THE KILLER OF THE DARKNESS

EPISODE FORTY

FORTY

The discordance of sound inside the Doblhoff WNF 342, deafened Mũller, but he did not care because his mission had been successful. Like Herr Finsterkeit had said, the Englishman would be fooled, and accept the vaccine at face value, as it happened to be a deadly virus. A virus created in a German laboratory, through infected frozen wild animals from farms.

At that moment, the roar of a Hawker Typhoon, shook Mũller and the pilot out of their reverie. The centre of the pilots' chest disintegrated. Mũller flung himself forwards and downwards to try to gain illusory shelter from the cannonading shells shattering the windscreen. The helicopter went out of control, dipping sharply forwards and spinning on its axis.

Mũller reached to grab the controls from the dead man's hands but even as he did the trajectory of the bullets changed.

A second Hawker Typhoon fired its cannonading shells into the Doblhoff WNF 342. An abrupt mad cacophony of sound, the iron clangour of steel-nosed bullets shattered into the engine casing mingled accompanied by the banshee ricochet of spent and mangled shells.

The engine stopped, as if the ignition had been switched off. The Doblhoff WNF 342 was flown completely out of control, lifeless in the sky. It seemed impossible for it to stay in the sky much longer and Mũller appeared unable to do anything about it.

He braced himself for the jarring moment of impact when they struck the water, and when the impact came it was not just jarring, it was shattering to a degree Mũller would never had anticipated. The Doblhoff WNF 342 landed not in the water but on the encircling reef of rocks.

Mũller tried to get at the door but could not make it, the Doblhoff WNF 342 had landed nose down and facing seawards on the outside of the reefs from the position where he had been hurled under the instrument panel the door stayed above and beyond reach.

Too dazed and too weak to make any real effort to get at it, Mũller held his breath as icy water poured in through the broken windscreen and the fractured floor of the fuselage.

For a moment everything remained as silent as the grave, the hiss of the flooding waters only emphasized the silence before one of the Hawker Typhoon's flew over.

The four 20 mm Hispano auto cannons opened again, and shells smashed through the lower after part of the fuselage behind him and went out through the top of the windscreen above me.

On two occasions, Mũller felt angry tugs on the right shoulder of his uniform and tried to bury his head even more deeply into the ice-cold waters, and due to a combination of an accumulation of water in the nose and the significance of the fusillade of bullets aft, the Doblhoff WNF 342 lurched forwards.

It stopped for a moment, before sliding off the face of the reef and fell like a stone, nose first, to the bottom of the heavy swell and a watery grave.

*

"Why do you think that?"

       Roome enquired.

       "The slice of apple is dark brown. A cut apple will start to tarnish relatively quickly, it takes quite some time to turn to that colour."

       Roome nodded.

       "Good spot."

       "Thank you."

       I answered with modesty.

       "The fallen chair does make it look like she might have been interrupted at her dinner, but we can't be certain of that. She might just be careless and left the apple there for some time. Tidiness is clearly not one of her prime virtues. Even if it is not definite, though, it is an indicative piece of evidence. Again, well done."

       This time I said nothing. There seemed no need. He had praised me once and that to me would be enough.

       "Derek, is this the work of our monster?"

       The doctor looked up from the corpse's gaping abdomen.

       "I doubt whether Mrs Prime is the result of the Thing's handiwork."

       "And why not?"

       I pressed.

       "Too much time has been spent to make it look like the work of the Thing, without it being so."

       "I think I agree with you."

       Roome said.

       "This murder does not have the feel of the man we are hunting. Please continue your forensics examination, Doctor. We have not had a killer on these islands for hundreds of years, now we might have too. We'll go and talk to the boyfriend."

       The Inspector made his way back along the dark hall to the room where we had first entered to find Truan Toogood waiting for us.

       Roome seated himself facing the door and sat opposite Toogood. I stood by the door, watching, and observing.

       "What can you tell me about Mrs Prime?"

       He asked.

       "What can I tell you about anyone, sir? A life is a dense, and complex thing, full of whirling parts and hidden currents and disguises and secret machineries. Minds are layered and folded and impenetrable to their users, perhaps even to herself. Louise was an energetic, happy-go-lucky girl. She cherished the mechanics of life, walking on wet grass, eating her chocolate rationing, getting drunk on wine, and above all, dancing. So many people are obsessed with talking about themselves, or other people, or the daily events around them, and it is so boring. She was different. She always had ideas, often strange and sparkling ones. How sounds had a texture, and whether that guided the feet without the intervention of the ears. In the injustices of life infuriated her, and she would champion any underdog in a heartbeat. I came to help her after her husband died and fell head over heels in love with her. The world will be a darker place without her."

       Having enough of this pretentious s**t, I took a step forward.

       "Did she have any enemies?"

       Toogood looked affronted that I suggested such a thing.

       "No more than anyone else. She had a skill in rubbing some people up the wrong way, but enemies? No, I can't imagine anyone who would want to kill her."

       "Can you think of any unusual occurrences of late?"

