Darker

by Simon Clark

  The mental clock ticked away the seconds in his head like a time bomb. Little more than six hours left until Michael called in the Beast and made the transfer to Amy.

  If it failed. He remembered the crushed policemen, the sheep exploding like crimson paint bombs … York Minster. Amy, poor Amy …

  ‘Damn. Where the hell is the place?’

  ‘This’s Church Street.’

  ‘But where the hell is Bradhall’s?’

  ‘I can’t see a garage. This’s all residential.’

  ‘Damn.’

  The old man might be senile, thought Richard, clenching his jaw. Maybe Bradhall went to the big rental place in the sky in 1963, or some —

  Wait. He’d seen a sign fixed to a wooden driveway gate.

  ‘Bradhall’s!’ It came out in a whoop. ‘Come on.’

  Chapter 69

  Making Plans for Richard

  The wall clock, between the framed maps of the islands of St Mary’s and Barra, said 3:14.

  Michael sat on the edge of the desk, his downturned eyes on Mitch. The eyes were coolly confident.

  ‘When did you find out about the hire car?’

  ‘Ten minutes ago.’

  ‘Then they’ve got Snow and Young.’

  ‘Not quite.’

  ‘As good as. That’s what matters.’

  Mitch pulled on his cigarette, then pointed at an open road atlas. ‘As you can imagine, in that part of Devon car hire companies are few and far between. My men got lucky the second time they tried. Bradhall Hire, just there; place called Ashton Tracey. The owner was on his way out for the afternoon.’

  ‘But he was co-operative?’

  ‘Very co-operative.’ Ten years ago Mitch Winter would have grinned, enjoying the idea of making men spill their secrets. Ten years on he found the business tedious and grubby. He did what he was told to do competently, but he talked like he was reading times from a train timetable. ‘Silver Volvo Saloon, model 240, three years old, there’s the registration number, green sunstrip running across the top of the windscreen bearing the words BRADHALL HIRE.’

  Michael said, ‘If those two guys are pros, and Young’s only got about ten minutes start, we’ll soon have them.’

  ‘I wouldn’t be so optimistic.’

  ‘These men are pros?’

  ‘They are.’

  ‘Then they’ll catch up with Young and Snow?’

  ‘They are pros. That’s precisely why they won’t go tearing across the countryside like something out of a Hollywood cops caper.’ He spoke slowly, respectfully. ‘See all those roads between Dartmoor and Exeter? In that maze you could lose the Devil himself.’

  ‘But even an idiot would know Young will be heading for where the M5 starts at Exeter; that’s the fastest route North.’

  ‘Sure. And Young’ll be driving that car like a bat out of hell.’

  ‘Your men could catch up?’

  ‘They’ll not risk being stopped for speeding when they’ve got a couple of pump action shotguns in the boot and … no, Michael, don’t even think it, please. They’re not going to risk jail for pulling a gun on a cop. They know they’d go down for life.’

  ‘It’s vital Young doesn’t get anywhere near here.’

  ‘The way he’ll be driving might save you a job. He might run the car up a tree.’

  ‘I can’t risk that.’

  ‘Michael. Look. Can I suggest something?’

  Michael’s downturned eyes were growing icier by the second. At last he shrugged, which Mitch guessed meant was an OK.

  ‘Look, we know he’s making a beeline right here. To Darlington House.’

  ‘Go on.’

  ‘So, I’m suggesting let them come to us. Deal with them when they get here.’

  ‘Mitch, I’ve not told you what I’m doing here, or what I have planned for tonight.’

  ‘Damned right, and I don’t want to know.’

  ‘Good. But what I need is a nice peaceful environment. Things are going to happen tonight – it’s OK, Mitch, they won’t concern you or your team – but it’s vital that little kid out there is in a nice relaxed frame of mind when it does.’

  ‘And seeing her daddy get the bullet wouldn’t help, right?’

  ‘Right.’

  Mitch pulled on the cigarette, blew out the smoke thoughtfully, nodded. ‘Okay. There are only a couple of roads up here from Wakefield. They both go through the urban road system.’

  ‘So?’

