On Deadly Ground Read online

  She was extremely attractive, but it was more than that. More than the way her blonde hair fell down over one shoulder and onto her chest. Perhaps it was her eyes. Nearer to green than blue, they had an almond shape that was almost oriental. It wasn’t difficult to imagine that the blood flowing in her veins was the same as that of Genghis Kahn’s warrior princes who’d swept from the far east to the very gates of Europe, slicing off the heads of Christian and Moslem alike without prejudice or favour to either faith. Then again. Maybe it was the eyebrows that were so striking. As black as crow feathers, they were a marked contrast to her fair hair. To complete the portrait: her long back had a breathtaking curve to it as she stood there, wine glass in her long sensitive fingers, lightly touching her front teeth with the nail of her first finger, smiling as someone told her an amusing story. And I couldn’t tear myself away from those green eyes as—

  ‘Penny for them.’ Howard Sparkman put one hand on my shoulder from behind as he leaned forward to spear a sausage with a plastic fork. I was too moonstruck to reply. He playfully cuffed my ear with his free hand. ‘Penny for them, I said.’

  ‘Huh. Pardon?’ I focused on his heavy round face grinning up at me.

  ‘By heaven, we’re really away with the fairies tonight, aren’t we, sunshine?’

  ‘Oh, I was just thinking about something.’

  ‘Something? Someone, more like. Am I right or am I right?’

  I grinned. ‘Make yourself useful—pass me another beer.’

  ‘I’ll trade you. You grab a plateful of chicken, bread, coleslaw, potato salad, oh, some of those shrimps, celery, that pink stuff in the big bowl—I don’t know what it is, but it’s so blinking gorgeous I could marry it. And you might as well pack on a fistful of sausages.’

  ‘You’re still sticking to the diet, then?’

  ‘Oh, don’t you start.’ He laughed. ‘I’ve got Ruth on my back all the time.’

  ‘I wouldn’t complain. Just look at the dress she’s wearing!’

  ‘Rick, dear boy, she’s my cousin.’

  ‘Then it’s legal?’

  ‘But not possible…oh, that’s a long story. Come on. You grab the food, I’ll grab the beer, then tell me about the band.’

  With two huge platefuls of food and a mess of beer cans clustering round our feet like a whole litter of devoted puppies we sat on Ben Cavellero’s patio bench and talked. It was that kind of night. Everyone was talking about the future. Everyone had plans. Everyone was so high on champagne that nothing seemed impossible.

  I’d met Howard Sparkman when I first moved to Fairburn. He’d have been eleven, I was nine. He’d been sitting in a tree that overhung our garden. ‘Hey…hey, kid,’ he’d shouted down, ‘Got any snap?’

  ‘Snap?’

  ‘Yeah, snap. Y’ know…chocolate, apples, cake…food?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Aw shit, I’m starving. Oh well, you might as well climb up here with me then.’

  ‘Is it safe?’

  ‘As safe as a house…that’s full of dynamite, with shitty wiring and a truck full of matches parked outside.’

  As far as I knew Howard had stopped climbing trees. Now he wore gold-rimmed glasses; his face was as round as a full moon and he worked for a bank in Leeds. But he still ate like a hungry hippo. The man loved, just loved, eating and drinking. But to buck the stereotyped image of a beer-guzzling, fast-food chomping slob, over the last year he’d put his heart and soul into getting his pilot’s licence. If, on a fine Sunday afternoon, a light aircraft glided over Fairburn, gunning its engine in a series of throaty burps, you could bet your bottom dollar it would be none other than Howard ‘Sparky’ Sparkman enjoying another of his forays into the wide blue yonder.

  As we sat there, him licking the barbecued-chicken juice from his fingers, he talked about opening a restaurant one day. I believed he would.

  ‘Quick, Rick,’ he said, happily, ‘grab that bowl of garlic dip. On the table behind you.’

  ‘What’s the restaurant going to be called?’

  ‘The Trough.’

  ‘And on the menu?’

  ‘We’re having none of these poncey little dishes with a leaf of that and drip of this. If you come to The Trough you’ll eat like a Viking.’ He held out his meaty hands. ‘Huge platters of beef…whole fish…mountains of potato…gravy lakes. You’ll need a shovel, not a spoon.’

