Lucifer's Abbey

by Smith, Michael James

  Cherie could not try again for ten minutes as there was a flow of people in both directions. Juliet had been trying to count how many different faces she had seen. It was eleven now. Hainsley-Sihl had a small army working under his direction. Were all these people Satanists? How could she have lived a whole lifetime and not known that this was happening in the midst of the modern world?

  There was a commotion in the corridor and the blonde haired woman appeared and started to bark orders. She was obviously a high ranking person amongst them and the men did not retaliate when she openly abused them. Her language was appalling and Juliet wondered what gutter Hainsley-Sihl had recruited her from.

  “You bloody lot should have finished an hour ago. We're late now. Get your asses upstairs and help load the last van. We're finished down here until the ceremony needs preparing.”

  One of the men was mumbling something as he passed her. She stopped him. “What the hell are you bloody moaning about now? Why is it always you who does the moaning Dennis? I'm sick of it!”

  “It's these stupid bloody torches; the batteries don't last five minutes. I was nearly lost down there! I don't want to get lost in that labyrinth you'd never get out again!”

  “You've only got your own stupidity to blame Dennis. You've been told repeatedly to carry a spare torch and spare batteries because you’re right you could get lost, there's more than five miles of tunnels down there and some of them are lethal. Before you come down to help prepare for tonight there are new batteries and torches I have just put into the little kitchen so get a spare torch and stop bloody moaning! We're only hours away from endless power - everything you've ever wanted. You should be rejoicing!”

  “What about them in the cells do we get a share of them too?”

  “The young one's mine, He promised her too me. You lot can do what you like with the old bitch. She's just up your street Dennis; she likes to cut people up too! Now bloody hurry up we need to get the house completely empty. We aren't coming back.”

  They passed along the corridor and Cherie and Juliet stared at each other across the tunnel.

  “Don't think about them, they are too dreadful to contemplate, try with the lock! Try as hard as you can Cherie! I'm sure you can do it. You were very close the last time.”

  The scissor ends came through and the bolt began to turn again. Juliet could see it was clear of the block and called across to Cherie to let her know. “Don't let it go! It will slide now if you can ease it along.”

  Several times Cherie tried and although she quickly became more proficient the bolt always turned back down the moment she lost her grip.”

  “I'm so sorry I’m so hopeless at it,” Cherie told her. The tiredness in her face made Juliet want to hug her and comfort her.

  “No you are not believe me. It's one of those things that just needs persistence like threading a needle in bad light. If you keep trying sooner or later you will do it.” She gave her the most encouraging smile she could manage. Both their lives depended on getting out of the cells.

  It was excruciatingly hard to watch and be unable to assist as the girl tried and tried, seeing how close she came before the bolt twisted back downwards each time.

  “How much space is there between the door jamb and the side of the door?” Juliet asked when Cherie stopped to rest.

  “Quite a lot, the scissors go through easily but they don't grip the bolt tightly enough.”

  “Can you grip it with the scissors and move it with the screwdriver?”

  “Cherie's face lit up. I can certainly get the nail file in as well!”

  Juliet's heart was in her mouth. It was probably their last hope of getting out.

  She watched the bolt turn and could see that it was in the right position to move past the block. She told Cherie. “Now, Cherie, now try to move it with the nail file.”

  The bolt moved the first time. It slid along as though it wanted to help them, effortlessly past the block and the door was open!

  Cherie was across the tunnel in three strides and Juliet was free too. They clung to each other and Juliet clasped the young Belgian girl to her for dear life. “You clever, clever girl!”

  “We need to run!” Cherie let go of Juliet and was starting for the end of the tunnel away from the house but Juliet was going the other way.

  “What are you doing?” Cherie's voice was full of alarm.

  “Go to the end and wait.” Juliet told her. If anyone comes, run for your life and hide, I'm going to the kitchen for torches. We can't find our way in the dark!”

  “I'll come with you.” Cherie said but Juliet told her no. “One of us recaptured is better than both. Wait at the end please!”

  Cherie's face said she wasn't happy with that but she went anyway, looking back over her shoulder as Juliet approached the little kitchen. She watched her look through the half open door and then move inside. Heart in mouth she waited, praying for her to come out again. When she reappeared with two torches it was a huge relief.

  Juliet turned; on the door of the kitchen was a bolt! With great satisfaction she slid it across and made sure it was firmly behind the stop. They wouldn't slide that easily! She turned and ran towards Cherie.

  Together, they rounded the corner and were confronted at once with a choice of directions. The tunnel divided, left and right. One, the right was lit with the same overhead lights as in the tunnel behind them the other, the left hand way, was not.

