by James Hazel
‘I’m not good with mornings. What time is it?’
‘Seven thirty. Are you pouring tea?’
‘It’s not tea anymore. How did it go last night?’
‘I tried to ring you when I got back but your phone was off.’
Yes, I was in the middle of something . . .
‘I got pictures of the room, like you asked. But nothing useful out of Terri Wren.’
‘That’s good. Can you send me a picture of the desk?’
Georgie paused. ‘Just the desk?’
Priest flushed and loped back into the bedroom.
‘Just the desk,’ he repeated.
‘There’s more,’ Georgie urged.
‘What more?’
‘I found a classified file, tucked in the top of the desk. The papers were out of order, as if they’d been put back in haste.’
‘And?’
‘And I’m sending you the files along with the picture of the desk.’
*
Downstairs, the kitchen was cold. In a cupboard, he found a cereal he didn’t recognise but which promised to fulfil his need for a wholesome, sugar-coated breakfast. He sat near the Aga, the only source of heat in the room.
He flicked through the contacts in his phone and found Jessica’s name. He dialled. The signal was weak, barely enough for a conversation, but it didn’t matter – the phone went straight through to her voicemail. Her phone’s generic message, of course. Nothing personal.
There was a long pause. He realised he had absolutely no idea what to say.
‘Jessica,’ Priest said at last. ‘It’s me. Obviously. Just wondered how you were? Where you were? That sort of thing. Oh, and McEwen’s bent. Don’t go near him. Georgie sent me a picture of Philip Wren’s desk, as of last night. There’s a nice big muddy footprint on it, for the coroner’s benefit, placed delicately post-mortem by McEwen using Wren’s shoe before he was cut down. As we thought, his suicide was faked. Call me when you get this. It would be . . . you know, nice to hear from you.’
He was about to shovel in a spoonful of the unknown cereal when he looked up, sensing someone standing at the doorway.
‘How long have you been there?’ he asked.
‘Long enough. Is there something going on between you and Jessica?’ asked Scarlett. Her arms were folded, her brow furrowed.
Priest tried not to react. ‘You haven’t seen her this morning?’ he asked.
‘She left. Early.’
‘I see.’
‘I hope you know what you’re doing, Mr Priest.’
‘I didn’t plan to –’
‘I don’t mean that.’ She sat opposite him, a red dressing-gown draped around her shoulders. If she had spent the whole of last night awake watching black-and-white horror films, she looked pretty good for it. ‘I mean Miles.’
Priest raised an eyebrow. ‘You care about what happened to Miles?’
‘I care about the group.’ Scarlett narrowed her eyes. ‘In three weeks’ time, Mr Priest, the Health Minister is going to issue another statement urging GPs to stop prescribing antibiotics; antibiotics that we produce. I care, Mr Priest, about our share price. And starting something with Jessie right now in our family home is beginning to look like fucking up.’
‘I’m . . .’ He was about to reply, about to let her know, gently, that he also cared. About Jessica, not the share price. But that didn’t seem appropriate. It also seemed like a big thing to admit to. And there was something else. ‘What did you call this place?’
‘What?’
‘This house. You called it . . .?’
‘Our family home.’ Scarlett looked bemused. ‘Priest? What’s wrong?’
Our family home. Priest thrust a heaped spoonful of the cereal in his mouth before getting up and rushing past her.
34
27th March, 1946
A remote farm in middle England
Ruck awoke in the early hours of the morning with a throbbing head and the stain of guilt splashed across the bed-sheets.
He reached out but he knew she had already gone. He recalled her getting up in the middle of the night. He cursed himself for not waking up fully, but he’d thought she had just been going to the bathroom.
He sat up and rubbed his aching head. Somewhere outside a cockerel was crowing. If he ever found it, he’d shoot the bloody thing. He ran a hand across his chest before getting out of bed. He glanced at his skin in the mirror: a constellation of bruises and scratches. It looked like the work of a wild animal. He dressed – trousers, shirt and tie. A new beige pinstriped jacket bearing the CC41 logo: rationed utility clothing. All neatly pressed.
