by Jane Adams
She had a mane of warm red hair, large grey eyes that could be hard as granite or soft as river water depending on her mood, and an intelligent humour that so often made him laugh or put him in his place. Happiness had come late into Ray Flowers’s life but now that it had he was determined to drink in every moment of it.
* * *
Ashenfield was a category-A prison, or at least it had a category-A wing which effectively put the whole estate under the same regime. It was modern, built square around a block-paved courtyard and utterly characterless. Three sides of the quadrangle were single-storeyed, the fourth was topped off by the offices which housed the administration staff and the infirmary with its four-bedded ward and its side room for high-risk prisoners who must be separated from the rest.
Harrison Lee was dying. He knew it. The doctor said that he was merely sick, pneumonia following a dose of flu that had left him weak and vulnerable to infection. They had treated his illness and it had responded. Harrison Lee had not.
He had been at Ashenfield for almost two years. Before that he had inhabited half a dozen other jails, some for a few weeks, others for many months, but two years was the longest anywhere.
Because of its height, the infirmary actually had a view. Last night Harrison Lee could see stars, though tonight the clouds had gathered and thickened into a blanket filled with snow and yellowed by the sodium lights that marked the perimeter fence. He had lain and watched it fall for almost an hour.
Lee was in pain. He had pretended to be asleep when the nurse had come in with his last medication and they had not bothered to wake him, thinking that he would buzz if he wanted something. The staff were conscientious here. Calm, efficient and unquestioning, seeing him only as a sick old man, not as the animal the world judged him to be. But the pain was bad now, air rasping in raw lungs and pressure sores on his thin buttocks and bony shoulders adding to his discomfort. He no longer had the strength to turn himself.
He closed his eyes, knowing that time was short. That he must do what he had to do before the last medication rounds at ten, when they would be certain to wake him in order to give him the sleeping pill and the painkillers that had become his nightly routine. Concentration did not come easily these days. Tricks of the mind that he had once achieved almost without thought were now only memories.
Eyes closed, he slowed his laboured breathing, trying to ease each breath in and out of scarred lungs in an even ebb and flow, allowing his pulse rate to fall to almost nothing as his muscles relaxed, becoming so heavy that there was no movement left in them.
He stilled his thoughts, concentrating only on the breath, the drawing in and releasing of life, his mind focused on that single point just above his diaphragm where the energy gathered and body linked to soul.
How difficult it was. Something he had done since childhood now took so much effort that the thought broke through that he might not succeed.
He began again, focusing once more on the gathering energy. He imagined himself floating above the limp, almost unconscious body, then pushing that energy outwards, towards the window, out of the window, floating high above the guards and the wire and the patrolling dogs, hovering above the white of fresh-fallen snow.
The city was a distant glow close to the horizon and he directed his consciousness towards it. In his mind he held the image of a single face and he imagined himself flying towards it, knowing that wherever that man might be he would find him. One man concealed in a city of thousands . . .
* * *
Harrison Lee died just before ten on 18 February. When the nurse entered his room, Lee’s face was grey, all life and colour drained, though his body was still warm and it was clear he had been dead for only the shortest time. His thin hands were clawed against the blankets.
His death, thought the prison medical officer, might warrant a paragraph or two in the national papers. Much more probably in the local ones, as this place was uncomfortably close to where Lee had committed his crimes, and memories here were long and still filled with pain.
There would be many out there who wanted him dead and would be celebrating. Not a few who would have liked a hand in getting him that way.
Chapter Three
On 19 February George Mahoney travelled to London to see Eric Dignan and formalize his resignation. His tenure with the Corporation would end with the month but George had, as was usual practice in the department, been slowly phased from duty the moment he had announced his intention to leave. This meeting should have been a simple matter of telling his superiors he had not changed his mind, with a reminder from them that he still had a responsibility under the Official Secrets Act not to discuss his employment, even with his new partners.
‘Patrick’s been on to us,’ Dignan said, surprising him.
‘Yes, he told me,’ George returned.
Dignan had been his boss for the past five years. Patrick’s too, at one time.
‘We directed him to you. Told him you were freelancing.’
‘So that’s how he heard.’ George took in the implications as he sipped his coffee. It was Colombian, good and strong. ‘I wasn’t aware that I was freelancing. I was under the impression that I had gone into business for myself.’
Dignan smiled at him. ‘We’ll pay you a retainer, George. And you can submit your expenses on the usual forms.’
George frowned. ‘So what did Patrick say to you that he didn’t tell me?’
‘Coincidence of interest, that’s all,’ Dignan said shortly. ‘It seems a stupid waste of personnel for us to duplicate the investigation. The Eyes of God are not your usual run-of-the-mill bunch of religious fanatics. They’re mostly professionals, skilled people, highly educated like Patrick’s daughter.’ Dignan passed a manila folder across the desk. ‘Take a look at it on your way home. Bank details still the same, are they?’
‘And your interest is?’
‘They’ve made some interesting investments, been unusually successful.’
‘Insider trading?’
