by James Hazel
Priest and Jessica huddled around an ambulance waiting for Georgie to be checked over. None of the three of them had spoken since they had come down from the rooftop. Priest felt anaesthetised, drained of all feeling.
Two paramedics wheeled a stretcher past them. Priest caught Jessica’s arm. ‘Just a minute,’ he said, gesturing for the paramedics to slow. He followed the stretcher party to a second ambulance.
‘Is she OK?’ he asked.
‘She’s weak,’ said one of the paramedics as he helped lift Hayley Wren into the back of the ambulance. ‘Her body’s taken a hell of a lot of stress. That’s all I can say.’
‘Listen,’ said Priest urgently. ‘She’s been poisoned with a modified version of strychnine. You need to contact Detective Chief Inspector Rowlinson of South Wales CID. He has details of similar cases – the information he has will help you treat her.’
‘Thanks, that’s appreciated. Are you police?’
‘Not anymore.’
Inside the ambulance, Hayley opened one eye and looked at Priest. She didn’t appear to recognise him at first, but just as the doors were closing, she lifted her hand and smiled. A small piece of him felt restored. Atonement was perhaps not as elusive as he had thought.
The feeling was short-lived.
‘Oh, shit,’ he muttered.
‘What?’ said Jessica.
‘It’s my ex-wife.’
Assistant Commissioner Dee Auckland strode purposefully across the gravel, her face warped into a look of raw hatred. She was flanked by two other officers. Priest vaguely recognised them as the policemen who had accompanied McEwen to Philip Wren’s house. She had aged since he had last seen her – there were crow’s feet around her eyes he didn’t recognise. Priest sensed Jessica tensing up.
‘Hello, darling,’ he said.
‘Shut up, Charlie. Just what do you think you’re playing at?’
Priest took his time. His short marriage to Dee Auckland had ended principally because he’d failed to think through what he said to her first.
‘I think I have just uncovered the biggest public scandal of the twenty-first century,’ he said.
Auckland opened her mouth and took a deep breath. Priest braced himself, but she was interrupted.
‘That’s the one! That’s him! Arrest that fucker!’ McEwen was wading across the courtyard, his face red and blotchy. He had lost his bow tie somewhere along the way and his shirt was hanging open, revealing a bulging, sporadically haired chest. He was pointing frantically at Priest.
The two CID officers with Auckland looked at her for guidance.
‘DI McEwen,’ said Auckland drily. ‘Remind me. How is it that we came to find you here?’
‘I’ve been working undercover, ma’am. Ratting out these perverted bastards, under the instructions of your predecessor.’
‘I see. Probably an arrangement I would have known about if it were true, don’t you think? And the grounds for arresting Charles Priest are what, exactly?’
‘Perverting the course of justice, ma’am. Priest was in on it from the start.’
‘Indeed. Well –’ Auckland turned to the two CID officers. ‘You’d better arrest him, hadn’t you.’
‘Dee –’ Priest protested, but she put up her hand. Priest glanced at Jessica.
‘Provided,’ Dee said calmly, ‘that DI McEwen can explain why it is that the real undercover officer can’t verify his cover.’
From behind the ambulance, Marco appeared. He had removed the waiter’s uniform he’d worn earlier and was now wearing civvies and SCO19-issued body armour. He stood behind McEwen, arms folded, blocking his way.
‘M-ma’am?’ McEwen stuttered.
‘We already had an undercover officer working at the House of Mayfly, Inspector. This is Graham Sanderson. NDEU.’
‘Well – I wasn’t aware –’
‘Aware that your sordid little enterprise was being monitored from the inside? No, I don’t suppose you were.’
McEwen stiffened. Priest saw his beady little eyes dart from side to side, like a trapped animal calculating his chances of escape.
‘And him?’ Auckland nodded at Priest, her eyes on Sanderson.
‘Ellinder had taken one of the women to the roof. I freed the other but without this man, the outcome wouldn’t have been so positive. I found him on the roof, about to be shot by Ellinder, which is when I opened fire.’
