The Mayfly: The chilling thriller that will get under your skin

by James Hazel

  Georgie had never felt so alone in the world.

  *

  Priest and Jessica were shown through to a plush office in the corner of the building overlooking the river. If it hadn’t been so overcast, they might have been able to see Priest’s apartment from up here.

  Sandra was fifty-something, tall and lean, with gym-honed biceps that zapped some of her femininity, but otherwise she was not unattractive. She was blessed with olive skin that made her look younger than she was and there was a brightness in her eyes that Priest had always liked, although not enough to have agreed to her marriage proposal many years ago. To this day, he was unsure about whether or not she had been serious.

  ‘You look like shit, Charlie,’ she observed as she showed Priest and Jessica through to a lavish office stacked with files, papers, deeds and bundles wrapped in pink ribbon.

  ‘You’re not the first one to point that out.’

  ‘And I doubt I’ll be the last until you take a shower and have a decent night’s sleep.’

  ‘I thought you liked the unkempt look?’

  Sandra laughed. ‘In your dreams, Priest. Now, didn’t my receptionist tell you I don’t accept visitors without an appointment? She better bloody have, because I pay her enough!’

  ‘I’m sorry, Sandra. It’s an intrusion, I know. I wouldn’t have bothered you like this if it wasn’t important.’

  ‘You owe me one for this, big boy.’ There was that glint again.

  Priest wondered if Sandra was like this with all men or just him. Beside him, he sensed Jessica shift her weight.

  ‘Oh, how rude of me,’ she said suddenly, extending her hand to Jessica. ‘Sandra Barnsdale.’

  ‘Jessica Ellinder.’

  ‘Ellinder?’ Sandra paused and looked at them both. ‘Punching above your weight, Priest?’

  ‘We’re not together,’ Jessica said quickly.

  Priest noticed a rash start to appear around her chest.

  ‘Ah, I see,’ said Sandra drily. ‘All duly noted.’ She motioned for them to sit down in front of her desk.

  ‘So, what’s troubling you, darling?’ Sandra asked Priest, taking a seat behind her giant desk.

  ‘Do mayflies mean anything to you, Sandra?’

  Sandra Barndsdale’s face didn’t change expression. She rested her chin on her hand and looked at them, as if waiting for something more.

  Priest placed the flash drive in front of her.

  ‘Where did you get that?’ Sandra said, her voice dropping. She picked the flash drive up, examined it with care and then set it back down.

  ‘The Attorney General sent it to me.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘I was hoping you might be able to tell me.’

  Sandra Barnsdale didn’t have to say anything for Priest to see she was spooked. She sat in silence for a few more moments and then pushed her chair back and strode over to a drinks machine on the table behind her desk.

  ‘You still drink Earl Grey?’ she asked Priest over her shoulder.

  Priest nodded. Sandra looked over at Jessica, who asked for a black coffee. Sandra busied herself preparing drinks, poured herself some water.

  ‘What you have there, Priest – assuming it’s what I think it is – is bad news. I was hoping that I would never have to see it again.’

  ‘I think we can safely say that this conversation is off the record, Sandra, but you need to tell me all about it.’

  She turned to look at him, but it was if she was staring right through him to the wall on the other side of the room.

  ‘Is someone in trouble, Priest?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Is it you?’

  ‘Partially.’

  She seemed to be mulling this over. Eventually she sat back down, thrusting the drinks in front of them.

  ‘It had better be a damn big favour I get for this, Priest,’ Sandra said, adding a second spoonful of sugar to her latte.

  ‘I can’t promise anything,’ he said.

  ‘Hmm.’ She smiled but her voice was serious. ‘I inherited the file from my father. It was one of many little gems he left me after the cancer ate his brain away. I promised him I would keep it secret from everyone, even my own staff. It’s a safe-keep file.’

  ‘So it’s not a probate file?’

  ‘No. We get this from time to time. We’re just storing data for someone.’

  ‘Isn’t that what Swiss bank accounts are for?’ asked Jessica.

