Safe House

by Paul Starkey

  The body didn’t move while she descended. Now she could see it in its entirety. Could see Lucy staring up at the ceiling, could see that her chest wasn’t rising and falling.

  For the moment she ignored the body, concentrating instead on the cellar itself. There were overturned boxes, and evidence of several smashed wine bottles on the floor, but it didn’t appear there’d been a major struggle down here, and there was nobody else here; no hiding places.

  She jabbed the Beretta into her waistband and knelt beside Lucy Parrish. “Cover me, Tom,” she whispered.

  The bulb affixed to the wall did a poor job of illuminating Lucy’s corpse, but it showed enough for Chalice to be sure. Still she found her fingers moving automatically to the girl’s neck, hoping to find a pulse there. In spite of everything Lucy had done, nobody deserved a violent death.

  And Lucy’s death had clearly been violent.

  Some of the injuries looked almost self-inflicted, or at least accidental. The glass embedded in her hand, in the base of her foot, but others had certainly been visited upon Lucy by some external, purposeful force.

  Flakes of dust or dirt were wafting down from the ceiling, and some flecks landed upon Lucy’s eyeballs. The eyes continued to stare blankly upwards, at everything and nothing. The brown irises had become shrunken dots, the whites of the pupils bloodshot, laced with red veins and broken capillaries, making each orb look like ancient porcelain that had been smashed and pieced back together. She’d seen something similar before. In Israel; where else? She’d been near the end of her National Service, guilt ridden, cynical beyond her years, and utterly, bone wearily tired of it all. Still she had thought she’d seen everything all the nasty things people from every side of every conflict could do to one another.

  And then a near hysterical father had called her unit to a small house in the West Bank. They had followed him back to his home, a small blockhouse that couldn’t have been more than a few years old, yet looked like it’d been sitting there in the dry desert for a thousand years. Inside the air had smelt of death, like this cellar, and upstairs they found the man’s wife, sat cross-legged on the floor in a sparsely furnished bedroom. She was cradling a baby, and rocking gently back and forth whilst she softly sang a lullaby in Hebrew.

  On the nearby bed an old woman was lying face down. The back of her skull had been caved in—obviously with the nearby table lamp, its heavy wooden base caked in blood, as was the matted white hair of the old woman— and she was clearly dead, as was, it turned out, the baby.

  Taking the baby from the woman had proven easier than Chalice had imagined, her sergeant—a gruff old veteran with skin like leather—had merely crouched beside her and joined in with the singing. Then, after a few minutes, he had gently asked her to show him the baby, and she complied, opening her arms so he could take the swaddling wrapped bundle. Once her child was gone her arms closed in again, and she returned to her lullaby. Only this time she was only cradling herself.

  The story took a little while to figure out, but it transpired that the old woman was the man’s mother, and had been looking after the child. Apparently in the early stages of dementia, the old woman had become so agitated by the baby’s cries that she’d shaken it with such violence that its retinas detached and internal bleeding killed it within minutes.

  Chalice had seen the poor mite’s eyes. They showed the same damage as Lucy’s.

  Around Lucy’s throat were several dark imprints. Bruising that looked like fingerprints. A hand gripping her neck tight had caused it. She reached forwards with her own right hand, splaying her fingers to try and follow the indentations in Lucy’s flesh. It proved impossible. The hand that had done this was larger than hers. Still she felt compelled to touch the flesh again. When she’d checked for a pulse her touch had been light, but now she pressed harder. There still wasn’t enough pressure to justify the noise of grinding bone that sounded like someone stepping on a pile of dried twigs. Her hand pulled back.

  Someone, something, had gripped Lucy around the throat, then shook her so violently that her neck had snapped. Likely an autopsy would show severe brain damage as the brain had been smashed around inside the skull like a peach thrown into a blender.

  The cellar door had been locked. The house was secure, nobody could have entered without the alarm system warning them. That left only two options. One of the group had done this, or some other force inside the house had done this. Chalice knew damn well it hadn’t been any of them. Ibex likely had the inclination, but she doubted the strength, and he’d been with Cheung. Tyrell was weaker than Ibex most likely, and he’d been with her.