  ‘When we play that record-breaking gig in Leeds I’ll bring the band.’

  ‘Bring the audience, too.’

  I grinned. ‘It’s a promise, Howard.’

  He took a swig of beer. ‘I was talking to Stenno down at the garage. He’s just come back from Tenerife.’

  ‘Ah, honeymoon boy. Did he look tired?’

  ‘Tired? He looked knackered.’

  ‘Knowing Sue, she won’t have let him get out of bed the whole fortnight.’

  ‘Anyway, the volcano, Mount Teide, erupted while they were there. It began half-way through the honeymoon. Sue had just gone to bed. He was in the bath when the whole building started shaking; there was this huge banging sound on the walls.’

  ‘What did he do?’

  ‘He shouted to Sue, "What the hell was that?" She replied, "I think it was an earthquake." And he shouted back, "Thank God for that, I thought you’d started making love without me."‘

  We both laughed, feeling warm and relaxed. Overhead the sky turned a deeper blue. People moved about the lawn chatting, sipping wine from fluted glasses. Kate Robinson was biting into a breadstick. Even from where Howard and I stood, I could see the perfect white of her teeth.

  There was no warning of what happened next. He could have fallen from that dark blue sky. One minute there was laughter and music. Then there was the man lying on the grass.

  He was screaming, kicking his legs. At first I thought he was wearing some kind of mask.

  It was a mask. Of sorts.

  His face was covered in blood.

  Chapter 3

  ‘What the hell happened to him?’

  ‘Someone’s used his head for a football.’

  ‘Careful!’

  ‘You’ll need something to mop his face…Christ, have you seen that cut over his eye?’

  ‘A towel…Ben, we need a towel. Is it OK if—’

  ‘Sure, sure, grab one from the bathroom. I’ll get the first aid box.’

  ‘It looks like a casualty job. It’ll need stitching.’

  ‘As far as I can see it’s just the one cut. I don’t think—hey, hey, take it easy. It’s OK, we’re trying to help. Just try and relax, we’ll…stay down…it’s OK, we’re trying to help you…calm—’

  If a man, his head drenched with blood, falls into the middle of a garden party you’d try and help. Right? You’d do your best, even if it was just to call an ambulance. But this guy would have none of it. He writhed on the grass, crying out in this weird voice, ‘Leave me alone…don’t touch me, don’t touch me...no, don’t do that. No, let go of me.’ His eyes were screwed shut; he wore the same kind of expression on his face you’d see if a sadist had scrubbed his bare flesh with sandpaper.

  In the end people moved back a couple of steps to leave him to squirm there on the lawn. Anyone trying to touch him or soothe him would trigger that weird sobbing voice, ‘Leave me, leave me alone…don’t touch me. Not again, not again, not again…’ Where he squirmed his head left bloody smears on the grass.

  I glanced round at the concerned faces looking down at the guy. We all must have felt the same kind of helplessness. It’s one thing to take care of someone with a gashed head. But someone behaving as weirdly…well, let’s not beat about the bush…as downright crazily as this, threw you completely. Was it drugs? Was he schizo? Would he suddenly jump up and attack us?

  At last, Kate Robinson was the only one to do something positive.

  Kneeling down beside the man, she made the gentle soothing sounds you’d make to a baby; then, taking the towel, softly, softly she began to dab his face.

&nbs
p; Instantly his eyes snapped open. Christ, the shock of seeing his eyes made us all catch our breaths. Like white plastic discs, they blazed out of the face. The pupils and irises shrank down to black dots in the centre of those pale circles. Everyone held their breath, seeing sheer blinding terror shooting from the man’s eyes.

  I moved forward, ready to pull Kate back if he started lashing out at her with his fists.

  He looked totally terrified, as if he’d rather blow out his brains than endure another minute.

  ‘There…it’s OK. OK. Everything’s going to be all right…there…take it easy…everything’s fine…’ That was Kate’s voice, a low soothing whisper.

  Then came the transformation.

  It was like someone had found the ‘Off’ switch. The man stopped writhing. He sighed and closed his eyes; you could sense those quivering muscles relaxing and softening beneath his skin all of a sudden. All that moved now was his Adam’s apple in his throat, bobbing slowly as he swallowed.

  ‘Crisis over,’ someone said behind me.

