Mirror Mirror: A shatteringly powerful page-turner

by Nick Louth

  Len had lain down on the mattress in Hounslow, with jets thundering overhead into Heathrow and thought yet again about what slow pain he was going to inflict on that scum Mordant. It had been coming for a lifetime. He could still remember as a nineteen-year-old scaffolder back in the eighties, doing a job at some crumbling manor called Hooksworth Hall in the Forest of Bowland. There he was, fifty feet up, at chimney level on a boiling hot summer’s day, and hearing the crunch of tyres on gravel. Looking down he had seen some sixteen-year-old toff of a kid wearing a purple blazer getting out of mummy’s flash car. The kid looked up, all carefully-brushed hair and butter-soft privileged face. Someone whispered an idea in Len’s ear, a voice from the sky he had never heard before, but one that was later to become insistent, whining, and finally the bane of his life. Len did as it suggested. He plucked a loose tile from the roof and threw it down at the boy. It missed but shattered on the drive at his feet. The boy didn’t jump, but stared insolently up at him, his hand shielding his eyes against the sun.

  ‘Sorry lad,’ Len had called, when faced with that stare, but he wasn’t sorry. He had wanted to pulverise that gilded head. He wasn’t even sorry later in the day when the boy’s mother, having given the foreman half an hour’s earache about the incident, demanded a proper apology from Len himself. He had walked up to the snooty bitch, done a little curtsey and then told her to fuck off. He was fired on the spot, nutted the foreman, then hitched back into Manchester where he spent every penny he could find in his mum’s purse on tattoos. Wrap yourself in the Book of Revelations, that’s what the voice had told him. Next week he marched in to see Uncle Jimmy, head of the firm. ‘I’m fucking finished with legit jobs. I’m ready to crack heads for you,’ he said.

  That boy’s conceited, arrogant face had stuck in his mind, but he’d never expected to set eyes on him again. Especially nearly twenty years later in HMP Wakefield. It was definitely him. They’d give him some other name, it wasn’t Mordant then, and not Hooksworth neither. And he was segregated with the nonces, so it was hard to get at him. Nonce crime, little boys, that’s what they had all reckoned, but no one knew for a fact, which was unusual because the prison grapevine was normally spot on. Then Len had snared a chance when he was being escorted to a court hearing. The corridor to the van bay went past the nonce breakfast sitting. Len had broken away from the screws and smacked Mordant a good clump, two-hander of course, with handcuffs on. Thought he’d done alright, as there was plenty of blood, but things changed. On the way back later in the day he’d passed under the nonce landing and someone had chucked prison napalm on him: boiling water with a pound of sugar dissolved. That stuck and burned and hurt like nothing he’d ever known. Still had scars on his neck.

  Then Mordant had been shipped out, and it was years before Len had run into him again. Who’d have thought it? In Broadmoor of all places. Well, finally time to settle the score. Tonight’s the night.

  * * *

  Ellie McAllister was feeling quite pukey now, and was really having second thoughts about what she’d done. The only space she had was a sportsbag-sized slot between two hefty suitcases in the back. Above her in a plastic carrier was a white wedding dress so long that the voluminous hem was spilling out of the bottom, rustling as the car juddered and the luggage jostled. Ellie’s legs were folded right up and she had pins and needles in her backside. This was easily the closest Ellie had ever been to her heroine, but it wasn’t turning out like she had expected. The plan had been at some point to pop up and make an apology, and then sit and talk with the world’s most beautiful woman before she got dropped off at the nearest tube station, with enough stories about Mira’s life to last forever. But now she was too afraid to let Mira know she was there. The woman drove like a lunatic, revving, braking sharply, stopping and starting, and all the time muttering angrily to herself. Mira always looked so cool and serene on TV, her hair like ocean waves of silky chestnut as she shook it in the shampoo commercial. Yet here she was raving like Ellie’s own mother did when she was trying to find her drugs, banging the horn and swearing at the traffic.

  Just when Ellie thought she was going to throw up, it all became a bit smoother. She looked down at the Google map which showed they were on the M1 in Hertfordshire, not far from Scratchwood Services. Oh God. How would she get back home from here?

