by Peter Watt
The coffee was served in a heavy mug that was obviously handcrafted, no doubt by Monique. ‘You have nothing to apologise for,’ he said, sipping the steaming brew. ‘I just need to know as much as I can to write off the investigation so that the coroner can conduct a hearing.’
Monique sat down opposite Morgan, her coffee mug before her. ‘It is hard to explain a lot of things,’ she said. ‘I guess the discovery of the bodies in our backyard has had an unnerving effect. It may sound silly but I think the spirits of the two men who were buried out there are haunting this place. I truly heard some strange sounds tonight … at least I think I did.’
Morgan did not scoff at her fears. ‘You might have had a prowler – someone curious to see the place where the bodies were found,’ he reassured. ‘I doubt that they will hang around after my arrival.’
‘You certainly have a reputation among the locals for being a man not to be crossed,’ Monique said with a smile. ‘Mrs Harrison has the utmost respect for you. She said that you were a veteran of the Gulf War.’
‘Yeah,’ Morgan replied, glancing away self-consciously. ‘I like it here. The people are a bit reserved but when you get to know them, they are all right.’
‘This place has been in my family for many years,’ Monique said. ‘I was born in the UK and my parents brought me here when I was a baby. I grew up in Sydney and it was only shortly before my dad passed away that he revealed the existence of the house and land. He said it would be a gift for me when I met the right man to settle down with. It happened that David was able to leave Sydney with me to settle here. At least I thought this would be our dream house but now I am not so sure.’
‘How is it that if your family are from England they could have title to this place?’ Morgan asked, his interest aroused.
‘I am not sure,’ Monique said. ‘Only Dad knew the full story about our title to the house and I didn’t bother asking. And now I wish I did, but at the time I was so excited about being able to move here away from the rat race that the offer of title over the place was enough. Now I have also inherited a couple of murdered ghosts.’
‘You can’t murder ghosts,’ Morgan said with a broad grin. ‘You can only exorcise them.’
Monique broke into a smile at Morgan’s gentle correction. ‘I did not know that policemen had a sense of humour,’ she said.
‘Believe it or not, when the uniform comes off we are just people in our underwear and socks,’ Morgan said. ‘But that is not a pretty sight.’
Monique laughed softly. ‘I doubt that would apply to you, Constable McLean.’
‘You may as well call me Morgan or Mac,’ Morgan said.
‘I believe the locals refer to you as the sheriff,’ Monique replied. ‘But I will call you Morgan. So, Morgan, what is happening with the investigation?’
Morgan took a long sip from his coffee before answering. ‘So far, not a lot. Like Gladys Harrison, I don’t think the first body unearthed is that of Joshua Larkin, and the second still remains unidentified. Forensics has at least identified the bodies as those of males between twenty and forty years of age. It also appears that the bodies have been buried for some time – maybe just under ninety years ago, which would make sense considering that the previous owners of the property, Captain Larkin and his wife Marie, disappeared around 1921. About all we know is that the men were killed by separate weapons, and that the first body appears to have been buried with some reverence. Other than that we don’t have much else. I have a feeling that Mrs Harrison and her historical society will provide more information for the coroner than any of our efforts. I have been assigned the task of liaising with her during the ongoing inquiry. I can see that you have a vested interest in the matter as well.’
‘As the house has been in our name since 1920 I suspect that this has something to do with my family,’ Monique said quietly. ‘I don’t have a clue what that is but I almost feel a closeness to Joshua Larkin and his wife that I cannot explain.’ She stared into Morgan’s eyes as if seeking some doubt as to her sincerity but found none. ‘Is it possible that his is the second, unidentified body?’
‘We won’t know that until we get a DNA profile back from the States, and find someone living to match the sample,’ Morgan shrugged. ‘The second skeleton certainly fitted Larkin’s height and build as described in the old military records when he was alive.’
‘I intend to carry out my own research,’ Monique said. ‘It is as if this Joshua Larkin is asking me to seek an answer as to what occurred here so long ago. I would like your help, if that is possible.’
Morgan wondered how he could help other than keeping her abreast of the official police investigation without divulging anything that may arise of a sensitive nature. But what could be considered sensitive in a murder so long past? ‘I will do all I can to help you,’ he answered. ‘Can’t see how it would interfere with the report for the coroner.’
Monique seemed to relax and smiled sweetly just as Morgan’s mobile phone rang. It was a call from Hume City police HQ informing him that a job had come in for his attention: a noise complaint of a rowdy party in town. Morgan finished his coffee and rose from the table.
‘You will have to excuse me,’ he apologised. ‘I have a job – the coffee was great.’
Monique escorted him to the back door. ‘Thanks for answering my call for help,’ she said. ‘If I have to I will call a priest or pastor to perform an exorcism if the ghosts get too noisy.’
Morgan smiled broadly. Monique had remembered his small joke. He hated to admit it but she was the most attractive woman he could remember meeting in a long time. Certainly, she had an unsettling effect on him. But she was with another and Morgan had no intention of showing his interest in Monique Dawson. After all, she had not displayed any in him other than calling for his assistance as a policeman.
