“I’m sure we will,” Reuben lied.
Back in the hotel lobby he phoned Hannah and arranged to meet outside. He waited in the drizzly rain until she came out. “All done?” he asked.
“Riot Act read,” Hannah said, before adding, “did you see the news?”
“No, I’ve been with the security manager.”
An open-topped tourist bus drove passed, the tour guide’s over-amplified voice drowning out Hannah until she held up her smartphone with the BBC’s news website open.
Defence Secretary’s brother killed in training disaster.
Reuben took the phone and read the details. Norma Johnstone must have moved fast. The deaths of personnel in Cornwall were put down to the detonation of a new explosive being tested at a military range in the county. The powerful blast wiped out numerous members of the joint military and scientific team working on the project.
“Do you think the Defence Secretary knows the real details?” Hannah asked as she took her phone back.
“He’s bound to,” Reuben said as they started walking towards the nearest tube station. He’d left his car at a station on the outskirts of the city, and they’d used public transport the rest of the way in.
“I emailed the video file to Tony Vincenzo,” Hannah said. “He’s the one who told me about the news release. He’s going to do a facial recognition scan on the woman and see if we can make a match.”
“We know what the result will be,” Reuben said as they crossed the road.
“So you think we are back to square one?”
“Not quite. We have her face, and like you said she’s easily remembered.”
“So why look at the camera?”
Reuben thought about that as they entered the tube station and took the escalator down. “Power?” he suggested. “She can walk through walls so why not show us how clever she is?”
“She can also carry the body of a grown man out with her unseen,” Hannah said as they walked along a tile-lined tunnel towards the platform.
“You think Congrave’s dead?” Reuben asked.
“Either that or he’ll be wishing he was,” Hannah said with a finality that scared Reuben.
***
John McGrath stood in the car park of Scotch Corner services and listened to the voices in his head. Sometimes one would come through speaking English, that would be Old Davey’s influence. Mostly, he heard a language he didn’t recognise. He guessed it was Viking, or whatever their language was called back in the day. Norse? Probably, or something similar. Whatever, the rise and fall of the voices operated like a distant radio station picked up at night, fading and strengthening at random moments. He wished he could understand them. What would they be saying? Would they be looking forward to a battle? They were warriors after all.
He stood beside his car, taking deep breaths of the afternoon air as the constant drone of traffic from the A1 and the A66 reached him. It had taken ten hours to get this far. Roadworks, heavy traffic, accidents, they all combined to make the journey agonisingly slow. McGrath stopped at Scotch Corner to grab a bite to eat and a coffee. He had left home at nine in the morning, Lorna standing on the doorstep with her arms folded and no smile upon her face. McGrath hoped he would see her again. He wanted to. He wanted her to be waiting for him but expected her to be gone when, or maybe if, he returned. Part of him wondered if he was going to his death and if that wouldn’t be a good thing.
McGrath sighed and put himself back behind the wheel of his car. He had no idea where the journey would take him. Old Davey, when he spoke, just seemed to demand why it was taking so long. McGrath felt like telling the old fart that the Vikings would have taken days to do the three-hundred-and-fifty or so miles he’d just driven. No information came about where he should go.
Just follow your nose, John my boy.
Engine on. Radio on. He’d need to fuel up again in a couple of hours. Thinking about fuel made him remember his conversation with Ben. Where did Ben say he’d been? Cornwall? McGrath rubbed his eyes. About as far from home as he could get. Just out of interest, McGrath pulled out his phone and put directions in for Land’s End. He figured he couldn’t go much further than that in Cornwall without getting his feet wet in the Atlantic Ocean so that would be the worst case scenario.
445 miles.
He wished he hadn’t looked.
Not there, the old man said into his head.
“Oh? So now you tell me,” McGrath said out loud, glad that no-one else could hear him holding a conversation with a voice in his head. “So, where?”
We will tell you when we know.
“Great.” McGrath threw the phone onto the passenger seat. “So what do you want me to do?”
