by Adam Carter
A third pounding upon the door gave Chamberlain something of a headache and he wondered why no one was answering it. What was that fool woman doing anyway? Realising he was the only one available, Chamberlain understood he would have to do the deed. Taking a deep breath and steeling his nerves, he moved across to the front door. The pounding had ceased, as though whoever was beyond knew that he was on his way. Perhaps they did; Chamberlain had no idea how door etiquette worked. He just knew they were opened for him and he didn’t have to say thank you.
He pulled the door open and lightning flashed in the sky. The wind bellowed through the door, the snow biting his face, but no one was standing out there. Chamberlain cursed, did not even consider going out to see whether his visitor had fallen down dead from the cold, and pushed the door with all his might, fighting the rage of the storm just to get the thing shut again. The door closed and latched automatically and Chamberlain stood straight, wiping his brow and glad once more he was inside in the warm.
He turned back to the fire and almost walked into a wraith.
The man was broad-shouldered, smartly dressed in a vague sort of way. He wore an earth brown trench coat which had seen better days, and a scowl which likely hadn’t. His craggy features were both young and old: he could easily have been aged anywhere from thirty to ninety. His hair was somehow dry, his eyes ... empty. Soulless. The stranger simply stood there, not even dripping onto the carpet.
“Who are you?” Chamberlain stammered, cursing himself for his fright. “You gave me a scare.”
The man stared at him, and Chamberlain shuddered involuntarily. Outside the thunder cracked once more and he tried not to jump. “Would you ... could I offer you a drink?”
Chamberlain was moving about the stranger in a circle, heading back towards the fire. Perhaps even to the poker. The man’s eyes trailed him, but his body did not move.
“Walter Chamberlain,” the stranger finally said.
Chamberlain tried not to panic. “Uh, yes?”
“I know you,” the man said drily. “You’ve come up from London. Business or pleasure?”
“I don’t know what you mean.” Chamberlain tugged at his collar. The stupid girl hadn’t taken enough logs off: it was like a furnace now.
The stranger attempted a smile, but it was the rictus of the grave. He glanced behind him and located a comfortable chair, sinking slowly into it as though he was made of air.
Chamberlain was beside the fireplace now, one hand resting upon the mantel, the other hovering over where the poker lay. “Strange weather we’ve having,” he noted.
The stranger shrugged. “You only really have to worry about lightning when it flashes twice in quick succession.”
Chamberlain stared at him, a lump forming in his throat. They remained in silence for some moments, and just as Chamberlain opened his mouth to speak lightning flashed through the window, and then again.
“Gadzooks!”
The stranger’s smile was genuine at last. “Gadzooks?”
Chamberlain ignored him, ducked as though that would save him should the house catch fire. “Oh my days, are we safe?”
The stranger shifted to get more comfortable. “Safe as houses.”
Chamberlain realised he was showing himself a coward and so stood erect no matter what it cost him. “I say, you haven’t yet even told me your name.”
“Charles Baronaire.”
“And who are you exactly, Charles Baronaire?”
“Wish I knew, pal.”
Chamberlain drew himself up to a respectable height. It was one thing to have servants look down upon him, but quite another for a guest to speak to him as though they were intimates. “I’ll have you know, sir, I am an English Lord. I shall be spoken to with a degree of respect.”
“You were. To a degree.” Baronaire glanced about. “Nice place. Nice retreat, I should say.”
“Retreat?”
“As in somewhere to run to.”
Chamberlain swallowed. “I’m sure I don’t know what you mean.”
“I’m sure you don’t. You want to know a few things about you, Wally? A few things maybe you don’t seem to understand.”
Chamberlain hardly even noticed the way he was being spoken to now. Fear had gripped him too readily and his initial suspicions were evaporating. He had assumed this man to have been a constable. Now it seemed he was a hit man, or something far worse.
“You’re a spoiled rich kid, Wally,” the stranger continued. “Nothing wrong with that, not legally anyway. Morally maybe, but since when are there morality police?” His smile was that of a wolf, his eyes those of a fox. “You have it all, you’ve always had it all. Cars, women, properties. Money, is what it all comes down to. You and your family have money. So last month, when that party went horribly wrong ... you do remember the party don’t you? The one where you were hosting, the one where you had one too many to drink and ended up screwing the blonde girl in the master bedroom? That party?”
Chamberlain realised he was waiting for him to say something, so he simply nodded.
“Good,” Baronaire said in relief. “For a minute there I thought you did that sort of thing every day. Where was I? Oh yes, money. Money was what got you out of prison, right? Because the blonde girl, she ... wasn’t quite as drunk as you and, in a nice way, would have to have been a lot more drunk than she was if she was going to willingly spend any quality time with you.”
Chamberlain blinked. “How dare you!”
“Well, tall and spindly may be in this year, but if I was a girl I’d be more inclined to ask you to clear up that little skin problem before I got anywhere near you. And you smell. I mean, really.”
The poker was in his hand before he even realised he had grabbed it. Chamberlain was an expert fencer and stabbed out as though it was a foil. The poker poked the back of an empty chair, however. Chamberlain stared in shock.
