by Sam Christer
A hand slaps across her mouth. A stranger’s hand.
She manages a brief panicking glance at her unconscious lover before a hood is pulled over her head and duct tape wrapped around her mouth.
Within sixty seconds the fields are empty and silent, save the first birdsong of a new day. The sun finishes its slow upward arc into the bruised sky above the henge.
48
Serpens drives the Campervan. On the floor in the back is the blindfolded and bound form of Jake Timberland. Lacerta follows in his friend’s old Mitsubishi Warrior. Caitlyn Lock is tied up and tightly gagged in the rear.
The instructions to the Lookers had been clear. Keep surveillance on the site and wait until the Sacreds choose. Be patient. Like the last victim, it would be their will. And it was. The couple arrived in twilight. They invaded the circle. They touched the stone that the Master said would be touched. They had been drawn to it. Just as the Master said.
The Followers call that particular trilithon the Seeking Stone and there’s no doubt in Serpens’ mind these two lovers sought it. They chose their destiny. Draco will be pleased. All of the Inner Circle will be. He and Lacerta have done a good job.
Ordinarily, Serpens doesn’t take them at the circle itself. Once chosen, they are followed. Sometimes for weeks. Sometimes months. Greater care is usually shown before any abduction is executed. But time is against them. The stars are shifting. There is only a week to go to the change of the moon phase. The renewal must be completed. There is barely time to cleanse the sacrifices, to make them pure.
The lad in the back has suddenly started banging his feet on the wooden floor like a toddler having a tantrum. He will learn to be quiet. He’ll soon know to be silent. Serpens turns up the radio. Before long he takes the van off road, through land that the Craft own, through woods and vales once home to Mesolithic, Neolithic and Bronze Age tribes.
Serpens pulls over in a quiet place not far from the isolated track that leads to the hidden entrance of the Sanctuary.
Lacerta tucks the Warrior behind the Campervan and waits for his mentor to make the next move. All he knows is that they are going to leave the sacrifices there and drive the van to a barn, where it will be kept until dark. Later it’ll no doubt be taken to a scrapyard and crushed.
Serpens kills the engine and climbs into the back. At least the guy’s stopped kicking. Learned his lesson. Best not to fight it. Best not to resist what’s going to happen next.
49
Lacerta wanders towards the parked Camper. He wonders why Serpens is still in there. Nothing is happening. Through the window he sees him crouched in the back. He opens the door and sticks his head in, ‘Everything okay?’
‘No, it’s not.’ Serpens turns. ‘Everything’s very much not okay.’
Lacerta climbs in and shuts the door. ‘Why, what’s wrong?’
Serpens moves back and reveals the body on the floor. ‘He’s dead.’
‘Dead?’
It’s one of those words that you just have to repeat. ‘Dead.’
He emphasises the point by picking up Jake Timberland’s arm and letting it fall.
‘Fuck.’
‘Fuck indeed.’
Lacerta is in shock. He steps closer and peers at the crumpled form on the floor. ‘What’s wrong with him?’
‘You mean, apart from the fact his heart’s stopped and he has no pulse?’
‘I mean, what killed him?’
Serpens shakes his head. ‘I don’t know. Maybe I hit him too hard. Maybe you tied him up too tight and he suffocated.’
For almost a minute they both stare guiltily at the corpse and wonder which of them was responsible.
Both are aware of the fate that awaited the couple. Sacrifice.
That would have been much worse for the guy. But it would have been done under the eyes of the Gods. Done with their blessing, in their honour and with their protection. Under controlled circumstances. Carefully planned procedures to protect everyone concerned. Nothing like this. This is a screw-up.
Lacerta breaks the silence. ‘What are we going to do?’
The older man sits back and puts his head in his hands. ‘I’m trying to think, trying to work something out.’
‘We could just dump them both.’ He nods towards the pick-up. ‘No one knows about the girl or him. We could drive them somewhere away from here and just leave them.’
Serpens thinks about it. ‘Did she see your face?’
‘No. I don’t reckon so.’ He reconsiders. ‘Maybe. But even if she did, it was only for half a second.’
