Clarke continued to moan and writhe.
“Shut up. All of you. Jacqui, did you really think I would share what is mine with you? You were a distraction, a tool, not nice to be used, is it? And you…” She pointed the weapon at Reddington. “My so-called sister. Haha don’t make me smile. You are no more my sister than she is.”
She levelled the weapon again. “I am the only one getting off this island.”
She turned to look for the boat and saw the outline of a man, a shape against the blinding white light. It looked like an angel. A man, shrouded in light. It was definitely an angel, or a ghost from the fort, like the woman had told them about.
She blinked her eyes, turned back to Roberts. “You stay there or I will shoot you.” She spun back again, a sense of palpable fear was rushing through her. It was an angel.
“Are you looking for something young lady?”
The voice was calm. A soothing male voice. She had heard those words before. The vision spoke again, through the haze, chromatic against her eyelashes, gentle words, no fear. He was a messenger from God. She convinced herself, started shaking. The cold had finally eroded her cast-iron exterior.
“I asked you if you were looking for something?”
“That is my business. Now go away, whoever you are. Go.”
That voice was so calming. It was the man from the boat. He had freed himself. The voice was his. It had to be.
The light had moved, a concentrated beam, back on Roberts and Reddington and illuminating the old fortress beyond them. She looked again. The man she considered to be an angel had gone.
“Stay there!” The pistol was up and firing again, straight at Reddington. Doto was manic now, twisting and turning, trying to maintain control. Roberts shoved Reddington to the ground and fell with her as the cartridge flew overhead and lit up the ground behind them.
Doto began to reload, then suddenly froze. The pain in her upper back was excruciating. The blade had pierced the skin, shattered one of her vertebrae and only made her angrier. A cornered snake is at its most dangerous. And she was one of the deadliest. She staggered slightly, then ran at the shape.
The Nightsun had returned, once more lighting up the ground as Gower had ridden out the blinding light of the Very pistol.
He could see Doto, and in the middle of her back a small axe, its blade deep in her back. He knew where it had come from.
She lunged at the male and sent him backwards and down into the mud. They were closer to the shore than she realised. The marsh started to swallow them both. She rolled, and screamed and hissed, turning the man beneath her as a crocodile kills its prey. He was quiet and just gripped her arms with his old hands.
Reddington and Roberts ran towards them. Briton was trying her best to get there too. Cade had left Daniel, who was pacing now, the expectant father, nearer to their goal. There was more than enough of them to deal with her. He carried on with his own mission.
Doto pushed the male down into the swampy ground as Roberts grabbed her, up to his knees in mud and shouting obscenities. She had the strength of two men and threw him to one side. Adrenaline, anger and a desire to escape provided a level of energy and determination that only experienced peacemakers would be able to appreciate.
Roberts was tiring. Reddington tagged him and started trying to extract the axe from Doto’s back as she bucked and writhed beneath her, all the while holding the angel under the watery mud.
Every time she held him there, his face appeared again. He was smiling. The rain lashed against them, the wind screamed, Clarke was no longer moaning, dead from horrible internal burns she lay quietly in the marsh, her body cooling and her mind finally free of worry. She had her own unique scars now, and they would tell the pathologist a story of genuine suffering.
Briton was overtaken by Cade, who was running at full speed towards the group. He leapt onto Doto as Reddington removed the axe – Excalibur by another name.
Red stood, steadied herself, and was about to plunge the axe downwards when she saw Cade.
He had Doto around the throat now, his arm pressing against her windpipe. He could feel the incredible strength. She was possessed, there was no other word for it.
Gower had seen enough.
“India Nine Seven Mayday – Mayday – Mayday!”
He passed his coordinates and dropped the aircraft down towards the fort, hoping to put it down quickly and without damage.
Cade was on his side in the mud, trying to avoid Doto’s fangs, which bit at anything that got in their way. He struck her with his left hand, again and again. It was like hitting cold stone.
Now she was on her back, crushing the angelic man with Cade on top and punching her repeatedly as Roberts kicked and Red waited for the chance to finish it.
The angel was close to giving up. He ran his hands across the woman’s body, clawing at anything he could find. There. He wrapped his hand around it and squeezed.
The cartridge fired into her, exploding, throwing Cade off and into the long, wet grass. Red’s target now acquired, she slammed the axe down and into her sister’s chest. It shattered her ribs and entered her left lung as the flare burned brightly, corroding her skin and filling the air with a noxious stench and signalling Doto’s demise.
She tried to stand, got to one knee, her hands favouring the various points of pain. She knew there were too many. And one that would kill her. She was toppling now, about to fall. She steadied herself as Roberts, Red and Cade stood and waited to watch her die. The time for niceties and protocol had long passed.
Doto turned to the angel, now a mass of mud and blood and tears.
“I know you. Those words. I heard them when I was a little girl. I did, didn’t I? Up there in that building…” She smiled fatefully as the air rushed from her chest and blood filled the delicate sacs of her lungs.
“You do, my dear. You do.” He gasped, trying to fill his own weak lungs.
“You are an angel after all.”
