Death in London: A Nightshade Crime Thriller (Emma & Nightshade Mystery Series Book 1)

by Peter Jay Black

Emma blinked and a gasp escaped her lips. “The Volinari.”

  “Perhaps Asher had a deal with them,” Nightshade said. “Now he’s dead, I’m not sure we’ll ever know the answer.” She looked up and her eyes widened.

  Emma followed her gaze.

  On the wall above the door was a clock, except the hands rotated counterclockwise, counting backward. Emma stared at them. Every time the second hand made it back past the twelve, sure enough, the minute hand fell back a step.

  She tensed. “It’s a timer.” And a little under two hours remained.

  “We’re still playing Asher’s game,” Nightshade said.

  Emma gaped at her. “Dad?” She rushed back through the utility room and into the hallway. After she double-checked the bedrooms, Emma then went up the stairs and searched the upper deck, but there was no one else on board.

  Nightshade joined Emma as she paced in the lounge area.

  “Asher didn’t leave any clues,” Emma said, through gritted teeth. “Why not? If he didn’t want us to stand a chance at finding Dad, why leave the timer? Is he taunting us? I don’t get it.” Emma’s breath came in rapid bursts and she started to hyperventilate.

  “Calm down.” Nightshade scratched her head. “Breathe, darling. There have to be clues as to where Asher’s taken Richard, but you’re not seeing them because you aren’t thinking straight. Relax.”

  Emma struggled to take deep, slow breaths. “What clues?” She balled her fists. “What are you on about? Just tell me.”

  Nightshade smiled. “The tattoos, my darling. The added symbols: the clues we’ve had all along. We haven’t figured those out yet.”

  With a renewed rush of hope, Emma snatched a notepad and pen from a nearby bureau. “Sophie had an X.” She drew it, ripped out the page, and slammed it on the coffee table. “Next was Uncle Martin.” Emma shuddered at the memory, then focused on the symbol on his arm. She drew a circle with a line from the middle to the right, tore out the page, and put it on the table beside the first.

  “Ruby’s arm,” Nightshade said.

  Emma wrote the number six and placed it with the others. “The last tattoo was another number: one.” She drew it and set it down on the coffee table, then tossed the notepad and pen back onto the sofa and stepped back. “What do we have?”

  Nightshade folded her arms. “An X, and the numbers one and six.”

  “That symbol looks like it could be a clock,” Emma said. “With its hand pointed at three.”

  “We already have the timer downstairs.” Nightshade scratched her head. “Following Asher’s usual pattern, this must point to a location.” She glanced at Emma. “Do the numbers one and six mean anything to you?”

  Emma shook her head. Anxiety tightened her chest in its viselike grip, raising her heart rate. “Think. Think. Sixteen? Sixteen what?” She looked at the letter X. “Isn’t that the Roman numeral for ten? Ten, six and one? One thousand and sixteen? A hundred and sixteen?” She groaned. “I don’t know.”

  “Where else would Asher take your father, if not here?” Nightshade asked.

  For a horrible moment Emma pictured her father’s body floating in the marina. She squeezed her eyes closed, and tried to concentrate.

  “Emma?”

  “Mum will know.” Emma opened her eyes and turned from Nightshade. She rang her mother for what felt like the millionth time and pressed the phone to her ear, but all she got—still—was voicemail. Emma swore and stuffed the phone into her pocket. “This is hopeless.”

  “Darling, you need to get a grip.”

  Emma wheeled round. “You’re supposed to be the detective,” she screamed. “You figure it out. That’s your job.”

  “I’m trying,” Nightshade said in a level tone. “But no one knows your family better than you. Please, Emma. Focus.”

  Emma threw her hands up. “Stop saying that. What am I supposed to be focusing on, exactly?”

  Nightshade pointed at the symbols. “The X could be a cross. Or a crossroads? Does that ring any bells?”

  Emma shrugged. “I don’t know.”

  Nightshade stared at the pages. “We have a one and a six. All the clues so far have had Maria and then you in mind. They’re personal.” She pursed her lips. “Maybe these could be coordinates, or an address. Perhaps a house or building number.” She looked up at Emma. “Somewhere you know.”

