by Peter Helton
In the attic I creaked along the uneven corridor, past my own door and to the end where the bathroom was. It was unreconstructed Edwardian and had a few personal items like toothbrush and shampoo in it, presumably Carla’s. The old roll-top bath had generously old-fashioned proportions. I tried the hot water. Nothing. Not a drop. The tap sighed emptily. Then it groaned. It was obviously thinking about it. It steamed for a bit, then it spat, then a glorious stream of piping hot water came noisily from the flared spout. I put the bathplug in and went to my room. Five minutes later I returned in my bathrobe with my drink, towel and sponge bag. As in the rest of the house there was no lock or bolt on the door. Presumably one was expected to sing in the tub to avoid embarrassment. I would definitely give that a miss. It would create embarrassment. I found Carla’s bubble bath on the window ledge and added a generous measure to the steaming water, adjusted the temperature from boiling hot to scalding hot and let myself sink groaning into the trembling mound of bubbles. I closed my eyes and instantly the image of Morgan’s shattered thigh appeared, blood spraying with the force of his pumping heart.
Morgan had been shot in the same place where he had been sitting when I got there, and the dart hit at the precise moment when he had stood up. Had the damp grass not made him move, had he still been sitting down, the dart could easily have pierced his chest or head. Only a few inches to the left and it would have found Guy’s head or mine. I took a large gulp of fortifying brandy. This time there was no doubt in my mind: someone had aimed to kill. This was no stone urn heaved off the roof and hoping for the best. Someone had carefully taken aim, at one of us three, wanting to kill.
Unless . . . I took a deep breath and slid under the water, held my breath until I thought my lungs would burst, then spluttered upright. Bath foam crackled noisily in my ears. Unless it was exactly the same scenario as the urn: a lucky shot, not caring if it hit or what it hit. I flicked the foam from my ears and blew a blob of it off the tip of my nose.
I heard a creak and looked towards the door. In the dim light from the low-wattage bulb I stared at the dented doorknob – was it moving? I noticed I was holding my breath again and let it out. Another creak, like someone putting weight on a floorboard, then quickly withdrawing it. Keeping stock-still would only alert whoever was out there to the fact that I had heard them. I made some casual splashing sound, then as quietly as possible lifted myself from the water and stepped on to the bath mat where I dripped for a moment, listening. I thought I could hear tiny sounds on the other side of the door. Softly I stepped closer, picking up a little wooden stool on the way; I held it like a weapon. Then I closed my right hand on the doorknob and yanked the door open. Nothing. The corridor was dark and empty.
Scary bathroom scenes, who needs them?
By the time I caught up with Needham on the terrace the cooking brandy had definitely done its thing; if anything, it had overshot its target. On the lawn and terrace, arc lights had been set up and in their cold glare people were making statements to police officers, both plain-clothed and uniformed. Superintendent Needham didn’t look any more pleased to see me now that I was freshly washed. ‘You took your time. I said get cleaned up, not go for the whole beauty treatment.’
‘My room’s up there under the eaves, Mike. Look at it; it’s a ten-minute hike just to get up there.’
‘And while I’m here on official business you can call me Superintendent.’
‘Super.’ Needham had once offered me first-name terms while his judgement was clouded by too much industrial lager and he had regretted it ever since.
Now he started on a familiar lament. ‘I should have guessed I would find you here. If there’s anything weird going on in Bath, Chris Honeysett is never far away. A man gets brained with a bottle? No sign of you. But a man gets shot with a two-thousand-year-old weapon and naturally you’re standing right next to it.’
‘I think I was probably hired to stop any weirdness developing.’
‘You failed.’
‘I’m not paid to stop bullets for people. Or ballista darts for that matter. What brought you out here in the vanguard? You usually take your time appearing. Man’s not even properly dead.’
‘Well, rock legend and all that. I was still working when the call came in, so I thought I’d have a look.’
‘Don’t tell me – you’re a closet Karmic fan.’
‘Lord, no, it was strictly folk music in my day.’
