“And if you can’t? If we can’t?”
He sighed. “I don’t know, but he’ll have a contingency ready for exactly that.”
***
Bathed in sweat, lost in that mental, physical and emotional void between orgasm and the senses returning to normal, Croft nuzzled Millie’s neck.
His second day back in England had been hectic and trying, but an excellent, well done steak at one of his favourite Scarbeck restaurants, followed by an hour of rising passion and concupiscent release, had done much to improve his mood. Sex with Millie was so much more satisfying than the passing encounters he had enjoyed in Puerto Colon, Los Christianos or Playa de Las Américas.
Sex with Trish would be even better, he thought, and was immediately consumed by the same guilt that had troubled him ever since The Handshaker abducted his partner twenty months ago. A guilt that was stronger now that Trish was no longer with them.
Painful though it was, the shock of losing her was not so great as it might have been. The intervening twenty months had done much to edit Trish from his life. When Burke took her away, he took her so completely that even when Croft had her back, she was lost to him, locked in a mental hell of his creation which eliminated all that had been good in her life… and Croft’s.
Despite the excitement between him and Millie, the Detective Inspector had never been much more than a sexual partner. When he asked her to live with him in the Canary Islands, she had refused, and when she begged him to stay in England, he had declined. They were good in bed, but he recognised that she filled only the need to deal with his pressing libido, and Millie would often admit exactly the same.
Trish. Trish was the woman he wanted, the woman he was meant to be with. But Trish was gone again, forever this time, beyond pain, beyond mortal needs, much further than she had been in the week when Burke kept her imprisoned in his back bedroom.
So Millie fulfilled the role he had cast her in. She allowed him to dispose of the excess testosterone, clear his mind of libidinous clutter, let him think clearly, let him plan.
“I’m worried. About you.”
Millie’s voice cut into his post-coital ruminations. He rolled from her, lay on his back, and she raised herself on her elbow, lay her head on his breast as if she were listening to his heartbeat. Croft slipped an arm around her and stroked her naked back.
“You’ll kill him, won’t you?”
It sounded like an accusation and, to Croft, who had spent his life arguing against judicial executions, it rankled, but he recognised its accuracy.
“Yes.” It was the truth.
“Even if means killing yourself.” This time Millie was not asking, but making a statement.
“It’s what I should have done at Cromford Mill. If I’d had the courage to do what I should have done, not ring you or Shannon, Burke would have been dead then, Mr X would have no hold on us, and no one else would have suffered.”
Millie propped herself on her elbow again, her right breast dangling close to his chest, her warm eyes gleaming in the dim night light. “You can’t go through life blaming yourself. Felix, you are not perfect. You can’t second-guess the actions of a maniac any better than the rest of us. You weren’t to know that Burke would escape. You weren’t to know that he even possessed this manuscript, let alone had an accomplice willing to go along with him.”
Croft toyed with the nipple, rolling it between his forefinger and thumb. “The manuscript is irrelevant. If there is is a secret in it, it’s too well hidden. Burke obviously couldn’t find it, which is why he handed it over to our man, and had it sent to me. All those women Burke murdered died for nothing. So, too, will Trish, Ted and Belinda unless I can find a way out, but if I can’t, then he and I will die together, and my death will not be for nothing because I’ll rid the world of this madman.”
“And what about the mess you leave behind when you sacrifice yourself?”
He shook his head. “No mess. I have no children. I had no one other than Trish, and you, of course, but you’re… I don’t know… different.” He pulled her to him, kissed her, let his lips play with hers. “I love you, Millie, but not with the same intensity as I did Trish. And I know you care about me, but do you care enough to give yourself totally? You don’t and you know you don’t.”
She responded to his touch, but not enough to redirect her intentions. “I know, I know. We just fuck when we feel like it, and I’m as happy with that as you, but that doesn’t mean you won’t leave a gap in my life if you kill yourself along with this nutter.”