He’d locked the pistol away in a drawer when Eva had finally fallen asleep, a precaution he would have taken anyway but one that he had executed with particular care last night. He tried not to think about what they had done, about the violence he had unleashed on her, but he could not get the images out of his head. Nor could he exorcise the notion that Eva Miller brought something out in him; something he was afraid of.
Ruck swallowed hard. Fitzgerald was dead. His lover was a murderess.
Three urgent knocks at the door. Before Ruck could respond, it was thrust open. Outside was a soldier, red-faced and sweating, despite the cold. His bayonet was fixed on the rifle that hung over his shoulder. Ruck struggled to recall his name. Paris. That was it. Private Paris.
‘Sir, you need to come.’ The man was shaking.
‘What?’ Ruck retrieved the pistol. Thank God it was still there.
‘It’s Doctor Schneider . . .’
Private Paris turned on his heels, shot back along the corridor, and clattering down the stairs.
Ruck had to run to keep up. He followed Paris across the courtyard, all the time checking around him for Eva. Where was she? He looked back at the house. The kitchen was in darkness. There was no sign of movement in any of the upstairs windows. Everything was still.
Except for that blasted cockerel.
Paris threw open the door to one of the outbuildings to reveal two other soldiers, faces partially illuminated by the naked bulb above them. They shrank back from Ruck; they were the two he had ordered to bury Fitzgerald.
‘What’s going on?’ Ruck demanded.
The two soldiers exchanged nervous glances. Ruck could feel his patience wearing thin.
‘Well?’
The one on the right lifted the latch on the door to Schneider’s cell. Evidently it had already been unlocked. The door swung open and he stepped aside, motioning Ruck past him.
Ruck took out the pistol; Paris followed, rifle ready. The other two lingered outside, peering in.
As it happened, guns were not necessary. Schneider was on the floor slumped up against the bed but he posed no threat. His face bore little resemblance to the sharp features of the man Ruck had interrogated the day before; it was bloody and swollen, with a nose bent horribly to the side. There were wounds on his body, too; his tunic was stained with blood. His feet seemed to have suffered the most – they were a mangled bundle of blood and pulp.
‘We found this, Colonel,’ said one of the soldiers. Ruck turned. He was holding a claw hammer dripping with blood.
Ruck stepped forward and knelt down. Schneider’s eyes were locked shut by the swelling; his breathing was laboured. His injuries were terrible. Ruck’s heart was pounding. He didn’t feel any remorse for this Nazi – justice was often a rough path to tread – but first Fitzgerald, and now this . . . Something felt malevolent.
‘Who made you this pretty?’ Ruck whispered softly. Schneider turned his head, exhaled painfully. When he spoke, the arrogance in his voice was gone – it was nothing more than the wheeze of a dying man.
‘Would you believe, your little scribe?’
‘You couldn’t protect yourself against a mere woman, doctor?’
Ruck took out a handkerchief and dabbed at the laceration that ran down the Nazi’s right cheek. She had taken the claw of the hammer and tried t
o open his face up.
‘She is full of surprises, Herr Ruck. Best be careful with that one.’
‘What did she want?’
‘To hurt me.’
Ruck moved his hand fast, reached across and took Schneider by the throat. The doctor winced with pain but didn’t cry out.
‘No, doctor. What did she want?’
Schneider spluttered and for a moment Ruck thought he might be through but it turned out to be laughter, or the best attempt at laughter Schneider could manage.
‘Sharp as always,’ Schneider choked. ‘Yes, this wasn’t just for pleasure. Not entirely. I had to give up certain information to save my life.’
‘What information?’
‘It appears that your little scribe has a keen interest in chemistry.’
‘She wanted the formula?’
‘She already has that.’
Ruck’s eyes widened with horror. ‘She has it?’ he began. ‘What –’
‘What she wanted was more detail. Where to find the ingredients, for instance.’
‘And you refused to tell her?’