  ‘So there are plenty of traffic lights. They’ll have to stop at least one of them. I’ll send my team out on motorcycles and we’ll solve this problem Mafia-style.

  ‘I can rely on that?’

  Mitch nodded. ‘But you can’t rely on some gossip not reaching the ears of the local village copper; so you might have some explaining.’

  ‘As long as they keep their noses out until after nine o’clock.’

  ‘Nine o’clock must be pretty special if you can silence the entire British police force.’

  Michael’s boyish grin returned. ‘After nine o’clock they could show everything that’s happened today on TV and there won’t be a thing anyone can – or will want to – do about it.’

  ‘You had something like this going in Turkey, didn’t you? I’ve never known the kind of loyalty you enjoyed across there.’

  Michael acknowledged the compliment with a nod.

  ‘I’ve got some good contacts overseas,’ Mitch said. ‘They’d pay a lot of money to find out how you managed to win that kind of loyalty.’

  Michael tapped the side of his nose with his finger. ‘They couldn’t afford it.’

  With that, Michael left the room, clicking his fingers to a tune that ran through his head.

  Mitch Winter cast his mind back six months to when he had first met Michael, in his villa in Turkey. Immediately he’d been transfixed by the man’s charisma. Michael had outlined his plans for an extensive business operation in the UK for which he needed Mitch to head a security team.

  Mitch Winter had asked no questions. He found himself agreeing enthusiastically to whatever Michael said. He noticed, too, that Michael’s staff at the villa looked on him as some kind of god.

  It was only when Mitch came back to Yorkshire to set up the team and start recruiting personnel from his old mercenary contacts that he began to wonder what Michael’s secret was. People in his presence had wanted to prostrate themselves at his feet. People would have set themselves on fire if he’d asked.

  Perhaps he slipped a mickey in their drinks, or was it something more sophisticated? Perhaps concealed apparatus, something like an aerosol, sprayed an atomized solution containing a narcotic into the air.

  But were the effects now wearing off?

  Mitch Winter’s enthusiasm for his work quickly cooled. Michael seemed overly secretive. The research team upstairs, an arrogant lot, were just as bad.

  In Turkey Michael looked like a god; here he was looking tacky, even neurotic.

  Michael would sometimes ask him to have a Mr X or a Miss Y killed. Mitch didn’t object on moral grounds – all part of the nine-to-five for him – but some of the killings seemed peculiarly pointless.

  For instance, the chamber maid Michael’d brought back with him from the airport hotel. Sophie … that was her name.

  At first there’d been a lot of excitement. The high and mighty upstairs became even more secretive.

  They didn’t ill-treat Sophie, as far as he could gather from the titbits he picked up from the kitchen staff. All the research team did was talk to her and feed her good meals.

  By that time, Michael was away on his mystery tour of Great Britain. However, one day Mitch had a telephone call from him. ‘That woman I brought in last week,’ he’d said. ‘Sophie. I want her taking to the farm.’

  His code for an execution. Mitch did as he was told with extreme competence, then fed her corpse to the pigs.

  And now Michael had something special planned for the little girl tonight. Mitch leaned ba
ck, tapping a fresh cigarette against his lips. He studied a framed map of the Scottish island of Coll and he pictured himself walking along the shore from Feall Bay to Calgary Point.

  But Mitch couldn’t help but wonder what Michael had planned for tonight that was so special. Normally it wouldn’t have troubled him. But he’d got curious. Not curious for the sake of it. Curiosity was an integral part of his survival mechanism. He acknowledged he wasn’t indestructible.

  Not like Mitch’s father.

  Now that man had seemed indestructible. A military ‘adviser’ to foreign governments, his father had walked away from an air force transport plane shot down over Israel when everyone else had gone up in flames. He’d stepped on mines and only lost the sole of his boot. He’d cheerfully run at a T34 tank head-on, then cheekily pop a grenade down the turret. His men had joked that his father’s aftershave not only repelled mosquitoes and the ladies but bullets, too. Then, on holiday in Jamaica, he’d carelessly stood on a bar of soap in the bathtub.

  Mitch’s father rolled off the crematorium conveyor into the flames just forty-eight hours later. Mitch Winter had been twelve years old.

