The King of Terrors (a psychological thriller combining mystery, crime and suspense)

by Mitchell, D. M.

  ‘Did Mr Howard Baxter have a wife, children we might talk to about this Return to Eden?’ asked Stafford.

  She shook her head. ‘He was…’ She hid her lips behind her cup. ‘…you know, batted for the other side, so to speak.’

  ‘Gay?’ said Stafford.

  ‘That, yes,’ she said. ‘No wife, no children. He had a partner, as they call them.’

  ‘Where can we find him, do you know?’

  ‘Really, Inspector Styles, I don’t pry into those kinds of things.’

  ‘No, course not, Mrs Wood.’

  ‘Did Carl have any enemies, Mrs Wood?’ asked Styles bluntly.

  She looked surprised by the question. ‘Enemies? Carl? No, quite the opposite.’ She indicated with a blink the ranks of condolence cards. ‘Too many friends, in fact. Why do you ask?’ She glanced worriedly from one to the other. ‘Surely you don’t suspect anything underhand; he was a man well-loved and highly respected, held in high regard by his peers. And after all, it was a heart attack – that much is proven. The doctor’s report said so.’ She dipped down into melancholy. ‘He was too kind a man to have enemies. Jealous rivals, perhaps, but enemies is too strong a word. He was a nice man. I shall miss his kindness,’ she said. She looked about the room, as if kindness were a physical commodity she could lay her hands on; as if traces of it might be left behind.

  ‘Did he ever mention the name Doradus, even in passing?’

  She thought about it, made as if to answer in the negative and then checked herself. ‘It’s something I heard him mention in connection with the Lunar Club...’

  ‘The Lunar Club, Mrs Wood? What’s that?’ asked Stafford.

  ‘Oh, a little something Carl was intermittently involved with. Just a group of three historians having an excuse to get together every now and again to discuss work – or so he told me. Both Carl and Howard belonged to it; they started it many years ago, before I first started to court Carl. It dropped off after a little while when they all grew up and went their separate ways.’

  Style’s eyes were alight. He leant forward. ‘So who was the third member of this Lunar Club, Mrs Wood? The third man?’ he asked.

  She said she could not easily recall but had the information in her husband’s address book. She returned minutes later, popping a pair of reading glasses onto her button nose and flicking through pages turned soft and yellow by age and continual use. ‘Here we are,’ she said. ‘The other member of their little gang was a man called Charles Rayne.’ She looked up. ‘He used to live in Derbyshire. He may be there still. Does that help you?’

  Stafford and Styles exchanged a cursory glance. ‘That helps us a great deal, thank you, Mrs Wood,’ nodded Stafford. ‘May we have the book?’

  She handed it over. ‘Please take it. It is of little use to Carl or me now.’

  * * * *

  31

  Pest Control

  Love and loyalty is all.

  The phrase seemed to swirl around his head like a flake in a snow globe.

  ‘Tell me where she is,’ he demanded, firmer this time.

  ‘I don’t know the answer to that,’ he returned. ‘And I wouldn’t tell you even if I did.’

  ‘Such a brave little man,’ smirked Camael. ‘Time has taught me to be very patient, Gareth,’ he said. ‘But even my patience starts to draw thin.’

  ‘Tell me why you want her. What’s she involved in?’

  Camael cocked his head. ‘I could almost believe you didn’t know. Almost. Where is she?’

  Gareth shook his head tiredly and sighed. ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘There are two ways we can do this, Gareth; painless or painful. Which is it to be?’

  ‘You’re fucking mad!’ he said, and started to yell. ‘Help! Help me!’

  At Camael’s signal one of the men lurched forward and landed Gareth a meaty punch to his cheek. He groaned loudly, the pain rattling through his skull like a freight train.

  ‘Now, one last time; where is she?’

  Breathing heavily, Gareth stared straight at Camael, his jaw fixed, the side of his face throbbing painfully. The words of his reply were long and drawn out: ‘I don’t know!’

  Camael’s finger flicked out a silent order. The man who had struck Gareth bent down to Gareth’s leg and yanked off his shoe.

