by Howard Marks
‘Nothing. Fingers were pointed at the three officers who had initially requested the expenditure. That was myself, Rhys and the officer in charge, Powell. They crawled all over us, but never got anything.’
Thomas was swallowing hard, putting a hand to his mouth.
Catrin looked out into the passage, then back at Thomas. ‘So you believe there was a deliberate smear campaign to hobble the investigation into the lab?’
‘If so, it worked. By the time they climbed into Rhys and Powell and myself, the op had already been wound up. There were a couple of small articles by the Insight Team in the Sunday Times, some follow-up pieces in the Western Mail. But after a couple of months the press lost interest and it looked as though everyone had forgotten about it.’
Catrin looked into Thomas’s eyes again, thought she saw a flicker of some deep and long-standing fear but it was there so briefly she couldn’t be sure.
Thomas leant forward slightly, his eyes dropping for a moment to Catrin’s neck.
‘Yet all these years later, it looks like Rhys may still have been working the same old case.’
Thomas stared down at the blank space ahead of him. ‘Rhys always believed that the lab and the deaths were all linked to a single figure out here,’ he said.
‘What made him think that?’
‘He would never tell me. But that’s why he was out here around the time he found you in the woods. It’s all one case,’ he said quietly.
All was still outside. Through the nets Catrin saw the hazy, tired light that had already a tinge of dusk about it. She remembered how Rhys had always seemed preoccupied, how she’d sensed a pain there, something he was keeping locked away, that she couldn’t reach. She’d open one door to it and another would close and now she knew why. All the time he’d been protecting her from the darkness the case had spread inside himself.
Thomas stood up. ‘There’s something I have to do,’ he said. ‘Wait here, I’ll be back.’
She watched the door close behind him, turned to the window and pulled back the curtains. The afternoon light was fading behind the low, incoming banks of fog, the weather closing in again.
Catrin woke to a light knocking sound outside the door. She raised her head, looked at her watch. She’d been asleep for almost an hour. The temperature in the room had fallen. The headache that had been with her all day had eased, in its place a dull, tired numbness. She got up from the chair, stretched. Padding over to the door, she opened it a crack.
Thomas was standing back in the narrow passage. He was hanging his head slightly, not looking at her directly.
Catrin didn’t move from the doorway at first. Then, still not fully awake, she stood back, let him through. As he edged past her his steps seemed unsteady. His breath smelt heavily of drink.
By the window was a counter with a dusty stand of tea bags and coffees. Catrin emptied two coffee sachets into the mugs, switched on the kettle. He must have gone back to the bar, she thought, or brought a bottle of something in the car.
‘You didn’t used to drink so much,’ she said. ‘You’re troubled by something aren’t you, something you’re still not telling me?’
Thomas didn’t reply. She felt his hand reach up, touch her shoulder.
‘You should come back with me, first thing.’ His voice did not sound slurred now, but quiet and clear. His eyes were bloodshot, but the level emptiness in his gaze did not come from the drink.
She wondered if he knew Huw was with her, if he had contact with Huw still. Probably not, she thought. He was looking away from her towards the window. But there was nothing to see there, the curtains were still closed. She saw in his eyes just apertures over a void. She couldn’t read them.
Gently she removed his hand from her shoulder, let it drop to her side. His eyes softened as she did this. She thought she glimpsed a loneliness there.
‘I’m sorry for what I did to you. In the car, all those years ago,’ he said.
‘So you admit it now.’
‘I was drunk. The truth is I don’t remember what I did,’ he said.
She poured in the water from the kettle and used a Biro to stir the coffee.
She wondered what had got into Thomas. All his usual cockiness seemed to have evaporated. He’d come because he needed information from her, but once he’d got it, he’d wanted to share with her. Thomas and Rhys went way back, that was something Thomas had kept from her. This might explain his sudden openness with her, but it also troubled her. And there was one thing he’d told her almost nothing about, something he’d claimed not to know when she’d first asked him back in town. Now she wondered if he’d be more open with her.
