THE SIX: A Dark, Dazzling Serial Killer Story

by Anni Taylor

  “We might need to interview you further. You were the last person to have contact with Rosemary before she died. We really do need you to stick around.” The DCI levelled his gaze. “Okay?”

  “Yes, I’ll do that. I’ll pick a hotel that’s a bit away from where I was staying before. I doubt anyone would be able to find me.”

  “Well, the offer of a police guard is there. Call us if you get worried. We’ll do what we can to find your daughter.” He smiled briefly, and I knew it was his turn to lie. He had a murder investigation on his hands. A teenager who was tripping around the world was not his concern.

  “I’d appreciate that.”

  “We’ll let you know when you can return home. Your husband’s been on the phone with us, demanding you return to America,” he said dryly.

  “James was worried even before I travelled to the UK. He’s probably getting a bit frantic now.” James never actually got frantic. He had two modes: either calm or demanding. Mostly, he was calm. You knew things had gone haywire when James got rattled.

  I left the police station, suitcase in hand. I’d been all ready to head off with Rosemary. Now, I didn’t know where to go. I could ignore the detective and head off to Greece on my own. But I didn’t have the barest clue where to go or what to do when I got there.

  When I reached a park, I sat myself down. A series of shivers passed along my body in spite of the warm day. The police had suggested I see their recommended counsellor. Seeing someone with their throat slashed was bound to be traumatising, they’d told me. And it was, more than I could articulate. I kept seeing that image of Rosemary over and over. But I couldn’t return home to James’s arms. Not yet.

  Rosemary Oort was not going to die in vain. She’d spoken about many things to do with the people that Kara might be involved with. And the strange historical group. I just needed to pick up the threads.

  The old self-doubts came galloping in. I couldn’t do this by myself. My whole life, I’d never really given myself permission to trust myself. I’d always let someone else take the reins.

  Had it really taken me getting to the age of thirty-eight to realise that the people who took the reins were just more confident than I was? Yes, it had taken me that long. Other people weren’t really any wiser than me. They just jumped on the horse and took the reins.

  Kara was completely different to me. She made her own decisions, and she followed them through. She didn’t second-guess herself. So like her father. That was why she’d been so bull-headed about coming out to study in Australia. Once she’d made her decision, I knew there was no turning her away from that path.

  I wondered what Kara thought of me? Weak? Could she and I ever meet in the middle? Or would our relationship continue to wear thin? I knew parents who never saw their offspring once they’d grown. The thought of that was almost too much to bear.

  Black and white ducks waddled across the grass to a murky pond, the first of them jubilantly flicking water about once they’d plunged into the pond. A group of backpackers cycled past, narrowly missing the ducks.

  In that moment, I recalled my conversation with Rosemary in the café next to the bicycles. She’d been in contact with a couple who lived in Athens. A husband and wife who were both history professors. That couple should be my next port of call. Rosemary had been very interested in what they had to say—and I should be too, because if Rosemary had found something compelling about it, then it was worth investigating further. Even though I’d found talk of the ancient society all so strange.

  There was nothing I could do for Rosemary now.

  I had to steal away from London and fly to Athens.

  40. EVIE

  THE MENTORS GAVE THE CHALLENGE PARTICIPANTS a briefing session in the garden. They informed us that Saul’s body was being taken home to his family. The police had found out that Saul’s murderer had come here on his own, arriving in a small boat—possibly before any of us had even arrived—and concealing himself. He was Italian, a man who’d belonged to one of the monastery-invading groups that Brother Sage had described, but they’d recently thrown him out due to odd behaviour.

  The mentors told us that challenge four would be going ahead as planned tonight. At the end of the talk, any of us who felt they needed a counselling session were invited to attend the scriptorium and have a private chat with Brother Vito. Poppy, puffy eyed from both her nap and crying, was among the group that wanted a counselling session.