Go south.
“You’re the boss,” McGrath figured he could handle those directions. Either the A1 or M1 depending on how depressed he wanted to get.
He drove out of the car park, and onto the slip road, joining the stream of vehicles heading south. Their taillights seemed to populate the world with a blood red colour. McGrath turned the radio up to try and drown out the voices in his head. It hadn’t taken him long to guess where the band of warriors went to when they vanished from his garden. Lying in bed next to Lorna, their distant muttering reminded him of passengers boarding a coach as they sorted out a seating plan. He couldn’t explain to Lorna what was bothering him, and anyway she seemed to be trying to keep a distance between them in bed.
“Can you turn the noise down?” he asked.
The babble of voices dimmed to little more than a vaguely defined whisper.
Well, I’ll be, it worked.
He smiled for the first time in hours.
***
Moira left the twins resting with their guardians in a sunlit woodland glade. She wouldn’t be gone long. Food came courtesy of a little goddess trick that dropped Margherita pizzas and strawberry shakes into their laps. It took just a few minutes to reach her destination; a quiet, leafy road lined by detached houses set back behind beech hedgerows. She walked out of the shadows and up a gravel driveway. The house she approached looked well maintained. No slates out of place on the roof, all paintwork on the window frames fresh, the garden still looking good despite the early ravages of autumnal weather. She stepped up to the front door and pulled the brass handle that hung to one side. From the depths of the house she heard the doorbell chime.
The door opened halfway, a slim young woman in glasses stood behind it.
“Yes?” she spoke in a refined, Home Counties accent, a product of good breeding and education.
“Is Sir Richard available?” Moira asked.
“I’m afraid Sir Richard is not seeing visitors for the next few days,” the woman said. “If you need to speak to him, please contact his constituency office, and they will arrange an appointment, but it’s unlikely to be for at least a week.”
The door began to close. Perhaps the young woman wasn’t so well educated.
“I understand why,” Moira held up a hand and said, with a catch in her voice. “My name is Moira Morrigan, and I know Sir Richard’s brother died in the last couple of days. That’s why I am here. Alec and I were...well let’s just say we had known each other for some time. We had kept our relationship secret because of his and Sir Richard’s positions. I just need to speak to someone who knew him. Grieving alone is such a difficult thing to do.”
Sympathy played out across the young woman’s face. She hesitated, drawn to helping the visitor and protecting her employer’s privacy. “I understand. I can’t promise anything, but I will ask.”
“Thank you...?”
“Fiona,” she said. “Please wait here.”
Moira waited until Fiona closed the door before she turned to face west. She could feel the pain of her crows at the result of the bitter battle that the Pathfinder’s friends were winning. No matter. Worse would face them in the next few hours. Moira whispered a command, and her wolves closed in on the group.
The door opened, and t
his time Fiona smiled a welcome. “Please, do come in. Sir Richard can see you.”
“I’m so grateful.” Moira entered a hallway dominated by a 19th-century longcase clock. She gave it an admiring glance as Fiona would expect any new visitor to do as she followed the younger woman to a book-lined study where Sir Richard Stanton waited to greet her.
“Moira,” he said as he took her hand and brushed a kiss on her left cheek.
“I’m so sorry for coming here unannounced but when I heard the news I just...” Moira let a tear spill out of one eye and run down her cheek.
“I knew Alec kept some things secret but why he never introduced a woman as beautiful as you to his family...” Sir Richard guided Moira to a leather armchair. “Fiona,” he said to his secretary, “could you bring us coffee?”
“Of course, Sir Richard.”
The older Stanton brother didn’t have the same dashing good looks as his younger sibling. Sir Richard’s grey hair receded in a curve, and his fondness of cordon-bleu cooking was evident in the paunch that strained at his shirt. But he knew a good-looking woman when he saw one, and right now Moira noticed his gaze aimed more at her cleavage than her face. She didn’t mind that. It just made him easier to play. Fiona returned with filter coffees and high-calorie chocolate biscuits (more evidence for Sir Richard’s waistline) which she placed on a table between them. Sir Richard thanked her. Fiona gave Moira another sympathetic smile before she retreated from the room and left them alone.
