‘I do know,’ I said. ‘I just prefer not to use them, whenever possible. Guns make it far too easy to make the kind of mistakes you can’t put right afterwards. And they tempt you into dramatic gestures, when a little thought and some careful diplomacy would probably get you further.’
‘We don’t all have your built-in advantages,’ Penny said dryly. ‘How are you feeling? Did that sedative have any effect on you?’
I considered for a moment, then shook my head. ‘Whatever was in that needle, my system seems to have given it a good kicking. I feel fine.’
‘What are we going to do with MacKay?’ said Penny.
‘Well to start with, you can point that gun somewhere else,’ I said. ‘We are not shooting him.’
‘I never said we should,’ said Penny. ‘I was just … covering him. In case he woke up suddenly and decided he was in a bad mood.’
‘We can’t leave him here,’ I said. ‘It wouldn’t be safe.’
‘I don’t think he’s the murderer,’ said Penny. ‘He seemed very convinced it was you.’
‘Yes,’ I said. ‘I wonder who convinced him?’
‘We could always take him to the security centre, put him in with Martin. They could look out for each other.’
‘Put our two best suspects together?’ I said. ‘I don’t think so. I don’t trust Martin any more than I trust MacKay.’
‘I heard that!’ said Martin’s voice.
‘Welcome back!’ I said. ‘How long have you been listening?’
‘Long enough,’ said Martin.
‘Did you see what just happened here?’ said Penny.
‘Oh yes,’ said Martin. ‘Every bit of it. I never saw anyone move that fast in my life, Ishmael. You were just a blur on my screen. Does the Organization supply you with special drugs to supercharge you? And if so, can I have some? And what do you mean, you don’t trust me? I’m the one who’s been supplying you with useful information on everything that’s been happening.’
‘Don’t take it personally,’ I said. ‘I don’t trust anyone. Save for Penny, obviously.’
‘Nice save, sweetie!’ said Penny. ‘I hardly had to glance at you at all.’
‘To hell with both of you!’ Martin said loudly. ‘I’m going to lock myself inside the security centre and not come out again until the cavalry gets here. I know when I’m not appreciated. And don’t come banging on my door begging to be let in when someone’s after you, because I won’t listen. Even if you’re being pursued by the headless bodies of Redd and Hayley carrying chainsaws. So there!’
‘About those reinforcements,’ I said. ‘Why aren’t they here yet? You said they could get here in under an hour once an emergency call had gone out, but it’s been a lot longer than that and no one’s turned up yet. What’s happened to them? Hello? Martin? Oh hell, he’s gone again …’
‘Either his systems have crashed or he’s not talking to us,’ said Penny.
‘A good way to avoid answering questions,’ I said. ‘We’ve got to put MacKay somewhere safe. Even if Martin stays locked up in his centre, Doyle’s still out there somewhere.’
‘You don’t trust him either?’ said Penny. ‘All right, he stabbed you in the neck with a needle, but he was understandably upset at the time. And he was quite definitely with us in the library when these new murders took place.’
‘It’s a bit late to start defending the man now,’ I said. ‘After you gave him the full force of your famous St Theresa’s kick. I felt the impact all the way over here.’
Penny shrugged, unmoved. ‘He hurt you. I won’t stand for that. But a moment’s panic isn’t enough to mark a man as a murderer. And you saw how upset he was over Hayley’s death.’
‘He could have been faking it,’ I said.
‘If he’s that good an actor, he should be on the stage,’ said Penny. ‘And anyway, if he was a professional agent like you, I wouldn’t have been able to take him down that easily.’
‘Probably not,’ I said. ‘Still, he ran away.’
‘Maybe his survival instincts finally kicked in,’ said Penny. ‘Because let’s face it, if he isn’t the killer he might as well have “Future Victim” tattooed on his forehead. And anyway, I still think there’s someone else inside the Lodge with us.’
‘Are we talking about Parker, the walking undead, again?’ I said.
