Darker

by Simon Clark

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Look, these faxes are from a G. Leonard, head of Michael’s accountancy and financial team. Leonard says, “Request urgent instruction regarding restructuring of loans … please be advised that mortgagees have repossessed hotel chain … two banks have called in loans … overdraft facilities refused …” Receivers called in at a car franchise and what looks like half a dozen wholesalers.’

  ‘So his companies are collapsing?’

  ‘The whole lot’s going down the tubes.’ Richard flicked through more faxes that Michael had obviously filed in the bin, probably unread. ‘He’s a desperate man, no doubting that. In Turkey, when he was cosily cohabiting with that thing, he had power. He made a lot of money and used it to build up business here in Britain. When he came here he lost control of the Beast. So he substituted the power it gave him with the next best thing.’

  ‘Money.’

  ‘Got it in one. He’s like a general throwing his troops into suicidal missions to give him just a few more hours. He’s bleeding his companies white. Money’s no object, providing it gets him what he wants. Back into bed with the Beast.’

  ‘Of course, if he does that he won’t need the money. He’ll be powerful again.’

  ‘So it’s a race against time for Michael, too,’ he said with a savage burst of satisfaction. ‘I hope this is hurting the sod as much as it’s hurting me.’ He paused, thoughtful for a moment. ‘There was another file here on the desk. Where did I put it … ah, here it is.’

  Rosemary, sitting on the floor searching through the contents of the basket, looked up. ‘What is it?’

  ‘It’s titled Property Register. Bull’s-eye! It lists what I imagine are Michael’s properties. Yes, there’s the hotel in Wales … And, yep, this cottage. There’s another, one, two, three, four …’ He counted quickly, feeling his pulse quicken, sure he was on to something.

  ‘Another fifteen properties – and, thank heaven, they’ve all got the full addresses.’

  ‘And telephone numbers? We could match them with the fax numbers.’

  ‘No such luck. A couple have been crossed out with Rs beside them, probably repossessed. Yep, there’s a fax at the back from old Mr Leonard who’s beginning to sound frantic. The fraud squad have been asking him why some of the properties have been remortgaged several times over.’

  ‘If the property houses a research team and his other staff you’d imagine it would be pretty big.’

  ‘You mean like the redbrick mansion you saw through Amy’s eyes?’

  She nodded.

  He glanced down the list. ‘Most seemed to be rural properties. The Lock Keeper’s House, Lancashire. Stable Cottage, Kent – I suppose we can discount those. Hunsway Manor, Cumbria.’

  ‘That sounds more promising. It’s far enough away from here to make a plane flight worthwhile.’

  Richard shook his head. ‘And there’s Darlington House in Yorkshire. That could apply to a grand mansion or a house in a suburban street.’

  ‘What are those pieces of paper sticking out of the back of the file?’

  Richard leafed through them. ‘Running costs on the properties and values. Not for all of them, though. There’s nothing for the Cumbrian house or the Yorkshire one. Wait, look at this. Maintenance funds must have been virtually non-existent. Again poor old Mr Leonard had to get Michael to authorize expenditure on every little thing that went wrong. Here’s a request for authorization to install burglar alarm here at Glebe Cottage. Scrawled across it, one word: REFUSED. Requests for resurfacing of access to Hunsway Manor, Cumbria. That one’s agreed, providing the cost of the work is halved. And an authorization to repair a deer fence at Darlington House. If only these had got the —’

  ‘Wait a minute.’ Rosemary jumped to her feet and pulled the sheet from Richard’s hand. ‘Deer fence. Authorization to repair a deer fence!’ Her face blazed with excitement. ‘Don’t you see? Trees in cages. Amy saw them as they drove up to the big redbrick house. The cages are to protect trees against deer damaging the bark. And Amy saw the big animals that she’d not seen before.’

  ‘But we don’t know they were deer.’ Richard didn’t really doubt what Rosemary was driving at. He just didn’t want to let his hopes rise too far.

  Rosemary’s eyes shone. ‘Bet you that crappy old van out there and all its contents that’s just what they are. Big deer with bloody big antlers.’