  There was a phone noise and Mira answered. ‘Hello. Yes. Where are you now? Alright, I’ll be there. No, alone. I gave Virgil the slip this morning. No, and I feel bad about it, he’s done his best for me, poor sod. And you blew his girlfriend to pieces. Yes, well, what can I do? You’re going to ruin my life, one way or another aren’t you? That’s the only reason I’m going through with this ridiculous ceremony. Will, I’m trusting you here,’ she pleaded. ‘You have to promise to stop the countdown.’ There was a long pause. ‘Yes. I know you were there to help me when I needed it, you never let me forget do you? But that was ten years ago, Will. I was a child.’

  Ellie could not believe what she was hearing. Could the Will she was talking to be the William Mordant that Virgil had warned her about? She risked lifting the dress carrier above her a little and sneaking a look through a small gap. Mira had a mobile clamped to her ear as she drove. She was now wearing a cloth cap, like a glamorous version of what old men wear, and the same sunglasses she’d worn at the start. With the tweed jacket and white trousers she looked kind of horsey. Only Mira could still look great dressed like that.

  Mira was still on the call. ‘Of course I’m terrified of you. Who wouldn’t be? You admit you casually and deliberately killed my best friend’s mother just a few minutes after making love to her. Then you tell me you love me. And you expect me to believe you? I mean, you don’t even know me. Yes I know I promised. I was thirteen! Thirteen, and you were a god. Back then I’d have married you on the spot if I could have. But this is 2015 and I’m a grown woman, and believe you me I’ve had better offers of marriage than yours. Billionaires, world famous sportsmen, and a very nice Indian man whom I hope to God you never get near. Oh, I will enjoy it, will I? How very male of you, to reduce it to that. I’ve heard enough and I’m hanging up. There’s a police car on the hard shoulder. Wouldn’t do to be stopped for using a mobile while driving would it?’ She hung up, switched off the phone, and angrily tossed it on the passenger seat.

  Forty minutes later the car slowed down, turned off the motorway and then stopped. She heard Mira get out. The door was slammed, and the remote locking clunked. Ellie risked a peek and saw they were in the middle of a huge car park. Google maps showed they were at Toddington Services. She texted the location to Virgil. There was almost no juice on her phone, so she turned it off. What was left she’d have to conserve for a final text, when they finally stopped. Two minutes later, she heard a man’s voice. The rear passenger door opened and a large heavy suitcase and some plastic bags were dumped onto the back seat. The man took the driver’s seat and Mira slid in on the passenger side.

  ‘Are you sure you weren’t followed?’ he asked. Ellie thought he was very handsome, with wavy blonde hair and a lovely storyteller’s voice. Ah, this was the man. William Mordant. If only she could let Virgil know.

  ‘I drove twice around the car park before stopping, Will. No one followed.’

  ‘Good. We’ll get off at the next junction and take minor roads. This car may already be reported stolen, and I would really prefer not to have to kill anyone else for a while.’ Mordant laughed in a way that Ellie thought was really creepy. It didn’t sound like a joke at all. Now very scared indeed, she snuggled down as deeply into the crevice between the luggage as she could, letting the heavy dress carrier settle over her. She didn’t think she could sleep, but she would try.

  * * *

  Virgil and Ram had been on the ground at Milton Keynes Heliport kicking their heels for hours. The chopper was so much faster than a car, but there was no point chasing around by air until they had a final destination. Ellie McAllister hadn’t replied to any of his texts since con
firming that they were at Toddington Services on the M1 at midday. The chopper couldn’t land there legally, and if they had tried, Mira would surely have simply driven off. Instead Virgil had spent ages on the phone to the liaison officer WPC Karen Thomas, trying to get the Met Police to trace Mira from her phone. Eventually he was patched through to Detective Chief Superintendent Alan Middleford who was in charge of the search for Mordant. He agreed that the Met considered the taking of Ram’s mother’s car a crime. ‘But we need some evidence that Mira herself is in immediate danger, before providing the resources needed to track her down in real time.’

  ‘But she is in danger, she’s going to meet Mordant,’ Virgil said.

  ‘I’m sorry, but based on what you told us, that really isn’t credible. Why would she go to meet a man who is likely to kill her?’

