The Deepest Grave: Fiona Griffiths Crime Thriller Series Book 6 (Fiona Griffiths 6)

by Harry Bingham

  I don’t know what all that amounts to but I don’t think de Boissieu has much more to give.

  We cut him free. I’ve only got those horrible rigid cuffs with me and the rigid ones won’t let me cuff him to a radiator or anything like that. So we take him out to his car, still in his pyjamas, put his hands through the steering wheel and cuff them there.

  I tell him he’s under arrest. That he will be collected by uniformed officers and taken to a police station, where he will be charged.

  ‘Also, Yves, any minor injuries you may have sustained were received while resisting arrest. You know that, don’t you?’

  He says yes, but I make him repeat it, the long version, ‘Yes, I resisted arrest. These injuries – but they are nothing, really – happen then.’

  ‘And you were arrested by me only. There was no one else present in the house.’

  He blinks at that, but catches my father’s eye, and agrees hurriedly.

  I make him say it.

  He says it.

  Bowen has finished his print-outs: a thick wodge of paper. Letters and article by amateur historians appearing in the relevant journals on or around the relevant dates.

  I get a text from Jones: ‘Home location of phone is Hathersage, Derbyshire. Full data follows by email.’

  He’s a good officer, damn the man.

  I tell him where to pick up de Boissieu. And we leave for Hathersage.

  48

  The Peak District.

  A place of hills, yes, but the term is a misnomer all the same. The valleys are steep and deep, but the tops themselves are high, flat moorland. It’s as though an ordinarily hilly part of the world was sawn off horizontally, leaving a black, boggy plateau, a-sigh with moorgrass and red grouse, and, marking the line of the cut, a belt of dark, seeping gritstone. Low cliffs of brutal presence.

  On the way here, Bowen and Dad sat up front. Talked about I don’t know what.

  I sat in the back.

  Looked at the data coming through from Jones. A mass of it, phone data primarily.

  Riffled through the pages of Bowen’s print-outs. Letters from historians – professionals mostly, but some amateurs too – on the kinds of subject that interest those people. Boom and Bust in the Early Medieval Grain Trade. Reinterpretations of Romano–Celtic Pottery. The Early Development of British Pattern Welding: Some Questions.

  The names don’t mean much to me.

  Carlos Herrera.

  F. E. Smythe.

  Dr Cornelia Rickards and Prof. Mary Bennett.

  Dr Julius Kneale.

  A whole list of others.

  One of these names, I think, should match something in Jones’s Hathersage data. According to de Boissieu, who was not lying, Mordred got a letter published in one of those medieval history journals. Was thrilled about it. At that stage, he hadn’t committed any crime. Hadn’t faked a sword, hadn’t killed Gaynor Charteris.

  So why conceal your name?

  And yet none of the names in Bowen’s print-outs match anything in Jones’s data.

  Homeowners.

  Electoral roll.

  Utility companies.

  Nothing.

  It makes no sense.

  Even with Dad’s driving, as impatient as mine, the trip across country takes two and a half hours. I have this continual sense there are four of us in the car. So strong that sense, that I keep counting. Dad, Bowen, me. No one else.

  But still that other is present. Insistent.

  Who is the fourth who walks always beside you? When I count, there are only we three together.

  It’s Kay, of course. My sister, Kay.

  She who was never a part of this. Who should not have been drawn in. Who is in danger now because of me, and no one else.

  I think of her in that metallic dress, dark blue and moody gold. A young woman all prepared for a night’s hunting, but also a child who wanted to curl up between me and Mam.

  I think of Katie too, of course, but it’s like she’s standing somewhere behind Kay. I can’t see or feel things properly for Katie, until Kay is safe. Where my feelings for Katie should be, there’s only a kind of numbness. A blanked-out horror.

  I think Gaynor Charteris is there too, in that numbness. She and Oakeshott. Even the villain, Gheerbrant.

  We get to Hathersage.

  Dad stops the car on Main Road and says, ‘All right, love.’

  I say, ‘Um.’

  Say, ‘He’s here, somewhere, but . . . um . . .’

