Bermuda Jones Casefiles Box Set

by Robert Enright

Perhaps it would keep the heart-stealer indoors.

  Argyle knew better. Whoever they were hunting, he knew that there would be no stopping. The only outcome was for them to find this Other.

  Bermuda could find it. Argyle knew it.

  Taking a deep breath, Argyle felt a small tinge of sorrow for his partner, who had been trying earnestly to rebuild a relationship with his child, one that had been brutalised by his gift. While Bermuda could see a different world, it blinded him from the one he wanted to build. It was a heartbreaking sacrifice, and one that he had punished himself for. His body bore the scars, physically and emotionally, be it from a needle and ink or the claws of a violent beast.

  But Bermuda never gave up.

  They would fight together until the bitter end. Argyle knew that, had witnessed it atop the grand clock tower that overlooked their city when they had felled Barnaby.

  When they had witnessed a fellow agent die in the line of duty, despite his appalling attitude.

  When the stunning woman had walked away from Bermuda.

  They still fought.

  Over the wonderful echoes of the pounding rain, Argyle could hear a raised voice, an inaudible rant from a voice rife with intoxication. He glared through the heavy downpour to the homeless man from the evening before. The group of kids who had terrorised him were nowhere to be seen, safe and warm in their homes that they held over this unfortunate human.

  He was clearly influenced by some substance, which made him as criminal as it did pathetic in the eyes of the powerful soldier who stood before him.

  The homeless man yelled and yelled at the other passers-by, for them to look in the direction he was wildly pointing.

  For them to look at the hotel.

  To look at the armour-plated soldier who stood valiantly by the front door, clear as day.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  The blood was warm, a thick stream of it sliding down his arm as he held it aloft. In his hand, the heart had come to a stop, the final beats petering out like a song as it quietens to its finish.

  The heart had belonged to Rosie Seeley, a young blond student who had been enamoured by his charm.

  She lay across the back of the sofa, her hands reaching for the front door to her modest studio apartment. Her tears were still wet down her face as she had struggled. Unlike the others, who had simply cried, frozen, or wet themselves when he ‘turned’, this one had fought back.

  A swift knee to his groin and a dash to the door.

  It had been admirable.

  Pointless. But admirable.

  After shaking off the shock of her battle for self-preservation, Kevin Parker had stomped after her, wrenching her short blond hair and snapping her head back before hurling her away from her freedom. She had collided hard with the coffee table, the modest furnishing collapsing under her weight and shooting a jagged piece of wood into her thigh.

  She had screamed, but the sounds were choked from her by his powerful hand, the fingers wrapping around her throat and squeezing like a boa constrictor. She could feel the life leaving her, his eyes, now black and embedded in a monstrously distorted face, bored into her, searching.

  Not for her.

  For someone else.

  As he had lifted her petite frame from the ground, he had gazed at her, contemplating. She had no idea; all she had known was a warm stream of urine began to trickle down her legs, dripping gently onto the wooden floor. In an instant, she had been slammed facedown onto the hard wooden ridge that ran along the back of the sofa.

  Moments later, she had felt the skin of her back being punctured. The pain had been breathtaking as she felt his knuckles slam against her spinal cord, the vertebrae cracking as she had lost all feeling in her body.

  Shock had washed over her as she lay motionless.

  The last thing she had felt was his fingers on her heart before her consciousness, like her life, was literally snatched from her.

  Now, in the shoddy light cascading from the cheap bulb above, Kevin admired the life source. It gleamed; a thick layer of blood coated it like a toffee apple.

  This one should be enough.

  It had to be.

  Silently, he stepped away from the motionless body of the young lady. She had told him things about her life – things of little consequence. He had been stood in her store, a quaint florist on the outskirts of the city, staring intently at the roses when she had approached. He had charmed her.

  Selected her.

  With his fingers grasping the very essence of life, Kevin Park stepped through the blood which was pooling across the floor, and had turned the back of the sofa are darker shade of blue.