  ‘I can’t give you a clear rationale, but I think she is being blackmailed,’ Virgil said.

  ‘Look, we were happy to provide Special Branch protection to the given address, but a celebrity leading us a merry dance across the country isn’t the highest priority when we are investigating the possible murder of a member of the House of Lords as well as your colleague Kelly Hopkins. We’ve already posted the registration number of Mrs Dipani’s vehicle to other forces, and that will be sufficient for now. Besides, it would take an hour or two to get the cell site analysis, by which time she could be a hundred miles away. I’ll review that decision later in the day,’ he said, then hung up.

  ‘That’s crazy,’ Virgil said to Ram. ‘Follow her, and you will get to Mordant, I’m certain of it.’

  ‘Well,’ Ram said slowly. ‘I had no idea what I was getting mixed up in when I saved Mira’s umbrella that day on Hungerford Bridge. Such a beauty, mixed up in all this ugliness.’

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Ellie awoke what felt like hours later. Her watch said three-fifteen. The car was being driven slowly on a bumpy road with lots of turns, and the suitcases and bags were bumping and wobbling around her. Ellie hadn’t eaten since the morning, and hunger and thirst were chewing at her mind. She risked putting her phone on, and after waiting for an eternity, finally got a signal. Only nine per cent battery life left. Google maps showed just a few minor roads on a blank map, and she had to zoom out to discover they were in the middle of nowhere, rural Lancashire, way north of Manchester.

  ‘We’re nearly there, my darling,’ Mordant said to Mira. ‘Lovely Hooksworth Hall.’

  ‘I nearly sought refuge in the hall myself,’ Mira told him. ‘After Lawrence had beaten me up. I crossed this very lane just wearing pyjamas. I’ve never been so cold or wet. Or scared.’

  He laughed. ‘Well, there wouldn’t have been anyone here. The inheritance tax bill after my mother’s death meant it had to be given up. My uncle passed it on to the National Trust over twenty years ago, but they only recently started work on repair. The paintings are in the National Gallery, the furniture in storage and the tapestries being restored. But the Great Ballroom is finished, and I have a key.’ The car finally stopped and he said. ‘Right, now to deal with the luggage.’

  Terrified out of her wits, Ellie pressed the button on a text to Virgil. It could be the last one she ever sent.

  @ hookswth hall lancs w mordant. help!

  She then turned the phone off and squeezed it into a gap between the cushions of the rear seats in front of her, where she hoped it would not be found. Mira and Will were talking at the back of the car. The boot door opened and someone lifted the dress carrier.

  ‘Oh my God, we’ve got a stowaway!’ Mira shrieked.

  Ellie looked up straight into Mira’s face. ‘Hi. I’m Ellie.’

  Strong male arms seized Ellie and pulled her out. ‘Now what have we got here, eh?’ Mordant said.

  ‘I’m just a fan,’ Ellie pleaded. ‘I didn’t mean any harm.’ The man had one hand around her neck and, for God’s sake, he was smiling at her as he started to squeeze. She was struggling to breathe.

  ‘Will, no, no, please don’t kill her,’ Mira said, her hands pulling at his arm. ‘Please Will, please. I couldn’t bear it, not another one.’

  ‘Mira, you are a fool,’ he hissed. ‘Why didn’t you take more care? Am I marrying a complete idiot?’

  ‘I was in a hurry,’ Mira said, tears coursing down her face, making her eye make-up run. ‘Will, I had to drag all the bags on my own thirty yards from one car to the other because you wouldn’t let me take the Porsche. I have no idea who she is, but please don’t kill her.’

  Mordant knelt down to put himself at Ellie’s level, his hand still tight at her throat. ‘You have a phone, don’t you, little girl? All kids your age do. Where is it?’

  ‘I lost it climbing in the car,’ Ellie croaked.

  ‘Don’t fib to me,’ he hissed, then put his lips to her ear and mouthed: ‘I like dissolving little girls in acid. Just think. You could be my fourth victim!’

  ‘I’ve got no phone, honest.’ Ellie shook her head, and fought hard to stop the tears coming.

  ‘Please don’t, Will, please,’ Mira pleaded again.

  ‘Well, what the hell do you think I should do with her then?’ he snarled.