“So,” Stanton said. “Alec.”
“I couldn’t believe it when I saw the news report.” Moira kept her voice dramatically low so that Sir Richard had to lean forward to hear her.
“A tragic incident, and not just for our family,” he said.
“Of course.” Moira dabbed at her cheek.
“How long had you known Alec?”
Moira spun out the story. How they had met at a dinner dance in London and kept in contact through email and texts. They met up for meals and trips to the theatre. They’d taken weekend breaks in Edinburgh, Paris and Rome. Planned that, once Alec had received his next posting, likely to be to the Ministry of Defence as a liaison officer, they would announce their engagement.
By the time she finished, Sir Richard Stanton sat on the edge of his chair, holding her hands in his as she openly wept.
“I wish I had known about your relationship,” he said. “At least we could have given you the news in a more compassionate way than learning about it through the BBC.”
“We can’t go back.” Moira sniffed. “But I hope you can allow me to pay my respects at Alec’s funeral service.”
Sir Richard smiled and squeezed her hand. “I think I can do better than that. The Prime Minister has invited myself and my wife to visit her at Chequers for a private memorial service. Knowing how close you and Alec were, it’s only right that you come with us. Wait here a moment.”
Moira watched Stanton leave the room. She smiled; putty in her hands. But what a bonus. She’d planned on working her magic on the older brother and getting influence over him and his government department. But now she was within striking distance of an even greater prize. The Prime Minster.
“I can do it,” she whispered. Behind her, unseen, her guardians agreed in sibilant tones. Yes. “Kill her. Take her place. Seize back the lands that were stolen from me thousands of years ago. Release all the old ones from their torment and let them feed upon the people of this world. Destroy this...”
The door opened. Sir Richard and Fiona came in. Moira re-arranged her face into one befitting a bereaved woman.
“I’ve asked Fiona to call the PM’s private secretary and add you to our guest list. We will be travelling down tomorrow afternoon. The Prime Minister will join us on Saturday when she returns from her trip to the Middle East.”
“You don’t have to...” Moira started to say.
“Moira,” Sir Richard held up one hand to stop her. “Fiona agreed the moment I suggested it. If you were married to Alec it would happen, so why not if you were deeply in love with him. It’s the only thing to do, and I’m sure Alec, wherever he is, will be agreeing with every word I have said.”
The evening progressed with Moira meeting Sir Richard’s mousey little wife, Anita. She spent time with Fiona discussing the logistics of getting to Chequers. Moira admitted that although she had heard of the country residence, she didn’t know where it was.
“It’s in Buckinghamshire, about forty miles north-west of London,” Fiona said. “I think we can arrange a car for you. Where would you like to be collected from?”
“Oh,” Moira hesitated, too many things to think about in this world. “I live in Warwickshire but I booked a room at a local hotel when I came down.”
“We can pick you up there,” Fiona said. “About two o’clock suit you?”
“That would be perfect.” Moira quite liked Fiona now. “I don’t want to intrude on your time any longer,” Moira said. “I can only thank you for taking the time to listen to me when I first spoke to you.”
“I’m glad I did, Sir Richard would never have forgiven me if I’d turned you away.”
Moira saw Sir Richard before she left; more words about how tragic the situation was. Moira thanked him for the invitation. She hoped it would bring her solace in her grief to meet so many people who cared about Alec. Sir Richard smiled, his wife made sympathetic noises. Moira departed and by the time the shadows claimed her at the end of the driveway she stood in a different world.
***
The wolves, Ben thought, were herding them somewhere. Each time the group wanted to head in a particular direction three or four wolves would close on them. The beasts were big, bigger than any wolf that Ben had seen either in the wild, a zoo or on television. Kramer said something about this world having giant species. The birds had been big, why not the wolves?