  Rosie’s eyes were wide open but saw nothing.

  Her final moments had been spent in terror.

  As had hers, he told himself. The one that he demanded from them. The one that they needed to return to him.

  Careful not the use his fingers, Kevin slid his hand back into his sleeve and unlatched the door. A concerned neighbour cowered behind his own door as the classically handsome man left the flat where he had heard the commotion.

  The screaming.

  His right arm, from the elbow to the fingertip, was coated in scarlet.

  His fingers encased a young woman’s heart like a makeshift rib cage.

  With measured steps, he exited the building to make his delivery, leaving behind a body that had been ripped open and a discovery that would rip many lives apart.

  Bermuda sat in his hotel room, his bare legs stretched across the bed. The television screen was alive with colour, with some program about rich people looking to invest money humming annoyingly in the background. He had hoped it would take his mind off of the case – the two dead women and the likely discovery of another this evening. The evidence suggesting this had happened before.

  The growing list of employees of the Glasgow Police Service that hated his guts.

  He sighed, sliding off the bed and heading across the purple-and-white identikit Premier Inn room. The rain clattered against the window of his sixth-floor room. The desk before him was littered with local leaflets, all offering authentic Scottish experiences and cuisine. To the left of them, the shards of glass from the night before.

  His mind flashed to McAllister, the two run-ins he had had with her that day as well as the terrible sexual encounter the night before.

  The unsexy cherry on a very shitty cake.

  His eyes ran past the cheap, hotel-provided hairdryer affixed to the wall and caught a glimpse of himself in the mirror. As soon as he had returned to the hotel, he had been greeted by Argyle, who had seemed on edge. While he had checked in with his partner, he had noticed the grey, pupilless eyes flicking from street to street as if he was expecting someone.

  Or something.

  The drunk homeless man had returned, screaming about guardian angels and medieval knights of some description. Of large men in suits of armour. Of hooded warriors that stalked the alleyways. Of bright, white masks.

  Bermuda had dismissed it as inebriation.

  Sweet, sweet inebriation.

  As soon as he had entered the hotel room he had stripped off, his drenched clothes being strategically balled up and tossed into the corner of the room. He had stood in the shower for over twenty minutes, the water hitting him at a surprisingly powerful rate. Bermuda’s mind raced to the day he had had, leaping from moment to moment. Arriving at the crime scene, the venture to the Necropolis. Tobias and his creepy loose skin. The BTCO Scotland Office and its bizarre inhabitant. The run-in with Strachan.

  A hell of a day.

  Most confusing of all, that while the near entirety of it had been spent being pummelled by water, Bermuda had stepped in and willingly stood under more.

  Now he stood glaring at his ink-covered body in the mirror. Through various sources and his own research, he had spent thousands of pounds on his ink work. The symbols and incantations, many written in the criss-cross scrawl that he had seen in the archives under Vincent’s watch
ful eye, kept him safe.

  Physically or mentally.

  Either way, he looked at them, agreeing that in the eyes of Angela, he must have seemed mental. No wonder she had taken his daughter from him and run from their marriage.

  No wonder Sophie had left as well.

  His brow furrowed in frustration, deploring himself for immortalising her as ‘the one that got away.’ His toned body had filled out slightly over the last six months, the result of quitting smoking and Argyle forcing at least some combat training.

  Across his chest, the ink ruptured into three jagged scars.

  A reminder of the violent beast upon the Cutty Sark and his trip through the roof of the boat.

  And a further reminder of how only six months earlier, his body wasn’t healing as it did now.

  He had almost forgotten his condition, losing himself in the labyrinth of the case. His body was changing. He could feel it. It was that feeling you have when you have a trapped nerve, the sudden, uncontrollable jolt within your skin, like something blocking a vein.

  Something dark and vulgar lurked within him.

  He could feel it invading every part of his body.

  Calling to him.

  Demanding him.