  I chose to find a quiet place in the garden where I still had glimpses of the sky. I needed to keep hold of the world outside the monastery, even though that desire seemed irrational when I’d only been here for five days. The only view of the outside was the sky and distant hills. There was no view to the ocean from the monastery grounds—the walls were too high for that.

  I realised my mistake in thinking I’d found a private spot when I overheard Cormack talking in a lowered voice to Kara. It was the voice of a guy who obviously liked a girl a lot and was trying to impress her. He asked if they could meet up sometime, after all this was over. Kara’s reply was clear: Sorry, I just can’t. I’m not like other girls.

  Kara swiftly headed away.

  Soft sobs came from the other side of the trees. I felt a wave of guilt at being here, listening.

  Someone else came. Shoes crunching on the pebbles.

  “Are you all right, Cormack?” It was Brother Sage’s voice. “I saw Kara running from here. She looked a little upset. And you do, too.”

  “Yeah, I’m okay.” But Cormack didn’t sound okay.

  “Young love troubles?”

  “We were talking and laughing and getting along. But then as soon as I mention seeing her outside of here, she gets all defensive.”

  “You’ll have to accept that. Perhaps she’s fighting a battle you don’t know about. I’ll have a chat with her sometime later today and see how she’s doing.”

  “Sounds good. I know I shouldn’t push. It’s not like me to push. Girls are the one thing in life that have come pretty easily to me. Hope that doesn’t sound big headed.”

  “Not at all.” The conversation lapsed for a moment before Brother Sage spoke again. “Cormack, I’ve noticed you shaking a little the last couple of days. If you need any medication—”

  “No. I’ll be fine. I’ll beat this down. You lot were kind enough to send me to rehab before I came here, and I’m almost clean.”

  “Good, good. Glad to hear it. Well, if you change your mind or you need to talk, you know where to find us.”

  Brother Sage walked away again.

  After a minute, Cormack left, too. I hoped he wasn’t trying to find Kara. I wished again that I knew what was troubling her. I wanted to help her, but I didn’t know how. She wasn’t letting anyone in. Maybe she’d relent and talk with Brother Sage.

  Richard poked his head through at me from between two mandarin trees. “Hey, you. Thought I saw you head this way earlier.”

  “Hey.” I smiled.

  He looked behind him before he stepped through to stand before me, as if checking to see if anyone else was close by. “I got a bit worried before when I saw Ruth come back through the gates, knowing that you hadn’t come back yet. I was starting to think maybe she did push you off a cliff.” He winked. “Easy for the imagination to run wild in a place like this.”

  “I can handle Ruth.”

  “Are you sure? Those button eyes of hers give me the creeps . . .”

  “I think she just goes out of her way to look fierce. Speaking of imagination, after seeing the first three challenges, I can’t even begin to imagine what challenge four will be.”

  Richard sucked in a huge breath, blowing it out hard as he swung around on a branch and came to sit beside me. “I’d kill to find out what it is.”

  I winced. “Bad choice of words, considering . . . ?”

  “Yeah. Sorry. I have a pretty black sense of humour at the best of times.” His expression became serious. “I, uh, I’ve been hearing those noises
you’ve been hearing, too.”

  “You have?”

  “Yup. You said you saw eyes in the walls, too?”

  It sounded so stupid when someone else said it. I plucked a leaf from the mandarin tree above and crushed it between my fingers. It smelled tart. “Just the first morning.”

  “Where?”

  “The women’s dorm. On the wall opposite the window.”

  “The men’s dorm is on the other side of that.” He paused to flash a grin. “Are you accusing us of being Peeping Toms?”

  I laughed. “If the shoe fits.”

  “The shoe certainly doesn’t fit my foot.” He sobered. “But something else isn’t fitting. This whole place. I calculated the area of the monastery—all the rooms and hallways. There’s a lot of space that’s unaccounted for. Just . . . empty space.”

  “It’s the walls,” I said, nodding. “They’re either super thick or hollow. They have to be. I thought the same thing.”

