great black wings over the cathedral and pain took him away.
* * *
He woke looking up into the concerned face of a young uniformed officer.
“Are you okay, sir?”
Thin morning sunlight came into the farmhouse. He was lying on the floor in the main living area. Two other coppers leaned over Alan, who lay on the floor six feet away.
Grainger rolled, tried to stand, but pain forced him back to the carpet.
“Don’t move, sir. An ambulance is on its way.”
“Alan?”
“He’s better off than you, I think, sir. Unconscious, but alive and no bones broken by the looks of it.”
Grainger saw where the young copper was looking and strained to see for himself. His left arm jutted out from him at a strange angle, almost hanging off, only held in place by stretched skin and sinew. Pain, almost unbearable pain, kicked in.
“D.I. Simpson?” he asked through clenched teeth. He knew the answer before the constable spoke.
“She didn’t make it, sir. We found her out back and…” The officer’s voice tailed off and the color drained from his cheeks. Grainger knew that look only too well. Whatever happened to Simpson had been bad—and most probably bloody.
He remembered little of the next half-hour. The ambulance arrived and they pumped him up with enough happy juice to make things swim before getting him off the floor and onto a gurney—even then the pain shouted loud through the drugs, threatening to send him back to the dark.
He only saw one other thing, just as he and Alan were being loaded into the back of the ambulance. There was another ambulance in the driveway. The person being loaded into the back of that one didn’t need medical help. A shroud was draped over the body but it wasn’t enough to hide the fact that the head was strangely flattened, the blood blossoming like flowers on the cloth only serving to accentuate the distortion. D.I. Simpson was done talking.
A crow cawed. Grainger looked up as the black bird flew past overhead.
Finally the drugs kicked into overdrive.
Darkness filled his eyes, and he went elsewhere.
10
Alan remembered nothing between going into the farmhouse and waking up in the back of an ambulance with his older brother alongside him in the other gurney. Even three days later there was no memory, just a black hole he couldn’t penetrate.
He was hoping that John might be able to fill in the blanks, but the shoulder surgery had been extensive and the older man hadn’t made it all the way back to full consciousness yet.
And he’s not going to be happy when he does.
They’d kept Alan in for observation that first night, and his only news came from what he saw on the television—but that was enough. D.I. Simpson was dead, and if their quarry had indeed been Galloway, then he had got away after injuring the Grainger brothers. No trace of the missing children had been found in the farmhouse, although searches were also made of the outhouses and surrounding area.
Questions were being asked—about John mainly, and why he was on scene, without a warrant or backup in the middle of the night with a reporter in tow. There had been no official news yet, but Alan guessed that John’s career was in the balance—at the very least he wouldn’t be let anywhere near the case when he was well enough to leave the hospital.
As for Alan, he’d had a strip torn off him by George Dunlop, and was once again relegated to the fringes on the newspaper. Not that any of it seemed to matter very much—something big had happened at the farm, that much he was sure of, and only John had a chance of providing the answers he was looking for.
For almost three days, when he wasn’t at work, Alan sat in John’s room, sleeping in fits and starts upright in the chair, watching his brother and probing at the black hole in his own memory, a hole that refused to give up its secrets.
John finally woke in the afternoon of the fourth day. He smiled when he saw Alan,
* * *
He woke looking up into the concerned face of a young uniformed officer.
“Are you okay, sir?”
Thin morning sunlight came into the farmhouse. He was lying on the floor in the main living area. Two other coppers leaned over Alan, who lay on the floor six feet away.
Grainger rolled, tried to stand, but pain forced him back to the carpet.
“Don’t move, sir. An ambulance is on its way.”
“Alan?”
“He’s better off than you, I think, sir. Unconscious, but alive and no bones broken by the looks of it.”
Grainger saw where the young copper was looking and strained to see for himself. His left arm jutted out from him at a strange angle, almost hanging off, only held in place by stretched skin and sinew. Pain, almost unbearable pain, kicked in.
“D.I. Simpson?” he asked through clenched teeth. He knew the answer before the constable spoke.
“She didn’t make it, sir. We found her out back and…” The officer’s voice tailed off and the color drained from his cheeks. Grainger knew that look only too well. Whatever happened to Simpson had been bad—and most probably bloody.
He remembered little of the next half-hour. The ambulance arrived and they pumped him up with enough happy juice to make things swim before getting him off the floor and onto a gurney—even then the pain shouted loud through the drugs, threatening to send him back to the dark.
He only saw one other thing, just as he and Alan were being loaded into the back of the ambulance. There was another ambulance in the driveway. The person being loaded into the back of that one didn’t need medical help. A shroud was draped over the body but it wasn’t enough to hide the fact that the head was strangely flattened, the blood blossoming like flowers on the cloth only serving to accentuate the distortion. D.I. Simpson was done talking.
A crow cawed. Grainger looked up as the black bird flew past overhead.
Finally the drugs kicked into overdrive.
Darkness filled his eyes, and he went elsewhere.
10
Alan remembered nothing between going into the farmhouse and waking up in the back of an ambulance with his older brother alongside him in the other gurney. Even three days later there was no memory, just a black hole he couldn’t penetrate.
He was hoping that John might be able to fill in the blanks, but the shoulder surgery had been extensive and the older man hadn’t made it all the way back to full consciousness yet.
And he’s not going to be happy when he does.
They’d kept Alan in for observation that first night, and his only news came from what he saw on the television—but that was enough. D.I. Simpson was dead, and if their quarry had indeed been Galloway, then he had got away after injuring the Grainger brothers. No trace of the missing children had been found in the farmhouse, although searches were also made of the outhouses and surrounding area.
Questions were being asked—about John mainly, and why he was on scene, without a warrant or backup in the middle of the night with a reporter in tow. There had been no official news yet, but Alan guessed that John’s career was in the balance—at the very least he wouldn’t be let anywhere near the case when he was well enough to leave the hospital.
As for Alan, he’d had a strip torn off him by George Dunlop, and was once again relegated to the fringes on the newspaper. Not that any of it seemed to matter very much—something big had happened at the farm, that much he was sure of, and only John had a chance of providing the answers he was looking for.
For almost three days, when he wasn’t at work, Alan sat in John’s room, sleeping in fits and starts upright in the chair, watching his brother and probing at the black hole in his own memory, a hole that refused to give up its secrets.
John finally woke in the afternoon of the fourth day. He smiled when he saw Alan,
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