Serpens grimaces. ‘That’s all it takes. You see a lot in half a second.’ He has another thought. ‘She’ll know where she was, what time. It’s too risky.’
‘Then we kill her.’ Lacerta shrugs. ‘She was going to die anyway. We can make it look like the boyfriend got rough. He was almost humping her back there at the stones. I bet he’s given her one earlier in the night. His DNA will be all over her. The police are bound to think he did it.’
His mentor shakes his head. ‘She’s been chosen. She touched the Sacreds and it’s our duty to supply her to them.’
Lacerta is panicking: ‘It’s our duty to stay out of fucking prison.’
Serpens stays calm, gets his head together. ‘We need to drive this Camper somewhere, get it out of sight. Then I’ll call my contact in the Inner Circle. It’s up to the Master to decide.’
‘What about the girl?’
He nods. ‘You stay here with him. I’ll take her into the Sanctuary.’
Lacerta is not happy. Even in this remote location, far from any road or house, he doesn’t want to be left alone with a dead body. ‘Hurry up.’
Serpens runs to the Warrior. The girl is red-faced and struggling in the back of the cab. At least she’s alive.
Caitlyn sees the panic on his face. The fear is contagious. It makes her kick and thrash against the bonds.
Serpens considers taking the duct tape from around her mouth and trying to calm her down but decides against it. Best get her inside as quickly as possible. Get her locked up. Call Draco and tell him about the awful mess they’re in.
50
Yesterday’s personal discovery gave Gideon a restless night.
CLL.
It stands for chronic lymphocytic leukaemia and is a dreadful disease that occurs when the DNA of the lymphocyte cell mutates. As years pass, damaged cells multiply and the mutant army kills off normal cells in the lymph nodes and bone marrow. Blood-forming cells are eventually overwhelmed and the body’s immune system surrenders – it no longer has the ability to fight off infection.
It is how his mother died.
He knows all this because he spent all night reading about it online. He also found out that the disease is hereditary. But not always. CLL inheritance is a game of medical roulette. Maybe he has it, maybe he hasn’t. Only time will tell.
Deep in his memory something stirs. Rises from the sands of forgotten nightmares. He wasn’t a healthy child – he was plagued by colds and hay fever, coughs and dizzy spells. One time he fell really sick. A raging fever and heavy sweats. It was so bad his father took him out of school. Had him hospitalised and seen by specialists. There were machines and monitors, needles in his arms, stern faces and long adult conversations just out of earshot. Then they let him go home. His father had red eyes, like he’d been crying.
And he remembers something else. For a second, he has to stop himself. Needs to make sure his mind isn’t playing tricks. The diaries have churned him up, left him exhausted and emotional. He could be suffering from false memory syndrome, implanting things into the past that hadn’t happened.
But he doesn’t think so.
His father made him lie down in the cold metal bath in their old house. He remembers it distinctly because he was embarrassed. He was naked and the bath was empty. Then Nathaniel poured cold grey water all over him. Doused him from head to toe, told him to splash it over his face and in his hair. Urged him not t
o waste a drop.
He was shaking from cold and fear when he got out. His father wrapped him in a towel and held him tight, told him not to worry, said the water was special and would take the sickness away. And it had. Almost instantly. He went back to school days later and felt perfectly well.
Another piece of his childhood jigsaw falls into place. He’s never been ill since that day. Not even a sniffle. Whenever he has cut himself, it has healed quickly.
Gideon walks to his father’s old bedroom and looks in the mirror on the dressing table. The injuries he sustained in the fight with the intruder downstairs have gone. He puts a hand to his face. The skin is unblemished. There’s no trace of the split lip or cut cheek. It’s like it never happened.
51
Black carrion crows settle on the jagged ridge of an old barn that has seen little care in the last twenty years. Draco points at the avian army as he walks through the long grass with Musca.
He bangs on the dark twisted wood of the barn door and the birds scatter skyward, then swoop and settle into treetops edging the vast field.