  Emma sighed. “I don’t know. What’s the clock for?”

  “I’ve told you that it can’t be a clock.”

  Emma’s brow furrowed. “What is it, then?”

  “It could mean east,” Nightshade said. “A compass needle pointing east.”

  Emma stared. “Sixteen, east X?” Her brain raced, as it rearranged the symbols in every combination she could think of, comparing them to all the places she’d ever visited. Street signs, building numbers, letterheads and business cards flashed through her thoughts. Emma suddenly gasped. “Not sixteen. Sixty-one.” Her eyes widened. “How can I have been so stupid? We were just looking right at it.” She turned to Nightshade. “Sixty-one East Road. St George's Hill, Weybridge.” She waved a hand at the pages. “The cross is St George’s Cross.” Emma thrust a finger at the stairs. “Down there. That dollhouse. It’s where Liam died. It’s Asher’s old address.”

  “Does he still own the house?” Nightshade asked.

  “I don’t know,” Emma said. “I visited a few times before Liam died. Never since.” She lifted her chin. “It’s called Trinity Hall. That has to be where he’s taken Dad.”

  Nightshade pursed her lips. “Asher had just about enough time to get to Weybridge and then back here before we arrived.”

  Emma ran to the sliding doors. “Come on, we’ve got to hurry.” She only hoped they weren’t too late to save her father.

  42

  As far as Emma was concerned, Neil couldn’t drive fast enough. After all, her dad’s life depended on it.

  As she poured bottled water into her cupped hands for Maggie to drink, Emma’s stomach squirmed, and she tried to imagine what elaborate timed death Asher had arranged for her father, and whether they were already too late. She pushed the thought away. Besides, going by the clock on the boat, they would get there with an hour to spare. There had to be hope.

  Nightshade held her pill tin up to her ear, shook it, then opened it and took a red capsule. She stared out of the window, hands on her knees.

  Emma tried calling her mum for the billionth time, but still got no answer. She swore under her breath and wished her mother had carried a tracked phone too.

  An eternity later, Neil drove them into the gated community of St. George’s Hill, and as the Rolls-Royce swept into the driveway of Trinity Hall, Emma’s mouth fell open.

  On each side towered rows of ancient, gnarled trees whose branches hung low. Their dense canopies squeezed out the late afternoon daylight, and an overgrown garden pushed through the concrete. In fact, overgrown was not the right word. It was a haven for every weed, bramble and stinging nettle in the country. Any self-respecting gardener would have had a heart attack at the sight of it.

  Ten-foot-high fences surrounded the property and grounds, shielding sensitive billionaires from the worst of the mess.

  Neil stopped the car forty feet from the house, the rest of the way blocked by the jungle. He turned in his seat. “Shall I come in with you?”

  Emma shook her head. She wasn’t sure what she and Nightshade were about to face, but didn’t want Neil to get caught up in it. “Can you keep trying Mum for me?”

  “Of course.”

  Emma made sure that Maggie was okay, and then she and Nightshade climbed out of the car and picked their way along a broken concrete path that snaked through the undergrowth. They ducked under branches and squeezed past brambles that clawed at their clothes.

  After ten minutes of battling, they stepped into a clearing that housed a once-palatial building that now stood in a state of disrepair.

  Five stories high, its windows were boarded and the wall
s covered in graffiti. Decaying brown ivy clung to dark stained walls. Chunks of the masonry had cracked and fallen away, leaving piles of the shattered remains.

  Emma and Nightshade rounded a fountain with slime-green water, and hurried up the front steps. The front door lay on the ground, so they picked their way over it and went inside.

  The interior of the house looked a thousand times worse than the outside. Sections of the ceiling had collapsed, revealing the rotting wooden beams of the floor above. The stairs had crumbled away too and left nothing but a rusty handrail. Weeds pushed through the ground, cracking brickwork and tiles.

  Rubble blocked the way to a door to the left, but an archway on the right remained clear.

  Emma glanced at Nightshade and crept through it, careful to watch her footing. At the end of a short corridor, she found a run-down sitting room. Wallpaper curled from the walls in wide strips, and mould attacked the plaster. A rotting sofa full of holes, exposed springs, and horsehair stuffing, sat next to the window. Perched on a side table was an oil lamp, bathing the room in a gloomy yellow haze.

