Valley of Nightmares

by Jane Godman

  To my relief, the cottage was deserted. I was torn between trusting Ceri’s instincts that we would be safe here and fretting about what to do next. I had kidnapped a child. At some point I would need to go to the authorities with my wildly improbable story. It seemed reasonable to assume that my brief career as a governess was now at an end.

  The neat simplicity of the cottage felt cold and barren. “Safety” and “shelter” were alien words tumbling over themselves in my mind. I slid the knife from my bag and placed it on the table.

  “What do we do now?” I asked Ceri with a touch of acidity in my voice.

  “We wait,” she replied serenely.

  I prowled the confined space restlessly, like a truant child, unable to pause or linger in one place. How could I wait? And for what? For confirmation that my love was a hollow travesty, now destroyed. My heart rejected thoughts of patience and, instead, delighted in dwelling on harsh tortures. I would never again feel Gethin’s hands warm my blood like fine wine on a winter evening. Or see the look in his eyes—the one that was reserved just for me—the one that reminded me of sunlight breaking through a bleak cloud. How cruel to have found something so perfect only to have it snatched away, and like this! Fate chuckled at my pain. You knew it was impossible, Lilly, she whispered slyly. That great, once-in-a-lifetime love just doesn’t happen for a girl like you.

  “If someone comes, you must go into the other room. And once you are there, don’t come out for anything, understand?” I said to Ceri as I lit the gas lamp I had brought. She opened her mouth to protest, but I forestalled her. “And no argument.”

  “Don’t be sad, Lilly,” she said gently, and I gave her a smile that wobbled in the middle.

  Before I could reply, we heard a slight noise outside. Obediently, at a gesture from me, Ceri slipped into the other room and closed the door. I went to the window, holding back the garish curtain and straining to hear. Perhaps I had imagined the sound of a booted foot slithering across the rocks. I chewed my lip nervously and almost bit through it when I saw Gethin crest the ridge and stand still looking around him. I had so badly wanted to be wrong, but I didn’t have time to dwell on my self-pity. He carried a torch and was walking purposefully toward the cottage.

  The door creaked open. “Lilly!” The relief in his voice was palpable.

  He was still in the suit he had worn when he set off that morning and carrying his dark trench coat. Throwing this down onto the table, he started toward me. The look on my face brought him up short.

  “Stay where you are.” I could hear the tremor in the words, but thankfully the hand holding the knife at my side stayed steady.

  He didn’t listen and, instead, took a few steps closer. “Lilly, what’s going on? Where is Ceri?”

  “Stop it!” I burst out.

  “What the devil?” He looked down, recoiling slightly as he saw the knife.

  “I’m tired of playing these games where we pretend it’s not you!” I drew a shaky hand across my brow. My voice splintered like my broken dreams. “I saw the telegram from your friend Crowley, and the deeds to the house.”

  He was silent, his expression guarded, neutral. Eventually, drawing a shaky breath, he said quietly, “Please, Lilly, let me explain.” He advanced toward me, and I backed away, shaking my head. The stone wall halted my progress, and I looked around for a means of escape. Ceri remained silent in her hiding place. “Put that bloody knife down and talk to me,” Gethin said roughly.

  “Did you go to London today to see Aleister Crowley?” I demanded, my voice high-pitched and quavering. When he didn’t answer, I said, “I need to know, Gethin.”

  “Yes, I went to see Crowley.”

  He lunged toward me in exactly the same second as I raised the knife in warning. The blade sliced through the heavy wool of his jacket and, with sickening ease, buried itself hilt-deep just below his left shoulder. He reeled backward, stumbling and falling into a half-sitting position in the corner.

  I closed my eyes in horror, my whole body starting to tremble violently at the realization of what I had just done. My intention had been to warn him, not actually stab him. Every instinct cried out to run out of that cottage and keep running until I could put as much distance between myself and this real-life nightmare as possible. My nerve endings tried to shut down in shock. Gethin’s voice prompted me to open my eyes.

  “Help me, Lilly,” he begged.