  ‘Come on.’ Richard ripped out the sheet with the address. ‘It’s near Wakefield in Yorkshire so we’ve got a good five hours’ drive in front of us.’

  ‘In that van? Make it seven – if we’re lucky.’

  Richard headed for the door, then looked back as Rosemary scrabbled through the balled-up paper on the floor. ‘What’re you looking for?’

  Rosemary held up the roll of banknotes he’d thrown to one side. ‘This might come in handy. There must be a good couple of hundred in —’

  Richard held up his hand.

  ‘What is it?’ she whispered.

  ‘The fax machine. There’s one coming through.’

  The machine had begun its buzzing as it printed the transmission. Fax paper scrolled from the slot.

  Richard tilted his head to one side, reading the fax as it emerged. ‘To: All teams. From: HQ. Urgent. All designated personnel to return to HQ immediately.’ He had to pause as more paper unscrolled. ‘Transfer is confirmed for 21:00. 19th of June.’

  ‘The 19th? That’s today.’

  A cold weight settled in his stomach as he read in a flat voice. ‘“Subject A has been groomed for transfer. Michael is confident of success. Congratulations, everybody. Your rewards will be justly deserved.”’ Richard looked up. ‘Jesus … you know what that means?’

  Rosemary nodded.

  He rubbed his forehead. ‘Damn, damn. Michael plans to transfer that thing to Amy, like he tried to transfer it to you.’

  ‘Twenty-one hundred hours. That’s nine o’clock this evening.’

  ‘Great,’ Richard said bitterly. ‘That gives us less than eight hours to get all the way up to Wakefield, find Amy and then somehow get her out of his hands.’

  He stared at the sheet of fax paper in his hands like it was a death warrant.

  ‘Richard.’ Her voice was gentle but insistent. ‘If we’re going we better make a start now.’

  ‘You don’t have to go with me, you know. I don’t think Michael will welcome us with open arms.’

  ‘Don’t try and stop me, Richard. I’m going to show him what he’s done to me.’ She pulled her hair aside to show him the scabbed wound that dominated the left side of her face. ‘And this mess is going to be the last thing he sees.’

  He nodded. ‘Let’s get moving.’

  But they didn’t get far. As Richard headed for the door that led out on to the courtyard he looked out through the window. A car pulled slowly up beside the van and stopped.

  He pulled Rosemary back away from the door. ‘Not that way. We’ve got visitors.’

  Chapter 64

  Between a Rock and a Hard Place

  Richard saw the red Sierra pull up alongside the VW van in the pebbled yard. The slowness of its approach had set the alarms shrieking in his head.

  ‘Bet you any money these have been sent by Michael,’ he said.

  Two men in their thirties climbed with an unnerving slowness out of the car, heads turning as they scanned the cottage expertly. They were dressed casually in shorts and T-shirts, but they wore them like a uniform and the impression Richard had was that they looked like bodyguards, probably part of Michael’s security team.

  One man took a pump-action shotgun from the boot of the car, the other opened the van door and reached under the dash-board. The van rocked on its suspension. ‘I think we won’t be using the van again. He’s ripping out the wiring.’

  Rosemary hissed, ‘Is there another way out of the cottage?’

  ‘There’s a side door that takes you out by the swimming pool. Best get out into the woods as
quickly as possible.’

  They cut through the kitchen into the lounge, then into a dining room. Sweat pricked through Richard’s skin. Rosemary put into words what he was thinking.

  ‘If they catch us they’ll kill us, won’t they?’

  He nodded, grim-faced, then slid open the patio door and stepped outside. The swimming pool area was enclosed by a seven-foot stone wall. There was access from the pebbled yard by a wrought iron gate. An identical gate at the opposite end of the pool area led into the back garden. Richard planned to leave by that gate, then simply climb over the low fence and slip away into the densely wooded hillside.

  They moved lightly towards the gate at the rear. Before opening it, he craned his head over.

  Damn.

  One of the men had already skirted the cottage into the back garden, perhaps guessing they’d leave the back way.