‘She felt I was holding out, yes.’
‘But in the end you told her.’
Schneider nodded, but whether he was disappointed or pleased, Ruck couldn’t tell.
‘Everything.’
Ruck pushed Schneider away – this time he did cry out in pain – and marched out of the cell.
‘What should we do with him, Colonel?’ Paris called after him.
Ruck called back over his shoulder without breaking stride: ‘When he dies, bury him next to Fitzgerald.’
He bolted across the courtyard, through to his bedroom, and rifled through the pockets of yesterday’s jacket. Nothing. He tossed the jacket down, checked the pockets of the rest of his clothes, but he knew he hadn’t misplaced the piece of paper. Through suffering, Schneider had claimed he could see God. Ruck remembered the way Eva had spoken, the way she had turned the words over on her tongue. Now he was sure she was gone.
Eva. His murderess.
Ruck looked out of the window. The sun had breached the line of trees surrounding the farm, casting long shadows across the grass. Nothing moved but it was sterile rather than still. Beyond the tree line the terrain undulated, a grey pastel sheet peppered with farmhouses.
She was out there somewhere, a fury unleashed on the world. Dark and beautiful, the doctor’s secrets travelling with her.
A harbinger of death.
Ruck knew above all – beyond whatever cursed duty he owed to his country, to Operation Mayfly – only one thing.
She must be stopped.
35
The Priest family home remained in the sole ownership of Felix and Esther’s middle child. Set in two acres of overgrown woodland, it was more a hotchpotch of small buildings awkwardly fused together than it was a house.
It was an inadequate family home. The original bungalow had been added to, extended, moulded and bent over decades as Felix and Esther had fought for space to raise their children in. They could have moved. It wasn’t as if money had been an issue. But for Esther in particular, the Vyre had held such precious and fragile memories that no one had had the heart to sell up. After both Felix and Esther had died, Priest had bought out his siblings to ensure the property remained in the family.
On days like these, he wished he’d had the damn thing condemned.
Just over two hours had passed since he had been sitting at the Ellinder breakfast table. He’d taken a taxi back to collect the Volvo, which he had now parked on the side of the driveway. A fog had settled over the hills. He couldn’t see more than fifty yards past the house on either side, not that there was much to see. A flock of starlings lining a telegraph wire watched him as he trudged up the path to the front door.
The Vyre’s gardener, a brusque old man Priest simply knew as Fagin, had trimmed back the weeds but the exterior was choked with ivy and in places it was hard to see where the greenery ended and the house began. Priest fished out a key; the lock turned surprisingly easily.
The house was empty, more or less. A few tables pushed carelessly back against the walls. The odd chair here and there. A Welsh dresser in the hallway. Things he couldn’t be bothered to sell on eBay. The air was heavy, stale. At the back of the entrance hall, he stopped to look at the copy of The Funeral by George Grosz that had hung there as long as he could remember. He smiled at the faded colours, predominantly red and black. The painting was a rebellion against humanity by an artist who saw people as ugly, immoral, fear-driven cattle. A procession of grotesque and weird characters crammed through the corridor of a dark modern city, frenzied and drunk, swarming desperately around Death, who drinks from a bottle, indifferent to the suffering and madness around him.
It had been one of William’s favourites.
There was a noise from the kitchen.
Priest made his way softly across the hall and pushed open the door to the kitchen. For one brief moment, he thought he would see his mother turning to smile at him, her hands busying themselves over the stove.
But of course it wasn’t her.
Priest quickly assessed the situation. The intruder wasn’t a threat. First, because he was smaller and lighter than Priest. Second, because he had his back turned and hadn’t seen Priest. Third, he was on his own.
The kitchen was at the end of the house. There had been plans to build out even further, to create a summer house, or at least install a door to the garden. They had never been put into place. The trespasser was trapped.
‘Hello,’ said Priest, walking out in full view, his hands thrust deep into the pockets of his mac.
