Strike a Match 3

by Frank Tayell

“Do what?” Cavendish replied.

  “Everything,” Mitchell said. “You had weapons and ammunition stashed here in Kent for those pirates in Calais. You rigged an ammunition train to blow up the garrison in France. Before then you ordered the deaths of so many. You worked with Emmitt, didn’t you?”

  “What are you really asking, Henry?”

  “You were never someone happy to take orders, Rebecca,” Mitchell said.

  “Ah, you mean was I behind this? Yes. Yes, I was. It was my plan.”

  “Your plan? Not Longfield’s? Not Commissioner Wallace’s?” Mitchell asked. Ruth frowned. The question seemed redundant. In fact, she couldn’t think of any question that was pertinent other than whether the woman was going to surrender, and Ruth thought they already had the answer to that.

  “The plan certainly wasn’t Wallace’s,” Cavendish said. “That man was an idiot. A fool who lost an election yet still thought he could rule.”

  “When did the rot begin, Rebecca? When did you decide to betray us all?”

  “I don’t call it a betrayal,” Cavendish said. “I would call it the opposite, but if I had to pick a time and a place, it was in the New Forest. Do you remember?”

  “The New Forest? You mean when that wagon overturned, crushing your legs? I remember that.”

  “We had to lay track in the depths of winter,” Cavendish said. “Laying it flat on the road because we couldn’t spare the time to level the ground. If we hadn’t linked our disparate communities, all would have been lost. Of course it wasn’t safe. Of course there were going to be accidents. I just didn’t think I would be one of them. Who ever does?”

  “That’s when you concocted a plan for revenge, was it?” Mitchell asked.

  “No,” Cavendish said. “That was when I first saw we needed a different approach. The first journey I made in this cursed wheelchair was to our prime minister. I tried to propose a new plan. I was rebuffed, but I didn’t give up. I proposed that plan time and time again, and time has proven I was correct. We had twenty years of the same ruler. Twenty years of the same policies. Twenty years of inaction. The result is that we have become prisoners on this island. We sent a few food parcels to a handful of coastal communities and told ourselves we were rebuilding the world. We said we didn’t want war, so kept our military to a handful of ships and Marines, but they became our jailers. You’ve seen France. You’ve seen what lies beyond. Has ignoring the problem made it better?”

  “Since you couldn’t beat them, you co-ordinated those pirates and slavers. You arranged for them to attack us.”

  “Not exactly,” Cavendish said. “That was Emmitt’s plan. He wanted an eternal war, and through war we would rebuild the technologies that were lost. I planned to unite our enemies so that we could destroy them.”

  “Destroy them? By letting them maraud through Kent.”

  “Some people would die, yes,” Cavendish said. “But their deaths would serve the greater good. When we were attacked, here on our own soil, people would finally see the truth. They would understand that evil has to be uprooted and destroyed. Whether it was the evil of the cultists, or the insanity of Emmitt and Longfield, or the narrow-minded bigotry of Wallace and his ilk, all would be brushed aside, replaced with a new order. There would be a generation of war, but then a century of peace.”

  “Yeah, you’re not the first person to say that,” Mitchell said. “The counterfeiting, the assassination, the destruction of the train, the sabotage, the murders, you facilitated it all?”

  “There had to be a threat, Henry, and that threat had to be known. But how would people know they were under threat? How could we wake this nation from slumber?”

  “How?” Mitchell said. “Through murder? Through chaos? Through fear? Why didn’t you stand for office? You would have been elected. You could have become prime minister.”

  “I don’t want power,” Cavendish said. “I never have. I just want a future for our people. For all people.”

  “I don’t buy it,” Mitchell said. “Everything you’ve done ends with a new British Empire controlling almost the entire world.”

  “Really? I killed Yanuck, didn’t I? That smuggler didn’t know it, but I had already destroyed the rest of his people in the northeastern Mediterranean. There would be no more ammunition smuggled into Britain.”

  “Makepeace killed Yanuck,” Mitchell said.

  “Under my orders,” Cavendish said.

  “And did Emmitt shoot the prime minister under your orders?”