‘It could be him,’ Penny said stubbornly. ‘Or there could be some other person, some assassin sent by the opposition, coming and going through that window in the lounge and using the hidden tunnels MacKay found to get around. Martin keeps saying he’s seen someone on his screens who isn’t one of us. If it’s not Parker …’
‘Let’s take MacKay upstairs,’ I said. ‘We can put him in our room. It has no windows and we can use his master key to lock him in.’
‘Does it have to be our room?’ said Penny. ‘He might wake up and start going through our things …’
I looked at her. ‘What is this obsession you’ve got with people going through your luggage? What have you got hidden in there that you don’t want anyone else to know about?’
‘Don’t you question me, Ishmael Jones! A woman’s suitcase should be inviolable.’
Some arguments you just know aren’t going to go anywhere useful. I gestured at MacKay.
‘I’ll take his shoulders, you take his legs. After we’ve dropped him off, I think it’s our turn to go exploring the secret tunnels.’
Penny tucked her gun into the back of her belt, just so she could clap her hands again, grinning from ear to ear.
‘About time! It’s not a proper country-house mystery if there aren’t sliding panels and secret passageways. Everyone knows that.’
‘Did Belcourt Manor have any?’ I said. ‘I never thought to ask at the time.’
‘A few,’ said Penny. ‘They didn’t really go anywhere. Daddy had all the entrances bricked up and sealed before I was born. Apparently they made the old place terribly draughty.’
‘Help me shift the old soldier,’ I said.
Penny hesitated, looking at the two severed heads on the bottom step. ‘What do we do with them?’
‘Leave them,’ I said. ‘They’re not going anywhere.’
We carried the unconscious MacKay up the stairs to the next floor. At least, the two of us started carrying him; until it became clear MacKay’s dead weight was too much for Penny to manage. She didn’t actually say so, but the unladylike grunts and increasing bad language made it clear she was having problems. So I threw MacKay over my shoulder and trudged up the stairs. Penny followed on behind, saying nothing very loudly. I paused at the top of the stairs, just in case, but the corridor was empty. It stretched away before us entirely untroubled by people or ghosts, and there wasn’t a moving shadow anywhere. The two doors I’d kicked in were still standing open; the rooms beyond were quiet and empty. I strained my hearing against the hush, but all I could hear was Penny’s harsh breathing behind me.
I hurried down the corridor, MacKay bouncing uncomfortably on my shoulder, until we got to our room. The door was standing half-open. I stood and looked at it for a long moment. I was sure MacKay said he’d locked it after he left. I put one foot against the door and kicked it open. The door slammed back against the inside wall, the flat heavy sound echoing loudly. Inside, all the lights were burning brightly. More than enough illumination to show no one was home, or rummaging through our things. Penny leaned in close and peered past me.
‘What are you looking for, Ishmael?’
‘Just one thing in this whole mess that makes sense,’ I said.
‘It’s only a mess until you understand it,’ Penny said wisely. ‘Have you really no one in mind for the murderer? You sounded very convincing when you were accusing MacKay.’
‘That was just to hold his attention,’ I said. ‘He’s a good suspect, but I’m still working on a few ideas. I think the key to all of this was the way Parker disappeared between the top and bottom of the stairs, even though I was right behind
him.’
‘That was just impossible!’ said Penny.
‘Yes,’ I said. ‘It was.’
Penny sighed, and looked round the room. ‘We didn’t get to spend much time here, did we? And in the meantime, who’s been sleeping in our bed?’
‘If three bears should turn up,’ I said, ‘you have my permission to shoot them.’
‘I don’t suppose there’s any porridge, is there?’ said Penny. ‘I’m feeling a bit peckish.’
‘Would it be OK if I was to take MacKay in and dump him on the bed?’ I said. ‘Only he isn’t getting any lighter, you know.’
‘Go ahead,’ said Penny. ‘Don’t let me stop you. You’re the one hanging around in the doorway talking about bears.’
I dropped MacKay on to the bed and arranged him reasonably comfortably, while Penny quickly checked her various pieces of luggage for signs of tampering. MacKay made a few growly noises in his sleep, but showed no intention of waking up. When I hit people, they stay hit.
