permanent roommate with whom he and Grant were forced to live.

  Grant was a couple of years older than us, in his second year at Strathclyde University where he was studying civil engineering, and he’d sometimes hang out with us on occasion although he also had his own circle of friends. There was none of that common brotherhood rivalry between Grant and Cairnsey, because they’d grown up in a house with a common enemy in the shape of their waster father.

  If I was going to seek help from any quarter, it would be from Grant. He’d always stuck up for us in school when older kids had given us hassle, even if it meant he’d take a beating in our stead, as had happened once when he’d intervened to stop Eddie Jannets kicking the shit out of Sam. Grant had balls, but he wasn’t a natural fighter, and he’d ended up with a burst nose for his trouble. Sam had got away though, and from that day, had looked on Grant with a measure of hero worship.

  I threw another couple of pieces of wood onto the campfire, mulling over this idea further.

  As loathe as I was to involve anyone else in this inexplicable and deadly situation, I’d no one else to turn to. I needed to get out of town, and knew that Cairnsey’s brother was my best chance of being able to do so.

  Grant shared a flat in Glasgow with a couple of other students during term time, but he’d moved back to town for the summer to work with Sam’s dad at the local engineering firm in a placement position that came through his university course.

  It was a Wednesday morning, and the offices of Anderson Engineering opened at nine am. Checking my watch, I saw it was still only quarter to seven, meaning I’d need to call him at home. I didn’t have my mobile however, so would need to call him from a payphone. I patted my pockets in the hope of finding a few coins, and my hand came away flecked with dried blood.

  I realised with repulsion that I was coated head to toe in gore, and had to force myself not to think about where it had come from. Grasping the nature of my grisly appearance, I had a new and troubling thought.

  It was highly probable that a neighbour had heard the noise from my house the previous night. All the screaming, crashing and shouting wouldn’t have gone unnoticed. What if someone, probably the elderly Mrs Hook next door, had called the police, who arrived to find two mutilated bodies and me missing?

  I’d already been involved in one multiple murder that year for which no action had been taken against me, but that had only been because of Griff’s confession.

  The possibility that I might be the quarry in a manhunt came as a cold slap in the face, and walking back into town in search of a pay phone wearing blood soaked clothes suddenly didn’t seem like a good idea.

  I quickly moved back towards the small fire I’d built, intending to scatter the beacon I’d foolishly constructed, when the far off wail of a siren floated across the still morning air.

  Although I knew I was innocent of murder, the sound almost undid me. I turned again to survey the town from my high vantage point and sure enough, I could see blue lights bombing down the main street. Then I saw more lights and a second siren joined the high pitched howl of the first. Then a third sounded.

  I could now see blue lights rushing through the streets at three different areas of the small town, but they weren’t all heading in the same direction. I frowned in confusion.

  A tall pillar of flame suddenly bloomed silently in the distance away to my right, followed a second later by a deep roar of noise as a huge explosion ripped the morning asunder. The petrol station on the north edge of the village had gone up in a massive fireball.

  I heard a scream from closer by. It came from the block of flats which lay at the bottom of the hill I was sitting on.

  The town’s nightmare came with the dawn that day.

  Chapter 37

  Constable Ally Marshall was scared.

  As the patrol car sped through the quiet early morning streets, he sat with his fists clenched in his lap, listening in growing disquiet to the reports coming over the radio. Annie, the controller back at the station, was losing her cool. He could hear it in her voice; could hear the same rising fear he felt. She was scared as well. And no wonder.

  Ally had started the day two hours ago by standing on an upturned plug with his first step out of bed; the sensitive sole of his bare foot coming straight down on the contact prongs. The sudden, brutal blast of agony had made him collapse back onto his mattress, screaming silently and wishing for a merciful death, and the metal pins of the plug had grinned up at him from the floor in a three pronged smile, as if to say Got you, ya daft bastard!

  In a righteous fury, Ally had stupidly swung a bare footed kick at the heavy AC adaptor that had gored him, inexplicably certain in his rage that he would send his inanimate assailant flying across the room and see it satisfyingly obliterated against the wall. As he hopped away in his y fronts a second later, almost weeping in misery and holding his little toe which he was certain was broken, he’d thought the day could only get better.

  He now sat in the police car next to his superior, Sergeant Stephen Grace, en route to a reported disturbance at the petrol station just outside the edge of the village. When dispatching the car, Annie had advised that the caller had been in a panic, saying that something was trying to get her.

  Something, not someone.

  It was the third disturbance Annie had alerted the small local police force to that morning.

  At just after six am, she’d dispatched his best mate and fellow constable Davie Leish to a reported break in at the Densmore residence on Glenside Road.

