The bartender had been holding such a towel when Siger spoke to him earlier. The man had just at that moment finished cleaning up. What he would have done next was go back in and put the towel back on the hook—if he regarded it as clean enough to continue using—or replace it with a fresh one.
What he would not have done—especially if he planned on opening up again later that evening—was leave the towel hook empty.
Which it was.
The front door was double-locked, with a dead bolt.
Siger stepped back and looked around on the steps and pavement directly in front of the pub, which was the only area where there was enough light to see. It told him nothing.
But now a light gust of wind caused something to move, near the hedge at the side of the pub.
It was the bartender’s white cloth, caught up in a branch.
The breeze was coming from the north. Siger proceeded in that direction, around the side, heading toward the back of the pub.
There was no light at all in back, which was a little odd. There were large lamps and heaters on the deck, and if the pub were your business, you would turn them off when not in use. But there was also a small lamp over the doorway from the pub to the deck; you wouldn’t turn that one off, even when closed for the moment.
Siger reached into his coat pocket—yes, he still had the flashlight that Lois had supplied from her purse, though it was nothing more than an LED one attached to a key chain.
He shone it first at the ground in front of him. The pavement ended here; it was bare ground, sloping another twenty yards or so away from the pub, and stopping at a hedgerow—just a black silhouette in this light—that separated the civilized backyard of the pub from the moor beyond.
He turned the flashlight to his left to locate the nearest post of the deck before he bumped into it.
The post was some ten feet tall, from the sloping ground to the level deck. Siger began to make his way just underneath the perimeter of the deck, expecting to find a set of exterior wooden steps to take him onto the deck and to the back entrance of the pub.
Except for the tiny LED light that he aimed at the ground in front of him, he was still moving in nearly pitch-black darkness.
Something gently brushed the top of his head.
Fingertips.
He knew that before even looking, and he immediately got a sick feeling at the pit of his stomach.
He aimed the light above him; saw the limp hand, arm, and shoulders draping over the edge of the deck.
He hurried forward to find the deck stairs, stumbled on the lowest one, and fell forward onto the rest. He gathered himself and hurried up the last few to the level top of the deck.
Thin glass from a broken doorway lamp crunched under his feet. He didn’t think to check first for anyone else who might be standing in a dark corner. He went directly to the body that lay draped in the dark over the edge of the deck.
He felt the blood on the back of the man’s head. He checked for a pulse and found none. He took a step back, used the flashlight, and recognized the bartender’s face.
Now, finally, he remembered to shine the LED light around him on the deck.
Lucky, he supposed. Whoever had bashed the bartender was gone.
Now he took a more careful look.
The bartender had fallen just to one side of the coin telescope. There had been a struggle; the bartender was still in decent shape for a scrum, but he had been struck from behind by something blunt and heavy. The first blow had dazed him; the next one, to a knee, had brought him down when he’d resisted, and the third had finished him.
The bartender had clearly been taken unawares; he had not seen his assailant—or assailants—until it was too late.
And that was because he’d been looking through the telescope at the time. He had to have gone there shortly after talking with Siger earlier. He must have seen something that he was not supposed to see.
Roy and Nancy could not have done it, even if they’d had the strength. They were already at the theater.
Siger looked out from the deck. Peering into the far distance, between the two hills, he thought he saw a brief yellow-orange twinkle.
He stepped up to the telescope and looked through it. Absolutely nothing; the shutter was closed.
Bloody hell, of course. It was coin-operated. He checked, but he already knew. Did he even have any change? No. Rather embarrassing for a busker.
He checked the bartender’s pockets. Yes, there was a single pound coin. Probably the man had already used the others when he was attacked.
Siger put the coin in the telescope slot. He looked through the eyepiece, taking care not to bump it and accidentally adjust the aim.
Yes, it was already pointed directly at the narrow valley gap between the two hills.
There was the yellow-orange flicker. Then it was gone, exited stage left—but here came another flicker from the right. Now another, each of them progressing across his field of vision.
Torches. Like the one he had seen earlier, a few miles away, driving back from the school.
Siger stood. On impulse, he took a moment to pull the bartender’s body fully back onto the deck. Then he took out his mobile phone.
One bar, no more. His call to Lois would not go through. He typed it in as a text instead, hoping that there might be enough of a connection for that, and then he hurried down the stairs.
Now that he knew where to look and what he was looking at, he could just barely see the glimmer of the distant torches with the naked eye.
This was what everything had been about. This view, from this place, at this time. It was the reason for the play happening on this night, and for the tremendous effort that had gone into making sure everyone would attend.
No one was supposed to see this except those who were participating.
It was the reason the bartender had been killed. He had become curious and gone to look.
The torches appeared to be about two miles away. Siger set out toward them, not running, but at the fastest walk he was capable of, which was considerable, given his long strides.
He used the tiny flashlight to the extent that he could, focusing more on where he was about to put his feet than on anything else.
