Down: Trilogy Box Set

by Glenn Cooper

  Yagoda often engendered sniggers because he looked remarkably like a very large rat. “Although we require confirmation,” Yagoda said, “we have heard about significant developments within the French and Italian camps. Maximilien is destroyed. Borgia is destroyed and he was not in Francia at all. The two empires have joined together under a single new king.”

  “Who?” an astonished Kutuzov exclaimed. “Who is this man?”

  “Giuseppe Garibaldi,” Yagoda said.

  “Garibaldi?” the general said. “He was a rather minor figure on the world stage, was he not?”

  Stalin tapped impatiently on his armrest. “What a man was or was not on Earth is of no matter here. If Garibaldi has accomplished this, he is a master manipulator. Yagoda, I want a confirmation. If it is so I am inclined to throw our weight against Henry in Britannia. He is wounded, we hear, and it would be useful to add his territory to ours.”

  “Henry has annexed the Norselands,” Yagoda said. “We would get two territories for the price of one.”

  Stalin nodded and stood, a sign they all recognized. He was finished. “Come sober to the war council tonight,” Stalin demanded. “You will see a good show and will want to remember it.”

  At nightfall the large Russian delegation made its way across the main bailey to King Frederick’s great banqueting hall. The hall was candlelit but still nearly black as night. The multiple thick support columns rising from the floor made it seem like the gathering was being held in a forest. The banqueting table had been moved aside to make room for a large circle of high-backed chairs.

  The German delegation rose politely when Stalin and his company entered. Absent the king who was not yet in attendance, the Duke of Thuringia was the most senior man on the German side and he took it upon himself to mingle with his allies. He shuffled over on his arthritic hips and shook Stalin’s hand. It was a weak handshake and Stalin almost crushed Thuringia’s fingers in a show of vigor.

  Thuringia spoke in English, a language Stalin could understand. “We will commence when Barbarossa arrives,” he said, reclaiming his hand.

  “We can start now,” Stalin said loudly in Russian. He instructed a man on his staff, a German speaker, to translate.

  The Germans took offense but they were soon distracted by the entry of their king’s twin bodyguards, the hulking and muscular young men who never left their master’s side even in bed. Hans and Johann carried a large wooden chest by its handles into the room and placed it in the center of the circle.

  “What is the meaning of this?” Thuringia asked in astonishment.

  “I have two things to show all of you,” Stalin said, seeming to savor the moments while his words were being translated. “Gentlemen, please remove the first object from the box.”

  The musclebound men opened the lid, reached down, and pulled out the naked and headless body of an old man. When they threw it upon the floor, the arms and legs moved, as if searching around for their head.

  The circle of men came closer and some asked in German and Russian who this was.

  “Now, for the second,” Stalin announced.

  A head was produced, a head with a wispy white beard and a pink, scaly scalp. Hans held it up. The dull eyes seemed to search the room and the dry lips opened and closed.

  Duke Thuringia cried out, “Hans and Johann, what have you done?”

  Johann spat at Barbarossa’s head and addressed him as if he were still whole. “You treated us worse than dogs for hundreds of years, you old shit. Tsar Joseph, he treats us like men, and he has given us more gold in one day than you have ever given us. You have gotten what you have long deserved.”

  The German nobles were in shock. Their king had survived in Hell for a thousand years. But before anyone even thought to draw a weapon Stalin had climbed onto a chair and pleaded for their attention.

  “Please, gentlemen, sit and listen to me,” Stalin began, allowing his translator to jump in at each dramatic pause. “Even though Hell is perpetual and neverending, it is changing in front of our eyes. King Maximilien is gone. King Borgia is gone. Francia and Italia have united. The old guard is falling, new ones rise. Tonight, I will present to you, my German friends, a new vision for our shared future, a future where a united Russia and Germania, led by Stalin, will conquer not only all of Europa, but all of the dominions of Hell. Listen to my words. Listen in peace and think about the riches and pleasures that await all of you who have the vision to join with me.”

  It had been a very long time since Queen Matilda had seen the Earl of Strasbourg’s residence. He called it a castle but to her eye, it was paltry, hardly more than one of her husband’s many hunting lodges. It rose high over the city on a bank of the Ill River and looked somewhat cheerful compared to the rest of the bleak city structures because it was made of rose-colored stone.

  The Earl of Southampton had ridden ahead to inform Strasbourg of the queen’s imminent arrival. When her wagon train reached the castle drawbridge, Southampton was waiting for her.

  He came to her wagon and she instantly saw there was a problem.

  “What is the matter, Southampton?” she asked. “You look far too gloomy for my liking.”

  “It seems that the earl is not in Strasbourg.”

  “Is he not?” she snapped. “When will he return?”

  “He is in Paris, my lady, with a party of Alsatian men-at-arms, having been summoned some time ago to aid in the defense of Francia.”

  “Do you mean to say that he took up arms against King Henry?” she asked in amazement.

  “That is so, my lady.”

  “And his return?”

  “The household has no news. They do say that you are most welcome and they will do their utmost to afford you all the comforts they can muster.”