‘Very well.’ Auckland turned to McEwen. ‘Get this one out of my sight then, please, Sanderson.’
Sanderson nodded at Priest, who returned the acknowledgement with a wry smile. Then the undercover officer took McEwen’s arms behind his back and slapped on the cuffs. The Scot objected but there was no fight left in him.
As Sanderson led McEwen away, Priest and Jessica turned back to Auckland. Priest wished he had turned quicker – he could have sworn that Dee was smiling to herself.
‘And now,’ she said thoughtfully. ‘I’ll need statements from you. Tomorrow will do. I trust you can manage that, Priest?’
‘I’ll give it a go.’
‘Yes. You will. And now get out of here before I change my mind.’
Priest wasn’t a man who looked a gift horse in the mouth. He took Jessica’s hand and walked away to where the Aston had been parked.
‘And you –’ Auckland called out.
Priest stopped and they turned back.
‘Miss Ellinder.’ Auckland nodded at Jessica’s hand locked in Priest’s. ‘For fuck’s sake, don’t be so bloody stupid.’
Inside the car, Priest ran his hands over the wheel. The blue lights flashed rhythmically across the mirror. He turned to look at Jessica. She was staring straight ahead.
‘What will you tell your father?’ he asked.
She sighed heavily. ‘I’ll tell him the truth.’
‘That’ll be hard to hear.’
‘It might even kill him.’
‘And Scarlett?’
Jessica didn’t respond. Just shook her head.
Priest studied the scene in the rear-view mirror. Four uniformed officers were dragging a woman kicking and screaming down the stone steps. She was thrashing her arms and legs; her dress was torn. It was taking all of their strength to keep her from escaping their grip. Eventually, they managed to bundle Lucia Ellinder into the back of one of the riot vans, all four officers climbing in after her. Even after they had slammed the door shut, her cries drifted across the misty air.
‘Infidels! God hates you! God will swallow your souls, cut out your tongues, mutilate your bodies . . .’
Priest dipped the mirror. Jessica hadn’t looked, but he knew she had heard.
‘At least they got her,’ she whispered.
‘You couldn’t have known, Jessica.’
‘I should have known.’
Priest nodded. He felt the same thing about William.
The rear driver’s side door of the Aston opened and someone climbed in. Priest and Jessica spun around.
‘Georgie?’
‘Hi.’
‘You really should stay with the ambulance crew,’ Priest pointed out.
‘They gave me tablets. I feel fine.’
‘Georgie . . .’
‘Charlie, I don’t want to be labelled a victim. Can we please just get out of here?’
Priest looked at Jessica. She was smiling. He sighed. Bloody stubborn employees. He fired up the Aston’s engine and pulled away, up the drive, and out on to the main road.
‘Charlie, do I get paid overtime for this?’
‘We’ll talk about it later.’
He pressed the accelerator and the House of Mayfly disappeared in the haze behind them.
54
On Priest’s insistence, Georgie checked herself in at the local hospital. Fortunately, her injuries were minor and she needed little treatment other than bandages and sleep.
Priest had offered to stay with her but she had lied and said someone was on their way to pick her up. She suspected he would ha
ve more important things to do than sit in a busy A & E department on a Saturday night. Instead, she had walked home in the early hours of the morning, despite the young doctor suggesting she ought to stay. Georgie hadn’t told him how she had got the injuries.
After several hours of disturbed sleep, she got up, showered, dressed and registered with a local agent to look for a flat closer to the office. When she emerged from her room, she found Li sitting outside in the corridor.
‘I didn’t want to disturb you. So I waited here,’ Li said.
‘Thanks.’
Georgie sat down next to her.
‘Georgie, what the hell happened to you?’
Georgie thought about it. What has happened to me? There was so much of it she didn’t understand but she had the rest of her life to find out. And tomorrow she was due back at work.
‘Do you want to get a house with me closer to the centre?’ Georgie asked.
Li waited a moment. Then she smiled and nodded. ‘Sure.’
