The Bone Field Read online

  ‘Right,’ I said, memorizing the map. ‘We need a vantage point so we can get a good look at this place. And remember, this is a recce. Nothing more. The first sign of anything suspicious, we call in the local cops. If we have to, we’ll do an anonymous 999 call, say we’ve seen someone on the property with a gun. Agreed?’

  She nodded, and brushed back hair from her eyes. ‘Sure.’

  We looked at each other for a moment. I wanted to kiss her. It looked like she might have felt the same way. But I didn’t. We hadn’t shown each other any affection on the way up either. It was as if we both knew our relationship had to wait until we’d sorted out everything else. So I got out of the car, pulled a backpack from the boot containing the tools I like to keep for surveillance jobs, and motioned for Tina to follow me.

  We made our way through the trees until we were opposite the turning down to the farm. It was marked by a high wooden gate, topped with iron spikes, with security cameras facing down the track from each of the gateposts. A wire fence around ten feet high topped with a dual strip of barbed wire ran parallel to the lane on either side. I looked for additional security cameras on the fence but couldn’t see any.

  We continued walking until we were well past the gate and out of sight of the cameras, then followed the line of the fence as it ran away from the lane and down the hill through the trees. I stopped where the fence passed close to a large fern and took a pair of wire cutters from the backpack.

  ‘One of the advantages of doing this unofficially is you don’t have to follow the rules,’ I said as I crouched down and started cutting a hole in the fence near the bottom.

  Tina grunted. ‘I gave up following them a long time back.’

  The wire was new and strong and it took me a few minutes to cut a hole big enough for us to fit through. I threw the piece I’d removed into the ferns and crawled through on my belly with Tina following, confident that no one passing by would spot the damage we’d done.

  Five minutes later we came to a break in the trees where a small rocky ridge jutted out above a much steeper drop into the valley below. I lay down on my front and pulled out a pair of binoculars from the backpack while Tina lay down next to me.

  Below us, several hundred metres away in the floor of the valley, was the farm. I lifted the binoculars and took a closer look at it. The main building was an imposing-looking stone house set in a large courtyard with a barn next to it, and a smaller outbuilding opposite, next to which was a kennels. I could see two large and not particularly friendly-looking Rottweilers lying down behind the mesh wire – clearly security dogs rather than pets. Two cars were parked in the courtyard: one was a dirt-stained Land Rover Defender, the other a black, much newer-looking Range Rover. I couldn’t see the plates from the angle I was looking at. Nor could I see any sign of people.

  ‘There’s no sign of the girl,’ I said, handing the binoculars to Tina and waiting while she scanned the area.

  She handed them back to me. ‘The tracker’s there, so she must be as well.’

  ‘Have you got a signal on your phone?’ I said, pulling out mine. It said two bars.

  Tina nodded. ‘Good enough. Three bars.’

  ‘I’m going to get as close as I can and take a look around without taking any risks. I’ve got a motion-activated camera in my bag. I’ll set it up so we can see who comes in and out. I have a feeling more people will be turning up.’

  ‘And you want me just to stay here, away from all the action.’ She sounded frustrated.

  ‘There’ll be no action. And I need you here in case anything goes wrong.’ I looked at her. ‘It’s ten past one now. It’s going to take me a while to get down there, but if I’m not back or you haven’t heard anything from me by half two, dial 999, then get out.’ I handed her my car keys. ‘The same applies if you see anything while I’m gone that looks like grounds to call the police. Just do it. Remember, we’re looking for any excuse to get the cavalry in.’

  Tina looked back at me, and there was concern in her expression. I hadn’t seen someone look at me like that in a long time. ‘Don’t do anything stupid, Ray. I actually think I might like you, and that’s a real rarity for me.’

  I gave her hand a squeeze and got to my feet. ‘Stay here and don’t move,’ I said, and turned back into the trees.

  Forty-nine

  A gentle breeze made the leaves rustle as The Dark Man walked alone through the trees, carrying with it the ripe, intoxicating smell of the earth and the woods. His skin tingled with anticipation at the thought of what would happen later. The girl they’d brought down here to the farm was perfect. An olive-skinned natural beauty, just like the girls he’d known as a boy back in the old country. Ripe and ready for picking. And tonight, when the others arrived – the inner circle – they would have their fill of her in the way they’d done so many times before.

  The Dark Man never tired of the kill. It filled him with a joy like no other. It was the power it gave him: the knowledge that he was sucking the life out of another, absorbing their strength, stealing their soul, and then burying them beneath the soil where their families could never find them.

  His was a largely joyless life. He had never loved, nor travelled; he had no children that he knew about, nor true friends. He had never liked people, even from the very beginning, and, as age began to devour him, this feeling had hardened. Now he had a cold contempt even for those he worked with and knew well, and he looked forward to the day when Cem Kalaman no longer needed him and he could retire here and live in isolation like a monk, taking what pleasure he could in his solitary walks – and, of course, the occasional kill.

  Out of the corner of his eye he caught a glint of something in the dappled sunlight coming through the canopy. He turned and approached quickly as the car revealed itself behind a thick tangle of bushes. It was a new-looking Audi A6, not the kind of car you’d expect round here. He could see its tyre tracks in the dirt where it had left the lane. He leaned down and peered inside, saw nothing of any use, and took down the registration number.

