by Adrian Wills
The aroma of burning wood hung in the air, and it didn't take him long to identify the source as a red brick pub called the Red Lion. Inside, the air was warm from a roaring log fire in a corner of a compact lounge that was all but deserted. He approached the bar where the landlord was wiping the surfaces clean with a towel. Blake ordered a pint of local ale with a quirky name and pulled up a stool.
'Is it always this quiet?' Blake asked.
'It is these days. It's not like it used to be.'
Blake estimated the landlord to be in his late sixties, but he might have been younger. A drinker's nose, bulbous and reddened with broken blood vessels, aged him considerably.
'I'm sorry to hear that.'
'Here on your own?'
'For the time being,' said Blake. 'We're thinking of moving out of town, and fancied something more rural. I'm spending a few days exploring the area.'
The landlord looked disapproving. 'Not many places left the locals can afford,' he said.
Blake drank deeply from his pint, ignoring the faintly veiled criticism. 'It's a lovely village. Just what we're looking for.'
'A bit too quiet at times.'
'Have you lived here all your life?'
'For the best part of thirty years. But they've only just accepted us as locals.' The landlord laughed at his own joke.
'You know the area well then? Would you help me get my bearings?' asked Blake. He'd brought the computer notebook with him, and placed it on the bar. When he flipped open the lid, the screen slowly revealed a satellite image of the village, grey blocks of buildings surrounded by green squares of fields and countryside. 'We're here, right?'
Blake pointed at the screen. The church, graveyard, and square were easily identifiable at the centre of the village.
The landlord slipped on a pair of reading glasses that had been hanging on a chain around his neck, and squinted at the imagery. 'Yes, that's right.'
'And opposite, of course, is the church.'
'St Mary's, yes. That's where the village shop used to be.' The landlord ran a stubby finger across the screen. 'But, of course, that's been converted into a house now.'
'And this building behind the church must be the old rectory?'
'Still owned by the church for the moment, and it's probably worth a small fortune if they ever decided to put it on the market.'
'And most of the land around the village is farmland as far as I can see. Is it all owned by the same farmer?'
'No, there're two families. The Harpers have this bit,' the landlord poked his finger at the screen again. 'And the Goddards own this bit.'
'And I heard about a place called Stoneleigh. Do you know it?'
'Stoneleigh Cottage? Rosie Thomas' old place? I'm afraid you're a bit late. They've sold it already.'
'That's a shame,' said Blake, feigning disappointment. 'It was on my list to check out.'
'Rosie was living there on her own right up to the end. Ninety-two she was. Refused to have any home help, I heard. No real family to speak of neither, although somebody said she had a son in London.'
'And the house has been sold already?'
'It was on the market for ages, but it only sold a few weeks back.'
'Any idea who bought it?'
'Not that I've heard.'
'Can you show me on the map?' asked Blake. 'Out of curiosity.'
The landlord pointed to a small square a mile or so outside the village, surrounded by fields on three sides, a wooded area to the rear, and a meandering track leading to it from the main road.
'I hope the new owners have deep pockets. It'll need a bit of work. Don't think Rosie had a thing done to it since Stan died, and that must be getting on for fifteen years. You want a refill?' The landlord nodded at Blake's empty glass.
Blake ordered a pint of the same, and a plate of pie and mash from a menu on the bar.
'The only way in is via this track from the main road, is it?' he asked.
'That's right. Like I said, it needs a bit of modernising really.'
Blake stared at the satellite image a little longer, making a mental note of the geography surrounding Stoneleigh Cottage and assessing the terrain before snapping the notebook closed.
'Do you have any rooms? As I said, I'm here for a few days and I could do with a decent bed for the night.'
'Only a few, but you're in luck. Tonight you can take your pick.'
Blake woke early the next morning, feeling refreshed from a decent night's sleep, which he attributed to the country air and the unusually dark night. No light pollution this far from London.