  “You have to wonder if the police were told about that. And do the mentors know?”

  “That’s a good question. Should we talk to them about this?”

  Richard lowered his voice, looking around again. “I don’t think so. They seem to leave everything to the monks. Brother Sage just brushed you off when you mentioned it.”

  “True.”

  “Look.” He dug down inside his shirt and pulled out a rolled-up piece of paper. “I’ve been busy. I stole some pencils and paper from the scriptorium early this morning. And I made the best damned map I could of the monastery.”

  Richard glanced over his shoulder before unrolling his map.

  I studied it. “This is good. Looks right to me.”

  “I walked around this whole place seeing what was in every room,” he said. “If the rooms were locked or we’re not allowed to go into that area, I just counted those as locked.”

  The map looked crazy when you saw it all at once. The inside ring of six rooms looked almost like an eye, with the centre room the pupil of the eye. The garden itself was comprised of hexagonal spaces. A ring of twenty-four rooms surrounded the garden, and then there was an outside ring of another twenty-four rooms.

  “We should go check out why there’s all that empty space between the rooms.” Richard quickly stowed the map away again.

  “Ourselves? I don’t know if that’s a good idea.”

  “Look at it this way. The mentors haven’t done a good job of keeping us safe so far, have they?”

  “Nope.” One of us was dead. Another of us had come close to drowning. Harrington had copped a wound to his shoulder. “I remember something. The night of the first challenge, I thought I saw a monk right behind me. But when I stepped back to look into the alcove that he ran inside, he’d vanished. I thought I must have imagined seeing him.”

  His eyes grew intent, his voice closing down to a whisper. “Have you told anyone else that?”

  “No.”

  “Bet a thousand bucks you weren’t mistaken. Why don’t we start there?”

  Lowering my voice to match his, I nodded. “Guess it wouldn’t hurt to have a look.” I told Richard where to find the alcove.

  Pulling myself to my feet, I dusted off my hands, letting the crumpled leaf fall to the ground.

  “Wait,” he said. “I’m also going to lay bets that Ruth is watching everything we do. Might look more suspicious if we go off somewhere together. How about I’ll go first and you follow?”

  “Okay. Done.”

  It felt all very cloak and dagger as I stood waiting in the garden and then made my way to the cloister. It also felt wrong. We should be going to the mentors with this. But I’d told them about the eyes and the noises, and nothing had been done. They hadn’t discovered the man that would later kill Saul. It wouldn’t hurt for us to take precautions, I told myself.

  The cool air of the hallway enveloped me. No one was around. Good. I walked along to the alcove. Richard was there, next to the statue.

  I frowned. “What are we going to say we’re doing if someone comes along and sees us?”

  Richard smirked, taking my face in his hands and smacking a kiss on my cheek. “That.”

  I inhaled a quick breath. “How’s that going to work? I’m married and you’re gay.”

  “People believe whatever they see. And do you have anything better?”

  “No,” I admitted.

  Richard glanced upwards at the larger-than-life statue. “He’s an ugly S.O.B., isn’t he?”

  “Very.”

  We examined the statue and the surrounding walls then stepped behind the statue. Beyond the statue was just a religious frieze framed by an arch. I tried pushing on the frieze and gasped as it moved back smoothly. The black space that opened up was just big enough to be able to slide inside.

  Richard prodded my back. “You did it, girl.”

  Holding my breath tight, I stepped in.

  Richard gave a low whistle as he moved in behind me. “We’re in the belly of the beast.” He pushed the door shut.

  An immediate wave of claustrophobia washed through me. “It’s damned dark in here.”

  “Stick with me, honey, and you’ll be fine.”

  My mouth went dry as we walked along the passage. I wanted out of here already.

  Up ahead, tiny pinpricks of light were the only salvation from the oppressive darkness and isolation. Where was the light coming from? Running up to the first of the specks of light, I pressed my eye to it. “Oh my God, Richard, look! Peepholes . . .” I peered out into the hallway that we’d just left.

