Holy Blood

by Kim Fleet

  ‘You’re on CCTV, Gwen,’ Eden said, ‘going into the hotel through the staff entrance. Let me tell you what I think happened.’

  A tear rolled down Rose’s cheek to her lip. She wiped it away. ‘Oven cleaner?’ she whispered, staring at her sister in horror.

  ‘There’s no over cleaner in that store cupboard, so whoever doctored the eye drops took it in specially. Didn’t you, Gwen?’

  ‘You said it would be lemon juice!’

  Gwen’s hands curled into claws, leaving nail marks in her palms.

  Eden carried on; ‘You went into the hotel, found Rose’s overall where she said it would be, and there was the pass key. She’d left it there for you. She’d also told you which room was Lewis’s. You found his eye drops in the bathroom, and added oven cleaner to them.’

  ‘He ruined Rose’s life,’ Gwen said, her hand creeping across the pew to clutch Rose’s. ‘And her children’s lives, and all she’d wanted to do was care for him and give him a good home.’ Her voice choked. ‘He didn’t care who he hurt.’

  ‘So you decided to teach him a lesson?’

  ‘He was on TV crowing about filming the Holy Blood. Actually boasted that he’d held it,’ Gwen said bitterly, her face twisted with anger. ‘He didn’t deserve to see it. Not him. It made me feel sick to think of it.’ She turned to her sister. ‘It was sacrilege that monster seeing the Blood.’

  Faith again, thought Eden, as she rose from the pew. And a good dollop of revenge. Gwen’s eyes were defiant as she said, ‘What are you going to do?’

  ‘I’ll have to tell the police,’ Eden said.

  ‘Good. I want the world to know what sort of man he was,’ Gwen said. ‘I didn’t kill him, but I’d like to thank whoever did.’

  14:23 hours

  There was time to kill before she was due to meet Will Day, so Eden went home to see how Aidan was faring. As she let herself into her flat, she heard Aidan calling.

  ‘Do you want a glass of water or something?’

  ‘What’s going on?’

  ‘It’s Mandy. She’s been puking for ages.’

  The sound of retching came from the bathroom. Eden hurried over and tapped on the door. ‘Mandy? Are you all right?’

  ‘A bit poorly,’ came the gargled response.

  ‘Can I come in?’

  ‘It’s not very nice in here.’

  Eden pushed the door open. Mandy was slumped in a heap on the tiled floor, her face eau de Nil and sheened with sweat. Eden crouched beside her and felt her forehead, alarmed how clammy and chilled her skin was.

  ‘How long have you been sick for?’

  ‘It started about an hour ago.’

  Eden pressed her fingers against Mandy’s neck, feeling for a pulse. It was fast and weak.

  ‘Were you feeling off-colour this morning?’

  ‘No, I felt fine. Oh!’ Mandy scuffled to her knees and was sick into the toilet bowl. She grabbed a handful of toilet paper and scrubbed her mouth clean. ‘Sorry.’

  ‘It’s OK.’ Eden stroked Mandy’s hair back from her face. ‘Is it something you ate?’

  ‘I’ve only had a few crackers and fruit. And some of those chocolates.’

  Eden went into the kitchen. The box of chocolates was open on the worktop. About half the chocolates were missing, their brown plastic coffins plundered. She tipped the rest out onto the worktop and turned them over. Tiny holes pierced the base of each chocolate. ‘Shit!’

  ‘What the hell?’ Aidan said, as she pushed past him to the phone and dialled emergency services.

  ‘Ambulance please. I think my friend’s been poisoned.’ She gave the address and Mandy’s symptoms, then hung up. Mandy was being sick again. ‘Ambulance is on its way.’ Mandy turned a tearstained face to her as Eden hunkered beside her and put her arm round her shoulders. ‘I’m so sorry, Mandy, I didn’t think.’

  ‘It’s not your fault.’

  Eden didn’t reply. She scooped up some of the remaining chocolates and put them in a plastic bag.

  The ambulance arrived within minutes and Mandy was strapped into a chair and taken to hospital. Eden went with her, clutching the chocolates. When a doctor came to assess Mandy, she handed over the bag.

  ‘I think these have been poisoned,’ she said.

