The Calling of the Grave

Chapter 29

It was late afternoon before I was discharged. I'd managed to sleep after Simms left, but only fitfully, slipping in and out of wakefulness in the small cubicle. Still, I felt better for it, more alert if nothing else. At some point my clothes had reappeared, unwashed but dried and neatly folded in a plastic bag. The mud and bloodstains were proof that the previous night had been real, much as I might wish otherwise.

No one could tell me anything about Sophie, but I persuaded one of the nurses to check. She reported that she was out of surgery but still critical. I told myself that was only to be expected after an emergency craniotomy: the doctors would have had to remove a flap of bone from her skull to drain the build-up of blood.

But the news did nothing to lift my spirits. I dressed and sat fretting in the cubicle until a junior doctor finally told me I could go.

'Where's the ICU?' I asked her.

The intensive care unit was quieter and less bustling than Emergency, with an air of strained urgency about it. The desk nurse wouldn't let me in to see Sophie, but given the state of my torn and dirty clothes I probably wouldn't have either. Feeling a sense of deja vu, I explained that I only wanted to find out how she was. It made no difference: the nurse was adamant she could only give out information to next of kin.

'If you told me you were her husband or fiancй, perhaps… ?' she added pointedly. It was a deliberate opening, but I hesitated.

'Dr Hunter!'

The voice was Sophie's. I turned, ridiculously hoping to see her miraculously recovered. But it was another woman who was walking down the corridor towards me. Her face was blotched from crying, so that it took me a moment to recognize Sophie's sister.

'What are you doing here?' she demanded, without giving me a chance to speak. She was quivering with emotion, her hands whiteknuckled on the wadded-up tissue she clenched.

'I wanted to find out how Sophie is-'

'How she is? My sister's lying in intensive care! They cut open her skull, that's how she is!' Her face crumpled. 'There could be brain damage, or… or…'

'I'm sorry-'

'Sorry? Don't you dare! You said you'd look after her! I wanted her to come home with me, where she'd have been safe. Instead she's… she's…' She turned on the desk nurse. 'I don't want this man going near my sister! If he comes back, don't let him in!'

She spun round and hurried back down the corridor. The nurse looked embarrassed.

'Sorry, but she's next of kin…'

I nodded. There was nothing else I could do there. The heavy doors to the ICU swung shut behind me with finality as I headed back to the main wards.

There was one more person I had to see.

I was batted between wards before I finally found where Cross had been taken. At first I thought the policewoman was asleep. She had her eyes shut, and a cowardly part of me was relieved. But as I approached her bed she opened them and looked directly at me.

She looked a mess. The blonde hair was plastered darkly against her head. Her face was even more shockingly bruised and swollen than Sophie's had been, and a painful-looking assembly of wire and screws clamped her jaw shut.

Now I was there, I didn't know what to say. We just looked at each other for a moment, then she reached for something on the bedside table. It was a writing pad: she wrote briefly and then turned it round for me to see.

Looks wrse than it is. Morphine great.

I wouldn't have thought I could laugh, but I did. 'I'm glad to hear it.'

More slow scribbling, then the pad was turned round again.

Sophie???

I chose my words. 'Out of surgery. She's in intensive care.' The pen scratched once more. Miller conscious. Nrses say making bad jkes.

I smiled. It was the first good news I'd had in what seemed an age. 'That's great.' I took a deep breath. 'Look, I…'

But she'd started writing again. It was more laborious this time as she began to tire. When she'd finished she tore out the sheet from the notepad and folded it in half. Her eyelids were already starting to droop as she held it out for me. I think she was asleep again before it left her hand.

I waited until I was in the corridor before I opened it. Cross had written just a short message: U did right thing.

My eyes blurred when I read that. I had to pause for a while before I tucked it away. I desperately wanted to get out of the hospital, to breathe fresh air and clear my head, but that would have to wait.

There was something else I needed to do first.

My car was still at Sophie's with the rest of my things. I could have phoned for a cab, but I decided to pick one up outside. The walk would do me good, and I didn't want to stay at the hospital any longer than I had to.

A receptionist directed me to the nearest taxi rank, but I hadn't gone far from the entrance before a car pulled up alongside. I looked round as its window was wound down.

It was Terry.

'Thought I might find you here,' he said. I carried on walking. 'David! Jesus, hang on a minute, will you?'

The car pulled forward until it was alongside again.