  A few days ago he had hurtled off of a thirty-foot bridge and shattered his ribs and his collarbone. His bones had healed completely. With a shudder, he rolled his shoulder, feeling zero effects of the drop that should have ended his life.

  The Otherside wouldn’t allow it.

  It fixed him.

  So at some point, it could claim him.

  With a grunt, he threw on his jeans and a T-shirt. He pulled on another pair of Converse – red ones this time – and yanked a thick woollen jumper over his head. His still damp coat wrapped around him, protecting him from the elements and the dangers hidden in the shadows. The inside pocket shook with Tic Tacs against his e-cigarette.

  ‘Let’s go,’ he told his reflection, as his wet beanie hat flattened his hair as he stomped through the door and out into the wet Glasgow night.

  His cab rumbled to a stop at the bottom of the hill, the Necropolis spanning the rise like a gothic painting. Bermuda paid the driver who had treated him to an impromptu talking tour of the city as they had coasted through the streets, his thick accent making his descriptions undecipherable. Bermuda had nodded politely, instead gazing out through the window and wondering which building the Absent Man would be in.

  Who would be losing their heart this evening?

  As the cab indicated and pulled away into the freezing night, Bermuda shuddered, wrapping his arms around his body and wishing he had an ale in his hand.

  ‘You seem cold.’ Argyle’s words were the opposite.

  ‘No shit,’ Bermuda responded before turning and entering through the thick metal gate and ascending the twisted concrete path that slithered its way through the graveyard.

  The tombstones shot out of the ground, each one a dark pillar against the moonlight. They walked across the land of the dead, each step crunching on the fallen leaves that had given up for the winter.

  They walked quietly for a few minutes, the slight gradient of the land growing steeper as they returned to the tomb where Bermuda had been earlier in the day. In the dark, the old brick looked on the verge of collapse, the door was a dark tunnel that led to oblivion.

  The rain was relentless.

  Bermuda sniffed, the stench of wet, rotten leaves filling his nose as he gazed around the entire grounds. Dead trees loomed over the entire graveyard like long, skinless arms with twisted fingers. Beyond, on the road that surrounded the Necropolis, he could make out two police cars. McAllister would have assigned them to keep watch, but with as easy as it was for Bermuda to enter the grounds, he didn’t think their murderous friend would have any problem getting by either. He turned back to Argyle, who was also staring at the police cars.

  ‘Do you think the officer I struck has recovered?’ Argyle asked, his worry evident.

  ‘I’m sure he will be okay. Hopefully he is pissing blood for a week or two, but he should be fine.’

  ‘I have brought shame to you and the BTCO.’ He spoke softly, his words wet with regret.

  ‘I think you need to give yourself a break, Big Guy,’ Bermuda offered softly. ‘There are worse things you could have done than strike a policeman. I mean, you didn’t reveal yourself, did you? The man probably just thought he was going into labour.’

  ‘I did not reveal myself. To willingly expose an unseeing human to our world is a crime punishable by imprisonment.’

  ‘Exactly. You didn’t do that.’

  ‘To expose this world to the uninitiated is a crime that is second only to that of a killing a human,’ Argyle stated, his eyes staring dead ahead. ‘To kill a human is punishable by death.’

  ‘Less of the death, Big Guy.’ Bermuda patted his friend on his armour-clad shoulder. ‘There’s already plenty of that going around.’

  Bermuda slowly stepped through the icy wind and approached the wall of the tomb, resting his hand across the wet stone, begging a touch of the Otherside to stroke his palm. The blood of Katie and Nicole had long since washed away. Leaving only a memory.

  A third would likely arrive tonight.

  Bermuda sighed, patting his coat until he located his e-cigarette, and brandished it under the bright moonlight. The blue bulb winked as he inhaled, and a burst of cherry-flavoured smoke instantly hitched itself to the wind.

  ‘I’m going to see if Tobias is around.’ Bermuda shrugged as Argyle kept whipping his head from side to side. ‘Are you okay?’

  ‘I am just alert.’