  “Emmitt has never listened to me, though I like to think I was able to guide him, able to tame some of his wilder notions.”

  “What about those five Luddites, the saboteurs,” Mitchell said. “You killed them, didn’t you?”

  “Makepeace did, but under my orders. It was cruel, yes, but it was a necessary cruelty. Emmitt wished for them to be captured, but in doing so, they would have revealed that they truly had nothing to do with the sabotage of the telegraph. Emmitt wished that my involvement was discovered, but I saw through his plans from the beginning.”

  “You plotted against him, while he plotted against you,” Mitchell said. “And all the innocents died for your petty schemes which have come to naught. There was a vineyard in France. There was…” He stopped. “Villages and towns have been laid waste, thousands have died, because of your vanity.”

  “Not vanity, Henry. For the greater good. You have to see that, surely. You of all people have to understand the importance of that.”

  “I think we’ve got enough,” Mitchell said, though this time far louder.

  He picked up the tablet while, from inside there was a burst of footsteps, a thud, and a muffled yell.

  “Got her, she’s alone,” Isaac called.

  “Then it’s over,” Mitchell said. He pushed the wrecked door open and stood there, staring at the pitiful figure of Rebecca Cavendish. Once, she’d been a titan in Britain, a force of nature who had shaped the nation, whose name had been known and spoken in awe. Now, slumped in her chair, blood dripping from a gash in her face, clutching her bloody hand, she was a sad, miserable wretch.

  Mitchell cuffed her hands together, around the arm of her wheelchair. “Bring her outside,” he said. “It’s time for you to face justice.”

  “I won’t,” Rebecca said, as Isaac pushed her chair towards the door. “Not the justice you mean. Certainly not the justice you want.”

  “You think no jury will dare find you guilty?” Mitchell said. “You think your people in the Railway Company will rescue you?” He took out the tablet. “I recorded our little chat. When everyone hears that, they’ll know you really are.”

  “Oh, Henry, that will never be heard in court,” Rebecca said.

  Ruth stepped inside, away from the door so that Isaac had room to get her outside.

  “It will,” Mitchell said. “I think this particular case will establish a few new precedents.”

  “That wasn’t what I meant,” Cavendish said. The chair rocked, and she almost fell from it as Isaac pushed her down the worn step and onto the path outside. “Goodbye, Henry. I leave Britain to your—”

  Blood sprayed from her head as a bullet slammed into her left temple, exiting the other side. Even as her head lolled forward, Isaac dragged the chair back into the room, but it was too late. She was dead.

  Another shot came, the bullet thudding into and through one of the boarded-up windows.

  “Emmitt?” Isaac asked, as he eased into the doorway. “It has to be, right?”

  “It has to,” Mitchell said. A bullet hit the door. “He’s got us pinned down.”

  “State the obvious, Henry,” Isaac said. “Though this explains why Cavendish didn’t leave. She couldn’t. Nor could her people. They were trapped, waiting to die.”

  “Then why didn’t Emmitt kill them?” Ruth asked.

  “A better question is why he’s shooting at us,” Isaac said. “I’m down to four bullets. How about you, Henry?”

  “I’ve got s
ix. Can you see him?”

  “Not without giving him something to aim for,” Isaac said. “But I think he’s in that pub at the top of the hill. He’s got a clear line of sight of the road, and of any help that might come from the garrison. What do you want to do? Toss a coin to see who plays decoy?”

  “No. We’ll wait until dark if we have to,” Mitchell said. “Ruth, watch the door, Isaac, help me search this place. Let’s see what weapons Cavendish’s people have left behind.”

  As the two men began to search the ruined house, Ruth crossed to the door.

  “Why hasn’t Emmitt run?” she asked, but neither Mitchell nor Isaac heard her. “Why didn’t he run after he shot Cavendish? He could have shot us when we were outside, but he didn’t. He waited for us to confront her. He wanted us to confront her. He wanted us to hear what she had to say. But why hasn’t he run?” She glanced around, but Mitchell had disappeared into the back, and she could hear Isaac upstairs.