‘Those drugs you were talking about earlier, the ones at that Heath Park lab. How would those differ from the standard hallucinogens?’
His lips had parted into a vague, unfocused look of disapproval.
‘With the usual hallucinogens, magic mushrooms or acid, a part of the brain, however small, always knows that what it’s seeing is an illusion.’
‘And with those other types?’
‘That part of the brain is suspended. The illusion is absolute. You enter a parallel reality. You see a demon, that demon is there with you, real as anything you’ve ever seen. They’re deep trance drugs, the type ancient shamans used to enter the spirit world.’
In her mind’s eye Catrin could see again the path winding through the dark trees, at the end the two sheds, under the glare of the grow-lights the troughs of plants, and far above them through the woods the looming shape of the escarpment.
‘But could such weird drugs ever have any practical uses? Something that could justify the expense of a high-tech lab like the one at Heath Park?’
‘I’m not sure.’ He paused, seemed about to go on but didn’t.
‘But whoever’s behind all the disappearances clearly used them in some way that’s somatically dangerous. That must be why those three bodies all exhibited liver damage.’
Thomas didn’t seem to be listening to what Catrin said. She moved closer to him before she spoke again, glimpsed a ring of sweat on his collar.
He was reaching to the window, pulling the curtains to. His body was closing out the light from the corner. She felt his breath on her neck. ‘The liver damage,’ he said, ‘it may not have been the only factor in the deaths.’ His voice sounded faint, just a murmur, as if he was half speaking to himself.
She wanted to step back, but didn’t.
‘What else?’ she said.
‘Those first three bodies also had some facial damage. The eyeballs had been picked away, apparently by birds, the noses and ears, the tongues.’
She stepped back. ‘But soft-tissue damage in wash-ups is common from exposure to gulls and other coastal birds.’
‘Yes, that’s the obvious explanation.’
She waited but he didn’t go on. She felt him reach up, his fingers brush gently over her cheek. She backed away against the wall.
‘You didn’t ask about Della.’ He said this in a neutral, deliberately level tone.
Somehow she saw Della as indestructible, she couldn’t imagine the world without her. But of course she had been very vulnerable. They all were. ‘Well, how’s she doing?’
‘She’s still in a coma, her brain was deprived of oxygen.’ Catrina felt relieved to hear that Della was still alive, still had a chance. ‘She left a message for you on my line, the morning of the fire. She didn’t say anything, just to get in touch.’
She remembered what Pugh had said, about the message Della had left on his line. She wondered again what Della could have wanted, and why she hadn’t left a message on her own line. She sensed Thomas’s fingers rising to her neck, just lingering there as if afraid to touch.
‘Come back with me,’ he said.
She shook her head. Then he lowered his hand and walked to the door, not looking back. Catrin heard his boots clacking out over the gravel to the cars.
For a brief moment he looked back at her, then
disappeared. The place where he’d been standing seemed a deeper black than the space around it, as if he was still watching her. Thomas had just told her so much, and yet she felt she no longer knew who he was. Maybe she’d never really known him at all.
Catrin waited. The only movement outside was that of the birds, circling high above the empty square of tarmac, drifting away into the fog. Over by the rocks she saw a pinprick of light, a cigarette perhaps, then all was dark.
Gradually she noticed another vehicle by the rocks. It was parked near Thomas’s car, an old van. One of the doors was opening, a figure standing behind it.
It was the surfer, wearing the same long fur coat. He waved slowly at her, then got up onto the rocks and looked past her into the room.
He’s seeing if I’m alone, why else would he be looking past me like that? Catrin closed the curtains, ran back into the passage. The air was filled with the voices of the men in the bar. She went to the door, looked in. There was no sign of Huw there, nor of Thomas, just the usual bearded figures nursing pints.
Through the coloured glass in the outside door she saw the outline of a man in a long dark coat. He doesn’t want to be seen talking to me, but why? she wondered.