From inside there comes the noise of urgency. Metal against metal. Things being moved. Serpens has already seen them through cracks in the barn boards and opens up. He looks embarrassed. ‘Sorry about all this.’
Draco says nothing. He is sorry too. Sorry about the screw-up. Sorry he has to come and sort out the mess. The two men slide past Serpens. He locks the door again. Rolls a broken scarifier back behind it, positions the long metal arm that connects to a tractor so it jams against one of the door beams. ‘Thanks for coming.’
Draco looks quickly around. ‘Are we are alone?’
Serpens nods. ‘I have sent Lacerta home.’
‘Good,’ says Musca. ‘At least you’ve done one thing properly.’
Draco gets straight to the point. ‘Where is the body?’
Sean points across the barn at the Campervan. ‘He’s in there.’
‘And the woman?’
‘Safe at the Sanctuary. In one of the meditation rooms.’ It is a euphemism. They are merely spaces chiselled in the thick stone walls, no bigger than a broom cupboard. The supplicant can’t kneel, let alone sit or lay down. Air dribbles through letterbox-sized slits by the feet and head. ‘Did she say anything?’
‘Nothing you could make any sense of. Just screamed.’
Musca smiles. ‘She’ll stop after an hour or two.’
Serpens slides open the Camper door and they climb in. Draco leans over the corpse. ‘Have you searched him?’
Serpens shakes his head. Musca opens up the glovebox and pulls out hire documents, a driving licence and a bag of something. He holds it up to the windscreen. ‘Ecstasy. A nice little stash.’ He drops it on the driver’s seat. ‘There’s a name here.’ He flicks through the agreement. ‘Edward Jacob Timberland, address New Cavendish Street, Marylebone.’ He picks up the driving licence and looks at the photograph. ‘Yep, that’s our guy. Thirty-one years old.’ He flips it over. ‘And six points to his name.’
‘He won’t be worrying about those any more,’ says Draco. He takes a deep breath. ‘So he and his girlfriend hire the VW for a hippy trip to Stonehenge. That means they won’t be missed for a day or two.’ He gives them a smile. ‘Not as bad as you thought. The Sacreds picked the perfect sacrifices, free souls who can take time off and play at being children of the sixties.’
Serpens looks relieved. ‘So what do you want me to do with him?’
‘Nothing. We’ll keep the van here until after the ceremony and then we’ll dispose of the bodies together. Go get yourself a decent breakfast. And relax. You can leave the girl to us now.’
52
DCI Jude Tompkins stomps into the CID office with a face like thunder. ‘Baker, Dockery, conference room, five minutes. Don’t be late.’
She’s gone as quickly as she appeared. Jimmy looks across desks to Megan. ‘What’s all that about? I have to see an informant in ten minutes.’
‘I think this is more important, Jim. You’d better ring your man and stand him down.’
‘Shit.’ He rips the desk phone from its cradle and punches in a number.
Megan calmly finishes reviewing the document she was working on, saves it and locks her computer. She grabs a plastic cup of water from a dispenser in the pantry and wanders down the corridor to the meeting room.
It’s crowded. Full of bigwigs. She tries to put ranks and names to faces. There are five or six sergeants, at least three inspectors, two DCIs, the Detective Chief Super, John Rowlands, and there at the top of the table is Jimmy’s old man, the Deputy Chief Constable, Greg Dockery. He’s flanked by two smartly dressed civilians she doesn’t recognise.
‘What’s the score?’ asks Charlie Lanning, a uniform inspector, taking a seat next to her. ‘Something to do with the solstice? Bloody hedgerows are already full of dopeheads. It’s going to be worse than ever.’
‘Your guess is as good as mine.’ Megan gestures to the end of the conference table. ‘The suits look too serious for solstice ops. Too official. Could be a Home Office review. Or maybe more cutbacks.’
‘Nothing left to cut in my unit. We’re not down to the bone, we’re into it and almost out the other side.’
They don’t have to wait long.