So they ran, harried from the rear by a pack that yipped and snarled at their heels. Kramer and Geordie tried early on to deter the animals by firing at them. The wolves always seemed to dodge out of the way. Out of forty rounds fired only one had hit its mark. That wolf limped along for a time but eventually lay down and got left behind. By then, Kramer decided to stop wasting bullets. So, instead, they ran. Tiny carried Emily piggy-back style and Geordie hustled along weighed down with two Bergens. Kramer kept pace, glancing in every direction to monitor the wolf packs. And Ben just lagged behind, the gap growing now and the wolves that trailed them getting closer. He could almost feel their hot breath as they ran low to the ground behind him.
“Hey, Scarrett, I suggest you get a move on before you end up as dog food,” Kramer shouted.
Ben didn’t bother replying. That would be a waste of breath. He put a burst of speed on and heard the whines of disappointment as the gap between man and wolf increased. Kramer waited for him. As he passed, she moved in alongside him and gave him a grin of encouragement.
“C’mon, Scarrett, you’ve always told me how you need to get back in condition. This is the perfect opportunity.” She kept pace with him, not even breathing hard. “Run or die, what better way of getting fit?”
“How about,” Ben panted, “lying on the beach...sipping a pina colada?”
“That’s not going to get you fit.”
“It would me,” Ben said.
And that’s when Tiny tripped. Emily squealed as she went head first over his shoulder. Ben saw her hit the grass hard. She bounced once and lay still.
“Fuck,” Kramer said, and sprinted ahead.
Ben stumbled to a halt, looking back at wolves whose feral grins became wider and hungrier. They seemed to understand the scene before them; two down, and two distracted as Kramer and Geordie went to aid Emily and Tiny. That left Ben and the half-dozen wolves that closed in from the rear. He dropped to one knee, almost pulled off balance by the weight of his Bergen. He saw slavering faces and long pink tongues as he aimed his assault rifle and squeezed the trigger. Ben didn’t go for pot-shots; he stuck to the old motto
of spray and pray. The rifle spat rounds at the wolves and Ben swept the muzzle across their path.
He saw one skull vanish, and another wolf lose a foreleg. A third took two rounds to the chest, stopping it as if it had run into a wall. The others scattered. Ben tracked them. A round thwacked through hip bones and tumbled the fourth wolf to the floor before five more rounds went into the ribcage of a fifth like a drum roll and turned grey fur to black in an instant. The last wolf ran with its tail between its legs and Ben let it go because he was out of ammo.
The wolf with the missing foreleg yelped piteously as it hobbled in a circle ten metres from Ben. He felt a moment of sorrow before Geordie appeared at his side and put one bullet through the wolf’s head. The British soldier looked around.
“That should keep them back for a bit,” Geordie said.
“So I did okay?” Ben asked.
“Well, you could have been a bit more humane.” Geordie pointed to the wolf with the hip wound. That one still moved, trying to drag itself away using its front legs. Geordie walked over and finished it off. He came back and headed towards Emily.
Ben joined him, “How is she?”
Kramer looked up from where she knelt. “Winded. No bones were broken, luckily.”
“And as for you, you awkward sod,” Geordie gave Tiny a kick on the thigh. “That could have well and truly fucked us.”
“Jesus, you say that like I meant to do it.” Some of the wounds on Tiny’s face had re-opened and wept thin streams of blood. “It wasn’t exactly in my plans for today, you know.”
“Yeah, well,” Geordie said as he looked around. “Nothing broken is the best we can hope for.”
“Are you gonna help me up?” Tiny asked.
Geordie gave him a withering look. “What are you? A toddler? Get yourself up. You’ll be asking me next to kiss your fucking grazed knee better.”
Tiny climbed to his feet and looked down at his sergeant. “How about kissing me grazed lip better? I went in face first.”
Geordie sniffed. “If I didn’t know you better, I might think you are taking the piss out of me,” he said.
The Anomaly (Scarrett & Kramer Book 2) Page 25
