Yes, he was still breathing. Slightly.
Eyes closed. A bloody gash on the side of his head, which had been cleaned up a bit, but not stitched, even though it clearly needed it.
She could not touch him; her hands were tied. She could not lean farther in without falling over onto him.
“Reggie,” she whispered. Then: “Reggie!”
“He comes in and out of it,” said Mr. Turner. “Mostly out of it. I’m not a medical professional, of course—nor is anyone who has looked at him—but I don’t doubt that there might be brain swelling.”
“He’ll die if you leave him like this!”
“I’m sure that’s true,” said Mr. Turner. “And I’m sure you understand now that we are not bluffing. Neither I nor the highly devout followers whom I lead. My colleagues Roy and Nancy here delivered the letter that brought you here, and they pushed the woman into the quarry to create the need that would cause Mrs. Hatfield to ask you to stay. There might have been lesser actions that could have accomplished that of course, but a test was needed—I had to know that my lieutenants have a dedication equal to mine. And they do. When Mrs. Hatfield—useful fool that she was—realized what was happening and tried to stop it, I dispatched her entirely on my own. When it came time to deal with Charlie, I might have had difficulty, but others were already arriving to assist me. So, you understand—I have no qualms.”
Laura turned to face Mr. Turner. She struggled to her feet. She contemplated just running at him, point-blank.
He saw that in her eyes, and he took a half step back, just in case.
“The point is, I need your cooperation. Medical assistance can be summoned. An anonymous phone call can be made. All that is necessary, first, is that you cooperate in doing what I ask. Which is merely to fulfill your own destiny, after all. You must come voluntarily. The stones say so. But they do not put a limit on what I can do to induce you.”
Laura didn’t think she should respond to that just yet.
“Where are we?” she asked.
“You don’t recognize it?” said Mr. Turner. “No, I guess you would not. You were a rather mischievous girl. But more inclined, I think, to exploring the physiology of boys out on the green lawns than boiler rooms underneath school gymnasiums and the other things underground that make the world work. I suppose you didn’t even know, did you, that ten feet under the blanket that you threw on the east field was the altar of a civilization that thrived three thousand years before you were born? That you desecrated it not only by your carnal presence but by memorializing that desecration in the stone itself? If there had ever been a doubt who would be the first sacrifice, it was decided at that moment, even though neither you nor I knew it yet.
“It took many years to get the translations done on the discoveries I had made—the artifacts that lay below the ground encircled by the stones. The authorities simply got in my way. Did I get a financial reward for my discovery? No. Did I receive credit for it? Nothing more than a newspaper report or two, and a brief mention on a note card in the British Museum.
“But I knew the significance of what I had found, and I acquired allies—first, among docents at the British Museum itself, and then, as the technology caught up with our needs, through both ordinary social media and then the dark web. People everywhere, of all walks of life, with one thing in common—like me, they recognized the need for a new world order to rise out of the past. So. Now, do you realize the significance of what we are about to do?”
Laura heard the question, sort of, but as a kind of background noise, nothing more. Her head was throbbing, and she had broken a wrist, but she was not paying attention to any of that, either—but just to Reggie.
“I said,” repeated Mr. Turner, “‘do you realize the significance of what we are about to do?’ Of what we need of you?”
Laura looked up at him.
“No, I bloody well don’t. But I’ll do what you ask, if you will save my husband.”
“I thought you might,” said Mr. Turner, and then he turned to his companions.
“Put the hood on her.”
28
LONDON
Lord Buxton was staring at the Thames again. Now it was on doctor’s orders; this was supposed to keep his blood pressure down. He had his doubts. For all of the years of his adult life until now, work had not been a health issue. To the contrary, from the time he was seventeen, it had been the very thing that kept him sane.
Staring at this bloody gray river would, on the other hand, most certainly drive him batty.
Without taking his eyes off the tugboat he saw chugging along toward the Tower Bridge, he reached over to his phone and punched the intercom button with a thick finger.
“Any news yet?” he demanded.
“You mean … regarding Laura Rankin?” said his secretary’s voice.
“Of course that’s what I mean.”
“No,” she said. “Sorry.”
“What about Heath—Reggie Heath?”
“They—aren’t they both supposed to be together, sir?”
“No, as a matter of fact, they are not supposed to be together. It is a universal anomaly that they are together. It’s a travesty.”
“Sorry, I only meant—in the sense that they are traveling together. Or at least were when they took off in that plane.”
Just for a moment Buxton allowed himself the fantasy of imagining that perhaps something unfortunate had befallen Reggie but not Laura. Or, even better, that Laura had come to her senses and that was the reason for their disappearance.
That hardly made sense, though. Not given their departure in a two-seater Cessna. If something had befallen Reggie, it had almost certainly befallen Laura, as well.
That gave Buxton pause. In all of his attempts to humiliate Reggie publicly and try to make him someone hard to be with, collateral harm to Laura had never been part of the intent.
The desire to find them and make their newly wedded life problematic in any way possible had begun to fade. He had even decided not to run the pic of Reggie swinging a punch and landing in the wedding cake. Now he was wondering, Have I gone too far? Is Laura Rankin all right?