  “How can I?” I took a deep, steadying breath, trying to ignore the wild churning of my stomach. First kidnapping. Now murder. How, in the space of a few hours, had I become this person? “If I leave you here to bleed to death, Ceri will be safe,” I told Gethin bluntly.

  “She won’t.” His voice was faint, his breathing harsh, and a sickly grey tint was leaching the colour from his face. “But I don’t have time to convince you now. He will be here soon…” He reached out a hand toward me. “You have to trust me, Lilly.”

  The dream flashed a warning through my mind again. Don’t get it wrong. But don’t hesitate either. I looked into the dark eyes that I loved—yes, still loved—so much.

  A question formed in my mind. “How did you know where we were?” I asked.

  “Shucky, blasted animal. He brought me to the edge of the ridge and then ran off again.” His eyelids fluttered closed. That was enough. That was all I needed to hear. If Shucky brought him to us, Gethin was not the Hunter.

  “I will have to get the knife out first.” I dropped to my knees beside him.

  He lost consciousness as I tended to his injury, which was probably a good thing. The knife came out cleanly with a sickly squelch that turned my stomach. Fresh blood gushed from the wound. I manhandled him out of his dark suit jacket, undid his shirt and laid bare the deep, ugly wound that slashed open the flesh just below his collarbone. I’d carelessly flung some cotton blouses into my bag, and I used one of them now to staunch the flow of blood. Two others were ruthlessly ripped up as makeshift bandages. I bound them around his shoulder as tightly as I could. I was kneeling next to Gethin’s unconscious form surrounded by gore, bloodstained cloths and the telltale dripping knife, when Ceri peeped round the door.

  Her saucer-like eyes took in the scene. “Why have you killed Uncle Gethin?” she asked me in an interested tone, tiptoeing lightly into the room. Her words nearly toppled me from the fine tightrope between reason and hysteria on which I was balancing. I drew in a ragged breath.

  “I fell onto the knife.” Gethin’s voice was faint. “Clean this mess up, hide that jacket and help me get into my coat.” I started to protest, but he struggled into a more upright position, saying harshly, “Don’t argue with me, Lilly. When he comes, I don’t want him to know I’m injured.”

  “Who is coming?” I asked, gathering up the bloodied cloths.

  “The Hunter,” he said. My mind skittered wildly, trying to make sense of those words on his lips.

  “You go, take Ceri back to the house,” Gethin pleaded when we had finished clearing up the mess. His face was ashen and drawn in the light of the torch, and I fought down the urge to panic.

  “No, I can’t,” I said, trying to find the words to explain. How could I possibly explain the connection that existed between Ceri and me? I couldn’t begin to comprehend it myself. Now it seemed I had to add Gethin into the equation.

  “We need to stay together. We are stronger together.” Ceri said it for me.

  “But one of us is missing.” I fretted, peering out into the gloom.

  “He’ll come,” she said. Gethin looked from me to her and then back again with a bewildered expression.

  “Don’t try to understand it, just accept it. We are not leaving you,” I said with flat finality. I sat with my back against the harsh wall and drew him toward me so that he could rest his head on my shoulder. “You know what the legend says,” I told him lightly. “If we stay here tonight, we will wake up as po
ets or lunatics.”

  “I’ll be the poet.” Gethin’s voice trembled slightly. “It sounds like you two are halfway there already in terms of madness. Anyway, that only applies if you stay here alone,” he reminded me. “If more than one person stays, the prophecy is that one of them will not wake up at all.”

  With hearts weighed down by dread, we waited. We didn’t light lamps, boil water or bake cakes for the visitor we expected. No flowers or brightly hung banners would greet his arrival. We rehearsed no words of welcome. As if in anticipation of the deluge that ends the drought, we waited for an encounter we did not want. At last, we would meet the stranger we knew so well.