  No one came up this lane unless they were going to the farm. It didn’t lead anywhere except back to the main road, becoming an overgrown, near-impenetrable mess on the way down. There were no footpaths around here either, nothing to attract anyone to this spot – which was the reason they’d chosen the farm as their desired location all those years ago.

  So someone was here who shouldn’t be.

  The Dark Man felt a twinge of unease. Things had been complicated ever since the discovery of the two bodies in the grounds of the school, but he had started to get the situation back under control, and he couldn’t afford anyone finding out about this place.

  He slipped the gun from his jacket and looked around, sniffing the air. Whoever it was who’d come here, they weren’t going to be far away.

  Tina stubbed out her cigarette on the rock, made sure it was fully out and placed it carefully in the dirt. The ground was slightly damp so it had obviously rained here recently but, even so, she was paranoid about inadvertently starting a fire.

  She picked up the binoculars and, almost as soon as she’d focused them again, she saw the side door to the main house open and a well-built black man in jeans and a tight-fitting T-shirt emerge. As he turned slightly away from her she thought she saw the handle of a gun sticking out of the back of his jeans, but then he leaned back against the wall, obscuring her view, and lit a cigarette.

  Tina panned the binoculars, looking for Ray. He’d been gone for close to twenty minutes now. She couldn’t see him down there, and for that she was thankful. She knew he knew what he was doing but, even so, he was unarmed. What had happened between them last night had really meant something to her, and she wasn’t entirely sure she liked feeling that way. It made her feel too vulnerable.

  The black man finished his cigarette as Tina focused in on him again, and stubbed it underfoot before going back inside the house, but this time as he turned away from Tina’s view she saw quite clearly t
hat it was the handle of a gun poking out of his waistband.

  That was enough to call in the reinforcements. If there was a young woman being held in there against her will and facing death – and from what Ray had told her, Tina was pretty sure there was – the sooner the police got here the better. Putting down the binoculars, she reached for her phone and checked that she still had a signal.

  The sound behind her was barely audible, a tiny scrape on the stone, but Tina still turned round fast, just in time to feel a shoe slamming down on her chest, pinning her to the ground. She looked up, her view of the man standing above her obscured by the bright sunlight, but there was no mistaking the hat he was wearing, or the gun pointing down at her face.

  ‘So,’ said the man almost playfully, ‘we meet again.’

  Fifty

  I’d followed the woods round to the south of the farm, crossing the track leading down to it and passing close to the river, before slowly making my way down a steep forested hill, heavily overgrown with brambles, that led down directly behind the small outbuilding and the kennels. I used my compass to guide me as there were no footpaths visible, and kept my eye out for hidden cameras. Twice on the hill I lost my footing, and the second time I almost stepped off the edge of a hidden twenty-foot bluff that probably would have broken my legs if I’d gone over. But eventually, exactly twenty-two minutes after I’d started, the hill gave way to the grassy flat of a valley, and the wood turned into an apple tree orchard through which I could see the outbuilding and the kennels next to it up ahead.

  Before that there was another fence with a Keep Out sign on it, similar to the one I’d cut through earlier. I stopped and made a hole in this one too, unworried about my continual breaking of the rules. If I was wrong about this place then I’d only been responsible for a small amount of criminal damage for what I hoped was a good cause. But if I was right, I was helping to catch a group of serial killers who’d been operating under the noses of the authorities – and for all I knew in cahoots with them – for far too long.

  I thought of Dana Brennan then, riding off to the shop to buy some ingredients for baking and disappearing into thin air on a glorious summer’s day, never to be seen again. I imagined her abductors murdering her in some bizarre night-time ceremony and the terrible gut-wrenching fear she must have experienced in those final minutes as she died alone and terrified, far from the protective arms of her parents, and I felt my resolve hardening.

  As I crawled through the gap and walked in a low crouch towards the buildings, using the trees and long grass as cover, and making sure I stayed well upwind of the dogs, I told myself not to let anger or recklessness get the better of me. This was a reconnaissance exercise, nothing more.

  But that was my problem. It wasn’t.

  I had a basic plan. Set up the spy camera in a suitable spot, record anyone coming in or out of the farm, then go back to our vantage point and keep watch, even if that meant staying here all night. At the first sign of any suspicious activity I’d dial 999 on the disposable phone I’d brought with me, make some exaggerated claim of a shooting at the farm, then wait for the police to arrive and catch the bad guys in the act of whatever they were doing.

  As I got close to the outbuilding, I saw that it was little more than a large shed. I went down on my front, crawling on my stomach until I was level with the front of it, and in a position where I could see across the courtyard to the main house and the barn next door. Nothing moved in either building and the dogs remained quiet. But the girl was in there somewhere.

  Keeping close to the shed so I couldn’t be seen, I took the replica Browning air pistol I’d threatened Cem Kalaman with out of my backpack. The pistol felt good in my hand, and a voice in my head told me just to walk across the courtyard, go straight into the house, and find the girl. I dismissed it immediately. I wouldn’t get five yards without setting off the dogs, and if anyone called my bluff with the pistol, I was a dead man.