“I am. They used to call me the Angel of Whitehall…”
He slumped down into the ground, also exhausted and ready to let go.
“I called you Mr. Tom…I called you…”
Doto stopped breathing two minutes later. Her final breath more of an indignant scream as she tried to shout something indecipherable.
The blades of the chopper were still spinning as Gower ran from the fort towards the group. “You all OK?”
“Oh just peachy mate,” said Roberts. “I’m up to my nuts in mud, these trousers will never come clean, I’ve got two dead people and a number of casualties, here and on a boat somewhere, and to cap it all me and Mrs. Roberts are supposed to be heading away for a romantic country house break this weekend. This lot will take a fortnight to write up. Oh yes, just bloody well super.”
With typical kiwi restraint Gower replied, “Oh that’s good then.”
A shout from the main door of the fort caused them to turn as one, looking back up the slope towards Daniel.
“I’ve found it!”
As they made their way back up to Fort Hoo Cade checked his phone. Eight missed calls. All from O’Shea. He scanned the area. The outline of a downed chopper that he hoped would fly again. The bodies of two people and one with a head injury sat leaning against the outer wall of the eighteenth-century building and quietly ‘getting some air’.
Down at the shoreline the boats had both gone, Dunkirk once more, now safely at harbour in Chatham and with Baker en route to the local hospital.
“Someone should be a scene guard, you know Jason. Goes against everything we were ever taught about crime scenes.”
“Does doesn’t it? Oh well, as it happens, this evening I don’t give a fat rat’s crap. No one here to see our grave errors, and if they want to come and join us in this cesspit of a place, they are bloody welcome to it. And besides Jack, those two aren’t going anywhere, are they?”
Cade turned to Reddington. “Must be my turn now?”
“Nope. He’s my
grandfather and I’ll carry him all the way.” Denby was flopping about across the soldier’s back, his arms hanging down, almost apparently dead to the world. Except his heart was beating like a stag being pursued through a darkened forest.
“Are we nearly there yet?” He laughed, which caused everyone else to.
“Silly old sod. You could have got yourself killed.” Red was digging deep, not wanting to show any sign of weakness, but she was also tired.
They reached the main door way where Daniel was beaming.
“Come on. I can carry Tom.”
Cade shook his head theatrically.
“Or not…anyway, this way.” Daniel led them back to the final step of the seven. “Da-da!” He sang.
Red lowered her grandfather back to his feet. He took a moment, stepped backwards, then slightly forwards as he regained his balance.
“Well, that’s smashing lad. What exactly is there to sing about?” He said what everyone else was thinking.
“The wall. Look. There’s an X. Carved into the stone.”
The group lit the wall up with their phones and torches.
“So there is. I am mightily impressed,” said Roberts, beginning to wish he’d taken very early retirement.
“You can’t see it? This must be where you walled up the treasures that lured you back here. This is what you’ve been trying to recall all this time.”
Denby beckoned everyone into a circle. The commander once more. This time not stood on a warship, dressed in white but stooped slightly, covered in mud and shivering.
“Right, now pipe down and listen. I may be senile, but I’m not stupid. Agreed?”
Everyone nodded, although not sure if that was the correct response.
“Good. Now, you call yourself bloody detectives. It’s a grand job that we didn’t need detectives in the war, isn’t it? Cast your eyes that way.”
They looked.
“Johnnie loves Roxy. In bloody great letters. It’s clear that someone called Johnnie loves a lass called Roxy, and he’s decided to immortalise that on a visit to this place, probably a few years ago. Don’t you agree?”
Daniel looked away. It was like being back at his first station with his legendary Sergeant Stanley Crewe; a fearsome man who called everyone by a set of inventive and offensive names, when and wherever he got the chance.
“No, you see, if you are looking for X marks the spot, you’ll be somewhat disappointed. You need to look lower, keep going, down there in the darker part, where the algae is growing, and the damp has worn the brickwork away.” Cade rubbed the wall, revealing two letters.
“AD.”
There was no doubt, the letters were A and D.
“As in anno domini?” Red asked her grandfather.
“No, pet, as in my initials. My real first name is Albert. And those initials were carved by that young lady that is lying out there with an axe in her back. She was a lot smaller then, of course. But she adored me. Called me Mr. Tom, just like the others. She knelt down there night after night with an old nail and scraped away until my initials were there.” He stopped for a moment and wiped a tear away with his muddy sleeve.
“You see, they are her initials too, but in reverse. Her people called her Baki Maciji, the Black Mamba. Not a nice name for a young girl. But time and what happened to her changed her. Once she got to Britain, they locked her away for a year. They were very cruel to the girl they called Baki. Her real name was Doto Adesida, but she preferred to be known by a name that people would fear. She spread it and anxiety. However, she offered those that followed in her footsteps hope. And before long she was the most powerful woman in West Africa. But that wasn’t enough. She wanted what many bad people want, some good ones too, she wanted revenge.”
“She came here tonight to get diamonds. That’s what she told the lady on the boat.”
“Then she would have been disappointed. They are long gone. But there is a treasure here, of sorts. And if you draw a straight line across the centre of this lovely old building, you’ll find it.”