“Anyway,” Baronaire said, somehow behind him now. Nor did he seem much to care that Chamberlain had just tried to skewer him. “Anyway, the girl didn’t press charges. Or at least she did, then she dropped them. Funny that.”
“It was my party,” Chamberlain said, spinning to face him, keeping the weapon between them.
“And you’ll cry if you want to?”
“And I was exonerated of all charges, so there.”
“So there?” Baronaire shook his head. “You bought the victim, either through money or fear; you bought the courts, you bought the police. But you haven’t bought me.”
Chamberlain relaxed slightly. Whoever this man was, he wanted money. Just like everyone else. Now they were talking a language he understood Chamberlain realised this couldn’t end badly after all.
“Good, good,” he said. “How much are we talking?”
Baronaire seemed confused, then horrified. “Your father sent you here to hide for a while, until the media attention moves onto to something else. You’ve come here to escape justice, but justice has followed you out ...”
“Twenty thousand?”
“What?”
“Fifty?”
“I don’t think you’re listening to ...”
“I’m not haggling over money, what do you think I am, a market trader? A million. I’ll have it transferred to your bank by the morning.”
“Now wait a ...”
“Assuming the phone lines are back up. God awful country this. Scotland? No idea why we ever fought to keep it in the first place.”
“I’m here to kill you, you stuck up ass!”
Chamberlain blinked. “Oh.”
“Yeah. Oh. Gadzooks your way out of that one, Wally.”
Chamberlain swung the poker like a machete, and the thin metal slapped into Baronaire’s waiting palm. Baronaire did not so much as flinch, although a humour was forcing its way into his face once more. A grinding sound filled the room, the crackling of the rising flames the only other noise to be heard, and suddenly the poker snapped in the powerful man’s grip. Chamberlain fell backward
s, holding the stump uselessly. “No,” he whispered, his eyes wide. “Two ... Two million!”
“It’s not about money, pal, it’s about what’s right. You’re a criminal and you should have gone down for what you did. You didn’t, so I’m here to pass sentence.”
“You touch me and you’re a dead man.”
“Starting to wonder how true that is.”
Chamberlain launched himself across the room, but Baronaire was both faster and stronger. He caught the youth in one hand and tossed him through the air. Chamberlain fell into the door and lay there, cowering.
“What’s all the noise up here?”
Agnes McBright stood framed in the doorway leading to the rest of the house. She was carrying a sack of potatoes and had clearly just come up from the cellar. She stood dumbfounded for a moment, glanced from one man to the other, and said, “I see ye’ve become acquainted with Mister Chamberlain. And a fine judge a character ye are if he’s lying in the corner wetting himself now.”
Chamberlain had assumed the stench was of the thuggish peasant and only then realised the girl’s abrasive words were true. Damn her! He’d show her a thing or two once he got rid of his uninvited guest.
“You’re looking after him?” Baronaire asked her.
“I came with the house,” she replied coyly.
“You’re not Scottish though?”
“Ah, you could tell by my Irish accent? Been looking after this pig for a while now and he has nae even noticed.”
“But you have a Scottish name?” Baronaire asked.
“My father’s Scottish, an’ so am I. But my mother’s Irish, so I flit between accents. Chamberlain wouldn’t likely notice if I threw a bit of Indian in there too.”
Chamberlain rose slowly, noting that Baronaire was watching Agnes with interest. The girl was looking at the floor, catching a glance at Baronaire every few moments as she curled her hair around one finger. She was not only insulting Chamberlain, she was flirting with the enemy!
“Are you staying in the area long?” she was asking.
“Just passing through,” Baronaire replied.
“Storm’s pretty bad. Do ya have anywhere maybe to stay the night?”
The storm suddenly intensified. “Yeah,” Baronaire said, “storm’s bad. Might have to stay a while. Stop.” This he said to Chamberlain, who for some reason did as he was bidden. He didn’t mean to, it was just that his limbs would not obey him. Baronaire stared at him with intense eyes, emotionless, void of any semblance of ... anything. “Go for a walk,” Baronaire said.
A walk? What did he think he ...?
Suddenly it was cold. Chamberlain shivered, turned about, wondering where he was. The winds were horrendous, his clothes were soaked through, and he was freezing. Turning, he could see the house, about fifty metres away, barely visible through the driving hail. He certainly hadn’t walked all the way out here, and couldn’t understand what he was doing. A second ago he was in the house, where it was warm and dry.
He started back for the house then, although his foot slipped in the ice beneath and he felt emptiness beneath him. He cried aloud, but his screams were swallowed by the storm; he scrabbled for purchase, but the storm was battering him and had no intention of allowing him to rescue himself. The winds howled at him as he fell, the snows laughing with frozen tears. He hit the churning water far below and within moments received his fondest wish.
Walter Chamberlain escaped Scotland. Forever.
CHAPTER TWO
There had been a freak storm out on the cliffs last night, but the radio was saying it was over. There had been snow apparently, although if there had been it was all melted now. Most folk agreed that anyone who thought they had seen snow had been confused by the terrible winds. Detective Sharon Foster didn’t know what to think, but then she was far from what could be considered ‘most people’.
