They all raised their hands. 'Seeing as you know her so well, why don’t you do the visiting?' Prince Carl said.
The African nodded.
Tarasov sighed. 'Once we were thirteen families.'
'And now we’re nine,' Simmonds snapped, peeved that the Japanese silk baron, and the Swedish government minister still had not arrived, but thankful that the vote had been passed without them. It only needed one more than half of them to make a law, and now it was passed it could not be undone.
There was silence for a few seconds before Slone asked, 'And the English cop?'
'For the moment we keep an eye on him.' Prince Carl replied. 'Dead cops cause questions.'
'And those around him?' Simmonds said. 'He’s got this kid in tow, used to be a druggie and as mad as a hatter.'
Prince Carl shrugged. 'People like that, not hard to get rid of. Accidents can easily be arranged if needs be.'
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
Mike dropped the WPC off at Berwick Police Station. Using the police car until he could pick his own up from Durham, where it was being held in a friend's lock-up, he drove Smiler and Tiny to his Aunt May’s house on Holy Island.
When they arrived, she was waiting at the gate for them. Mike had explained all about Smiler over the phone, and about the scars on his arms and face, so as not to give her too much of a shock, though he strongly doubted if anything in this world could shock Aunt May. She had after all dealt with that kind of thing before. She smiled and nodded a welcome at Smiler, then froze rigid, her eyes wide with exaggerated fear, when Mike got Tiny out of the police car.
'And where, Michael Yorke, do you think that brute is going to live?' she demanded. 'You said nothing at all about bringing a monster home with you. Dear me, he’s bigger than a bloody Shetland pony. Fairly outdone your bloody self this time, haven’t you! And a barn to keep the bloody brute in, we haven’t got.' She folded her arms across her chest.
Mike grinned. 'Well, not quite, but he can always have my room. Anyhow, you know you love dogs, Aunt May… If I hadn’t rescued him he probably would have starved to death by now, and I know you wouldn’t like that to happen -- a good honest, kind, loving and caring woman like yourself, Aunt May.'
'Oh yeah, got more bloody blarney than the Irish, you have.' She looked at Smiler. 'He’s been picking up waifs and strays since he could get out on the street. You wouldn’t believe me if I was to tell you what he’s carted home.'
Smiler gave her a brief smile. He hoped she wasn’t counting him as one of Mike’s waifs and strays, though he knew deep down, really that’s just what he was. He also knew enough about Aunt May from what Mike had told him to know that she would not have meant anything bad by the remark.
Mike put his arm around her shoulders, kissed her cheek then gave her a hug.
'Away with your charm, Michael Yorke.' She tutted. 'You’ve always been able to charm the birds right out of the trees. A wee dog I wouldn’t have minded so much, for God’s sake. But this… this great big ugly brute...' She glared at Tiny, who wagged his tail. 'What’s its name?'
'Tiny.'
'You’re joking.' She threw Mike a look of comic amazement.
Mike shrugged. 'That’s the name he came with, Aunt May… Anyhow, it’s only for a couple of days.'
'What is -- his name, or how long he’s staying?'
Mike grinned. 'As cute as ever, Aunt May.'
Shrugging, she turned her attention to Smiler. 'You’ll be walking the bloody brute, I presume, and feeding it?'
Smiler nodded quickly.
'OK, but one hair one whiff of a smell, and he’s out. I mean it… It’s a good job I’m not full up. More cancellations than enough with all the bloody rain we’ve had this year,' she grumbled, glaring at Tiny as if the weather and lack of bookings were his fault.
'Thanks Aunt May, you’re a doll.' Mike bent and kissed her cheek again. 'Gotta go now, we’ll talk when I get back.'
'Get away then, and don’t forget to check the tide.' Grinning, she turned to Smiler. 'He got caught on the causeway one night and the helicopter had to come out and rescue him.' She rolled her eyes in mock horror. 'How bloody embarrassing is that?'