  ‘It’s more likely to be gastric flu,’ the doctor said, his head set at a patronising angle.

  ‘If you look at the chocolates,’ Eden said, her teeth gritted, ‘you’ll see they’ve been tampered with. And they were sent anonymously. Get them tested.’

  The doctor sighed, but he took the bag. Mandy was admitted for tests and Eden sat with her, holding a cardboard bowl for her to be sick into.

  ‘I’m so sorry about this, Eden. I was supposed to be looking after Aidan, not causing more problems.’

  ‘You just relax and don’t worry about a thing. You’re going to be fine,’ Eden said, praying it was true.

  Mandy had fallen into an exhausted sleep by the time the doctor returned.

  ‘Got the test results back?’ Eden asked.

  ‘I can’t discuss it with you, I’m afraid,’ the doctor said. ‘You’re not her next of kin.’

  He checked Mandy’s pulse and temperature, and scribbled in her notes. Eden sat and held Mandy’s hand, nodding at the doctor when he left.

  As soon as his footsteps receded, Eden grabbed Mandy’s medical notes from the end of the bed and flicked through them. Pulse, temperature, medical jargon that said Mandy was vomiting, and then the results of the tests on the chocolates. She was right, and the knowledge brought her no comfort. It should be her in the hospital bed, not Mandy. There it was, in stark black and white:

  Cause of vomiting: mistletoe poisoning.

  18:06 hours

  Aidan was pacing the floor, white-faced, when she returned home.

  ‘Eden, thank God,’ he said. ‘How is she?’

  ‘She’s pretty poorly, but she’ll be OK.’

  ‘What happened?’

  ‘She was poisoned.’

  ‘What?’

  Eden sucked in a deep breath. ‘It was meant for me, Aidan. Mandy was collateral damage.’ She dug her nails into her palm, furious. ‘And I’m going to find out exactly who it was.’

  He flopped down onto the settee. ‘I thought it was all over,’ he said. ‘I thought when they put that heavy who attacked you back inside that you’d be safe.’

  ‘I know,’ she said, patting his hand. If only life was that simple. She looked at him properly: the bruise was seeping down his face, blackening his cheekbone. How pale and sick he looked. ‘You pop in the shower, it’ll make you feel better,’ she said. ‘I’ll make some tea when you get out and you can tell me all about your research.’

  He heaved himself to his feet, his movements those of an old man. How many more people were going to be hurt by this, she wondered. After a few moments she heard the soft percussion of the shower and went into the kitchen to make tea.

  On the worktop was a message scribbled on the back of an envelope. Mandy’s writing, she presumed, smiling a little at the bubble above the letter i. She scanned the note and froze. Mandy had written: Someone called Hammond phoned. Said he’ll catch you later.

  19:00 hours

  Will Day was waiting for her in the lobby of the Imperial Hotel. He was back in his off-duty cavalry officer gear of pink trousers, check shirt and blazer, and his aftershave was so thick it formed a mushroom cloud. On the opposite side of the lobby was a man reading a copy of the Financial Times. In his forties, he was well-muscled and his suit fitted tight to his solid torso. He didn’t glance in their direction, but a slight stiffening of his neck sinews betrayed he was aware she was there.

  ‘Hi, Will,’ she said. ‘Thanks for meeting me at short notice.’

  ‘No problem,’ he said. ‘Ready?’

  ‘I need to check something out first, then we’ll get onto the main course. Is that OK?’

  Will rubbed his chin. ‘I guess it’ll have to be, if you’re not goin
g to tell me what’s going on.’

  She’d outlined the only the basics of her suspicions to him, backing up her authority with details only someone who’d been on the inside of his organisation would know. ‘Trust me.’

  ‘Not in the job description.’

  She jerked her gaze towards Financial Times man. ‘Your guy?’

  ‘Yep.’ Will nodded at Financial Times, who folded the paper, checked his watch, and sauntered into the bar. ‘We’ll give him a few minutes.’

  She and Will kicked around in the lobby then wandered into the bar. Financial Times was in an armchair in the corner, within eavesdropping distance. He had the newspaper open on his lap and seemed to be working out the crossword. A glass of dark whisky occupied a paper doily on the table beside him.