Foster was a little on the short side, she would admit, a little on the unslim side, but not uncomfortably so. She had a lot of energy, or so people told her, and she figured it was actually true. She wasn’t what one would call a field agent; she was more at home in the office. Her strengths didn’t lie with going out to beat people up, for she was far happier doctoring figures, making statistics work the way she wanted them to, that sort of thing. When she and Baronaire had come up to Scotland, then, she had been entirely happy to let him go off and do his thing with Chamberlain. He was more than competent to get the job done alone and Foster would have just got in his way. And she couldn’t really stand the sight of blood, so it was best she stay in the hotel.
As she sat before her breakfast of bacon, eggs and hash browns, however, it was with the feeling that she had indeed gone out into that storm along with Baronaire. Her head was swimming so much, in fact, she felt certain she would be throwing up any moment now.
“Rough night?” Baronaire asked, dropping into the seat opposite her.
Foster winced. “Not so loud, yeah?”
“You get any sleep at all last night?”
“I ... Uh, probably.”
Baronaire did not smile, did not scowl. He didn’t react at all actually. He just sat there not doing much of anything. With Baronaire away, Foster had done what came naturally to her. She had gone undercover to see what she could discover about the locals, absorbing their culture along the way. It was research, and because of that she would even attempt to get a refund through expenses. For most people it would not work, but, as said, Foster was good with making figures say just what she wanted them to.
“We should head back to London.”
“Already?” Foster whined.
“We’re here on business, Foster. It’s not a holiday.”
“You never know how to have fun, Charles.”
Baronaire’s eyes narrowed; she had no idea why.
“Just one more day,” Foster said. “The DCI’s not going to know the difference. Just to see some of the sights, yeah?”
“It’s not what we’re here for.”
“Well ... we’ll tell him we had to tidy things up. The house, was there anyone else in the house with Chamberlain?”
“No. Place was empty.”
“Well we could say there were servants and we had to make sure they knew not to talk, yeah?”
Baronaire fixed her with terrifying eyes then and suddenly Foster forgot all about her hangover. “There was no one else in the house. You tell the DCI anything to the contrary, there’ll be hell to pay.” He rose slowly. “Now eat your breakfast. We’re leaving in half an hour.”
“We’re not leaving in half an hour,” another voice said. They both looked up to see a slim, fairly short woman of Chinese origin approaching with a bowl of porridge. She budged past Baronaire to take the seat he had just vacated. Then she began to eat her breakfast.
“I’m sorry,” Baronaire said, “why aren’t we leaving in half an hour?”
“Because I said so,” Detective Sue Lin said without looking up.
Baronaire said nothing, drew himself erect, balled his fists, and stormed away from the table.
Foster began to breathe again. “Wow, that was ... wow.”
“Mmm.”
“Oh my God, I’ve never seen Charles so angry. I thought he was going to throttle you, that was so amazing.”
Lin met her eyes then. “That would be amazing?”
“Well no, I just meant ... He’s so gorgeous isn’t he?”
The change of tone startled Lin, Foster saw. “Uh, he is?”
“Oh yeah. Charles and I, we’ve worked together a long while now, dear.” She thought she had best get that in in case the newbie detective had any designs on her man. “He ...” Her face fell and she sighed. “Just doesn’t seem to notice I exist.”
“I think he notices. Just not so sure he cares.”
Foster looked at her companion icily.
“You could try to stop calling him Charles,” Lin said.
Foster stared at her with a frown. Lin had gone back to her food, was b
arely acknowledging her at all. “Excuse me?”
“He doesn’t like being called Charles.”
“It happens to be his name,” Foster said, incredulous.
“Yeah, but he likes to play the hard man. Likes people to call him Baronaire.”
“Well he’s Charles to me,” Foster replied indignantly. “We have a special relationship, me and Charles. I’m sure you wouldn’t understand.”
“Sure. Soon as he starts noticing you exist, let me know, yeah?”
Foster rose also, stuck her head high. “If you’ll excuse me, I have places to be as well.” And she marched off, trying to walk in a straight line, and hurried only when she realised she really was going to be sick and needed to find a toilet fast.
It was not the finest ladylike moment in the career of Detective Sharon Foster.
*
In all honesty there wasn’t a reason to stay in Scotland, nor did Lin much want to. But there was something about Charles Baronaire that always made her angry, made her want to do the opposite of what he wanted. He cut a powerful figure, was the most imposing man Lin had ever known, except perhaps for the DCI. She thought about him then. Detective Chief Inspector Edward Sanders and Baronaire had worked together for over ten years now, but they were not friends. Sanders knew things about Baronaire that Baronaire wanted to know, and in truth Lin was beginning to feel she wanted to know them as well. The two men had already attempted to pit her against the other, and she had only been in the organisation for a few months. After debating on where she stood, Lin had finally decided she would side with neither against the other. If they wanted to have their little macho war that was their business, but it was nothing to do with her.
Her porridge finished, Lin took the bowl to where a member of staff was tidying things away. She didn’t have to of course, but she had been brought up to be polite, and if there was one thing she had actually listened to her parents about it was that.
“You’re from London,” he told her as he stacked the plates.
“Most people in London think I’m from China.”