by S M Hardy
But it wasn’t this that drew my attention. Behind the altar the air continued to shimmer, a scarlet swirling mist rising upwards, a figure taking shape. I strained my neck around as I was pushed into the corridor. A creature, a horned abomination, rose up above its captive worshippers. It struggled to find substance, its body distorting and wavering as though tossed and turned by an unseen wind. For a split second it almost made it, losing its translucence and partly solidifying into a goat-headed travesty of a bare-chested man. It rose up on faun-like hairy legs, long, clawed fingers with talons like razors flexed and stretched, reaching out towards the oblivious military men below it.
‘Dear Lord in heaven,’ I muttered.
And maybe there is a God and he heard me.
A sudden gust of air came from nowhere, ruffling the hair and robes of the kneeling prisoners and causing the torches to flare. The creature blurred and twisted and, with a bellow of frustration, finally succumbed to the buffeting – and fell apart into a whirlwind of spiralling vapour that abruptly funnelled out through the cracks in the wall behind it.
I glanced around. No one else appeared to have seen or heard it, and then something else occurred to me.
‘Where’s Oliver?’ I said, stopping dead and peering at the lines of robed figures kneeling in front of the altar. He wasn’t there. I could see he wasn’t there.
‘This way, sir.’
‘No,’ I said. ‘Oliver Pomeroy, their leader, he’s gone.’
‘If that’s so, we’ll find him,’ the man said, his voice patient, but the grip on my arm anything but.
‘Jed, come on,’ Emma said. ‘This isn’t our battle any more.’
I hesitated a moment, straining against the man’s insistent grip, then realised she was right. There were twenty or so men inside the chapel who were more than capable of dealing with Oliver and his followers.
In a daze we were escorted to the Jag and politely told to leave and that we would be ‘debriefed’ later in the morning.
‘Did you see what I saw in the chapel?’ I asked Emma as she slid into the car beside me.
She gave me a sideways frown, but didn’t get the chance to reply as Laura clambered into the back seat and one of the men who had escorted us from the building slammed the door and then gave a rapid double bang on the roof to tell me to get going.
Dan’s men had appeared blissfully unaware of anything strange happening. I had been so sure Oliver and his people had seen the creature from the way they had surged towards it, but had they? Was I reading something into their actions that wasn’t the case? Perhaps they had been swarming towards their leader. I hoped this was so, if not … I didn’t even want to think about it. I must have been hallucinating. I’d been drugged and stressed, I told myself, but … I pushed the thought aside, put my foot down and drove.
Wanting to put as much distance between us and Kingsmead as I could, I kept my foot on the throttle. Once we were on the main road home, I slowed down a tad, but didn’t stop until we parked on the drive outside The Grange.
I phoned Brogan from there and it went straight to voicemail – again. I wondered if this was because he was busy at Kingsmead helping the men in black round up murderers or he was washing bloodstains out of silken robes. I decided I didn’t care one way or another.
‘Who were those men?’ Emma asked. ‘They certainly didn’t look like policemen.’
‘Intelligence,’ I said.
‘As in MI5?’ Laura said.
‘I think we should all try and get some sleep,’ I said, not wanting to get into that discussion.
Emma frowned. ‘Jed?’ and both women looked at me expectantly.
I rubbed the bridge of my nose. ‘Something like that,’ I said. ‘Simon’s people.’
Emma stared at me for a few seconds and then, putting her arm around Laura’s shoulders, went into hostess mode. ‘Come on,’ she said. ‘Let’s get you settled. We can discuss all this once we’ve had some sleep.’ She glanced my way and I nodded. She and I did need to have a conversation, but it wasn’t the sort we could have in front of Laura. Admitting to killing six people, five of them in cold blood, was going to be difficult and I didn’t know what Emma would make of it.
