by C. R. Berry
“Yes, Mr Skinner?”
“Miss Morgan, Gregory Ferro just met with the Larson girl again. He played her the recording of his meeting with Sophie Rousseau. She’s come round to his theories – I think she’s going to start helping him. They’re planning a trip to France to find evidence of the Fiat Uno involved in Diana’s crash.”
Skinner heard the clank of a china mug slamming against a coaster. “I’ve already let this go too far. If those two dig any deeper, we’re in real danger of being compromised.”
“What do you want me to do?”
Miss Morgan let out a low, ragged breath. Skinner heard rustling and crinkling and the metallic twang of a lighter. Familiar sounds. Miss Morgan was a chain-smoker.
“Kill Ferro,” she said finally, her command falling effortlessly off a deep inhalation. “Kill him and destroy his research.”
“And Larson?”
“Kill her too.”
11
July 7th 1483
In a few short months Richard Plantagenet had gone from Duke of Gloucester to Lord Protector of the Realm to King of England. His power had been cemented by a glorious coronation ceremony at Westminster Abbey and though his road to the throne had been long, bloody and at times underhand, he was finally at the end of it, about to start a new one. One, he hoped, with a little less death on it.
The morning after his coronation, Richard awoke to find cloudless skies outside his window and fragrant summer air wafting into his bedchamber. Moments later, his queen, Anne Neville, stirred.
He gazed at her. She really was perfect. Could a man like him be this lucky?
Anne said nothing, just smiled, lust in her eyes, which seemed as blue as the sky. She placed his crown back on his head and climbed on top of him for a repeat of last night, and was again the untamed animal that exhilarated him so.
But, in the middle of their lovemaking, Richard found his mind wandering. He kept thinking about his crown, how he wasn’t used to it being there, and wasn’t sure he liked it. It was heavier than he’d expected it to be. He remembered the ache in his neck yesterday after he’d been wearing it all day. Now that ache was back and he couldn’t help but wonder if the Lord was trying to tell him something. Namely, that his crown was only as heavy as the price paid by others for him to wear it.
Richard couldn’t believe the Lord was punishing him, though. That wouldn’t make sense. The Lord wanted this. The Lord put him here.
Didn’t He?
As soon as they’d finished, they untangled themselves from the sweaty bed sheets, breathless, hearts pounding. And as Anne leaned on Richard’s chest, brushing her fingertips across the jewels in his crown, gazing into his eyes, he found himself questioning even her love for him, too. That is, how a woman as perfect as she could be in love with a man with so much blood on his hands the skin was stained red.
Why was he so full of doubts this morning? Perhaps it was all the wine from last night; it had certainly left his head woolly.
Still, he was compelled to ask, “Do you truly love me, Anne?”
“A foolish question,” Anne said, dabbing the glistening sweat on her cheeks and forehead with her spindly fingers. “You know I do.”
“In spite of what I have done? All the things I have done to be able to wear this crown?”
“My king, I do not love you in spite of them. I love you for them.” She leaned closer to his face, kissing his cheek and then his lips. “I married you because you have what I look for in a man: ambition, strength, ruthlessness.”
“I fear – maybe too much.”
“You can never have too much of those things. But compassion – you can have too much of that. Compassion is what threatens to lead you astray, my king. You must remember to vanquish such feelings as soon as they emerge. Clean hands may as well be cut off.”
So she liked his stained hands. Good. Still, when were they too red even for her?
“But Anne, when is it too much? How far is too far? If the people knew what I had done, they would turn against me in a moment. I would go down in history as England’s most despised king.”
“Your Grace, do not speak such folly. The people are sheep. Helpless, feeble-minded sheep. They need a strong guiding hand and you are it. You are their shepherd.”
“Only because I have cheated them. Because I have murdered my own brothers. Imprisoned both my nephews and used false pretences to rescind their claims to the throne. Because I have permanently silenced all their guardians and allies. Lies, deceit and bloodshed are how I won England’s throne.”
“Enough!” She slapped his face. Her lips were clenched, her eyes inflamed.
Please don’t be angry. Richard felt his eyes water. He reached to cover his stinging cheek with his palm.
“Do not become weak and pathetic now,” said Anne, her voice as sharp as his arming sword. “I will not allow it. Everything we have done has been for the good of this country and you know it. Your brother George was an imbecile. Your brother Edward was an ailing, ineffectual king – a puppet of those insidious Woodvilles – and his sons are cut from the same stone. This country needs rulers who are strong if the wars that so burdened the beginning of your brother’s reign are to be prevented from reigniting. The white rose of York must continue to flourish. The red rose of Lancaster must never bloom again.”
“You are right, my love,” Richard whispered. He remembered why she was so important to him – she always knew how to allay the confusion in his head. “I apologise. Unreservedly. I fear my conscience sometimes betrays my logic.”
Anne, even as she lay naked in bed, breasts exposed and hair in disarray, was the embodiment of confidence. “Do not let it. You should refrain from looking inward for advice. You have me for that. And I have some for you now.”
“What advice is that, my queen?”