  Emmitt could have killed them before. He could have killed her a dozen times over. He hadn’t. Perhaps he wouldn’t kill her now. Her hand dropped to her pocket. Perhaps. The only thing she was certain of was that he had to be stopped.

  She took a breath, and before doubt could set in, stepped out into the road. There was no shot. Perhaps he had gone, she thought as she took a step towards the pub at the top of the hill. He’d fired a few shots at them to buy himself a little more time. Maybe. Possibly. Probably. She walked up the hill, increasingly confident that she’d find the pub deserted until there was a shout from behind her.

  “Ruth?” It was Mitchell. She turned around, and saw him in the doorway. And then there was a shot. Dirt sprayed from the ground two feet from the door. A fraction of a second later came another shot. This bullet thumped into the door’s frame. Mitchell ducked back inside. Ruth turned her attention to the pub, and continued to walk up the hill.

  When she was thirty feet from the pub, the clouds parted long enough for the sun to shine on the sign. For a fraction of a second, flaking gold paint reflected the morning’s early gleam, and then the clouds returned, but she’d seen the pub’s name. It was the Five Bells. That reminded her of something on the distant edge of memory. Just as the fragmentary images were resolving into a clear and understandable picture, there was another shot. This bullet came close to her, spraying dirt from the verge to her left.

  “That’s close enough, Sameen,” Emmitt called. “I take it you want to talk?”

  “I’ve questions,” Ruth said.

  “Of course you do, though I trust you won’t ask whether I’m going to hand myself in?”

  “No,” Ruth said. “I know you won’t.”

  “Then I’ll give you a few minutes, but no more. Please put your gun on the ground.”

  Carefully, she bent, placing her revolver on the cracked tarmac. Then she took two steps away from it, and towards the pub. “Who’s left, Emmitt?” she called out.

  “Left? What do you mean, left?”

  “How many of your confederates are still alive?” she asked.

  “I could tell you none. I could tell you that they are legion. Would you believe me?”

  “Where are you going now?” she asked.

  “I could say that I’m staying in England. Or perhaps I have a boat waiting, twenty miles from here. You wouldn’t believe that answer, either.”

  “No, I suppose not.”

  “So ask me something, the answer to which you know won’t be a lie.”

  “Did you kill Makepeace?” she asked.

  “I did,” he said. “I’m surprised you didn’t recognise me.”

  “Why did you kill Cavendish?”

  “She betrayed me,” Emmitt called back. “We had a deal, but she lacked faith. No doubt she thought, when captured, I would talk. But she sent a butler as an assassin. Killing her was a mercy, in many ways.”

  “The fire in the courthouse, that was you? That was your plan all along? A contingency in case you were captured?”

  “More or less,” Emmitt said. “I always have a contingency.”

  “Like in London?” Ruth asked. “In that university building?”

  “Ah, Henry told you about that? I’m glad. Time is pressing, Sameen. This is your last question.”

  “I suppose I want to know why,” she said. “But you’re right; I won’t believe anything you say, so I won’t ask you a question. That’s what you want, isn’t it? That’s why you didn’t run the moment you were sure Cavendish was dead. You want me to ask you something about why or what next. Your reply will be another lie, one that will have us chasing our own tails, searching in Britain and beyond, distrusting our friends, suspicious of every shadow. Whatever you say, no matter how much truth is in it, or how much I want to believe that it’s the truth, it will only serve yourself. So, no, I won’t ask you a question. Instead, I’ll tell you what I think. I think anyone who might help you is dead. Either you killed them, or Cavendish had them killed. I think you’re alone, and your plans have failed. Everything you were working towards for the last twenty years is in ruins. None of it will come to pass, not now. It’s over, Emmitt.”

  “We shall see,” he said.

  “Where are you going?” she asked. “Really?”

  “I told you, that was your last question, and you squandered it.”

  “Fine. Take me with you,” she said.

  He laughed, a bitter, cruel bark completely absent of mirth. “Oh, yes, very good. I know Henry Mitchell’s tricks, and he learned at least one of them from me. You have another gun concealed about your person.”

