by Nick Louth
Virgil did a double take. A low keening wail from Mira was adding to the high-pitched shrieks from next door. On Mira’s lap was a human hand, blackened, smoking and covered in blood. It wasn’t hers.
Virgil jumped through the gap into what was left of Kelly’s office. ‘Kelly!’ Her desk had been blown to pieces, the windows shattered, the ceiling completely gone, and charred ceiling panels smouldering all over. But her typist chair, though scorched round the edges, was barely damaged. It seemed to have a Kelly-shaped shadow of unburned material on it. ‘Kelly, where the hell are you?’ His siren-deafened and blast-fizzed ears could just detect her whimpering, but for a second he couldn’t see her. Then he spotted her on the floor by the window, under a layer of blackened ceiling tiles. The moment he saw her he could see she was terribly injured. Her face was blackened and bloody, her torso a mess and most of her clothes shredded.
‘Kelly, Kelly. It’s Virgil. You are going to be okay,’ he lied.
‘My hand! Virgil, my hand’s gone. I need it, I need it…’
Her arm ended in a wrist that looked like a chunk of seared steak. Virgil immediately realised what must have happened. A parcel bomb! She had opened a parcel bomb. Realising that she could die of shock, Virgil did his best to reassure her. ‘We’ve got the hand, Kelly. And we’ll put it on ice for you. I’m going for help, but I’ll be back in a minute.’
He stepped back into the meeting room. Mira was under a table, whimpering, but everybody else seemed to be frozen, looking up at him. ‘Portia, Kelly’s severely injured. Call an ambulance, and the cops. Mordant may be in the building. Jonesy, make sure your phone is on, find a secure room or even a cupboard and stay there with Mira until I call to let you know it’s safe. There may be other devices. Thad, find the control point for the sprinklers, they haven’t been triggered and I’m worried the place could go up. There may be other bombs. Don’t touch anything you don’t recognise.’
Virgil grabbed some coats from a stand, and ran back to Kelly. As he lay a large coat over her, he saw that other staff were beginning to emerge now, confused or crying. Art director Jarvis McTear was staring around him in incredulity, his quiff blown to one side.
‘What happened?’
‘A parcel bomb. We’ve one critically injured. Now get everyone out, organise a roll-call in the street outside. Who are the fire wardens?’
McTear shrugged. ‘I’ve no idea.’
‘Find out. I want one here, and one outside to liaise with the emergency services.’
‘Okay,’ he said, seeming not to do anything.
‘Move!’ bellowed Virgil. ‘Now.’
Suddenly the alarm stopped, and Virgil could hear himself think. He looked down and saw Kelly staring up at him, her blue eyes intense in a mask of soot.
‘Virgil, listen. You’ve got to be careful. The parcel…’
‘What about the parcel…’
‘Not addressed to Mira,’ she gasped.
‘Then who?’
‘You…’
Virgil blinked.
‘Virgil, do you love me?’
Before he had the chance to answer, Kelly Hopkins shuddered, her throat rattling an unearthly sound. Then she went limp.
‘Kelly. I do love you,’ Virgil whispered, pulling her up into his arms. ‘I really do. And I am so, so sorry.’
Chapter Twenty-Six
It was midnight before Virgil was finished at the office. The police and fire brigade had been and gone, the small fires caused by the explosion had never got going once the sprinklers finally began, but the whole floor was a crime scene and Stardust Brands as a business was essentially out of action. No one but Kelly had been hurt. The parcel had been delivered by a cycle courier that morning. Virgil’s security guard friend Nelson remembered him because the courier seemed a little older than usual, but the sun visor and helmet made it hard to get a good description beyond the fact the guy was every bit as fit looking as the youngsters. The police had been pretty quick to pull up the CCTV records, but it seemed that he had emerged from a narrow alleyway just a few streets away.
Thad and Jonesy had taken Mira back to Ram’s home, and were staying with her. Mira’s hysteria over finding Kelly’s hand in her lap hadn’t changed her determination to go to the funeral of Danielle Stevens.
Virgil had gone to his own neglected flat, and after a long shower and a change of clothes had scooped up the bag of overnight clothing that Kelly had left there. The change of underwear, the cosmetics, a novel she had been reading. On his mantelpiece was a card she had given him after the first meal he had cooked for her.