  * * *

  No sound penetrated the bitter silence. But I knew the Hunter was close. Gethin insisted on standing, and I helped him up, supporting him with an arm about his waist as he swayed before steadying himself against the table. I went to the window. The outline of the trees was thrown into stark relief against gloomy skies. There was a hint of phosphorescence about the dying light that gave the scene a glorious, unearthly majesty. A man crested the ridge, and I recognised him instantly. Relief flooded through me, and running to the door, I threw it wide.

  “Matthew!” I started toward him, but Gethin caught my arm. Although there was no strength in the gesture, he succeeded in halting me in the doorway. I paused, surprised that he would not want me to greet our rescuer. I saw the direction of Gethin’s gaze. Moonlight gleamed briefly on the pistol Matthew held. It was pointed unwaveringly at me.

  “Guten Abend, mein Herr.” The German words Gethin spoke were pleasantly conversational. I glanced from one to the other in confusion.

  “Gethin, this is Matthew Fisher. He has been staying in the village.”

  Gethin drew me closer against his side, and with a growing feeling of dread, I realised he was doing so in order to use me as a prop on which to lean. I was the means by which he remained upright.

  “I fear this gentleman may have been somewhat disingenuous in his dealings with you, Lilly.” Gethin did not take his eyes from the other man’s face. “This is Herr Mathias Fischer, of the Gestapo.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  Matthew’s—that is, Fischer’s—eyes flickered over me contemptuously. “We have both been playing a part since the day we met, but I must congratulate you on your superior acting abilities, Miss Divine,” he said coldly. “Your convincing performance has successfully made what should have been a simple task most disagreeably complicated, for which I am sure Mr. Taran here will no doubt reward you. But the time for dissemblance is over. You will tell me now where the letter is, if you please.”

  “You are mistaken, Fischer,” Gethin informed him. “She doesn’t have the letter.”

  “What letter?” The oddest feeling assailed me as I spoke. I could not shake off the sensation that someone else was standing in the shadows, watching us. I scanned the area beyond the light, but there was no one to be seen.

  “Don’t play games with me!” The words were laced with pure venom. The German accent that he had disguised so well was pronounced now that Fischer made no further attempt to hide it. He gestured toward me with the gun. “We both know that Ricky Meyer gave her the letter just before he died.”

  Ignoring the fact that there was a pistol aimed at my head, I said, “If I’m supposed to have this precious letter of yours, you might at least tell me what it is and why you think I have it before you start threatening to shoot me!” Delicate fingers of fog were beginning to ooze from beneath the rocks and caress my ankles. I shivered at their grave-cold touch. Ceri had crept closer and her icy hand stole into mine. My eyes scanned the obscurity behind the circle of Fischer’s torchlight. Was there someone else there? I could not shake off the conviction that there was.

  “Shall I explain?” Gethin asked, and Fischer nodded curtly. “Herr Fischer here is referring to the missing letter containing the names of the agents working against the Germans on the continent. That letter, you see, was written by my brother. He was the high-ranking British turncoat who wanted to ingratiate himself with the Führer. But the letter had already left Bryn’s possession when he died, and the race—from both the German and British sides—has been on in earnest since then to track it down. Enter your friend Maximilian Bauer…”

  “Maxie? But he is Jewish! He wouldn’t work for the Nazis!” I was indignant in my defence of my former boss. He might be lecherous and degenerate, but the Maxie I knew had some principles. Didn’t he?

  “Bauer is also an opportunist, and money is his god. He has a track record of selling military and political secrets, which is one of the reasons—other than his religion, of course—why Berlin was becoming a little uncomfortable for him. We don’t quite know how he came by this particular letter; possibly it was stolen from Bryn deliberately and passed to Bauer. Anyway, word filtered out that Bauer had the letter and was offering to sell it to the highest bidder. Bauer was known to use Meyer as a courier.”

  “So Ricky was murdered,” I whispered. A crystal-clear image of my friend tapping the side of his nose and saying, “Found my ticket out of here,” slipped into my mind.

  “He was,” Gethin confirmed. “Herr Fischer here was led by Bauer to believe that Meyer was delivering the letter to a contact at the Foreign Office on the night he was killed. Fischer murdered Meyer but imagine his chagrin when, upon searching Meyer’s body, there was no trace of the letter. It was well known that you were close to Meyer.”