'Look, I only want to talk. I heard what happened last night. How's Sophie?'

Reluctantly, I stopped. No matter what I thought about him, Terry had once had a relationship with her. Feelings don't stop just because it's over.

'She's in intensive care. I don't know any more than that.'

'Christ.' His face had paled. 'I know I'm the last person she'd want to see. But she's going to be all right?'

'I don't know.'

He looked stunned.

'Where are you going?' he asked, subdued.

'I need to collect my things from Sophie's.'

He leaned over and opened the passenger door. 'Come on. I'll give you a lift.'

I didn't want to spend any more time in Terry's company, but talk of Sophie made my anger against him seem unimportant. The past was the past. Life was too short to bear grudges. Besides, I was so tired I could hardly stand.

I got in.

Neither of us spoke for the first few miles. It was only as the city and suburbs gave way to open countryside that he broke the silence.

'Do you want to talk about it?'

'No.'

He fell quiet again. I stared out of the window as the moor began to swallow us up. The car heater was on, and the warmth and drone of the engine began to take effect. I felt myself start to drift off.

'At least we know now who attacked Sophie the other day,' he said.

I sighed: Terry never could take no for an answer. 'I still don't think that was Monk.'

'What, even after this?'

'He admitted going to her house but she was already in hospital by then,' I told him. 'I thought an animal had got in when I took her home, because he was using soil from a fox den to mask his scent. It was hard to miss. If he'd been there before, when I found her in the bathroom, I'd have noticed.'

'Fox piss? Crafty bastard. 'Terry sounded almost admiring. 'There's lots of rumours flying around. Talk that he was having a relationship with Angela Carson. That he might not have meant to kill her.'

I rubbed my eyes. 'It's possible.'

'You're not serious?'

I didn't feel like talking but I couldn't blame Terry for wanting to know. And there didn't seem any reason not to tell him. 'Before I left the hospital I spoke to a neurologist. He told me about a condition called frontal lobe syndrome. It happens sometimes when the front of the brain is damaged.'

'So?'

'That dent Monk has in his skull?' I tapped my own forehead. 'It was caused by a bad forceps delivery. Monk's mother died giving birth and I think his frontal lobe was damaged at the same time. That can cause violent and unpredictable behaviour and difficulty remembering things. Very occasionally it causes what are known as gelastic seizures, where people laugh or scream, and lash out at things that aren't there. It's a type of epilepsy, but because it tends to happen during sleep it's often undiagnosed. Usually it's put down to night terrors. Or someone "kicking off", like the prison guards said Monk did.'

Terry shrugged. 'Big deal, so he's got this frontal lobe thing. That doesn't excuse what he's done.'

'Not all of it, no. But it's starting to look as though he didn't rape and murder Angela Carson. They were in a relationship, and he killed her during a seizure after they'd had sex- If she'd tried to restrain him it would only have made things worse, and with someone as strong as Monk it wouldn't have made much difference if it was intentional or not.'

Terry gave an incredulous laugh. 'Oh, come on\ Even you can't expect anyone's going to believe that!'

I wasn't surprised Terry was sceptical. Even now I wasn't sure how much of what Monk had told me could be believed. He was still a violent, dangerous man, and the memory of the car crash and the nightmare journey through the cave would haunt me for a long time.

But the picture wasn't as simple as everyone had assumed. And neither were Monk's actions. Simms might argue that the convict had his own motives for letting us go, but I remembered how he'd squeezed himself into the fissure to help me with Sophie, when he could have left us both to die down there.

That wasn't the act of a conscienceless killer.

'I think we looked at Monk and saw what we wanted to see,' I said. 'Everyone thought he was a monster because he raped a deaf girl and beat her to death. Take that out of the equation and it changes everything. Like whether he really murdered Tina Williams and the Bennett twins.'

'He confessed, for Christ's sake!'

'He was punishing himself.' I remembered the deadness – and pain – in Monk's eyes. Whatever revulsion society felt towards him, it was nothing compared to what he felt for himself. 'He'd killed Angela Carson during one seizure; for all he knew he might have killed the others as well. But I really don't think he cared by then.'

Terry snorted. 'If you believe that, then Monk wasn't the only one who got a knock on the head.'

I was too tired to argue. 'It doesn't matter what I believe. It's a physiological condition, not a mental illness. That's why the psychiatrists who examined him didn't pick up on it. But it'll be different now they'll know what to look for.'