He reached for a lamp on the bedside table. It threw a yellow light across the room and illuminated a walnut chest of drawers and a wicker-backed chair where he'd laid his clothes out the previous evening. He swung out of bed and took a shower. The water came out tepid and at little more than a slow trickle, but was sufficient to cleanse his body and invigorate his senses. He threw on a pair of canvas trousers and a heavy-duty cotton shirt over a long-sleeved base layer, and slipped out of his room.
The pub was silent. Blake checked his watch. Evidently, no one else had stirred so early. He padded across the landing in his woollen walking socks, carrying his boots and let himself out of a back door that opened into a small courtyard.
Outside, the air was thick with early morning mist and the aroma of the countryside. A pungent blend of mud and manure. The sun was weakly filtering through heavy cloud providing just enough light to see, and after checking his bearings, Blake headed off in the direction of a footpath he'd noted earlier on the map.
The muddy path cut along the edge of a sheep field, and after two hundred yards, turned due south, over a stile and into a second pasture where the wild grass had grown tall and was thick with dew. It left Blake's trousers soaked from the knee down. The village quickly disappeared behind him, hidden by hedgerows tangled with brambles and old dog rose heavy with puckering red hips.
The wood behind Stoneleigh Cottage came into view as Blake crested a hillock, the tips of tall Scots pines reaching for the sky. He noticed a curious symmetry about the trees, which had been planted equidistant from each other so that no matter at which angle you looked, they appeared to be arranged in arrow straight lines. Under the canopy of their branches, the temperature was a degree or two warmer and the ground was covered in a carpet of dead pine needles where no vegetation grew other than few grotesque mushrooms sprouting from the base of some of the trunks. The silence was eerie. Nothing stirred, not even a gentle breeze. Blake shuddered and pressed on, making a beeline for the cottage at the far side of the copse.
He found it on a bearing to his left, and congratulated himself that his sense of direction had brought him within twenty yards of the house without a map. Stoneleigh was a simple, regular shaped two-storey building with a slate-tiled roof and an unkempt garden of brambles surrounded by a low, crumbling stone wall. A rectangular porch, tacked onto the rear, looked as though it was a later addition.
Blake crept to the edge of the wood and, knowing he was well hidden in the gloom, scanned the building for signs of life. Drab curtains hanging from the upstairs windows hadn't been drawn, which indicated it was either unoccupied or Proctor was sleeping in a room at the front. No lights were on, so Blake assumed that if Proctor was living there, he was probably still asleep.
He scouted through the cover of trees to his right for a better perspective on the house, and noted a red hatchback car parked at an angle in the drive. It was an ageing, indistinct Renault splattered with mud and with a window on the passenger side left open a fraction. Blake made a mental note of the number plate, and stepped out of the shadows. He jogged across the open ground, trying to keep low, and was half way to the stone wall when he noticed movement behind the glass of the porch door. Someone was reaching for the handle. He heard the click of the latch, and the door swung slowly inwards.
Blake stood, and sprinted hard with legs and arms pumping. If he didn't make the cover of the wall
he'd be spotted the moment the door was fully open. Four yards out, he dived onto his stomach and crashed through a patch of wild undergrowth. He hit the wall with his shoulder, and pressed his body flat into the ground, his heart pumping and his senses wired.
The porch door slammed shut, and feet trotted along a concrete path. Blake held his breath, listening for any clue that his noisy arrival had raised an alarm but it was evident that whoever had come out of the house was walking in the opposite direction. Blake pushed himself up on his arms, and peered over the top of the wall. A lumbering figure was sauntering towards the Renault. His head was close shaven, and his arms adorned with tattoos. But even from behind, it was clear to Blake that it wasn't Ben Proctor.
Chapter 19
As he turned towards the car, Blake saw Mike Clark's face. Pinched and narrow. On his upper arm, an Aryan eagle with its wings spread was tattooed in dark ink. He was whistling to himself and swinging a car key around his finger. Clark opened the driver's door and jumped in behind the wheel. The engine caught on the second attempt, rattling into life on what sounded like three cylinders. Clark crunched the gears, and hit the accelerator hard, spinning the front wheels in the mud until they gained enough traction to send the car hurtling through a tight turn and along the track to the main road.