With a sigh, Croft reached down, grabbed her behind and lifted her onto him. Her thighs parted as she settled. The head of his flagging member brushed against her parted vulva and the urge began to build. As his erection grew, Millie’s gyrations allowed him entry, and she began to work above him, her hands upon his chest, pressing herself to a kneeling position. He toyed with both breasts, pinched between her straight arms, and they were both lost to the hedonism again.
When he had climaxed within her, she had collapsed upon him, utterly spent, and lay above him, her head turned to one side, while he ran gentle fingers through her soft hair.
“Has it ever occurred to you just how alike you and Burke are?” she asked suddenly.
He smiled. “I’ve never raped or murdered anyone. I’ve never even forced a woman into bed.”
“That’s not what I meant.” Millie held her head up again and looked into his eyes. “You’re an expert hypnotist, so was he. You could fuck for England, and so, apparently, could he if he had not been so twisted. You’re obsessed with the same end, even if it is for different reasons. He wanted this Deep Secret so he could abuse it and now his partner wants it. You want it to prove that it exists, and neither of you will stop until you get what you want.”
“Or one of us dies,” Croft said. “Or even both of us die.”
Millie rolled off him and cuddled up close. “Let’s not go through that again.”
23
Making his way along the port gangway of HMS Matlock, Burke found his way blocked by two seamen.
“All right, Jack,” he greeted cheerily.
“No, we’re not all right, Tommy,” scowled AB Lecky.
“Sorry to hear that, my old chum.” Burke scowled back. “Still finding your sea legs, are you?”
Lecky moved forward, his shipmate, Ferry blocked the way pressing Burke back against the ship wall. “Don’t get smart,” Lecky warned. “Many a man’s got smart with us, ain’t they, Ferry?”
“‘At’s right, Lecky.” Ferry, a good four inches taller than Burke, leaned into him. “Tell ye what we don’t understand.” He waved a vague arm off the side of the ship where the Normandy coast could be seen. “O’er there, our lads are still landing, still pressing Jerry, still getting shot to hell, and here you are riding shotgun with a fucking kraut. Now, what’s the game?”
Burke felt himself trembling. At Dunkirk, he had never given a thought to the fighting. It wasn’t something he chose to do, it was something he had to do. Kill or be killed. The maxim applied even when they were in retreat. You saw sight of the Nazi grey and you opened fire because if you didn’t, the bastard would open up on you. He was not much more than a boy then; nineteen years old, and he’d lost count of the number of his pals he’d seen die on the battlefield, and on the beaches while they waited for evacuation. Fear became a part of everyday life; most of them dealt with it, some didn’t and would never be fit to serve King and Country again.
But they were fighting the Germans, not each other, and any apprehension was the distant threat of a German bomb, shell, or bullet, catching you.
Here, on this Town Class destroyer, he was confronted with two men, both bigger than him, who were supposed to be on the same side, and yet they were clearly threatening to beat the living daylights out of him. It was new territory; akin to the playground bullies of his childhood, but much more threatening and capable of inflicting greater damage.
Counter to their int
imidation and much more serious was the warning Captain Stokes had given him when they left Folshingham Hall for Portsmouth. “Saying anything to anyone could be considered treason, and it’s still a hanging offence.”
Six months had passed since he began his work with Julius, and their mutual interest in hypnotism had seen a firm friendship strike between them; a friendship that transcended nationality and enmity; a friendship which had progressed to first name terms.
And Burke had learned much, including The Deep Secret, but as yet, he had had no success.
“It affects less than one percent of the population,” Julius had reminded him. “Here, our options are limited because we do not see so many people, and this is precisely why I use the chemical concoction my master taught me. It is more reliable than The Deep Secret, although not always as effective. Have patience, Graham. One day you will meet the man or woman upon whom it will work.”
Julius also taught him how to mix the brandy, cough mixture and chloral hydrate, with a promise that once the war was over, Burke could make much of the secret. For his own part, Burke doubted it. Chloral hydrate was easy to get hold of here, where the intelligence services needed it, but in civvy street it was controlled by prescription.
He was determined, however, to master all that Julius could teach him. When this war was over, Graham Burke, The Great Zepelli as he liked to be called in the theatre, was determined to become the greatest name in variety, and he believed hypnotism was the way to do it.