       "Not really. Louise told me that one morning she thought she had seen a face at the window, but I didn't really pay it much heed."

       He paused as panic flooded his face.

       "Oh, bollocks! The murderer might have cleaned the condensation from the corner of the window. f**k, what have I done? Why didn't I listen to her.”?

       I held up a hand to appease him.

       "Please, calm yourself, Mr Toogood. That condensation vanishing is highly sceptical."

Truan Toogood looked uncertain, and I explained.

       "It's winter, Mr Toogood. Winter condensation forms on the warm side of the glass, not the cold side. The condensation can't be wiped off from the outside."

       Toogood averted his gaze.

       "Of course, what an i***t I am."

       Roome took over the questioning once more.

       "How did you come to find, Mrs Prime?"

       "Yes. I... I do not...I went to check on Louise, knocked on her door. She did not answer. I knew she was in there. I knocked again, told her I was coming in, and... Then I was running towards the kitchen running, towards the kitchen, looking for the telephone."

       He sank his head into his hands, sobbing in silence. In the end, he pulled himself back up into a loose slump.

       "Did you keep separate rooms?"

       Roome asked.

       "Of course. I'd have been delighted to share, but I understood that she might not be ready for a committed relationship, and she might need somewhere to switch off, remained part of who she was."

       "You said you went to check on Mrs Prime. Why did you do that?"

       "Silly really. I had left my bedroom door open. I only close it when I was not some relaxation time myself. I heard something and looked up and a man walked past. I didn't get to look at his face, the hall is very dark, and the lightbulbs aren't that strong, and I didn't recognize his build or gait."

       "What about his clothes?"

       I asked, curious.

       "I think he wore a navy-blue shirt and dark-charcoal jacket and trousers. Something about him made me wary, and, after a moment, I decided to make sure Louise... Louise was all right."

       Roome turned and looked at me.

       "What do you think?"

       "He's lying."

       Toogood looked at me in mock horror.

       "Don't deny it, Mr Toogood. It won't do you any good."

       Toogood said nothing.

       "The hallway is very dark. You were in a lit space looking out onto it, yet still manage to differentiate subtle shades of dark colours such as navy and charcoal. It is, at best a load of s**t. The only reason to lit about an intruder is to attempt to deflect suspicion."

       Toogood slumped even more.

       "I loved her. But she did not love me. She seemed to be still grieving over her dead husband. Why did she grieve over him for? He was an absolute tosser. Treated her like s**t. Cheated on her and turned her into a robot. His way or no way."

       Roome stood up and removed a set of handcuffs and as I moved to one side, he screamed aloud in agony, the holler deepening to a tearing rasping coughing moan.

       Clutching hands clawed in a maniac frenzy at a straightened neck where the tendons stood out like white quivering wires, he stopped and fell to the kitchen floor, silent now, the nails of his fingers still trying to tear his throat open.

       Toogood made some sort of unintelligible sound, moved forward and down to help the Inspector, and grunted in pain as my arm hooked around his neck.

       "Don't touch him!"

       I shouted hoarsely.

       "Do that and you'll die too. He has been infected with something. Keep far away from him."

       He took twenty seconds to die, the kind of twenty seconds that will stay with a man in his nightmares until he draws his last breath on earth. I had seen many men die, above all in the apocalyptic war of 2791, but even those who had died in battlefield agony had done so in silence compared to Roome.

       What I will never forget happened to be the incredible convulsive violence of its death throes, twisted, and flinging into the most fantastic and impossible contortions. Twice in the last shocking seconds before death he threw his racked and tortured body clear off the ground and so high in the air that I might have been able to attempt moving a table beneath him.

       Suddenly and without warning, it ended, and Inspector Terence Roome appeared to be no more than a strangely small and shapeless bundle of clothes lying face downwards on the kitchen floor.

       My mouth felt kiln-dry and full of the tang of salt, ugly taste of fear.

       I cannot say how long we stood there in the heavy cold rain, staring at Roome. A long time, I think. We looked at each other, and we both understood that we would be capable of thinking only one thing.

       Who was next?

       Doctor Walton!

       I ran down the hallway to where we had left him.

       The Doctor was lying beside the mutilated body, but he was not the man I had left behind no more than ten minutes ago. He looked small now, small, and huddled and defenceless, another man. Not Doctor Derek Walton anymore. His face appeared to be the face of another man.

       His eyes were wide and staring as one who had passed beyond the realms of sanity into a total and terror-induced madness. The lips strained cruelly back over clenched teeth in the appalling rictus of his dying agony. And anyone looking at that face, at the contorted limbs can doubt that Derek Walton had as terribly as man ever would be able to.

       I went forward and stooped low over him, sniffing, and found myself apologizing to the dead man for the involuntary wrinkling distaste of nose and mouth. No fault of the Doctor's.

       From down the hallway to the kitchen, I heard the slamming of the front door echo throughout the farmhouse.

       I would be lying if I were at all surprised, but Truan Toogood had made a run for it.