‘How sad for you.’ The ambulance had long left. ‘Any word on Morgan from the ambulance crew?’
‘Not one. They got a drip in him and carted him off. OK, then, start by explaining what you’re doing here.’
We took a stroll away from the police business on the terrace. Forensics were out in force, examining the crime scene and taking away the ballista and spare darts, all of which were being wrapped in copious amounts of clear plastic. A sad-eyed Brian watched them do it.
I gave Needham the long version of why I was here and what had happened so far, including the drugged Glenfiddich episode, the steam room incident, the tumbling urn and the dart in the dark, all of which sounded like episode titles for a 1930s wireless mystery.
He gave it a moment’s thought. ‘I think what Annis said is at least something to bear in mind. Both the urn and the dart could have been meant for you. It’s unlikely but possible.’
‘Highly unlikely; I never met any of these people before. I think both of them were meant for Guy Middleton.’
‘Well, don’t stand so close next time.’
‘I was just thinking the same thing myself.’
‘You know, when Time Lines decided to come to Bath they asked if police could provide security for them. We politely pointed out that we just lost five thousand police officers in the cuts and told them to get their own bleeding security.’ He made a sweeping gesture with one arm, encompassing the entire scene. ‘And now look at it. The entire nightshift is up here and then some. And I suppose you are the bloody security they hired!’
‘Ah, yes, I wondered when we’d get around to the Honeysett-it’s-all-your-fault bit.’
‘I’m not blaming you. Much. You’d need to hire an army to secure this place the way things are at the moment. I had a little chat with Mark Stoneking about his so-called security and it’s a complete farce. That way,’ Needham pointed back towards the house, ‘you’ve got a high wall and a security gate. But the gate has so much wrought-iron decoration it’s practically a ladder. That way,’ he pointed towards the tented camp of the diggers, ‘he’s got a bit of deer fencing, which then peters out where the farmland begins beyond the lake. Anyone can come in that way if they can swing their legs over a three-foot fence and aren’t scared of cows. And at that side of his property,’ Needham completed the compass by pointing beyond the hedge that hid the greenhouse, ‘he’s got bugger all apart from half a mile of brambles. It may discourage his fans but if someone wants to come and do him a mischief, or any of his guests for that matter, then the door’s wide open to anyone with a pair of secateurs.’
‘I wasn’t hired to patrol the perimeter.’
‘I guess not.’
‘We’ve no witness to the shooting then?’
‘No one saw anybody near the ballista, it was too dark. Wait a minute! There’s no “we have no witness” – you keep your nose out of this and leave it to us. Oh, why am I wasting my breath? But if you do find out anything you’ll let me know pronto. If you know what’s good for you.’
‘I’m well known for it. And guess who’s coming tomorrow to stay here and paint a mural for the Stone King?’
‘Really? Why am I surprised? I suppose that Tim Bigfoot chap’s not far behind then,’ he said and left me standing in the middle of the lawn.
‘Bigwood,’ I called after him. ‘It’s his wood that’s big!’
Apparently.
The questioning went on, the police took photographs as well as fingerprints for ‘elimination purposes’ and generally party-pooped around the place for ho
urs. Having been quizzed by the top quizmaster himself and my fingerprints being on file for an awful lot of previous elimination purposes, I was immune to all that. It had been a long day and I had drunk a tumbler of very fine brandy. So I thought I could safely call it a day and go to bed.
Wrong again. I woke suddenly, taking a fraction of a second to realize where I was. For a moment I lay still, blinking into the darkness. What had woken me I didn’t know, unless it was the stifling heat up here under the eaves. The tiny window was open but not a breath stirred. I groped for my mobile: four o’clock. I got up and stood by the window. It seemed a little cooler out there and very dark. The lonely twit-twoo calls of a couple of owls came from the woods. Then I heard a clink, quite faint, quite far off. But what kind of clink? There it was again. Metallic or stony? Metallic and stony, I decided. No reason why it shouldn’t go clink out there, with all those people camped around the place – Romans, Britons and field archaeologists, and most of them armed to the teeth. The police had very nearly confiscated all their weapons. But since they had made no arrest there was still one urn-flinging, dart-shooting maniac out there. Middleton had promised to barricade himself into his room and insisted he would only open the door to me. That was not as daft as it sounded: the only people who could not possibly have fired the dart were him, Morgan and me.