“So that’s what she was doing down in the middle there. There’s an old box, it was empty though.”
“Yes. That was nothing to do with me. No, you need to keep following that line until you reach the wall opposite. Go and have a look. But you might want to wait till the sun comes up.”
The first helicopter from Kent arrived within twenty minutes, landing on the opposite side to India Nine Seven on a flat grassy area. It contained two medics and a police photographer. It left the island and returned in an hour with more staff. A police river launch left Chatham and sailed towards them, and three commandeered boats from nearby marinas also made their way, laden with staff and equipment. Tents, sheets, measuring devices, tripods and food and drink to last a few days.
The team worked through the night, plotting every step, measuring and photographing every cartridge, splatter of blood and impression in the soil. What could be discussed in moments, took hours of fingertip searching, recording, mapping, plotting, drawing, photographing and checks and then re-checks. Do it right first time.
Cade, Roberts and Daniel were sat on top of the fort drinking coffee and eating sandwiches brought out by the response team. Daniel had made a few calls back to an office in London. Cade had rung O’Shea, putting her mind at ease and listening to the unravelling news. Roberts had rung his wife. Twice. The first time to tell her he would be late home again, the second to see if they could get a refund on the romantic getaway.
Cade looked down into the fort. Reddington was sat one side of Denby, who was wrapped in a foil blanket, with Briton the other.
He’d refused to move until the moment arrived.
“Look at him. What an absolute legend. He put his own personal needs way down the list. He must be shattered, put up one hell of a fight last night.”
“You know what they say about old soldiers Jack,” said Daniel. “Well they say old sailors are twice as tough.”
“So, what exactly are we all waiting for?” asked a damp and miserable Roberts, sat on a probationary constable’s raincoat to keep himself dry.
“The moment that old man smiles once more.”
Chapter Sixty
Sunrise
The weather front had moved through. The staff that had worked through the night were being relieved by an arriving early shift. As much as the situation needed to be recorded, it also needed to be downplayed. Roberts knew he’d have to do some sleight-of-hand trickery to get that squared away.
The clouds were shifting, colours appeared, pink, purple, orange and a deep red, all blended to create the start of a new day. A photographer’s dream. The clouds wore shafts of golden light, fingers of hope pointing to the ground, lighting up the river, glittering on the tops of the lessening waves.
One shaft of sunlight appeared to light up the main entrance and then in turn it spread, filling the corridors with vibrant light which flooded the building, bringing darkened corners to life. Now the staircases and doorways were visible, no longer threatening, and in the centre of the vast building, the bushes and scrub glistened green as they reached for the sun.
Sat opposite Cade and Roberts was a group of four people. John Daniel, Kate Briton, Susan Reddington and the man she called her great father-in-law Thomas Denby.
Cade pointed as the sunlight crept along the passageway and began to light up the group.
Denby was awake now and watching. He held up his hand as the sun reached him and allowed it to bathe in its warmth.
“Isn’t it marvellous?” he asked in a quiet voice. He ran his hand down a vertical seam in the stone. “Now watch.”
The sun edged up the wall as the group stepped out of the way.
Up it went, slowly enveloping everything it touched until it could go no further. Denby placed his hand on the stone where the sun ended and the shadows began.
“See? Now that’s what you call a hiding place.” He jabbed an old finger on the cross in the wall.
There it was. The stone was slightly discoloured, but to the idle viewer just a piece of weathered history. Nothing more.
“Pass me that piece of iron would you John?” Denby asked, steadying himself.
He swung it back and hit the stone. Then once more. He was tiring.
“You have a go lad.”
“When did you do this Tom?”
“I’ve no idea. Why don’t you ask me something I do know?”
Daniel hit it harder, then four more times. “What are we hoping to achieve, Tom?”
“Well, if you stop asking questions and keep hitting it you might find out.”
Daniel suppressed a smile and hit the wall once more. A crack appeared.
Red took the bar and began to strike it as hard as she could. On the fifth blow, the homemade plaster gave way to reveal a void behind the wall. A hole of about two feet appeared, air escaped that had been trapped inside for years.
Cade and Roberts could only watch and wait. Daniel looked across and shrugged.
Denby was a little shorter nowadays, back when he had created the hiding place. He was a stronger man, with a straighter back. Now he stooped and normally relied on a stick or someone to steady him. But his eyes still sparkled, and as the warmth lifted him and reflected from the hair that had grown progressively whiter, he stepped up onto his toes and reached in.
The first cloth bag appeared, and he handed it to Kate. “Hold that, would you Katie love?”
Then he reached in and for the first time in decades he ran his fingers over the second and third bags. He lifted them out with a grunt and carefully placed them into Red’s hands. “Very careful with those please.”
His hand went back in. He knew it was the last time. His memory had faded to the point that he couldn’t remember the man’s name next to him, but when he handed him the last of the slightly damp cloth bags he smiled. “And if my memory serves me right, this is the last. But please check for me…”
“John. It’s John.”
“Yes, I know, I’m not daft.”
Daniel fished around in the hole and confirmed that it was now empty. He waved for Cade and Roberts to join him.
The Angel of Whitehall Page 56