Lovely mushroom risotto. I thought a chanterelle was a light fitting until I met you!
XX Kelly.
As he re-read it, the poignancy of those carefree words pierced him and he felt his eyes prickle. Poor Kelly. He sat down, feeling quite sorry for himself.
The buzz of his mobile pulled him out of his reverie. He answered, and a smooth well-educated male voice said. ‘Oh Virgil. Look at the mess you’ve made. You should really open your own post. Like I said: when it comes to Mira, it’s hands off.’ Then he hung up. Virgil looked at the number. It was Baroness Earl’s phone. Mordant.
* * *
TWO DAYS
Virgil and Mira sat in a brooding silence all the way to Essex, their chauffeured Volvo saloon shadowed by an unmarked police car. Mira had gone for the full femme fatale look. Heavy eye make-up, a huge knee-length jet-black astrakhan coat and matching hat with veil, and lipstick in the darkest maroon. Her long legs were encased in sheer nylons, seamed at the back, and ended in black stilettos. Black leather gloves and patent leather handbag finished the ensemble. She stared out of the window at the grey sky, the hard east wind and the endless new housing estates, huddled grimly in treeless rows.
Virgil, lost in his own thoughts about Kelly, could no longer find the energy to try to squeeze out of Mira whatever it was that linked her to William Mordant. The whole story was much bigger than her now, with a full-scale police manhunt. One woman was dead and a peer of the realm missing, presumed murdered. The Met Police liaison officer, WPC Karen Thomas, had told him that Mordant’s last phone call to Virgil from Baroness Earl’s phone had been traced. By triangulating the phone masts that carried the call, the police had worked out that Mordant had been travelling eastwards on the M25 near the M11 junction. They would now examine the motorway camera footage in the area to see if they could identify the car. They were pretty sure they knew what to look for. Suzannah Earl had hired a red Renault Kadjar while her own vandalised vehicle was being repaired, and this Renault had been missing from the resident’s parking area when the police checked. Its keys had not been found in her flat.
‘Whether we find it or not, Mordant seems to be heading towards the funeral, so we warn you to be on the lookout,’ the WPC had said.
They arrived at the village of Aythorpe Green, between Harlow and Chelmsford, three hours before the funeral was to start. The car dropped Mira at a secluded hotel twenty miles away, where a couple of her old colleagues from Village of the Dead were staying. The death of Danielle Stevens had affected many of them profoundly, and they too had arranged to attend the funeral. Virgil left them there with the officers from the escorting car while he drove off to inspect the arrangements.
There was a small knot of people already at the tiny church. Virgil was introduced to Danielle’s auntie Jenny, a formidable former hospital matron, who was organising the funeral. Virgil learned that there was only room for thirty-five friends and family in the church, of which Mira would be one, but the service would be relayed outside by speakers to those who could not get in. They were expecting at least a couple of hundred to attend. Virgil noticed immediately that there were only two parking spaces close to the church, with no others nearby in the village’s narrow lanes. He asked for one to be reserved for Mira, to minimise the walk she would have to make past members of the public. This was agreed. The local police had already advised them to use crowd-contro
l barriers, and these were already in place.
* * *
An hour before the funeral there were already over two hundred people there waiting, locals outnumbered by visitors about three-to-one. A mini-media scrum had formed too, encroaching on the wheelchair section by the church doors that Virgil had helped Jenny set up. Virgil scanned the gathering crowd, spotting three anoraked lads and four teenage girls, some dressed as Qaeggan. A uniformed policeman was chatting amiably to them. The make-up and tear stains doubled quite well for a funeral. To Virgil they looked like typical Mira fans, though he was less sure about the tall well-dressed man in sunglasses at the back. Virgil was wearing sunglasses to disguise the direction of his gaze, but as it was overcast he didn’t expect anyone else to be in them. CID perhaps? It certainly wasn’t Mordant.
Most of the guests had already arrived when Mira’s car slid into view. Her elegant coat and veiled hat brought out gasps of admiration. A few called out her name, and one or two shouted out for autographs, which she at Virgil’s advice ignored. It was only when a little girl of perhaps eight yelled out ‘You are so pretty!’ that Mira turned and gave a small smile.