‘Nothing we could prove, and frankly, George, I don’t see that as our concern. What interests me more is what they do with their money. They’re financing research into some pretty sensitive areas. They have major shareholdings in two companies supplying parts for the European space programme and they’ve assisted with passage and papers for a number of scientists from the old Soviet bloc. All very much above board, but interesting nonetheless. And they’ve been pumping money into one of the biggest producers of synthetic diamonds. Happens to be in Kiev. Again, they’re perfectly open about it all, publish twice-yearly audits carried out by an independent accountant . . .’
George smiled. ‘And we’re always suspicious of anyone who looks too honest.’
‘Rare commodity, George. As you well know.’
‘I know they own property. That the Eyes have spent money on that place out at Oakham.’
‘Yes, and similar communities scattered around the country. Actually, they all seem to be pretty much self-supporting. Most of the membership work and they run courses from March to October. Meditation weekends and the like, which no doubt they charge a fortune for. And, to be fair, the children who want to go on to university or these namby-pamby training courses the government keeps setting up, the Eyes fund them to the hilt. None of their children come out with a BA and a mountain of debt, but it makes me wonder, George. And yes, I am suspicious of people who wear their hearts on their sleeves and splash their cash around so freely. When Daniel Morgan and Harrison Lee were in charge, the organization looked squeaky clean and we all know how that ended. This new man, Martyn Shaw, we know he was a protégé of Lee’s and in my book that taints him. A dozen people dead last time.’
George frowned, remembering something that Patrick had mentioned. ‘Patrick said there might have been other deaths?’
Dignan shook his head. ‘A young couple died just over a year ago after they’d been to a meeting at the Oakham house. Sommers, I believe they call it. They left a not
e which blamed just about every influence they’d ever had on their lives. Parents, teachers, doctors and of course the Eyes of God, who’d apparently rejected them in some way.’
George nodded, remembering the video and Martyn Shaw’s assertion that not everyone could make the grade.
‘Turns out they both had a history of mental health problems. They’d met in a drug rehabilitation centre. The people out at Sommers House alerted the police when the couple turned up there stoned . . . even tried to detain them until the police arrived. But the two of them got wind of what was going on and left. They overdosed that night, some sort of suicide pact apparently. No indication at all from the police investigation that those at Sommers had acted any way but properly.’
‘But Patrick won’t see it that way.’
‘Patrick is emotionally involved. Of course he won’t.’
* * *
George walked back along Charing Cross Road deep in thought, manila folder tucked inside his briefcase. He would have to tell Ray and he had informed Dignan of that. To his surprise, his request had not been denied, which meant the department already had a reason for wanting Ray involved.
‘Ray knows about these people,’ Dignan had said cryptically as George left. ‘You ask him about the last time.’
The income would be useful, George thought, and Dignan would no doubt use whatever information he and Ray generated with or without their knowledge or permission, so they might as well get paid for it.
Sarah was having a house-warming party that evening and George had promised to be there. She had bought a tiny little place out at Peatling Magna, an eighteenth-century tied cottage with a small kitchen and disproportionately enormous garden. The garden, George guessed, was really for the benefit of Ray, who, much to everyone’s surprise, had developed a passion for growing things over the last six months or so. He wondered how long it would be before Ray and Sarah finally capitulated and moved in together, instead of keeping up the pretence that Ray sometimes went home to the little flat next to their new office. He wondered also when Ray would decide what to do with the little place his aunt had left him the year before. Ray had talked about settling there for a while, and the cottage was close enough to commute, but in reality he seemed reluctant either to live there or to sell, stemming from his conviction that the place was haunted in some way. George had never thought of his friend as credulous, but where the cottage was concerned he was all but immovable.
A young girl followed him onto the platform of the underground station. She had dark eyes, black almost, in a pale face and thin brown hair that just reached her shoulders and hadn’t been washed in days.
‘Can you help me? Spare a little change? I’m trying to get money for the night shelter. I wouldn’t bother you otherwise.’
George glanced at her, taking in the worn denim jeans and thin jacket, the ‘Heroin Chic’ too real for any catwalk, and he shook his head. ‘No change,’ he said, digging in the pocket of his coat. ‘Oh, wait a minute.’ He fished an unexpected twenty pence from the corner and handed it to her, taking no notice of her thanks. She moved away, trying her spiel on another as George hurried along the platform, trying not to think how much she reminded him of his daughter Jan.
* * *
In Mallingham at seven thirty and already winter dark, Ian Thomason set off for home. He had been playing at his best friend’s house. It was only five doors away from his own home and he was eight years old, so, despite the cold and dark, no one saw any problem in him running back alone along the terraced street.
The boy was slightly built and blond, his hair copper-green in the glare of the streetlights. A mere five front doors and four entranceways between the closing of one home and the safety of another. It was nothing and it was everything. As he hurried by the third entranceway something moved in the deeper shadows between the houses.
Ian was startled and jumped back.
‘Who’s there?’