“Your task is not yet complete. You have the crown of England, but it does not sit securely on your head while your nephews remain in the Tower. We may have convinced Parliament to declare them bastards, but those boys will remain a threat to you as long as they are alive. Your enemies will use them as a cause for rebellion and fight in their names.”
He paused and looked deep into her eyes. He knew what she was saying, but couldn’t bring himself to think it, so he asked her anyway, “Anne, what is it you’re suggesting?”
“Fool!” She slapped him again, harder. “My words could not be plainer. If you do not have those boys killed, our crowns could be taken from us. Do you want that? I know that I am not prepared to lose mine.”
Richard’s cheek throbbed and his lips quivered. He felt winded, more by her words than her strike. He had hoped he’d reached the end of his bloody road to the throne. But Anne was right. There was another mile to go. He shook his head, saying, “It must be the air this morning. You are right, of course. I will make certain that neither of us lose the crowns we have fought so hard for.”
“Good.” Her glare thawed to a soft smile. She leaned towards his face, nipples grazing the matted black hairs on his chest, and kissed him softly on the lips. “Forgive my outburst, Your Grace. I live to serve. I dreamed of us in the small hours and I fear it has only intensified my passion.”
“Tell me.”
“I dreamed that we had been king and queen of England for many peaceful, prosperous years. Our faces were lined and jaded, our hair grey, and we died in each other’s arms, of old age, beneath a starry sky. Weary but content. My king, I am certain that it was a vision. A message from God that our reign shall be long and distinguished. Perhaps the most illustrious that the kingdom of England has ever seen. We have to make sure that we do not stray from the path God has laid for us.”
It was strange that Richard’s dreams were quite the opposite. He’d thought since he was a boy that he would meet a grisly fate at a young age on the battlefield. But then he trusted his queen implicitly. The moment she said it, he knew her vision was real and his own doubts and fears were mere tricks of the Devil.
&n
bsp; He could see quite clearly now that this was God’s plan. And the next stage of that plan – as distasteful as it was – was to dispose of his two nephews in the Tower.
“I love you, Anne,” he whispered, wrapping his queen in his arms. “The princes will die today.”
12
October 23rd 2019
After Jennifer left, Ferro went into the kitchen to make another cup of peppermint tea, excited to have found a companion in his, thus far, lonely quest. And even though he had no money to book anything yet, he was going to start planning their trip to Lagny-en-Brie, working on the assumption that Jennifer wasn’t going to change her mind.
Damn. No teabags. He needed his last one of the day or he wouldn’t sleep. Sanjay’s would still be open. He’d pop in there.
He threw on his coat and shoes and headed up the road. Sanjay was in the process of closing early – his daughter wasn’t well – but he was kind enough to let Ferro buy his teabags first, particularly as Ferro was not just a customer of late but an employee as well.
Walking back, Ferro noted the stillness of Cavalier Road. It was often like this. Peaceful. It was probably because most of the residents were retirees.
But the stillness meant he could hear everything – including, as he neared his house, the very faint crunch of footsteps that weren’t his.
He stopped and turned around. The sound had come from behind him, but there was no one there.
Did he imagine it?
He glanced in all directions. Nothing and no one. Maybe it was just the trees. He continued on to his house.
He went inside, reboiled the kettle and brewed himself a cup.
Planning to spend a few more hours in his study before bed, he piled all the materials he’d gone through with Jennifer into his arms and switched off the downstairs lights.
It was as he turned off the lamp in the dining room that he caught a flicker of movement through the French doors to the garden. He walked over to them and looked out.
The garden was dark and still. Probably just next door’s cat again.
He shivered. For some reason he felt on edge tonight.
He took his tea and research materials upstairs to his study, where ordered chaos reigned. Books, printouts, photocopies, translations, maps, diagrams, handwritten notes, post-its and stationery were everywhere, like a burglar had ransacked the place searching for something. Still, Ferro liked it that way. As much as it didn’t look like it, he knew where everything was. And this way, he had everything to hand. If he started filing away notes, papers and books into drawers, vital pieces of the jigsaw he was assembling might fall away, forgotten.
The moment he sat down to start planning his trip to Lagny-en-Brie, his phone rang, and he was hit by a twinge of hope that it was Beth calling to say she wanted to cancel the divorce proceedings and come home.
He felt that twinge of hope every time it rang, but, to be honest, it was getting weaker. He had (reluctantly) acknowledged receipt of the divorce petition within the seven days stipulated. He’d hoped she might withdraw the petition before that, but she didn’t. And she still wouldn’t speak to him. Not properly. Not unless it was to do with Maggie and Ryan, or via solicitors. She seemed to have no desire to entertain the prospect of a friendship with him. Admittedly, things hadn’t been right between them for some time, but were twenty-three years of marriage not worth anything?
He looked at his phone’s touchscreen. Private number calling. He answered with a tentative, “Hello?”
“Is… is this Gregory Ferro?”
His heart sank. It was a man’s voice, slightly muffled. One he didn’t recognise. “Yes. Who’s this?”
“I – I need to tell you…” The man was slurring and breathing heavily, his words trailing off.
“Yes?”