  ‘Christ, these men are professionals,’ he whispered. ‘Back the other way. With luck the other guy’s gone into the cottage.’

  His luck failed him. The second man with the shotgun was walking purposefully across the pebble yard towards them.

  Richard hissed. ‘He’s coming this way.’

  ‘He’s seen us?’

  ‘No. But he’s going to be coming through this gate in the next ten seconds.’

  ‘Hide.’

  ‘Where, for Godsakes?’ Richard desperately looked round the pool area. All there was were the pool beneath its plastic cover, ornamental stone benches and a pool surround paved with stone slabs.

  The crunch of feet on pebbles grew louder as the man approached the gate.

  Chapter 65

  Skin of Tooth

  Rosemary whispered, ‘Get in.’

  ‘The pool?’

  ‘Yes. Not here … far end. Get under the matting.’

  Without a word, Richard pulled up the mat from where it lay on the surface of the water and slipped beneath it. After the heat of the summer’s day the water felt brutally cold. He held his breath to stop himself grunting at the shock of the cold water rising up over his legs and soaking through his jeans. Rosemary slipped into the water behind him.

  The mat fitted the pool perfectly. However, at one end, running the width of the pool, was something like a towel roller that held the pool mat, and one end of the mat was attached to it. When the pool was required all you needed to do was crank a handle and wind the mat back on to the cylinder.

  Richard realized that Rosemary had noticed that at this end of the pool the mat left something like a narrow tunnel between the end of the pool’s tiled wall and the steep slope of the mat as it came down to rest on the water.

  Richard, tall enough to stand in the deep end of the pool, held Rosemary so she didn’t need to tread water. Above their heads, the heavy plastic mat allowed a dim blue light through to illuminate their faces and the rippling water around them.

  Richard held his breath again as a shadow fell on the mat above as the two men walked by the pool.

  He felt Rosemary tense in his arms as she saw the shadow.

  His face almost touched hers. Her wide eyes communicated with eye movements alone.

  The men began to talk in a way that was cheerful and relaxed.

  ‘The little scrubber can’t have gone far. Any sign of her in the cottage?’

  ‘She’s been there. Look’s as if she’s been helping herself to the boss’s snap. Breadcrumbs all over the fucking place.’

  ‘Filthy little scrubber. Reckon she deserves a good slapping.’

  ‘Then she can get her lips round my twelve gauge.’

  They laughed. Brutal; raw-sounding.

  ‘If she’s a good bit of kit I’ll toss you for her.’

  Again laughter.

  ‘Michael doesn’t want you to use guns.’

  ‘We’ll make it look like a pervert took a shine to her. Screw her, bite a chunk or two out of her tits, then stick the boot in until she gets her wings.’

  Richard saw Rosemary’s eyes go wide with shock. He thought she would cry out so he slipped his hand behind her head and pulled her face into the side of his neck. Her slender body trembled in his arms, shaking droplets of water from her hair to drip into the water with what seemed such a tremendously loud sound that he thought they’d hear.

  ‘Pass us a tab, Geordie Boy.’

  A match scraped.

  ‘Christ, it’s hot. When we’ve done we’ll find a bleedin’ pub and get bleedin’ mortal. If she … hey, did you hear that?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Hell’s bells. It’s the phone in the car.’

  Sound of hurrying feet across the stone slabs.

  ‘Geordie Boy.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Get the washing line from the house. When we find her we’ll string her up from a tree. Make it look like a suicide.’

  Again he felt a convulsive shock crack through her arms and back; her eyes screwed shut against the bare skin of his neck.

  ‘Don’t worry,’ he whispered as softly as he could. ‘I’ll not let them touch you.’

  Richard realized the two men were only looking for Rosemary. Obviously they still believed he was lying mangled with Isaac in the ruins of the barn. That might give him a tiny advantage if they were discovered. But what he could do to hurt them God alone knew. The way they spoke suggested they were ex-military, probably Marines or SAS. They could probably kill him with a jab of a finger.

  He waited until the voices receded. One had gone back to the car to take the call. The one called Geordie Boy was probably hunting in the kitchen for the washing line. Then the two would make a thorough search of the place. And that’s when they’d find the pair of them.

