Wychwood Read online

  CONTENTS

  Cover

  Also by George Mann and available from Titan Books

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  Acknowledgements

  About the Author

  WYCHWOOD

  Also by George Mann and available from Titan Books

  THE GHOST

  Ghosts of Manhattan

  Ghosts of War

  Ghosts of Karnak

  Ghosts of Empire (October 2017)

  NEWBURY & HOBBES

  The Casebook of Newbury & Hobbes

  SHERLOCK HOLMES

  Sherlock Holmes: The Will of the Dead

  Sherlock Holmes: The Spirit Box

  Encounters of Sherlock Holmes

  Further Encounters of Sherlock Holmes

  Associates of Sherlock Holmes

  Further Associates of Sherlock Holmes

  WYCHWOOD

  GEORGE MANN

  TITAN BOOKS

  Wychwood

  Print edition ISBN: 9781783294091

  E-book edition ISBN: 9781783294107

  Published by Titan Books

  A division of Titan Publishing Group Ltd

  144 Southwark Street, London SE1 0UP

  First edition: September 2017

  10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

  Names, places and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead (except for satirical purposes), is entirely coincidental.

  © 2017 George Mann

  No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

  A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library.

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  CHAPTER ONE

  She sensed movement, and risked a glance over her shoulder.

  Around her, the Wychwood seemed silent and still. Even the shrill cawing of the crows seemed distant, now: the laughter of an audience that had already moved on to the next joke.

  Had she shaken him off? Had he given up and fled in fear of discovery?

  Her heart was hammering, her breath coming in short, sharp gulps. She felt lightheaded, disorientated. How long had she been running? It couldn’t have been more than a few minutes, but she’d lost all sense of passing time.

  She’d torn her dress on a branch and laddered her expensive stockings. She’d abandoned her high heels in the car park, along with her handbag, containing her phone. She cursed, wishing she’d held onto it long enough to call for help. Sweat was beaded on her brow, pooling in the soft hollow at the base of her throat. Her hands were trembling and her head was pounding. Blood was matting her hair, trickling down the side of her face where he’d struck her in the car park.

  Frantically, she fought her way through the undergrowth, feeling the damp earth oozing into her stockings. What did he want? Why her?

  She let out an involuntary whimper. She was going to die here, out in the middle of nowhere, in the cold and wet. Her body was going to be dumped amongst the mossy tree roots, to be found the next day by a dog walker or a rambler, covered in blood and dew.

  She fought a wave of panic. She had to keep her wits about her. Her attacker was still out here, somewhere, lurking amongst the trees. She might not be able to fight him off again. Last time she’d surprised him, giving him a sharp punch to his gut as he’d dragged her into the woods. This time, though, he’d be ready.

  She could still smell his cheap aftershave; see the snarl as he’d reached out to grab her. She’d known then that he meant to kill her.

  She couldn’t allow that leering face to be the last thing she saw. She had to find somewhere to get help.

  Up ahead, she could see the dim lights of a building through the willowy fingers of the trees. If she could make it to the house, she’d be safe. No one would turn her away. She’d call the police, and everything would be all right.

  Something rustled in the dry leaves behind her. She felt suddenly nauseated. She knew it was him. She could hear his thin, reedy breath, whistling between his teeth as he ran. He was gaining on her.

  Tears pricked her eyes. She glanced behind her to see him rear up out of the trees like some nightmarish spectre. He was cloaked in shadows, as if he’d somehow wrapped the darkness around him to form a downy mantle.

  “No!” she moaned, forcing herself to run faster, digging for any final reserves of energy. Branches whipped her face, drawing beads of blood, but she barely noticed them as she fought her way towards the light. So close now…

  She felt a hand on her shoulder, fingers digging into her flesh, and she twisted, trying desperately to shake him off. And then suddenly she was falling, spinning towards the ground as he shoved her hard in the back. She threw her hands out to break her fall.

  The heels of her hands slipped on the slick mud, and she rolled, jarring her elbow. She cried out, scrabbling quickly to her feet, expecting him to grab her at any moment, to burst out of the shadows and strike her again.

  She glanced around, desperately looking for something – anything – she could use as a weapon, but there was nothing but the trees, silent and still. She balled her hands into fists. She wasn’t about to give in now.

  He loomed out of the trees before her. His arms were outstretched, beckoning for embrace.

  “No…” she murmured, her voice wavering. “Stay back.”

  “Shhh,” he said, and his voice was eerily calm and reasonable. “It’ll all be over soon. It’ll be so much easier if you just let it happen.”