  ‘Some prefer a more old-fashioned approach,’ said Sandra, and if she had detected any hostility from Jessica, she hid it well. ‘And why not? We have a fire-proof vault, three servers out of the city and we’re all bound by client confidentiality. In many ways, we’re more secure than a Swiss deposit box.’

  She took a sip from her cup. She appeared calm, but Priest noticed beads of perspiration appearing around her temples. He hoped she would cut to the chase. She did.

  ‘The instructions on the file are very simple. From time to time, we are supplied with the details of a named individual, which we upload on to a database, the most recent version of which is stored on that little flash drive there. Every upload comes with a regular payment of fifteen hundred pounds.’

  ‘Nice little earner,’ remarked Jessica.

  Sandra smiled drily.

  ‘Who supplies the information?’ asked Priest.

  ‘I don’t know. It’s comes via a private courier each time. Totally anonymous.’

  ‘Do you know who your client is?’

  ‘I don’t.’

  ‘How do you verify each update?’

  ‘By reference to the payment, and of course the courier.’

  ‘But for whose benefit are you keeping the information? How do you know if someone needs it?’

  ‘There are instructions for that eventuality.’

  ‘And you verify the authenticity of the instructions again by reference to a payment?’

  ‘One million pounds. And a password, of course.’

  Priest watched a little bead of sweat make its way down Sandra Barnsdale’s temple.

  ‘This must have started somewhere, Sandra. Someone must have given your father the first set of instructions.’

  Sandra nodded. ‘True. But that was his business. He didn’t pass any of that information on.’

  ‘You didn’t think it was odd?’ asked Jessica. ‘That you were being paid large sums of money to keep a list of people and their contact details safe?’

  Sandra responded sharply: ‘We have a lot of strange requests here, Miss Ellinder.’

  ‘When was the last update?’ cut in Priest.

  ‘A few months back. I forget the details but it was the same set-up. Private courier delivers the data in paper form, we upload it. Destroy the paper. Take the fee in cash. We then raise an internal invoice.’

  ‘So how did the flash drive end up in the hands of the Attorney General?’

  Sandra took a deep breath. ‘Because I sent it to him.’

  When she didn’t offer any further explanation, Priest prompted her. ‘Go on.’

  ‘It’s obvious that the data serves no legitimate purpose,’ she said. ‘I’ve known that for a long time but I’ve never had a clue what it’s about. It’s kept me awake at night too often, though. I’ve looked in to some of the names a few times. There’s a few of note – but they all seem to have one thing in common.’

  ‘Money?’ Priest suggested.

  ‘Quite. They’re all filthy rich. Something happened a few weeks ago that meant I could no longer keep the secret I had promised my father I would.’

  ‘Go on,’ said Priest gently, willing her to continue. She was on the verge, he could tell, between deciding to tell them everything or nothing at all. He hoped Jessica could keep quiet for a few minutes.

  Sandra sighed. ‘Philip Wren came to see me a few weeks back. Maybe a month or so, I can’t recall exactly. It was the most extraordinary conversation I have ever been privy to.’ She took a moment to collect her thoughts.
Drank some of the water. ‘He sat down and told me that he was the head of a task force investigating a criminal organisation. His investigations were so top secret I had to sign a confidentiality undertaking. So, I want your assurance that this goes no further. You didn’t hear this from me. Right?’

  ‘You have my word, Sandra,’ said Priest.

  ‘He said that he’d established that my firm might somehow be involved with the group he was investigating. You can imagine how I felt about that. He implied that our involvement was most likely unwitting, but it was clear to me that it was still potentially ruinous if it got out.’

  ‘He knew about the file?’

  ‘He knew about the damn file, yes. Not the details; he just knew that we were storing data for someone. I don’t know how.’

  ‘He wanted you to hand it over,’ Priest suggested.

  ‘No. He wanted me to confirm its existence. If I could do that, he’d get a court order requiring me to hand it over. That way, I wasn’t in breach of my duty of confidentiality and the evidence would be obtained legitimately.’

  Priest clicked his tongue. ‘But it didn’t go to plan?’

  Sandra hesitated. ‘Are you familiar with the Nuremberg doctors’ trials, Priest?’