He walked through the chilly but clear night to his vehicle, pausing only once to look back at the young woman framed by the kitchen door with her arms wrapped around her breasts. He waved and continued to the vehicle.
Monique watched as Morgan drove away. She turned and locked the door behind her, wishing that David were home. This night she would sleep with all the lights on. The house had certainly taken on an eerie feeling since the two bodies had been disturbed and she wondered at her imagination conjuring up ghosts. But before she retired for the night she would go on the internet and find out as much as she could about Captain Joshua Larkin. Little did she know that her search would not go unnoticed.
In a room of MI6 in London a young man watched Monique’s keystrokes in cyberspace. Sam Briars was becoming intrigued by his task of monitoring everything and everyone identified by the Aussie press in the matter of the two bodies found in some obscure little village. In the course of his considerable searches he had ascertained that the property where the bodies were found belonged to Monique Dawson – and belonged to her family dating back to Captain Joshua Larkin’s purchase.
As much as they tried to bluff it out, the kids were scared. Morgan knew fear when he was in its presence. Both young men stood by their respective hotted-up cars in the main street outside the town’s only café. The lamplight reflected off the two vehicles that had been reported for doing noisy burnouts just outside the town limits.
‘Young Steven and Mark,’ Morgan drawled. ‘How about you produce your licences?’
The two youths rifled through the pockets of their baggy trousers and handed their licences to him. Morgan knew both boys, each barely eighteen years of age. ‘You realise that if I start writing out tickets you will be both walking to work next week.’
Neither boy replied, more shame-faced at being caught rather than at having been a dangerous nuisance to the public.
‘But I am in a good mood tonight and you know the alternative,’ Morgan added.
‘Mr McLean, do we have to,’ Steven protested.
Morgan flipped open his book, pen poised to commence writing out the traffic infringement notices. ‘Your ch
oice,’ he shrugged.
‘I will do it,’ Steven blurted.
‘Me too,’ Mark joined in.
Morgan closed the book and grinned. ‘See me at the station Monday after you knock off work, and I will give you the papers to fill in.’ The boys’ expressions of fear were replaced by looks of despair as they took back their licences.
‘Don’t forget,’ Morgan said as he turned to walk back to his police vehicle. ‘I will see you both at the station on Monday and don’t let me find either of your cars on the street tonight – go home, now.’
Morgan slid into the driver’s side of the four-wheel drive, placing the dreaded TIN book beside him on the passenger seat. His last view of the two boys was in his rear-vision mirror. Two faces reflecting sorrow for what lay ahead of them.
The good citizens of Valley View were not going to be kept awake by the screech of tyres, and justice had been meted out in an appropriate way to this couple of testosterone-driven young men. Morgan had just coerced them into enlisting in his old army reserve unit, where they would undergo a military training that would knock the edge off their excess energy and expose these small-town boys to the bigger world. Respect for themselves and others would become part of their culture. Morgan knew both boys were undergoing apprenticeships and had a future should they survive their wild ways. Their army service would also provide them with extra cash, which he hoped they would spend wisely. So far he had recruited a full section of the town’s lads to his old reserve unit which he had joined after his discharge from the regular army. The boys had returned to town after training as different men, with a more positive attitude to life. The people of the town loved their sheriff for his commonsense approach to policing their tightly knit community – albeit not always according to the strict rules and regulations of the law.
It was after midnight when Morgan drove into the yard of the police station. He tidied up his paperwork for the shift, rubbed his tired eyes and reflected on the events of the night. For some reason Monique kept appearing in his thoughts. It had been a long time since Annette had left him. His former wife had grudgingly given up her well paid and glamorous life as a high profile public relations officer to a well known federal politician to travel with Morgan to Valley View. But life in a small country town had not suited her and, without warning, one day she was gone. Occasionally Morgan saw her on TV, standing behind the politician at one of his interviews, and the pain would stab him all over again. He had tried to contact her when she left but Annette made it very clear that she no longer loved him. The divorce came through in a pile of official papers.
Morgan McLean had been trained to be tough both physically and mentally. It had been the only way to survive the many missions he had gone on, to places in the world he would never be able to speak of, undertaking tasks so dangerous that he did not want to remember them anyway. And he had fallen back on his inner toughness to survive the agonising separation.
He knew that Annette leaving him had been the talk of the town but no-one dared approach him to offer their condolences. After all, according to popular perception, cops were a special breed of person and not subject to the same feelings as their fellow humans.
Returning to the police house after the decree nisi had at first been an almost impossible thing to do. He was reminded constantly of Annette’s past presence. Little things he would find in the house that belonged to her would cause him terrible grief. It was true that time was a healer of both physical and mental wounds. The very fact that he had been having thoughts about Monique helped reinforce this for him.
With the last entry done for the car log Morgan rubbed his eyes and headed for his quarters – a house standing behind the station, provided for the local officer. He would make a cup of tea, watch some late night movie and then go to bed. Hopefully, the phone would not ring for a call out. He had a feeling that with young Steven and Mark being caught out the word would spread among the rest of the town’s youth and they would either disperse or take their burnouts well out of town where no one would hear them.
