Read Online Shooting in the Dark by John Baker - Free Book Online Page A

we was gonna screw.’
    ‘I want to check it out, Dave. You can hang on a bit longer.’
    ‘This is torture.’ He took her by the hand and they walked towards the spot where Amber had seen movement. Within about fifty yards a large ewe leapt out of the heather and made off up the hill. ‘What did I tell you?’ Dave said. ‘There’s only sheep and rabbits up here, maybe some grouse, wild birds, whatever they call ’em.’
    ‘Still needed to check it out, though,’ Amber said. ‘I don’t want some shepherd or gamekeeper walking in on us when we’re getting at it.’
    Dave smiled. No point in upsetting her. He took her hand in both of his and brought it to his lips. ‘I know where there’s a really warm sleeping bag,’ he said. ‘And it’s in the middle of nowhere, with no people, except me and you and a hard-on that feels like it’s gonna break off.’
    ‘You shoulda been a salesman,’ she said. ‘The way you talk.’
    ‘I am a salesman, Amber,’ Dave told her. ‘What do you think I do in the sports shop all day?’
    But Amber wasn’t listening. He felt her shake and when he followed the line of her sight something began to shake inside Dave as well.
    The body was in a sitting position only a couple of metres above the path. A mound of earth supported the woman’s back. It was as if she was looking out over the moor. She was wearing a black suit and flat shoes and one of her eyes had been pecked out of its socket. The eye was still there, hanging by the remains of a vein and some threads of tissue, resting on the lower part of her cheek. Her face was criss-crossed by the dark footmarks of birds that had clung to the flesh, and her suit was speckled with the lime from their droppings.
    Her arms were stretched out and the open palms were scarred, as if someone had tried to gouge holes in them with pieces of flint. Her feet, which were crossed one over the other, were similarly scarred.
    Most of the exposed flesh was black, but at the neck of the suit and the cuffs of the jacket it was a creamy colour. There was an odour of decay and putrefaction.
    Amber retched and vomited, going down on her knees. She wiped her mouth with the back of her hand and returned her gaze to the body of the woman. ‘That’s horrible,’ she said. ‘Really horrible.’
    Dave wanted to tell her not to look, but he couldn’t stop looking himself. He stared abstractedly, remembering the time he’d gone with some mates to a girlie show. There was the same confusion over how to interpret the image. The thought that there was a conventional response which somehow didn’t connect with his feelings. The result was paralysis, an inability to opt for either alternative. He couldn’t help wondering what was behind the closed lid of the woman’s other eye. If she were suddenly reanimated, would the wink reveal an empty socket?
    ‘We’d better tell somebody,’ Amber said.
    ‘Yeah.’ Dave followed her back up the hill. ‘No point hanging round here.’ Somehow he couldn’t keep up with Amber’s pace. When they found the track of the Cleveland Way, she went even further ahead, well out of earshot. ‘This’s a real ball-breaker,’ Dave said to himself.
     
    Sam got to Angeles’ house a few minutes after receiving her message. He’d been to see the physiotherapist at the hospital, and arrived at the office an hour late. His hand was healing slowly, he seemed to be able to do more with it every day.
    She was wearing a dark shirt and a striped Breton jumper. There must be some way she could tell what looked good when she dressed in the morning, but he couldn’t imagine what it was. It isn’t possible to feel colours, yet she never wore combinations that clashed. Always looked as though she’d been personally dressed by one of those couturier guys.
    She was calm and collected but the tension in her facial muscles betrayed the effort involved in maintaining the mask. ‘I want you to drive me,’ she said. ‘I have to