  ‘It must have been the shock,’ came another voice, sounding relieved that we no longer seemed to have a bloody lunatic on our hands.

  People moved forward again, wanting to help. Kate still dabbed the blood from his face.

  ‘Jesus Christ. I don’t believe it.’ Howard Sparkman looked down at the injured man in amazement. ‘Jesus. I didn’t recognize him. Not with all that blood. Rick, have you seen who it is?’

  I looked again at the man’s face. ‘Stenno? Hell’s bells, it is as well.’ Stenno, the mechanic from Fullwood’s garage. We’d been talking about him earlier that evening.

  Howard looked as if a bad taste had pumped up into his mouth. ‘Stenno said he was coming to the party. Look what some bastard did to him. Jesus wept. Look at his eye.’

  A nightmare thought hit me. ‘Where’s his wife? Shouldn’t she be with him?’

  Kate looked up at me in alarm. She was thinking the same as me. If Stenno and Sue had set off for the party together, then just what the Hell was happening to Sue right now?

  A swirl of concerned murmurs ran round the party-goers as their faces turned white. I looked round the garden, still brightly lit by the setting sun, half-expecting Sue to come limping in through the gate, her face soared red from a dozen scratches, her clothes ripped.

  Howard Sparkman slapped his forehead. ‘Think, Howard, think. What did Stenno say to you last week? Party…Sue. Sue…got it.’ His eyes lit up behind the glasses. ‘Sue’s on nights this week at the hospital. He said she wouldn’t be able to come.’

  ‘Thank Christ for that.’

  ‘The bastards can’t get away with this,’ I heard Howard say to a gang of our old school friends who started pitching in with their own thoughts.

  ‘Dean’s all for calling the police.’

  ‘The police? What good will they do?’

  ‘Andy’s right. Whoever’s done this’ll be long gone by now.’

  ‘It might be the Beeston gang again.’

  ‘Could be. One of them is a kid with red hair tied in a pony tail. Barry Fripp caught him ripping the radio out of his car.’

  ‘Same one that pulled a screwdriver on Dean?’

  ‘That’s the one.’

  ‘Bastards probably jumped Stenno as he cut down through the wood from his place.’

  ‘Well, people, what the Hell are we waiting for?’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘The police’ll do nothing if they catch them.’

  ‘What’re you suggesting?’

  ‘That we find them and beat the living crap out of them, that’s what I’m suggesting.’

  ‘I’m with Andy. If we give them a pasting they’ll never forget they’ll think twice about coming up here again.’

  There. That’s how it all started.

  What we’d got ourselves worked up about wasn’t particularly fresh. We were a close-knit group in that little village high on its hill outside Leeds. We’d been having rumbles with gangs from the city ever since we’d hit our teens. No doubt our fathers in their time had done the same.

  But it was going to be different that night. For me, anyway. Because that’s where all this really started for me. And I was never going to be the same again.

  Chapter 4

  Pumped up on Ben Cavellero’s booze and our own righteous anger we poured out of the garden. We left Ben Cavellero and the party guests doing what they could to help Stenno. Although this was something of a private battle with the Beeston gang, there were some out-of-towners there at the party who wanted to do their bit. They were as outraged as we were, and the simplest way to get rid of that outrage was to quench it nicely with a satisfying helping of sweet, sweet revenge.

  Ben Cavellero’s house stood a good kilometre from Fairburn village. By car you’d reach it via Oak Lane which does this eccentric winding route down from the village as far as the River Tawn then back up to Ben’s house. The quick way is the path through the wood.

  That, we decided, was the route Stenno had taken. That’s where he’d been attacked by the Beeston beasts. And that’s where we’d find them and where we’d slam their butts all the way to Shit City and back.

  If I close my eyes now I can see it all as clearly as if it happened yesterday. There must have been fifteen of us walking in that purposeful way that told anyone we were on a mission to kick ass. Dean Skilton, his long brown hair tied back in a pony-tail, was talking the loudest. He gestured with those hands that always looked too big for his body. His freckled face was flushed from alcohol as well as anger. The sun was resting on the hill. In the distance the city of Leeds was in shadow now and already its lights had begun to twinkle. Overhead, winging through the deep blue, was a tourist jet on its way to Leeds-Bradford airport. Behind us you could still see the line of poplars that marked the edge of Ben Cavellero’s garden and the red tiles of his house’s roof glowing warm in the dying light of the sun.