Not knowing if she really wanted an answer or not, Smiler nodded, and bit his lip to stop an actual laugh at the picture in his head of Mike standing on top of a car, the raging North Sea all around him and being rescued by a helicopter, as she went on, 'And him living on the island most of his growing years in short pants, he really should have known better, shouldn’t he? No one, but no one, beats Mother Nature, certainly not bloody Michael Yorke. Mother Nature isn’t that easily charmed.'
Mike laughed. 'Never gonna live that one down, am I? And your memory’s fading, darling, I never wore shorts. They were a few generations before me. Don’t know who you’re thinking about there -- some old sweetheart, perhaps?'
'Get away with you.' Laughing, she flapped her hands at him.
Mike’s phone rang. Still smiling at Aunt May, he took it out of his pocket. 'Hello, this is Mike.’ His smile faded as he listened intently to the voice at the other end. 'OK,' he said a moment later. 'I’m on my way.’
Slapping the phone shut, he said to Smiler and Aunt May, 'Gotta go, guys. See youse both tonight. And you be very good.' He patted Tiny’s head, and received a wag from his tail, and a nudge on the knee from Tiny’s nose.
As Mike headed back over the causeway, a picture of the murdered girl entered his mind. He couldn’t begin to understand the pain she must have suffered at the hands of the depraved bastard who had murdered her. Thank God two suspects were being held at the station.
Though it seemed too easy. Far too easy!
Almost as if they had been handed to them on a plate. Which made Mike all the more suspicious. Nothing involving murder was ever that easy.
He drove over the causeway, reminding himself to pick up a timetable of the tides. He never wanted to go through the experience of being rescued from a car roof ever again.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
As Mike pulled away, Smiler looked out of the corner of his eyes at Aunt May, thinking to himself, Ohh dear me, she’s got to be the oldest chick in the world.
Even though it was a warm day, Aunt May, all four foot eleven of her, was swaddled in a thick brown cardigan that probably could go round her twice. Her short iron grey hair was permed to within an inch of its life, and she had wrinkles on top of wrinkles.
Then she smiled. Her blue eyes, far from faded and full of intelligence, laughed out at the world.
'Come in, come in,' she said, pointing back at the red door with her walking stick.
Smiler followed her. The path was bordered with red and blue petunias, the lawns on either side looking like they had been cut with a pair of manicure scissors. The window boxes were brimming with more petunias, and the doorframe was covered in a pale purple clematis. An overriding perfume came from the honeysuckle that climbed rampantly over the left side of the white-painted house.
'Nice flowers,' Smiler remarked. He felt obliged to make some sort of conversation, seeing as the woman was being good enough to put him up.
'Too leggy,' she replied. 'All the rain has made them twice as tall as they should be, so the bloody flower heads suffer.'
'Oh, yes, it definitely spoils them.' Smiler had delved into many a gardening book.
Just before he stepped over the threshold, a shadow seemed to pass in front of him. Smiler shivered. He spun round, a prickly feeling dancing along the back of his neck. It was a sure sign that he was being watched. It brought on a fresh bout of shivering that he could not control. He began to rapidly count the fingers on his left hand with the forefinger of his right.
Noticing this, she said, 'Come in boy, come in. Don’t be bloody sh----'
Aunt May looked over Smiler’s shoulder. For a moment she froze. Then she seemed to shake herself, looked at Smiler, gave him a lopsided smile, and again told him to come in.
She showed him up to his room, a small but
neat place, a piece of heaven to him after some of the doss houses he’d woken up in. The overriding colour was blue -- pale blue walls, dark blue carpet, dark blue bedspread and curtains. Even the one picture on the wall was a field of bluebells. He remembered a one-room apartment in London that was the size of this room, an apartment that six of them had shared. Those walls had been blue as well until the day Irish Jimmy lost it, and took a razor blade to his own throat, and changed the colour of the walls to red.
But that was cool. All that was in the past. He could live with blue.
Aunt May urged him to leave his unpacking until later, because tea was ready now.
