The Dark Side of the Road

by Simon Green

  ‘Walter needs his rest,’ she said firmly. ‘Look at him; nodding off in his chair. He needs to lie down properly, or he won’t be able to get up at all tomorrow.’

  ‘I’m too tired to argue with you,’ said Walter. He allowed Melanie to help him to his feet, leaning heavily on her for support. And then he stopped and looked at me. ‘You did say … you thought we should all stick together.’

  ‘Yes,’ I said. ‘The company may be uncomfortable, but it’s still the safest way to go. If you really do need to lie down, we could always bring in a couch …’

  ‘Nonsense!’ said Melanie. ‘Walter and I have our bedroom here on the ground floor, these days. Just down the hall. You’ll have no trouble hearing me yell if we need you.’

  ‘When did you move downstairs, Daddy?’ said Penny, frowning. ‘You’ve had the same room on the first floor since you were a boy.’

  ‘The view’s better down here,’ growled Walter, avoiding her gaze.

  ‘He can’t handle the stairs any more,’ said Melanie. ‘Another good reason why you need to lie down and get your rest, dear.’

  ‘She’s right,’ said Walter. He smiled at her. ‘You always know what’s best for me. That is why I keep you around, isn’t it, dear?’

  ‘Of course, Walter. Because I’m always right. Now come along.’

  They headed for the dining hall door, Walter leaning heavily on his walking stick and on Melanie. He was too tired now even to try and hide how tired he was. Everyone else started getting to their feet.

  I stood up, to face them. ‘This really isn’t a good idea,’ I said.

  ‘No one else has been killed since James,’ said Sylvia, just a bit testily. ‘I don’t see any reason why we should see ourselves as targets. Murderers don’t kill for no reason. You need your rest too, Diana. You get some sleep, and I’ll stand guard over you. Well actually, I’ll sit guard over you. I’ve got some magazines.’

  ‘She’s right,’ Diana said to me. ‘We’ve all had a long hard day, and we can’t hope to defend ourselves or protect each other if we’re too tired to keep our eyes open. We’re only on the first floor, after all. And I can probably scream louder than Melanie, if I have to.’

  ‘Dear Diana,’ murmured Melanie, still guiding Walter to the door. ‘Always so competitive …’

  ‘I think I’ll feel safer in my own room, with the door locked and a chair jammed up against it,’ said Khan. ‘I suggest we all get what sleep we can, recharge our batteries, and then reconvene tomorrow morning in the drawing room.’

  ‘Someone should send word down to Jeeves, in the kitchen,’ said Penny. ‘He can stand guard in the hallway, with his gun.’

  ‘You trust the one man we know for sure isn’t who he said he was?’ I said. ‘The one man in the house with a weapon?’

  ‘The Colonel wasn’t shot,’ said Penny. ‘And right now, I don’t trust anyone.’

  She just happened to be looking at me when she said that.

  ‘I’ll walk you to your room, darling,’ said Roger.

  ‘I can look after myself!’ she said, a little more sharply than was necessary.

  And just like that, they were all heading for the door. There was nothing I could say or do to stop them separating, so I just shrugged mentally and went after them. Maybe if they did split up, someone would seize the opportunity to do something stupid, or revealing. Or incriminating.

  At the last moment, Penny hung back at the doorway and gestured for me to come forward so we could speak quietly.

  ‘You can’t bully them into doing the sensible thing, Ishmael. They all need time to themselves, to talk and think in private. A chance to play the blame game and decide who they trust. It’s scary to be on your own, but it’s even scarier to be stuck in a room with a hidden killer. What do you think is really going on here, Ishmael? Was James the real target, or was he just a way to get at Daddy?’

  ‘The killer must have seen the Colonel as a threat, to kill him first,’ I said. ‘Beyond that, I have no idea. It could be anyone.’

  ‘Including me?’ said Penny.

  ‘Of course not,’ I lied.