Buxton was waiting for a report from his lead paparazzo. Now, finally, the intercom buzzed.
“I have Fabio online, sir. He found one possibility. A small plane heard flying northeast through Cornwall, but no report of a landing at any of the regional airports.”
“Was it identified?”
“No, sir. It was only heard, not seen. That’s not much, I know.”
“Get my helicopter ready.”
“Yes, sir. Would you prefer Buxton One, Buxton Two, or Buxton Three?”
“Hell, I don’t care. Buxton One.”
“Sorry, sir, but you lent Buxton One to the duchess of Kent.”
“I did? Why?”
“So that you could track her movements, I think. But she said she’ll have it back by four.”
“I can’t wait that long. Get Buxton Two ready.”
“Sorry, sir, but you lent Buxton Two to MI6.”
“Bloody hell why?”
“I believe so that they could practice locating advanced hidden tracking devices. However, they said they’ll have it back by four.”
“Damn. All right then, I’ll take Buxton Three.”
“Sorry, sir, but Buxton Three is at the shop, having a new advanced tracking device put in. Also a new alternator.”
Buxton groaned.
“Well, if they’re all out, why did you even—”
“Sir?”
“Never mind. Just get a car ready. And then send Buxton Two to meet me in Cornwall just as soon as MI6 gets done playing with it.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Any idea at all where the plane was heading?”
“No, sir. The nearest town is a tiny place called Bodfyn; no airport, no constabulary, no—”
“Where did you say?”
“Bodfyn, sir.”
Buxton shut off the interco
m and went to look out his Thames window again.
Bodfyn. Why the hell was she going there?
There were parts of Lord Buxton’s life that he rarely talked about. People who had known him within the last twelve years or so, especially those who knew him only publicly—which was the only way most knew him—thought that he had been born to be who he was now. It wasn’t the case.
His family had a title and land, it was true, but no real fortune. Anyone reading his biography and noting the responsible parents and stable family life would have assumed a happy childhood, and he never bothered correcting that notion. But if anyone had asked, he could have explained that childhood isn’t entirely within the control of the parents. The child’s peers matter, too. Most especially at adolescence.
Bodfyn.
Lord Buxton didn’t like to remember his year there at the public school. It had not been a happy one, for the most part. The glandular condition that had made him unavoidably overweight, and caused him to lag far behind all the other boys in reaching adolescence, had also caused him to go through those days under a sort of hazy mental cloud—something he himself had not even been aware of until it was gone.
Just a year and a half later, away from Bodfyn, in a new school, with a new doctor and the glandular condition finally correctly diagnosed and treated, he would have been unrecognizable to any of his original classmates. And they to him, probably, if he had ever run into any of them, which he’d never had a desire to do—with one exception.
That tall girl with the shining metal on her front teeth. Whenever he did think of Bodfyn, which was rarely, the pain in his memory of the place would come to a full stop, and then just vanish, when he remembered the sight of her at the junior winter dance. With her ungainly stance and those buckteeth.
For some years after, as he achieved one success and then another and then exponentially more, and acquired the power and women that came with all that, he wondered what had become of Laura Penobscott. He tried to imagine her grown. Surely she was nothing like the sort of women—the actresses, and models, and celebrities—that had become available to him over the past decade. But even so, at moments when it was quiet—such as looking out over the Thames—he had wondered.
And then, three years ago, it had happened. He had met Laura Rankin.
But he had met her, it seemed, just a year too late.
Now Buxton’s personal secretary pinged him. He stopped looking at the Thames. His car was ready.
29
In Cornwall, a very long black limousine with a cursive B emblazoned in gold trim on the side pulled up at the security gate at the perimeter of Darby Manor.
The guard inside the booth noticed the emblem on the side of the vehicle, yet he did not open the gate. He came out with his clipboard, as if it were just anyone.
Lord Robert Buxton, sitting in the backseat, sighed and rolled his own window down. He knew this gate would not open—not for him—just at the request of his chauffer.
The security guard did not give an inch on the proprieties.
“Name, sir?”
“Lord Robert Buxton.”
“Are you expected, sir?”
“I don’t think so.”
Now the guard asked something he didn’t usually ask: “Do you suppose you will be welcome?”
Buxton hesitated. Then he said, simply, “Please.”
Buxton watched—and waited—as the guard went back to his booth, picked up the security phone, and spoke to someone up at the house.
And then the gate opened.
The limo with the B went up the long drive and pulled up at the front entrance.
Spenser, the butler, was already standing there, but he did not come down the steps to open the limousine door for its passenger.
Buxton’s driver started to get out to do that, but Buxton didn’t wait. He got out himself and went directly up the steps to Spenser.
“I’m here to see Lady Mabel Darby.”
Buxton, in both height and girth, dwarfed the skinny, slightly stooped butler with the thinning hair.
“Who shall I say is calling?” asked Spenser in a voice like cold steel.
“Lord Robert Buxton.”
“Oh,” said Spenser. “Wait here, please, sir, while I check.”