Facing the window, he sighed, but it was a sigh of contentment, the first such sigh he had ever experienced. He stared out the at the sixteenth-century castle standing regal in the sunshine. Then he blinked rapidly, as dark thunder clouds began to rise above the parapet. He blinked again, and they were gone. Once more the landscape was bathed in glorious gold.
His packing consisted of two T-shirts, both black, and an extra pair of jeans, which was a lot more than he’d had a few months ago or, as he secretly liked to call it, the dark years. Life before Mike.
He shook himself, not wanting to go down that dark road to the before place. From now on that place was to be avoided at all costs. He was wrapping all those terrible memories up. They were parked in a corner of his mind behind a very high wall. Just a few loose ones to catch that crept up on him now and then in the middle of the night, or at a lonely time.
He followed Aunt May down the stairs and into the floral living room, which was in direct competition with the garden. Flowers on the wallpaper of every shade imaginable, huge red flowers on the carpet and, not to be outdone, the settee and matching chairs looked like someone had scattered half a dozen packets of mixed flower seeds over them. Smiler much preferred his room’s décor.
They walked through into the large kitchen diner that had three small tables, each with three chairs pushed in. All the tables were covered in sparkling white tablecloths and set for tea. The cream place mats had floral designs, and so did the white teacups, a different flower on each one.
He guessed Aunt May was a flower nut. On the opposite side of the kitchen was a huge old-fashioned cooker. The sink was under the window, which had fancy cream nets up, and cream-painted cupboards ran round the walls.
'Sit here, dear,' Aunt May said, pointing to the first table as she walked over to the cooker.
Smiler sat down. When she opened the oven, his nostrils flared as the wonderful smell of home-made chicken casserole invaded the room. His mouth watered as his stomach rumbled. He hadn’t realised how hungry he was. For years he’d eaten so little, most days getting by on handouts from a baker’s wife round the corner from Cardboard City. She gave stuff away to the homeless, unbeknown to her husband, on a regular basis. His stomach was used to getting by on very little, and had been since forever. He could eat now though, since he’d met Mike, not huge amounts, but a hell of a lot better than he ever had before.
He had to stop Aunt May from filling his plate to overflowing, it would be bad manners if he couldn’t eat it all. The lady was, after all, Mike’s aunt, and deserved his respect.
'Aren’t you hungry?' she asked, her nose shrinking into the middle of her face as she frowned at him.
'Yes, but I… Er… I can’t eat a whole pile… Small stomach.' He patted his stomach and threw her a twitch of a smile.
She tutted, then said, 'OK, son, but in my opinion growing boys need a lot of bloody fuel.'
Smiler nodded as he looked at his plate.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
Driving into Berwick, Mike decided to drop in at the murder scene before going to the station. A policeman was standing outside the door to the flat, in the process of chasing half a dozen nosy kids away as Mike pulled up.
'Hey, copper, is that right – the bloke who lives in there’s a murderer?' shouted one of the boys, no more than eight years old with a shock of red hair.
'Has he chopped somebody to bits?' asked a wide-eyed blonde girl of the same age, her voice rising with fright.
'On yer bikes,' the policeman replied, his eyes on Mike as he got out of the car.
Mike showed his badge. The officer nodded as he stepped to one side to let Mike through.
'Hey, mister,' the redhead shouted.
'I’ll not tell yer again,' the copper said, this time glaring at the boy.The kids scampered off, and Mike hid a smile as he opened the door. He noticed the bloody handprint on the door, plus two others along the hallway. The bedroom door was open and, as Mike stepped in to the bedroom, he bit down on a gasp. He found himself looking at a scene from a slaughterhouse.
The sheet had been taken away for DNA tests, but the blood had soaked through. Ninety per cent of the mattress was stained and still looked damp, showing just how much blood the victim had lost.
Mike stepped closer. The place smelled of blood and he wrinkled his nose.
'She’s obviously been murdered here,' he muttered, walking round the bed to the wall and back again, studying the bed from every angle.
'The vicious bastard.' He turned his attention to the rest of the room. Next to the bed, where a lot of the blood was, small chunks of white clung to the wall. He shuddered, knowing it was flesh, seeing in his mind the whip falling on the girl, pulling back ready for the next lash, scattering blood and tiny pieces of flesh in its wake.