  ‘What are you doing?’ Gareth gasped as he tried to yank his leg free. The shoe on the other foot was similarly removed. Then his socks were pulled off. The man had both Gareth’s legs pinned to the ground. ‘You’re crazy! Let me go!’

  ‘Bring the lamp closer,’ Camael ordered.

  With a sinking heart Gareth recognised the man with the lamp when he came closer; it was the man who had been engrossed in his cake and magazine at Cardiff station. ‘This is pure madness!’ he said. ‘I never met her before that day. I don’t know where she is now or what all this is about!’

  Camael ignored him. He removed a small leather case from his coat and unzipped it. ‘I’d like to believe you, but you must understand that I have to make doubly sure.’ He smiled coldly, his teeth revealed to be large, uneven and yellowed. ‘Are you afraid of death, Gareth?’

  ‘What kind of question is that?’ He was instantly reminded of his strange conversation with Lambert-Chide.

  ‘The one most people usually answer yes to.’ Camael took a long, slender needle from the case and held it up to the light, which zipped down its length like silver fire as he twisted it before his eye. ‘I am not afraid of death. I know what awaits me when I pass over. But you – well if I were you then I would certainly live in fear of it. Eternal damnation, burning in the fire pits of hell for all time; not exactly a holiday, is it?’ He bent down to Gareth’s left foot and placed the needle against the soft centre of his sole. He flinched but the man held his leg tight. ‘Where is she, Gareth?’

  ‘I know what you know; nothing.’

  Camael shoved the needle deep into the yielding flesh of Gareth’s foot; it came to rest against bone. Gareth screamed out in agony.

  ‘My colleagues here have long experience of extracting information from reluctant lips, Gareth,’ Camael said. ‘But whilst pulling out fingernails and such like have their place in the grand scheme of things I find the simplest measures are often the most effective.’ He twisted the needle in Gareth’s foot and he yelled out. ‘Straightforward darning needles, large ones of course. Available from your local store.’ He removed another from the leather case and placed it gently against Gareth’s right foot. I always find myself wondering at this point how Jesus must have felt, his feet being nailed to the cross. Where is the woman you call your sister? Please tell me, I have a case full of needles and all the time in the world.’

  He shook his head frantically. ‘I’ve told you all I know.’

  Camael rammed home the needle till it struck bone and Gareth cried out. His arms strained at his bindings to no avail, and his legs were still pinned heavily down despite his manic thrashing.

  ‘You are either very brave or very foolish,’ said Camael. He signalled for the man to release Gareth’s legs. He drew up his knees and groaned, the soles of his feet scorched by twin fires.

  ‘Take them out,’ Gareth said angrily. ‘You have to believe me.’

  The response from Camael was for him to take out another needle. Rising to a stoop, his head close to the low stone ceiling, he grabbed Gareth’s right wrist and placed the needle against the palm of his hand. ‘Not just the feet, of course; Jesus was nailed by the hands.’ He drove the point of the needle deep into Gareth’s flesh, his teeth biting his lower lip as he forced the metal through the hand and out the other side. ‘Drink deep, Gareth, of the pain of our Lord.’ Gareth screamed. ‘No one will help you. No one can hear your pathetic pleas for help. No one knows you are here. You could die here and your body would probably never be found for decades to come. Tell me where she is and I will make the pain stop. Refuse and I will add to your suffering.’

  Sweat drenched Gareth’s hair, his face and
neck; his eyes were screwed up into agonised slits. ‘I...can’t...’ he said breathlessly.

  ‘That’s a shame,’ said Camael. ‘Hold his head’, he commanded. The man stepped forward and grasped Gareth’s hair, jerking his head violently backwards, wrapping his arm around his neck and holding him fast in a steely arm lock. Camael reached back into the leather case. ‘I have two needles here.’ He held one in front of Gareth’s eyeball. ‘It’s no use closing your eyes against it; the eyelid is but a flimsy barrier, as is all human flesh. Do you remember what it felt like to experience total dark? Remember the fear?’ The point of the needle touched Gareth’s unprotected eyelid. ‘One simple push on my part and that darkness will be permanent.’ To demonstrate he pressed a little harder. ‘Where is the woman?’ Tell me where she is. A simple answer will save your eyesight.’