  “And, Miss Divine, you disappeared the day after Meyer’s burial. Coincidence, ja? I think not.”

  I studied Fischer’s clean-cut features, no trace now of the bumbling, pleasant accountant who had been so shyly smitten by me. Mrs. Comber’s description of a “nice, clean young man” came back to me.

  “It was you,” I gasped. “You told my landlady you were my ‘young man’. Even then you were convinced I had your blasted letter and wanted to search my lodgings.” He bowed ironically, clicking his heels together, as though I were congratulating him. “And that day when you kissed me…”

  He laughed. “I heard a car coming up from the house, and I couldn’t risk Taran recognising me. Kissing you was the easiest way I could think of to hide my face from view.”

  “Don’t give me that!” I exclaimed. “You took the opportunity to shove your hand up my sweater and have a good feel at the same time. I’m glad I punched you, and I’m glad that Shucky bit you when you pretended to hurt your knee just so you could stay the night and have a snoop around Taran House. Of course,” I continued, the realisations coming thick and fast now, “he was so friendly toward you because he wanted to keep an eye on you, not because he liked you!”

  His expression hardened again. “Back to the letter, if you please. You came to Wales in the employ of Mr. Taran here, the very man in charge of the hunt for the British authorities. Yet we are still to believe this is a coincidence? You must excuse my scepticism, because, when questioned further by my men, Bauer eventually revealed that Meyer told him the letter was safe. Meyer said he had given it to you.”

  “Well, what a rotten, lying, little snake!” I burst out. “Just wait until I see Maxie Bauer!”

  A cruel smile twitched across Fischer’s lips, and I knew, beyond certainty, that I never would see Maxie again. I thought of the man who had taken me in when I had nowhere else to go and was sad. Whatever his faults might be, the world would be a worse place without Maxie.

  “Mind you,” Gethin said, and I could hear the pain of his injury straining his voice, “there must be more to this letter than I thought, Fischer. After all, it brought a man of your stature all the way here to the valley to play such a mundane part. Housebreaking and trying to seduce the governess? It’s all a bit below your usual touch. And that letter has been missing for months now. Our side has had plenty of time to take steps to protect the agents named in the letter. What the devil else does it contain?”r />
  Fischer sneered. “So you really don’t know? In that case, your use of the term ‘the devil’ is a remarkably perceptive guess. Your ever-so-charming brother also provided indisputable proof, if such were needed, of the occult roots of the Reich. Indeed—and one has to question the intelligence of the man who would put pen to paper on this matter—he refers to plans made between himself, the Führer and Aleister Crowley. Apparently, they shared an interest in a certain unnamed house, set somewhere in the Welsh valleys, which Crowley had visited and confirmed was perfectly placed to provide a temple for satanic worship. The letter promises the house to Herr Hitler, once Britain has become part of the Third Reich.”

  I gasped at the full implication of the words, but Gethin remained impassive. “And to think that, for all these years, I never suspected Bryn was so prolific a writer.”

  There was a definite movement in the shadows. I wasn’t the only one who sensed it. This time, we all turned in that direction.

  Chapter Fifteen

  My gaze fixed on the shadowy rim of the cirque, but this time the man who had been lurking there, listening to our conversation, stepped forward. I suppose I knew all along that it would be the man I’d seen at Ricky’s funeral and again in the village. The man from whom Ceri and I had fled near the lake. And, in that instant, I also knew who he was. As I saw his face, everything made sense.

  “Good evening, Bryn,” Gethin said courteously, as though he were meeting his brother at a social event.

  Bryn Taran laughed. It was a sound that had a cold, metallic tang. “You don’t sound surprised to see me, brother dear.” The resemblance between them really was quite remarkable. But on closer inspection, it was clear that Bryn Taran’s debauched life had left its mark. His skin was untouched by sunlight and deep purple pouches were like diseased bruises beneath his lower lids. The eyes above them were fathom-deep frozen lakes within which all hope had drowned.