  He came for her, and she thrashed out, striking him hard in the chest. He staggered back, surprised by the ferocity of the blow. She pressed her advantage, pummelling him again and again, raging breathlessly until he was forced to raise his arms to protect his face.

  She felt a sudden surge of hope. Maybe she could do this. Maybe there was still time to get away.

  And then he was lurching forward again, grabbing her by the upper arms, pinning her in place. She tried to kick, bu
t he twisted out of the way. She fought to free herself from his grip, but he was too strong. He forced her back against a tree.

  She parted her lips to scream, but he clamped his palm over her mouth, squeezing painfully. She tried to bite down as he twisted her head to one side, tasting something bitter on his fingers, but his other arm shifted, and she felt a sharp prick in the exposed side of her neck.

  “There,” he said, his voice calm and level. He almost sounded reasonable. “That wasn’t so hard, was it?”

  She thrashed, but he pinned her there as the warm liquid spread into her shoulder, flushing through her bloodstream, and as the sedative took hold and the woozy feeling overcame her, the last thing she heard was the rustle of feathers as he gently laid her down amongst the fallen leaves.

  CHAPTER TWO

  She was only a few hundred yards from her mother’s house, and they hadn’t moved for nearly half an hour.

  Elspeth sighed and peered in the rear-view mirror. The line of traffic snaked away into the distance, stretching as far as she could see. Directly behind her, the driver of the white Fiat – a tired-looking woman with two young kids in the back – was growing increasingly frustrated, gripping her steering wheel so tightly that her knuckles had turned white. Elspeth could see the kids squabbling in the rear seats, arms flapping as they tried to resolve their spat. She could imagine the tension in the vehicle, growing more taut with every passing second.

  Up ahead, a hulking lorry blocked her view of the road. The driver had left the engine running, and oily smoke chugged from its corroded exhaust. She’d already turned off the intake fan in her car, but the stink of burning fumes lingered. She wrinkled her nose and leaned back against the headrest.

  Anna Calvi was singing about desire on the car stereo. All that Elspeth desired was a cup of tea, and maybe a Kit Kat, if her mum still kept a stash of them hidden behind the breadbin. She was craving something sweet – she’d run out of mints back on the motorway. She rummaged in the glovebox on the off-chance, but aside from a heap of CDs, a pair of sunglasses and an errant lipstick, it was empty.

  She’d been driving for hours. It had taken her twice as long as it should have to clear the London Orbital, and then she’d been snarled up in this for the last thirty minutes. Wilsby-under-Wychwood was supposed to be rural, too. They didn’t get traffic problems. She considered ditching the car by the side of the road and walking the rest of the way, but decided against it – it wouldn’t go down well with the police if she prompted a mass walkout. She had sudden visions of Michael Stipe singing ‘Everybody Hurts’, and grinned.

  The lorry nudged forward a few feet, belching more sooty fumes, and she caught a glimpse of flashing police lights in the distance.

  It was clear there’d been an accident, or at least an incident; an ambulance and two police cars had come screaming by a short while earlier, and now they appeared to be letting the cars through one at a time. She guessed it was probably a car that had taken the bend too quickly and careened into the trees – the small wood behind her mum’s house had seen its fair share of accidents over the years – although there did seem to be rather a lot of police.

  She edged forward behind the lorry, and the white Fiat inched in behind her, as if pulled along by an invisible tether. Now one of the kids had unbuckled himself and was attempting to scramble through to the front passenger seat to escape his sister.

  Elspeth played with the stereo, searching for something to lift her mood, and grabbed her phone. She quickly dismissed the string of messages from her London friends asking where she was and flicked through the music player. Moments later, Stevie Wonder was crooning away over the Bluetooth, and Elspeth was already beginning to feel better. She sang along for a minute, drumming against the steering wheel with her fingers.

  Finally, the lorry ahead of her pulled away, waved through by the police, and she had a clearer view of what was going on. The police had formed a cordon along the left-hand side of the road, to block the entrance to her mum’s cul-de-sac, and, as she’d anticipated, had partially coned off an area of the road ahead in order to allow the ambulances through. They were waving people through one at a time, and evidently redirecting people who were coming in the opposite direction. It was complete chaos.

  She noticed that a constable in a high-visibility jacket was beckoning her forward, and she eased the car slowly towards him, lowering her window and cutting the sound from the stereo.

  “Hello, officer, can you tell me what’s going on?”

  “It’s a crime scene, miss. You need to move along as quickly as possible.”

  “A crime scene?” She’d expected him to confirm her suspicion there’d been an accident. Come to think of it, there was no sign of any overturned vehicle in the ditch. “What sort of crime scene?”

  The police constable raised an eyebrow, as if to say ‘you really expect me to answer that?’

