Brotherly Blood

by Jean G. Goodhind

  We thought the Tarot Man, as his code name was, had died so we wouldn’t need to worry about this any longer. Unfortunately we found out that his son follows a similar profession to that of his father. He has also inherited his taste for killing.’

  Christiansen had been blunt about what he could and could not do.

  ‘We don’t want you playing her knight in shining armour and charging to the rescue. We need to capture this person. We need Honey to remain calm as though she suspects nothing.’

  Charging in is exactly what Doherty wanted to do. He wanted to hug her, wrap her in cotton wool and stick like a limpet to her side. But he had taken on Dominic’s reasoning. It might pay to linger in the shadows, to watch anyone he thought was watching Honey.

  Honey decided that the best way to deal with the unusual and downright scary was to keep doing normal things.

  Mary Jane suggested going for a drive in the open air.

  ‘The rain will hold off. Anyway, I’ve something to say to you. In private,’ she added with a whisper. ‘Actually two things, though one I can say right here and now. You said you saw that fellah Adrian Sayle talking to the suave guy in the black BMW.’

  Honey nodded and said that she had.

  ‘I asked Adrian Sayle about him. He was cagey at first but then said the guy was a guest, staying in one of the cottages just along from him.’

  Honey raised her eyebrows in surprise. So Christiansen was that close, keeping an eye on her according to him. Still, it wouldn’t be a bad idea to snoop around his little homestead.

  ‘Okay. How about we take a drive. I could do with some fresh air.’

  Taking a drive meant putting up with Mary Jane hurtling along country roads barely wide enough to take the width of her car, but this was urgent.

  ‘Let’s take a look at where Mr Christiansen is staying.’

  They were on the other side of the gates and zooming down the road towards the village of Wyvern Wendell when Mary Jane told her why she wouldn’t share her comments back at the house.

  ‘It’s bugged. Hidden cameras and microphones everywhere. Everything you do is being listened to and watched.’

  ‘Even in my bed?’

  ‘Anywhere you might be doing or saying something that might be of interest.’

  Honey frowned. She’d lain naked on the floor this morning doing ab curls. It appeared her aching ribs were the least of her worries. And where was the camera? She blushed at the thought of the view it might have had.

  It seemed a good idea to contact the journalist who’d first written the article saying that Caspar was dead. He had to have been given a tip off and that tip off might lead her to the man who wanted her dead. Her initial intention was to phone the man and ask him but she would not do that if what Mary Jane had said were true. She did not want to be overheard.

  The cottages appeared like chunks of gingerbread from a fairy story, golden and gleaming with damp against dark green trees.

  Honey rejected Mary Jane’s offer to come inside with her.

  ‘It might be dangerous.’

  Mary Jane looked at her askance. ‘Honey, I won’t be in any danger. I’ve been told I’ve going to live till I’m one hundred and ten years old.’

  Honey was amazed the medical profession would know that.

  ‘Is that what your doctor believes?’

  ‘No. My spirit guide. He said I’d keep on trooping for a long time yet.’

  Honey was inclined to believe it was true, but it was hardly the subject for the moment.

  The cottage presently occupied by Dominic Christiansen was as pretty as the others but the fact that he dwelled therein was somewhat unnerving. He just wasn’t the cottage type.

  She knocked at the door quite vigorously, the sound sending a couple of house martins fluttering from the eaves.

  Though she’d given it a good hard bashing, the door wasn’t answered.

  A second bout of strenuous knocking also failed to elicit a response, yet she was certain somebody was in. No proof, no sign of anyone, just that odd little feeling you get; pure instinct.

  The ground to either side of the path was covered in soft moss; not the best place to walk on with heeled boots.

  Leaning to one side, she tried peering through a window but saw nothing. She just wasn’t close enough. There was nothing for it but to step off the path and peer through the window.

  The moss squelched beneath her boots. The rain was still falling.

  She saw the alcove to the window side of the fireplace was fitted out floor to ceiling with shelves. A pine framed mirror above the fireplace reflected the other side of the room, though positioned at a difficult angle so she couldn’t really work out what she was seeing.

  For a brief moment she thought the light inside the room changed slightly, as though somebody was in the hallway and had just walked crossed the gap that was the open living room door.

  She side stepped further onto the moss covered path running between the cottage wall and the rampant flowerbeds behind her and smelled the musty wholeness of damp earth.

  Gripping the window sill, she stood on tiptoe and took another look. She wasn’t sure whether she’d yet again detected movement, yet his car was nowhere in sight. A definite asset – if she could gain entry and have a quick snoop around. She wasn’t at all sure what she was likely to find, but it did strike her as a good idea.

  Clambering back from loamy earth to mossy step she hammered unrelentingly at the door using both fists as well as the odd bash of the knocker.

  The unexpected happened and caused her to wonder why she hadn’t tried it before. On turning the handle the door creaked open.