Taking a deep breath he continued his survey of the room. Nothing looked like it had been disturbed in any way. Standard white furniture, probably flat-pack. A double wardrobe, a night stand with an alarm clock, and a large set of drawers, with a smaller set underneath the window.
There were blood and specks of flesh on every item.
Mike frowned as he looked at the trail of bloody footprints that led outside, probably the same person who the handprints belonged to. As if suddenly realising what he’d done, the bastard had panicked then turned and run, not caring what he touched or what sort of trail he left.
Leaving the house, Mike had a few words with the policeman outside before, grim-faced, he got into his car and headed for the police station.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
Smiler had been introduced to the two other guests, a pair of oldish ladies -- one so fat she had three chins, dressed in a red jogging suit which only emphasised her many other rolls of flesh, the other in a blue suit, and thin enough to give Aunt May a run for her money. The pair of them giggled their way through tea like two excitable schoolgirls. They were on holiday together, and had so fallen in love with the island they were thinking of buying a house. Trouble was, they complained to Smiler, there were none for sale.
Smiler nodded his sympathy, and decided to look round the island for himself.
It was a place that had been on his ‘must visit ‘ list ever since he’d read about it. The stories surrounding the island had taken his mind away for a long time to that special place, leaving his body in limbo to deal with the day-to-day trauma of living.
Holy Island. Lindisfarne. Special names for a special place.
Tea over, he thanked Aunt May for the fantastic meal, said goodbye to the ladies, who were heading home that night at low tide, and went outside.
Deciding to walk along to the castle first, he rescued Tiny from the back garden and called into the village shop for cigarettes. He stepped over a placid-looking Golden Retriever to get into the shop, having tied Tiny up out of the way, not knowing how he behaved around other dogs. But there was nothing to worry about. The retriever lifted its head and yawned at him, then did the same to Tiny, who sat down and ignored it. Smiler laughed. He liked animals, especially dogs. Dogs could see things. They were in tune to the senses that most humans had lost long ago.
The shopkeeper, a small thickset man with a long nose, his wavy brown hair brushed over his head in thin strands to cover his baldness, served Smiler, suspiciously watching a group of youths at the back of the shop through his thick glas
ses, his mean eyes nasty slits.
'You with them?' he snarled, as he handed Smiler’s change over.
Smiler shook his head. 'No. Why?'
'I’ve seen that sort of scam before. You keep me occupied while they do the nicking.'
'Well, you’ve got it wrong this time. Sorry.' Smiler pocketed his change. He stared for a moment at the shopkeeper's right hand, at the obvious bite mark in the soft flesh between thumb and forefinger. Looking up at the shopkeeper's face, he felt a familiar shiver inside.
'Dog bite,' the shopkeeper offered by way of explanation. Dismissing Smiler, he swung his attention back to the boys. 'Do you lot want anything?' he demanded as Smiler walked out.
Miserable git, Smiler thought. That bite's too small to be off the retriever and that’s a fact.
He nearly tripped over Aunt May on the step.
'I see you’ve met our temporary shopkeeper,' she whispered as, laughing and giggling, the boys tumbled out of the shop. 'He’s from the mainland. The real shopkeeper’s a very nice man. On his holidays. France, I think he said -- or was that last year?'
'Oh, right,' Smiler said. Nodding to her, he took Tiny’s lead and set off.
He crossed the road opposite the Lindisfarne Scriptorium and headed on past The Ship Inn. At the bottom of the street was Sandham Lane, with Aunt May’s house at the far end. Sandham Lane was the only street that had a name plaque on it. This, Aunt May had told him, was so that the old dears off the bus trips would know where to meet up. She’d also told him he must never say P-I-G on the island. He spelt the word in his head. It was very unlucky to say it out loud. Being very superstitious, Smiler didn’t even want to say it in his head. Bad luck was the last thing he needed, he certainly wasn’t going to encourage it.
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