  Juliet didn't hesitate, distance was everything now. They ran as fast as they could, almost a hundred yards before the tunnel became a set of steps. On the way they passed two openings and ignored them. Neither of the passages was lit. They went quickly down and were confronted by another choice: To the left more steps, to the right a tunnel that was not lit. They took the steps. At the bottom the walls were suddenly different: Rougher and soaking wet.

  The way led them down a steep slope with the walls narrowing until they could only go in single file. This was not a man-made tunnel Juliet recognised. It had been cut by thousands of years of water flowing through it. Juliet was concerned in case they came to a dead end. The last thing she wanted to do was go back!

  At the end of the narrow tunnel the walls suddenly opened out again and they were in a large cave. The water course disappeared through the floor but there was no way to follow it. When she shined the light from her torch down it they saw that it was totally smooth and dropped vertically away. No one could climb down that!

  The cave itself was mostly man made. There was equipment piled there; tunnelling tools Juliet guessed. Pick axes, a pneumatic drill and several shovels and wheelbarrows. From the far side there was a set of steps which led to another choice of ways: Left or right? Cherie chose right and they were gone. The tunnel they had entered was very long and well lit. On either side they passed many smaller openings, all dark. They ignored them but Juliet was aware that number of places they could possibly have turned off was mounting and anyone searching for them would not know which way they had gone. They would have to search them all! Slowly but surely they were buying time.

  They ran as fast they could go until at the end the tunnel divided. The game had changed against them. The lights that had been their greatest blessing ended here; either way ahead was through the darkness.

  They looked at each other and Juliet knew that Cherie was thinking the same as herself. In the darkness they would be at the mercy of Hainsley-Sihl. Darkness was his friend. Darkness was his natural ally.

  “We mustn’t let our fear defeat us” Juliet said. “He wants us to think like that. Half of his power is in our minds. Come on” She switched on her torch and led the way to the right. She had chosen it because it looked widest; there was nothing else to guide them. She realised Cherie had also switched on the torch she had given her. She stopped so suddenly they almost collided. “Switch off your torch, we don't need both and we've only got four spare batteries!”

  Cherie smiled. “You remind me of my Uncle Leon, you think of
everything”

  They moved on, hand in hand now, following the tunnel which was no longer straight, it seemed to meander all over the place. First left then right then around a series of bends. It was very wet everywhere and getting quite slippery underfoot where the running water was depositing earth from far above them.

  Juliet tried to guess how long they had been free, perhaps twenty five minutes? Behind them if their escape had been discovered the search would be on. She realised that knowing the time was important and checked her watch. It was almost 6am. By now Mike would have her message for absolutely certain and would be pulling all the strings he could pull to find her.

  Trying not to slip as they moved forward and conscious that she had to adjust the light beam to enable Cherie to move as safely as herself she began to think.

  Mike was not alone. He would have Leon's help, whether Leon knew Cherie was in trouble or not. That part would depend on whether Harold had managed his end of his bargain with Cherie.

  A visiting very senior Interpol Officer would not sit idle when the case exploded in their faces. From everything that Cherie had explained about her Uncle she guessed that Mike now had a potent ally.

  Once they got to Moretonhampstead and found the shotgun and the blasted window they would know she had been taken by force. The scene in the house would have Mike climbing walls with worry about her. He wouldn't hesitate, he would mobilise every asset he had to find and rescue her.

  For herself and Cherie the name of the game was hide until rescue arrived. But although they had come a long way they had not passed a single place where they could hide. They couldn't hide in a tunnel just waiting for someone to enter it, they needed to find somewhere where there were places to conceal themselves.

  Ahead of them the powerful torch beam was reflecting back at them from a dead end! When they arrived there they saw that the tunnel turned sharply to the left but it only went a few yards.

  A pile of fallen rock blocked the way. When they got to it, the debris rose above their heads for almost forty feet. The beam lit the steep slope of rubble which looked very unstable and dangerous.

  “It doesn't go right to the top.” Cherie said. “There's a gap between the top and the roof.”

  She was right! A hiding place at last. But was the first place going to be any good? Anyone following would simply walk right up to them. Then Juliet remembered all the possible places they could have turned off. The gap at the top of the rubble was not going to be the first hiding place for their pursuers. They might have searched many by the time they arrived here.

  “We will have to be careful not to disturb it or they will see that we climbed it.”

  Cherie said.

  Not for the first time Juliet was struck by her intelligence. She had courage tenacity and confidence all allied to a very bright mind. It all made her seem much older than her years. For a moment Juliet studied her. She was a very pretty girl and someone had cut her hair beautifully. Her clothes were not her own and they were pretty grim; they were also covered in mud and slime from where she had brushed against the tunnel walls. The dirt was on her face and hands too and she looked dishevelled and tired but there was plenty of spirit in her eyes.

  Cherie had been doing some mind reading. “You look a mess too!” She smiled and for a second all their worldly cares were meaningless. “Up or back? Your choice.” Juliet said and smiled back at her.

