Serpent in the Heather

by Kay Kenyon

  “At this point we need her on-site more than ever. They aren’t likely to harm a reporter on assignment. But she should be put on her guard that there is at least some chance that the assassin is hiding at Sulcliffe.”

  Gustaw interjected, “He is?”

  “More conjecture,” Julian’s boss said.

  “Perhaps,” Julian said. “But what better place to recuperate from his wounds?”

  “He is wounded?” Gustaw was trying very hard to keep up.

  “Yes. The latest victim survived and his father got off a lucky shot.” Julian glanced at Galbraith. “We’ve not had a call-in from Sparrow today. Telephone service is out at the castle, but not elsewhere in the vicinity. They might have severed outside communication.”

  “All right,” Galbraith said. “Take a team with you and put Sparrow in the picture. If all is well, we leave her in place. Meanwhile, I’ll bring what we have to the Secretary”—he glanced at Gustaw—“of the Foreign Office. He’ll be gone by the time I get back, but first thing in the morning.”

  He stood. “I warn you, what we have so far is highly suspicious but may not be convincing up the line. Let’s hope that the threat of another adolescent murder will be enough to let us investigate the Cosletts.”

  Julian rose as well. “My people can be on the train within the hour.”

  His boss paused to consider. “Your cover, Julian. A bit of a problem there.”

  “I can stay out of sight. I’ll think of something.”

  Gustaw was losing the thread, but it was their show.

  Galbraith gave the slightest of resigned shrugs. He and Julian seemed to have a shorthand way of communicating. Well. The ranks of British intelligence were famous for their tight-knit, essential English character, all belonging to the same clubs, attending the same colleges, and drinking at the same bars. These two had been members of the intelligence clique for a good number of years, he guessed.

  As they prepared to leave, Gustaw interjected, “If I may, I would like to come along. In case of trouble, another person to back you up.” Julian’s superior gave an almost-imperceptible shake of the head. “We are allies,” Gustaw said. They could bend the rules.

  “If it were up to me,” Julian said.

  Gustaw was genuinely disappointed. He thought the English were on the verge of finding the assassin, and if so, he longed to be there.

  “Bring Verhoeven to justice, Julian,” he said. And even though he knew the English had their own wounds, he added, “For Tilda Mazur.”

  Julian gave a solemn nod. “She is not forgotten.”

  35

  SULCLIFFE CASTLE, WALES

  4:00 PM. Powell returned the wireless to its cubbyhole. It had taken his German handlers a half hour to find a ship within reach of the north coast of Wales, but he had his answer. A boat would approach the cove at 9:10 that night.

  He closed and locked his door. Then he made his way down the winding staircase, his mind reeling.

  Thank God at least Verhoeven would be gone soon. The Verhoeven nightmare. The one that Powell himself had helped create. Oh God, he couldn’t bear to think of it.

  But he did think of it; it was all he could think of. The boy by the river; the youngster in Portsmouth. And the girls, the young girls, the horror of their corpses . . . Had it not been for Verhoeven! The man had not killed for Hitler; it had been a pleasure to him, Powell was convinced of it. To put out the lights. He should have known, should have known. . . .

  At the bottom of the turret stairs he hesitated. He could go to Kim’s room now, to confront her, to get it over with. But he couldn’t bear to. Even though it had never been mutual with Kim, not as it had been with Margret, still, he shrank from seeing her, seeing the true Kim, the one who had fooled him.

  He found himself standing at the entrance to the chapel. The gouged walls, the ruin of the decorative pilasters. It was a fitting emblem of what his life had become. He was a defaced soul, a man whose conscience had slowly leached away, year by year, entrapped by the desire, the need, to be worthy. And at the end? A man whom every person would despise.

  He went in. Going to the remains of the altar, he knelt. Did he even know how to pray? Closing his eyes, he found within himself a silent, quiet place, not quite a place where God might visit, but it was all he had. Gone was his chance to carry on Ancient Light. Gone forever, his peace. It had all been for nothing, the blood, the ghastly expressions of the dying, the sickening danger of discovery. All for nothing, nothing. He covered his face with his hands, trying to keep the chattering, harpy thoughts from continuing their assault.