  Luckily, Dad knows me well enough. He pops out. Buys a couple of pasties, one for him, one for Bowen. For me, an orange and a bar of chocolate.

  I say, ‘Oh, chocolate.’

  I look at it.

  ‘Can we go somewhere . . . um . . .’

  Dad drives out of town. Finds a bit of moorland. A line of cliffs.

  Dad stares at me.

  He’s been super-calm, right from the very first here. Anything that’s needed doing, he’s done it fast and well, but he’s had this glassily unconcerned calm, even with his daughter missing.

  And I realise: he’s doing this for me. Throwing a canopy of parental calm over me, so I can figure out how to do this thing. I realise that Dad is as intensely worried as I am. But he knows that I’m his best route to getting Kay back, so he’s just giving me what I need.

  He trusts me. Trusts me to do this thing.

  I say, ‘Dad, maybe you and George could go for a walk. I need . . .’

  Dad checks my face another moment, then ‘Right you are, love. Good idea. We’ll get some air.’

  Bowen opens the back door. Tidy bounds out with a yelp of delight.

  Two anxious men and one happy dog walk off and away.

  I watch them go. Rearrange things. Make a papery nest for myself across the rear seats. Print-outs. Data. iPad. Sit cross-legged in the middle of it all.

  Light a joint. Eat chocolate. Smoke.

  What do I know about Mordred? What do I know or reasonably believe?

  Ex-military, or something like that. It’s not just the buzz-cut hair, that look of physical fitness. It’s things like that iDet scanner. The extreme care with communications. Those things are too specialist for a regular soldier, but a soldier-turned-security-pro? If I had to guess, I’d say he was an Iraq veteran who shifted over, like so many of those guys did, into private security work. Blackwater. DynCorp. Control Risks. Modern mercenaries.

  I think, Maybe our guy is a former employee of one of those firms.

  Then think, Why former? Maybe he’s working for them right now. Perhaps this whole Caledfwlch thing is just a little personal project on the side.

  That feels more like it. Mordred is a young guy. Not retirement age or anything like it. And this whole Caledfwlch adventure has been, to put it mildly, a high-risk game. It’s a side gamble. Something you do while drawing a regular salary.

  Holborn.

  Alden Gheerbrant made those calls to Holborn. I couldn’t find any archaeologists there, but perhaps I was looking for the wrong thing.

  My stupid joint has gone out.

  No.

  Correction.

  Someone seems to have smoked it.

  I eat the orange.

  The money thing. The Mercedes, the platinum card, the twenty pound bottles of wine. Those things sound like the lifestyle of some successful private security type. The kind who earns, what?, a hundred, a hundred and fifty thousand pounds? Nice money, but not bankroll-this-operation money.

  Burn marks.

  De Boissieu mentioned burn marks.

  Stupid.

  Me, stupid.

  I call Jones.

  Is De Boissieu now in custody?

  Answer: yes, he’s been taken down to Cardiff. Is currently being processed. Charged with conspiracy to murder.

  Can I speak with him?

  Yes.

  Some messing around. Finding the right person in the custody suite. Getting de Boissieu brought to the phone.

  He starts talking, fa
st. Tells me that he said what I told him to say. Says that he will co-operate ‘to the maximum, don’t worry’.

  I tell him that I’m not fucking worried. I tell him to shut the fuck up. And I ask about those burn marks.

  ‘Ah yes, burning, definitely.’

  ‘Burn or scald? Was it an actual burn, or maybe just boiling liquid?’

  ‘Oh, like coffee, maybe? No, not this.’

  ‘And the marks. Were they defined? Did they have a clear shape or were the edges messy?’

  ‘Yes, quite clear, I think.’

  I ask to speak to his custody officer. Tell that person, a Hywel Someoneorother, to get some make-up.

  ‘Make-up?’ he says, ‘Like, what, lipstick?’

  ‘Yes, like lipstick. Eyeliner. That kind of stuff. Get the prisoner to draw out on your arm, what exactly those burns looked like. Yes? This is really urgent. Do it now. Yes? Like right now. When you’re done, I want a picture, OK?’

  Ring off.

  Are Kay and Katie being kept together?

