by Adam Carter
There had been a particularly bad storm last night, during which one Walter Chamberlain had been killed. His body had already washed up and there were no signs of abuse on his corpse. The coroner had labelled the death as non-suspicious and Laidlaw was happy with that. The Chamberlains were a wealthy, powerful family down in London and whilst Laidlaw was far from frightened of such people she preferred to have concrete evidence that his death had been a simple accident. No, Laidlaw wasn’t bothered about the Chamberlain aspect to this case.
It was Agnes McBright she was concerned with.
If Chamberlain had been murdered Agnes would have been the prime suspect. Laidlaw was only thankful the coroner had reported as he had. Laidlaw had herself gone to the house to see whether Miss McBright was alive and well, for there was every chance she had pitched over the cliff along with him. She had found Agnes in the house, in something of a daze. She had been talking to someone, although that someone simply wasn’t there any more. She had spoken something vaguely of a struggle. Chamberlain had done something, attacked her maybe, although there was no evidence of such about the house. Laidlaw was more than ready to put it all down to shock. Clearly Agnes had seen Chamberlain leave the house during the storm and watched him fall to his death. She may not have liked the man, but Agnes wouldn’t want to see someone die before her eyes. That Agnes was talking about someone else being present, however, was the only piece of the puzzle which made no sense.
Laidlaw had had the girl taken to a hospital. She was pale and withdrawn and showing all the symptoms of shock. Laidlaw figured she would question the girl once she had had a little rest. During the morning Detective Laidlaw had been filling in all her various paperwork; she had forgotten just how much there could be for a suspected death. Suspicious death, she corrected herself. God, she was tired.
Pulling up outside the hospital, Laidlaw went in to talk to Doctor Rawlin. She knew him well. In a small community like theirs, the police got to know doctors on a first name basis.
Rawlin was around sixty-five, bald with slight wispy hair refusing to depart. He wore thin glasses at all times, over a pinched nose. He was usually happy, his smile only accentuating his thin tapering chin. Laidlaw herself was about the same height: neither was taller than five-six. She was only in her thirties, however, how far into her thirties she would never tell. She had shoulder-length dark hair which always seemed to get into her eyes, although she would never cut it. She had been pretty once, and knew it, but the years on the force had given her bad skin and severe bags under her eyes. And she was always tired. She figured life wouldn’t be so bad just so long as she wasn’t always so tired.
“Agnes awake, Doc?”
Rawlin today was not smiling. Laidlaw already knew this was going to be bad.
“She’s dead isn’t she?” Laidlaw groaned.
“No,” Rawlin answered slowly, carefully, “but if you hadn’t got ta her when you did, she likely would be now.”
Laidlaw frowned. “Shock?”
“I found nae evidence of shock.”
“But tha paleness, tha disorientation, tha dizziness?”
“Symptoms of shock, aye, but not evidence.”
“Ye’ve lost me.”
“Agnes McBright was suffering from blood loss. Tha’s what caused the symptoms you’ve described.”
“Blood loss?”
“Mmm. And a lot of it. Was there much blood at the scene a tha crime?”
“Ah’m not even sure there was a crime committed, Doc.”
“Oh there was a crime committed all right.”
Laidlaw thought back. “There was nae blood. We checked the house over, there was nae blood anywhere.”
“That’s ... interesting.”
Laidlaw watched as the doctor consulted a chart, adjusting the glasses upon the end of his nose. This was not something she had expected. She had thought she would come in, have a quick word with Agnes, head back out and file her report. What Doctor Rawlin was telling her was confusing enough as it was, but there was something else he had said which was even stranger than the blood loss. “What da you mean by a crime being committed?”
“Hmm? Oh, yes. Agnes said there was a fight? That someone else was present?”
“Delusional ramblings, aye.”
“Maybe not. Maybe Chamberlain was doing something and this other fellow intervened. Or maybe this other fellow was doing it to her.”
“Doing what precisely?”
