by Roger Hurn
Carly’s infuriation was sidetracking her. I’d guessed what was coming but I needed to hear her say it.
‘Trust me, I would, Carly, but who was the girl the Chancellor picked before?’
‘Yeah, well that’s what I’m trying to tell you, Ryan. It was Angie!’
So Alec Carmichael was into a bit of rough by the sound of it. Carly was definitely sex on legs, but she was about as much like a Hetaera as a donkey is to a racehorse. Look, I’m not dissing Carly. I really rate her despite the fact she gives me endless earache, but that’s just how it is.
‘Did you tell Azrael about your fictitious STD?’
‘Yeah, I did, but he said it didn’t matter to Mr Carmichael. He wanted me for something greater than sex.’
I blinked in astonishment. ‘Did you ask him what this something is?’
‘Yeah, of course I did,’ she snapped back impatiently. ‘But he just smiled that stupid, patronising smile, stroked my arm and told me all would be revealed in the fullness of time.’ I could hear her taking a deep breath. ‘Honestly, Ry it was all I could do not to give him a good slap.’
When we ended the call I sat back in my chair and stared at the ceiling. I was seriously worried. Carmichael didn’t want Carly for sex, and I seriously doubted that he wanted her for her mind, so what the heck did he want her for? And why had Angie disappeared? From her photo I’d say she had the same raw sex appeal as Carly, but I was guessing she was no Einstein. I picked up the phone and gave Susan a bell. She appreciated the update and confirmed my suspicions that although Angie was special to her she couldn’t in all honesty claim that she had any special talents or gifts to mark her out from the crowd.
‘But surely Angie can’t have come to harm if she went off with Alec Carmichael?’ she said. ‘After all, he is the Chancellor of the Exchequer and he’s always on TV.’ Her voice was shaky with hope. ‘Do you think he’s set her up in a flat somewhere as his mistress? I’ve read that’s the sort of thing politicians do.’
I said it was the most likely scenario and that I’d be pursuing that line of enquiry. What I didn’t share was the fact that I had a nasty feeling in my gut that no way was Angie in some apartment in Pimlico eating chocolates and waiting for the great man to come calling. My gut feelings are usually about as reliable as the weather forecast so I figured I was doing the right thing. I should have known that some days you can’t do right for doing wrong.
Chapter Fourteen
Carly kept texting me on a reasonably regular basis for the next few days. According to her, Zander was acting like a love sick puppy around her and it was getting harder and harder to keep him at arm’s length. Azrael was giving her an intensive course of one-to-one sessions that sounded to me like they’d come straight out of a do-it-yourself guide to brainwashing. Carly was impervious to all that nonsense, but she told me she was playing along with it and Azrael seemed pleased with her progress. He kept telling her that her big day was coming when she’d “embrace the darkness with the highest flyer in the land” because that was “her destiny” and “what she’d been born for”.
‘He’s really creeping me out, Ry,’ she told me in a quick call. ‘But I think I’m getting closer to finding out about Angie. Yesterday he took me down into the caves below the Hall. That’s where the “Chosen Ones” entertain the VIPs. It’s like a movie set for some kind of Roman orgy only the caves are for real. They’ve got statues of women with their tits out and naked gladiator statues with hard ons. There’s an altar and couches and porno paintings on all the walls. And they’ve got velvet curtains draped over the entrances to side caves where I guess the people who don’t wanna screw in public can go. I acted like it turned me on, but it’s a proper pervs’ paradise.’
I begged her to bail out but she was having none of it.
‘Just give me a couple more days,’ she said. ‘Then if nothing’s happened I’ll walk and bring Zander with me. Then you and Tyrone can sweat the truth out of him.’
It seemed like a plan, but I wasn’t going to just sit around scratching my bum while she took all the risks. What she’d said about the caves under Camden Hall intrigued me. I did an internet search for Hortonhurst Caves and a website came up. It claimed that the caves had first been excavated in prehistoric times by cavemen looking for flint to make tools. Then it went on to say that the caves were a labyrinth of tunnels that extended for about 40 miles as the Ancient Druids, the Romans, the Saxons and just about everybody else who’d lived in or around Hortonhurst over the centuries had dug new mines for their own purposes. Apparently, the only way to gain access to the caves was to take the guided tour – so I did.