  For a moment she stood eyeing the opening, reassuring herself that it couldn’t have been shut properly. Old places are like that. Not everything is a perfect fit. Old places are also prone to ghosts. She’d never experienced intercourse with a ghost and had no intention of ever doing so. After assuring herself that ghosts only happen in big houses not homespun cottages, she stepped inside, finding herself

  in the flagstone floored hallway with its cream coloured walls. No sign of paranormal activity.

  ‘Mr Christiansen?’

  Her customary bravado seemed to have gone walkabouts, though this was not Australia, but she guessed anything and everything could go walkabouts anywhere it wanted.

  She didn’t like entering his home without permission. Old fashioned, perhaps, but she’d been to parties where uninvited guests were given short shrift. And that was in Kensington.

  The silence from within was deafening. No footsteps, no heavy breathing, not even the scuttling of a mouse.

  She could have turned away and gone back to the house, but it seemed too good an opportunity to miss. Nobody was at home and the door was left open. He wouldn’t notice a thing, not if she closed the door afterwards.

  Once over the threshold there was no turning back. She turned right into the sitting room, smelled as well as saw the sweet peas bursting from the vase in the window, the mirror over the fireplace, the collection of books ranged along the shelves.

  His book collection made her smile. A A Milne’s Winnie the Pooh, Swallows and Amazons and Longfellow’s epic poem, Hiawatha.

  OK, it was a rental. The books probably didn’t belong to him.

  Returning to the hallway she was immediately reminded of how bright the living room had been. Not that she needed much light to see by. The only other room was the kitchen which she barely glanced round.

  Nothing much so far, but what had she expected to find? Was there anything here that shouldn’t be here? And then it hit her. There were no personal papers. No letters stuffed behind the mantel clock or in a kitchen cupboard and none in the small bureau beneath the stairs in the hallway, the latter only holding pens and paper.

  She paused to take stock. If she was not going to find any personal items down here, perhaps there were some upstairs. It was a small thing but vital.

  Climbing the stairs she made hers
elf a promise to avoid his underwear drawer, interesting though it might be.

  There was only one bedroom with a bathroom next to it. In days gone by there would have been two bedrooms, the lavatory facilities in a small wooden structure at the bottom of the garden. The bath would have been made of zinc and hanging from a nail outside the back door. Back then, the cottages were occupied by farm labourers and their families, numerous children packed into one bedroom or sharing with their parents, even sleeping in the living room.

  But this was modern and Dominic would not need to shuffle down the garden in the middle of the night.

  Tentatively, she opened the glass fronted bathroom cabinet and found little out of the ordinary except for a bottle of very expensive aftershave. She liked the shape of the bottle and one thing led to another. She unscrewed the top and took a sniff. It was absolutely fabulous and breathing it in made it almost seem as though he was standing there in front of her! She rolled a drop of it between her fingers. It felt soft and sumptuous like liquidised silk.

  With hindsight she should have looked and not touched. The blasted bottle slipped out of her hand and into the sink.

  ‘Shit!’

  The sink was full of it. And the smell! First and foremost she had to gather up those pieces, put them in the bin and rinse the bowl. Her brain clicked in. Forget the bin. She would have to take the debris with her otherwise Dominic would realise that someone had been here.

  Panic is a wonderful boost to brain power. She carefully gathered the shards of glass into some cellophane packaging she found in the bin, wrapped the lot up in toilet paper and headed for the bedroom.

  She felt a little flutter of fear entering his bedroom. In her encounters with the opposite sex, she had only entered a man’s bedroom when invited and never alone. A bottle of champagne usually made it a threesome.

  Now, here she was, tripping across the brown carpet of the bedroom of a man she barely knew.

  A quilted duvet covered the double bed. The walls were white, the curtains brown and white stripes. The rest of the furnishings were pretty ordinary too; a dressing table, a chest of drawers and a wardrobe.

  There was underwear in the top drawer of the chest; not entirely unexpected of course, and she had no reason to believe there was anything suspicious about his underwear. Despite her promise to herself she just had to take a look.

  White boxer shorts. The smell of laundry liquid wafted up from the drawer. They smelled fresh and were crisply white. Perhaps a little too crisp. Underwear should never be crisp. Too itchy.

  She was just about to open the second drawer, when she heard the sound of a car approaching from the lane. She hoped it would pass by, but heard it pull up outside.

  She thought about running out of the house claiming to have been waiting for him, but somehow she didn’t think it would be well accepted. And what about Mary Jane? Presumably she was still outside, or at least her car was. Hopefully she would work things so that the game would not be given away. In the meantime she had to deal with things in here.

  There was no way she could leave without being seen, though it did occur to her to climb out of the window and down over the climbing wisteria. Problem was that although wisteria looked a vigorous climber, its looks were deceiving. A few feet down it was bound to give way. She could see it now in her mind’s eyes, the wisteria breaking and her sprawled at the feet of whoever was driving the car, probably Dominic.

  The only course of action was to hide. Fast!

  The wardrobe offered a minimal possibility, but under the bed was the more expansive option. OK, it was probably the first place he would look – that’s if he suspected there was anyone in the house. Would he suspect? Quite possibly seeing as the door was open. She vaguely tried to remember if she’d closed it behind her. She half suspected she had, but panic set in.