  That was the opening she had been waiting for.

  “I don’t,” she said, as she unbuckled her belt and let her holster fall to the ground. She walked towards the pub. “No guns. No tricks. And no more lies from you. I just want an explanation. I want to understand.”

  She undid her jacket and took it off, bundling it into a ball.

  “See? No gun,” she said. She slipped her hand into the jacket’s pocket, and pulled the pin from the grenade Johannes had given her back in France. She threw the balled jacket through the pub’s window.

  “What!” Emmitt yelled, but more in confusion then fear.

  Ruth dived forward, aiming for ditch on the other side of the road. As she rolled across the tarmac, gravel and grit, broken glass and jagged stone bit into and through her trousers and shirt. There was a long second of nothing, when she thought the grenade was a dud, and then it exploded.

  The ground shook as her world filled with noise. Then it filled with wood, brick, and glass raining down on top of her. When it stopped, she picked herself up, and walked over to the fractured window.

  Emmitt had made it halfway across the room before the grenade went off. Rather, most of him was now halfway across the room, but enough remained that Ruth was sure it was him, and she was sure that he was dead.

  Mitchell and Isaac were already running up the hill. She sat at the side of the road, waiting for them, her eyes on the pub’s sign, now swinging gently back and forth.

  “That was—” Mitchell began, but Ruth didn’t let him finish.

  “It’s over. Emmitt’s dead,” she said.

  Isaac went over to the pub. “I’d have to agree with her,” he said. “Was that a grenade?”

  “From France,” Ruth said.

  “And you’ve—” Mitchell began, but stopped mid-sentence. “Did he say anything?”

  “Mostly just taunts,” Ruth said. “There might be a boat waiting for him twenty miles from here, but that might have been a lie. He admitted to killing Makepeace, and that he was working with Cavendish. Oh, and using the fire in the courthouse to escape was always part of his plan. He was one step ahead of us all the time.”

  “Until now,” Mitchell said.

  “Do you want to search the body?” Isaac asked.

  “No,” Mitchell said. “I want to go home and sleep, but there is the matter of the Railway Company still to be dealt with. Yes, the body needs to be sea
rched. And this pub. And then the coast, twenty miles from here.”

  “I’ll take care of that,” Isaac said.

  Mitchell hesitated.

  “You’re stretched beyond thin,” Isaac said. “And I promise to share everything I find with you,” he added.

  “Fine,” Mitchell said. “But make sure you do. Atherton needs to be informed about… about everything. Ruth, do you want to come back to Twynham with me?”

  “What time is it?” she asked.

  “A little after nine,” Mitchell said.

  “Then I should get back to Dover,” she said. “After all, either I’m a copper or I’m not, and if I am, then I’m late for work.” She stood up, and started down the hill, heading back towards Dover.

  Epilogue 1 - Executive Decisions

  16th November, Twynham

  Prime Minister Atherton tapped at the tablet’s screen, pausing the audio recording. “Damned by her own words,” he said. “Cavendish knew that Emmitt was waiting to shoot her?”

  “Almost certainly,” Mitchell said. “The tyres on her getaway truck were slashed. She was trapped. I suspect the only reason her people didn’t abandon her is that Emmitt was taking pot shots at them.” He stretched out his legs, and briefly closed his eyes. It had been a frantic twenty-four hours, but so far there had been no new crisis in Britain, no more murders, and no insurrection.

  “So that was Cavendish’s death-bed confession,” Atherton said. “The question is whether we can believe it.”

  “Yes,” Mitchell said. “At least in broad strokes. It mostly confirms what the evidence has already proven.”

  “And Emmitt is dead?”

  “You should have a report from the Dover coroner by tomorrow morning,” Mitchell said. “But, yes. He’s dead.”

  “You’re sure.”

  “I am.”

  “Then that brings us to what we do next,” Atherton said. He picked up his glass, and only then seemed to realise it was empty. He swivelled in his chair, turning to face the decanter by the door, and seemed to catch sight of the two portraits watching him. He sighed, and put the empty glass back on his desk. “What do we do? We can’t use that recording in a trial.”