The Deputy Chief raises his voice. ‘Your attention please.’ He waits a beat for the noise to die down. ‘You have been gathered for a matter of urgency. To my left is Drew Blake of the American Embassy and to my right Sebastian Ingram of the Home Office.’ He picks up a large photograph that has been face-down on the table. ‘This is Caitlyn Lock. She is twenty-two years old. She is an American citizen at university in London and she is missing.’ He turns the photograph left and right for all the room to see. ‘Some of you may recognise this young lady. Miss Lock is something of a celebrity. She won the US reality television show Survivor and is the daughter of Hollywood film star Kylie Lock and of course the Vice President of the United States, Thom Lock.’ Most in the room are taking notes and Dockery pauses briefly before continuing: ‘At this stage we have no reason to believe any harm has come to Caitlyn. There has been no ransom demand. She is known to be something of a free spirit, so this may simply be an innocent disappearance with a new boyfriend. However, she has not been seen since midnight last night so it is extremely important that we find her.’ He scans the faces around the table, lets the point sink in, then gestures to his Detective Chief Superintendent.
John Rowlands stands. The head of CID is lean, a little over fifty and serious-looking. He’s the only officer in the county who’s also worked in the Met on homicide, abduction and terrorism cases. ‘Just before midnight Caitlyn Lock tricked her private security team into believing she was in bed when in fact she had slipped out of her father’s apartment in central London, just south of the river, to be with a man known to her friends only as Jake. She later telephoned one of these friends from a service station in Fleet, heading west, and said she didn’t know where she was going – she was being treated to some kind of surprise. The friend said she sounded happy and excited and mentioned an old Campervan but gave no description, no make or colour.’ He lets them process what he has given them. ‘Given the solstice, the van and the timing, this young woman could well be on our patch. If she is, I want her found and returned to London before the maids have changed the sheets on her bed.’ He turns to his left. ‘I will head the inquiry, DCI Tompkins will be my number-two. She will give you the operational details and your duties straight after this meeting. Surrounding forces are setting up their own investigations and the national press is being informed of Caitlyn’s disappearance.’
He hears groans around the room.
‘Be smart, people. The public and the press have the power to find this girl much quicker than we can. They are our eyes and ears. Use them, don’t abuse them. And don’t be stupid. All press enquiries have to be channelled through the communications office. Now go and get something to eat. It will be your last opportunity fo
r quite a while.’
53
Draco catches it on the radio. Not all of it but enough. Something about the daughter of a Hollywood actress and an American politician going missing with her boyfriend. In a Campervan. He pulls out his burner and calls Musca. ‘Have you listened to the news in the last hour?’
‘No. Not been near a TV or radio.’
Draco starts to think. ‘Wait.’ He opens the browser on his phone and pulls up the BBC News page. It’s the lead story. Beneath a picture of the girl. ‘Listen to this.’ He reads aloud: ‘US reality star Caitlyn Lock, daughter of Vice President Thom Lock and actress Kylie Lock has disappeared from her father’s home in south London with an unnamed man. Miss Lock, twenty-two years old, is thought to be in the southwest of the country and police have issued an appeal for anyone who sees her to call them immediately on the number below. She is of athletic build, five feet nine inches tall, has dark shoulder-length hair, brown eyes.’ He pockets the phone. ‘You went to the Sanctuary after we split up this morning, does it sound like the girl?’
Musca can hardly answer. ‘I think so.’
Draco winces. ‘Why? Why do you think so?’
‘She’s American. There’s no doubt about that. She looks athletic and young as well.’
Draco shuts his eyes and wishes it wasn’t so. ‘Get over there now. I’ll call the Master.’ He hangs up, unsure what to do. If the girl is the daughter of the US Vice President the Americans will be going crazy to get her back. They might be using spy technology for all he knows, listening in to phone calls from all over the world.
He glances up at the sky, almost expecting to see a drone hovering above him. If they can do that, he’s said too much already. He calls the number. ‘It’s Draco. I have to see you. It’s urgent.’
‘I understand. I’ll be there as soon as I can.’
They both know where for such an emergency. Draco has little time for courtesy: ‘When you hang up, dump your burner somewhere public. We may be compromised.’