It was the second time in a week that he had come across an unwanted stranger in his house. The odds were a lot better this time round, though. Scarlett’s reference to her ‘family home’ had triggered the thought that perhaps Wren might have sent the flash drive not to Priest’s apartment but here, to his family home.
The intruder was rifling through a bundle of old post on the countertop.
‘Did you find it?’ Priest asked casually. ‘The flash drive?’
The stranger looked up, shock and panic registering across his face – an animal caught in the headlights. There was nothing controlled about his movements. He wasn’t even, apparently, a particularly good burglar, judging by the state of the window he had smashed.
‘Cat got your tongue, Burglar Bill?’
Priest took the intruder by the collar, hit him hard in the side of the stomach where the damage would be minimal but the pain intense and lingering. Air burst from Burglar Bill’s lungs. Good. For a moment, Priest thought he might have inflicted more damage than he had intended but there was an eventual agonising noise as Bill gasped to replace the lost oxygen.
‘Fucking hell!’ the man wheezed.
Priest was in control. His punch had incapacitated Bill instantly. He had an urge to take his head and slam it into the side of the kitchen cupboard. He resisted, but his rage was held in check by a thread.
‘I said, did you find it?’ Priest hissed in the intruder’s ear.
‘I don’t know wha—’
Well. If he was going to play that game, the reasons for holding back seemed less persuasive. Priest smashed Bill’s head into the side of his mother’s cupboard, pulled it back and saw a small and satisfying splash of red on the door.
‘Try again,’ Priest suggested.
‘No! I didn’t find it! C’mon, man. I’m just an errand boy!’ Bill whimpered.
‘Errand boy for whom?’
‘I can’t . . . they’d kill me.’
‘They’d kill you? I’ll fucking kill you!’
Priest marked the cupboard door again. This time the sound of the thud was accompanied by a howl.
‘Wait! Please!’ begged the intruder.
‘Talk then.’
‘Some guy sent me, to get one of those memory stick things. Said it would be in the post. I don’t know why! He didn’t tell me nothing. Jus
t that it was in this fucking house, somewhere. Gave me four hundred quid. You know how many houses I have to go through to get four hundred quid’s worth of stuff?’
‘Who sent you?’
‘I don’t know his name!’
Priest pulled Bill’s head back, once more positioning it level with the side of the top cupboard. He wanted to see that red mark splashed across the face of the old wood. ‘Try again,’ he suggested.
The intruder was whimpering. His nose was squashed and bent – the ridge had snapped. ‘I don’t know his name.’
‘Then how do you know who to thank for your four hundred quid?’
Priest kept him held close to the edge of the cupboard, a foot or so away. Sufficient distance to create enough force to slice his head open if he was so inclined. As it happened, he wasn’t. He’d done sufficient damage to make the guy spill. Sarah wouldn’t be impressed if he ended up sharing a padded cell with William. He doubted Jessica would be, either.
‘The Bagman.’
‘Who’s the Bagman?’
‘I don’t fucking know! He wears a bag on his head. That’s why I call him the Bagman. I swear, fella. I don’t know his fucking name!’ Bill swallowed and ran a dry tongue over his fat lips, opening and shutting his mouth like a dying fish.
Just as Priest was about to grab him again, there was an explosion and part of Burglar Bill’s head tore away and splattered on the cupboard door.
Priest dropped the body instantly. Turned round as it fell to the floor.
The Bagman trained the gun on Priest without the slightest tremor, apparently unperturbed by the shattered body lying between them. He was broad-shouldered but a little shorter than Priest. He wore a long, brown trench coat pulled tightly around him, cut-off gloves and heavy boots, but the most striking feature was the white hood covering his head, with slits for eyes.
Priest waited. He was shaking; his breath was short. There was a crippling tightness around his chest.
‘I guess you’re the Bagman.’
‘Some would know me as this.’ The Bagman’s voice was a rumble, a low, throaty growl. Nothing was genuine, except the expertise with which he held the gun and where he stood. Close enough to let Priest know there was no prospect of missing; far enough away to deter him from making any sudden moves.