Cuthbert's Way (DCI Ryan Mysteries, #17)(8)
So it was that a crowd of teachers, monks and senior students gathered on the lawn in front of St. Cuthbert’s House alongside one of their most celebrated hounds, who answered to the name of Toby. It was somewhat ironic that a dog who’d been named by Father Jacob in deference to his appreciation of the works of Conan Doyle was now called upon to help in the effort to find him. As the crowd watched, the captain held one of Father Jacob’s unwashed vests in front of the dog’s face and gave the signal to pick up the scent.
“I’ve been training Toby to track different scents,” the boy said, proudly. “He’s got the best nose around.”
He slipped the vest back into a plastic bag and then gave the dog another signal, following which he began to sniff the ground beside the entrance to the boarding house, tail wagging as he turned this way and that, circling around and around until the onlookers began to give up hope.
Father Peter was on the brink of calling things off when the dog let out a bark and began trotting along the pathway leading to the back entrance of the boarding house, his nose stuck to the floor as his tail began to wag even more furiously.
The crowd hurried after him, older members of staff struggling to keep up with the dog’s lolloping pace.
“Tell the others to stay back,” the headmaster ordered one of the teachers, feeling a familiar tingle of apprehension snaking up his spine. “Father Samuel and I will accompany the search.”
By the time they rounded the corner of the boarding house, the captain and his beagle were halfway to the sports hall, and showed no signs of stopping. Picking up the cumbersome skirts of their black habits, the two men ran in hot pursuit, their boots crunching against the frosted turf.
When they finally caught up with them on the pathway running beside the sports hall, they found Toby circling again, having stuck his nose back inside the plastic bag to remind himself of Father Jacob’s unique scent.
They’d barely caught their breath before the dog let out another series of barks and took off again, even faster this time, chugging across the lawn towards the orchard on the far side.
“He’s definitely got a scent!” the captain called out in a puffed voice, as he struggled to keep up with the dog’s bounding strides.
Father Peter and Father Samuel followed at a more sedate pace, dragging in great gulps of cold air as they cleared the main grounds and entered the orchard, which was an area rarely used by staff or children at that time of year. In season, it was an impressive sight, with rows and rows of lustrous trees bearing juicy red and green apples ripe for the picking, but now the trees were bare, their branches long and spindly, like skeleton fingers, such that the orchard felt more akin to a cemetery.
“Over there,” the captain called out, from somewhere within. “Toby’s heading towards the cider mill!”
“Mallory!” the headmaster called out to the captain. “Wait, before you go inside! Call Toby back—”
Peter dissolved into a coughing fit, age and lack of exercise taking their toll.
“Mallory—” he tried again, but it was too late. The boy was too far away to hear him.
As they wound their way through the network of trees, they heard a loud cry, and exchanged a worried glance.
“Mallory!”
“Hugo!”
Both men called out for Hugo Mallory to hold back but, in his eagerness to display his dog’s skill—as well as his own—the boy had failed to remember what it was that one usually found at the end of a hunt.
Something that was dead.
*
The cider mill was a romantic building that would not have been out of place on the pages of a George Eliot novel. Built of crumbling sandstone and with ivy running up one wall, it was a regular meeting place for errant sixth formers seeking the perfect location for a tryst, or somewhere to smoke a joint without fear of being caught. The acreage at Crayke College might have looked impressive in the prospectus guide but, in practice, it made for a hard job policing the older teenagers, many of whom had the means and opportunity to push the strict boundaries set by the teaching staff.
At that moment, Father Peter wished wholeheartedly that they would find a couple of kids smoking their way through a pack of menthols, or even that they’d stumble upon a pair of hormone-addled sixth formers in flagrante delicto. Anything was preferable to the sight which awaited them as they followed Hugo Mallory into the cider mill.
They found the boy retching in the corner, his body doubled over as it violently expelled the horror of what lay sprawled in the centre of the room. As Father Samuel rushed across to help him, grasping Mallory’s shoulders to drag him away and back out into the crisp morning air, Father Peter remained standing inside the doorway and forced himself to look upon the waste of what had once been a man.
Father Jacob’s body lay face-down on the flagstone floor and had been stripped of its clothing. Had circumstances been different, Father Peter might have mourned such an ignoble end, but that was far from being the worst of it. Jacob’s skin bore dozens of slashing cuts, particularly around the sensitive tendons at the back of his knees and, had he been able to think clearly, Peter might have recognised these as clear signs of systematic torture.
But it was not the cuts that would replay in his mind’s eye for the rest of his days.
Oh, no.
It was the sight of Father Jacob’s head, contorted and crushed inside the heavy wooden vice they used to grind apples. Blood and brain matter lay splattered around it, forming a perfect arc, while congealed blood dripped into a waiting barrel.