Lonely shrugged.
“He’s not too popular with the tenant farmers—he keeps putting their rent up. Some say he’s had financial problems. He reportedly sold off some of his paintings to a Chinese collector—including a Stubbs and a Gainsborough. That made him a couple of million. But they say Mordaunt House is mortgaged to the hilt, and Rupert has expensive tastes. He’s got gambling debts, women, you name it.”
“Hmph, so far so predictable,” Mortlake said. “Nothing unusual? No naughty little drug habits, that kind of thing?”
Lonely snorted in contempt.
“He belonged to the usual rich set at Oxford. They all took cocaine, smashed up restaurants when they were drunk—that kind of thing. There were some ugly rumors, nothing proven. The cops looked the other way, as usual.”
It was Mortlake’s turn to snort.
“Tosser—but why would he suddenly develop an interest in the paranormal, the bizarre? Most of his type can’t imagine their way out of a wet paper bag.”
Lonely had nothing on that. All he knew was that, about a year ago, Gonfallon had contacted some very shadowy individuals via the dark web. The rumor was that these men were mercenaries, a loose association of ex-military from a dozen countries. Gonfallon had paid them generously to bring a special consignment to England.
Mortlake frowned.
“Where did he get the money—no, don’t tell, Gainsborough and Stubbs. And those are the sales we know about.
***
They let Barry recover from the anesthetic, and this gave him hope that he might escape. He had demanded to know what was going on, threatened to tell the police, tried to physically resist. But nothing worked. Steve and his thuggish sidekick were far too strong and never left him alone for a moment, not even in the bathroom. They confined him in a small, run-down house in the middle of a forest, and offered him food. Barry wanted to refuse but he was hungry. And so, as the short November day wore on, he accepted oatmeal, then microwave pizza, and plenty of strong tea.
“That’s more like it,” Steve said. “Nearly four o’clock already. You need to get your strength up.”
“For what?” demanded Barry through a mouthful of food. “Why did you kidnap me?”
“You keep asking,” Steve sighed. “And I keep telling you. It’s just a bit of fun. The idea is that you go for a little jog in the woods. You reach the finish line first, you get some money—a whole hundred pounds! Plus, a free trip back to London!”
“You never told me that until you’d kidnapped me!” Barry said accusingly. “Why did you go through all that—that deception about shoes? You’re lying.”
Steve shook his head in a show of disappointment.
“You ask too many questions, son,” he said. “Just eat up and get ready.”
Barry finished his pizza and sat back on the rickety wooden chair. He was sure something evil, cruel, was planned for him, but he couldn’t quite believe it. He knew kidnappings happened, that people got murdered all the time. But he had never considered that it could happen to him. But the way Steve and his mysterious lord had acted and talked was disturbing. Perhaps it was an elaborate joke, a hidden camera show of some kind? That, at least, made some sense.
Barry looked around the dimly lit kitchen, wondering if he was being filmed. There were no obvious places for cameras. And he couldn’t quite believe that anyone would try to make a show that began with a serious crime, an actual kidnapping. Still, crazier things had happened.
“I need to take a leak,” Steve said to the quiet man. “Give him some cheesecake or ice cream—whatever’s in the fridge. Plenty of calories, he’ll need the energy.”
The bathroom was at the far end of a passageway, on the other side of the small house. Once Steve had closed the door, the quiet, thick-set man took a boxed strawberry cheesecake out of the fridge. Barry watched as he cut the cake inexpertly and put half of it on a plate.
“Get it down you,” the thug said gruffly, slamming the dessert down in front of Barry.
Barry looked down at the sticky confection. He had hit rock-bottom years ago and had often told himself there was nowhere to go but up. Instead, he’d been taken prisoner by the henchmen of a rich villain. Barry had no doubt they would not let him live to tell the tale of whatever sick pastime they wanted to use him for. He picked up the fork by the plate and, surprising himself with the fluidity of his movement, jabbed it into the left eye of the quiet man.
