by Maynard Sims
“But he runs a coven, here in London.”
“And what’s a coven but a collection of cranks and weirdos? There’s nothing the department can do unless it’s shown that Strasser and his followers present some kind of danger to the public.”
“Vi told you about her niece?”
“Yes, she told me. Very sad, and I can imagine Vi’s anger, but again, there’s no overt supernatural threat there, just a misguided girl falling in with the wrong crowd. She might have joined the Moonies or even the Scientologists, makes no difference. It’s still outside the department’s remit.”
“So what can you do?”
Harry picked up the file, folded it in half and slipped it into his pocket. “Leave this with me. I’ll read it and get my people to look at it and see what we can come up with.” He took a last mouthful of toast and another swig of tea and got to his feet.
“And that’s the best you can do?” Jason said.
“It’s more than most people would get, but it’s Vi, and she’s a good woman, working on the side of the angels. I’ll help her. Where can I reach you?”
Jason took a pen from his pocket, picked up his newspaper and scribbled a number in the margin. “It’s my cell. You can get me anytime.”
Harry took the paper and slipped it under his arm. “I’ll be in touch,” he said, went to the counter to pay for his breakfast and slipped back out into the drizzle.
Jason drained the last of his tea from his cup and set it back on its saucer. Theo glanced across at him. “Can I get you another?”
“No thanks. I’ll just pay for the one I had.”
“No need. Mr. Bailey paid for you both.”
“Well, at least I got something to compensate for the early start.”
“Eh?”
Jason shook his head. “It doesn’t matter,” he said.
As he was leaving the café, an elderly woman with tightly permed hair, and wearing a plastic mac, pushed through the door and took a position behind the counter. The staff, Jason surmised with a wry smile.
“Erik Strasser,” Martin Impey said. “Doesn’t ring any bells.”
Harry Bailey dropped the file Jason West had given him onto Martin’s desk. “Do some digging,” he said. “See if you can add any more to that.”
“What are you looking for?
“Something, anything I can use to justify a full department investigation.”
“Going out on a limb again, Harry?”
“A favor for a friend. So keep it quiet…for now.”
Martin picked up the file and started leafing through it. “As you wish. I’ll call you if I find anything.”
“Top man,” Harry said and went back to his own office.
Chapter Four
”What are you up to, Harry?” Jane Talbot said as she passed him in the corridor leading to the offices.
“What makes you think I’m up to anything?”
“You look furtive.”
“Ha!” Harry laughed. “That’s the first time I’ve ever been called furtive.”
“Well, you do.”
Harry took her arm and guided her into an empty office. “Do you have a moment?”
“You see? Furtive.”
“You know this place, Jane. Worse than the Whispering Gallery in St Paul’s.”
“Be quick, Harry,” she said. “Rob’s waiting for me in the car park. We have an assignment over the bridge in Croydon.” Robert Carter was Jane Talbot’s partner, both at work and in life. Their on-again, off-again relationship had been an ongoing department saga for some years now. It was frowned upon by Simon Crozier, Department 18’s director in chief, but they ignored his nonfraternization of staff edict, carried on regardless, and there wasn’t a damned thing he could do about it—not if he wanted them to remain on the department’s payroll. And they were too good at their jobs for him to lose them. So Crozier grumbled and frowned and made their lives as difficult as possible. It made for a colorful working environment.
“Erik Strasser,” Harry said. “Heard of him?”
Jane shrugged. “The name means nothing to me.”
“No. It meant nothing to me until last night, but he sounds like a real piece of work. Heads a coven based in Docklands. Targets young people as his followers, and sets about destroying them, getting them hooked on drugs, that kind of stuff.”
“So how does that interest us? Covens and cults are ten a penny. We don’t get involved.”
“That’s what I told her, and her partner.”
“Told who?”
“Violet Bulmer.”
“Vi? When did she resurface? I thought that incident with the Suffolk Residual finished her off.”
“And it nearly did. Why she and her partner decided to tackle it alone, I’ll never know. Damned near killed the both of them. She was in hospital for three weeks.”
“And her partner?”
“Nearer six. He’s very young. Completely out of his depth. Jason West. Bit of a gunslinger.”
“Oh dear,” Jane said. “I remember Rob being like that once.”
“And me, years ago, but we learned to keep our powder dry. Maybe West will…one day.”
“And Vi’s got you involved in this Erik Strasser thing. What’s she running, her own private investigation?”
“Strasser got his hands on Vi’s niece. A pure corruption attempt by all accounts. Got her hooked on crystal meth, probably used her body as well—although Vi was a bit reticent on that aspect, but I know Strasser’s kind. They’re usually narcissists with a God complex. Probably impotent and compensating for it.”
“And the girl? Vi’s niece.”
“In a Hampshire clinic. Safe for now.”
“So what does Vi want from you?”
“She’s going to bring Strasser down, so what happened to her niece can’t happen to anyone else.”
“As I said, Harry, it’s not what we do. Simon would have a pink fit if he knew you were even contemplating getting involved.”