  No, this was something else. Something that could wrench doors off their hinges and cause lights to fail, something that could appear and disappear at will. Something that was beyond the rational.

  “Is she…”

  She looked up at Cheung; a curious mixture of hope and despair in his eyes. She nodded.

  “Do you want me to carry her upstairs?”

  Chalice stood, brushing dust from her knees. “No. We need to leave this as we found it. There’s going to need to be a formal investigation, forensics. We leave her and Brendan in situ.” She placed a hand on his shoulder when he looked dismayed at this. “It’s for the best, Tom. Besides it won’t be for long.” And with that she pulled the mobile out of her jacket. “I’m calling this fiasco to a close. I should have done it sooner.” She checked the phone. No signal, but hardly surprising down here. She slipped it back into her pocket. “Come on, let’s go.” And she started back towards the stairs, Cheung moving ahead of her.

  He’d barely mounted the steps when she realised that Ibex wasn’t moving. She turned to find the American knelt by Lucy’s body.

  “Quintus? Are you coming or do you want to stay down here?”

  He looked up. For a moment she expected tears in his eyes, compassion at least, but there was none, just the same blank walls, same as always. “May I close her eyelids at least?” The words lacked emotion, but the very fact he was saying them spoke volumes.

  Chalice nodded. “Hurry though,” she added with a whisper. She didn’t want to be down here any longer. The place felt like a crypt.

  Chapter thirty four

  Tyrell hoped Chalice wouldn’t be much longer. Just keeping an eye on the kid was tiring enough, but his vigil went beyond that. Besides the cellar there were two doors. He’d closed them both but couldn’t stop his eyes being drawn to them. Then there were the windows, and again he kept looking; As if expecting a ghostly face to appear there at any moment.

  And he didn’t like taking his eyes off Felix. The boy hadn’t said a word since Chalice and the others descended into the cellar. He’d been nervous enough to begin with, but now he seemed to have withdrawn into himself further. Chalice’s absence was obviously disconcerting for him. Whilst she may not have been the person he thought she was, she was still a familiar face, and to a young man embroiled in a frightening and totally unexpected situation, that familiarity might be all that was keeping him from doing something stupid.

  Tyrell couldn’t help from noting that the boy was standing quite close to a worktop upon which sat a wooden knife block. What do I do if he panics? If he runs for the door—or worse, goes for a knife?

  “It’s all going to be all right, Felix,” he said, trying to inject confidence and honesty into the words. The boy looked at him blankly. Tyrell forced a friendly smile. “Believe it or not we’re the good guys.”

  Felix said nothing, just dropped his gaze to stare at a newspaper left on the counter. Tyrell sighed and allowed his eyes to roam the room quickly. They swept back to the boy when he spoke.

  “Who’s down there?”

  For a moment Tyrell considered lying, but what would be the point? There came a time when even spooks had to come clean. “Her name’s Lucy. One of our group, or at least she was.”

  Felix cocked his head to one side. “One of you, but you locked her down there? Not a good guy then?”
>
  “Well…” Damn the kid, he was smarter than he appeared. “No,” he said after a long pause. “No she wasn’t.”

  Felix nodded, as if this confirmed every negative thing he’d thought about Chalice and the others. He took a step to his left. It was calculated to appear innocent, and maybe it was, but he was now within reaching distance of the knives.

  Tyrell felt his hands tremble. Frankly even if the boy did go for a knife he wasn’t sure he’d be able to stop him. The gun felt suddenly heavy in his hand, as if he were holding a cannonball, and it was all he could do to keep it down by his side, he wasn’t sure he’d be able to lift it.

  Felix took another meandering step. Tyrell almost shouted a warning. The return of the others calmed him, although from the look in their eyes, and the fact that only three of them appeared, he didn’t even need to ask the question.

  Chalice answered it anyway. “Lucy’s dead.” She closed the cellar door and, curiously, locked it. Then she turned to look at him. “Murdered,” she added.

