King of All the Dead Read online

  Title Page

  KING OF ALL THE DEAD

  by

  Steve Lockley and Paul Lewis

  Publisher Information

  First published in England in 2003 by

  Telos Publishing Ltd

  17 Pendre Avenue, Prestatyn, Denbighshire, LL19 9SH, UK

  www.telos.co.uk

  Digital edition converted and distributed in 2011 by

  Andrews UK Limited

  www.andrewsuk.com

  King of all the Dead © 2003 Steve Lockley and Paul Lewis.

  Cover artwork by David J Howe

  The moral rights of the authors have been asserted.

  This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior written consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

  Roads are quiet today.

  Those were the last words that she heard him say.

  Yes, Lisa thought bitterly. But not quiet enough.

  She felt a hand briefly touch her elbow. “You okay?”

  “What?” she said, momentarily forgetting where she was. “Oh. Yeah, fine.”

  “We worry about you, you know.”

  “I know. But there’s no need. Really. I’m fine.”

  No traffic passed them as they strolled along the lane, its existence known only to villagers. Outsiders were guided along the bypass that steered them clear of Holtford and on to Dorchester. It was past seven in the evening but warm. The September sky was vivid blue, devoid of cloud. To their left, cornfields were gently rolling seas of gold. To their right, the woods that stretched to the sea a few miles away looked cool and inviting. The only sounds were birdsong, the relentless drone of insects, and the mournful complaints of sheep in the distance. Lisa closed her eyes, breathed in deeply. A day like today should feel like heaven, yet it felt just as hollow and pointless as any other day. Since the crash she had learned to live with that. Never look too far ahead. Just make sure you get through today, maybe allow yourself to think about tomorrow. Beyond that, there were no guarantees.

  “Let’s cut through the woods,” she said, mopping her brow with a handkerchief and regretting leaving her baseball cap in the cottage. “I could do with getting out of this heat.”

  “Me too,” said Alison, sounding a little too bright and bubbly to be true. They left the road behind and entered the welcoming gloom of the trees. Lisa could not resist another sideways glance at her sister, still not quite used to seeing her this slim. It had been five months since she had last come to visit and the difference was incredible. Alison, her big sister in more ways than one. At least, she had been until all the weight came off. Dyed her hair, too. It was now even blonder than usual. She had to be in love. Lisa was taken aback by the pang of envy the thought inspired. Must be nice to have someone to care for. Must be nice just not being alone.

  “So what’s the secret?” she asked, trying hard to sound as upbeat as her sister. For some reason she desperately wanted everyone to think she was okay, no matter how badly she still hurt inside. “You must have lost … what, two stone?”

  “Nearer three,” Alison said, slowing her pace so she could execute a pirouette so clumsy that she almost fell. She’d always had two left feet. They both laughed. “It wasn’t too difficult. Not after the first couple of weeks, anyway. They were sheer hell. But the moment I got on the scales and saw I’d lost half a stone in a fortnight …”

  “All the incentive you could ask for.”

  “Too right it was.”

  They strolled along the track that wound through the woods and would lead them back to the lane at the other end of the village. Oaks, elms and alders reached towards the cloudless sky. Overhead, branches met and interlaced to form a sheltering canopy, pierced by occasional spears of gold sunlight. Lisa loved it here, had done so from the first day she and David had moved in. She loved the house, too, the rambling old stone cottage they had restored. Now it was filled with bittersweet memories that she never wanted to lose no matter how much they hurt.

  They walked in companionable silence. Here in the woods all they could hear was the creak and rustle of the trees. Eventually they came to a clearing. It was dominated by a fallen oak so huge in the shady half-light that to Lisa it resembled a slumbering prehistoric beast. They heaved themselves up onto it and sat there with their legs dangling down the side.

  Alison’s sunglasses masked her eyes. “So. How are you really doing?”

  “Like I said, I’m fine. Everything’s healed. I can swim, run … anything.”

  “That’s great, really great. But it’s not what I mean, Lise.” Lise. The name Alison had used when they were little. “I know it’s been a year and a half. I just want to be sure you really are coping as well as you’d have us believe.”

  Lisa paused, torn between telling her sister what she wanted to hear, which was that everything was fine and she was slowly getting used to life without David, and telling the truth. Which was she wished with all her heart that she’d been the one behind the wheel, not him. Her life for his. That was the way it should have been. Except, she kept reminding herself, it would have sentenced David to the same endless misery that haunted her. And she loved him too much to do that.

  She raised a hand to her face, traced the thin scar that ran from the corner of her left eye almost as far as her hairline. In the hospital they had suggested plastic surgery. Lisa told them she’d think about it. She had come terrifyingly close to being blinded in the crash. A sliver of glass from the windscreen had sliced deeply across her face, barely missing the eye. Not that she’d known anything about it, until long afterwards. A fractured skull had left her hovering close to death for five days, and unconscious for three weeks after that. The remainder of her injuries had been broken bones, multiple lacerations and bruising. Her right leg was fractured in three places, her right arm in two. They had healed, though her leg sometimes ached in really cold weather, but the glass had left a scar. At first she had been self-conscious about it, and almost took the plastic surgeons up on their offer. But one night she dreamed about David and woke crying helplessly, one hand pressed to the scar. That had somehow made her vow never to lose it.