“Draining her blood.”
“Ye said that. I jus’ ... There was no blood at the house. You’re tellin’ me someone brought specialist equipment in to drain the girl’s blood?”
“Maybe Chamberlain was selling it. Any more and she would have died there and then. As it was, you got to her just in time, Detective.”
“Is she awake?”
“Aye.”
“Is she coherent?”
Rawlin shrugged. “She does nae remember anything, tha’s for sure. Just snippets. Nothing you can use.”
“But no one moved any blood out of the house. They wouldn’t a gone through the storm, and we would have noticed if someone came down from the house this morning, surely.”
“You’d think so.”
“There’s something else.” She could always tell when Rawlin was being evasive. “Spit it out, ah’m really not in the mood for this today, Doctor.”
“All right. She was having a dream earlier. She was moaning.”
“In what way?”
“Fear and ecstasy, I would say.”
“Fear and ... What does that mean?”
Rawlin shrugged. “It was as though half her subconscious was hating whatever she was reliving, while the other half welcomed it.”
“Like a drug?”
“We’ve run a blood toxicity.” He handed her the results sheet. It showed there had been no known foreign substances in her bloodstream. Laidlaw frowned, however, for there was something marked on the sheet she didn’t understand. “Yes,” Rawlin said, noticing her expression. “We have nae idea what that is either.”
“But it was in her bloodstream?”
“Aye. It matches no known organism. So far as we can tell, it’s a residue. It was spread throughout her body, but concentrated at her wrist. There were also two pinpricks on tha same wrist.”
“Caused by what?”
“Unknown. But from what we can determine, the substance in her bloodstream may be saliva.”
“Saliva?”
“Detective, do you know how a bat feeds?”
“No.”
“It bites its prey to make a wound, and licks it. The saliva of the bat prevents tha blood of the victim from coagulating so it can continue to feed until it’s sated. It’s not a professional opinion yet, but it looks tha same here.”
“You’re telling me a bat attacked Agnes McBright?”
Rawlin raised both hands. “Ah would nae presume to tell you how to do your job, Detective.”
Laidlaw decided the only way to get any real answers would be to question the victim herself. Perhaps Agnes could remember a bat flying around the ceiling or something. It was a long shot, but right at that moment even a long shot would have got Laidlaw back in bed for some shuteye, so it was something she was more than willing to test.
As she was approaching the ward however she realised there was someone already with the young woman. Laidlaw supposed she was a friend, since she didn’t much look like a relative. Even in her tired state bells were ringing in Laidlaw’s brain, and she hung back to eavesdrop on the two. Agnes was awake, although clearly very weak. She was hooked up to a machine to monitor her vitals. It was likely standard procedure following a massive blood transfusion. Laidlaw appraised the other woman then. She was Chinese, fairly short, with determined eyes. Laidlaw had seen eyes like that before, in the mirror every morning.
The two were talking of nothing, and Laidlaw knew the standard victim interrogation technique when she saw it; get your subject to talk, about anything,
and slowly draw the conversation around to what you want to know. It had to be a gentle technique with regards a victim of a crime, but this stranger seemed to be in something of a hurry.
Also, this woman sounded English, which was always a bad sign.
Laidlaw stepped out of hiding when the passing nurses began giving her strange looks, and stood at the foot of Agnes’s bed. She glanced at the chart, although it meant nothing to her. “You’ve had a bit of a bad night, Agnes,” she said matter-of-factly.
“So ah’m told,” Agnes replied.
The Chinese woman rose but Laidlaw waved her back down. “Oh, don’t leave on my account, Detective.”
The stranger blinked. “How did you know I was a detective?”
Laidlaw smiled. “Catherine Laidlaw. My friends would call me Cathy, but ah don’t have any. Shift-work tends to make you want to sleep whenever you’re off. But then ah don’t have to tell you that.”