  Eden hoiked her bum onto a barstool and put her foot on the brass rail. Leaning her elbows on the bar, she said, ‘Hello Gabor.’

  Gabor took a moment to recognise her. ‘It’s you,’ he said. ‘Back again.’

  ‘How is your mother?’ she asked in Russian.

  ‘She is well, thank you,’ Gabor answered, also in Russian. Then he added, ‘What can I get you?’

  ‘What would you like, Will?’ she asked, and ordered two whiskies with water.

  ‘You remember last Tuesday evening, Gabor?’ Eden said. ‘You said there was a man in the bar, waiting for a date to turn up?’

  Gabor polished a wine glass while he thought. ‘Yes, the blind date man whose lady never came. I remember him.’

  ‘Think you would recognise him?’

  Gabor shrugged. ‘I don’t know.’

  Eden took a sheaf of papers out of her bag and spread them out on the bar. ‘Are any of these people him?’

  Gabor looked over the photographs she’d culled from the Internet, frowning and sucking his teeth as he looked them over. Finally, he picked up one of the pictures. ‘Him. I think it was him.’

  ‘You’re sure?’

  Another shrug. ‘I think so.’

  Eden took the paper from him and checked the name on the back. ‘Thanks, Gabor. You know, since our chat the other day, I can’t stop thinking about those honey pastries from the café. Where was it again?’

  ‘Oktogon Square. That’s the place we talked about.’

  ‘Oktogon Square. That’s interesting, because I looked them up on the Internet and they’re not in Oktogon Square at all.’

  Gabor carried on polishing the glass. ‘I remembered it wrong. Silly me!’ And he shrugged and made a ‘what am I like’ face.

  ‘But Gabor, you told me it was your favourite place in Budapest,’ Eden said. ‘And what I realised was this: I mentioned Budapest and the café, and you just agreed with me.’

  ‘I try to be agreeable to my customers.’ He replaced the glass and picked up another one.

  Will turned to her and made a little movement with his eyes, telling her he didn’t understand what was going on and what the fuss was about with this Hungarian barman. Eden ignored the signal and continued, ‘But the thing that really worries me, Gabor, is that you don’t seem to exist. Someone did a background check on you, and found nothing.’ She felt Will sit up straighter beside her, as understanding dawned.

  Gabor weighed the glass in his hands. ‘I not exist?’ he laughed. ‘Of course I exist. Here I am!’ And he turned around as if showing off a new jacket.

  ‘The main problem I have, Gabor, is that when I spoke to you in Russian, you replied in Russian. Trouble is, Russian and Hungarian are nothing like each other.’

  Gabor stilled, then suddenly lunged at her with the glass, aiming for her eyes. She dodged sideways, blocked his arm and punched him in the face, then dragged him over the bar until his bloody nose scraped along the counter.

  Financial Times man jumped up and ran over.

  Her face pressed close to Gabor’s, Eden said, ‘You’ve been going into guests’ rooms and searching them. You knew some of them were intelligence officers and you were looking for something you could use: blackmail, pressure, or just information. But because people always know when someone’s been through their things, you stole small items to make it look like petty pilfering instead of what it is. Counter espionage.’ She met Financial Times man’s eyes. ‘He’s all yours.’

  Financial Times produced a warrant card and shoved it in Gabor’s face, then read him his rights and arrested him. Two more beefy men suddenly burst in and hauled Gabor to his feet, handcuffed him, and dragged him away. Wires snaked from behind their ears into their collars.

  ‘What the hell just happened?’ Will said, and drained his whisky.

  ‘He’s not Hungarian,’ Eden said, draining hers in turn. ‘He’s a Russian agent. And he’s given me the clue I need to solve the rest of my case.’

  CHAPTER

  TWENTY-SEVEN

  Tuesday, 3 November 2015

  08:23 hours

  It was a shame about Mandy, but at least it meant Eden left him without a babysitter today, Aidan thought, watching Eden slide her laptop into her backpack. She riffled through a heap of handwritten notes and stuffed those in, too.

  ‘Call me if you feel poorly,’ she said, kissing his forehead.

  ‘I’m fine. I might go home, actually.’ He glanced around her flat: the books weren’t in alphabetical order on the shelves and the flowers in a vase on the table stuck out any which way.