The arrival of the hearse caused an immense hush. Four black-suited pallbearers bore up a tiny white coffin, seemingly too small for a girl of thirteen. A huge wreath of white roses swamped the casket, and at its centre sat a tiny Mira doll, one of those Village of the Dead merchandise cheapos that Jonesy so hated. Here, though, on the coffin of a girl who died trying to emulate her heroine it caused even Virgil to well up a little. Certainly, he could hear no end of sobbing among the crowd.
Virgil remained at the church door for the service, which was simple and moving. If only things had stayed that way. After the service Mira lingered in the church, talking to the family, but when she emerged she did go over to someone who called from behind the crowd barrier. A shortish woman, dressed in a black broad-brimmed hat, was holding a huge bunch of lilies. Virgil, five feet behind Mira, looked briefly left, where the tall man had been just a moment ago. He didn’t see him now.
‘I heard a report you are getting married tomorrow, is that right?’ asked the lady with the flowers.
Virgil didn’t quite hear the reply, he was too busy looking for the tall man. He still couldn’t see him.
‘Well that’s what I heard,’ the woman said, a sarcastic tone in her voice. Suddenly she had Virgil’s attention. ‘So have these from me,’ she said, pushing the flowers towards her.
Virgil lurched towards the woman. His mind was fixated on something he recalled from training. Back in 1990 a woman had stabbed the German politician Oskar Lafontaine in the throat with a knife concealed in a bunch of flowers. Lafontaine’s carotid artery had been slashed, and he almost died.
Mira was reaching for the flowers but Virgil cut in, pushing his arm between her and the woman. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘No gifts.’ The woman pulled the flowers back, scowled at him, then thrust them higher as if trying to get past his shoulder towards Mira. He interposed himself again, looking for the knife. But it wasn’t a knife that came out of the flowers. A jet of fluid hit him in the face and neck, and spattered across the crowd. Screams erupted, and suddenly, agonisingly they were his too. Acid, it’s acid! The thought tore through his mind. A burning agony crackled across his eyes and he stumbled. ‘Mira get back!’ he shouted, as he fell, his fingers tearing at his face. Helping hands turned him face-up, and he saw through his working eye, the tear-smeared image of a male Qaeggan above him, pouring liquid. Instinctively he put his hands up to protect himself.
‘Keep still, mate’ the voice said. ‘This is water, we’re trying to get it off.’
And then there was a scream, a deafening bang, and a long crackle through the sky. A gasp ran through the crowd, and an explosion of crows fled the trees.
‘Look after Mira!’ Virgil screamed.
‘She’s okay,’ said a voice. ‘She’s right here.’
‘Virgil?’ It was Mira’s voice, soft and comforting. ‘I’m fine. I got a few spatters on my neck. But what about you?’
* * *
Three hours later, Virgil emerged unsteadily into the waiting room at Harlow Hospital A&E with a dressing over one eye, and his face shiny with skin cream. His eyesight had been saved by that Qaeggan, a trainee nurse it transpired. He’d used a water bottle to douse his eye and then inverted the eyelid to wash the inside while the ambulance was called. Mira had waited for him with police liaison officer Karen Thomas, and now rushed up to hug him.
‘Thank you Virgil,’ Mira said, giving him a kiss, which earned a wolf-whistle from a young man with a cast on his leg who had been admiring her from afar. ‘You really put your life on the line for me.’
‘It’s my job,’ he said. ‘And it’s not over yet. Did they catch the woman?’
‘Not yet,’ said the WPC. ‘One of our plain-clothes officers gave chase but encountered a shot from a firearm. Fortunately she missed, but it allowed her to escape in a vehicle. We’ve got the registration. She won’t get far.’
‘The doctor told me it wasn’t acid but household bleach,’ Virgil said. ‘It could have been much worse.’
‘I’ve been so worried,’ said Mira. ‘First Kelly, now you.’
‘We’ve got the weapon. A squeezy-type detergent bottle. Pretty amateur really,’ the WPC said. ‘Unlike the gun.’
‘What about Mordant?’ Virgil asked.