He stood still and then glanced round at his friend’s house door. The mother had wanted to stand on the doorstep and watch him home, but Ian had insisted that he’d be all right. He wished now that he had let her and thought of going back, knowing that she’d walk him home if he asked her, but afraid it would make him look small and stupid.
He hesitated. He could see nothing in the shadow of the wall and he knew how dark the alleys got at night. You could imagine anything happening in them.
Telling himself not to be silly, he circled around the streetlight, stepping out onto the road away from the alley, ready to make a run for it to his own front door. Then the blackness in the deeper shadow moved again.
* * *
Harrison Lee was cremated on 20 February. There had been no announcement of the funeral in the press and the notice of his death had been delayed until the hastily arranged service was over. Feelings still ran high in the local area and the authorities would have been happier if he could have been cremated elsewhere, but he had no family and it had fallen to the state to dispose of him. Such niceties as location were therefore not taken into account.
A young man watched as the funeral party entered the crematorium. There were few mourners. Prison officials, a local minister, one of the prison visitors who had numbered Lee among his responsibilities. That was all. A man who had once wielded such power, now forgotten.
The young man stood next to a motorbike whose red and chrome trim gleamed in the winter sun. It was a vintage machine but designed for the racetrack rather than the road, with its café-racer styling and dropped bars. As distinctive as its black-clad owner.
The service was not long. Fifteen minutes at most. No one had a lot to say about the man who had died and those things they wished to say would have meant speaking ill of the dead. The service, therefore, was mostly silent and no one was sorry when it came to an end.
As the group came out, shaking hands, preparing to go their separate ways, the young man moved too. He glanced sideways at the two graves closest to him. Both children, commemorated by low white stones and fresh flowers, even after a dozen years. Roger Joyce, age nine, sleeping with the angels. Phillip Abrahams, age ten, beloved son. It seemed blasphemous that Lee’s ashes would be scattered here.
The young man walked to his bike and glanced one last time over his shoulder at the departing officials before kicking the engine into life. The crack of straight-through pipes shattered the peace. The funeral party stared after him, appalled at this breach of silence, watching the offender ride away. A black-clad figure on a red and chrome machine.
Chapter Four
On the morning of 21 February George travelled to Sommers House to visit Mitch. Sommers was an Edwardian place set back in its own grounds and situated a few miles from Oakham on the Cottesmore road. It was built of the soft local stone with a Collyweston slate roof, deep grey in the dull February light and, George noted, sporting far more moss than was good for it. The gates stood open at the end of the drive and he turned his car towards the house, pulling up outside of the dark blue door. There were three men at work in the garden, rebuilding a low wall that separated a formal garden from the children’s play area. The garden backed onto woodland — birch and oak from the shape of the naked trees and the last unfallen leaves. A pleasant spot, secluded and sheltered. It reminded him forcibly of the house not twenty miles from here where Mitch had spent her childhood years.
One of the men detached himself from the others and strolled over to George. He was dressed for work in tough boots and faded jeans. A baggy sweater finished the ensemble. It was dirtied with a rime of earth and moss from hefting the stones and the hand he held out towards George was grained with dirt and bleeding at the knuckles.
George shook it anyway. The grip was strong and confident and the smile made the man’s eyes crinkle pleasantly. He was not young, George thought, though he had been lifting the stones as though he still had a young man’s strength.
‘Bryn Jones,’ the man introduced himself. ‘You must be George Mahoney.
Mitch is expecting you. In fact I think she’s rather pleased, even if her father did send you.’
George laughed. ‘I should really have come a long time ago,’ he said. ‘Mitch and I were good friends once. It shouldn’t have taken Patrick to make me realize that.’
The door opened then and Mitch herself came bounding down the steps and hugged him with the enthusiasm he remembered of old. ‘Come in, come in. Meet everyone. Oh, George, it’s so good to see you.’
‘Even if your father sent me?’
Mitch laughed. ‘Even if. How is he? How’s Mum? Come on in.’
It was not the kind of welcome he had expected. He had, at the very least, expected to be welcomed with more reserve. His notion of religious cults was that they didn’t encourage outsiders, and certainly didn’t invite them in for tea.
There were several people at work in the large kitchen, obviously preparing lunch.
‘You will stay?’ Bryn asked him.
‘I’d love to if it’s not going to cause trouble.’
‘None at all.’ A red-haired woman came over to greet him. Her hair was greying at the temples and she looked to be of a similar age to Bryn. Fifty perhaps, George thought. ‘I’m Irene,’ she said. ‘Bryn’s wife. And there’ll be fifteen of us at lunch, so one more will make no difference at all.’
They were a lively bunch and they made tea the way he liked it. Leaves instead of bags and good and strong. He couldn’t help feeling that they were vetting him, ensuring that he was not going to upset Mitch in any way before they allowed him to be alone with her. But he couldn’t blame them, he supposed. He would have done the same for a member of his own household. Not, he thought sadly, that he had one anymore.
After half an hour he sensed that they were satisfied and asked Mitch to show him around the grounds. They circled the house slowly, admiring the landscape, and Mitch proudly pointed out the changes that had been made in the five years the group had lived there.