  Seven

  People Come and Go

  I took my time climbing the long winding staircase to the next floor. Partly because I had a lot of thinking to do, but mostly because I wanted to give the others time to get ahead of me. I didn’t want anyone at my back. In fact, by the time I got to the top of the stairs, I was alone on the landing. Everyone else had hurried inside their rooms, and all the doors were firmly closed. It was very quiet.

  I strolled down the corridor, all the way to my far-off room, and stopped before the door. I looked at the stylized image of the red rose, and then leaned forward and listened carefully. I couldn’t hear anything inside the room. Couldn’t smell anything, either. But I still had a feeling of being watched; so I took my time getting my key out of my pocket, and then looked quickly back down the corridor. No less than four doors that had been closed were now cracked open just a little, so people could peer out. The doors all slammed shut in a hurry as they saw me looking, like so many firecrackers going off. I smiled, unlocked my door, and then sent the door flying inwards with a push of one finger. It swung all the way back to crash against the inside wall, with a satisfyingly loud noise. The room inside was very dark, very still, very quiet.

  I reached inside and found the light switch. A pleasant yellow glow filled the room, showing it to be completely empty. I remained where I was, in the doorway, looking in. I didn’t feel at all embarrassed, or even self-conscious, at taking these necessary precautions. Being so very careful, all the time, is what has kept me alive all these years. I listened, carefully. I could hear people moving about in their rooms, further down the corridor. I could even hear them talking, quietly and far away. Muffled, as though underwater. It all seemed peaceful enough, nothing worrying or out of the ordinary, so I entered my room.

  I shut the door firmly, but didn’t lock it. I had a distinct feeling people would be coming to talk with me. To say things they wouldn’t or couldn’t say to someone they actually knew. To tell me things in private that they would never dare say in public. People have always found it easy to talk to me; perhaps because they can sense I won’t be so quick to judge them.

  I looked around my room. The yellow light was warm and comforting and easy on the eyes. The rose-patterned wallpaper somewhat less so. The fire was still crackling cheerfully in the fireplace. I went over to it and studied the flames thoughtfully. Jeeves had been very firm that I needed to tend the thing, to keep it from going out. I knew you had to feed it coal, regularly, but not too much or you’d smother the fire and it would go out. But beyond that … I took a piece of coal from the scuttle, dropped it on to the fire, considered the effect, and then added another piece. That should do, for a while.

  I did some more looking around. Everything was just as I’d left it. No one had entered my room. If they had, I would have seen their footprints in the thick carpet. Smelt their perfume, or their aftershave, or just their scent. My battered old suitcase was still sitting on the bed. I picked it up, carried it over to the massive oak cupboard, opened the door sharply, and when I was sure there was no one hiding inside it, I put the case in and shut the door again. And then, I sat on the edge of the bed, to do some thinking. I didn’t change into pyjamas, because I don’t wear such things, and I didn’t lie down on the bed because I had no intention of sleeping. I didn’t sit in one of the oversized chairs provided, because that was where people would expect to find me.

  I’m not really a detective. Usually, by the time I arrive on the scene all that stuff has already been taken care of. The Colonel’s people will have worked out what and where and when, and will usually have a pretty good idea as to who and why. The Colonel gives me a name, or an identity, and then it’s up to me to track them down and take all necessary measures. On those occasions when I am called in to solve a mystery, it’s because the local field agents have run dry and the Colonel is de
pending on me to pick up the slack because I have a knack for the unusual. And even then, the Colonel will have amassed a really thick file for me to read on the way in, to bring me up to speed.

  Belcourt Manor gave every indication of being both a murder and a mystery. which might or might not be connected. A horror has come to Belcourt Manor … It wasn’t like the Colonel to be so dramatic. Why couldn’t he just say what he meant? Did he expect his letter to fall into enemy hands? Did he expect his father to open it, and hadn’t wanted him upset? What could be so horrific that the Colonel didn’t even want to hint at it?