  Under the bed it had to be.

  The carpet was soft beneath her belly as she slid beneath the bed carefully clutching the pieces of broken bottle. The draped edge of the bedspread touched the floor all around keeping her hidden. He’d have to bend down and look under the bed to see her, but she convinced herself that he wouldn’t do that. Not unless he slid his shoes underneath then couldn’t find them.

  She convinced herself accordingly and lay there, glad that whoever cleaned this cottage regularly vacuumed beneath the bed so she wouldn’t break into a sneezing fit.

  What happened next was bound to happen seeing as the bathroom was up on this floor and he was down there.

  He came up the stairs. From the sound of his footsteps it was easy to imagine the quick springiness of his ascent. Dominic Christiansen was a fit man. He moved positively and fast, as though he could get things done and quickly, without fuss, without anyone objecting. One look at him and nobody was likely to object to anything he did.

  She prayed he would go into the bathroom, perhaps lock the door. If he locked the door she might be in with a chance of sneaking out.

  He didn’t do that. The bedroom floorboards vibrated with the fall of his footsteps. She cursed him for entering his bedroom, although the man had every right to do so. After all, it was his bedroom and she was here. Uninvited.

  Although he couldn’t see her, she curled herself up into a tight ball. She even closed her eyes as though if she couldn’t see him then he couldn’t see her.

  The bedsprings made a squeaky noise as he sat on the bed. One spring wasn’t that far from her ear and a strand of hair got tangled up in it. No chance of a quick exit now! The bedspring was pulling on her hair and hurting. She bit her lip to stop from crying out and wished he would get up and lock himself in the bathroom. At least it would give her a chance of escaping.

  Thud. One shoe came off. Thud. The second shoe.

  The shoes! The dreaded shoes! He was standing in his socks!

  Through the crack where the bedcover didn’t quite reach the carpet, she saw his socks come off. Then his trousers landing in a heap on his shoes! Then a tie. Then a shirt. Then...

  There was no getting away from the fact that she was now lying beneath the bed of a naked man. Oh, lord! Now what?

  Her caught hair pulled at her scalp as he got up from the bed. She bit her lip to stop from crying out. She heard his feet padding across the floor.

  If she was going to escape, it had to be now. Carefully, very carefully, she attempted to untangle her hair. Perhaps it was nerves, but no matter how hard she tried, her fingers behaved like toes. What her hair was up to was open to conjecture; it felt as though she’d turned into Medusa and one of the snakes that made up her hair was making love to a bedspring.

  She didn’t know how long she was there fighting with the combined forces of curled metal and hair, but she heard his footsteps returning. Worse still, she saw the tips of his toes peeping through the thick pile of the carpet. He was still naked.

  She heard him heave a sigh – a very big sigh. Suddenly the duvet cover was lifted and there was his face.

  ‘Are you coming out from under my bed or do I have to come in and get you?’

  ‘Um. I was just passing and needed to use the lavatory.’

  ‘Sure,’ he said, lying full stretch on the floor, gazing in at her, his hand supporting his jaw. ‘That’s fine by me, but the bathroom is along the landing, not under my bed.’

  Excuses came fast. ‘The door was open. I thought you were here. And then I thought I heard you but it couldn’t have been you, so it must have been somebody else. Because here you are.’

  It didn’t sound like real excuses. It sounded like rubbish.

  ‘You thought someone was here? You saw someone?’

  ‘Not exactly. A shadow. Somebody keeping out of sight. And then I got my hair tangled in one of your bedsprings.’

  Bearing the discarded pile of clothes in mind, she dared to look at the rest of him. He wasn’t naked. He was wearing a towelling robe. It was white and she glimpsed a monogram on the breast pocket. He stayed very still. She was glad about that seeing as all he had
on was that robe. But it didn’t last.

  ‘Right,’ he said. ‘Your hair still trapped?’

  ‘I’m afraid it is.’

  He began to manoeuvre himself beneath the bed, his body eventually ending up lying full length beside her. She was inclined to warn him about carpet burn, but kept her mouth shut. She wasn’t ready to answer questions relating to her experience on the subject.

  ‘Get your head as low as possible and keep still,’ he said.

  She did as ordered. His fingers worked in her tangled mane strand by strand. He had to lie pretty close to do this. She tried not to notice the warmth of his body through the towelling robe. The robe smelled good. His body smelled better. The close proximity of a man in bed is always arousing. Under the bed seemed doubly so. On reflection, she supposed it was something to do with the fact that beneath the bed is far more confined than actually being in it.

  However, this was no time for acting on what her hormones were up to. At last she was free and there was work to be done.

  ‘I’ve got something to show you,’ she said as she wriggled forward.

  ‘So there was a reason for your madness.’

  ‘I’m not mad. I’m perfectly sane. I heard you’d moved in here, presumably to keep an eye out for this Tarot Man. I appreciate you looking out for me.’

  ‘OK. No problem, but just run this shadow past me again. Are you sure somebody was in the house and that my front door was unlocked?’