This approach had its drawbacks. Straightaway, he walked into the hedge that separated the pub’s land from the moor. It had been impossible to identify visually in the dark, but the sharp, nutty scent of it would have warned him if he hadn’t been trying to move so quickly: The shrubs were wild yellow gorse. Bloody hell, quite literally. The flowers of those bushes are fine to look at in photos, no doubt, but try falling into one. The thorns were at least an inch in length, and now he had a dozen bloody pricks on his arms.
He continued on. He was heading for the coordinates of the archaeology find made twenty years ago, the one posted on the coroner’s wall. He had memorized the topography. He knew the best route. He guessed perhaps it would take him half an hour. He hoped that would be in time.
Twenty painful minutes later, his feet bleeding inside his shoes from the repeated collisions with unseen rocks, he reached the low pass between the twin hills.
Now he could see the torches clearly. They moved right to left across the valley landscape in front of him. Some of them were coming down from a country road that ran along the north edge of the valley, some from the south. They were coming from any isolated place where the torchbearers could park their cars and proceed into the valley unseen.
If he understood the phenomenon correctly, they were coming from both town and city, from as far and unlikely a place as London itself. They were meeting in little clusters in the valley, like ants on a path to a newly discovered meal, and then proceeding, single file, along the valley creek bed to their destination.
Siger was within a hundred yards of them now. He could not go closer without being seen. But here, at least, the ground was more level, with more mud, but fewer rocks—and, though there was sufficient heather between him and
the torchbearers to provide cover, some residual light from the torches filtered through. He turned off his flashlight and began to run, parallel to their procession, toward the lake.
31
Siger reached the lake. He collapsed against a tree, trying to breathe, his lungs burning—but he had gotten there first.
The wind had begun to blow clouds apart, and the half-moon was breaking through. It was just enough light to make a reflection on the water, and show the silhouette of trees on the shore. The mist on the opposite shore was rising up among the ancient oaks, even touching branches of the younger but taller Scots pines.
A yellow-orange flicker of light appeared in that mist. Then another. Then another. And then more.
Torches. Not lamps, not lanterns. Flaming torches, with dark smoke rising from the oily substances they had been soaked in. Flame, more than light. The most primitive form of dealing with darkness had reached the lake.
The first torchbearer, unrecognizable at this distance, stepped from the forest into the water and began to cross the shallow lake.
Siger stood. Behind him, beyond the small stand of trees where he was concealed, the moor extended another half a dozen miles or more. Within the first mile was the circle of cairns dug up and exposed, along with the bones and artifacts of a culture long since dead, for the first time twenty years ago.
As he watched the torchbearers crossing the lake, Siger knew that he had gotten to the site in time, but there were more of them than he had expected.
He had no weapon. He looked on the ground for a stick, an old tree branch, anything. He knew there would be nothing when he got to the treeless site on the moor, unless he were going to just throw the stones themselves at them.
He found a dry tree branch—good for show perhaps, not much else—and he set out for the site.
He would do what he could. He hoped that Laura Rankin’s fate would not depend on his debating skills, though. One thing he had never been was a politician.
32
They are just rocks in the ground, he thought.
Siger was at the site now, seated, and waiting. The clouds had now fully parted, and there was enough moonlight to see the rocks, and to see Siger sitting within the circle. When they arrived, they would have to deal with him first. He did not intend to let anyone sacrifice any virgins tonight. Or former ones, either.
They are just rocks in the ground. Oblong granite boulders, of interesting shapes to be sure, and brought here with some effort, presumably, by humankind three or four millennia ago.
Even so, just rocks. Siger found it difficult to fathom how discovering them in the modern age would instill in anyone a fascination akin to that held by inhabitants of the Bronze Age.
Was the growth of civilization irrelevant? Was the Enlightenment for nothing, that anyone would want to go back?
Siger stood up. He looked out in the mist, and he could see the yellow flames approaching.
Well, it would be what it would be. He did not know Laura Rankin personally. By all accounts, she was someone worth defending. Then again, in circumstances such as this, anyone was.
Now they were drawing closer, beginning to assemble around him, around the perimeter of the circle, and to murmur.
At least they were close enough now that he could recognize some faces. He saw Roy and Nancy, who were looking back at him, more astonished to see him, apparently, than he was to see them.
And he saw the man he had seen in the photo in the coroner’s office, and in Laura’s yearbook photo, the man listed as Mr. Turner, chaperoning the dance. The hair was gray, the face thinner, but it was him.
Next to Mr. Turner stood a bound and hooded figure.
The sight of that rankled Siger. He stood, facing Mr. Turner, with the makeshift club in his hand, but not raised. If it came to that, he was in trouble.
“Remove that hood,” said Siger.
Mr. Turner just looked back at him for a moment, surprised perhaps by Siger’s tone under the circumstances. But he nodded to a subordinate.
“Certainly,” said Mr. Turner. “She is here of her own free will, after all.”
“I doubt that,” said Siger.