Blake noted the time, and gave himself fifteen minutes to finish what he'd come to do. Clark could return at any time. He stepped over the wall, picked his way through the overgrown garden, and let himself into the house through the porch.
Immediately before him, a narrow staircase rose steeply up to the first floor. To his left was an empty room he guessed had been a dining area. Worn patches on the patterned carpet revealed where a table and chairs had stood for many years. Beyond it was a kitchen with dirty dishes piled in a stained, metal sink. Generations of cooking smells and grime clung to every surface.
Blake stole back to the hallway, and poked his head around a door to the right of the stairs. Another empty room, which looked as if it might once have been a lounge. He wandered towards a window overlooking the drive, and pulled back a net curtain discoloured with age. The paint around the frame was flaking, but the window seemed to be in working order. Blake flipped a catch open and peered through the filthy pane in the direction the Renault had disappeared.
When a floorboard creaked above Blake's head, he froze, listening for movement, and then crept back to the bottom of the stairs where swirling floral paper lined the walls. The elevation was so steep it was like looking up the face of a mountain, and Blake wondered how the old lady had managed them in her later years. Perhaps she hadn't and for a moment he was distracted with the thought of the fragile frame of the elderly Rosie Thomas curled up on a couch living out her days on the ground floor.
Blake took the stairs slowly, pausing on each one to listen. When he reached the landing, he found three closed doors, and chose one at random. It was in darkness behind heavy, closed curtains. A crumpled heap of bedclothes was laid out under the window, and the rancorous stench of body odour and stale cigarette smoke saturated the air. Empty beer cans were scattered around the floor, and a yellow, plastic lighter was balanced on a pack of Marlboro red tops next to an overflowing ashtray and a pile of dirty clothes; a pair of jeans, a black T-shirt, and a dark fleece jacket. Proctor's clothes.
From another room, he heard the sudden rush of water. A toilet being flushed. Blake returned to the landing as an adjacent door flew open. Proctor appeared semi-naked and bleary-eyed from a dingy bathroom. He was wearing only a crumpled pair of boxer shorts that hung from his narrow waist. A gold triskelion swung from a chain around his neck, just above the wound where he'd been branded on his chest by the Phineas Priests, angry and inflamed against his pallid skin.
Blake was across the landing in three strides. In his sleep-induced haze, Proctor hadn't even registered the intruder. Blake tapped him three times on the shoulder. 'Sleep now, Ben,' he said, softly.
His words seeped into Proctor's subconscious mind like fine sand flowing through a sieve. His muscles softened, his eyes rolled closed, and his chin dropped onto his chest. He allowed Blake to escort him back to his room without protest, and lay down on his makeshift bed.
Blake sat on the floor with his back against the wall and pulled his knees up to his chest. 'I thought you'd deserted me, Ben. You certainly took some tracking down.'
Proctor was lying with his hands resting on his stomach, a passive expression on his face.
'But now I've found you, I need a copy of your door key, please. I'm sure Mike won't be so generous in leaving the door open in future.' Blake grabbed Proctor's fleece, and fished in the pockets until he found a silver key on a metal ring. 'This it? In the pocket of your top?'
'Yes,' said Proctor, in a monotone.
Blake held it between the tips of his index finger and thumb, and used his phone to take a three dimensional scan that he would later send to Patterson to create a replica.
'Now, I need to know what you've been up to, Ben.' Proctor's chest rose and fell in a slow rhythm. 'Who were those men who picked you up from the flat?'
'The Phineas Priests.'
'Why did they take you to that wood?'
'It was a ceremony to welcome us into the priesthood,' said Proctor, his eyes flickering behind their lids.
'I was watching from a distance. Do you understand? I saw Ken Longhurst. He was talking to you both. What did he say?'