“So we don’t tell him. It wouldn’t be the first time. Have a word with Rob, when you see him. See if he’s heard of Erik Strasser, and sound him out about lending a hand.”
“Oh, he’ll be up for it. Anything to piss off Simon. You know Rob.”
Harry grinned. “I thought you might say that. And you?”
“Where my beloved goes, I follow, I guess.”
Harry threw a playful punch at her arm. “Knew I could rely on you,” he said.
The Mayberry Clinic stood in its own grounds in an area free of trees in the middle of the New Forest, a sprawling redbrick mansion with a gray slate roof. The house had adopted many identities since it was built in the mid-nineteenth century—a grand family home, a girls’ preparatory school, an hotel and, for five years back in the 1970s, a remand home for wayward teens. That was when they installed the metal grilles at the ornate mullioned windows. When the Mayberry Clinic took over the lease in the early 2000s, they saw no reason to remove the metalwork at the windows. So Alice Logan’s view of the rolling grounds and the forest beyond was marred by perpendicular, closely spaced bars, and by the steady spatter of rain bouncing from the glass.
“I was talking to you, Alice.” It was a woman’s voice, Dr. Tayeb, the clinic’s senior behavioral psychologist.
“I’m watching the rain,” Alice said, but she’d been sedated and her words were slurring, making it come out as “Swashingrain.”
“Do you like watching the rain, Alice?” Shahneelah Tayeb asked her.
“Sbritty.”
“Yes, Alice. It is pretty. Perhaps you can go outside and take a walk in the pretty rain…later.”
“He’s coming for me,” Alice said in little more than a whisper, the words clear, no slurring.
“Sorry, Alice. Who’s coming for you?”
Alice put a finger to her lips, flattening the smile that had just settled there. “Ssshhh. Secret.”
“No secrets, Alice. We agreed.”
“Yes, I can hear you. I’ll be ready.’
“Alice?” And then Shahneelah Tayeb realized Alice wasn’t addressing her. The girl’s head was cocked to one side, and her attention was again being drawn to the window.
The door to the room opened and a nurse entered, carrying a small tray. On the tray were a glass of water and a small plastic beaker containing two white pills.
Dr. Tayeb looked round furiously at the rather plain young woman with the shock of orange hair pinned precariously under the starched white cap. “Not now, nurse. I’m in the middle of an interview.”
The nurse carried on into the room. “Time for Miss Logan’s medication,” she said, and regarded the psychologist with sullen eyes.
“I said, not now.”
Alice watched the exchange incuriously, and then she said, “He’s here.”
Before Dr. Tayeb could respond, the nurse dropped the tray. It landed with a crash, the glass shattering on the parquet floor, the pills spilling from the beaker and rolling under the bed. “Nurse?” she said. But the young woman didn’t hear her. She stared at the window as the blood drained from her sallow, plain face, and then she fell to the floor, her body twitching.
“Nurse?” Dr. Tayeb said again, and moved forward to assist the fallen woman, but froze as her air supply was suddenly cut off.
Her eyes widened and her hands went to her throat, but it was no use. She couldn’t draw in a breath. Equally she couldn’t expel any air from her lungs, and her body reacted, going into spasm as her chest heaved, trying desperately to suck in some air. Blood was popping in her ears and her head began to pound.
She threw out her arms, windmilling them as she tried to regain control of her breathing, but her throat was blocked. The room was swimming, bed and furniture blurring before her eyes. The last thing she saw before pitching forward, face-first onto the hard, unyielding floor, was Alice’s almost serene smile.
As Tayeb’s mouth crashed down on the parquet, shattering her front teeth and splitting her lips, pain exploded in her head. Had she been able to draw in her breath, she would have screamed, but all she could manage was a thin squeak of sound as a black cloak fluttered down over her eyes and her heart stopped.
At 10.37 a.m., Shahneelah Tayeb died. The nurse stopped twitching a few seconds later, and died as her brain dissolved inside her skull.
Alice Logan looked down at the two women lying on the floor. “Well, that’s that,” she said quietly to herself before walking calmly to the door and letting herself out of the room.
She walked through the house unchallenged, no one giving her more than a casual glance. At the front door she paused and looked back, but again nobody said anything to her—the middle-aged woman at the reception desk was more concerned with the argument she was having on the phone with her husband, who’d gone shopping to the local supermarket and forgotten to buy cat food.
Alice opened one of the doors and slipped outside, pulling it shut behind her. There was a gunmetal-gray Lexus parked on the gravel drive. She went across to it and pulled open the passenger door.
Erik Strasser sat behind the wheel. As she slid in next to him, he took her hand and squeezed it reassuringly. “Well, my darling Hecate. I think we should leave.”
Alice smiled at him. “Yes, I think I’d like that.”
He started the car, put it into drive and eased the car slowly over the gravel and forward towards the main gates. Seconds later they were heading out on the only road through the trees of the New Forest, towards the main road to London.
“Vi, what do you mean gone?” Harry Bailey barked into the phone.
“The clinic just telephoned me. Alice has disappeared. The doctor who was treating her and a nurse are both dead.”
“Did she kill them?”