  “Dad?” Emma called. She ran back into the hallway. Beyond a mound of rubble, another door stood open.

  Nightshade joined her. “Darling, please be carefu—”

  Emma clambered over the debris. Her feet slipped on broken concrete and plaster. Nightshade groaned, then followed.

  On the other side, Emma peered into a kitchen. Cupboards hung at odd angles from the walls, their doors loose or missing. She rushed to the back door and into the rear garden. It was as overgrown as the front. Grass over a foot high and brambles blocked the way forward.

  Her gaze shifted to a glass structure, fifty feet by twenty-five, overrun by weeds and ivy. The door stood open, and a quote painted on the glass read:

  Two households, both alike in dignity,

  In fair Verona, where we lay our scene,

  From ancient grudge break to new mutiny,

  Where civil blood makes civil hands unclean.

  From forth the fatal loins of these two foes

  A pair of star-cross'd lovers take their life;

  Whose misadventured piteous overthrows

  Do with their death bury their parents' strife.

  Heart about to burst through her ribcage, Emma paused at the threshold of the pool house, listened for a few seconds, then went inside.

  In the middle of the swimming pool, gagged and bound back-to-back on chairs weighted with concrete blocks, were Richard and Maria. Water was up to their stomachs. A hose snaked from a side room into the pool, filling it with water.

  Emma hurried toward them, stepping over a tattoo machine and portable power supply.

  Both of her parents’ eyes widened and they tried to speak, but the tape across their mouths muffled their voices.

  Thank goodness they were all right, and she wasn’t too late. Emma allowed herself the faintest of smiles and relief washed over her.

  Her mum and dad had their sleeves rolled up and fresh tattoos had been etched into their arms. Each a stylised letter V: Richard’s above his gladiator helmet, and Maria’s above her tribal sun symbol.

  “I’ll get you out.” An upended crate in the corner caught Emma’s eye, with a laptop open on top. The green light from its camera glowed. She glanced back at the door, but Nightshade hadn’t followed her. “Nightshade?”

  No answer.

  “Nightshade?” she shouted.

  Still no response.

  Not wasting a second more, Emma followed the hose, ran into a side room, and found the connected tap. She reached down to turn it off, but before her fingers had touched the brass handle, there came a sudden flash of light.

  The world tipped, and Emma fell into darkness.

  43

  Pain cleaved Emma’s head in two, warm red flooded her vision, and she stifled a scream. No, something else muted it for her. Something across her mouth.

  Tape.

  Emma’s eyes flew open, only to have a blinding light pierce her retinas, accompanied by searing agony.

  Her sunglasses were gone, as was her hoodie, and a bright spotlight beamed down at her. She snapped her eyes closed, screwed up her face, and tried to raise a hand, but she couldn’t move.

  Emma’s breath caught in her throat, and she squinted down at her arms. Duct tape bound them to a chair. A thick rope across her waist held her fast. Panicked, she squirmed, only to find that someone had also taped her ankles to the chair. Emma’s right leg could move slightly, but her left could not.

  Taking deep breaths, she fought to suppress the terror now clawing at her chest, and as her eyes adjusted, she looked about, then wished she hadn’t.

  Emma tried to scream again.

  She was twenty feet in the air, high in the rafters, at the far end of the pool house.

  The bright light forced everything into crystal-clear focus: the grain of the four planks placed across the rusty iron beams, creating the makeshift platform the chair sat on; the bobbles and fibres of the worn baize glued to the small card table in front of her; the splashes of paint and grooves in the backrest of the wooden chair opposite her.

  Emma closed her eyes again and her body shook uncontrollably as panic swelled in undulating waves, threatening to drown her. One moderate knock against the table or platform, any sudden move, would send the whole lot crashing to the floor and Emma with it.

  Despite her best efforts to calm herself, Emma’s breaths came in rapid, shallow bursts, and tears filled her eyes.

  Who’s doing this?

  She looked up.

  The rope around her waist ran to a pulley mounted above her head, then to the ground, where someone had tied the other end to an exposed water pipe.

  Where’s Nightshade?