The woman seemed to realise there was no escape and she said, “Sue Lin. I’m staying in a local hotel and became friendly with a man who works there. David Henderson. Turns out he’s a friend of Agnes and he was worried about her. So I thought I’d come see how she was doing.”
Laidlaw raised an eyebrow. “You know, that was the guiltiest thing I’ve ever heard anyone ever say. And ah never even asked you any questions.”
“I didn’t want you thinking I was stepping on your toes.”
“So you’re here officially?”
“No, of course not. I work out of London.”
“Right.” Detective Lin was the most defensive woman Laidlaw had ever met. Either that, or she knew far more about this situation than anyone. “Agnes, what happened out there?”
Agnes shivered at the very thought of remembering. “Ah don’t know. Ah honestly don’t remember much. Guess ah just blacked out or something.”
“Who killed Chamberlain, Agnes?”
“Killed him?” Agnes looked at both women in surprise. “I thought he fell in the storm?”
“There was someone there last night,” Laidlaw pressed. “Someone else, you said.”
“I know ah did,” Agnes said. “My head hurts, Detective, ah’m not even sure what day it is.”
“Thursday. Day of thunder.” She caught Lin staring at her. It wasn’t Thursday, no, but Laidlaw was being poetic. “Do you remember the tubes they hooked you up to?”
Agnes blinked. “Tubes?”
“Probably like the one in your arm right now. Did ye fight them? There aren’t any drugs in your system, so we know they didn’t sedate ye. Ye were desperate for money, Agnes, tha’s why you took the job babysitting Chamberlain ta begin with. What else did you do for money?” There were many ways of speaking to a victim. One may have been gaining the woman’s confidence, but Laidlaw had always favoured barrelling straight in and accusing her of as much as possible.
“I’m sorry,” Lin said, “but what are you getting at?”
Laidlaw turned a steely glare upon her. “Do you know who else was at the house, Detective? Maybe you were there?”
“Of course I wasn’t there.”
Laidlaw could see Lin was hiding something, although she certainly didn’t seem to know what was going on. She doubted Lin understood the chart any more than she did, and Lin likely hadn’t spoken to the doctor either. “Someone was draining Agnes’s blood,” Laidlaw said straight, and wasn’t surprised at the shocked expression on Lin’s face. “Ah’m askin’ whether you were selling yer blood, Agnes. Because if you weren’t, someone’s been committing a very sick crime indeed.”
Agnes had gone pale once more, and Laidlaw judged that indeed she had known nothing about it. That was one avenue of the investigation closed then, although it would have been the easiest to follow. If Agnes was really so hard-up for money to be selling her own blood at least Laidlaw would have a start. Now her only lead seemed to be this English detective.
“Do you know anyone who markets blood?” she asked Lin.
Lin was shaking her head in horror, and once more Laidlaw could see she knew something she wasn’t sharing.
“Lin?”
Lin’s head snapped up and she rose. “I have to go.”
“Oh no, ye’re not going anywhere. Ah want some answers first, Detective.”
Lin seemed barely cognisant of where she was. She was panicked, looked as though she might even throw up, and Laidlaw decided she most certainly wasn’t letting her get away without answering some questions.
Just then there was a commotion and Laidlaw saw a man approaching rapidly from the other end of the ward. He was young and worried, and when he saw Agnes he almost broke into tears.
“Not so fast,” Laidlaw told him, physically blocking his approach. “And who might you be?”
“David. David Henderson, I’m a friend of Agnes. What happened? The doctor said she was drained of blood!”
The young man was distraught and this was all Laidlaw needed right then. “Just take a seat for now,” she said, “while I deal with ...” But Detective Lin had vanished. Slipped away into the shadows. Laidlaw set her jaw firm. She had no clearer idea now of what was going on than she had five minutes ago, but if she could track down Detective Lin she would have her answers. Somehow Laidlaw knew England was at the heart of all their problems. She knew full well who Chamberlain was and what he had been accused of. Perhaps someone had sent in a hit man to throw him off a cliff.