  ‘Come on, Rosie,’ he said gently. ‘We’re going to have to get away from here.’

  In the dim blue light she looked up at him. For the first time he saw she was badly frightened.

  He pulled her to the edge of the pool, eased up the matting and looked out.

  No one about. Yet. Any second Geordie Boy might come swaggering through the gateway, knotting a noose into the end of the washing line. Richard pulled himself from the pool.

  Rosemary, he saw, had frozen up with fear. She clearly didn’t want to leave the pool. Richard guessed she was thinking it best to stay hidden under the pool cover.

  ‘No, Rosie,’ he whispered. ‘We can’t stay here. Those guys will take this place apart until they find you.’

  She held up her arms like a child to be lifted from the water.

  The water dripped from them in a way that sounded appallingly loud, drips smacking onto the stone slabs. But there was no way of avoiding it.

  Feet squelching in his trainers Richard guided her to the gate that led into the back garden.

  What they had to do was keep moving. The two men were pretty nonchalant about finding Rosemary: they’d disabled the van; perhaps they guessed she’d simply gone into hiding under a bed upstairs. A teenage girl would be easy meat. They were probably more used to slogging it out with terrorists in some Arabian desert.

  After leaving the pool area, Richard, holding Rosemary’s hand, stuck close to the wall as far as the garden fence. There he simply lifted her over the fence before climbing over himself.

  Without speaking he pointed into the wood. She nodded and followed as he jogged silently under the canopy of trees.

  After a hundred yards, he said in a panted whisper, ‘You OK?’

  She shook back the tangle of wet hair. ‘Only if I never see those two again. Which way now?’

  He pointed a dripping finger. ‘Downhill. We can move faster.’

  They ran, their bodies sometimes catching against tree trunks, leaving damp patches on the bark.

  He gambled that there hadn’t been more men who had perhaps been dropped off at the top of the track to search the wood. But from the flippant way the men spoke they didn’t treat the girl as a serious threat. She was just another of Michael’s loose ends to be tied up when they at last caught up with her.

&
nbsp; The close encounter with Michael’s henchmen back there had taken his mind off Amy and Christine. But the realization came thundering back. He now had something like seven hours to get back to Wakefield. Then, somehow, he had to stop Michael from doing whatever he had planned for Amy.

  Richard had never prayed for a miracle before in his life. But as they pounded through the wood, that was when he started.

  Chapter 66

  Darlington House

  Amy’s voice echoed from the brick walls that enclosed the formal garden at the back of Darlington House. Shielding his eyes with his hand, Michael looked to where Christine and Joey stood beside the ornamental pond. They talked intently, as if trying to resolve something that troubled them. Repeatedly, they’d shoot anxious glances back at him and at Amy who sat beside him on the bench.

  Michael was pleased with Amy: she had become so happy and relaxed with him. In fact, he’d go further and say she’d become downright affectionate, sometimes scrambling up on to his knee to pull his ears; then he’d tickle her, which would send her into bouts of breathless giggling.

  Now she played with the Rosemary Snow doll, talking to herself in that completely self-absorbed way that young children slipped into.

  ‘Rosemary Snow … Rosemary Snow. Where do you go? Where do you go? Wet as a kipper; bathroom slipper. Watch out, Boys, here she comes. Stand back, Boys. Bump, bump.’

  On the face of it, it was a stream of nonsense but Michael listened carefully, nodding as some phrase hit a chord.

  As he listened he felt a buzz of excitement. Everything was ready. Everything was going perfectly. He knew the Beast was coming. Moving silently towards them like a shark swimming through the depths of the ocean. It was going to work tonight. He could feel it; by God, he could feel it!

  Smiling broadly, he said, ‘What’s Rosemary doing now, sugar?’

  ‘Been swimming.’ Amy laughed. ‘Been swimming with her jeans and pants and things on.’

  ‘Swimming in her clothes? Bet she got all wet, didn’t she?’

  ‘All soaked and yucky.’ Amy answered his gentle questions but she seemed more interested in moving the doll’s legs so it walked along the bench.