  ‘I don’t know,’ he said, a tear being squeezed from the lid. ‘You have to believe me.’ His voice was shaken, his lips trembling.

  ‘One last chance, Gareth,’ he said evenly.

  Gareth clamped his lips and shook his head, the movement restricted by the man’s arm lock.

  Camael’s tongue ran over his lower lip. He breathed in deeply, then exhaled a sigh. He put the needle back into the case and turned away. Gareth watched as he strode over to the other man and said something he could not catch. With that he held out his hand and was given a torch. Without another word he left the chamber, the sounds of his footsteps growing fainter. The man released Gareth’s head.

  ‘What are you going to do?’ Gareth asked, sucking in breath, his chin slumping exhaustedly to his sodden chest.

  The man from the station came over to him. ‘It’s not good news. But there again it rarely is for your kind. Vermin have to be destroyed.’

  ‘You’re going to kill me?’ he said, the fear coursing through his veins like iced water.

  ‘There was never going to be any other outcome.’ He looked at his watch in the gloom and then went over to sit with his back against the wall. He signalled to his companion, who walked over to a large canvas bag which Gareth had failed to notice in a dark corner of the chamber. He brought it over, the sound of metal hitting metal loud in the chamber’s confines. He put it down again and then began to look over one of the walls, running his hand over it. Satisfied that it appeared an even surface he reached into the bag and to Gareth’s surprise took out a small tin of paint and a brush. Silently he prised the lid off the paint and lowered the brush into the contents. It came out glistening black, as if dipped into crude oil.

  ‘What are you doing?’ said Gareth, his voice seeming to thunder in the eerie silence. No one answered. He watched as the man began to paint something on the chamber wall, methodically, skilfully. When he eventually stepped away Gareth was both surprised and appalled to see the same symbol that had been painted on his cottage wall; the same that appeared on the photo taken at the murdered woman’s flat; the same serpent eating its tail, the cross at the centre with the flaming star in the middle. A fresh wave of horror engulfed him as the implications struck home.

  ‘Who are you people?’ he said, wincing at the excruciating waves of pain emanating from the embedded needles.

  The man with his back against the wall reached up and stroked back his short, black hair. ‘Pest control,’ he said, his face twisted by loathing as he stared hard at Gareth.

  ‘I’m an ordinary guy,’ he said tiredly. ‘Why won’t you believe me?’

  The man’s eyes glared white and fierce in the gloom. ‘That’s where you’re wrong. You aren’t ordinary. You’re far from ordinary.’ He looked at his watch again. ‘And because of that you have only one hour and thirty three minutes to live.’

  ‘You’re mad,’ Gareth managed weakly.

  ‘I’d save your breath for any prayer you need to offer up to whatever god it is you worship, though your filthy black soul was damned from the moment you drew breath. There is no salvation for you or your kind; only death and eternal punishment for transgressing the Holy Laws of Doradus. I feel dirty just being in your presence.’

  ‘Doradus? What is that?’

  The other man released a low grunt, then came to loom over him. ‘I don’t want to hear your filthy mouth utter that ever again.’ He bent down and twisted the needle in Gareth’s hand. He screamed out. ‘You’re not worthy,’ he said. He turned to the man sat against the wall. ‘We could do it now. Get rid of this animal once and for all.’

  He shook his head. Camael needs to be here in person.’

  ‘I have no idea where the woman is,’ Gareth said.

  ‘We know,’ said the man against the wall. ‘But that doesn’t alter things. You were never going to live. And we’ll find the woman; it is only a matter of time.’

  ‘What have I done that is so wrong?’ said Gareth, flinching as the man drew near the needle again.

  ‘You live, you breathe, and you are Satan’s child.’

  In spite of everything Gareth gave a low, humorous chuckle. ‘You really are crazy. Did you murder that woman in Manchester because she was spawn of the Devil too? Was that your twisted reason?’

  ‘Technically, you cannot murder devils or their spawn. They don’t fall under the same corporeal laws that bind the rest of humanity,’ he replied matter-of-factly, as if he truly believed what he was saying.