The thug roared in pain and reeled back, stumbling over his own feet, and falling heavily against a sink. There was a crack as his skull connected with the stainless-steel rim, and the nameless heavy slid to the floor. Barry stared for a moment, amazed at the success of his own simple tactic. He leaped out of his chair, tried the back door. It was locked. He picked up the chair and hurled it through the window, then started to climb out.
Steve rushed into the kitchen and, cursing, grabbed at Barry’s ankle. He kicked out at Steve with his other leg and scored a lucky hit—the grip on Barry’s ankle relaxed, he squirmed free and fell face forward into the overgrown kitchen garden. Winded, he rolled over onto his back among wet nettles, then struggled upright. The aftereffects of being drugged were slowing him down, interfering with his balance. But he felt adrenaline coming to his rescue. Heart pounding under his ribs, he got up and managed to vault the low garden wall.
“Stop!”
The call came from over to his left, back toward the big house that he had glimpsed when they dragged him out of the van. It was the posh man, standing and staring, looking outraged that his captive had had the temerity to escape.
“Piss off!” Barry shouted back and ran in the opposite direction.
There was a fence, not too tall. There were trees, clumps of them, mostly denuded of leaves apart from a few evergreens. There were open areas between the trees. He ran, his fine new shoes proving their worth as he pounded over damp, uneven soil. Droplets of rain fell from an iron-gray sky. Barry ran, wishing he hadn’t eaten so much so quickly, wishing he had had more time to digest his food, but reasoning that if he could hide somewhere, he would gather his strength.
He glanced back once and saw Steve emerging from the kitchen door, hand clutched over his face, blood streaming down from what looked like a busted nose. Barry felt a twinge of pleasure. A second glance back, and he saw the tall, posh man taking off his green, waxed jacket. Barry had no time to wonder why. There was no sign of anyone pursuing him. Was that a good thing? Or was this estate so well fenced off that nobody could get out? Well, Barry would see about that.
He reached a cluster of tall trees near the fence and assessed them for difficulty. He remembered how, as a boy, he had enjoyed sitting in an old crabapple tree in his grandad’s garden, down in Sussex by the sea. He felt a pang of regret for a childhood lost, with all its hopes. He resolved to get away from this evil place and try to pick up the pieces. One tree, a gnarled ash that leaned close to the fence, was the best option. He found a foothold, a handhold, started climbing.
Behind him, he heard something crashing through thin undergrowth. It snarled. Barry climbed faster, sure now that he would make it. He was already trying to find words for his family, his mother and sister, the things he would have to say to reconnect, make things good again. He was maybe ten feet off the ground now and edging out along a thick limb of the ash. It topped the fence, and on the other side, a smaller tree offered him an easy descent.
He risked another glance behind him and froze.
Loping up to the base of the tree was an impossible creature. Four feet across the shoulders, it was hugely muscled and covered in coarse, brown hair. It looked up at him with yellow eyes above a huge muzzle. Vast canine teeth bared, it snarled and gathered itself to spring. It was far bigger than any dog he’d ever seen, and Barry felt a chill, pure, primal dream run through him.
It can’t jump this high, he told himself. I’m safe from it—whatever it is.
The monster leaped, and Barry was right. It only got about six
feet off the ground.
Then it started to climb.
Barry scrambled out along the limb of the tree as the monster clawed its way higher, wrapping its forelimbs around the trunk. He heard it panting, growling, and the sickening noise of chunks being ripped out of the bark by its claws. He tried to move faster along the thinning bough and slipped, lost his grip for a moment, and was suddenly suspended upside down, holding on by arms and crossed legs. The creature was just a few feet away. It lashed out with one huge paw and caught Barry’s left leg, tearing through his jeans and into the flesh of his calf.
Screaming, more in fear than pain, he crawled out further until he was looking down at the other side of the fence. The creature flung out its long forelimb again and slashed. It missed this time, but Barry had already flinched, lost concentration in his panic, and suddenly he was falling, limbs windmilling in the air. He landed flat on his back with an impact that winded him.