  She looked at her sister. “I’m coping, Alison. Okay, some days I cope a lot better than others. Some days are really bad. And no, in case you’re wondering, not so bad that I’d want to kill myself. But pretty black all the same. I have a few friends I see now and then. And work keeps my mind occupied.”

  “I was surprised when you went back. You know, after being stuck in a hospital bed for so long. Doesn’t it bring back too many bad memories?”

  Lisa shrugged. “St Jude’s is a geriatric hospital. Nothing at all like the Royal Dorset. Besides, I like it there. It’s relaxed. The staff are great and the patients are a good laugh. Most of them are still pretty sharp, despite their age.”

  Alison reached out, touched her hand. “As long as you’re okay. But if life ever really does get on top of you, give me a call. I’m only a few hours away.”

  “I will,” Lisa said. “I promise. Now let’s get going. This heat has made me thirsty and I’ve a few bottles of dry white chilling down nicely.”

  Alison laughed. “Now that is what I call good planning.”

  They lowered themselves from the fallen tree and resumed their leisurely journey along the path. Soon the trees became denser, the canopy so thick it barely al
lowed in any light. Lisa’s flesh prickled. She felt suddenly cold and rubbed at her exposed arms to try to warm them. Alison walked a couple of paces ahead and showed no sign of having noticed the fall in temperature. Then Lisa thought she heard something. A low rumbling sound, its exact nature masked by the eerie creaking of the trees. It sounded wrong somehow, out of place here in the woods.

  “Hear that?” she asked.

  Alison nodded. “Sounds like a car. We must be close to the lane by now.”

  Lisa almost smacked her own head, she felt that stupid. The lane! Ahead of them the wood thinned out, creating the impression that they were emerging from a dark tunnel into late evening sunlight. The engine was noticeably louder, but as yet there was no sign of any vehicle. “Maybe someone’s got lost,” she said.

  “That, or a pair of secret lovers who think they’re alone are in for a shock.”

  Lisa laughed. “You read too many trashy romances.”

  “Hey, they’re the only place I get to meet the man of my dreams.”

  Lisa squeezed her eyes shut as they stepped out into the lane. The sun may have been setting but the light was still dazzling after the shade of the wood. She eased her eyes open, blinking against the glare. A pile of black bin bags caught her eye; this was a popular spot with fly-tippers. She frowned. Something was not right and it took her several moments to figure out what. She could hear the car, much louder now. Its engine was idling and sounding really close. But she couldn’t see it, and strangely the sound seemed to come from back in the woods rather than from either direction down the lane.

  “Weird,” she said, unaware that she had voiced the thought until Alison agreed.

  “Very. Come on, let’s take a look. Someone might be lost or something.”

  It was the prospect of or something that had Lisa worried. You heard about so many bad things these days. “I don’t know. Maybe we shouldn’t.”

  “You read too many trashy mysteries,” Alison retorted, sticking out her tongue. “If I don’t come back in two minutes call the police!” And with that she ran back into the woods, towards the sound of the engine, blonde ponytail swinging crazily in time with her pace. She darted to the left and trees swallowed her. Lisa almost called out for her to come back but guessed she’d be wasting her breath. Instead she just sighed. Alison had always been the same. Once an idea popped into her mind she acted on it impulsively, without stopping to think of the consequences. Jump in with both feet, that was her style. It was also why she had two failed marriages behind her. Both had followed whirlwind romances; both had ended almost as quickly. At least there had not been the added complication of children, as much as Alison had wanted them.

  In contrast, Lisa had always taken things slowly and steadily. A mutual friend had introduced her to David. She’d liked him immediately but it had still been several months before they had started dating, and another four years before they had married. Thirty months later, Lisa was a widow. That she and Alison both seemed destined to be alone, though for very different reasons, was a cruel irony that had not escaped her.

  “Lisa!”

  The sound of her sister’s voice made her jump. The tone of Alison’s voice was wrong, though whether it conveyed excitement or fear was hard to tell. “What is it?”

  “Come here - quick!”

  Lisa felt like her feet had been nailed to the path. She could not move, despite her concern for her sister. She had not been inside a car since the accident. Not once. St Jude’s was close enough to walk to when the weather was fine. Otherwise she took the bus. The insistent thrumming of the engine, in the wood where it did not belong, inspired a feeling of deep unease. She realised her palms were unpleasantly clammy.

  “Now, Lisa!”

  No doubt about it. Alison was downright scared. Despite her anxiety, Lisa immediately made a run for the trees. They’d always stuck by each other and she had no intention of abandoning Alison now, whatever it meant her being dragged into. “Coming!” she shouted, then plunged into a shade so deep that it seemed almost pitch black after the sunlight. For a second she lost her bearings and slowed to a walk until she had a fix on the direction of the sound of the engine. She sprinted towards it, one arm raised to shield her face from the branches that whipped at her as she raced past them. Trees closed in. She was back in the densest part of the woods. Several times she almost stumbled and fell, only just managing to regain her balance before she would have gone sprawling. Suddenly the going underfoot became easier and, glancing down, Lisa could see she was on a rutted earth track she had never known existed. The engine sounded much louder now.