'You're serious, aren't you?' Terry gnawed his lip. 'So if he claims he didn't kill the other girls, who did?'

I shrugged, fighting a wave of fatigue. 'Have you ever heard of a DI called Jones?'

Terry braked as the car in front slowed. 'What's this prick doing?' he muttered. 'Jones? Don't think so. Why?'

That was something else I'd had time to think about. If Monk – and Walker – were telling the truth, then the policeman who'd planted the dead girls' belongings at the caravan was an obvious suspect. Except that, according to Naysmith, Jones didn't exist.

But I'd said enough. 'It doesn't matter. Just something Monk said.'

Terry glanced at me. 'You look done in. We'll be another half-hour yet. Why don't you get your head down?'

I was already putting my head back and closing my eyes. Jumbled images flashed through my mind: the cave, the car crash, the way the shadows had filled the indentation in Monk's skull. I saw the mangled body of Tina Williams, clogged with oozing mud, and heard Wainwright's booming laugh. I felt the scrape of a spade cutting through wet peat, and then the car went over a bump and I woke up.

'Back with us?' Terry asked.

I rubbed my eyes. 'Sorry.'

'No worries. We're just about there.'

I looked out of the window and saw we were almost in Padbury. The day had turned while I'd slept, the light thickening to dusk. It felt like I'd spent all my time lately in darkness. After this I promised myself a holiday. A proper one this time, somewhere hot and sunny. Then I remembered Sophie lying in hospital, and any thoughts of going away vanished.

Terry pulled up at the bottom of the garden, behind where my car was parked. He stared up at the house, leaving the engine running. 'Well, here we are. Do you want me to stick around?'

'No, I don't plan on staying.' I paused, my hand on the door handle. 'What about you? What are you going to do now?'

A shadow crossed his face. 'Good question. Take my lumps from Simms and then… I'll see. Try to get my act together, I suppose.'

'Good luck.'

'Thanks.' He looked through the windscreen. 'So. Are we OK, then. Me and you?'

It occurred to me that I probably wouldn't see Terry again after this. Although I wasn't exactly sorry, it meant another chapter of my life was ending. There was no need for it to be on a bad note.

You have to bury the past sooner or later.

I nodded. He held out his hand. I only hesitated a moment before I shook it. 'Look after yourself, David. I hope Sophie's all right.'

There was nothing more to say. I climbed awkwardly out of the car and watched as Terry pulled away, his car's tail lights disappearing down the lane. The wind was getting up, and the sound of the engine was quickly lost, leaving only the rustle and sway of the trees.

I massaged my back. Everything ached, and my muscles had stiffened up on the journey. Rousing myself, I started up the path. The house was in darkness. The curtains were drawn, as we'd left them when we rushed out, giving it a closed, untenanted look. I was only going to collect my bag and then leave. I didn't much feel like driving anywhere, but I wasn't comfortable with the idea of staying here on my own. Even though Sophie wouldn't mind, it wouldn't have felt right.

I got as far as the front door before I realized I didn't have a key. I tried it anyway, but it was locked: either Miller or Cross would have seen to that the night before. I slumped against the door, feeling totally defeated. Then I remembered the spare Sophie kept hidden in the kiln. She'd had a new lock fitted but I hoped she'd have replaced the hidden key as well. Please let it be there.

The dilapidated brick tower loomed ahead of me as I crossed the overgrown path, its scaffolding standing out against the darkening sky like a gallows. The unlocked door creaked as I pushed it open and felt for the light switch. Nothing happened. I flicked it a few times, but the bulb must have blown. Great. There was a torch in my glove compartment, but of course the car keys were inside the house: I'd left them there in the rush the night before.

Pushing back the door as far as it would go, I went into the kiln. In the dying light it was like stepping into a tomb. The loose brick where Sophie had hidden the spare key was near the scaffolded central chimney. The brick dust and smell of damp plaster tickled the back of my throat as I walked across. There was another scent mingled with them, sharp and familiar, but I'd only just noticed it when something crunched under my boots. As my eyes adjusted I saw that the floor was littered with broken pottery. My sluggish brain was still trying to process that when I recognized the out-of-place smell.

Aftershave.

I stopped dead, the hairs on the back of my neck prickling. I turned round. The dim twilight from the doorway didn't reach far into the kiln. The shadows were impenetrable. I stared at where they seemed to coalesce. There was a rustle of movement.

'Is that you, Dr Hunter?' Roper said.