'He wanted to reward our commitment. He told us it was an honour to be accepted into the priesthood, and that we'd be given extra responsibilities now he knew he could trust us.'
'It's excellent progress, Ben. You've done a fantastic job getting accepted into the inner circle. Did he elaborate on what extra responsibilities he wants you to take on?'
'We're -' Proctor hesitated.
'Go on, Ben. What is it?'
'He said we weren't to talk to anyone about it. We're not even allowed to speak of the existence of the priests.'
'I understand, but remember you don't work for Longhurst. You work for me, and for your country now. It's your duty to tell me everything you learn about the BFA and their connection with the Phineas Priests. Is that clear?’ Said Blake.
'Yes.'
Blake rose to his feet, and pulled back the curtain a fraction to confirm they weren't about to be disturbed by the return of Mike Clark.
'What did Longhurst tell you the purpose of the Phineas Priests is?'
‘To fight the threat from foreign migrants and to secure Britain for the British,' said Proctor.
'How?'
'By any means necessary.'
'That's what Longhurst said?'
'Yes. He wants us to fight the immigrants and the Islamists.'
'Did he say why?'
'They're threatening our way of life. They're envious of our freedoms, and they want to destroy them. They've taken our jobs, and threaten our communities, but most of them can't even speak English. They don't want to live by our rules, and they're trying to drive us out of our homes.'
'That's what Longhurst told you?'
'Yes.'
'Has he given you any specific instructions or orders?'
Proctor's brow furrowed. 'He says we have to take direct action to show the country won't lie down and pander to the liberal left. He wants us to take the fight to them.'
'What about this house? What's with the move to Nutwick?'
'The house belongs to the priests.'
'I guessed that but what's wrong with London?'
'It's somewhere where we can keep our heads down,' said Proctor.
'Why do you need to keep your heads down?'
'In preparation for our assignment.'
'What assignment, Ben?'
Before Proctor could answer, they were interrupted by the sound of a car door being slammed. Blake sprang to his feet, and pulled the curtain back. Mike Clark was striding towards the house with a smouldering cigarette between the fingers of one hand and a carton of mil
k in the other.
'We don't have much time. Mike's back, so keep your voice down. I need to know what assignment you've been set.' Blake knelt at Proctor's side and placed his ear close to his mouth.
Proctor spoke quietly as instructed. Blake's eyes opened wide as the enormity of what he was being told struck him.
'Where?' asked Blake. But Proctor didn't have an answer.
Mike Clark's voice hollered up the stairs. 'Oi, Ben, you lazy git. You up yet?'
'Ben, you need to wake up now. You won't remember this conversation, and you'll forget that you've seen me in the house. You are Ben Proctor, and you are a valued and trusted member of the Phineas Priests.' Blake helped Proctor to his feet, and manoeuvred him out onto the landing. 'Start counting backwards from ten, and when you reach zero you'll be wide awake. Then go down stairs and keep him in the kitchen for the next five minutes. Understood.'
Proctor nodded, and started counting under his breath.
'Ben? Are you there?'
Blake slipped back into Proctor's room, silently closed the door, and prepared his escape.
Chapter 20
Blake had already determined there was only one option if he had to leave in a hurry. It was the window and a short drop onto the drive or nothing. He drew back the curtains, and let the early morning daylight flood into the room through glass encrusted with a film of dirt. It looked as if the sash window hadn't been opened in years, but with a little effort it gave way an inch, and a blast of cold air swept in, washing away the stale fug inside.
Below, he heard two male voices, deep and low. No urgency. No alarm. Proctor was doing his job keeping Mike Clark occupied, although he would have no conscious idea that he was following Blake's instructions. Blake forced the lower sash open wider until he was able to jam his shoulder under it and drove through his thighs, dislodging years of dirt and grime that had virtually welded the window shut. He stuck his head through the opening and assessed the drop. A clump of bushes immediately below should break his fall.
He listened again, but noticed the voices had fallen silent, and then he heard the resonant thud of boots plodding up the stairs and echoing through the building.