  Just a few minutes later, Annie received another call. An assault reported at Fern Drive.

  To say that this volume of incident was higher than usual was an understatement. Annie would perhaps have to call officers to a scene twice a month, and the single holding cell at the station held mice and an assortment of cleaning products more often than it did hardened criminals. That’s why she sounded so scared.

  Something very bad was happening.

  “There’s another one, Sarge,” Annie’s’ panicky voice came over the radio again. “Seventeen Field Road; Jack Daly’s farm. His wife’s hysterical, saying he’s in pieces,” Annie’s voice raised a few notes on the last few words.

  “Calm down Annie,” Stephen Grace replied calmly into the radi
o. “Call the station in Girvan and get another car out there right away. We’re a minute away from the petrol station. What’s the status at our destination?”

  “I don’t know,” Annie’s shaky voice came back. “The woman isn’t on the line anymore. There was a scream and the line just went dead.” She sounded like she was on the verge of tears.

  “Get a hold of yourself, Annie,” Grace replied sternly, trying to calm the controller. "Get back on the radio and check in with the other cars. I want know what’s going on at every location. Over and out.”

  Annie managed to compose herself somewhat. “Will co Sarge. Out.”

  The car was speeding north along the coastal road, and as they topped a small rise, Ally saw their destination come into view a quarter of a mile away. The petrol station was on their right just ahead, facing the sea and bordered on either side by fields of tall grass.

  That was when it exploded. Ally yelped in alarm as he felt the shock wave rock the car.

  “Holy mother of…” Sergeant Grace moaned in disbelief from the driver’s seat. “What the hell is this?”

  The car skidded to a stop well back from the blazing building. Grace was back on the radio, shouting urgently.

  “Come in, control. Annie, get the fire brigade out to the petrol station immediately, and an ambulance as well. Probable casualties.”

  “Roger that Sarge,” Annie came back, to her credit sounding calmer now. “Urgent fire and ambulance services to the Jet petrol station on Girvan road.”

  Ally and his superior stepped out of the car and started towards the blazing building. Another explosion from the forecourt rocked the morning air as another pump went up; driving the two policemen back before the fierce wave of heat, rank with the acrid stench of burning petroleum.

  His pulse racing, Ally could feel his skin tightening in the intense heat from the fire.

  “Jesus, Sarge,” he muttered. “The woman who called…”

  “Check the north field,” Grace said grimly. “See if you can find her. I’ll check the south side.”

  Ally ran to the north side of the station, keeping well back from the burning building that was now just a huge bonfire. If the fields on either side had been any closer to the structure, the tall grass would also be ablaze by now. As it was, they were set far back enough to avoid being consumed. Ally knew however, that a single stray ember could well ignite the field he was about to enter in his search for the missing attendant.

  He clambered awkwardly over the short wire fence, swearing as his trousers snagged on the barbs. He stood and surveyed the chest high grass before him, listening and watching for movement.

  “Hello?” he called. “Police. Anyone here?”

  He started to make his way through the field, scanning left and right and trying not to break an ankle on the uneven ground. He glanced nervously to his right in the direction of the burning building, expecting at any moment to see the grass burst into flames.

  “Police,” Ally shouted again, continuing to look around. “Please call out if you can hear me.”

  Nothing but the whoosh and crackle of the inferno.

  Ally continued searching in widening circles, calling out every few seconds. Minute by minute his hopes of finding the woman alive faded.

  Poor woman’s probably just so much ash by now, he thought.

  Aside from the noise of the burning petrol station, Ally noticed that there was a queer stillness to the morning; a strange, indefinable hush that seemed almost tangible somehow. It was a very peculiar feeling, and despite the heat from the blaze, Ally felt a chill in his bones.

  There was a scream and the line just went dead.

  Something was trying to get her.

  Ally shuddered, and somehow knew in his heart that the station attendant would never be found. For some reason, he found himself recalling that night back in May when he and Sean Hogan had responded to the call out at Bennane Head. He remembered that grinning kid, naked and red with gore, crouched over the eviscerated, dismembered body, a bloody machete in his hand. The way the kid had moved; unnaturally fast, in the blink of an eye cleaving Sean’s head down the middle…

  His radio crackled to life, making him jump.

  “Ally, the grass on this side’s starting to smoke,” Sergeant Grace said. “I’m moving back to the car. The fire engines should be here in a minute.”

  “Roger, Sarge. I’ll keep checking this side. Over.”

  “Negative. The wind’s picking up. The north field’ll be up in smoke as well before long. The fire boys can keep it from going up when they get here, and we can continue the search then. Meet me at the car. Over and out.”

  “Roger that.”

  Ally turned and started back toward the fence, still aware of the eerie sense that the morning was somehow quieter than it should be.