I arrived in time to take the final tour of the day. There were just five of us and the guide. He was a middle-aged bloke with the world weary expression of a man who’s trapped on a treadmill and sees no way of jumping off. He gave us a spiel about sticking close together as the caves were dark and haunted. But his heart wasn’t in it. Then he handed each of us an oil lamp and took us underground.
About an hour later we arrived back at the start. The other tourists buggered off to the café to try and grab a cuppa before it shut, but I asked the guide if I could have a word in private. He shrugged and sighed.
‘What’s up, mate? Are you one of those thrill seekers who wants to spend the night in the caves? Well, sorry, we don’t allow that anymore. As I said on the tour the last geezer who tried to do that went bonkers.’
‘No, I don’t want to spend the night down there but I’d like to know why you made no mention of the caves under Camden Hall.’
He looked at me suspiciously. ‘What’s it to you?’
I smiled. ‘I’ve heard there are some interesting things happening in those caves and I wanted to find out more.’
The guide shook his head. ‘Well, you heard wrong, mate. Yeah, there are caves under the Hall but they’re all blocked off these days.’
‘Why’s that then?’
‘’Cos they’re bloody dangerous is why. So they’re off limits to the general public.’
‘Really? Why are they dangerous?’
He shook his head and made as if to leave.
‘No, hold up,’ I said. ‘I’m curious.’ I pulled out my wallet and offered him twenty quid. ‘Tell me more.’
The bloke pulled a face but took the note.
‘The truth is pal that the caves under Camden Hall are the most interesting ones. They were built by the druids or so legend has it. There’s a kind of maze that leads to a bloody great sink hole which is called Hell’s Mouth. That’s where the druids disposed of the bodies after they’d sacrificed ‘em.’ He grinned at me ghoulishly.
I raised my eyebrows. ‘Really? And you know this for a fact do you?’
He snorted. ‘No, of course I don’t. But there is a sort of twisting maze of tunnels under Camden Hall and there is a ruddy great hole in the ground. I’d heard they were there from the old bloke who used to do this job before me. I was only a kid back then and still keen so I used to go exploring in my own time.’ He sighed. ‘Truth to tell, I still do if it’s a slow day and I’m bored out of my tree. Though, as I say, the Camden Hall ones are all blocked off now.’
‘Why? That Hell’s Mouth stuff makes a more interesting story than the ones you gave us on the tour.’
He looked hurt. ‘Hey, I do my best, but you should try telling the same old stories every hour on the hour to a bunch of tourists. It gets stale.’
‘I guess it would.’ I said sympathetically. But I’ve got a feeling you still haven’t told me the real reason why those caves have been blocked off.’
He just stared at me so I produced another twenty quid. He grinned like he’d fooled me.
‘Yeah, well, the new owners of Camden Hall had it done. I dunno why. Nobody ever goes into those tunnels. They’re too far off the beaten track for the tour and anyway we can dazzle the tourists with all that druid human sacrifice nonsense with the caves we’ve got in this part of the system. And, like I sa
id, there is that bloody hole.’
I thought about this for a moment. ‘No, that’s not it. A bloke like you wouldn’t be able to let it go without having a sniff around. Like you said, you’ve been working these caves since you were a kid. So what’s really going on in those tunnels?’
He looked at me slyly. ‘What are you, pal? A journalist?’
I said I was a freelancer looking for a juicy story to sell to the Sunday rags and I’d heard a whisper that there was some funny business going on at Camden Hall.
He smirked. ‘What, you mean with the Church of the Dark Light crowd?’
I shrugged. ‘You’ve got it.’
My guide chewed on his bottom lip and looked at me. I could almost hear the cogs whirring round in his brain as he figured how much more dosh he could squeeze out of me.
