In Pursuit Of The Proper Sinner by Elizabeth George Read Free Book Online Page B

to be away from this place, and she called for the dog. There was no response.
    “Benbow!” she called a second time. “Here, boy. Come.”
    Nothing. The silence intensified. The breeze stilled. And Phoebe felt the hair stirring on the back of her neck.
    She didn't wish to approach the copse, but she didn't know why. She'd walked among Nine Sisters before. She'd even had a quiet picnic lunch there one fine spring day. But there was something about the place this morning …
    A sharp bark from Benbow and suddenly what seemed like hundreds of ravens took to the air in an ebony swarm. For a moment they entirely blocked out the sun. The shadow they cast seemed like a monstrous fist sweeping over Phoebe. She shuddered at the distinct sensation of having been marked somehow, like Cain before being sent to the east.
    She swallowed and turned back to the copse. There was no further sound from Benbow, no response to her calling. Concerned, Phoebe hurried along the path, passed the limestone guardian of that sacred place, and entered the trees.
    They grew thickly, but visitors to the site had trod a path through them over the years. On this, the natural grass of the moor had been flattened and worn through to the earth in spots. To the sides, however, bilberry bushes formed part of the undergrowth, and the last of the wild purple orchids gave off their characteristic scent of cats in the tough moor grass. It was here beneath the trees that Phoebe looked for Benbow, drawing nearer to the ancient stones. The silence round her was so profound that the very fact of it seemed like an augur, mute but eloquent all at once. Then, as Phoebe drew near the circles boundary, she finally heard the dog again. He yelped from somewhere, then emitted something between a whine and a growl. It was decidedly fearful.
    Worried that he'd encountered a hiker who was less than welcoming of his canine advances, Phoebe hastened towards the sound, through the remaining trees and into the circle. At once, she saw a mound of bright blue at the inner base of one of the standing stones. It was at this mound that Benbow barked, backing off from it now with his hackles up and his ears flattened back against his skull.
    “What is it?” Phoebe asked over his noise. “What've you found, old boy?” Uneasily, she wiped her palms on her skirt and glanced about. She saw the answer to her question lying round her. What the dog had found was a scene of chaos. The centre of the stone circle was strewn with white feathers, and the detritus of some thoughtless campers lay scattered about: everything from a tent to a cooking pot to an opened rucksack spilling its contents onto the ground.
    Phoebe approached the dog through this clutter. She wanted to get Benbow back on the lead and get both of them out of the circle at once.
    She said, “Benbow, come here,” and he yelped more loudly. It was the sort of sound she'd never heard from him before.
    She saw that he was clearly upset by the mound of blue, the source of the white feathers that dusted the clearing like the wings of slaughtered moths.
    It was a sleeping bag, she realised. And it was from this bag that the feathers had come, because a slash in the nylon that served as its cover spat more white feathers when Phoebe touched the bag with her toe. Indeed, nearly all the feathers that constituted its stuffing were gone. What remained was like a tarpaulin. It had been completely unzipped and it was shrouding something, something that terrified the little dog.
    Phoebe felt weak-kneed, but she made herself do it. She lifted the cover. Benbow backed off, giving her a clear look at the nightmare vignette that the sleeping bag had covered.
    Blood. There was more in front of her than she'd ever seen before. It wasn't bright red because it had obviously been exposed to air for a good number of hours. But Phoebe didn't require that colour to know what she was looking at.
    “Oh my Lord.” She went light-headed. She'd seen death