They sat in silence for a while. Then they heard someone coming up the stairs.
‘Li, where have you – Oh. It’s you.’
Martin stopped short when he saw Georgie and started to walk back the other way. There was a time when Georgie would have flushed with embarrassment. But not now. She got up.
‘Actually, Martin,’ Georgie said. ‘Wait. Please.’
He hesitated and she could tell he was debating ignoring her, but he didn’t. He stopped, and turned to look at her. ‘Yeah?’ he said.
Georgie stepped forward a few paces, swung her fist back, and planted it into his face. Martin’s chin cracked. He fell heavily and wheezed out a cry of pain and surprise. Li scrambled to her feet.
‘You are a rapist,’ Georgie said. ‘But you have no hold over me.’
55
Priest closed his eyes and listened to the sound of Sarah’s voice at the other end of the phone. He had no idea what the last fifteen minutes of conversation had been about. Normally, he found listening to Sarah babble on about the glass ceiling – however justified – fairly tedious. Today though, the sheer normality of it was glorious. It reminded him that he was still alive.
‘I mean, have you any idea just what percentage of directors of the top FTSE 100 companies are female?’ she was saying.
‘I have no idea.’
‘I have no idea either, but I bet it’s like, less than five.’
‘Sarah,’ he said. ‘You’ve got bigger balls than most men.’
She replied but he didn’t hear it. The doorbell had just rung.
‘Listen, Sarah, I have to go. Love to Tilly, OK?’
He opened the door and Jessica walked in, as usual without saying a word and without really looking at him. Considering what they had been through in the last twenty-four hours, she looked incredible, although, judging from her grim expression, it was going to be a short meeting.
‘Can I get you a drink?’ he asked.
‘I’m not staying.’
She was wrapped in a long, off-white designer trench coat. Like everything about her, from the way her hair fell over one eye to the bag elegantly hung over her shoulder, she made it look understated.
‘You look –’ he stroked his chin, searching for the right word. ‘Flawless.’
If she was pleased with the compliment, she didn’t show it. Except for maybe the smallest quiver of her lip.
‘So there was a task force after all,’ she said. ‘They had been watching my mother for months, ever since they’d identified her as . . . whatever she was.’
Priest nodded. ‘You couldn’t have known, Jessica.’
‘Then why do I feel such heavy guilt?’
He didn’t have an answer to that.
‘The Mayfly has operated successfully for decades,’ Priest said gently. ‘First through your grandmother and then your mother. Its reach went as far as the highest echelons of government. There are arrests happening simultaneously across the country. Almost every police force in the UK is involved to some degree. Politicians, bankers, lawyers, coppers. Even a fucking geography teacher.’
‘And that man, the waiter, he was part of Philip Wren’s task force?’
‘A specialist, covert group. One that had its origins, I believe, with our friend, Colonel Ruck. Just as the House of Mayfly has had its successive commanders, so has the task force. After Ruck retired, they gave the job to an MI5 spy and eventually they selected Wren to head it up because he had a military background but wasn’t directly involved in the police.’
Jessica was staring at the floor, gently shaking her head, as if she was still trying to process everything that had happened. Priest wanted to take her into his arms and tell her that everything would be fine. But that would be a lie. He doubted she would ever be fine again.
‘How did your father take it?’ he asked.
‘He’s not spoken since. Just stayed in his office. Scarlett’s staying for a while longer to look after him, but I can tell all she wants to do is get back to the States and forget the whole thing ever happened.’
‘I can sympathise. You know, she’s the one who showed me your father’s insect collection?’
‘They’re just specimens,’ Jessica murmured. ‘My father was interested in entomology. I took a look around recently. There aren’t actually any mayflies in the collection.’
‘I see. We all just – assumed.’
Jessica nodded. ‘One thing,’ she said, looking up. ‘How did you know Miles wasn’t dead?’