‘All right. Maybe I did have a shufti to see what they were up to.’
I waited but he stayed schtum until I produced another twenty.
‘They’ve done ‘em up like the inside of a Roman brothel. Probably so they can hold wild parties down there. And then there’s the maze and Hell’s Mouth so I’m guessing they work them into their Church of the Dark Light fantasies.’ He shrugged. ‘Not that I hold with all that pagan crap. I’m C of E myself.’
I sucked my teeth. Being an upstanding member of the C of E certainly wasn’t stopping him from screwing as much money out of me as he could. And I had a feeling he wasn’t done yet.
‘OK, so if I wanted to go and take a look at them could I do it?’
He sniffed then nodded. ‘Yeah, you could, but I wouldn’t recommend it if you’re claustrophobic. There’s a really narrow tunnel that leads into the caves under the Hall. But the Churchers must have figured nobody in their right mind would want to crawl through it so they didn’t bother to block it off.’
I took a deep breath. I’m not good in tight enclosed spaces, but I knew what I was going to have to do.
‘Let’s say I’m not in my right mind, but if I gave you another twenty would you take me to this tunnel?’
He shook his head. ‘No, but I’ll do it for another fifty.’
I paid up and we set off back down into the caves. It was a long walk and without the guide’s tales of the ghosts and ghouls that haunted them they were just dull hollow spaces.
We finally arrived at what was nothing more than a large crack in the tunnel wall. Well, when I say large, it was some sort of narrow crevice about my height but only about as wide as some size zero fashion model’s bum. I could feel panic rising up in my throat but I swallowed it back down. It tasted foul.
‘Ok, mate. This is it. Good luck. I’ll stay out here and wait for you, but that’s gonna cost you another fifty. And if I have to come in and find you that’ll be an extra couple of hundred. Agreed?’
I had no choice but to hand the money over. I left my oil lamp with him, took out my torch and squeezed into the crack.
Chapter Fifteen
The hole in the rock was dark, but it was just about wide enough for me to force my way inside as long as I edged sideways and breathed in. It was horrible. The space inside the crevice was so tight it fitted me like a second skin. Only the skin was made of solid rock. All the Earth had to do was burp and I would have been crushed into strawberry jam. I had been worried that my breathing was going to give me away to any potential bad guys in the Dark Lighter caves, but now I was worried that I couldn’t breathe even if I wanted to. It felt like tons of rock were pressing on my chest and I was like a cork trapped in the neck of a stone bottle. I wanted to scream, but the scream couldn’t escape from my mouth. A wave of panic washed over me and I thought I was going to drown. Then two things happened. The narrow crevice suddenly opened out a bit – which made me sob with relief – but it also got lower. This meant I had to drop down onto all fours and crawl along on my hands and knees if I wanted to go in deeper. Which I didn’t, but I also didn’t have a choice. So I eased down onto my belly and my aimed my torch to see where the heck I was going.
Boy, was I not happy with what I saw. I was in a tiny tunnel between two rock faces and to make things worse the floor was covered in mud that smelled like fox shit. It amazed me to think people actually went caving and pot holing for fun. But then it takes all sorts.
Thankfully, the tunnel soon opened out into one of the caverns Carly and the guide had told me about. They hadn’t exaggerated; it really did look like something out of Fellini’s Satyricon. The place was lit by fake flaming torches and shadows danced on the walls. I expected Nero, Caligula and a whole bunch of bacchanalian revellers to jump out of a side tunnel at any moment. They didn’t, but at the far end of the cavern was a stone altar. A body was lying next to it and a figure was kneeling by the body. I cried out and the figure turned her head to face me. It was Carly!
Chapter Sixteen
Even in the dim light of the cave I could see that Carly was in shock. The colour was leached from her face and she was shaking slightly.
‘That bastard Azrael killed Zander.’ Her voice was flat and she kept picking at her nails.