  ‘Well stop it, will you? Usually you are so calm I struggle to believe you have a pulse. But the last few days, you seem on edge.’

  Bermuda offered him a smile that struggled against the downpour before calmly walking around the corner of the tomb towards the door. Argyle stood tall, deciding not to tell his partner of the hooded figures from the shadow. The cloaked figures from the alleyways.

  The danger that was slowly stalking them.

  The cloaked figures had retreated for the evening, Argyle was sure of it. He could sense the presence of Others, could feel when they were near. He had never questioned the ability and could recall the hideous voice of his commander telling him it was a gift that made him what he was.

  A killer.

  Argyle shook the dark memory from his mind and reassured himself that they were not following tonight. The only death that followed them tonight was from the surrounding graves.

  There were no Others near.

  It was the final thought that ran through Argyle’s head before a heavy stone clattered the back of his skull, a sharp pain shot to the back of his eyes, and everything went dark.

  Kevin Parker had ventured through the backstreets, keeping his pace steady and his blood-soaked arm hidden. Eventually he approached the Necropolis, the wonderful, vast collection of death. The place where he would find her.

  Where they would return her to him.

  Steering clear of the police cars, he clambered over a fence and dropped down into the wet grass, the mud splattering up the leg of his grey suit. His brown leather shoes slipped slightly in the mud but he forced himself to balance. He walked through the dark, weaving in and out of the stone monuments that bore the names of the deceased.

  Many a knee had been taken before them, all in the name of pointless grief.

  For a moment he wondered if Rosie Seeley’s family would be grieving, their daughter taken from them for a purpose that was inherently selfish. But necessary.

  His suit clung to his tall frame as he walked, his eyes flashing from grave to grave as he ascended the hill towards the tomb, ready to deliver and make good on his challenge.

  Ready to accept her back.

  ‘But the last few days, you seem on edge.’

  Kevin Parker stopped dead, his hands dropping to his sides. Blood dripped through the hand that clutched the heart like a baseball. He
peered through the dark towards the crooked concrete building and saw the two men before him. One of them was clearly human; his body language omitted fear, even as he tried to walk bravely.

  The human disappeared around the corner, presumably into the darkness.

  To return her? Was he the voice in the dark?

  Determined to confront him, Kevin Parker sized up the other figure. Over seven-foot tall with a metal torso that shimmered majestically in the moonlight. A blade was strapped to his back, a clear deterrent, and a man capable of killing him.

  They would not get the chance.

  His fingers clenched slightly. The chance to meet the one who had taken so much from him had arrived. Carefully he reached down, picking up a large stone from a collection a family had lovingly arranged around their departed’s grave.

  With careful, measured steps, he approached the warrior from behind, marvelling at the sheer size of the creature.

  He swung.

  The rock made a sickening crack as it collided with bone and the large warrior crashed to the earth, limp and lifeless. He could have been dead, but there was no time to make sure.

  The rain poured down over both of them, the moonlight causing it to twinkle.

  With a deep breath and determined to have her returned, Kevin Parker entered the tomb.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  Bermuda never thought stepping into a dark tomb would be so welcoming, but the icy rain ushered him inside quickly. As before, the walls felt thick and close, the space to breathe slowly evaporating by the claustrophobia. Water leaked through the cracks in the old brick, a thin sheen of moss stretched across it like body hair.

  The tomb smelt damp.

  Of death.

  ‘Tobias?’ Bermuda called out, his voice echoing off the wet walls. There was nothing, just the patter of rain and the crumbling of brick somewhere.

  Why here? Bermuda thought, his mind racing back to earlier, when he had run his hand across the wall, hoping to feel something.

  Anything.

  ‘Tobias?’ he called again, scorning himself for repeating himself. The creepy groundsman was clearly no longer there. Bermuda chuckled to himself at the thought of the man sleeping in the tomb; the large stone table that lay in the centre of the room, encompassed by shadow, was hardly a fitting bed. A shudder danced up his spine as he wondered what it could have been used for.