Mitchell, D. M.

by crime The King of Terrors (a psychological thriller combining mystery

  There was an assortment of gold necklaces, brooches, rings – some of it quite hefty. Even as a non-expert he realised some of this was quite old, a couple of rings in particular and a bangle, all in bright yellow gold, one of the rings having a single small emerald, rough cut, sitting in an unassuming plain setting. He rifled his fingers deeper through the sea of gold. One brooch snagged his attention and he took it out. He’d no idea of date, but it was oval in shape, a large sapphire encircled by diamonds. If these stones were real, he thought, this alone must be worth a small fortune.

  Where on earth had she gotten all this? Were they stolen? She looked like she owned very little, judging from her threadbare appearance. Yet he could not believe she was a thief. Or perhaps he didn’t want to believe it, he thought; perhaps he’d fallen under her spell a little. Become blinded.

  It was then he saw the simple leather cord, incongruous because it was the only thing not made of precious metal. His finger hooked it and pulled it out. He almost dropped the box from his lap.

  What hung from the end of the leather cord, blinking in the harsh glow of the bedroom light, was half a silver coin.

  The missing half to the one he had back home. The one he’d had with him when he’d been found as an abandoned baby.

  * * * *

  19

  It’s Deadly Out There

  When he stepped out onto the street the following morning there was no question in his mind about what he should do.

  Overnight snow had caused the usual mayhem on the roads. The drifts were high, the only vehicle attempting to go anywhere was a lone snowplough, and even that looked to struggle with the conditions. A rag-tag rope of sorry-looking cars followed close, if slowly, in its wake, but they could hardly keep on the road, their wheels finding little traction.

  He shook his head at their attempts. He wasn’t going to risk it in his Land Rover. OK, so it was supposed to be made as all-terrain, but it was vintage, a classic, and he wasn’t about to risk taking it anywhere just yet, especially amid those maniacs trying to slalom their way to work. To be on the safe side he booked another night at the hotel.

  But of course that wasn’t the real reason he was going to hang around. He was going to see the woman when it came round to visiting time, and not just because he was worried for her health. Finding the coin came almost as a body blow to him. A bizarre coincidence? And though he didn’t have his own to hand to compare he’d looked it over too many times to be mistaken that the one the woman had in her box was the missing half to his. Then, of course, doubts shrugged their way in and he admonished himself for being a fool. They couldn’t be part of the same coin. The thoughts plagued him through the remainder of the night and well into the morning. When he awoke he snatched the leather-threaded coin from the dressing table, just to reassure himself he hadn’t been dreaming the entire thing. In the cold light of day he knew he wasn’t mistaken.

  He hung around till 2pm at which time the hospital was open to visitors. He was at the head of the tiny wave of heavily wrapped people that washed onto the ward to see their loved ones. For some reason he was relieved to see her there, as if half expecting her to be a smoky dream that had been torn to nothing by the fingers of morning. She looked as if she were asleep, arms laid out on top of the bed, head propped up slightly, her head encased in a bandage from which beneath sprouted a few tufts of blonde hair. The ward was hot, stiflingly so, and began to throb to the hushed voices of the visitors who sat in conversation with people in various stages of recovery from traumas and illness. Gareth Davies wasn’t particularly keen on hospitals and didn’t relish being there.

  He pulled up a chair and sat down beside her bed. The metal chair creaked. She opened her eyes to the sound, and at first, only for an instant, he saw fear painted there, her body visibly stiffening. But it vanished quickly. She stared at him, half suspiciously, half expectant.

  ‘Good afternoon,’ he said. She didn’t reply. He was momentarily captivated by the blue of her eyes. ‘We’ve bumped into each other before,’ he quipped, trying to make light of things, but it prompted an icy glare of incomprehension. He could see her mind working on the comment. ‘I’m the one who knocked you down last night, remember?’ he explained. ‘In the lane?’

  She swallowed, glanced at the jug of water and glass on the cabinet beside her.

  ‘Are you thirsty?’ he asked, reaching for the jug. He poured a little water and handed the glass to her. She took it and sipped. ‘My name is Gareth Davies,’ he said.