  No, Mitch Winter didn’t doubt his own mortality. All he yearned for was enough cash in the bank so he could retire to that island cottage in the cleft of the hill, snuggling away from the Atlantic Westerlies, and enjoy a Guinness or two in the cosy bar with the dog at his feet.

  He lit the cigarette. Sighed. Then picked up the telephone and told his team to make the necessary arrangements to kill the father of the little child playing outside in the sunshine.

  Chapter 70

  And Yet Faster

  3:30. Mitch Winter had just finalized plans to have Richard Young killed. It would take place a mere four or five miles from Darlington House.

  Meanwhile Richard cursed a car pulling a speedboat on a trailer. It struggled up the hill, trailer yawing from side to side, the bright pink boat jiggling insecurely on the back.

  Damn, all we need is for the thing to come crashing off on to the car.

  The voice in the back of Richard’s head came back.

  … up, hurry up, hurry up, hurry up … something nasty’s going to happen to Amy … too slow, Dicky Boy, too slow, hurry up, hurry …

  The car pulling the trailer turned off into a lay-by. Richard nearly whooped with joy, pressed the accelerator and the car surged forward.

  Only to nearly tail-end a tractor that pulled out on to the road in front of him.

  … hurry up, hurry, hurry up … only six and a half hours to go until nine o’ clock, hurry up, hurry up …

  Ahead he saw signs for the start of the motorway at Exeter. God, it couldn’t come soon enough.

  He passed the tractor, swerving away from an oncoming bus.

  ‘Take it easy,’ Rosemary said gently at his side. ‘We’ll get there. Don’t take unnecessary risks.’

  He knew she was right. He eased off the speed. The needle dropped to sixty. Lips dry as paper, he licked them with an equally dry tongue.

  After a moment his right foot increased the pressure on the pedal. The speed crept up again to try and silence that needling voice sitting in the back of his skull.

  … up, hurry up, hurry …

  He’d got a dark angel sitting on his shoulder today. Round every corner there seemed to be more delays. A broken-down bus; a traffic light at red; a lumbering truck full of quarried rock; children on bikes; drivers that made tortoises look sporty; roadworks and temporary traffic lights that had a hankering for red, not green.

  And every so often Rosemary would say gently, ‘Take it easy. We can’t rush. Once you reach the motorway you can make up time then.’

  He tried to take his mind off the hold-ups (and the fact that Michael’s hired goons might be pursuing them with their shotguns on their laps) by talking to Rosemary.

  ‘Do you know what Amy’s doing now?’

  ‘No. I’ve not seen anything since the cottage. Have you?’

  ‘Nothing. It only happened to me once.’

  ‘It’s as if you get some kind of psychic charge if you get too close to the Beast. Eventually it begins to fade.’ She glanced at him with those dark eyes. ‘I wish I could see what was happening for you, Richard, but I can’t any more.’

  Rosemary sat looking out of the open passenger window, the rush of air blowing her hair behind her in rippling waves.

  The road took them under overhanging trees, the sudden shade a relief. He wished he’d bought a pair of sunglasses; the intensity of the sun would make driving all the way to Wakefield an uncomfortable slog. As they approached Exeter the traffic grew heavier, clogging the roads. He willed it to go faster.

  … hurry up, hurry up … grated the head voice.

  … time’s running out … Don’t we know it, he thought bitterly as yet another light turned red, bringing the line of traffic in front of him to a dead stop.

  As they pulled away, Rosemary said, ‘Stop at the next filling station you see.’

  ‘No need, we’ve a full tank.’

  ‘The car’s OK, it’s you I’m thinking about.’

  ‘I’m fine.’

  ‘You’re not. Richard, you can’t drive five hours straight in this heat, especially after what you went through this morning.’

  ‘Believe me, Rosemary. I’m fine.’

  ‘Richard. You’re going to stop, have a drink, have five minutes’ rest. We’ll buy sandwiches and canned drinks for the car.’

  ‘No. I’m not stopping until I reach Darlington House. Amy needs me —’

  ‘Amy needs you in one piece; not dehydrated; not so tired you can’t think straight.’