The morning passed very slowly. I hadn’t slept much, the events of the previous night and earlier that morning playing through my head again and again in angst-filled slow motion, while I tormented myself by questioning whether there was anything I could have done differently, perhaps resulting in one less death? And whether the stress of the past year and a half had finally got to me and I was now seeing monsters. By the time I gave up on sleep I was dyspeptic and out of sorts. The continual waiting for the axe to fall didn’t help, and fall it would. Sometime soon there would be a knock on the door by people wanting answers to questions. Six of the dead were down to me and it was doubtful self-defence would be a good enough plea to get me out of the trouble this would bring. And, of course, there was Emma – how exactly did I tell her what I had done and, when I did, would it change the way she felt about me? It was something I would have to think on long and hard.
Emma and Laura were both pale and tired-looking and, after the initial attempts at conversation over the breakfast table, we all sank into the silence of our own thoughts.
When the ring at the door came all three of us jumped. Emma had phoned to give Tilly and Rachel the day off so, with a condemned man’s leaden feet, I went to answer the door.
Through the bevelled glass panel there was the silhouette of only one shadowy figure waiting on the doorstep, which was cause to be optimistic. Dan as I’d never seen him before was waiting for me. Suited and booted he could have been another man altogether; he had definitely left his stable hand persona behind at Kingsmead.
He gave me a half-smile. ‘I guessed you’d probably be here,’ he said.
I pulled the door wide open and directed him towards the living room. The girls didn’t need to hear any of this. ‘I wasn’t expecting to see you this morning,’ I said.
He stopped in the centre of the room looking around. ‘Nice place,’ he commented.
‘We like it.’ I nodded towards a chair. ‘Sit if you’ve a mind to.’ He took a seat and I slumped in the chair opposite him. ‘So, what can I do for you?’
‘I’ll get straight to the point,’ he said. ‘The powers that be have decided it would be the best for all concerned if the “occurrences”’ – and he did the inverted commas thing with his fingers – ‘of the last forty-eight hours never happened.’
I stared at him digesting what he’d said. ‘But what about all the dead bodies piled up at Kingsmead?’
‘What dead bodies?’ he asked, with a smile that was bordering on a smirk. I stared at him. ‘Come on, Jed, you worked for intelligence, you know how this goes.’
I did know and it was one of the reasons I’d eventually left. Doing wrong things, even if for the right reasons, had been making me someone I didn’t want to be.
‘I was working for Sir Simon Pomeroy’ – he studied my expression – ‘but then you probably knew that already. He was a good man, a great man who served his country well. He doesn’t deserve to have his reputation tarnished by members of his family with psychological problems.’
‘There were at least eight bodies that I’m aware of. And what about Oliver Pomeroy?’
‘Oliver Pomeroy died weeks ago.’
‘Do you have him? Do you have him in custody?’
Dan’s lips pressed into a thin line. ‘If you must know, Oliver Pomeroy was found dead this morning, in the grounds of Kingsmead.’
‘But … How? Was he shot trying to escape?’
‘If I said I didn’t know how he died it would be the truth.’ He hesitated and leant forward. Lowering his voice, he said, ‘All I can say is, and this is strictly off the record, some of his injuries were a bit like his brother’s. He was slashed to ribbons, although it was more like he’d been mauled than stabbed.’
‘But how?’ I stopped as an
image of long talons sprouting from knotted, claw-like fingers flexing and stretching in the flickering torchlight floated through my head. I closed my eyes for a moment. No, it had been my imagination. It must have been. I suddenly felt very weary. ‘What about Oliver’s mistress? What about Mrs Walters?’
‘Mrs Walters took her own life. She never got over her daughter’s suicide and in the end she couldn’t go on.’
‘And Tanith Bloxborough?’
‘Who?’
I leant back in my chair unable to comprehend how they thought they could sweep so many deaths under the carpet. ‘Someone will miss the people who have died.’
He shrugged. ‘Not if no one makes a fuss.’ He looked me straight in the eye. ‘Are you going to make a fuss, Jed?’