SIX
Archangel
Early August 1919
The faces on the streets were pinched with cold and hunger. Major James Locksley had seen similar expressions on the faces of refugees in Belgium and France. Confused and frightened men, women and children displaced by a war they had not asked for. But the city of Archangel was nothing like anything he had seen in those former places. He instinctively recognised the influence of the Vikings on the place of his birth, and not only the Vikings but also an Asian influence seen in the towering church cupolas unlike anything in the West. Orthodox priests with their long beards and long black robes still could be seen in the muddy streets as evidence that the city remained loyal to the memory of the Czar. Colourful Cossacks on horseback and armed with lances rode in columns past him as he hunched against the almost forgotten cold of the city that lay in the Arctic regions. The Russian troops were not alone; the British major recognised the uniforms of American, French, Czech, Canadian and British soldiers.
He arrived at his destination and showed his pass to a British soldier standing to attention in the cold. The soldier allowed him to pass and Major Locksley found himself in a spacious, marble-floored room where another British soldier sat behind a carved wooden desk with his head down, shuffling papers.
‘Major Locksley. I am here for a meeting with Colonel Kingston, sergeant.’ Locksley said, causing the soldier to look up, sit to attention and salute.
‘Yes, sir,’ the sergeant said, glancing down at the roster of the colonel’s appointments. ‘I will tell him you are here.’
Locksley waited, gripping the briefcase in his left hand that contained the papers and maps he would need for his mission. Glancing around the huge room he could see the ornate gilding, the work of past artisans, on the roof and walls. This had once been the house of a wealthy resident of the city, he mused.
‘You can go through, sir,’ the sergeant said, marching back from a door at the far end of the room. ‘Colonel Kingston is expecting you.’
Locksley knocked once on the door and a voice within boomed, ‘Enter.’
Locksley stepped into another large room to be met by a tall, aristocratic man wearing the uniform of a staff officer. The colonial wars campaign ribands on his chest gave away his maturity, despite the colonel’s smooth skin that made him look much younger. The colonel offered his hand.
‘Good to have you aboard, Major Locksley,’ he said with a warm smile. ‘I believe you have had service with our earlier efforts to help the Whites.’
‘Yes, sir,’ Locksley replied, letting go the firm grip. ‘Last year in Siberia.’
‘I have been told that Siberia is a tad colder than here,’ the colonel said. ‘But the ways things are going for us I doubt that we will be here for much longer. The damned ranks of the White Army can’t be trusted. You know, we have had mutinies in the ranks of so-called loyalist troops and some of our own chaps have been murdered who were attached to those units. Bloody treacherous lot, the Russians, can’t trust any of them.’
Locksley felt his cheeks flush. He wondered how well briefed the colonel was on him, and his unspoken question was answered when the colonel suddenly checked himself. ‘I should apologise,’ he said. ‘I was informed from Whitehall that you are actually Russian by birth.’
‘A man has no choice in where he is born,’ Locksley tactfully replied. ‘Only where he dies. I can assure you, sir, that I am British to the King’s commission.’
‘That I do not doubt, Major Locksley, considering your sterling service to the King and Empire. But so much for chitchat, time to get down to business. I believe that you were briefed on your mission in England and that I am to provide you with any assistance that I can, so that you can get about doing your job, whatever that may be.’
‘Thank you, sir,’ Locksley said. ‘I realise that you have not been told anything about my role in this matter but I can assure you that its importance has
major ramifications to the overall mission of us assisting the Royalists in their war against the Bolsheviks. I am sure that you understand the need for all this cloak and dagger stuff.’
Locksley could see that the British staff officer was not really convinced that he should be kept in the dark but he was a good soldier and obeyed orders.
‘Well, where do we start?’ the colonel asked, his hands behind his back.
Locksley opened his briefcase, producing a large scale map of the northern Russian region which he placed on the colonel’s desk. Both men perused it.
‘From my latest briefing in London I am to travel to this part of the front,’ Locksley said, placing his finger on a place marked Emtsa.
The colonel peered at the name. ‘It’s a village that lies behind our current deployment,’ he said. ‘As far as I know it is in Bolshie hands.’
Locksley let out a breath of disappointment. It would take time to travel in this country to meet with the contacts originally established by the spy master, Sidney Reilly. That the village where the contact was supposed to be made was in enemy hands made this mission even more dangerous.
Colonel Kingston walked over to a map pinned to the wall of his office. It displayed the deployment of the British and Allied forces in the northern Russian campaign. He ran his finger along the Dvina River and stopped. ‘General Ironside has forces deployed along the river around here,’ he said to Locksley who had joined him. It was originally a Russian-produced map and Locksley could read the Cyrillic writing beside the English translation of locations. ‘From the latest intelligence report, the general intends to push the Bolshies off the banks of the river. It will be a devil of a job as Lenin’s men are well dug in and fortified.’
‘It makes sense that I travel to join up with General Ironside’s headquarters on the Dvina,’ Locksley said, seeing no other option. ‘I will need the appropriate clearances from your HQ to do so.’