  Time passed. The cold of the stony room seeped into him, a welcome lethargy descending. He looked up at the scored and chiseled walls. Though he was now without hope, he had found a silent, internal place that exerted a strong pull on him. How strange for emptiness to provide such comfort.

  And now, there were things he still had to do.

  When he stood, he found that his mother was standing in the chapel doorway. She seemed fully in command, as always. Just as she had been when he had told her about the newspaperman’s revelations.

  “I have never found that God answers prayers,” she said.

  Standing in the doorway of the chapel, she looked like a stone effigy. He could discern no humanity in her. “Sometimes you ask anyway.”

  “Have you said your goodbyes to her?”

  “Not yet.”

  “It may be a mistake to let her go. Who knows what she’s learned with all her snooping here? We could wait for dark, then a slip on the cliff edge. Easily explained.”

  Even with all he had seen of death, the idea horrified him. “No, no. I forbid it.”

  “You forbid?”

  “Yes! Yes, I do. I would report you myself.”

  Indignant, she drew herself up. “Ridiculous. Listen to yourself!”

  Had he only listened to himself, and not her. “She will leave this afternoon. But first, I have something I must do.” He fixed her with a stare. “I do want to say goodbye to her. You won’t begrudge me that.”

  She shook her head. “When will you get over being so dependent on these women?”

  These women? There had only been a few. But his mother’s reality and his own had always been far different.

  She came closer. “What is it that you think you have to do?”

  “Arrange for the next phase.”

  “Phase?”

  “A German U-boat will pick up Verhoeven in five hours.”

  Her startled reaction gave way to incredulity. “Pick him up? But why?” She shook her head. “You radioed them. By God, you did. But why, why on earth, Powell? We have more we must do. We’re not done!” She came forward to rest a hand on his arm.

  He stepped back, avoiding her touch. “But we are done.” Getting Verhoeven away had assumed an urgency in his mind. When he was gone, it would truly be over.

  He thought of telling her that he had no gift, had never even been close, but the shame of it kept him silent. “I’m calling an end to it.” He walked past her, throwing off her outstretched hand.

  She followed him, hobbling, the cane surely ready to break beneath her weight. “Powell, what are you thinking? You mustn’t give up!”

  He turned, wearily. There was no way to avoid all the things that were coming. “What am I thinking? I’m thinking that I have wasted my life. I’m thinking that I should have married Margret and left you to your besotted followers. I could be living with her now in a cozy little cottage. Sussex, perhaps. As far from you as I could get.” Watching her incredulous expression, he thought how affronted she must be to hear him renounce her. That she could be outraged, pretend to be injured, left him shaking. “It’s a rather large thought, so I decided to pray about it.”

  She looked at him in consternation, as though she could not take his utterances seriously. She landed on one more familiar: “That dreadful woman married someone else.”

  “Yes. Well. There is that.” He turned and strod
e away.

  “You’re not my son!” she shouted after him, her words echoing down the passageway. “You are not worthy!”

  Well, he thought, that was settled long ago.

  A CABIN, THE SULCLIFFE ESTATE

  4:36 PM. Dries had not wanted Coslett to see the boy. He had opened the door just a little to hear his departure time. Tonight. 9:10.

  But then the boy had thumped his feet against the floor, and Coslett had heard it.

  “My God, man, what have you done?” Coslett said when he saw the boy.

  Looking at the young man, bound, gagged and lying on the slatted wood floor, Dries thought it was rather obvious what he had done. “This one, he shines very brightly. If only you could see how they look! After a while, when you have been killing them, you are fascinated by how the light seeps away at the end.”

  “You can’t do this! It needs to be over!”

  Oh yes, Powell was upset. And how much more upset he would be if he knew Dries’s plan to slash the youngster’s throat in the midst of the Ancient Light camp. On Dorothea’s property, so untidy for her ladyship, who wished to come away from all this with clean hands.

  “You can’t kill another one,” Powell moaned.