  “Murdered?”

  She nodded. Suddenly she looked tired, beyond that; it was the same kindred sort of weariness he saw in his own eyes most days.

  “Who?” Tyrell wasn’t sure he’d get an answer, and as it turned out he didn’t.

  A sudden noise, the sound of a scuffle, made him turn, Chalice and Cheung too. The source of the sound was what he’d feared. Felix had lunged for the knife block. His hand had wrapped around the black plastic handle of a carving knife and he’d pulled it almost halfway out of the wooden sheath, the light from above reflecting off the shiny metal surface.

  The knife didn’t make it any further, because Ibex was suddenly standing behind him, his arms wrapping around him in a parody of a hug. One hand gripping Felix’s right hand, stopping it from pulling the knife clear, the other hand gripping the boy’s left wrist, holding his arm rigid to the counter.

  “That’s not the answer, son,” the American drawled.

  “Let me go…” Felix struggled but for all his youth he was at a disadvantage, Ibex had him tight, and when he squeezed tighter the boy yelped and released his grip on the knife.

  “There we go,” said Ibex and he took a step back, pulling the boy along with him. “No harm, no foul.”

  Tyrell had been frozen when Felix made his move, but now he took a hesitant step towards the boy. In the periphery of his vision he saw Cheung move too, but then Chalice overtook both of them, arms outstretched to halt them both. “You two take a few steps back, and holster your guns.”

  They complied. Tyrell had no holster, so the waistband of his jeans had to suffice. Even though he was glad to have it out of his hand, nervous paranoia made his fingers twitch. He’d checked the safety was on, he knew he had, but now doubt had started to nag at him…

  He jabbed his hands into his pockets in an attempt to forestall them drawing the gun to check and probably sending Felix in off the deep end again.

  He did seem calmer. Ibex was still having to hold him, but his struggles had become more half-hearted, as if he knew that it wasn’t a good idea, but pride was stopping him from giving up his struggle altogether.

  Chalice laid the Beretta and the Uzi on the kitchen table, the instruments of death looked incongruous against the chintzy tablecloth. Only when she was unarmed did she step towards the American and the boy.

  “Felix,” she said softly, pausing a good yard away from him.

  The boy pouted in her direction, but said nothing, just pathetically struggled some more.

  “Felix, you know that Quintus can’t hold you forever right? And you realise I can’t have you running around loose in this house?”

  “My house.”

  “Yes, Felix, your house, and we’re just guests, but we are here with your parents’ permission, and we are on official government business. You have my word on that.”

  “Your word.”

  “Yes, Felix. My word.”

  He snorted. “You didn’t even tell me your real name, didn’t tell my mum and dad either. Wait till I tell them, mum’ll sue the government for this, sue you.”

  Chalice smiled sadly. “She isn’t going to sue anyone, Felix, and she knew that it wasn’t my real name; even though she didn’t know what my name actually is.”

  “You’re lying. You’re a spy, that’s what they do. I know my mum.” He was nodding with self-satisfied certainty now. “She’ll sue.”

  “Not if she wants me to keep my mouth shut, Felix. Not if she wants me to maintain my silence over certain matters.”

  “What matters?”

  “Morgan Lodge Holdings.”

  She said the three words with deliberate slowness. Suddenly what colour had begun to return to the boy’s cheeks vanished. “I…I don’t know what you mean.”

  Chalice was nodding. “I think you do, Felix. Oh probably not the specifics, but living here during the holidays, popping back for weekends, I bet you heard things. Whispers, furtive telephone conversations, perhaps the odd argument between your parents.”

  Felix said nothing; his eyes had dropped to the floor though.

  “Yeah,” continued Chalice. “You know all right. And now you know why your parents agreed to let me use this house, and now you know why you have to grow up and stop being a whiny little fucking brat!”

  She spat the last four words with such angry venom that Tyrell flinched from them, and they hadn’t even been aimed at him. For his part Felix had looked up. He was still pouting, and he looked like he might cry at any moment, but it was clear the fight had been knocked out of him by the reference Chalice had made to Morgan Lodge Holdings (whatever that was), and when Ibex released his grip, Felix didn’t do anything stupid.