  “Up! Uncle Leon is always going on about reaching the top!”

  They examined the slope and decided that it looked firmer on the right hand side where the fallen blocks were larger and heavier. It was difficult because of the need to share the torch but Juliet still didn't want to use both.

  It took them a quarter of an hour but it was a fine hiding place. They could have squeezed into many crevices beneath the larger boulders as they climbed but they continued on, taking care not to cause any slides that would give away their presence to a hunter.

  At the top they were surprised to find that by shinning the torch along the surface of the rubble they had found a place where they could get in very deep under the roof. They slithered side by side until they were well back from the lip and then found a place behind a huge lump of limestone that would make them invisible even if someone were shinning a torch from the top of the slope they had just climbed and lay still. Juliet turned off the torch to conserve the battery and they were both glad to rest. The darkness was their ally too now. It would not be easy to find them amongst the huge rock fall.

  “We will see their lights if they come this way.” Cherie said. “They can't creep up on us.”

  Juliet lay back onto the rock. The nervous exhaustion was taking hold of her very quickly she realised. She was dog tired and physically worn out.

  A small warm body cuddled up to her and she put her arm around Cherie as she felt her head lie gently down upon her shoulder. Some words from long ago came back to her. “I could hold you like this forever.” It seemed as though the sunlight on the bridge at Bellever had found her heart in the darkness so far below the ground. Hurry my Mike, dear God please hurry to me!

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  THE SATANIC MANSION OF WELLSWOOD

  The helicopter hovering over Hope's Nose seemed particularly appropriate to me. It had been there on Boxing Day to assist us as the case started and now it was back to help us put an end to it. Luckily the snow had passed and it was going to be a fine bright morning. Away to my east over Teignmouth and Dawlish the sun was just rising and the first rays were tinting the blades of the helicopter above me.

  On Boxing Day there had been a young woman's body washing in the sea some three hundred feet below my feet. I vowed as I stood now on Ilsham Marine Drive and waited to be told that everyone was in position that today I would endeavour to make someone pay for that. That was my job, and this morning I was looking forward to doing it. All my doubts and anxieties of the night had fled as we arrived on the road above the cliffs, this was my home patch; I belonged here.

  All the roads were sealed. The early morning peace of the Ilsham and Richmond Close's had not been disturbed as the green area that abutted on to them was placed under surveillance and men stood there ready to move in on Hainsley-Sihl’s mansion when I gave the order. They had arrived at their posts quietly, alert to the danger of their being observed from the windows of Hainsley-Sihl’s million pound home.

  Further north the small Anstey's Cove Road that passed behind The Palace Hotel and ran along to Stoodley Knowle School was sealed and the members of the Scenes of Crime Squad from Middlemoor were waiting in the conveniently placed car park of Anstey's Cove Beach, fretting at the bit to get at the mansion and anyone they found inside it. The other end of Anstey's Cove Road had a Police Transit van parked across it. There was no exit now for a vehicle, anyone who wanted to get away would have to do it on foot and my team from Torquay Station were going to make that very hard indeed.

  They were lined up along the edges of Bishop's walk which forms part of the beautiful South West Coastal Path and offers some of the finest views in the South West of England.

  Leon and I joined Sergeant Graeme Dee who would control the Team's advance through the trees and over the open ground to the mansion. “All ready, Inspector.” He said in his Brixham accent. “Just give us the nod and in two minutes we'll catch them like sprats and pop them in a basket for you. You want them fried or grilled?”

  Leon raised an eyebrow. “Brixham humour Leon, don't encourage him!”

  Leon grinned and shook hands with Graeme. “I like smoked fish,” he said. “You have to hang it upside down in unpleasant places until it stinks.”

  Graeme produced a hand drawn map of the immediate area and spread it on the bonnet of Pete Selway's Jeep which I recognised. I'd told him to go home and sleep but there was never any realistic chance of that. I could see Ann Taylor ten yards away talking to the dog handlers. Everyone wanted in on this. We were evening up a score.

  “This is Stoodley Knowle
School and these open areas are playing fields the school uses. Anyone trying to cross them is a goner; we'll feel his collar in no time, the dogs will make that a walkover. Along these hedgerows we have vision from static watchers; they are all in place already and of course the helicopter will be right overhead. We're not going to miss anyone.”

  Graeme had to smooth the map as the wind tried to blow it away. “Over there to our left is Ilsham Close, our people are in place and will close off this area, cross this open ground and seal the rear garden of the mansion. No one is coming out the back door this morning.”

  Leon pointed to a copse that ran along the edge of Bishop's Walk. What is this?

  “Just a thin patch of trees, then the continuation of this pathway, he pointed to the right, there'll be men and dogs left on it when we move forward, and then the cliff itself. That way is sealed naturally unless the buggers have wings like shitehawks.”