  ‘Thank you, Gareth Davies,’ she said huskily. He waited but she remained silent.

  ‘I was wondering if you felt better,’ he said. He could have done with a drink too – he felt like he was drying up like a slug caught out in the sun. He pointed to the bandage. ‘It could have been worse, you know; I could easily have killed you.’

  ‘But you didn’t,’ she said quietly.

  ‘No, not quite. What’s your name?’

  She shook her head. ‘I can’t remember,’ she returned shortly. ‘Like I told the police.’

  ‘Look, I don’t care what you were doing last night…’

  ‘I might not have been doing anything,’ she said.

  ‘How do you know? You can’t remember.’

  She narrowed her eyes. Placed the glass on the unit and they both watched the water inside it tremble for a second. ‘True enough,’ she conceded.

  ‘The police interviewed me too,’ he said. ‘Routine when there’s been a traffic accident in which someone’s been hurt.’ She gave him a vacant look. ‘Knock to the head, does strange things, eh?’ he said. ‘Look, I came because of two reasons: the first, to see how you are – you came running from the hedge like the devil was at your back, I nearly killed you, you had no ID, you weren’t even dressed for winter and I was concerned for you. The second…’ He reached into his coat pocket and pulled out the coin on its leather cord. He saw her eyes widen and she turned away. ‘I could mention the box full of gold, which in itself looks a trifle dodgy to say the least, but it’s this I’m more interested in. Where did you get it? Is it yours? Is it stolen?’ He found his voice was getting more animated and he had to stem the flow of words. He let the coin dangle there.

  ‘Put it away,’ she said.

  ‘Tell me where you got it.’

  ‘Not here,’ she said. ‘Put it away.’

  He sighed and stuffed it back into his pocket. ‘I have one just like it. Mine though is the other half. I’ve had it since I was a baby. My mother left it with me. Weird, don’t you think, that you turn up with this? All I want to know is where you found it.’ He bowed his head, his hands working together on his lap. ‘I never knew my mother. The coin is the only link to her. I’d like to find her.’ He found it strange to be uttering the words as he had always professed the opposite.

  ‘You can’t,’ she said pointedly.

  ‘That’s for me to decide.’

  ‘She’s dead, Gareth,’ she said, turning to him.

  He found it cut straight into him. Even though he’d hated the woman for what she did to him, he did not want to hear this. ‘How do you know? How can you be certain? Did you know her?’

  ‘I’m your sister, Gareth,’ she said. ‘I’m your sister, Erica. That’s how I know.’

  For a moment he received it as if she were joking, and even smiled a little. Then the smile collapsed into a frown. ‘Erica, huh? What are you trying to pull here?’

  ‘We’re twins.’

  ‘OK, when’s my birthday?’ he asked sceptically.

  ‘April 28, 1976.’

  ‘Wrong. It’s May 10.’

  ‘That’s the date they put on the birth certificate, yes. But it’s not the right one. You’re older than me, by nearly half an hour. You were born at 7.30pm, and I followed at 7.55pm. You cried your lungs out; I didn’t, they had to make me.’

  He sat there, stunned by what he was hearing. ‘This is some kind of sick joke…’

  ‘Look at me,’ she said. ‘Don�
��t you see a resemblance?’

  Of course he did. He hadn’t realised it at first but that’s probably why she looked so familiar when he first saw her.

  ‘What was her name?’ he asked, delivered coldly, still refusing to believe what he was hearing.

  ‘Elizabeth.’

  That single word made him crumple, in spite of everything he was feeling, in spite of the defences he was rapidly throwing up. ‘Elizabeth,’ he echoed quietly. He looked down at the coin resting in his hand.

  ‘It’s a Charles the Second silver crown, 1662,’ she explained. Your half was left to you wrapped in a sheet of paper torn from an encyclopaedia.’

  ‘So how did she die? Why did she dump me at Cardiff railway station? How come you and I never met till now?’

  She glanced quickly and furtively around the ward. Everyone was involved in their own little world. ‘I can’t tell you at this moment. This is not the right place,’ she said, her voice deliberately hushed. ‘But you have to believe me.’