  ‘Send me a text and let me know, OK?’ Another kiss and she was gone. He flopped on the settee, feeling a sense of peace that had eluded him for days wash over him. Order, that’s what he needed. This blasted headache would never go away so long as there were mugs in the sink and eleven tiles around the edge of the bath. Eleven couldn’t be grouped into any sort of pattern. Not divided into threes, or fours, and five each side and one in the middle just wasn’t soothing. Eden wasn’t as cluttered as some women he’d known, but even so she had seven bottles of scented gunk in the shower, and five candles clustered on the ledge at the end of the bath. What he needed was his own place, the calm of a space he’d arranged for maximum mental serenity.

  He packed up his clothes and washbag, tidied up the kitchen and squared the edges of Eden’s pile of magazines on the coffee table. Her dining table was covered with bits of paper: timelines and notes on suspects, business cards from William Day and Bernard Mulligan, and huge mind maps of Lewis’s murder. He sorted it all into size order and piled it up neatly at one end of the table, then let himself out.

  The relief he felt when he entered his own flat was instant. Home. The books in size and colour order on the shelves. The perfectly aligned radio on the mantelpiece. The rug that was exactly parallel with the skirting board. He shoved his dirty clothes in the washing machine, made a pot of coffee, scooping in an extra spoonful to compensate for days of coffee denial, and spread his research notes over his desk.

  Mandy had obtained copies of letters written between Catholic families living near Hailes during the reign of Elizabeth I. He set his spectacles firmly on his nose and peered at the old writing, recalling his early days as an undergraduate, despairing that he’d ever be able to decipher any document older than a century. After a while, the handwriting resolved and the abbreviations the scribes used fell into place and he could read smoothly. The coffee went cold at his elbow as he read on, caught up in a drama that had unfolded nearly five hundred years before.

  My friend in Christ, I pray you are well. We, alas, are not, my dear wife Susan being afflicted with the fever these two days past and no sign of it easing. We implore God it is not the sweating sickness. Some of the servants have fled to their homes, afraid of contagion. My manservant, a stalwart brute, has ridden to Hailes for help. Pray for my dear Susan.

  Dear Sister, we were visited today and the house searched from top to bottom. They prised apart the staircase, looking for concealing places, and turned all the preserves out of the pantry to search for hidden staircases behind the shelves. They found nothing, though they poked about in the roof and jabbed the hay in the stables
with pitchforks. They went away empty handed and I fear they will return.

  His Holiness has put our lives in danger in excommunicating the Queen. We live quietly here, and never a harm to anyone, yet now she is cast out from the Church, we who follow the true way are called assassins and traitors. Our lives are lived on a thread. I fear for my boys.

  My Susan is better today, thank God. Our friend at Hailes came to her with physic and the fever broke at once. She is resting and quiet now. He assures us he will come each day to tend to her, though at great peril to his life. God bless and preserve him.

  Our friend from Hailes has come and drawn plans for our new garden, similar to his own. We like its symmetry much and can foresee many hours spent there, contemplating the wonder of God around us. We have much need of its comfort. Our friend from the north was here just days before the hunters came. Though they wrenched up the floorboards and jabbed swords down the well, they did not find their prey. God save him.

  My friend in Christ, I write with sorrowful news. My Susan ails again, and I have sent my man for our brother at Hailes in desperation that he might save her. But I fear that even his skills are beyond this, and that my dear wife will soon be lost to us.

  My friend in Christ. I have seen it myself, and I know it to be true. The Holiest of Holy, that was lost from Hailes, is not lost. And it was here, in my own home and abode, just these past days. Our brother at Hailes brought it to my Susan, as she lay dying upon the bed. As soon as he produced it, she rose up from her pillow, fixed her eyes upon it, and her lips moved in constant prayer. She fell back upon the pillow in unconscious slumber, and we were unable to wake her for over a day. Brother John remained at her side, constantly praying, and dribbling physic between her lips. On the third day she woke, and lifted herself up, and was as well and hearty as the day I married her, over twenty years ago. God be praised.

  Be not involved in sedition, my friend. Live quietly as we do, and turn away from turbulent speakers, I implore you. We must wait until our time is come. It is in the hands of God. Heaven has no need for more martyrs.