I dressed quickly. There was no way I would get back to sleep lying on my bed in this stifling room, waiting for the next clink. And anyhow, there was always that fenced-off greenhouse that was begging to be looked at. Downstairs I padded through the dark drawing room with the aid of my mini Maglite. As I had suspected, the key was in the lock and the French doors unlocked which confirmed Needham’s assessment that the security of Tarmford Hall was non-existent. It appeared that as long as it kept Karmic fans out of his hair it was enough for Mark Stoneking. I flicked off the light and, as quietly as I could, slipped through the door into the night. Out here I stood and let my eyes adjust to the dark. The cloud was broken and there were a few stars to pierce the darkness but I moved very gingerly nonetheless. Once on the vast lawn I didn’t expect any obstacles and quickly got my bearings. There was the dark huddle of the Britons’ encampment, nothing but an amorphous presence on the edge to my right. Further on down the slope were the ghostly white tent shapes of the Roman legion. I gave them a wide berth. Far to the left I could make out the hump of the giant spoil heap near the two trenches and, still thirty or so yards ahead of me, the dark mass of the first hedge between me and the lake. This meant I was probably in the right place to turn towards the greenhouse. I moved right and stopped. There were small noises ahead in the dark, breathing perhaps . . . shuffling . . . the sounds of exertion . . . not joyful exertion, I concluded. I moved cautiously towards it and the sounds abruptly stopped. There was a metallic clang, then a suppressed exclamation and all went quiet. I thought I could see a shape or two dwindle into blackness. If I used my tiny flashlight now it would probably achieve nothing much apart from telling everyone where I was. I was acutely aware that there were still any amount of bows and arrows out in those camps. I also retained the tiniest suspicion that perhaps, just possibly, both urn and arrow had been aimed at me after all. If I wanted to go on playing silly buggers in the dark I had better stagger on without a light. The one thing the torch would perhaps have achieved was to stop me cracking my ankle on something hard and cold. As it was I nearly fell over it. I groped around at my feet and even blindfolded I could have identified it as a spade. There was the black shape of a tree a few paces away so I lent it against that and went on. There it was, the dark loom of the high hedge that surrounded the greenhouse area, curving around at the bottom. I reached the stone-flagged path and found the iron gate set in the hedge. It was still locked so I scrabbled up it as well as I could, swung myself across and dropped down on the other side.
From having seen them in daylight through the bars of the locked gate I could tell what the dark shapes around me were: water butts, stacks of flowerpots, upturned wheelbarrows and several wooden bays that were probably compost heaps. I left them to my right and kept the greenhouse to my left. I flicked my torch on now as it was getting very dark here. The white paint used on the glass as shading against excessive sun made it look like the ghost of a greenhouse; its old-fashioned double door at the end stood wide open.
Nothing smells quite like half a greenhouse full of cannabis plants. I was no expert but these looked tall and perfectly smokeable to me, which probably explained the interest an enterprising field archaeologist took in the greenhouse after dark. Despite his heavy metal background, Mark Stoneking didn’t strike me as the pot-smoking type, so presumably these automatically watered, well-ventilated plants were what kept Sam the gardener happy on his rounds. Not that cannabis was the only thing growing there; the staging running along the centre of the glass house was full of flowering plants in pots, some on automatic watering systems and doing well, others had perished and shrivelled in the heat. Behind the greenhouse and half disappearing into the unruly hedge stood a substantial wooden shed. I focussed the beam of my torch on to the door. Its padlock had been broken off, hasp and all, and the door stood ajar. I pushed it wide. Neat rows of gardening tools hung from the walls or stood leaning against them. There was a workbench with hand tools and bays of potting compost. Whether anything was missing I couldn’t tell.