  “Well, what choice do we have, Southampton? We can’t wander the countryside, can we?”

  “No, my lady. My only concern is fortification. I saw few armed men about and our own party is too small to mount a stout defense of so large a castle.”

  “Large?” she asked with raised brows. “It seems rather small to mine eyes.”

  When nightfall came, Sam and Belle slept together in their new bed high in the castle keep and Delia sat beside them in quiet despair. She had never in her life felt so far away from home and so terribly lonely. Her friends and colleagues had always said she had a sunny disposition and she had always bristled at the label, as if it reduced her credibility within the ranks of the jaded so-and-so’s of the Security Service. But even she would admit she was hardly a depressive. Her disposition had been put to the ultimate test in the aftermath of her husband’s fatal heart attack; she had kept herself remarkably positive throughout the ordeal and in the lonely years that followed.

  She had nothing remotely resembling a sunny thought that night. The flagon of red wine left by a moronic and leering servant was her only solace.

  Now on hearing those noises in the distance she regretted her three cups of wine. At first they sounded like distant voices engaged in animated discussion. Growing louder they sounded more like shouts and then, alarmingly, screams. She tried the door but it wouldn’t budge. She held off banging on it lest she wake the children but when the commotion was too loud and close to ignore she pounded on the door and used her limited French to call for help.

  “What’s the matter, Auntie Delia?” Sam said, rubbing his eyes.

  “Oh, nothing, dear, go back to sleep.”

  “But you were shouting.”

  “I know. I’m sorry for waking you.”

  The latch moved and the door flew open. Southampton was standing there, sword in hand, a hand red with blood.

  “Quickly,” he said. “Take the children and follow me.”

  Delia couldn’t take her eyes off the blood dripping off the sword. “What’s happening?”

  “We’ve been attacked. The queen has been mortally wounded. Hurry, or all is lost.”

  Delia rushed to the bedside and picked up Belle who remain
ed asleep in her arms. Sam sat on the edge of the bed staring in fascination at the earl’s sword.

  A second sword came into view, this one emerging from the earl’s chest.

  Southampton cried out and blood began to trickle from his mouth. A heavy boot pushed him aside and a short, thick man peered into the room brandishing a sword in one hand and an axe in the other.

  Delia stared at the brute’s one good eye while Clovis examined her and the children with the satisfied expression of a man who was about to become extremely wealthy.

  21

  Rix and Murphy drank coffee and stared out the helicopter windows glad to be out of their Dartford holding cells. Ben sat apart from them, fitfully re-hashing a fight he’d had with his wife over breakfast. She was a tolerant woman, a trooper, who well understood the pressures of being an MI5 wife but no previous assignment had ever taxed their family life as strenuously. She was used to his inability to talk about his work but she was not accustomed to his foul moods and flashes of anger toward her and their daughters. Their argument had occurred while he hurriedly dressed following a dawn call from the office. Ben had to wave off the girls’ school pageant that evening.

  “That’s the second time in a row, Ben,” she had complained.

  “The bad guys don’t seem to adhere to the school calendar, you know.”

  “Look, I’m sure you’re keeping the nation safe from the bad guys, darling,” she’d said with a biting tone, “but your daughters are growing up without you.”

  “You’ve no idea,” he had said, slipping on his shoes. “No bloody idea.”

  “You’re right. I have no ideas, none at all. I’m just an empty-headed, stay-at-home mum. And don’t bother calling later. I know you’ll be home after we’ve already gone to bed. You always are.”

  They put down in front of a general aviation hanger at the Southampton Airport where a car whisked them the fifteen miles to Southsea. The Hampshire Constabulary had set up an interview room at the Southsea Police Station. Weary of dealing with curious coppers, Ben had arranged for direct access to the interview room from a loading-dock door, no police participation in the interviews, and no video recording. The lawyers at MI5 had attended to the formalities.

  Murphy and Rix sat alone behind a two-way mirror; given the circumstances, Ben had decided to conduct the interview alone.

  “Hello, Gavin,” Ben said on entering the room. “My name is Wellington.”

  Gavin West picked his head off his arms. He looked exhausted.

  “Are you the one I had to wait for?”

  “I believe so.”

  “I don’t know why they wouldn’t let me go home. I’m being treated like I’m the criminal.”

  “I understand.”

  “Do you know how long I’ve been kept here?”

  “Since before midnight, I believe.”

  “That’s right. All bloody night and half the bloody morning.”

  “When I’m done you’ll be allowed to leave.”

  “I’d better or there’ll be hell to pay.”

  Ben’s mouth curled faintly. “Why don’t you start from the beginning?”

  “Beginning of what?”

  “Finding your father.”

  Gavin shook his head in disgust. “It’s like I told every single officer who’s spoken to me at the house and here, I started ringing my dad after supper last night and he didn’t pick up. I thought maybe he went to the pub.”

  “Did he do that often? Go to the pub?”

  “No, not often. That’s why I was uneasy. I couldn’t go to bed without knowing where he was so I drove over from Portsmouth. That’s when I …” He choked on his words.