  Birdsong.

  The word leapt into his mind and he realised that was it. This stretch of coastline was a haven for gulls, oyster catchers, cormorants, various species of duck and other seabirds and waterfowl, and the squawks, trills and chirps of the wildlife could usually be heard in abundance. This morning however, the coast was unnaturally absent of birdsong. Looking around, Ally noticed that neither could he see any birds. Not so much as a lone sparrow sitting on the fence.

  He shivered again, and hurriedly made his way out of the field.

  Arriving back at the patrol vehicle, he found Sergeant Grace speaking urgently into the radio once more.

  “Come in, Control. Where’s the fire engine? What’s the status up at the Daly farm, Annie? Over.”

  Just static from the other end.

  “Annie, come in,” he repeated. “Request status at seventeen Field Road. Need also immediate response from fire service. Confirm.”

  Crackling silence.

  Something cold and hard settled in Ally’s stomach.

  Sergeant Grace threw the radio handset down in disgust.

  “Where the fuck is she?” he spat.

  The radio suddenly crackled to life.

  “Control, this is Foxtrot Sierra seven,” an unsteady male voice said. It was Kenny Young; one of the officers who’d gone to the second call that morning, the assault out at Fern Drive near the golf club. The Delaney family who lived at the address owned a large detached villa, the only building on the road. “We’re at the scene at Fern Drive. Multiple casualties. I repeat, multiple casualties. Jesus Christ, I’ve got four bodies here…”

  The horror in Kenny’s voice was stark, and the cold, hard thing in Allys’ stomach grew spindly legs and scuttled around inside him.

  Grace whipped up the handset again.

  “Foxtrot Sierra seven,” he barked. “This is Sergeant Grace. What’s your status, Kenny? Over.”

  “Fuck me, Sarge.” Kenny gasped in a strangled voice. “There’s four dead here, sir. They’ve been mutilated, but… but worse… holy God, it’s impossible…”

  The field on the south side of the petrol station finally caught fire. Flames sprang up from the tall grass and immediately began to spread, fanned by the breeze coming off the water on the other side of the road. There were still no fire engine sirens to be heard.

  “Hold your position, Kenny and calm down,” Grace said calmly. ”We’re coming to you.”

  “Please hurry, Sarge,” Kenny said in a tone that was almost a whimper. Ally thought he sounded like a frightened child.

  He realised that Davie Leish, the other officer on duty who’d gone to the break in at the Densmore house that morning, hadn’t radioed in since he’d reported that he’d spoke to the next door neighbour and was proceeding to check out the scene.

  He thumbed the switch on his own radio. He was suddenly very worried for his friend.

  “Come in Foxtrot Sierra five. You there Davie?”

  Sergeant Grace was starting the car up.

  “Get in, Ally!” he bawled.

  As the patrol car bombed back towards town, leaving the burning petrol station and fields behind, Ally trie
d again to raise Davie on his radio. No answer.

  Despite Sergeant Grace’s repeated efforts, Annie still wasn’t picking up back at the station either.

  Chapter 38

  “I thought I heard something last night, must’ve been about tenish,” the elderly Mrs Hook was saying. “I’d just taken my sleeping pills. My shoulder keeps me awake at night you know, damned arthritis, and I thought I heard someone shouting, but I was already half asleep. I’ve taken a tumble down the stairs before when I was going to the kitchen after taking my tablets, so I didn’t want to risk that again, son. Anyway, I peeked my head over the back fence this morning, Kyle’s usually up and about at that time, and I saw the patio door was broken.”

  Davie Leish was writing this all down in his notebook, nodding as he did so. He stood on the front doorstep of Sophie Hook's house, next door to the Densmore residence. Andy Cummings, the other PC who’d he’d been in the car with when they got the call, had already gone next door to check out the scene. Davie could see him across the low fence separating the two front gardens, looking through the living room window. There’d been no answer to his repeated knocking on the front door.

  “Did you go next door to see if Mr Densmore was there?” Davie asked the old lady.

  “No, son. I went back inside and tried to get him on the phone, but there was no answer. His car was still outside and he wouldn’t leave the house with the door all smashed like that, so I thought it’d be best to call you. I was going to go next door after I spoke to wee Annie at the station but she told me to stay put.”

  Davie nodded again, still writing furiously.

  “Quite right,” he said with a smile. “Can’t have you doing our job for us can we, Mrs Hook? The Sergeant’d skin me alive.”

  “Och, I’ve known Stephen since he was a wee laddie. Don’t let him fool you. He’s a big softie at heart. I mind him falling off that wee pink bike of his sister's when he was about ten and skinning his knee. Cried his wee heart out, so he did.”