I opened my mouth to protest and then closed it again. I wasn’t proud of what I’d done, though I’d do it again if I had to, but I didn’t want to end up spending years in court trying to prove I was only protecting my wife and a young woman who was being targeted by a madman through no fault of her own.
‘I guess not,’ he said, and the smirk was gone. Like me, he looked tired and out of sorts. I wasn’t sure he shouldn’t still be in hospital. His complexion had a pallid, oily look to it.
‘What about the other members of the Order of the Blood?’
‘Never heard of it.’ He hesitated. ‘But, if I had, I’d say all the members who had wanted it to continue are gone and are very unlikely to return.’ He paused again. ‘What you have to understand is most of the people involved were as much victims as Sir Simon and Laura Simmons.’
‘But not all,’ I said, remembering the increased congregation. There had been some powerful men amongst them.
‘There will be one or two members of Parliament resigning over the next week or so and the chairman of a global company stepping down from his position. The local police chief constable will also be taking a leave of absence with his resignation to follow, but at least Sir Simon’s good name won’t be besmirched.’
I didn’t like to disillusion him where Simon was concerned. He was far from innocent, although in all fairness to him he had broken away, apparently very successfully, until Oliver had dragged him back. And why he’d done that and then killed his younger brother I guessed I’d never know. It could have been because he was snooping. Sadly, I had an inkling the most likely explanation was that a random act of kindness by the staff of Goldsmere House had quite literally signed Simon’s death warrant. Had they not sent Edward Pomeroy a birthday card Simon would have been none the wiser, and after settling Laura into her new home would have left Kingsmead, leaving Laura to her fate.
Now for the million-dollar question. ‘Was Brogan Oliver’s mole in the police?’
Dan grinned. ‘As it happens, no. Brogan is as straight as a die. The mole was far higher up the food chain.’
‘But there were pictures of Brogan and Tanith together,’ I said.
‘I know. I took them.’
‘You?’ I asked in disbelief.
‘For Sir Simon. It was Tanith he was interested in. She had been enticing some pretty high-profile people into the Order and Sir Simon realised it had to stop, whatever the consequences to himself. When he found out she was having an affair with a serving detective inspector it piqued his interest.’ He sighed. ‘Then, upon returning home after a brief visit to Kingsmead, he discovered several pages had been extracted out of his files, including photographs of Brogan and Tanith together … Where did you find them, by the way?’
‘They were hidden in Edward’s old room,’ I said, my head spinning.
‘Makes sense. Sir Simon thought Oliver had stolen them, but once he found out Edward was still alive, he guessed it could be him. He’d gone to Edward’s room to search for them when he came across Tanith. It was Tanith who bashed him on the head.’
‘He told you that?’
He pulled a face. ‘Sadly no, not in person. I didn’t find out until after I’d spoken to you about Suzie. He’d left a coded message with his things, as a precaution. He guessed Tanith was desperate to find the photographs and would do almost anything to get hold of them before Oliver did − as it turned out he was right.’
‘But why?’
He shrugged. ‘He’d split up with his wife for her, murdered for her, most probably; he would do anything for her, but he was as jealous as sin. My theory is Edward was toying with her, telling her he’d spill the beans and show Oliver the photos and that’s why she convinced Oliver that Edward had to die.’
I slumped back in my seat, thinking of the photographs Edward had taken of Tanith in the shower. I thought they were more than likely the ones she didn’t want getting into Oliver’s hands. Edward had seduced Oliver’s first wife, Tanith having an affair with Edward was something Oliver would have treated as the ultimate betrayal. I didn’t bother to correct Dan. It no longer mattered. All three of them were dead. ‘So this was all about sex, jealousy and revenge?’
‘And money – don’t forget the money. With Laura dead the estate would pass to the next in line to inherit.’
‘Who was?’
He raised an eyebrow. ‘Who do you think?’
I frowned at him for a moment. ‘Tanith?’ The look he gave me was enough.