  Elspeth sighed. “Look, I live in that house over there.” She pointed at the back of her mum’s house, just visible beyond the trees, backing directly onto the woods where two women in uniform were marking out a boundary with white and blue striped police tape. “I’m trying to get home.”

  “Alright, miss,” the man nodded. “The boys will let you through.” He straightened up, calling over to the driver of the police car that was blocking the entrance to Stanford Road. The sirens had been turned off, but the lights were still flickering relentlessly, causing her to look away. “Resident,” he said, patting the roof of her car.

  The driver nodded and put his vehicle into reverse, backing onto one of the neighbours’ driveways. Mr Harrison wasn’t going to like that very much, Elspeth knew – he’d always been a stickler for chasing them off his property when they were kids.

  She thanked the constable and swung her Mini around into the road, pulling to a stop outside her mum’s house. In her rear-view mirror, she saw the police car slide slowly back into position, blocking the end of the road. She fought the sudden sensation of being trapped here again; a feeling she’d battled with for over half her life, before she’d finally escaped to London nearly a decade ago. Now, after all this time, she was back. Perhaps there really was no escaping the place.

  She decided to leave her cases in the back of the car for now, and snatched up her handbag from the passenger seat and trudged up the driveway towards the house. It was a glorious old place, really; a detached eighteenth-century cottage, constructed from the same butter-coloured stone as the rest of the village, with a slate-tiled roof and strands of ivy clambering haphazardly over the walls. There was a small garden at the back, which looked out onto the wooded area that was presently garnering so much attention from the police.

  She stood before the door for a moment, took a deep breath, and then tried the handle. It yawned open. She went in, closing the door behind her.

  The old family home hadn’t changed much. In fact, Elspeth couldn’t remember the last time her mum had decorated the place. It still retained its old-fashioned charm, with its wonky walls and terrible phone signal. The hallway was filled to bursting with bric-a-brac and strange objects her mum had bought from car boot sales and antique fairs – a brass bedpan hung on the wall like a pendulum; chipped plates, decorated with gaudy landscapes of Oxfordshire, stood on wire stands atop the dresser, alongside little porcelain models of houses; a Victorian nursing chair was piled high with soft toys, and a gilt-framed mirror hung above the telephone table, which still housed a red Bakelite handset from the era before time began. There was the familiar ticking, too, of the long case clock her grandfather had made after the war. It had taken him years, apparently, to fashion the new case, chipping away at the wood with his gnarled fingers.

  “Mum? Are you home?”

  She heard the creak of floorboards from the landing.

  “Ellie?” A surprised face appeared over the top of the banisters. “Is that you?”

  “Hi, Mum. Made it at last.”

  Elspeth dropped her handbag on the teleph
one table as her mum, Dorothy, bustled down the stairs. She was still young, really – in her mid-sixties – and had kept her youthful complexion and wavy blonde hair. She looked well, and her face lit up at the sight of Elspeth, her lips parting in a huge grin.

  Elspeth went to her and bundled her up into a big hug. “Good to see you, Mum.”

  “And you, love.” Dorothy held her by the shoulders and looked her up and down appraisingly. “Not too thin. So they’re still feeding you in London.”

  Elspeth shook her head. “Don’t ever change, Mum.” She glanced over her shoulder. “What’s going on out back? I had to queue for over half an hour and then persuade the police to let me through.”

  “Apparently there was an incident in the night. One of the constables has been round already asking if we’d seen or heard anything. He wouldn’t say what had happened, exactly, but they seem to be taking it seriously.”

  “Yeah, they’re not giving much away, are they?”

  “No. Come on through to the kitchen. I’ll pop the kettle on and you can tell me all your news.”

  Elspeth followed her mum through to the kitchen, cutting through what they’d always jokingly referred to as ‘the study’ – a small room piled high with more bric-a-brac, a couple of bookcases, and a desk that she’d never seen anyone sitting at.

  The kitchen was a large, square room, with a big farmhouse table and all the mod cons – her mum’s one concession to modernity had been to have it updated about five years earlier – with a door leading through to the living room, and a set of French doors leading out to the patio and garden. Light was streaming in through them now, pooling on the tiled floor, where the ginger cat, Murphy, was stretching languorously.

  While Dorothy was filling the kettle, Elspeth peered out into the garden, trying to see into the woods beyond. These were part of the ancient Wychwood, a dense forest that had once covered much of the area and had subsequently given its name to a number of local villages. The old forest had long ago been eroded, felled to make way for farms, settlements and roads – but what remained of it now was largely protected, a series of small wooded areas nuzzling the edges of villages or towns, or scattered around the local countryside.