  Priest nodded. ‘After the war, the Allies set up a military tribunal to hear cases against Nazi leaders accused of war crimes. After they had tried the main players they went after those accused of lesser war crimes. Twenty-three Nazi doctors were accused, inter alia, of human experimentation of the most heinous kind. Many of them were sentenced to death, although I think some were acquitted.’

  ‘You know your history,’ Sandra smiled weakly.

  ‘Wait,’ said Priest. ‘What are you saying?’

  ‘The group that Wren was chasing was established in the sixties, so he said. They’re not exactly neo-Nazis. It’s stranger than that. It’s more like they’re trying to replicate the doctors’ trials from the Holocaust.’

  ‘They’re experimenting on humans?’ Jessica asked, aghast. ‘That’s what Wren told you?’

  Sandra nodded silently.

  Priest took a sip of the tea. It tasted metallic. He had begun to build a mental image – a tree from which sprouted branches comprising the different pieces of information he had gathered: Nazi doctors, poison, money . . . But how did any of it fit with Miles Ellinder’s death?

  The doctor that Tiff had mentioned – Kurt Schneider – was credited with developing the same poison, or a version of it, used to torture and murder the man in the woods.

  ‘I can guess what happened,’ said Priest.

  Sandra looked down, ashamed. ‘I panicked. After he left, I couldn’t sleep for days. I kept going into the office, opening the safe and looking at that file. At those names. You have to understand: if Wren had got his court order, then my firm was finished. Everyone would know.’

  ‘So you sent him the data and destroyed the file?’ Priest asked softly.

  Tears welled in Sandra’s eyes. ‘And I’ll be damned for it. But why have you got it?’

  ‘Wren sent it to me. My guess is that the group you mentioned got to him. I think they were threatening his family, his daughter. He was in over his head. So, he sent it to me.’

  Priest thought about the haunting letter Wren had written him: Time is short. Lives are at stake. I make that last statement quite consciously, knowing that my next actions may endanger you.

  ‘How do you know his daughter was under threat?’ asked Sandra.

  ‘She’s missing. Vanished into thin air. The last thing she heard was a voicemail from her father telling her to flee.’

  Sandra swept her hair back and folded her arms, shaking her head in disbelief.

  ‘I thought I would be saving people, not putting them in danger,’ she murmured.

  Priest thought about telling her she had done the right thing, but he wasn’t sure he could lie convincingly enough. Maybe that was why Wren was dead. He had the names, but he wasn’t ready. Maybe he’d changed his mind after coming to see Sandra, because that’s when they got to him, got to Hayley.

  The strain on Sandra’s face was visible now – anxiety seeping through her skin.

  Priest tried to think practically. ‘Sandra, when you receive updates for the database, are you required to log the time and date of their input?’

  ‘Yes. Why?’

  ‘It may be that the names you were given are the members of this group. Perhaps it’s a form of insurance.’

  ‘So everyone is bound together,’ Jessica finished.

  ‘If someone blabs, then the list can be released and everyone goes down.’

  ‘I don’t understand,’ said Sandra. ‘What’s the point in that?’

  ‘Would you want to be the one who exposed the whole affair and risk the other members coming after you?’ said Priest.

  Sandra rubbed her hand over her face. ‘Priest,’ she said. ‘Can you fix this?’

  ‘That depends.’ Priest folded his arms and sat back in his chair. He felt exhausted; the room was spinning. He was finding it difficult to keep his eyes focused.

  ‘Depends on what?’

  ‘On whether you can tell me where the file originates.’

  A long silence hung in the air. Sandra pursed her lips. Priest could see defiance burning in her eyes, but he was sure that she was still holding something back.

  ‘Priest . . . as I said –’

  ‘Don’t insult my intelligence, Sandra. Tell me where the bloody file originated. You know the name I need.’

  She swallowed hard. ‘I’m in danger, Priest. You must surely see that.’

  ‘I do. So, tell me and let me put you out of danger.’

  She hesitated, and Priest just sat there, arms folded, waiting.