  I was going to have to be patient.

  I looked at my watch: 1.39. I’d been gone twenty-nine minutes. Slowly I got to my feet and poked my head round the front of the shed. There was no one around, and feeling that burst of adrenalin that always comes with the prospect of danger, I inched out of my hiding place and crept over to the shed door, knowing I was completely exposed.

  I tried the handle. It opened and I stepped inside, shutting the door gently behind me. The interior smelled of cobwebs and engine oil. Tools of various sizes and shapes lined the rickety shelves, and there were three large, chest-high barrels in a row against the far wall behind a sit-on lawnmower. Hanging next to them were two biohazard suits that looked like they’d been worn a fair few times. I found a thick pair of elbow-high gloves on one of the shelves, and put them on as I went to take a closer look. The barrels were stainless steel and unmarked, and I guessed from the scratches on them that they’d been here a long time. I released the catch on the top of the middle one to break the seal and slowly pulled the lid open.

  As it came free I was immediately assailed by a powerful chemical smell as vapour rose from the clear liquid inside. Turning away so that it didn’t overcome me, I quickly replaced the lid. This was acid. Possibly hydrofluoric, more likely sulphuric, and in industrial quantities like this there was only one reason it would be here.

  To dissolve bodies.

  I took a deep breath, removed the gloves, picked up the pistol from the shelf where I’d put it and went back to the front of the shed where a small window gave a perfect view over to the main door of the house. I put down the pistol, took the spy camera out of my backpack, and made a space for it between two old cans of paint on the windowsill while I pondered what to do in the light of this new discovery.

  Which was when the dogs started barking ferociously.

  I froze, wondering why they’d only just caught my scent now rather than when I was outside the shed door a minute earlier. Then I saw Tina coming into view, a blindfold over her eyes, being pushed along by a man in a hat whose face I couldn’t see, but who was pressing a gun into her back.

  I pulled out my phone, then cursed when I saw I had no service here in the valley. I crouched down out of sight and dialled 999 hoping some other carrier had a signal here, but the call failed. I watched as the man walked Tina over to the door of the main house. Twenty yards separated us, no more, but there was no way I could take him out before he turned his gun on me, and even as I was trying to work out what to do, the door opened and a black man I immediately recognized from Dan Watts’ surveillance photo as Jonas Mavalu emerged. Mavalu had a short conversation with the man in the hat before shoving his head back inside the door and shouting to someone inside.

  Tina turned and ran, trying to take advantage of the distraction, but she got no more than a yard before the man in the hat yanked her back by her hair and drove a knee into her coccyx, sending her crashing to her knees. Before she could get up, Mavalu strode over and kicked her in the ribs. Tina squirmed in the dirt and the pain on her face made me feel sick.

  The next second, two more men, both white and dressed in farm overalls, came out of the house. One of them was holding a double-barrelled shotgun. The other helped Mavalu haul Tina to her feet, and I saw that Mavalu had a gun pushed down in the back of his jeans. The two of them frogmarched Tina over to the barn before manhandling her inside. Meanwhile the man in the hat said something to the one with the shotgun – an older, grizzled-looking guy who looked like he’d worked outside his whole life – but I couldn’t hear what above the sound of the dogs barking. They talked for a good minute and then the guy with the shotgun started walking purposefully in the direction of the kennels, pulling a couple of shells from a pouch attached to his belt and loading the weapon, while the man in the hat hurried back inside the main house.

  I took stock of the situation. Tina was unarmed and currently helpless, so it was four of them against one of me, and at least three of the four had guns. If I went back the way I’d come and called the police when
I got a signal again, the chances are they wouldn’t be here for half an hour, maybe longer. By which time Tina could be dead. And if they let the dogs out, I’d be caught before I even made the call. Then we’d both be dead.

  In the end, it was self-preservation rather than bravery that propelled me to act. I counted to five to give the guy with the shotgun time to walk past the shed en route to the kennels, picked up the air pistol and opened the shed door. I couldn’t see the man in the hat anywhere so, moving as quickly and quietly as possible, I walked out of the shed in the direction of the kennels. Ten yards ahead of me, I could see that the guy had propped up the shotgun against the kennel fencing and was leaning down to open up the mesh gate where the two Rottweilers waited eagerly. Since Tina had disappeared they’d calmed down, but as soon as they saw me they started barking again.

  I couldn’t afford to have the guy open the gate and let the dogs out so I broke into a run, turning the pistol in my hand so I was holding it like a club.

  He heard me and swung round, his mouth open in shock, then lurched for the shotgun.

  He never made it. I charged into him, slamming the butt of the pistol into the side of his head and sending him backwards into the kennel fencing as the dogs went wild. The blow had dazed him but I struck him three more times, twice in the forehead and once just below his eye. The pistol broke on the last blow and half the handle fell off, but the guy was already unconscious as he slid from my grasp and dropped to the ground.

  I wasn’t sure how badly I’d hurt him but I’d worry about that later. As long as he was incapacitated for a while, that was all that mattered.