Spenser left Buxton standing at the doorway as he went to check.
Buxton sighed. He knew that they had checked before he was allowed in the gate. He understood.
Now Spenser returned and said, “I will escort you to the terrace.”
Spenser escorted Lord Buxton to the back of the house without saying another word until they reached the terrace, where Lady Mabel Darby was already having tea.
Spenser opened the door.
“Lord Robert Buxton,” he announced.
Laura Rankin’s aunt Mabel looked up from her tea and fixed Buxton in a glare of pale green eyes. They were shadowed and slightly bloodshot, but the stare didn’t waver.
“Sit down.”
Buxton did so. Aunt Mabel nodded for Spenser to leave them alone.
“What brings you, Mr. Buxton?”
Buxton swallowed hard and said, “Laura Rankin.”
“Oh.”
Aunt Mabel took the time to refresh her cup of tea. Only hers. She took a sip.
“You may have some tea if you like,” she said now.
Buxton poured his own.
“We had visitors the other day,” said Aunt Mabel. “I believe they were in your employ. Were they?”
“I am sorry,” said Buxton.
“Are you aware of the things they did when they got here?”
“Yes,” said Buxton.
“I rather thought you must be, given the photos that appeared in your paper.”
“Again, I apologize.”
“Tell me again why you are here?”
“I … I am concerned that none of my people has been able to find Laura Rankin.”
“And you come here? To ask help of me? Indeed?”
“No, I … am not asking help in finding her. Wherever she is, I will leave her alone, I promise. I don’t want you to tell me where she is, only that you yourself know and that all is fine. Then I will stop. I will let go. I promise.”
Aunt Mabel put her cup down and looked hard at Buxton.
“Then you don’t know?”
Buxton’s look said that he did not.
“Her plane crashed,” said Laura’s aunt Mabel. “No survivors have been found.”
Buxton did not respond. He stared across at Aunt Mabel, and when he made eye contact with her, Aunt Mabel saw that it was as if she had driven a sword through him.
He folded his afternoon tea napkin and put it on the table. He stood.
“I will show myself out.”
Aunt Mabel shook her head.
“No,” she said. “Spenser will escort you.”
Outside, a two-door compact had pulled up to the gate, nearly crashing into it. The security guard recognized it, but he came out to be sure.
Lois was in the driver’s seat.
“He’s here, isn’t he?” she said. “I called his office, I called his office, and I called his office, and his secretary finally spoke to me, and she said he was away on an urgent matter in Cornwall and couldn’t speak to me, and that means he’s here. Isn’t he? Please tell me that he’s here.”
“Just so we’re clear,” said the guard. “Are we referring to—”
“Potty Bobby,” said Lois. “Bloody Lord Robert Buxton.”
30
Finally, it was time for the second appearance of the witches. Siger knew this one would be longer than the first one, and he made his move.
The moment the lights went down, he left his seat, and under the cover of that darkness he stepped up onto the far left side of the stage and then behind the heavy curtain.
The actor playing Duncan was there waiting for his cue, and he looked at Siger with some surprise. Siger put his finger to his lips and continued on backstage, sneaking qu
ietly behind and around the wood and canvas set, until he found the back exit.
In the dark, he nearly stumbled over a stack of more or less empty paint cans and discarded one-by-fours. The sharp scent of the residual paint he’d turned loose rose up to meet him as he chose his direction. The quickest way back to the street was, of course, along the side of the building and down the nicely lit path of pavers. But that would also be within easy view of Roy and Nancy, should either of them go to the front entrance and look out.
Instead, he went twenty yards farther out from the back of the theater, to the other side of the windbreak of Scots pines. He ran along behind the screen of trees, parallel to the main street, with the pine needles crunching under his feet.
It was slow going, over an uncertain surface in the dark, and as soon as he had put a couple of small cottages with their high garden shrubs between him and the theater, he did a ninety-degree turn and cut back through one of their side yards to the street.
No one saw him committing this innocent and necessary trespass. No one was home, he knew. They were all in the theater.
Now he was on the street. Completely empty early on a Saturday night. Damp cobblestones glistened in the residual light from the lamp at the near end of the village, but his own footsteps were the only sound in the street. He worried a bit about how far that sound might carry, but he did not have the luxury of just walking to the pub.
He tried to run softly.
A light wind had sprung up, and the Wayward Pony on the pub sign rocked and squeaked as Siger reached the front of the pub. The exterior door lamp was on. He looked through the windows. No lights on inside; it was quite dark. That made sense, if the bartender had closed up and gone to the theater.
But Siger knew he hadn’t arrived at the theater. The question was why.
He bent down and peered through the front window again, looking for any surface illuminated even slightly by the residual light from the outside lamp.
He saw nothing. Nothing where there should have been nothing—which is to say, on top of the clean and polished bar—but also nothing where there should have been something.
Behind the bar was a round wooden hook. Siger knew from his own time as a bartender decades ago that it was used to hang the little white towel with which the bartender wiped down the bar.
A Baker Street Wedding Page 18