I gave Zander’s body a quick once over to make sure he really was dead. He was, but then the knife sticking out of his chest made any other outcome highly unlikely. It had gone straight up into his heart so either Azrael had got lucky or he knew what he was doing.
I put my arms round Carly, but it was like holding a plank of wood. Her skin was cold and clammy. I wasn’t surprised. I was guessing that, despite her “screw the world” attitude, this was the first time she’d ever come face-to-face with violent death. It was always sickening, but I needed to get her back with me and fast.
‘Okay, kid, tell me what happened.’
Her eyes suddenly came back into focus. ‘Zander told me that Alec Carmichael was going to kill me just like he killed Angie.’
My brain did a mental somersault. This was a bit too much information for it to process in one hit. But there was more.
‘He’s a fucking psycho, Ryan. He gets his kicks from offing girls.’
I held her by the shoulders and stared at her.
‘Whoa, slow down, honey. Are you really saying that the Chancellor of the Exchequer, the guy who’s in line to be the next prime minister, is a murderer?’
She stared back at me like I was an idiot. ‘Yeah, I just said so didn’t I?’
I swallowed hard. This was some really serious shit we were in.
‘So why did Azrael kill Zander?’
Carly’s eyes flashed and she scowled. ‘’Cos Zander was trying to sneak me outta here through some secret tunnel.’ She frowned. ‘I guess that’s how you must’ve got in here, right?’
I nodded.
‘Right, but when we sneaked down into the cavern, Azrael was already here. I dunno what he was doing, but he wasn’t pleased to see me and Zander. Anyway, they had a spat and Zander said no way was he gonna let anybody harm me. And that we were leaving the Church. Azrael said that so wasn’t gonna happen and then he picked up a knife from the altar and just stabbed him.’
She stopped talking and I could tell that she was reliving the incident in her head. I squeezed her arms gently. ‘And then what happened?’
She breathed in sharply through her nose and swallowed before saying. ‘He ran off.’
I quickly looked around. ‘Okay. Where did he go?’
Carly was suddenly furious with me. ‘How the fuck should I know? I was trying to help Zander!’
She shook herself free of me and folded her arms across her chest. ‘Zander really cared for me and it’s doing my head in ‘cos it got him killed.’
I didn’t know what to say. I was just relieved it was Zander who’d been murdered and not Carly, but I didn’t think this was the time to say so. As it happened, the problem was solved by Azrael’s reappearance. He had Crispian and William in tow. They both looked seriously uncomfortable.
Azrael pointed at Carly and Zander. ‘There you are, I told you the mad bitch had flipped.’ He glared at me. �
��And what the hell are you doing here, Kyd? You were warned to stay out of Church business, but obviously you don’t bloody listen.’
Azrael’s smooth face was twisted into a snarl and, as I wasn’t convinced of my ability to kick the shit out of three of them and make my escape with a very unpredictable Carly, I decided that talking was my only option.
‘Carly didn’t kill Zander, you did Azrael, so stop trying to bullshit your two buddies.’
I switched my focus and hit them with my DPG act. ‘You do realise that aiding and abetting a person who has committed an act of murder is a very serious crime?’
Azrael laughed slightly hysterically. ‘Oh come on, now who’s doing the bullshitting? You’re not in the DPG anymore, Kyd. You’re in a hole in the ground literally and metaphorically with people who really don’t need you or this silly tart.’
Crispian cleared his throat. He pointedly ignored his pal, Azrael. ‘Why don’t you tell us what happened here, Carly?’
I noticed he didn’t ask her why she’d killed Zander. I figured maybe he had doubts about his boy. But Azrael spoke before Carly could answer.
‘For god’s sake, Crispian, I’ve already told you what happened! Zander brought her down here and tried to rape her. I saw them struggling and she stabbed him. She was totally deranged and I didn’t fancy trying to deal with her myself so that’s why I came and got you guys.’ He glared at me. ‘But I didn’t know that Kyd was down here too.’ Then he shrugged. ‘But he won’t be any trouble. He knows what Borzov will do to him if he is, don’t you Kyd.’