  A man wandered onto the ward. He was draped in a heavy winter coat. Gareth saw her freeze and she watched him closely. He glanced in their direction. Then saw who he was searching for and made his way across the ward to the bed. She sighed.

  ‘Look, are you in some kind of trouble?’

  Her attention snapped back to him. She looked like she wanted to say something, but her lips slowly came together and the words remained unsaid. She held out her hand for the coin necklace. He gave it to her and she concealed it in her fist.

  ‘What were you doing last night, running out in front of me like that? You could have killed yourself. Who were you running from? Has the box of gold jewellery got anything to do with this?’

  ‘Keep your voice down, Gareth,’ she said. ‘Please.’

  ‘You steal it?’

  ‘Absolutely not. Do you have the box safe?’

  ‘I have it, yes.’

  ‘It’s all there? Everything?’

  ‘Of course it is! What do you take me for? Tell me straight, what’s going on? Are you on the run from the police?’

  She shook her head. ‘I came to help you. To warn you, Gareth.’

  ‘To warn me of what?’

  She let out a deep breath. ‘Of them…I can’t speak about that here,’ she said quietly.

  He threw his hands up in frustration. ‘OK, OK. Not here. You’re a strange one, lady.’ Her eyes were heavy, as if she were desperately tired. She was fighting to keep them open.

  ‘Shall I come back later?’ In part he knew he wanted to get out because he couldn’t handle what he was hearing. Couldn’t handle the fact this woman could be his sister. It threw his entire life up in the air.

  She reached out, grabbed his hand. He didn’t know what he should do. Till a few minutes ago this woman was a stranger he had almost killed. Now she was a potential sister he never knew he had. Struck dumb, he just let her hang onto his hand. It felt warm. Reassuring. A contact he never dreamed of ever making. Emotions bubbled up within him, competed with each other for a piece of his troubled mind. The peace he’d found since coming to Deller’s End was in danger of being crushed like tinfoil. When he looked into her eyes he saw only truth, and that scared him. Terrified him. He tried to pull his hand away but she wouldn’t let it go.

  ‘You have to believe me, Gareth.’

  ‘I dunno…’ he said. ‘It’s all too weird. I’ve got to go. Maybe I’ll see you this evening, huh? I need time to think about this.’

  He wrenched his hand free and she tried to sit upright, but pain forced her back onto her pillow. She grimaced. ‘Be careful, Gareth,’ she said.

  ‘I’ll see you later,’ he said. ‘I’ll bring you your box.’ And with that he turned and left her, hurrying from the ward and out of the hospital.

  The cold, fresh air did little to revive him. His mind was spinning. This wasn’t happening, he thought. It was all too sudden, all too unreal to grasp.

  He wandered the snowy streets of St Davids in a half-daze, finally clearing snow from a metal bench overlooking the cathedral and he sat there in the freezing cold. The grounds were deserted and sheathed in an undulating skin of snow broken only by the many dark headstones rising from it. The sky was a pristine white. Fresh snowflakes circled his lonely frame like excited children as he thought deeply on the implications of the visit. But there were no answers to be found, so he bought a bottle of Johnnie Walkers and went back to the hotel to find a few answers inside that. Did he really want his life turning inside out just as he’d got it back on track? He drank deeply of the whiskey and decided maybe he didn’t. Then drank again and decided that maybe he did. What if she was a fraud? But where did she get the other half of the coin if so, how did she know the details of how it was left to him, and what the hell was there in it for her to pretend to be his sister anyhow? None of it made sense. Unless she really was his sister. He took a stiff swig and gasped on the hot liquid. He ought to get something to eat or he’d suffer for it, he thought.

  She came to warn him, she said. Warn him of what?

  In the end he lay down, the drink taking its toll on him, and his mussed-up head tried to grapple with a plague of contradictory thoughts. As sleep drew its warm veil over his tortured mind he thought it would be rather swell to have a sister. And he smiled, in spite of himself.

  When he awoke, the sky beyond the window was black. He rubbed sleep from his eyes, not fully realising how tired he’d been. The combination of tiredness and alcohol had all but floored him. He took a look at the time. 6.15pm. Visiting time at the hospital had started fifteen minutes ago. He splashed cool water on his face, grabbed the cardboard box full of jewellery, slipped his arms into his coat then headed for the hospital.