Right now, he was confronted with two burly seamen determined to beat classified information out of him.
Sucking in a shaky breath, he said, “I’ll you what I’m up to, shipmates. I’m up to doing as I’m told, and my orders are to shut up. So I shut up.”
Lecky sighed. “Fucking square bashers, eh, Ferry? Never understood why the navy is called the senior service. Show him.”
Ferry drew back his fist and launched it at Burke. Much to his surprise the corporal caught it in his palm and clamped a vice-like hand over the knuckles. He stared intensely into Ferry’s eyes.
“Surprised? Afraid? Yes you are. I can see it in your eyes.” Burke’s words came with rapid, commanding intensity. “You think you’re tough, but this kid from the backstreets of Bristol has just shown you how soft you are, and that makes you feel afraid, scared. You’re trembling, frightened, shaking like a bride on her wedding night who’s just seen the size of her husband’s dick. And it’s getting worse. Every second I hold your fist you can feel your strength draining, your terror growing. Go on, jack tar, burst into tears. You know you want to, you know you’re terrified of me, of my power, and it makes you want to cry.”
Sinking to his knees, Ferry looked up and Burke could see the unmistakable signs of fear in his eyes, tears sparkling in the corners, his mouth opened, working soundlessly.
“Scared, like a little child left in the dark, you’re scared out of your wits…”
“Is there a problem, Corporal?”
At the sound of Captain Stokes’s voice, Burke released the seaman and stood back, at attention. “No, sir, no problem. Just passing the time of day with our shipmates, sir.”
Stokes eyed the three men curiously, before snapping at Burke. “You’re supposed to be guarding Reiniger.”
“Yes, sir. Sorry, sir. Needed a breath of fresh air.”
“Right, well you’ve had your fresh air, get back inside and make sure our man doesn’t try to swim for it.”
Burke saluted. “Yes, sir.”
Stokes rounded on the seamen. “And you two, get back about your work.”
***
Back in their shared cabin, Julius applauded him. “Excellent, Graham. What you did was so close to The Deep Secret.”
Burke chuckled. “You always said The Deep Secret is no more than surprise and command. I was in trouble there so I had to try it.”
“And you did well,” Julius applauded. “But remember, The Deep Secret needs no words, only actions.”
***
(As related in part by Captain John Stokes to Corporal Graham Burke.)
Stokes judged Commander St Ives, OIC of HMS Matlock, to be about five years older than himself. General Quarmby had been hazy on the matter, but Stokes’s own research led him to the conclusion that St Ives held a rank equivalent to the Lieutenant Colonel. Even if that were wrong, there was no questioning the Commander’s authority aboard ship and it was safer to address him as ‘sir’.
“You have to see things from their point of view, Captain Stokes. My men were here on 6th June. They watched thousands of our troops making for the beach, and they saw thousands of them who didn’t make it to the beach. Decent English and American boys cut to ribbons by the Nazis, and now we’re escorting one of them back to Normandy.”
The two officers stood alone on the exterior, compass bridge of the Matlock, while the ship negotiated a way through the safe channels to the harbour entrance at Cherbourg.
“I understand how your crew feel, sir,” Stokes said, “but my people operate under conditions of absolute secrecy, and that includes me. I can’t tell you why, I can only follow orders.”
“According to my MO, something your man either said or did has terrified the life out of Ferry, and trust me, Captain, Peter Ferry is not one who’s easily scared.”
“I can only apologise, sir,” Stokes replied. “Burke and the German non-com, Reiniger, are a pair of oddbods, but their work is vital. We have that from the very top. I’m not permitted to tell you more, but even if I could, I’m not sure I could explain it very well. Colonel Quarmby has overall authority in this matter, and he’s answering directly to SIS. At their insistence, it is vital that these two men make it to France in one piece. Even if we come under attack, their safety is of paramount importance.”
A signal light flashed repeatedly from the shore. Up above and aft of them, the Officer of the Watch studied the signal through glasses, and the moment they had finished, slid open his window. “They’re telling us to hold our position, sir,” he called out.