  ‘A bridesmaid,’ Ellie managed to squeak out. ‘Could I please be a bridesmaid?’

  Mordant laughed uproariously. ‘Of course! A bridesmaid, perfect.’ He released the grip on her throat a little.

  ‘Yes, we could do it,’ Mira said, a tearful smile at the girl. ‘We could.’

  ‘Okay then. Go and fix your make up. I want to marry a beauty, not some tear-streaked Qaeggan. You look like one of your own zombies.’ Mordant then turned and shot Ellie a dark glance which even a child could understand: your death is merely postponed.

  * * *

  Traffic on the M6 was heavy, but Leonard Lucifer Smith didn’t care. He’d already picked up the shooter in Oldham, and was going to be at Hooksworth Hall well before seven, giving plenty of time to disrupt that midnight wedding. Lucy didn’t give a flying fuck for history, but he was bright enough to know that others did. On the first day scaffolding at the hall, the day before the voices in his head, he was on tea break when he had overheard Mordant’s mother. She was telling the foreman that every Hooksworth since the eighteenth century had got married in the Great Ballroom, and that’s what her boy would do one day. So if Mordant had really abducted Mira Roskova, it was a no-brainer that he was going to impress her by getting her to the family seat for the ceremony. Stands to reason.

  Well, he would put the mockers on that. It was time to break the good news to Lawrence that he was well on the way. He picked up his new mobile and rang the hospital.

  * * *

  The final text from Ellie McAllister galvanised Virgil. Mordant was there, in the car with her and Mira. And Virgil was still hundreds of miles away.

  Virgil spent a frantic five minutes online trying to find out where exactly Hooksworth Hall was, then scooped up Ram from a seat in the heliport lounge in front of the cricket, and tugged him along at a run to the helicopter. Five minutes later they were in the air, destination Thewick, a village ten miles northwest of Clitheroe, Lancashire.

  * * *

  Ellie hadn’t been to many weddings, but this still seemed peculiar. The Great Ballroom at Hooksworth was a fifty-yard long first-floor room with an extraordinary rococo ceiling. Plaster angels and cherubs surrounded panels painted with hunting scenes. The wood-panelled walls were pale where dozens of paintings had been removed. There was very little furniture apart from an incongruously tatty decorators’ trestle table and half a dozen paint-stained chairs. It smelled of old dust and polish, and there were big cobwebs at most of the windows. The floorboards were marked by thousands of small dark dents, where in past centuries fine ladies had danced in high heels. And it was cold. Cold, damp and musty. From the biggest mullioned windows at one end she could see a large ornamental lake, flecked with noisy geese and ducks.

  Mordant asked Ellie to help bring in the luggage. She went down, and had found t
he huge red plastic suitcase that he had placed on the back seat. If she moved it she might be able to retrieve her phone and toss it in the lake. She was terrified Mordant might find it. Ellie tugged at the case, but it was incredibly heavy and she could hardly shift it. It had a flowery but rather battered paper label on it that said ‘S. Earl’ and gave an address in London.

  ‘No, no, I’ll take that.’ Mordant was standing right behind her. Ellie was unnerved that she hadn’t heard him approach. Mordant lifted the case like it weighed nothing, and took it to a set of steps which led down to a basement door. He unlocked the door, put the case inside and after locking the door came back up to Ellie. He looked her up and down as if she was a full-grown woman and said: ‘You really are a pretty little thing. You rather remind me of Mira at your age,’ he whispered, bringing his lips closer to her ear. ‘Now Ellie I know you probably want to try to escape but I just want you to know that if you try, I will catch you and then those terrible, terrible things I did to others will happen to you. You felt how heavy that case was? That’s because it has a dead body in it. I have another case upstairs, just about your size. Do you understand what I’m saying?’

  Ellie looked into those cold blue eyes, and she believed. She nodded her head slowly and he smiled. ‘Good girl. You are four miles from the nearest main road, there is no telephone here, so best just do your job as bridesmaid. I am sorry we have no suitable dress, or flowers. Take these small cases to Mira.’ He pointed out a pink vanity case and a metal make-up box. When Ellie got upstairs Mira called her into a room just off the ballroom.