  ‘Oh for fuck’s sake!’ said the other man, and rammed the needle deeper into Gareth’s hand. ‘I’m tired of having to listen to your pathetic little squeals. Every time you open your mouth I’ll give you more of the same, understand?’

  Gareth, his teeth gritted, nodded helplessly.

  Both men sat together in silence, the only sound to break the silence was Gareth’s gasping and heavy panting, his world now a churning maelstrom of fear and pain. Time dragged on laboriously, and each second of every minute passed like a living hell.

  Eventually they heard footsteps from down the long, darkened corridor; saw the sweep of a probing flashlight.

  ‘It’s time.’ And both men rose from their positions, brushing dirt from their trousers. They stared hard and unforgiving at Gareth, who shook his head disbelievingly.

  He saw a dark, silent form come up behind the two men, the features in heavy shadow, and with it came an overwhelming sense of dread.

  The chamber erupted into chaos, a series of loud explosions and bright flashes ripping through the sepulchral silence. There was a scream, shouting, one of the men tumbling into a crumpled heap before Gareth’s feet, the other making a staggering run for the tunnel. There were two more explosions and the man collapsed with a groan to his knees.

  The figure with the smoking gun calmly stepped over to the wounded man, who began to crawl on his hands and knees to the exit. He aimed the gun point-blank at his back and fired. The man collapsed silently to the stone floor, his legs kicking once before they lay completely still and lifeless.

  The man slid the gun into the inside of his coat and turned quickly to Gareth. ‘Hell, seems I got here just in time,’ he said, going immediately to the leather bonds securing Gareth’s wrists. He began to unbuckle them.

  ‘I know you; you’re the man from the hospital,’ he said. ‘The Canadian who was at Gattenby House...’

  ‘Can’t argue with that,’ he said.

  ‘Who are you?’ Gareth asked weakly as his hands were freed.

  ‘The cavalry,’ he returned.

  * * * *

  32

  Good Gun; Bad Gun

  ‘Sit down; we need to take care of those wounds.’ He went over to the curtains and drew them against the dark, then opened a green plastic first-aid box he’d brought with him from the car. ‘You were damn lucky,’ he said, glancing up at Gareth Davies’ deathly-pale face as he lowered himself into a well-worn armchair. He was staring at his bloodied hands, examining the puncture wounds the needles had left. His fingers were dreadfully painful to move and his feet hurt like blazes.

  The hotel room was small but adequate, the sort of place frequented by sal
es reps and the like, he thought. Basic comforts they sought on their way to somewhere else. Outside the window was the gentle hum of traffic, sounding like a breeze at the coast. They’d pulled off the motorway into a service station, parked up, to Gareth’s surprise, at the front of the small motel.

  ‘So where are we exactly?’ said Gareth. The journey through the mines, outside into the car and driving down busy roads to the service station had passed in a fevered haze punctuated by moments of rising terror and pain. When he questioned his saviour the man had told him in no uncertain terms to wait. He had to concentrate on getting them as far away from the mines as possible. All would be explained in good time.

  The man took a roll of bandage and a tube of cream from the first-aid box. ‘We have to bathe these first,’ he said. Take your shoes off and I’ll find something for you to clean the wounds with. Don’t want them getting infected. The small ones are always the worst,’ he added.

  ‘Where are we?’ Gareth insisted. ‘And why aren’t we going to the police? I was nearly murdered back there. And you shot those men!’

  ‘First, you’re in Surrey,’ he explained, going to the bathroom and running warm water into a plastic cup. He handed it over to Gareth with a wad of cotton wool. ‘Here, clean your hands and feet.’

  ‘What the blazes am I doing in Surry?’

  ‘The mines are in Godstone. I guess they like those sorts of places.’

  ‘Would they have killed me?’

  He flipped the top off a tube of antiseptic cream, gave it a cursory sniff. ‘Oh yes, most definitely. Dab a little of this into those wounds and I’ll bandage them up for you. They might hurt like the devil but they’ll heal OK. Like I said, you were lucky; I’ve seen what these bozos are capable of and you got off lightly.’