  What a group, Tyrell thought as he looked at each of them in turn. Felix looked like a little boy, out of his depth but accepting at least that he couldn’t stamp his feet and get out of this situation. Cheung barely seemed to be aware of what was going on in the kitchen, even during the struggle his eyes had seemed to flicker between everyone else and the cellar door every few minutes. Tyrell was glad he hadn’t gone down there.

  That left him, Chalice and Ibex. Tyrell was well aware how fucked up he was, but could at least console himself that he hadn’t got any worse. Chalice on the other hand looked increasingly frazzled, and when she’d snapped at Felix there’d been a wild look in her eyes that he hadn’t liked one bit.

  And then there was Quintus Armstrong. He didn’t look a bloody fraction different. Cool as the proverbial cucumber, as always. People had died, one trying to protect him one trying to kill him, but he was utterly fair, affording neither Brendan nor Lucy an ounce of emotion.

  Tyrell had gone into this mission with the nagging fear that Ibex would be the death of him, and nothing that had happened had done anything to change that viewpoint.

  Chalice reclaimed her guns. Beretta holstered, Uzi slung back over her shoulder, though she’d hesitated before doing this. At first Tyrell had wondered if she considered holding it at the ready, but he quickly surmised that actually she’d been pondering whether to ditch it.

  What good was even a submachine gun against the paranormal after all?

  The paranormal. Felix’s little outburst had proven a distraction, but only a very minor one. They were still trapped in a house where doors flew from their hinges, and where lights flared and died at will.

  When Chalice got the mobile phone out and dialled he felt as if a huge weight had been lifted from his shoulders. When she frowned and terminated the call without saying a word, that weight returned.

  She must have seen the worry in his eyes. “No signal,” she explained. “Must just be this side of the house.” She glanced around the room. “We’ll head back to the drawing room, I know I can get a signal there.”

  Tyrell would have felt comforted by her smile, if only he hadn’t noticed how much her hands were shaking.

  Chapter thirty five

  The trip back to the drawing room passed without incident. Onc
e inside Chalice suggested people sit down, meanwhile she withdrew the phone and was pleased to see that the signal strength was good now. Still she paused, didn’t phone straight away.

  Instead she took Cheung by the arm and drew him away from the others. Ibex and Tyrell took note of this, but neither said a word. Felix didn’t even look like he’d noticed. He was entranced by the CCTV images on screen and actually sat down cross-legged before the telly like a small child.

  Knowing his mum, Chalice imagined this was something he’d usually be admonished for.

  Ibex had retaken his seat at the dining table, whilst Tyrell hesitated—eyes drawn to the leather armchairs-- then joined him, though she noted he sat about as far away from the American as he could. For a moment he looked like he was going to put the pistol on the table, but he obviously thought better of it, pushed his chair back from the table and cradled the gun in his lap instead.

  Ibex smiled wryly.

  Nobody said anything, not even Cheung as she led him over to the bookcases. He seemed in a daze. She understood why but needed him to snap out of it. Well hopefully what she was about to say might just do that.

  “I need the number for your contact, your handler in Six,” she whispered, leaning in close to him.

  The effect was instantaneous. Eyes that had been glazed over a moment before suddenly burst into life. He realised his mistake quickly, and tried to turn shock into confusion, but it was too late.

  “I don’t know what you mean?”

  “Don’t bullshit me, Tom. Not now.” She sighed. “I know you’ve been headhunted, know you’re moving over to SIS. To be honest I can’t say I’m surprised.”

  He said nothing.

  “The Russians and the Islamists are perceived as our big enemies these days, but we know that the Chinese are really our number one potential adversary, so then a British agent who can pass on the streets of Hong Kong without a second glance has to be a bonus, right?”

  He still said nothing. He was staring though, appraising her, or perhaps reappraising her. She saw something shifting in his eyes. Respect was transforming into something else. Wariness, perhaps a little fear and maybe, just maybe, hate.