Simon Green - The Dark Side of the Road

Penny stopped suddenly and looked about her. ‘We have to be careful, Ishmael. There’s a big pond here somewhere. Covered with thick ice, I’m sure, with snow on top; but even so, I don’t think we want to go walking across it. Come around this way, and we should be safe enough.’

‘You have your own pond?’ I said as we circled around.

‘Full of trout, in the summer,’ said Penny. ‘And of course there’s a swimming pool, just up beyond the orange grove.’

‘Oh, well,’ I said. ‘If I had an orange grove, that’s where I’d put a swimming pool.’

Penny laughed. ‘It’s another world, isn’t it?’

We ended up walking between two great rows of louring snow-covered topiary shapes. I found them disturbing; their very vagueness suggested all sorts of unpleasant possibilities. Sometimes great clumps of snow would fall away from them as we passed, plunging to the ground, shaken off by the vibrations of our heavy footsteps. Penny would always jump. I didn’t.

‘I used to love these topiary animals, as a child,’ said Penny, glancing quickly about her. ‘Not so much, now. It’s like there could be a whole new shape, hidden under the snow. Monsters, hiding in plain sight.’

‘Yes,’ I said. ‘I know what you mean.’

Penny stopped and scowled about her, into the thickening mists. ‘The main flower gardens should be around here somewhere, but I’m damned if I could show you where. They’re just … gone. Vanished into the snow. I really don’t like this, Ishmael … feeling lost, in familiar surroundings. Like you can’t trust anything.’

‘Yes,’ I said. ‘I know what you mean.’

Penny shuddered suddenly, even inside her heavy fur coat. ‘Dear God, I’m freezing! Aren’t you freezing? Maybe this wasn’t such a great idea, after all.’

‘Then let’s go back,’ I said.

‘Oh, bless you! I’ve been dying to say that for ages, but didn’t know how to without sounding like a complete wuss.’

‘The Colonel definitely isn’t in any of the outbuildings,’ I said. ‘And there’s nowhere else he could be, out here; so we might as well go back.’

‘Let’s go,’ said Penny. ‘Somewhere back at the Manor, a nice hot drink is calling my name, in a loud and compelling voice.’

She stomped back through the snow, heading for home, and I strode along beside her.

I could feel the storm building. Growing, gathering its strength. I would have preferred to hurry, to get safe inside the house before the storm hit, but I couldn’t leave Penny behind. So I allowed her to set the pace and filled the time looking about me. And it was only by chance I saw the snowman, hidden behind one of the great topiary shapes. I stopped and pointed it out to Penny, and she squealed with delight like a child, clapping her gloved hands together. So of course we had to go over and take a look. It was just a rough shape — man-sized, though something less than a man’s height — but with no pieces of coal or carrot to make a face, and no scarf wrapped around the thick neck.

‘I wonder who made it?’ said Penny. ‘I mean; why come all the way out here, in this awful cold, and then make such a half-assed job of it?’

I stood very still, looking steadily at the rough snow shape. ‘Penny; I smell blood.’

She looked at me, not sure how to take that. ‘Really?’

‘Yes,’ I said. ‘Blood. Something bad has happened here.’

I gouged great chunks out of the snowman’s side, throwing them away. And a human arm fell out, hanging stiffly from the snowman. The hand was frozen solid, perfectly colourless. Penny didn’t scream, but her eyes were very wide. I pulled the snowman apart with savage speed, ripping great handfuls of snow away. It took more than human strength, but Penny didn’t notice.

Inside the snowman was the body of James Belcourt. My Colonel. Dead, for some time. He’d been left sitting cross-legged on the ground, and then covered with snow, shaped to look like a snowman. So no one would suspect. I stood back, not even breathing hard, brushing snow from my gloves. Looking at what someone had done to my Colonel. And right then my heart was colder than anything in that winter garden.

‘Not a bad idea,’ I said. ‘The body wouldn’t have reappeared until the snow melted, and by then the killer expected to be long gone. But the storm set in, sealing off the Manor from the rest of the world. And the killer was trapped here.’

‘You mean … you think one of the people staying at the Manor is the killer?’ said Penny. Her voice was steady enough, but here eyes were still very wide.

‘Yes,’ I said. ‘That’s what I think. Don’t you?’

She didn’t know what to say. I knelt down before the body, to stare into the Colonel’s unblinking eyes.

‘All the time I was looking for you, here you were, waiting for me to find you. Came really close to missing you, Colonel. Sorry. This probably would have worked, if I hadn’t smelled the blood.’ And then I stopped and looked the body over carefully. ‘No obvious wounds. No damage to the body, apart from what looks like a ring of dried blood round the throat. Strangled? Garrotted? And no blood underneath you … So you weren’t killed here, Colonel. You were killed somewhere else and dumped here.’

‘I’m really very sorry, Ishmael,’ said Penny, tentatively. ‘You came all this way, just to find him dead. What will you do now?’

‘Avenge him,’ I said.

I took the Colonel’s body in my arms and hugged him tightly. The body was hard and unyielding in my arms. I never once held him when he was alive. But he had been closer to me than anyone, in his own way.

After a while Penny knelt down beside me and put a hand on my shoulder, saying something, trying to comfort me, but I didn’t hear what she said. I wasn’t listening. The Colonel had been taken away from me, and I was alone again. I’d never felt so cold.

Someone would pay for this. Pay in blood and horror.

I took a firm grip on the body and started to lift it up. It came free from the frozen ground with a lurch, and the Colonel’s head fell off. Penny made a brief sound and fell back a few paces. I put the body back down and looked at the head. Someone had taken the head clean off, leaving a ragged wound at the neck stump. And then, they had replaced the head, quite neatly. I studied the pale pink and grey neck wound carefully. It was a savage, ragged tear. Far worse than you’d expect from a sword, or an axe. This looked more as though the head had been sawed off. I reached down and picked up the Colonel’s head. The face seemed to stare reproachfully up at me.

You got here too late, Ishmael.

Snow began falling again. Great fat white flakes, coming down so hard that even I had trouble seeing the way ahead. The storm was coming, and it was going to be a monster. The temperature was already plummeting to the kind of cold that kills. I could cope with that, for a while, but Penny couldn’t. I had to get her back to the manor house, as quickly as possible.

I picked up the Colonel’s body and slung it over one shoulder. He was still frozen solid in his cross-legged stance, but I managed. I held his head under my other arm. A bit undignified, but the Colonel wouldn’t have minded. He was always a very practical man.

I headed back to the manor house, with Penny trudging along beside me. She looked straight ahead, so she wouldn’t have to look at the body. I pressed on, driving my feet deep into the snow, to give me enough traction to keep me moving forward. It wasn’t long before I realized Penny was falling behind, unable to keep up. She didn’t have my strength, and the bitter cold was leeching the energy right out of her. I moved to walk directly in front of her, so she could use my body as a windbreak. That helped her make better time.