‘We saw no sign of him,’ WPC Thomas said. ‘The man with the sunglasses you mentioned was our DC Martin Preece, the man who gave chase. We reckon Mordant didn’t come here. That’s despite him being on the M11 when he rang you.’
‘That’s really strange,’ Virgil said. ‘So who is this woman? And is she the same one who vandalised Baroness Earl’s car?’
‘We’ve got a name for the vehicle owner,’ Karen Thomas said. She showed Virgil and Mira a DVLA printout. ‘Dawn Evans. She’s got no criminal record. Does she mean anything to either of you?’
Virgil and Mira each shook their heads. ‘Means nothing to me,’ said Virgil. ‘Not on the list of known stalkers. But she mentioned something about you getting married tomorrow, didn’t she? What was that about?’ Virgil said to Mira.
‘Really? I didn’t hear that,’ said Mira, her face blank. ‘She said, “Have some flowers from me.” I don’t recall anything else.’
Virgil stared at Mira, her exquisite face, dark lips slightly parted. That she could look him in the eye and lie so brazenly. ‘Come on,’ Virgil said, laughing. ‘She said it sarcastically. If I could hear her where I was, you certainly must have.’
Mira shrugged. ‘There were a lot of people speaking to me.’
‘Have a think,’ said the WPC. ‘If there is anything else you remember, you can add it to the statement.’
Mira nodded at Virgil. ‘Let’s get out of here. The press are beginning to gather outside. And I need a drink.’
* * *
Dawn Evans sat in her grey Renault Clio with the engine running and the heater on full. She was parked behind a disused barn near a farm track a few miles east of Harlow. There were geese honking in the distance and the sound of a far-off tractor. She didn’t know exactly where she was, but once she’d left the funeral her options had narrowed down, as she knew they would.
On the passenger seat was her briefcase, containing all her precious things. The exquisite poetry Will had written for her. The sketches, the watercolours. Probably already valuable. She picked up and admired her photograph of Will. Taken in the Broadmoor studio on the sly, she’d sneaked it out on a data stick, then had it blown up and framed, and kept in a bedroom drawer at home to look at every morning and every night. So handsome, so wonderful. All the possibilities they had considered together, all spoilt by his wandering eyes and absurd ambition. First that tart of a baroness, flaunting herself naked for the nation to see. Warning her off was easy. Her home address was on the social worker’s report, the one the baroness had to agree to before she was approved to have contact with
Will. Dawn hadn’t the courage to break into the flat, but smashing up the car was fun. Very cathartic.
Now this model. Mira Roskova. Dawn had only once asked Will why he had her picture all over the place, and he had replied: ‘Because she is absolute perfection in female form. A muse fit for a God.’ Not any more, was what she had wanted to tell him. At least not if that bodyguard hadn’t got in the way.
Dawn had never been jealous in her life until she met Will. But having got hold of him, experienced him, she was never going to let go. Ever. There were no second chances for her. She wondered, with all the tablets she had taken and rather enjoyed, and this strange haze in her mind, whether she was now a candidate for the very institution she had worked in. A crazy woman, as obsessed as any of them. But that is what happens when you feel destiny in your hands and then have it snatched away. Nothing else is ever going to seem right again. Over the noise of the geese she heard sirens back on the motorway. She could just see the lights on the M11 embankment, maybe a mile away. Then she saw a car, blue lights flashing but no siren, easing its way slowly down the track behind her, splashing through the puddles. There was no way out.
She reached over the back of the seat and felt for the revolver. It had been in the heavy holdall given to her in Grimsby. Everything else she’d stowed for Will weeks ago in the London lock-up garage, along with some other stuff including the Anarchist’s Cookbook, and various other guides to explosives. The gun was her get-out, and her original idea was to shoot the baroness. But she soon realised she could never do that. She now placed the gun in her lap, hoping there were bullets left in it. She reclined the seat, and then thought how someone would afterwards have to clean up all the mess. She felt guilty for that, but not enough to stop her. She put the snub nose of the gun in her mouth, an alien sensation of cold metal, which tasted somehow like a nosebleed, against her teeth. She had both thumbs through the trigger guard. All she had to do was squeeze. A severe case of self-harm. Richard Lamb would recognise the syndrome immediately.