  “Alison!” she called.

  “Over here.” Her sister sounded surprisingly close by.

  The track twisted sharply to the right. Lisa eased her pace as she rounded it and emerged into a small clearing, conscious that they were isolated. Should there be any threat of danger, or they had stumbled across something they shouldn’t have, they were on their own; no one from the village would see or hear them. But the sight that awaited her was so mundane and yet so completely startling that it was not for several moments that she realised she’d stopped moving. Alison was standing at the back of a battered Transit van, startlingly white against the surrounding dark green. Its engine was ticking over but the amplifying effect of the trees made it sound louder.

  “I didn’t know what to do,” Alison said, in a small voice that sounded scared and helpless. Lisa had no idea why. Her mind had not yet grasped the situation and come to terms with it. Then it was as if a scene that had previously been blurred now swam into focus and she realised that the van had not been abandoned after all. She could make out a hosepipe emerging from the side window, which was wound down just enough to accommodate it, snaking around to the back of the van, where it had been placed inside the exhaust. A suicide. Whatever she had been expecting, or dreading, it sure as hell wasn’t this.

  She was so shocked by the unexpectedness, the sheer craziness of it, that for a moment she almost laughed. But then she glanced back at Alison and the look of utter wretchedness on her sister’s face had the effect of a slap on her own. She was a nurse, for Christ’s sake, trained in saving lives. There was no excuse for standing around as helpless as a schoolgirl. As she marched forward, she attempted to project a sense of authority and calm that she didn’t feel.

  “It’s all right,” she said. “I’ll deal with it.”

  The closer she got, the more nervous she felt. Her mouth was dry, her hands shaking as she reached out for the door handle. She could do it. She’d dealt with worse than this. Maybe, a voice in her head chimed in. But that was before the accident. Lisa curled her hands into tight fists and held them like that until she had stopped them trembling. Then she reached out and gripped the handle. It seemed a long way away, as though she were looking at it through the wrong end of a telescope. She either had to open the damned thing and get it over with or run away. Lisa pulled hard on the handle and the door clicked open. A wave of fumes swept over her, so intense it almost made her gag.

  Putting her free hand over her mouth, she stepped back and hauled the door fully open. Tears immediately filled her eyes, turning the world into a blurred swirl of colours. She held her breath and reached forward, feeling around, almost blind, until her fingers chanced upon the ignition key. She turned it, recoiling sharply when the starter motor barked in protest, then twisted it the other way. The engine immediately cut out. Lisa turned away, gulping down the fresh air of the woods and wiping the tears from her eyes. As her vision cleared, she saw the hosepipe had fallen from the window and lay snake-like on the floor. Simultaneously she realised Alison was still at the back of the van; she obviously hadn’t moved through all of this.

  Lisa guessed her sister was in shock, and didn’t blame her. Without the years of experience on the wards she too would most likely have frozen.

  The engine p
inged loudly, making her jump. Her eyes flicked to the open doorway and she saw a man in the driver’s seat, a man who was quite possibly dead. He wore a white T-shirt and jeans and appeared to be motionless; there was no rise and fall of his chest that she could see. Lisa licked her lips and swallowed, then rubbed her hands against her shorts to wipe away the sweat.

  She edged forward, mindful of the fact that, though the engine had been switched off, the van’s interior would still be dangerously laden with fumes. Now when she reached out, her hand was remarkably steady. Maybe because this was close to work, close to a world she knew and understood. Taking shallow breaths, ready to break off if she felt giddy, Lisa reached up to touch the man’s neck, seeking the artery, praying she would find a pulse. There was nothing, nothing at all. He was as lifeless as the engine.

  But she couldn’t leave it there. His skin was warm, almost hot beneath her touch. Of course she knew what to do. Cardio-pulmonary resuscitation, once learned, was never forgotten especially when the job demanded it. But she would have to get him out of the Transit quickly if she was to stand a chance of reviving him. Lisa took hold of his jeans belt, intending to haul him out sideways, but his weight – his dead weight, she reminded herself, too late to be of any use – caught her unawares and he slowly toppled over, away from her. “Shit,” she murmured. The fumes should have cleared by now, or at least dissipated to the point where she felt it safe to get inside the vehicle. The voice in her head reminded her she had sworn never again to get in a car, but she commanded it to be silent. It wasn’t as if the van was going anywhere. Besides, knowing that she might be able to save a life outweighed all other considerations.

  No more time to try to manhandle him out; vital seconds were being wasted. Lisa stepped up and ducked inside, where one long seat stretched the width of the big van. The stranger lay across it, twisted at the waist, his lower body in the driver’s side, making it awkward for Lisa to get to him. Kneeling partly on the seat and partly on his legs, she managed to turn him as best she could so she could get to his mouth and chest. It was not the ideal position for her to work on him but it would have to do. She leant across, gripped his lower jaw -