  In the end, she threw her arms in the air and got up. ‘You’re going to get me killed for this, Priest.’ She searched through a filing cabinet over by the door and pulled out a tattered file, which she placed in front of them. Priest and Jessica leant across the desk. The name on the file was clear enough.

  Miller. Eva.

  ‘Who is she?’ Priest asked, picking up the file and inspecting the contents. There was not much. A few short letters, handwritten notes and a will.

  ‘She was a client,’ Sandra admitted. ‘She died some time ago. I administered the estate. She was the person who set up the keep-safe file with Dad. I kept her file just in case.’

  Priest opened out the will and placed it on the table in front of them. Ran his fingers over the ageing paper stitched together with ribbon. Eva Miller was dead but a will meant that she’d had something to leave behind, and someone to leave it to.

  Finally, we might be getting somewhere.

  ‘To save you from reading any further,’ Sandra said, ‘There’s only one beneficiary. A Colonel Albert Ruck.’

  45

  Priest turned on the shower. He had left the bathroom door ajar and looked through the crack to check on Jessica, who was sitting at a desk, trawling through the database of meaningless names. She seemed not to be the least bit uncomfortable occupying his bedroom; she had made herself at home with her feet tucked underneath her on his old leather chair. He thought again about the night they had spent together at the Dower House. Had it even been real? He clicked the bathroom door shut and shook the thought away. Not now, Priest. Maybe not ever . . .

  Giles had come up trumps and had sent him a copy of Miles Ellinder’s interim autopsy report. The document took an age to download on his phone but when eventually Priest was able to skim read it, it was disappointing; it simply outlined the cause of death as circulatory shock causing cardiac arrest. Mercifully, death was assessed as having taken place within a few minutes. It seemed as if McEwen’s description of Miles flailing around for hours had been a deliberate embellishment.

  Priest closed down the report and dialled Giles’s number. He hoped the noise from the shower would drown out his conversation.

  ‘Fucking hell, it’s you again, Pri
est.’ The irritated voice answered almost immediately. ‘Did you get that PM report I sent you?’

  ‘I did, although it wasn’t particularly enlightening.’

  ‘Devil’s in the detail, Priest.’

  ‘Mm. Giles, I need a background check.’

  ‘You remember what happened the last time I did a background check for you?’

  ‘Giles, the IPCC dropped that investigation pretty quickly.’

  ‘Still on my record, you bastard.’

  ‘Please. For old times’ sake?’

  There was a heavy sigh. ‘Fine. What do you want?’

  ‘Eva Miller,’ said Priest.

  ‘Did you make that up just so you could talk to me, you friendless fuck?’ Giles sniggered.

  ‘It’s real.’

  ‘Whatever. Date of birth?’

  ‘No idea.’

  ‘Last known address?’

  Priest read out the address Sandra had given him from the file. ‘Probably not her last address but this is all I’ve got. She died a while ago, not sure when.’

  ‘Whatever you do, Priest, don’t make it easy for me.’

  Priest heard the sound of a keyboard tapping at the other end of the line.

  ‘OK,’ mumbled Giles. ‘What about this? Born fifteenth of May, nineteen twenty-five. Deceased, second of June nineteen eighty-seven.’

  ‘Could be. Who’s listed as the next of kin? Is it Albert Ruck?’

  A few more taps and Giles read out a name.

  Priest faltered. Jesus.

  ‘Thanks, Giles,’ he murmured.

  ‘Are you going to tell me what this is about?’ demanded Giles.

  Priest hung up.

  *

  Priest stepped out of the bathroom wearing a pair of dark chinos and nothing else. The shower had been a short but welcome distraction from the darkness that seemed to be attaching itself to him. He’d tried to wash it off but it was sticking and he still felt dirty.

  Jessica was now in the lounge, on his sofa next to the fish, the glow from the tank illuminating one side of her face. Her auburn hair was pulled back, showing more of her soft features, her high cheek bones and elegant neck. She had kicked off her shoes and hunched herself up against the arm of the sofa. He lingered in the doorway, wondering if he should have put a shirt on, but Jessica barely looked up. He remembered how her skin had felt as smooth as pure silk.