  “That’s insanely weird,” Richard muttered, taking a look for himself. “I wonder if Saul’s killer made these holes? Probably not, right? An electric drill would make a hell of a racket.”

  I turned to peer into the dark tunnel ahead. “Maybe we should go back and get a lamp or something.”

  “We’re here now,” said Richard. “Might as well keep going. Hey, get behind me, kid. I’ll keep you safe.”

  “Oh yeah? What are you going to do if a man comes at us with a knife?” I’d been joking, but the words sounded too real and possible in this strange, closed space.

  “Karate chop. They won’t know what hit them.” Richard insisted on stepping around me and walking in front. We continued walking along the passage.

  “Damn,” said Richard, feeling his way around a structure in front of him. “There’s a ladder here.”

  I moved beside Richard. The passageway ended in a wall. A simple wooden ladder led straight up.

  The last thing I wanted to do was to climb up there. But if we were going to continue, this was the only way to go.

  I ascended the ladder after Richard, breathing easier once I realised that it didn’t lead up into some claustrophobia-inducing attic but instead just led back down and into the passageway. “I know what this is,” I breathed, turning back to Richard. “This is the refectory door that we’re climbing across. Otherwise the tunnel would have ended.”

  Richard nodded. “I think you’re right.”

  We continued along, taking a sharp right turn, then up another ladder. The tunnel we headed into was high, and we couldn’t walk upright any longer. We had to crawl.

  “Whoa, we’re going across the hall now,” said Richard from behind me. He appeared to test it with his hands before moving forward. “Seems solid enough.”

  At the end of the overhead passage, a ladder led down, and the passage went left and right and straight ahead—up yet another ladder.

  “This way.” Richard stepped up to the ladder.

  I stalled. “I don’t understand this. This way should be heading out to the cloister and garden . . .”

  “I’ll be damned. I remember seeing a bulkhead that stretches right across the garden. So this is what that’s for. A secret passage.” He climbed the ladder quickly.

  I followed hesitantly.

  The peepholes stretched along the floor now, the light seeping through them growing brighter.

  Crawling
forward, I stopped to squint through one of the bright pinholes. I caught the briefest scent of fresh air. The sun lit up the tops of the fruit trees. The challenge participants were there, not guessing that Richard and I were overhead and staring down at them.

  “We can’t go any further,” I whispered. “If we do, we’ll be going across to the inner circle of rooms. Where the challenges are held.”

  The silence that followed told me that the direction we were headed in wasn’t a problem for Richard.

  “Richard,” I said uneasily, “please tell me this wasn’t the reason you wanted to do this in the first place?”

  “Are you going to say that you don’t want to know what’s in the last three rooms?” came the reply.

  “No.” My no didn’t sound as firm as I’d meant it.

  “Look, it’s not like we’d actually go into the rooms and solve the challenges,” he added. “All we’d do is take a quick look.”

  “But if we got found out, the mentors would probably throw us out of the program. Without any money at all.”

  “That’s the gamble, Evie. Gamble big, win big. You’re a fellow gambler, and I know you understand that.”

  “Okay, now I’m sure you wanted to do this to get into the inner circle.”

  “Ding, ding, ding.”

  My heart hammered against my ribs. He’d tricked me.

  But still, I didn’t turn around and head back the way we’d come.

  In the third challenge, my team had only just skidded onto the finish line at the last second. Seeing the new rooms might give me the slight advantage that would get my team over the line in the next challenges.

  It’s wrong, Evie. You know it is.

  But something clouded over my sense of fairness. I had a family to think of. I needed the money.

  I didn’t speak as I followed Richard forward. At the other end of the bulkhead, we descended the ladder.

  We were in the inner circle.

  Almost immediately before us was a door, a lamp overhead dimly illuminating it.

  “Don’t touch it!” I cried. “It could be alarmed.”

  The door had a keypad and a strange square screen with a handprint marked on it.