She ordered a drink, stared at the pictures of the lifeboat crews behind the bar. When she turned back to the door, the man was gone. She finished the drink in a single gulp and went back into the corridor.
There were no overhead lights on. She ran her hand along the wall, feeling for a switch. The wall felt cold, rough under her fingers. She leant back against it, breathed deeply, tried to get her bearings. Through the door behind her came a band of weak, fan-shaped light to the foot of the stairs. She reached for the banister rail, but grabbed the edge of a picture on the wall. Another lifeboat crew perhaps. The picture fell and she felt herself tumbling forward onto the steps.
She heard the glass crack. A shuffling, behind her. The man was standing in the doorway, blocking the light.
‘What do you want?’ she said. Her voice came out as frailer, more tremulous than she would have liked.
‘I’d like to meet,’ he said. ‘Just the two of us.’ His hand grasped her arm, pulling her up.
‘No.’ She tried to call out, but his hand was over her mouth. It smelt sweetly, of some expensive cologne, not like a builder’s hand at all.
She felt herself falling backwards and jabbed hard at his eyes. He didn’t react. His face felt strangely stiff as if it was not made from flesh at all. He was strong: with one arm he pulled her down the passage, through a doorway, his hand still over her mouth.
He closed the door, flicked the switch. They were in what had once been the tack-room of the inn. Old saddles and racks were hanging around the walls with dusty stirrups and bits.
He pulled her over against the rack. She tried to stamp on his instep but he anticipated her move. She felt his hand harder over her mouth, his fingers pushing apart her lips and forcing themselves between her teeth.
She bit down hard and kicked at him. It felt as if she was kicking something inanimate. She was falling again, but he held her back against the rack.
‘Who are you?’ she said. ‘You’re one of them, aren’t you?’
He’d taken his hand from her mouth. There was a look of almost tender concern on his face. ‘One of who?’ he said.
She had her left arm free now, and hacked at his windpipe. He didn’t flinch, just moved closer, his breath slow and level. She drilled at his face in a series of fast, hard punches, moves she’d practised many times, trying to unsight him. He stepped back out of range, and she broke free and ran for the door. She could hear men coming out from the bar, moving down the passage. Before she had time to shout for help, he rushed forwards at an almost inhuman speed. She expected him to grab her, but she heard his leather soles darting out over the gravel into the darkness.
She went up the stairs, to the room, locked the door. She waited, listened. But there were no sounds outside.
She took out the card he’d given her and held it under the light. FRANSIS SERAFIM. FRANCIS SERAFIM LTD. Then a Cardiff address. She booted up her Mac, ran his name and address on the PNC. Nothing came up, he had no record at all. She went into the Companies House site next. It was a new company, just formed, hadn’t even filed its first accounts yet. He was listed as a sole trader, no associates.
She ran a few more searches: there were a couple of listings in Cardiff and London gyms, a surf club membership, an earlier membership to a house builders’ association. It all seemed banal enough.
Catrin got up, went through to Huw’s room. He wasn’t back yet. Under a bottle of whisky he’d left on the table was a note, saying he’d gone into Fishguard to use a teleconferencing facility. She called his mobile from the landline.
‘You’ve got your guards with you?’ she asked.
‘They picked me up.’
‘Don’t bring them. It will attract too much attention. Come back alone.’
She poured some of the whisky, drank it neat. She still felt tense, rolled a cigarette. She reached into Huw’s dope box, picked out one of the baggies and crumbled some in.
It was strong. A couple of drags and she felt light-headed, slightly giddy. She picked up the surfer’s card again, noticed the old-fashioned writing on the back. She held it under the light again. There was a single name. The Wing. Then the web address of a popular BDSM site, not the most fashionable but one of the largest.
She clicked onto the site. It was the usual dom’s profile. She’d seen dozens like it over the years when she’d worked that scene undercover. A couple of shots with bare torso and leather mask. Then some shots of him in civilian life, standing with his surfboard, to show his face, to show he was just a normal guy.