“I don’t know. I’m driving down there now. I want some answers.”
Harry checked his watch. “Give me the address. I’ll meet you there.”
Violet Bulmer read out the address of the clinic, her voice a flat monotone. The news had obviously knocked her for six.
“It’s a three-hour drive,” Harry said. “Can you handle that?”
“I’ll get Jason to drive me,” she said. “I’ll see you there. And, Harry.”
“Yes?”
“Thanks.”
Chapter Five
Dr. Richard Frost met them at the doors to the clinic when they arrived. “Perhaps you’d like to come through to my office,” he said, and led them through the foyer to a brightly lit corridor. The door at the end bore his name, embossed on a brass plaque.
Harry and Violet followed him into the room. Jason West had elected to find a gas station and fill up the car in preparation for the journey home.
Frost arranged two chairs at the large oak desk, opposite his own, and gestured for them to sit. He was a tall, elegant man who wore his Paul Smith suit as a symbol of his prosperity and authority. It hugged his slim frame like a second skin, and he adjusted his trousers as he sat and crossed his legs. “I spoke to Mrs. Logan this morning to apprise her of the situation,” he said. “She advised me you’d be down to see me. I assume you’re her sister.”
“Indeed,” Violet said. “Stephanie is my sister. Alice, my niece.”
Frost looked from her to Harry, the unasked question evident in his eyes.
“Harry Bailey.” He stretched out a hand across the desk. “A family friend,” he added. He had his Department 18 identity card in his pocket, but would only produce it if absolutely necessary. This was still not official department business. Just a friendly gesture, so far.
Frost seemed to take the explanation of his identity at face value, shook Harry’s hand and relaxed back into his chair. “This is all very unfortunate,” he said. “It’s never happened before.”
“Patients don’t usually walk out then?” Harry said.
Frost shook his head. “Most of our guests are here of their own volition. They have no reason to leave. They’re here to seek our help. Walking out rather defeats that objective.” He smiled. Frost was an immensely likable man with an open, kind face with reassuring gray eyes, and Harry found himself warming to him. The first impression of a pedant was dismissed.
“You say guests, not patients,” Violet said. “Yet you call yourself a clinic. How does that work?”
“As I say, people usually come here voluntarily. They have a problem, and they come to us to help them deal with it. So I, and my staff, refer to them and treat them like guests. We find it’s more conducive to helping them in their attempts to cope with their difficulties.”
“And yet you have bars on your windows,” Harry said.
“A hangover from one of the building’s earlier incarnations. There was a plan to remove them, but we found they actually reassure our guests; the bars give them an added sense of security.”
“But to someone not here voluntarily, they would represent a prison,” Violet said.
Frost slowly nodded his head. “As in the case of your niece. Yes, I do see that, and I was reluctant to have her here. But I’ve known Lawrence O’Connell, Alice’s doctor, since university. I agreed to take her in because the situation seemed so desperate, and I have had experience dealing with people who have a dependency on methamphetamine. With the benefit of hindsight, I realize it was the wrong decision.” Frost’s eyes dimmed and it was obvious what had happened was troubling him greatly.
“The two members of your staff who were the last to see Alice before she walked out of here, how did they die?” Harry said.
“Was Alice responsible for their deaths?” Violet added.
Frost shook his head. “I can’t say. I’m awaiting the results of the postmortems. They were both take
n to Bournemouth General. There’s a Home Office pathologist on his way down from London to perform them.”
“The Home Office is involved?” Harry said. His surprise was evident.
“I’m afraid we had to involve the police when Alice walked out. They are treating the deaths of Dr. Tayeb and Nurse Williams as suspicious. A Home Office pathologist is always called in such circumstances,” Frost said and looked to Violet, who had shifted uncomfortably in her seat. “I’m sorry, but I’m afraid your niece was a methamphetamine addict, and those hooked on crystal meth do have a tendency towards aggressive behavior.”
“Did Alice attack the nurse and the doctor?” Violet asked.
“I did the preliminary examinations and there wasn’t a mark on either of them,” Frost said.
“So how do you think they died?” Harry said.
“As I said, we won’t know anything—”
“Until you get the results of the postmortem. Yes, I get that, but you’re a doctor. You must have some idea, if it’s only a gut feeling.”
It was Frost’s turn to shift in his seat. “It looked to me like Shahneelah, Dr. Tayeb, choked on her own tongue. It rarely happens, but it can in extreme circumstances, convulsions and suchlike. In the doctor’s case it looked as though her tongue had been forced back down her throat, blocking her windpipe completely and cutting off her air supply.”
Violet shuddered. “And the nurse?”
“She simply stopped. At first I suspected a heart attack, but there was bleeding from her ears and nose, which leads me to think now that it might have been a cerebral hemorrhage or something similar. I don’t know. I’m afraid that’s out of my area of expertise.”
As the conversation went on, Frost was looking less and less comfortable. Harry was surprised that the doctor had already been so candid with them. Most people in his situation would have clammed up completely for fear of lawsuits. It seemed Richard Frost was grateful to have someone to share the burden with.
“What are the police doing about Alice?” Violet asked.