  If anything the afternoon sleep had worked wonders. He woke up fresh and clear-headed, deciding he had to see Erica again. The prospect of a sister – his real family – filled him with something akin to excitement. It was as if a massive piece of the puzzle that had been missing in his life was finally being slotted into place. All the mysteries, the many questions, he might now find answers to them. He all but ran through the hospital doors, hoping he wouldn’t be too late.

  He was taken aback to see that her bed was now occupied by an older woman.

  ‘Where is the young woman who was in this bed?’ he asked, managing to intercept a nurse. ‘Has she been moved?’

  She was in a hurry and the flash of her eyes told him so. ‘She discharged herself, I believe. Are you a relative?’

  ‘No,’ he said. ‘I’m the one who nearly killed her.’ He saw a look of horror spread across her face, her mind racing to the nearest panic button. ‘I mean, I knocked her over in my car. I have something I’d like to return to her.’ They both looked at the carrier bag he had in his hand.

  ‘Well she obviously thought she was well enough to take herself off.’

  ‘I suppose you have no idea where she went?’

  ‘You suppose right,’ she said bluntly. ‘Now if you’ll excuse me…’ And she scurried away to attend to other duties, but couldn’t resist calling back, ‘And try not to hit anyone else; we’re rather busy!’

  He stood there. No amount of staring at the bed with the woman in it transformed her into Erica. He came down from his elation as if he’d been on a drugged high and it didn’t feel at all comfortable. He shook his head resignedly and headed for the double doors at the head of the ward. As he lifted his hand to push through the doors a man standing there held up his hand and stopped him dead. He was middle-aged, near to forty maybe, smartly dressed in a charcoal-black woollen coat that finished just above his knees, the shoulders peppered with shimmering beads of melted snow; his trousers were dark, ending in a pair of wet but shiny black shoes; his hair was neatly trimmed, his face a little red from the heat.

  ‘Excuse me,’ he said, his accent either American or Canadian, Gareth couldn’t determine which. ‘I couldn’t help but overhear. You were asking about a young woman, the one who occupied that bed?’<
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  ‘Do you know where she is?’ Gareth asked hopefully.

  ‘I was hoping you’d be able to tell me, Mr…?’

  Gareth ignored the name fishing. ‘How do you know her?’

  ‘A close friend,’ he said. ‘I’m trying to contact her. I got wind she was here, but like you it appears I arrived just a little too late.’

  ‘Yes, it appears so,’ he said. There was something about the man he took an instant dislike to. Something that made him feel decidedly uncomfortable. ‘Look, sorry, but I have to leave.’

  ‘And how is it she knows you? She never mentioned you.’

  ‘I sort of bumped into her, as you do,’ Gareth said. He tried to sidestep him but he mirrored his move and blocked the exit. ‘I really do have to leave,’ he insisted.

  ‘And I really do have to find her. It’s important. Perhaps I can buy you a drink?’ he offered, his face trying hard to hold onto a smile that revealed a nice set of teeth which must have set him back a small fortune over the years.

  ‘Another time maybe,’ Gareth said, nodding politely. ‘I’ve told you all I know.’

  The man paid particular interest to the carrier bag. ‘Something of hers?’

  ‘That’s really none of your business,’ he said, pushing by him and opening the doors.

  ‘Sure, thanks for the help,’ the grin broadening. ‘Oh, and be careful; it’s deadly out there,’ he warned.

  There was nothing for it but to head home, he thought, totally deflated, his mind full of questions. The roads were better now, and he had no reason to hang about the hospital; she wasn’t going to return. That didn’t stop him scanning the streets and the people as he headed out, searching for any sign of her.

  It took a while for him to drive home in the dark, especially once he hit open country where the snow remained thick on the ground. He passed the odd-car sitting nose down in a ditch, or abandoned by the roadside under heaps of snow. As usual, signs of humanity thinned the closer he got to Deller’s End. When he approached the spot where he’d hit Erica he unconsciously slowed down, even checked the hedge from where she’d come sliding down, as if somehow she might do the same today, as if he could conjure her up just by thinking about it.