‘Someone’s taken your socks off the security cameras,’ Penny said quietly. ‘I’m not sure if that means anything, or not.’
‘It might,’ I said.
Penny waited. ‘Well?’
‘Let’s go check the secret tunnels,’ I said.
‘Let’s,’ said Penny.
I searched through all of MacKay’s pockets to find his master key, and of course it had to be in the last pocket I looked in. Just the usual electronic key card. We went back out into the corridor and I closed the door and locked it, slipping the master key into my back pocket, just in case it might come in handy later. Penny and I stood before the end wall and looked it over carefully. It didn’t take me long to find the outlines of the concealed sliding panel. It had been hidden very skilfully, with centuries-old craftsmanship, but the outlines all but jumped out at me now I knew what I was looking for. Opening the panel took longer, and I was almost ready to give up and kick it in when Penny’s sensitive fingertips found a concealed trigger. The panel slid back smoothly, revealing shadows and cobwebs and a dark space stretching away beyond. Penny started to stick her head in, then stopped to wrinkle her nose.
‘This smells seriously foul! I don’t think anyone’s sent a cleaner in here for generations.’
‘That would rather give the game away,’ I said. ‘But someone must have oiled the mechanism recently so we wouldn’t hear it being used.’
Penny scowled into the dark opening. ‘I’ll bet there are rats and spiders, and horrible scuttling things. And all kinds of droppings.’ She paused, as a thought struck her. ‘Speaking of which, if Parker really is a walking dead man, shouldn’t you be able to tell from the smell? All the decay and stuff? Couldn’t you track where he’s been with your amazing nostrils?’
‘I may be specially gifted,’ I said, ‘but I’m not a bloodhound.’
Just to keep her happy, I took a good sniff at the stale air inside the wall.
‘OK,’ I said, ‘I’m getting mould, rising damp, rotting wood, and dust from crumbling stone … But that’s about it.’
‘No rats?’ said Penny.
‘No,’ I lied. Because otherwise I knew I’d end up having to push her into the tunnel ahead of me.
‘It’s very dark in there,’ she said dubiously. ‘I mean, I’m all for exploring but maybe we should go back downstairs and get some torches first?’
‘If the killer has been using these tunnels, he must have some way of seeing where he’s going …’ I said.
I reached inside the panel and felt around the grimy stone wall, and sure enough there was a light switch. I hit it and leaned inside. A series of dull lights had come on, stretching away at intervals the whole length of the tunnel. The passageway was full of filth and cobwebs and the dust of centuries, and the floor dropped sharply down. I stepped inside the tunnel and waited patiently, until Penny had screwed her nerve up enough to join me.
‘I thought you wanted to see the sights?’ I said.
‘The tunnels, yes,’ she said. ‘Rats and other small scurrying things, not so much.’ She glared about her. ‘Where are we exactly?’
‘The outer wall of the Lodge must be hollow,’ I said. ‘But MacKay said there were tunnels leading off tunnels. This could take some time …’
‘Then we’d better get moving,’ said Penny. ‘We have a killer to track down.’
She looked at me meaningfully, until I took the lead.
The tunnel dropped sharply away before us, rounded a corner, and then became a narrow stone chimney dropping a long way down. There was a series of steel rungs hammered into the wall to serve as steps. We descended for quite a while before we were able to step out into another tunnel, with a roof so low Penny and I had to stoop right over to avoid banging our heads. The rough stone walls were pitted with age and spotted with dark mould. Thick mats of spider webs hung down like ragged grey curtains. Great holes had been torn through them, where someone had forced their way through before. Puffy clumps of milk-white fungi blossomed where the walls met the floor. The air was stale, full of unpleasant odours, and so dry it irritated my throat. The various scents grew thicker and heavier; and I had a growing feeling there was something underneath them that I didn’t like at all. I glanced back at Penny to make sure she was OK, and was surprised when she grinned cheerfully back at me.
‘I don’t care if there are rats,’ she said defiantly. ‘This is cool! Exploring centuries-old hidden tunnels … It’s like walking back into history. What do you suppose this was all about originally? I mean, someone went to a lot of hard work to build all this. It’s like a house within a house.’