  Questions without answers. Best to stick to the situation at hand. Work it through. Who killed the Colonel, and why? And why kill him in such an extreme manner? So far, it seemed I was faced with two main possibilities. One; the Colonel was killed by the horror. Whoever or whatever that might turn out to be. Or two; he was killed by whoever sent the death threats to Walter. I sat up a little straighter as a third possibility suggested itself. That this was the result of something out of the past. The Colonel’s past. The trailing end of some old investigation; something missed or overlooked at the time.

  The one thing the Colonel had feared the most: that his family might be punished for the life he’d led.

  The Colonel and I had worked a number of cases together. Usually, I was left to run my assignments alone. I preferred it that way. If only because it meant there would be fewer questions to answer afterwards. But sometimes the Colonel would just turn up. Not to take charge, and not because he didn’t trust me to do things properly, but because he was interested. Like the Case of the Trans-Siberian Underground Railway. I had no trouble remembering that one.

  It started with people going missing, and then turning up again hundreds of miles away from where they should have been. I followed the clues, and the Colonel followed me, and we ended up going underground, into the deep dark places of the Earth. I could still remember running through endless caverns, miles and miles beneath the surface of a country that doesn’t even exist any more. Following the long silver railway lines as they stretched away into the darkness, only illuminated by the phosphorescent glow of a blue moss growing in thick mats on the curving walls. Some said, if you ate or smoked the blue moss it would blow the doors of perception in your mind clean off their hinges. I wasn’t tempted.

  I just kept running, following the tracks and the trail of blood left by the horrible laughing thing ahead of me. The Colonel stuck close at my side, just about managing to keep up. I could hear his lungs labouring as he struggled. I couldn’t afford to slow down, for fear the Damned Thing would get away. And then, there was what was coming after us … Every now and again, the Colonel would turn and fire his machine pistol back down the tracks to slow our pursuers down. I never did learn the name of the local agent they’d already killed, drowning out his screams with their awful piping laughter.

  The Colonel emptied his machine pistol and hurried after me, fumbling in his pockets for another magazine. And then he made a tutting sound, and shrugged easily, as he realized he’d run out of ammunition. He didn’t say anything, just ran along beside me, trusting me to catch the villain and find us a way out.

  And then, there was the Appalling Affair of Roger Styles.

  Just a small fishing village, tucked away in some forgotten part of the Cornish coastline, where the locals still took their boats out every day, whatever the weather. The Colonel told me to book into the village’s one and only hotel, and inquire about the fishing. I did sort of hope it might be my long-delayed vacation time. I should have known better.

  The moment I started my innocent inquiries, the hotel owner couldn’t wait to bend my ear over all the troubles the village had been having. Fishing boats going out, and never coming back. Nothing left for Search and Rescue to find; not even bits of wreckage or a body floating in the water. Fishermen told of seeing things, shining white, down in the very depths of the sea. Things big as churches or cathedrals, or bigger still. Some of the fishermen were afraid to go out, and it takes a lot to scare a Cornish fisherman. And then there was Roger Styles. The man who was not a man, and never wanted to be.

  The Colonel set himself up as bait. Sitting there on the old wooden bench, on top of the cliff, looking out to sea for hours on end, with only an improving book for company. Sitting there till the sun went down; waiting for Styles to come and get him. To shut him up, because of all the things the Colonel had been saying so loudly in the local tavern. I was there too; hidden and waiting. The Colonel sat at his ease, the bait in his own trap, trusting me to do whatever might be necessary. To take Styles down and save the Colonel’s life.

  And, of course, there was the last case we worked together, in deepest, darkest Peru. In that horrible hidden city on the Plateau of Leng. A cruel place and a cruel people; if you could even call them people. The roots of their family tree didn’t lie in the earth, but in the stars. The buildings in that city were older than human civilization; huge and blocky, actually unnerving to look at for too long. Their aesthetics hadn’t been meant for human eyes. Everything seemed to lean at some unnatural angle, and their proportions didn’t add up to any whole my mind could accept.