The subordinate removed the hood.
Laura Rankin raised her head and shook it slightly, as if to rid herself of what she’d been through.
“Remove the gag, as well,” said Siger.
“No,” said Mr. Turner. “It was so difficult to get in place, we shall never remove it.” He took a step forward, and so did all the torch-bearing men and women who were with him.
The circle grew a little tighter now. Siger could feel the heat from the torches.
“She volunteered,” said Mr. Turner. “She did that when she lay in the circle of the lesser stones and allowed her initials to be carved in the rock twenty years ago. I will not now remove the gag, but if I were to do so, she would still make no objection to what we are about to do. She knows the consequences if she does.”
Siger took that to mean that Heath was still alive, but he said nothing.
“It is time,” said Mr. Turner now. He raised his arms toward the center of the circle, where Siger still stood. All of his acolytes followed suit, and now they began to advance.
Siger readied himself.
And then he felt a disturbance in the air—a commotion overhead that was so loud, it was impossible to tell whether the vibrations came from the helicopter’s double set of whirring blades or from the engine itself.
And now the circle was bathed in twin rings of bright white light. One light stayed on the center, and the other searched across the perimeter until it found Laura. There it stayed as Mr. Turner’s followers fled in all directions.
Only Mr. Turner himself remained, defiantly holding on to Laura’s arms—but only for a moment. She broke free. She turned to face him—and would have kicked him to the ground if Siger had not gotten there first.
Now the helicopter landed. The cargo doors opened, and four sharply dressed security men jumped down, with cursive Bs on their jackets and 8mm handguns holstered to their chests.
They were superfluous now, but Siger was gratified to see them.
Even more so when Lois got out next.
33
At St. Mary’s Hospital in London, there was an alert out for paparazzi. It was not an alarm, just a broadcast coded alert to the staff. Don’t talk to strangers, especially if they carry cameras.
It was only a precaution. Lord Robert Buxton had given his own personal assurances that his people would respect the privacy that had been requested—and, in fact, he had offered his own security guards to enforce it—but tabloids are what tabloids do, and the hospital administrator had declined that offer.
To this point, at least, the hospital’s own efforts had been successful. When Laura Rankin walked out of the lift on the third floor, she was alone. There were no pursuers with any form of media, and she was allowed to walk quietly to the Intensive Care Unit.
She entered Reggie’s room. The nurse nodded and left her alone.
He was breathing on his own. Other than that, he was motionless. He had remained unconscious, as he had been when they’d returned to the school to get him. Laura had allowed no delay from the moment the helicopter had lifted off from the moor; they had gone directly to the school, and from there to here, St. Mary’s.
And now there was nothing to do but wait. The blow to the head had caused an inflammation in the membrane surrounding the brain, the doctors said. It would subside. And then they would know.
She had been talking to her new husband, unconscious or no, from the moment she and Buxton’s security force had retrieved him from the boiler room. Now, for this visit, she was silent. She would cry if she talked, and that might not be good. So she just put her hand on his and watched.
Now she heard someone behind her, and she turned, expecting to see the doctor.
It wasn’t. It was Robert Buxton.
He stood in the doorway, uncharacteristically hesitant.
She looked at him, and then turned back to Reggie, in a way that told Buxton that he could enter—or not.
He sat in the small plastic chair near the door. He waited. Laura did not look at him, but at length, she said, “Did you know? All this time, these past three years, while you courted me and tried to pry me away from Reggie, and did what you could to embarrass him and hurt his career and generally be a gigantic pain in the arse—did you know who I was?”
“Laura,” began Buxton, and then he stopped and rephrased. “Yes. Laura Penobscott. I knew from the moment I saw you again after twenty years. I saw you at the Adelphi in London and I was going backstage to be sure it was you—and I saw you leaving the theater with him. Yes, I knew it was you. I resolved to do anything that it took. I would wait for him to make a mistake—I know that he almost did once—and if he did not make one, I would do what I could to help one along.”
Laura sighed.
“Do you think that is flattering?” she said. “It isn’t. Well, perhaps a little, but not in a good way.”
Buxton nodded.
“I am … extremely grateful, of course,” said Laura. “And … well, sort of proud of you, you know, or at least … proud of Potty Bobby. Of everything he has become. Or at least most of it.”
“That is something, I suppose,” said Buxton.
“But you need to understand something,” continued Laura, without turning back to look at Buxton. “I do not live in the past. People call them the ‘formative years,’ but I see no reason to define my life by what is said and done, by myself or others, when I’ve only been on the planet for a dozen years or so. There is so much after that. And however tidy it might seem—is that the right word?—however fitting it might seem that twenty years later, when Potty Bobby is on top of the world, and owns quite a lot of it, too, that I should then be his—well, it’s just not how I see it. Reggie is not perfect. He is not invulnerable or all-powerful. But he loves me, and he is mine—and I stand by my choice.”
A Baker Street Wedding Page 19