The monster roared in frustration. It leaped at the fence and smashed into it, bearing the wire mesh down with its great, dark bulk. Barry, gasping for breath, got up and started to run. The fading light was still good enough to see by, but twilight was gathering fast. He glanced back after a few erratic strides and saw the monster thrashing in a cocoon of torn wire, still snarling in frustration. Barry had no idea where he was but reasoned that there must be a road nearby since the van had found its way here.
Following the fence around, he ran until the beast was out of sight, then leaned over, gasping. He tried to wheeze more quietly, not just to avoid drawing attention, but because he thought he heard something. It might be the steady roar of traffic somewhere ahead. He began to run again.
Somewhere behind him, a snarling and panting was growing in volume. Barry reached the corner of the fence and saw a road in front of him—but there were no cars in sight. He ran straight out into the middle and paused, gasping. His lungs felt as if they were on fire. The nightmare creature appeared around the corner of the fence about thirty yards away and paused. Then it began to advance, not in a furious charge but carefully, one paw in front of the other.
The road curved away to both sides, and around the bend to his left, Barry saw a car appear. He ran toward it, waving his arms, and it swerved around him, horn blaring. Barry stumbled after it, screaming hoarsely for help, and a hand appeared out of the driver’s side window, a single finger raised in contempt.
Barry fell to his knees as the car went out of sight. A moment later, the beast was on him, and he screamed again as vast, implacable jaws closed on his throat. It started to drag him back into the undergrowth by the fence. He was already dead by the time it started to rip him to pieces.
***
The beast wanted the kill to last forever.
The glorious, warm gush of blood was so intense that it was impossible to think, to reason. Only after the prey was inert, a bleeding lump of meat, could something like reason assert itself. The beast’s mind was dual-natured, unstable, erratic. The hot immediacy of the chase and the kill were pure as no human emotion can be. But behind and above them lurked a human mind that warned and worried.
Take the body under cover.
That was an easy impulse to cultivate, coinciding with the bestial desire to conceal the prey from rivals and scavengers. Dragging the corpse was enjoyable, an almost puppyish pleasure. Teeth tore flesh, jaws snatched at fragments of meat, but the task was still performed. Then the true rending and gulping down of ripe organs could begin in earnest. The urine-tang of a kidney, the rich flesh of the heart, the more subtle delights of bowels and genitals.
The creature, ravenous only a few minutes earlier, was soon glutted. The most ferocious instinct, the need to hunt, died down a little. In its place came contentment, coupled with wariness—a desire to guard what was left of its meat. But with the ebbing of passion came more human doubt and confusion, an awareness of exposure. The road was still close by, and an occasional car or truck swept past. The beast lay low when the engine roar grew near, but a niggling fear remained. Not the fear of a beast, but of a man.
A baffled regret welled up in the animal mind, as its all-too-human passenger asserted itself. A familiar sensation began to grow as limbs started to quiver, jaws began to shrink, and the senses of sight, taste, and hearing started to grow dull. The beast that had been free for a brief, wonderful chase faced an enemy it could not bite or claw into submission and howled inwardly as it was driven back, down into the darkness of a merely human mind.
***
“It’s a bit late,” Lonely said. “And my shoes are leaking.”
“Stop moaning if you want me to buy that first edition,” snapped Mortlake. “We’ve still got the light—help me, don’t just stand there.”
Together, they lifted a metal case out of the boot of the SUV and carried it to a picnic table. Mortlake opened the case and took out a remote control. Then he clicked a few switches and activated the drone. It was much bigger than the toy he’d used a few weeks earlier for flight training. He had only flown this one in the college quadrangle in ideal conditions, but he reckoned the first field test might as well be here as anywhere.
“Spook Force One,” said Lonely, as the machine rose hesitantly into the air, wobbled, then settled onto the grass.
“It doesn’t need a name!” Mortlake insisted. “And if it does, it’ll have a better one than that. Now, smile for the camera!”