“All stop,” St Ives barked. “It won’t be long now, Stokes. They’ll send a launch out to pick you up.”
“You’re not going all the way in?”
St Ives shook his head. “The Yanks secured Cherbourg a couple of weeks ago, according to my information, but Hennecke, the German naval commander, mined the harbour so well that it’s limited to smaller boats. If Quarmby wants your people ashore in one piece, then it has to be by launch.” St Ives smiled grimly. “No offence, old man, but I’ll be glad to see the back of you and your, er, oddbods.”
24
With a lot of heaving, sweating and panting, Detective Sergeant Harry Wilkins reached orgasm, and almost immediately Carol Russell rolled him from her.
In her early fifties, resolutely unmarried, Carol had spent all her working life as a newspaper reporter. Starting out with grand aspirations for the broadsheets, her speciality – crime, and particularly murder – made that untenable, and she had ultimately settled for the Scarbeck Reporter. Life, she often told herself, wasn’t too bad for a Scarbeck-born girl, and if the Reporter lacked the glamour of The Times, The Telegraph or even one of the tabloids, at least she made an above average income. She was deputy editor, chief crime correspondent, and she also did the weekly recipe, and women’s page. She earned extra money as a crime reporter for Radio Scarbeck, her pieces were sometimes syndicated in The Daily Mirror, and she had published a number of books on crime and criminals, her latest, a detailed account of The Handshaker murders, had been a brief bestseller after Gerald Burke’s trial and conviction.
She had Harry Wilkins to thank for most of the background information, and she usually thanked him two ways; in bed and his wallet.
Aged forty-six, aside from Superintendent Shannon, Wilkins was the senior man in CID, and he had been an inspector until he ran into problems during the arrest of a drunken brawler in a Scarbeck pub. Wilkins was half drunk too, and while the brawler ended up with a broken jaw
and a fine, Wilkins was disciplined and demoted to detective constable. He’d managed to claw his way back up to sergeant, but now found himself subordinate to younger, more ambitious officers like Millie Matthews, and it rankled. His wife had left him, he was consistently short of money and thanks to his drinking, heading into middle-aged unreliability. In Carol’s opinion, he was a sad man, but he had his uses, particularly when she wanted inside information.
While Wilkins lay alongside her in that woolly, post-coital half world between sleep and full awareness, Carol reached for her cigarettes, lit one and demanded, “So what have you got for me.”
“Huh?”
“Come on, Harry. You’ve had your legover, and you promised me a story. Now give.”
“Oh. Right.” He took the cigarette from her and drew on it. Passing it back, he suffered a short coughing fit and, gasping for breath, said, “This’ll cost you a coupla hundred.”
“And you can piss off.” Carol, too, dragged on the cigarette. “Fifty. That’s our deal.”
“Come on, Carol. Play fair.”
“Fifty, I said, and if you don’t like it, you can get your pants on and get out.”
Grumbling incoherently to himself, Wilkins rolled from the bed and pulled on his shabby, ill-fitting Y-fronts. For a moment, Carol thought he was really going to leave.
“Ernie Shannon’s packing it in,” he announced suddenly, then rolled back to rest on the bed again.
Carol delivered a smile mixed with incredulity. “Shannon? Retiring? I don’t believe it. And I don’t believe you think that’s worth two hundred?”
“It’s true. He’s had enough. What with The Handshaker the year before last and now this nutter who’s topped Burke… who’s murdered Sinclair and her family, he’s ready for taking his pension.”
“What?” Carol homed in on his slip of the tongue. “What did you say?” she crushed out her cigarette and half turned. “Come on, Harry. You said this nutter had topped Burke. What do you mean? Is it true?” She reached across, pulled his face round so she could look into his eyes. They were vacant and worried. “He has, hasn’t he? This maniac has murdered Burke. Hasn’t he? Tell me, Harry.” Excitement pounded inside her, but she maintained the stern exterior of a schoolmistress having caught one of her charges in an act of depravity. “Talk to me, Harry, or I might be tempted to ring Shannon for confirmation and tell him where the tip off came from.”
The Deep Secret Page 17