  Yes, I’d guess so. Simpler that way. And that’s good. Katie’s courage will be good for Kay, and vice versa. These things, anyway, are always easier in company.

  I wonder about violence. Possible rape.

  I don’t doubt that Mordred has violence in him. A dark lava, a buried crimson. But he’s also professional. A man looking to make his fortune.

  I think Kay and Katie are more useful whole and unharmed.

  I think.

  I’m not always right.

  I check Agora.

  I’ve already suspended the listing for my sword, but Mordred’s listing is still there.

  The ‘bids received’ icon has always read ‘0’ before, but I notice with a shock that it reports three bids now.

  Fuck.

  If real bidders are putting in real bids, then the clock is ticking for Katie and Kay. There’s no chance, I think, that Mordred will simply release them when he’s done.

  The listing shows ‘reserve price not met’, which is good. The auction is still marked as open-ended, which means no firm end-date has been set.

  There’s still time. The wheel’s still in spin.

  Think.

  Get nothing.

  Then: a text from Cardiff. A picture of some custody officer’s hairy arm, adorned with lipstick and eyeshadow.

  Burn marks.

  Not the flared and bubbling red of a scald.

  Not the patchy, ragged-edged burn of fire or flame.

  But distinct marks. Almost linear. Marks as if something very hot had touched the arm.

  A metal plate. A metal edge.

  Stupid, stupid, stupid.

  How many times, how often can I be blind to the same thing?

  F.E. Smythe. The guy who wrote a letter to Medievalia on the topic of early Celtic pattern welding.

  Smythe equals smith.

  FE: the atomic code for iron.

  An ironsmith who knows about pattern welding. The Dark Age technology that produced the first high-quality swords.

  Stupid.

  I call the editor of Medievalia. Do my police officer thing. Ask if he has an address for Smythe. Answer, after a bit of farting around, yes.

  Brocéliande, Hathersage.

  ‘That’s a house name, is it?’

  ‘I suppose so. It’s all we’ve got.’

  There is no house called Brocéliande in Hathersage.

  But progress sometimes comes in baffling forms and here, I think, things are beginning to fall into shape.

  Mordred was covering his tracks from the very outset. Before the death of Gaynor Charteris and even when in communication with the editor of an obscure history journal. It’s details like that which make me increasingly confident the guy is some kind of security professional. A man whose habit of life is concealment.

  I call Jones.

  ‘Sir, I’d like the names of top-end security firms in Holborn. And I do mean top end. The kind of outfits who can provide bodyguards in Baghdad or hostage negotiators in Caracas. Our guy works for one of them.’

  Jones says he’ll get onto it.

  Brocéliande.

  A broad path curves down from the low hills above. Dad and Bowen descending. Dad swinging his arms, telling a story. Bowen laughing, responding.

  Laughter over darkness.

  And Kay and Katie gone.

  Tidy still bounds, as though he’s not had so much as a minute’s exercise.

  The men and the dog reach the car.

  Dad opens the door. A clean, damp air blows through my smoked-and-orange-peeled fug.

  I say, ‘George, Brocéliande. What’s that?’

  His eyes take a moment to catch up with the unexpected question. Then, ‘It’s an enchanted forest. In Brittany, France. It has various Arthurian connotations, but the main one has to do with Merlin.’

  ‘Go on.’

  ‘The story goes that Merlin was trapped there, inside an oak tree. Some sources say he died there. But one version of the myth has it that he’s still alive. Trapped in the tree. Unable ever to leave.’

  Brocéliande.

  A forest, an oak tree, a grave, a trap.

  Here’s the other fifty per cent now. Yes, I wanted Bowen as a restraint on my father. But I wanted him also for his knowledge of all things Arthur. I didn’t know how it would help, or if it would help – but I knew I couldn’t be without it.

  F. E. Smythe.

  An ironsmith. A maker of swords. A man with burn marks on his forearm.

  I call Jones.

  Say, ‘A timber merchant in south Wales delivered a large quantity of hardwood to an address in Hathersage. Not building timber, nothing like that. Just firewood. All native species. All locally grown.’