‘I didn’t know for sure.’ Priest sighed. ‘But on the interim autopsy report that Giles sent me, there were a few important details that didn’t click with me until later. One was the fact that Miles’s body was identified by your mother and the second was that the toxicology report was clean.’
‘Whereas you knew Miles was a user.’
Priest nodded. ‘The pathologist was on the Mayfly list, too. I gave Dee the details. He wasn’t found at the house but they picked him up at Dover. He must have heard about what happened and fled.’
‘And the impaling? Why did they impale that poor man?’
Priest looked away. ‘When the police raided Miles’s house, they found a shrine to Vlad the Impaler. Books, posters, comics, blogs, figurines, artwork, a pendant bearing his image.’ He turned back to Jessica. ‘You couldn’t have known,’ he said. ‘You never went there. Miles was obsessed with one of the most evil tyrants in history. He chose to fake his own death to celebrate him.’
Jessica shuddered and walked over to the fish tank. The lionfish were weaving in and out of their little plastic bridges. She put her hand against the glass.
‘There were three,’ she said softly. ‘Now only two.’
‘One of them died. I think I overfed them.’
She turned to him. ‘I’m sorry, Charlie Priest.’
He looked at her. ‘You’re sorry because you can’t stay or because one of my fish died?’
‘Because I can’t stay. I’ll buy you a new fish.’
The words got stuck in Priest’s throat. ‘You’re here to say goodbye, then.’
She nodded slowly.
‘It has to be this way.’
She took his hand. Held it for a moment. Her touch was warm, full of life and promise. He wished the moment would never pass. Then she let it go and turned to walk out.
‘I’m sorry, Charlie.’
‘No. Wait.’ Priest held up his hand. ‘You’re going to say you can never see me again,’ he said. ‘But you’re wrong. It doesn’t have to be that way. The guilt you’re feeling is crushing you, isn’t it?’
‘Charlie, those people . . .’
‘We all need a blue sky, Jessica. I feel guilt too.’
‘What did you say?’
‘I said I feel guilt, too.’
‘No, the first bit.’
Priest swallowed. It had just slipped out. ‘I said we all need a blue sky. It’s something my mother used to say.’
It was her turn to falt
er.
‘Don’t you see, Jessica? We’re the same.’
She bit her lip. Her face was flushed and there were tears in her eyes. As they stood in silence, the mid-morning sun pushed through the clouds and flooded the apartment with glorious colour.
56
Priest studied the Risk board carefully but it wasn’t obvious where he could move. The majority of the board was awash with red, save for a small stronghold in Eastern Europe controlled by his blue army.
William rapped his knuckles on the table.
‘How long is it going to take you, brother, to realise that the statistical probability of you winning this game is next to nothing?’
‘Give me a moment.’
Priest moved a unit west and rolled the dice.
‘I do enjoy our games of Risk,’ William said.
‘I used to prefer it when we played Guess Who.’
‘That is natural because you are a rotten chess player – but a fine brother.’
William totted up the dice and laughed gleefully as he removed the advancing unit from play.
‘How have you been, Wills?’
‘Worried about you, as it happens.’
‘Really?’
‘Yes. That surprises you? That I am capable of such benevolent and altruistic thoughts? After what I’ve done?’
Priest pointed to the board. ‘It’s your move.’
‘Really? You don’t want to move these troops here?’ William gestured to a unit on the far eastern corner of the board.
‘It’s your turn,’ Priest insisted.
William shrugged. ‘Suit yourself.’ He began checking his cards and moving reinforcements to areas already heavily populated with red infantry. ‘So, was the matter taking up your time satisfactorily resolved?’
‘It was resolved, if that’s what you mean.’
‘I hear on the news that a neo-Nazi ring has been exposed in our backwater country. Did you have something to do with that?’
‘Can I ask you something?’
‘Of course. No secrets between kin.’
‘When you murdered those people – you didn’t meet God at any point along the way, did you?’
William was about to throw the dice but he stopped and looked up. Priest stared into his brother’s eyes. For the first time as far as he could remember, he saw a small flash of humanity.