“It’s about… about the people I work for. I’ve learned… things.”
Ferro repeated, “Who is this?”
“You need to know. Everybody needs to know.” The caller paused, swallowed and took another deep breath. “Mr Ferro, the people I work for… are the people you’re looking for.”
This astonishing phone call lasted three and a half minutes. Afterwards Ferro stood motionless in the middle of his study, not sure what to do, what to think.
Jennifer.
He searched his contacts for Jennifer’s number and called her.
Damn. She wasn’t answering. It rang eight times and went to voicemail, so he left her a message telling her everything.
A door creaked downstairs. Ferro stopped mid-sentence, froze.
It must’ve been the dining room door. It was the only one with squeaky hinges. Ferro had been meaning to put some WD-40 on them for months, just hadn’t got around to it.
A draught? But there were no windows open. It was October.
Ferro turned out of his study onto the landing. He stood at the top of the stairs, looked down at his dark hallway for any sign of movement in the shadows.
“H-hello? Is… someone there?”
No answer. Ferro started down the stairs, slowly, left hand squeezing the banister, right hand holding his phone, voicemail still recording.
“Beth, is that you? Maggie? Ryan?” They were the only ones with keys.
The moment he was down, he switched on the hallway light. No one there. The dining room door was half-open. As he’d left it. As he thought he’d left it. He went in, switched on the light, glanced around. He did the same in the kitchen.
Then he entered the lounge. The bright light from the other rooms had already thinned the darkness and Ferro could see, reflected dimly in the black of the TV screen, the broad silhouette of an uninvited guest standing a couple of metres behind him.
Ferro lifted his phone to his ear, eyes locked on the silhouette.
A shadowy arm rose.
Ferro swallowed, whispered fast into the phone, “Jennifer, they know.”
A bolt of green light surged across the room and something hard and heavy slammed into his back. The agony ripped through him and was gone, replaced almost instantly by numbness and a faint sense that he was falling.
But that too only lasted a moment.
Ferro fell forwards, dropping his phone, which skimmed across the hardwood floor. The dead weight of his body smashed into the coffee table, which collapsed in a small explosion of snapping wood. He came to settle on his back at the foot of his armchair, face stuck in a wide-eyed look of shock.
Robert Skinner holstered his disruptor. One down, one to go. He took out his phone and called Miss Morgan.
Her silky voice shivered down the phone, “Is it done, Mr Skinner?”
“Gregory Ferro’s dead. I’m about to destroy his research and go after Larson.”
“So you’ve done half of what I asked you to do. And you’re ringing me for… what? Words of encouragement?”
“N-no, ma’am.” Skinner felt his cheeks redden. He should’ve been more direct. “There’s something else. Ferro just left Larson a voicemail, telling her all about us.”
“What? How did he know?”
Skinner had wiretapped Ferro’s phone, too. He’d heard everything but it had taken him a few minutes to disable Ferro’s burglar alarm and get into the house – by the time he had, Ferro was already spilling the beans to Jennifer. “One of ours, ma’am. Stuart Rayburn. He didn’t give his name but I recognised the voice. Somehow he obtained information way above his clearance level and decided to tell Ferro everything, including about our role in Princess Diana’s death.”
The sound of glass smashing against a wall made Skinner wince. Miss Morgan returned to the phone a few moments later, her voice low, rippling with barely suppressed fury, “Stuart Rayburn will be dealt with. You need to hurry. Find Larson before anyone else hears that voicemail.”
“Yes, ma’am. I’ll take care of it.”
Miss Morgan hung up. Skinner picked up his bottle of paraffin, launched upstairs to Ferro’s study and poured two thirds of the bottle over his desk and computer
, plus a few splashes over the carpet. He took a box of matches from his pocket, struck one and threw it onto the desk. A blast of heat hit Skinner’s face as a blanket of roaring flames instantly draped itself across the desk, ferociously devouring Ferro’s research. Skinner backed out of the study as the computer started hissing and crackling, flames leaping excitedly onto the carpet and curtains and scrabbling towards the door.
Skinner hurried downstairs and used the last third of the paraffin on three blankets in the lounge, igniting them and throwing them into different corners of the room. The fringe of one blanket landed on Ferro’s leg. A procession of blue flames danced up his trousers, turning orange as they burned into the material. Skinner glanced at the three pillars of fire burgeoning from the corners of the room before turning out of the lounge, into the dining room, and slinking out of the house through the French doors.
Arriving ten minutes late, Jennifer sat down with Adam in the garden of the Kipper and the Corpse. Adam was still wedded to his fag habit, which was why they were in the garden in October. Fortunately the pub had outdoor heaters.
“Sorry I’m late,” said Jennifer. “I kinda met up with Gregory Ferro again.”
“What?” said Adam, screwing up his face and nearly choking on his cigarette. “Why?”
Jennifer sipped her cider. “In all seriousness I think he’s onto something.”
“Wait. So you actually think time travellers are messing about with history in pursuit of some book about railways?”
“As wacky as it sounds, yeah, I’m starting to. The evidence is pretty compelling when you look at all of it together.”
Adam stared at her, wide-eyed and silent.