He fiddled with the controls again. A screen in the lid of the metal case sprang to life, showing a patch of grass receding under the drone. Then the viewpoint swiveled, and Lonely and Mortlake came into view. Lonely made an obscene gesture, and the drone buzzed low over his head, prompting a few surly curses.
“Keep a lookout, make yourself useful,” said Mortlake sternly. “I don’t want some goon getting the jump on us while I’m spying on his lordship.”
He sent the drone down the hillside toward the point where Tara and Josh had encountered the creatures. The fence around the Mordaunt estate was clearly visible, along with the rundown gatehouse Tara had described. Mortlake kept the drone moving, dodging around the leafless trees, wishing he could see more detail. On this cloudy autumn afternoon, the light was dim, flat, making smaller objects harder to make out.
Then he saw the naked man.
“Bloody hell!”
The image wobbled as Mortlake almost lost control, then he made it swoop lower and start to keep pace with the running man. From the high angle, it was impossible to see the face, but he had thinning, fair hair and a slender build.
“He can’t be running around nude in this weather?” said Lonely, instantly forgetting his job of lookout to peer at the screen.
“Buttocks don’t lie!” Mortlake observed. “I wish I could see his face. Let’s see if I can get a little lower…”
The running man reached a point where the fence seemed to have been torn down and clambered through the gap. Another man came into view, a heavy-set type in dark, outdoor clothes. The newcomer was carrying some garments and shoes, and the naked man started to dress himself. Then the stocky man looked up and pointed at the drone. Mortlake immediately took the little aircraft higher, and the camera wobbled as it climbed. At that moment, the first man looked up, too, then pointedly averted his face and started to run, half-dressed, into the nearest clump of trees.
“Bugger!” Mortlake swore. “All right, let’s see where he came from.”
He began to guide the drone along the fence, swooping a little lower until it was about ten feet above the ground. Then he stopped, hovering above what looked, at first, like some old clothes half-hidden by holly bushes. It was only when he got lower that he saw the clothes were occupied by a body. Clothes and body were badly torn, and mostly black with bloodstains.
“The murdering bastards!” Mortlake exclaimed.
Suddenly, the camera lurched wildly and spun through the air. The image was lost in a storm of pixels. When it recovered, the drone was obviously lying on its side, the camera half-hi
dden by limp weeds. In the distance, a dark-clad figure was walking away.
“He shot us down, the scumbag!” Lonely exclaimed.
“Come on,” ordered Mortlake, tossing the remote into the case and slamming it shut. “We’ve got to get down there.”
Five minutes later, the SUV skidded to a halt on the grass verge near the holly bushes. The corpse was just visible from the road, if—as Lonely pointed out—you already knew where to look.
“Sometimes, wild animals hide the carcasses of their prey, intending to come back and finish them later,” Mortlake said as they got out. “But I’m not sure if that’s the case here.”
Despite the time of year, some flies had already found the corpse. Mortlake took some pictures on his phone and emailed them to Westall. Only then did he call the local police. Lonely, who had turned greenish at the sight of the victim, went back to the SUV and dry heaved out of sight of the road. Mortlake picked up the damaged drone. It had clearly been taken down by a shotgun, the pellets smashing one of the small rotors.
While they worked near the roadside, traffic passed by, some drivers slowing down to watch, most sparing the investigators a glance at most. Then a Land Rover appeared and pulled up a few yards from Mortlake’s rental. The tall, fair-haired man who got out was fully dressed, but Mortlake had no doubt he had already seen him once that afternoon. Behind the fair-haired man was a thick-set individual in dark clothes.
“Lord Gonfallon, I presume,” Mortlake said. “And your sharp-shooting sidekick.”
“I value my privacy,” said Gonfallon. “But if you would care to invoice me for your little spy toy, I’ll happily reimburse you.”
Mortlake gestured at the dead man.
“And who will you reimburse for that?” he demanded, suddenly struggling to control his rage. “What the hell is wrong with you?”
Gonfallon took a few steps to the holly bushes, glanced in, shook his head in apparent regret.
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