  “But I can. I have plenty of time before the 9:10 boat.”

  “I told you we were done!”

  “Ach. So you did, so you did.” He turned his gaze back to the boy cringing and lighting up his corner of the cabin. “But then I met Martin. And I could not resist.”

  The baron looked at him in new alarm. “Martin? Good Christ!” He rushed to the boy and began tugging at his ropes. Dries charged at him, yanking him away. A surge of strength seemed to come over Coslett, and in a mighty heave he flung Dries back, sending him sprawling into the table.

  “Fok!” Dries cried. He grabbed the scalpel from the table and rushed back at Coslett, smashing his foot into the man’s side. Coslett toppled. When he looked up, Dries was standing over him with the knife.

  “Don’t be foolish,” Dries said. He gestured Coslett to move away.

  Slowly, he complied. The boy was watching all this, fully alert, eyes huge.

  Dries said, “What difference does one more make?”

  The baron spat out, “Because now it is for no purpose.”

  “You mean no purpose for you, now that your gift will not arrive. That is true. Your game is over. But mine, you see, is not.” He looked back at the boy. “Mine is never over.”

  Coslett whispered in a harsh, ragged voice, “What is it you want?”

  “I wish my enemies to know what it is to suffer.”

  “Is this boy’s family your enemy?”

  “Yes. They are British.”

  “I am British,” Coslett threw at him. “Will you kill me?”

  Dries threw the scalpel onto the table. “Ga nau!” Come on! “Of course not you. But get out before I change my mind.” They stared at each other for a moment, the baron’s face pale as milk, glistening in sweat. “Don’t try to bring anyone to rescue him; it will be too late. The game is in motion now. We must play it to the end.”

  Coslett’s anguished face gave Dries pause. He needed some hope that life was not over. “You could flee tonight, with me. The boat, Powell. Germany would welcome you.” The man didn’t seem to be listening. “Think about it. A new future, in a nation that would admire you.”

  Looking at the boy in the corner one last time, Coslett swung away and stalked through the door.

  THE TRAIN TO PENGEYLAN, WALES

  4:40 PM. “Eddie,” Julian said, stopping by the table where Fin and Elsa sat. The train swayed and clacked as it sped through the countryside, the late-afternoon light knifing through the windows.

  “And Violet,” Julian went on. “You and your son off on holiday?” Yes, indeed. A good weekend, a bit of a late start, and would he join them at table, they pleaded. He did. If anyone Julian knew saw them, they were retainers of an old friend at a country estate in Hendon. While they were in the second-class dining car, it was only decent to sit with them for a meal, given their long acquaintance.

  It was a lengthy slog to Wales. Three and a half hours. It might have been faster by car, especially if Elsa drove, but it would be less reliable. Punctures. Breakdowns. No, it had to be by train.

  Julian had been wrong when he’d told E that the team could assemble in an hour. It had taken an hour and fifteen minutes. With the extra time, Elsa Rampling, alias Egret, had managed to acquire a tent. Fin Hewett, alias Dancer, had met them at Euston station with no luggage but having purchased the tickets, including a private compartment, first class, for Julian.

  They didn’t know the plan, for there wasn’t one, but they knew where they were going: Sulcliffe Castle.

  “Lovely necklace,” Julian observed to Elsa. It was not only exceedingly ugly but large as well.

  She fluttered with delight. “Oh, I like it ever so much. My Dorset great-aunt’s.” The rest of her costume was a long, flowered skirt and shapeless tunic. She would fit right in at the gathering of mystics.

  Fin, wearing a V-neck sweater and flannel trousers, lit a new cigarette from the stub of the old one. “So then, do you fancy the rarebit, sir? Or there’s the sole. Might have a go at that one myself.”

  As they sped on through Northamptonshire and dinner was served, the clack and rattle of the train covered their conversation. Conversing at table would have to do, since it might attract attention were they to assemble in Julian’s compartment.

  “Violet,” Julian said as he picked at the roast turnips, “you’re staking out the fair.”

  “Fit right in, you will,” Fin said happily.