  There were windows that showed shifting views of other places, some of them beyond human comprehension. The Colonel vomited every time he looked into a window, so he stopped looking. I couldn’t bring myself to stop, because every now and again I thought I glimpsed something … familiar.

  I remembered the Colonel kneeling in an open square, concentrating on the terrible thing he’d brought with him. I stood guard, while he programmed the nuclear device and set the timer. We weren’t taking any chances with the awful people of Leng.

  I remembered them all. Old cases, old faces; moments from a past filled with thrilling incidents. I could have sworn we hadn’t left a single loose thread anywhere.

  I felt suddenly tired and old. With the Colonel gone, there was a tremendous gap in my life. Every time I remembered I’d never speak to him again, it was like someone kicked me in the gut. I hadn’t realized how attached I’d become to the man, down the years. All the things we’d seen, and all the things we’d experienced, that we could never talk about to anyone else. I never told him my secret, but sometimes I thought he knew. He never brought it up, and I never volunteered. Probably each of us thought we were protecting the other. The Colonel had given my human life a sense of purpose, of direction. He made me believe that the work I was doing mattered. That I mattered.

  What was I going to do now?

  I made myself concentrate on the situation. If the killer really was one of the people here at Belcourt Manor, what motive could they have for killing the Colonel? Some things had become clear, even in the short time I’d been here. Khan and Melanie were either having an affair, or about to start one. Suppose Khan wanted Walter dead, so he could marry Melanie and take control of the company that apparently meant so much to him … Yes. I could see Khan doing that. He’d worked for Black Heir. You learned to do the cold, hard, necessary thing if you wanted to get on at Black Heir. It wasn’t a place for a man with a conscience.

  And then there was Melanie herself. Did she want Walter dead, for her own reasons? Could she be playing Lady Macbeth to Khan, urging him on to remove the only obstacle in their way? If the Colonel had overheard something, noticed something he wasn’t meant to, tried to protect his father … Yes. I could see that happening.

  Next, Diana. Who had already told me how much she missed living at the Manor and all that went with it. What would she do to get her old life back? Did she perhaps plot to kill Melanie, so she could remarry Walter? The girl I remembered from Paris would never have been capable of doing anything so cold-hearted, let alone kill her own son, but Paris was a long time ago. People change.

  Roger wanted Penny; that was obvious to anyone with an eye or an ear. What would he be prepared to do to get her? And then, there was Sylvia. Could she have acquired a taste for the good life, travelling with Diana? Cou
ld she be running some scheme to grab some of that good life for herself?

  Bringing up the rear, as the least likely suspect and therefore not to be ruled out: Walter himself. Besieged on so many sides. If he decided someone else’s death would make his little world safer and more secure … he was quite capable of ordering any number of things done. Especially if he thought Khan was after his wife … Or could it be that Walter had never really wanted his son to come home? Had there been some terrible, unspoken insult, never forgiven by either side? Could Walter have killed his own son for daring to come home again?

  Was that why Jeeves was here? An ex-soldier, maybe even an assassin, posing as a butler; hiding in plain sight? No one else knew him from before … Could Walter have sent the death threats himself, to justify Jeeves’ presence?

  Everyone at Belcourt Manor had motives for murder, but none for killing the Colonel. Unless he just … got in the way. No one had expected him to turn up here when they were making their plans. Perhaps someone just saw him as an obstacle to be removed. But the manner of the Colonel’s death still disturbed me. Why saw the man’s head off? There seemed every indication it had been done after he was murdered. There had to be a reason. Sawing a man’s head off is hard work. Takes a fair amount of time, too. The Colonel must have been drugged first, to keep him from fighting back. There was no other way an experienced man like the Colonel could have been taken down … There was no shortage of opportunities for someone to drop a little something into all the food and drink available. The Colonel couldn’t have refused any of the seasonable fair, for fear of raising suspicions.