She took a closer look at his interests: conventional enough in the context – spanking, whips, bondage, role play. Nothing that heavy, no mention of edge play or any of the more extreme areas. Many doms would show off their dungeons if they had them, or their arrays of toys and whips, but despite his obvious experience there were no pictures of that sort. She noted the site worked like most of the other BDSM sites, on a rating system. The contacts would score each other out of five. This way members could check if another member was trustworthy, worth contacting. It wasn’t foolproof but it seemed to work.
He was an active member, he’d had over a dozen encounters in the last three months; all had given him the full five stars. This was unusual, subs could be notoriously choosy. Normally it would take several encounters before a sub built up the requisite trust with her dom or found a match for her needs.
Intuitive, she thought, good at reading people. That usually comes with having started out as a sub. Usually there would be some negative feedback along the line, but Catrin could see none at all.
She did next what prospective subs would do. She checked the profiles of his various encounters to see what kind of members had attracted him. The photographs were all characteristically coy, but there was enough detail to see they were good-looking girls and women between late teens and early thirties. There were different types, different hair colours. There didn’t seem to be any clear common denominator, except that where they were visible all seemed to have brown eyes. Deep brown eyes, just like hers. Oh fuck, she thought, just my luck.
She looked carefully from one profile to the next. There were the typical poetic self-descriptions, talk of empty souls and voids and a returning, irresistible need to submit their will utterly to another, of the paradox of freedom through enslavement. Like most subs they were quite articulate. She clicked from one text to another, then back again. Something wasn’t quite right. She looked carefully at the syntax, the punctuation. Then it struck her. All the profiles had been written by a single person.
It felt like a set-up, a trap. He could be that thing subs fear most, a rogue dom. Once someone was shackled, they were helpless. If the trust wasn’t there, anything could happen.
7
Catrin woke late, after e
ight. It was still dark outside. She could see Huw in silhouette at the window. On the table lay rows of printouts. The laptop was open over on the dressing table, its screen glowing with the blue and white of the Glangwili Hospital portal.
Huw was staring out at the weather. Catrin could see the tendrils of mist moving past the window, the deep grey sky that probably wouldn’t lift all day. Huw pointed at something outside.
‘Whose car’s that?’
Sliding down the bed, she peered over his shoulder. The boxy shape of Thomas’s Audi was just visible through the mist. Beside it she could see the distant outline of a man sitting smoking on the rocks. It didn’t look like Thomas; someone older, his head turned away, staring out to sea. She thought it might be Tudor from the woods, but couldn’t be sure. For a moment the man seemed to raise an arm, as if acknowledging her gaze.
‘That’s DS Thomas’s. He must have stayed overnight,’ she said.
‘A fishing expedition relating to the fires?’
Catrin felt Huw pulling her into his warmth. She knew immediately she didn’t want to talk to him about what had happened with Fransis. She didn’t want him to know about that side of her life, her undercover selves; however she tried to explain it, she knew it would come out all wrong.
‘How much did you give Thomas?’ he asked.
‘I told him about the Stephens file, that Stephens was a Face fan, maybe linked to some cult out here, maybe one of my abductors. That what looked like Stephens’s body had washed up on the Sands only a month ago.’
‘And?’
‘He thought the case had similarities to a suspected serial OD case Rhys had been working back in the Nineties.’
She exhaled slowly, feeling calmer than she’d expected. Huw had stopped kissing her, but his lips were close to her neck, his breath warm on her. ‘And these similarities were?’
‘The case had centred on three bodies of previously healthy young men that turned up on the coast here, all with acute liver damage.’
‘Did he say if Rhys had fingered any suspects?’
‘No, he said traces of synthesised tryptamines on the bodies led to that state-of-the-art drugs lab in Heath Park, and after that the trail went cold. A sting was launched, a mirror lab set up to draw in the buyers, get a fix on the distribution chain. But as expenditure spiralled without any results the whole op got a bad smell, got closed down.’