  “I’m sorry. This must be difficult.”

  Sorrow turned to anger. “Difficult? The fuck you say. Difficult? Seeing your father tied to a chair, his head bashed in, blood everywhere? It was horrible.”

  “Yes, I’m sure it was. Listen, Gavin, I don’t need to inconvenience you regarding routine police matters so I won’t be asking you about the state of the house, missing items, et cetera. I want to probe a statement you made to the officers last night about calling around to your father’s house a few days ago and seeing a woman who purported to be your mother, Christine. Could you tell me what you told them?”

  On the other side of the mirror Rix and Murphy leaned forward.

  “He called me up. Said he wanted me to come by but wouldn’t say why. When I arrived there were two women with him, one who wanted to see me. She said her name was Jane. That she was a friend of dad’s.”

  “Did the other woman give her name?”

  “No.”

  “I see, go on.”

  “This Jane woman, she said she used to live in the area and that she’d met me when I was young. But that didn’t make any sense, did it?”

  “Why not?”

  “Because she was no older than me. I’m thirty-six. She looked about the same. On the beat-up side, like you get from sleeping rough, you know, but not much older than me.”

  “And did you ask her about that?”

  “I did. She said she was older than she looked.”

  “And did you believe her?”

  “No, it was rubbish.”

  “Did you call her on it?”

  “I did more than that. Something in the back of my mind set me off. There was something about her I thought I recognized. When I was young something happened that everyone hid from me. But kids find out stuff, don’t they?”

  “What happened?”

  “My mother was killed. Along with the scumbag she ran off with, some copper. She left my dad and me and fell in with this geezer who was a bad apple. They kidnapped a girl and killed her and they got killed for it. Got what they deserved. Anyway, my dad had a photo album of when I was a tyke, when we were still a family. I used to sneak looks at those photos when I was a teenager. This woman, this Jane. I remembered her face and sure enough when I got the photo album out, it was just like her.”

  “Your mother.”

  “That’s right.”

  Ben had a copy of the photo sent to MI5 by the police. “Is this the photo?”

  “Yeah, that’s it.”

  “And the woman, Jane, looked just like this?”

  “Near enough.”

  “And you confronted Jane with the photo?”

  “Yeah, I did.”

  “What did she say?”

  “She said she was my mother. She started to cry and so did my dad.”

  “And what did you do?”

  “Well, I didn’t cry if that’s what you’re asking. I got angry. Look, Mr. Wellington, I’m not Albert Einstein but I’m not Forest Gump, either. It was bullshit. Some kind of a scam on an old man.”

  “Did you tell her that you thought she was perpetrating a scam?”

  “I did tell her that.”

  “And her response?”

  “She told me there were things in this world that we couldn’t understand. I told her she was a fucking bitch who was either wearing some kind of Hollywood mask or had plastic surgery to try to fool us.”

  “Did she deny that?”

  “’Course she did.”

  “And then what happened?”

  “I told her we weren’t buying whatever it was she was selling and told her to sod off and leave my dad alone.”

  “And did she and the other woman leave?”

  “They had to didn’t they?”

  “Did they say where they were going?”

  “No. And I didn’t ask.”

  “Did they call a taxi? Did they have a car?”

  “The other woman took car keys from her bag.”

  “Could you see the make of car from the keys? Did you see them getting into the car?”

  “No to both.”

  “All right. Did your father believe that Jane was your mother?”

  “He did, but I think he wanted to believe it. An old man’s mind playing tricks on him.”

  “Do you think these
women came back and murdered your father?”

  “’Course I do. Who else? You’ve got to catch them, Mr. Wellington and bring them to justice for murdering a kind old man.”

  “You’ve been very helpful, Gavin. Is there anything else you haven’t mentioned I wonder?”

  “No, that’s it.”

  “Anything about the way these women might have smelled? Their aroma?”

  “Yeah, there was. Both of them were reeking of perfume. It was almost too much being in the same room as them. What was that all about?”

  Ben went into the observation room and sat with Murphy and Rix.

  The room was thick with Murphy’s roll-up smoke.

  “I don’t think smoking is allowed,” he said.

  Murphy lit another.

  “Do you think Christine and Molly killed him?” Ben asked.

  “What do you think, Benjamin?” Rix said in a mocking tone.

  “No, I don’t. In addition to the victim’s fingerprints, Gavin’s, and your wives, there were at least four sets of unidentifiable prints inside the flat. How did the rovers know where to find Gareth West?”

  “Had to be Hathaway,” Murphy said. “Christine must’ve mentioned her ex to him. All he’d need was his name and the city.”

  “Of course it was Hathaway,” Rix said. “We used to have that piece of garbage at our flat, shuttling dope in and out.”

  “Why do you think they’re looking for the women?” Ben asked. “Why don’t they just forget about them?”

  “They’re twisted bastards, aren’t they?” Murphy said. “They’ll be blaming them for winding up here. They’ll be wanting their revenge. It’s the way they are.”