‘Could have started out as the support structure for a priest hole,’ I said. ‘Back in the days when a lot of the wealthier families were still Catholic, even after Henry VIII decided the whole country was going to be Protestant, no matter whether it liked it or not. Hanging on to their own private priest was just another way for old titled families to establish their independence from an overbearing monarch. Or this could all be down to smuggling. A very popular and profitable pastime, back in those days. You could hide a lot of illegal goods down here, and people.’
We kept passing openings in the walls, gaping stone mouths that led to more tunnels, and small dark rooms where the light couldn’t reach. The passageways twisted and turned so often that I lost all track of where we were. Except we clearly weren’t inside the Lodge any longer. We were deep down underneath it, and the smell was getting worse. As though we were getting close to something bad.
‘No wonder our killer could appear and disappear so easily,’ said Penny. ‘He was literally running rings around us. Which is cheating, really.’
‘A good way to avoid the surveillance cameras,’ I said, ‘when the damned things are working.’
‘Pardon me for asking,’ said Penny, ‘but are we headed anywhere in particular? I’m starting to think I should be leaving a trail of breadcrumbs behind us. You seem very sure of which turnings we should take.’
‘There’s something up ahead,’ I said. ‘Something really bad.’
‘So of course we’re heading straight for it,’ said Penny. ‘At some point, we’re going to have to sit down and have a serious talk about making better lifestyle decisions.’
I stopped so suddenly she bumped into me from behind. She started to say something, then broke off as I raised a hand and nodded at the way ahead.
‘Someone’s in here with us,’ I said quietly.
Penny squeezed in beside me for a better look. Standing side by side we filled the narrow tunnel, our shoulders pressed against the rough stone walls. The bare light bulbs hanging from the ceiling at long intervals provided just enough light to show the tunnel ahead was empty. Penny put her mouth next to my ear.
‘I don’t see anyone … Are you smelling someone?’
‘No,’ I said. ‘I heard them. I don’t just rely on my nose.’
‘Sorry,’ said Penny. ‘Who do you think it is?’
‘The footstep
s are heavy enough to suggest a man,’ I said.
‘A living man?’ Penny said carefully.
I sighed, just a little. ‘He’s not dragging his feet and I’m not hearing any low moans, so yes, almost certainly.’
‘What do we do?’ said Penny. ‘Chase him down?’
‘He must have come into these tunnels for a reason,’ I said. ‘Either to look for us or to check on something. I say we sneak up on him and see where he’s going. Unless he’s just here to kill us, of course.’
‘I’ve got my gun,’ Penny said immediately.
‘In such a confined space?’ I said. ‘I hate to think what a ricochet would do in here.’
‘All right! I was just being prepared …’
‘Listen,’ I said.
We both stood perfectly still, breathing shallowly so we could concentrate on the quiet sounds up ahead. Footsteps, slow and steady, pausing now and again as though someone wasn’t too sure where he was. Or where he was going. And always there was the smell, that bad smell, filling my head. Penny stirred at my side and put her mouth next to my ear again.
‘I can’t hear any footsteps, but I am quite definitely hearing small and nasty scurrying sounds behind me. We had better start moving soon, because if something furry runs over my foot I am going to make the kind of noise that will rattle around inside your head for days.’
‘It’s probably more frightened of you than you are of it,’ I said.
‘Daddy used to say that to me when I was small,’ said Penny. ‘But even then I had enough common sense to know complete and utter bullshit when I heard it. You’re really not bothered by things like this, are you? You’re the only man I ever met who didn’t freak out at a spider in the bath.’
‘Such things don’t bother me,’ I said.
I didn’t say, ‘Because I get glimpses of much worse things in my dreams – in brief glimpses of my old life.’
‘Whoever this is, he’s directly ahead of us,’ I said. ‘Definitely just the one person.’
‘Then let’s go grab him,’ said Penny. ‘I’m far less scared of confronting a murderer than I am of some great lumpy mutant rat. Are you ready, space boy?’
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