  Jones says, ‘You want the delivery address, right?’

  Yes.

  He says he’ll get on to it. Also: ‘Leaman Brown. That’s the security company. Works all over the world, but it mostly operates in high-risk environments. Based in Holborn.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  ‘Do you want me to go and kick the door down?’

  I’m not sure. I don’t know.

  Jones, however, is decisive. ‘Too risky, I’d say. You don’t know whether the place is clean and your boy Mordred is dirty, or whether the whole place stinks. Either way, we can’t risk alerting the target.’

  He’s right and I say so.

  Ring off.

  Look at a map of Hathersage on Google Earth. The village isn’t in a particularly wooded spot, but out towards the northeast, there are some patches of more significant woodland. Some larger houses, the type that have outbuildings.

  Everyone is looking at me, I notice. Dad, George . . . and Kay. I feel her too. Feel her especially. My tall, beautiful, impatient sister. She and Katie, that warrior queen.

  And my corpses, of course. The bruised stump of Charteris’s bloody neck. Oakeshott’s face-down gurgle, his leaking ribs. Gheerbrant’s slow swing.

  In that jostle of gazes, I find it hard to pick out the two men, the living ones. They seem dimmer, somehow.

  ‘You all right, love?’

  Dad’s voice.

  I say, ‘Is George there?’

  Bowen says, ‘Here, Fiona. I’m right here.’

  I point at the map. Say, ‘This area around here. By the river.’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘They need leaflets. Church things. They need some high quality vicaring.’

  I explain what I want.

  Bowen says something. His lips move, anyway.

  Dad says, ‘Okie-doke,’ and climbs into the car. Someone says something. We drive down the hill.

  Brocéliande.

  A forest, an oak tree, a grave, a trap.

  49

  A text. From Jones.

  ‘Supplier traced. No delivery address given, just “meet customer at the church”. We’re locating the driver now.’

  Multiple precautions, layer upon layer.

  But his defences are cr
umbling faster that Mordred can build them. Like those eroding coasts, those streets and houses that tumble, slowly but unstoppably, into the sea.

  Dad and I sit in the car.

  Bowen, with a bunch of random leaflets nicked from the church, is working his way door to door. Ringing bells. Telling people about some village something-or-other. Tidy trots by his side, his training immaculate.

  The houses we’re interested in are larger, set back from the road, with outbuildings. Preferably with a fringe of woodland at the back. But Bowen can’t be seen to pick and choose, so he goes to every door. Rings every bell.

  We watch.

  I have binoculars with me, but don’t use them.

  Have a joint, but leave it unsmoked.

  Dad says, ‘What are you going to do when we find the place? Bring in the stormtroopers?’

  Stormtroopers: he means SO15.

  Men in body armour. Sniper rifles. Stun grenades.

  Training, practice, readiness. More firepower, more experience, more everything than our little team could supply.

  But also, exactly, exactly, exactly, the thing that Mordred would anticipate. If he’s planned for this – and if I’m right about Mordred, then he’s planned for everything – he’ll have figured out how to handle that final, black-jacketed assault.

  Maybe he’ll just shoot himself. That’s one type of ending. A good, clear, military one. But it’s not the only option and I’m not sure Mordred is just the kill-himself-and-be-done type.

  I ask my corpses, those chattering bones.

  They agree. Shake their bones, their stumps, their tattered bodies, and agree.

  Dad and I watch Bowen at a farm gate. The gate is locked, but a track runs up beyond it. There’s some kind of signage, a brass plate or something like it, on the gatepost, but I can’t see more. Bowen tucks a leaflet into a letterbox, moves on to the other side of the street. Does a couple more houses, coming back towards the village proper.

  Lifts his phone. It looks like he’s answering a call, but he’s not. He’s calling me.

  ‘It’s that farm there.’

  I ask how he knows, how he can be sure.

  Bowen says, ‘Oh, the gate looks ordinary enough. Ordinary name, Derwent Farm. But the nameplate has a little illustration. Trees by a river or lake. Perfectly appropriate for a farm with a bit of water frontage. Thing is, though, it’s taken from Aubrey Beardsley.’