  Emma’s shaking turned into violent convulsions, and the planks beneath her wobbled.

  Her breath caught.

  Mum. Dad.

  Not wanting to see, but knowing she must, Emma forced herself to look at the swimming pool. She let out another muffled cry. The hose was still at full flow, and the water was to her parents’ chests, and rising.

  Richard and Maria stared up at her, a mixture of fear and defiance on their faces. Emma tried to call out to them, but it was no use.

  A wave of vertigo washed over her. Sweat poured down Emma’s face and stung her eyes. She had to get free. She looked forward again, squeezed her eyes closed for a few seconds, then forced her tongue through her lips, working it around the tape and trying to loosen the gum.

  A rattle made Emma freeze.

  Someone climbed an aluminium ladder toward her.

  Nightshade?

  She knew it wasn’t.

  Emma’s heart pounded, and veins throbbed at the points where the tape and rope held her to the chair. She struggled against her bindings, and the duct tape around her right ankle loosened a fraction more.

  Her breath caught as the person stepped onto the boards. The table and chairs wobbled. Emma’s vision tunnelled, and her thoughts numbed into silence.

  Olivia set a walnut briefcase on the table and sat opposite. “Hey, Em. Sorry this setup is a bit on the rickety side.” Olivia gestured around them. “You didn’t give me much time to put it together. She smirked as she opened the briefcase and removed six shot glasses, a bottle of vodka, a lazy Susan, and a semiautomatic handgun. “I bet you have questions.”

  It can’t be true. No. Not Olivia.

  Confused, Emma looked about her. A dark mass by the utility-room door caught her attention. Nightshade lay on her front, unconscious, her hands bound behind her back and her legs taped together. A trickle of blood ran from her hairline and pooled on the floor.

  “Hey.” Olivia clicked her fingers. “Stay with me.”

  Emma looked back at her. Several pieces of the day’s events fell into place, one jarring block at a time. She cursed herself for being so reckless and allowing herself to be fooled by Asher and Olivia.

  “I wasn’t sure if I’d hit you too hard,” Oliv
ia said. “There’s probably a fine line between knocking someone out and giving them permanent brain damage.” She smiled. “Can you count to ten?”

  Emma glared at her.

  “Oh, right.” Olivia leaned across the table and tore the tape from Emma’s mouth. As she did so, her right sleeve rode up and revealed a fresh tattoo of a letter V.

  “Volinari.” Emma glanced down at her parents and their new matching tattoos, like branded marks. Her face twisted as she looked back at Olivia. “You’ve joined the Volinari?” Hurt turned to anger, then rage. “I’m going to kill you.”

  “You might get your chance.” Olivia closed the briefcase and set the lazy Susan on top. She placed it between them, lining up the edges with the table. “Or you might not. We’ll have to wait and see.”

  “Your dad murdered Sophie,” Emma said. “You wanted that to happen?” She struggled to believe that.

  “I killed Sophie.”

  “What? She was pregnant. How could you do that? What kind of sick—” A crease furrowed Emma’s brow. “Wait. You were—”

  “With you last night?” Olivia grinned. “I wasn’t drunk, Em. Far from it. You were drinking real wine; I replaced mine with something non-alcoholic.” She picked up the vodka bottle and shook it. “This, however, is very alcoholic.”

  Emma blinked at her. “How?”

  Olivia set the vodka to one side. “Jacob texted to let me know what time he expected Sophie to leave London. I made sure I left your place well before then. Dad and I planned it all to happen on the same night as the Broadstone Ball, forcing Sophie to go to the warehouse late.” She grinned at Emma. “You’d already passed out. You were only supposed to be my alibi in case things went south. Turned out way better than I could have possibly imagined, though.” Olivia sighed. “Dad picked me up from your place and dropped me off at the warehouse, where I climbed into the terracotta warrior and waited for Sophie.”

  Emma stared at her. “You both did all this. Why?”

  “Dad took a lot of persuading, but I eventually managed to convince him what a piece of crap your father is.” Olivia glared down at Richard. “How he lies,” she shouted. “How he manipulates his friends, and everyone close to him.” She looked back at Emma. “Dad didn’t want to be part of this end play, but that’s fine by me.”