  ‘Rosemary —’

  ‘Richard,’ she persisted gently, ‘it’ll take five minutes.’

  ‘I can’t spare five minutes.’

  ‘It’s either lose five minutes or lose Amy.’

  He shook his head.

  ‘I’ll pull out the ignition key.’

  ‘You won’t do that.’ Then he licked his dry lips and sighed. ‘But you are right.’ He smiled wearily. ‘Again. OK, five minutes.’

  She smiled gratefully. ‘Not a moment more. Trust me, Richard, you’ll feel better for a coffee.’

  At the next filling station Richard pulled over. Rosemary bought drinks, pre-packed sandwiches and a pair of sunglasses. Richard put them on gratefully as they pulled out of the filling station. Within two miles they joined the motorway and headed north.

  Chapter 71

  Joey Sings the Blues

  Outside in the garden with the sun blazing down Christine glanced at her watch. 3:45. Ten minutes ago she’d made up her mind to march into the house, find Michael and demand to speak to Richard on the mobile phone. She found terrible images beginning to flash through her head. Richard’s car picks up a nail in the tyre. As they’re cranking the car up on to the jack that thing comes tearing down on them. They’ll run. But the Beast is too fast; it comes rolling down on them like …

  With an effort of will she killed the image in her head.

  And no, although you want to find Michael and make him call Richard on the mobile, just so you can hear his voice, you’re not going to do that. You’re going to smile and nod when Michael comes along, hair neatly brushed, downturned eyes all gentle and caring and saying that he’s spoken to Richard not five minutes ago and that they should be here within the hour.

  Because within the next twenty minutes you and Amy are leaving this place for good.

  Casually (because her guts told her loud and clear that someone watched her every movement from one of those windows in the house), she strolled along the garden path to where Joey sat on the grass in the shade of a tree.

  Michael had given Amy a bike. Before he’d let her ride it he’d carefully fastened the helmet on to her head, smiling and joking as he tightened the buckle. Then he’d carefully checked the stabilizers. ‘Don’t go too fast, sweetheart,’ he’d called as she pedalled furiously away. Christ, he’d sounded like an over-anx
ious mother. ‘And stay on the paths. The grass is too bumpy. Don’t want to bang that noggin, do we?’

  It all added to Christine’s unease. The way he looked at Amy. The same kind of look an antique collector might have on seeing a priceless Roman vase balanced on the edge of a rickety shelf.

  Amy came pedalling along the path. Braked hard so the bike skidded to a stop. ‘Mum. Can I take the stabilizers off?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘But I can ride a two-wheeler.’

  She smiled. ‘No, honey. Michael wants you to keep the stabilizers until you get used to the bike.’

  Amy seemed to accept it without the usual grumbles. Michael had certainly won her over.

  ‘Watch me, Mum. I can go fast as a rocket.’

  She pedalled away along the maze of garden paths, circling round a clump of lavender then pedalling back. The Rosemary Snow doll bounced in the shopping basket fixed to the handlebars.

  Christine continued her deliberately casual stroll, occasionally stopping to admire a rose, even going to the extent of lightly stroking the velvet petals. In the back of her mind she could imagine the spy in the upper window writing on his clipboard. ‘Time: 3:47. Mrs Christine Young pauses to look at one rose. Pink.’

  She smiled to herself. Let the creep make his notes because come 4:15 he’ll have nothing but blank sheets after that.

  Eventually she strolled to where Joey sat beneath the tree. He was drinking from a bottle of beer. Two empties lay on their sides in the grass.

  ‘Fancy a beer, Sis?’

  ‘Just give me a sip from your bottle.’

  ‘Have you heard when Richard’ll be arriving.’

  ‘Yes. Michael said about five-ish.’

  Joey nodded. ‘It’ll be a weight off your mind when he gets here.’

  ‘Except I don’t believe Michael for one minute.’

  ‘Why don’t you ask Michael to call Richard or Isaac on the mobile?’

  ‘I’ve thought about that, but what I have decided is that I’m leaving with Amy.’

  Joey sighed. ‘I hoped you’d have changed your mind about that. Look, Chrissie, it’s a bad idea.’