  I noticed three girls were following. One was Kate Robinson. It was tempting to hang back and let her catch up but that could have been interpreted by the others as me turning chicken so I pushed on hard, slightly ahead of the gang.

  ‘Shh…’ Howard Sparkman held up a finger. ‘Hear anything?’

  We stopped and listened. There was bird song; the faint sigh of the jet as the pilot throttled back. A dog barked in the distance.

  I shook my head. ‘Nothing out of the ordinary.’

  ‘You think it was that gang from Beeston?’ Dean frowned. ‘We don’t know for sure that—’

  ‘We know for sure that someone bopped Stenno,’ Andy cut in. ‘He didn’t nick himself shaving, did he?’

  ‘Well, I don’t hear anything.’

  Howard rubbed his jaw. ‘It’s a Hell of a big wood between here and the village. There’s half a dozen paths I can see from right here.’

  ‘Then we split up. Search until we find the twats.’ Andy detested the idea of letting the thugs get away with it. ‘As soon as one of us finds them, give a shout and we all come running. Right?’

  I shot a look back as we fanned out along the woodland paths. Kate and her two friends weren’t far behind. I thought they’d maybe wait there as we searched the wood but they showed no sign of slowing.

  I felt uneasy about that. They weren’t local. They certainly wouldn’t know their way around the wood. What would happen if they came face to face with the Beeston gang? Assuming, that is, it was the Beeston gang that had beaten up Stenno. For all we knew he might have simply tripped over his shoe laces and cracked his face on a rock. Then again, what if some vicious lunatic were on the loose? Now, rather than thinking what I’d do if I got my hands on the bastards, I was beginning to wonder if the girls would be safe. Maybe I should double back and at least keep them in sight, I thought.

  The paths radiated away through the wood. Before I knew it I was alone beneath that dense canopy of branches. Somewhere far away I heard a voice. I cocked my head to one side, holding my breath, so I could p
ick up more of the sound.

  No mistaking it, it was Howard Sparkman grumbling aloud to himself. He’d probably trod in some dog crap or something, knowing him.

  Smiling, shaking my head, I pushed deeper into the wood where the leaf cover was thick enough to bury everything in shadow. I even began to bump into tree trunks, it became so dark. I thought about Kate Robinson again, imagining how her blonde hair and green eyes would look almost luminous in this near-darkness. Her lean body that looked as taut as a bowstring. How she…

  Thump.

  A branch clipped the top of my head. It was now so damned dark I could hardly have seen my hand if I’d dangled it in front of my eyes. How I was going to see anyone else in there, God alone knew.

  Even so, I pushed on. I wanted to take a crack at those thugs, too. They were becoming a frigging disease lately. They’d already been barred from Fairburn’s two pubs. But they still plagued the place. And when they were seen in the evening, inevitably someone would be reporting a stolen car or a burgled garden shed in the morning.

  Hell, it was dark in there. I couldn’t see the path now. And the way my feet sank into the soft earth told me I must have actually lost the damned thing several minutes ago. I checked the luminous dial of my watch. 9:30. I walked on with unseen branches pulling at my shirt-sleeves like ghost fingers.

  At this rate I might just walk straight into the gang; they’d beat me senseless before I could open my mouth to shout to the others.

  And what would happen if Kate and the other girls came across the gang?

  Mental images began to flicker up inside my head of Kate being grabbed by the thugs. ‘Look what we’ve got here,’ says an ugly kid. He’s wearing a cruddy T-shirt, his stinking sweat forming dark stains beneath his pits; it’s emblazoned with the slogan BEASTING THE VIRGIN. He’s gripping a fistful of Kate’s hair in his fist, then he swings her so hard against a tree her head jolts back to clunk painfully against the trunk. She stands there panting, her eyes darting left and right in terror as he runs his stumpy fingers down her bare shoulder. He pulls that evil grin again. ‘OK, boys, let’s get the story straight. She consented to this. Right? She said she’d always wanted to be screwed by—’ I shook my head, but the images wouldn’t be dislodged. Now every ten steps I paused to listen, half-imagining I could hear panicky cries for help. My heart began to beat so hard I could hear the thud transmitted up through my body into my neck and ears.