We sat there in silence for a couple of minutes. My mind was all over the place. I couldn’t believe all that had happened was down to Oliver’s jealousy, Tanith’s greed and their hedonistic desires and obsession with the Order of the Blood. I tried not to think of the ghastly apparition I had seen. It was down to stress – it had to have been – such things didn’t exist, but the memory of the cloven hoof prints Emma had found pressed into the mud back at the clearing wouldn’t go away. I told myself they proved nothing – it was what I had to believe. If not, madness beckoned.
‘You will convince Emma it’s for the best that this whole mess never happened?’ Dan said, dragging me back to reality.
‘I’ll try,’ I said.
He reached inside his breast pocket and drew out an envelope and placed it on the table between us. ‘Sir Simon also left this. He wrote it to you while he was in hospital. He left a note saying to give it to you should anything happen to him.’
The envelope was of the same ivory, high-quality stationery as the one that had started this whole bloody thing. On the front I could see my name scrawled in Simon’s familiar handwriting.
‘So, is that it?’
‘There will be a document for you and Emma to sign. No doubt I don’t have to remind you that you’ve already signed the Official Secrets Act?’
I grunted my reply. The Official fucking Secrets Act. ‘No, you don’t have to remind me,’ I said and couldn’t help the bitter edge to my voice.
Dan stared at me for a very long time, I suspect only seconds, but it felt much longer, like I was in a vacuum and it wouldn’t be until he had made his mind up about me that I’d be able to breathe again. ‘Is Miss Simmons about?’ he eventually asked, bringing air back into the room.
‘Er, yes,’ I said, getting to my feet. ‘I’ll go and get her.’
After Dan left, Laura asked for some time alone and went to sit in the garden, while Emma rustled up something for us to eat and I broke the news of what Dan had said.
‘So, that’s it?’ she said, chopping an onion with probably more force than was necessary. ‘Simon, Brandon and all those poor young women dead and everyone involved gets off scot-free?’
‘Not everyone, Emms. Oliver and Tanith are dead, and they were the main instigators. Them and Edward.’
‘I suppose so,’ Emma said, scraping the onion from the chopping board into the pan. ‘Do you think Laura will return to Kingsmead?’
I shrugged. ‘It’s hers now.’
‘If I was her, I’m not sure if I’d ever feel safe there.’
I wrapped my arms around her as she stood at the stove and nuzzled her neck. ‘I would never let anything bad happen to you.’
She leant her head against mine and r
eached up to stroke my cheek. ‘I know,’ she said and from the tone of her voice I wondered just how much she did know – or suspect about what I’d done the previous night. She had seen the blood on my clothing, she’d heard what Oliver had said about Sebastien and his mate. Sadly, she probably knew much more than I’d have liked.
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
I didn’t open the envelope from Simon straight away. I couldn’t. My feelings towards him were too raw.
‘You are going to have to read it sometime,’ Emma said, after three days of the letter sitting unopened on the coffee table.
‘I will when I’m ready,’ I mumbled and was saved from whatever Emma was going to say in response by Laura wandering into the room.
She sat down opposite us and leant forward, hands linked together, as if in prayer. She had the look of a woman with something to say. Emma rested her hand on my knee.
‘Emma, Jed …’ she hesitated, swallowing. ‘It’s been lovely staying with you, it really has, but I really should return to Kingsmead now.’
‘You know you can stay here as long as you want,’ Emma said.
Laura bit her lip. ‘I know and I could stay here for ever, it’s so peaceful, but if I don’t go back now I don’t think I ever will.’
I knew how she felt. ‘Like getting back onto Angel after your fall,’ I said.
She gave me a tiny smile. ‘Yes, exactly like getting back onto Angel.’
Dan was outside the front of Kingsmead speaking to DI Brogan when we arrived there the following day. Neither looked particularly happy.
‘You are here as a professional courtesy because Peters was officially one of yours,’ I heard Dan say. ‘Don’t make me regret allowing you access.’