  “We’ll arrange a car hire in Pengeylan,” Julian said to Elsa, “so by the time we arrive at the station, you’ll have the route down cold. No time to lose haring across the Welsh countryside, looking for a turn-off.”

  “Right,” she said. “The fair. The road to the castle.”

  “If you find Sparrow, get her report and update her on Talon and Flory Soames. She’s to stick to our targets, hoping for a breakthrough.”

  Julian turned to Fin. “You’ll be the one to ask for her at the castle. She may recognize you from your stint at Summerhill, but she’ll know something’s up, and you’ll confirm that as soon as you’ve got her alone. At the door we’ll need a reason to have a conversation with her. Perhaps a family matter, and with the phone out . . .”

  Fin blew a stream of smoke. “Family matter such as?”

  Elsa brightened. “The dog died. What’s his name—Shadow. She loves dogs.”

  “It’s not as though she’ll miss the bloody funeral,” Fin said. “No, that’s bollocks. How about beloved housekeeper Mrs. Babbage went down with a heart seizure.”

  Elsa deadpanned, “Servants die.”

  “True,” Fin acknowledged.

  “We’ll think of something,” Julian said.

  Elsa looked at him. “And you’ll be where?”

  “Fin will drop me off out of sight. I’ll make my way on foot, close enough that I’m there in case something’s happened. If all’s well, after contacting Sparrow, we have a look around the environs for Talon, and nobody the wiser.”

  The reconnoiter wasn’t authorized by E, but not forbidden, either, Julian reasoned. If they found nothing, they’d wait in Pengeylan for E’s go-ahead to question the Cosletts. That was the ideal, which, as soon as the plan was set in motion, could unravel like a bad sweater.

  The pudding was served, and they still had not broached the main subject of how to proceed if they discovered Dries Verhoeven on-site. People filed into the dining car now, the practical souls who decided to take an early meal.

  Julian paid the bill. The train was slowing for a station. Where the hell were they? It was only Birmingham. Christ. They should have driven.

  Fin lit up another after-dinner cigarette, asking the question that was on all their minds. “So, if we see a thirty-five-year-old man with heavy glasses and an accent, do we take him?”
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  Elsa watched Julian with hungry interest. “We might only have one chance before he does a fade.”

  “If you see him, take him.” Julian said.

  36

  SULCLIFFE CASTLE, WALES

  6:15 PM. The packing had taken five minutes, but now that she had shut her suitcase and was ready to go, she found red-haired Donald barring her way on the landing.

  “She told you to wait,” he muttered, acting the part of the castle guard, though wearing a silly puffed-sleeve shirt and leather jerkin.

  Back inside her room she sat at the table, her handbag close to her feet. If they had searched her things, they would have found the gun, not that it would have surprised them at this point. But if they had found the marked-up map in the LNER booklet, that would have given them pause. They wouldn’t do her harm, she kept telling herself. But images of the dowager throwing Christian effigies off the battlements came to mind.

  By her wristwatch it was 6:16. The last train left Pengeylan at 8:35. She had plenty of time to catch it, but still, why were they keeping her? Even if they knew she’d been in Powell’s room, they could not reasonably know she had seen the wireless. She listened at the door. Opened it. Donald was still there. She stepped out.

  “Really, Donald, I think it’s time for someone to drive me to the station. My whole family will be quite upset if they think you detained me a moment longer than I wished to be.” As a matter of fact, she had been a prisoner in her room for two and a half hours.

  He looked taken aback by this forthright speech. “His lordship wants to speak with you. He’ll be here.”

  She tried to act imperious. “Very well. But . . .”

  The sound of footsteps on the stairs. Powell appeared.

  “She just came out to complain of her treatment, Your Lordship,” Donald said.

  Powell glanced at her without expression, then turned to Donald. “Bring the car around. I’ll run her down to the station.” A moment passed where the men locked gazes. Then Donald ducked a bow and left.

  Powell looked sallow and hunched, his eyes wild. It could not just be that Nichols had exposed her as an undercover officer. What had been happening while she had been confined to her room?