How draining young women of blood fit into all of that Laidlaw did not know. But she was determined to find out before she had a second death on her hands.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Detective Lin fought the sickness rising from her stomach. Her heart was pounding and she continuously grasped her hands into fists, but the motion did nothing to staunch the sweat her body was exuding. She had no idea what was going on, but whatever Baronaire had done to Agnes it wasn’t natural. In her line of work Lin had dealt with the worst of society, what she had considered the whole range of sickos. But this was beyond her work, beyond WetFish, beyond anything she could ever have thought.
There had been no equipment in the house, no evidence there had ever been any, and no way such equipment could have been removed so quickly. Whatever Baronaire had been doing to Agnes, he had not been using any tools. But where had the blood gone? That Agnes would have died had Lin not found her when she had was without question. One question Lin did actually have was: how many times had Baronaire done this before?
And what precisely had he done?
She did not return to the hotel. She did not really know where she was headed, her mind was such a maelstrom of panic. She stopped at last and looked up. She was surprised to have found herself before a church. It wasn’t an especially large building, but its grounds spread before her as stone testimony to the dead. Staring up at the rising spire of the holy place, Lin felt a sudden chill run down her spine. Memories of the haunted house were locked within her brain. The night she and Davina had spent alone, huddled together and afraid while Old Man Dennis prowled around outside to frighten them. But Old Man Dennis wasn’t a real ghost; he was just a strange person who got his kicks out of scaring teenage girls.
Charles Baronaire, it seemed, was a true monster.
Lin didn’t know why she was heading inside the church, but supposed it was because it was a quiet place to think. She had never been especially religious, although her parents had tried their best to drum their beliefs into her. Through her life Lin had relied upon herself and her faith in her friends. It had always been enough. Now she was beginning to doubt.
There were few people in the church. The pews were wide and silent, the hall cold and foreboding. The tall windows allowed in ample light, which she always knew was their intent, yet the more light there was the stronger the shadows.
She found a seat away from anyone else and sat. The priest was sorting through something towards the altar, perhaps readying the prayers for the following morning. It was illogical, but Lin felt a certain safety in his pres
ence, as though he would somehow be able to fight the demons should they reach for her.
Baronaire was ever in her mind. To drain the blood of an innocent girl ... Lin could still find no logic behind it. None of it made any sense. If Baronaire was a bat, or a gnat, things would be clearer, but human beings did not have an anticoagulant in their saliva, so he had to have introduced it into the girl’s bloodstream artificially.
She remembered the cellar then, that she had not gone down to it. Perhaps that was where the equipment was. Perhaps Baronaire did indeed have equipment, had stored it away. Whether this was the case, it did not make him any less of a monster.
“You’re afraid of me.”
Lin jumped, for the voice had come from behind. She could feel him now, so close, sitting behind her. She had not heard him come in, but could smell the fabric of his trench coat, could feel the breath of his whisper upon the back of her neck. She did not react, save her eyes widening in uncontrollable fear. Her vision was locked upon the priest, willing him to come over, to save her. But she could form no words.
“I thought we were partners,” Baronaire said.
“What did you do to her?” Lin managed to whisper, sacrilege to speak any louder in their present surroundings.
“Foster? I ditched her, and it wasn’t easy.”
If it was possible, Lin’s eyes widened further. They were so straining now it hurt. “Sharon,” she whispered.
“I lost her in a shoe shop. Scary places, shoe shops.”
Lin did not know whether to believe a word he was saying, but there was nothing she could do about it right that moment if he was lying. “Agnes is alive.”
“Good.”
“You almost killed her.”
“What makes you think it was me?”
“What did you do?”
There were several moments of silence, during which time Lin felt perhaps Baronaire had even left the church entirely. But then he said, “What do you know about me?”
“Know about you?” Her brain worked furiously. “Nothing. You asked me to find out what Sanders knows about you, but you haven’t even told me what you know about yourself.”