I climbed back out of the greenhouse area the way I had come and walked confidently back towards the house by starlight, which was a mistake because my right foot disappeared into a hole in the lawn and I fell flat on my face and twisted my ankle. I sat on the ground rubbing it and shone my torch at the unexpected hole. That was definitely not supposed to be there. It was far too deep and steep-sided to have been dug by an animal, bringing to mind the spade I had run into earlier. I flashed the torch around but its weak beam did not reveal any other holes, nor the author of this one. I hobbled back to the house and into the kitchen, found ice cubes in the fridge, shook them into a carrier bag and packed that around my ankle. Then I hobbled back to bed.
‘Nighthawks,’ Andrea said. We were standing with our breakfast cups of coffee by the hole I had fallen into. ‘We’ve got bloody nighthawks.’
‘And what are they when they’re about?’
Cy joined us. ‘Thieving bastards, is what they are.’
‘For once I agree,’ said Andrea. ‘Nighthawks are thieves armed with metal detectors who turn up at night on archaeological sites and dig up anything they fancy or can sell on eBay. They’re after coins, jewellery, any precious metal or artefact.’
‘Metal detectorists are brainless scum. Half of the time they don’t even know what they dig up or destroy.’
‘Not all of them are bad, Cy; we’ve had this conversation before. Some do keep records and notify us when they find something. Most are trainspotter-type people. But these chaps – and they are always men – that raid archaeological sites at night are criminals. We’ll tell the police of course but I know what they’ll say.’
So did I. ‘We no longer have the manpower?’
‘Yup,’ said Cy, kicking at the pile of earth left beside the hole. ‘They’re too busy chasing after drunks and druggies all night to protect us.’
‘Hang on a minute.’ Andrea pounced on the pile of earth Cy had kicked and lifted up what looked like a lump of mud to me but made Andrea smile happily. She stood up and rubbed at the lump with her thumb until we could see it was a Roman coin. She squinted at it. ‘There you are, fourth century. We’ll make an archaeologist out of you yet, Cy; you dug it up with your boot. Chris here probably disturbed them and they didn’t have time to find it.’
‘They’ll be back for it,’ Cy said.
‘I’m afraid Cy is right. We’ll have to keep eyes and ears open for the rest of the week,’ said Andrea. ‘They always come back.’
Cy was visibly fuming and his hands worked into fists. ‘If I get my hands on one of them I’ll ram his metal detector where the sun doesn’t shine.’
Andrea fluttered her eyelids. ‘Aw, Cy, I didn’t know you cared.’
When Mark Stoneking heard what had happened he was equally enraged, thumping the breakfast table. ‘Letting archaeologists dig up the lawn is one thing, but thieving nighthawks quite another. If I catch any of them I’ll let them have a dose of birdshot from my twelve-bore!’
‘I wouldn’t advise it,’ I said, suddenly sounding like a policeman. I would have to watch that. ‘Unless you can prove your life was in danger it’ll earn you a jail sentence. Mind you, I had some trouble myself a while back, so I emptied the shot out of some cartridges and replaced them with uncooked rice. Hurts like buggery but is unlikely to do much lasting damage.’
He immediately stood up. ‘Excellent idea. Any kind of rice?’
‘Obviously, Arborio would be apt if you had trouble with Italians but for your average British thief pudding rice will do.’
‘I’ll go and ask Carla if she’s got any. I’m not having these people creep around my house at night digging for treasure. And who knows, perhaps it was one of them who shot at Morgan. Perhaps they were trying to steal the ballista and it went off.’
It was a subdued team that returned to the legitimate dig under a sky of lazily moving summer cloud. Last night’s incident and the subsequent questioning by police meant that many had had too little sleep and too much to drink. Guy was monosyllabic at the breakfast table and the Britons, who were moving off now, looked glum. There was no more bravado, no more jeering. The Roman legion were tidying their camp and barely gave the departing Britons a glance. Emms called the hospital and announced the news that Morgan was now ‘in a stable condition’. ‘And how stable is Guy this morning?’ she asked. We were standing on the terrace while Guy finished his breakfast inside.