by Sam Christer
Megan is impressed. She reads from the microbiologist’s paper: ‘Samples of soil were tested and contained human traces. All identified DNA was that of a single individual.’
‘You said Tony Naylor was in that field, boss. You were right.’
She forces herself to be cautious. ‘Let’s make sure it is Naylor before we tell anyone. Try to get a familial DNA match via blood from his sister or parents. Check the national database to see if we ever tested him in connection with an offence.’ She thinks of something else. ‘Oh, and get the landowner interviewed, I sure as hell want to know how he came to be crop spraying with human remains.’
107
Gideon leaves the Sanctuary in the same way he entered it. Hooded, cuffed and driven in the back of a plain looking builder’s van.
After twenty minutes the vehicle lurches off-road and stops. Its back doors creak open and he hears birdsong spill in from outside. It’s still early morning. Pre-rush hour. The floor beneath him dips as someone climbs in, swings his feet around and pulls him by the ankles across the van floor. They dangle his feet outside the vehicle, sit him upright and pull the cloth sack from his head.
It’s not Dave Smithsen staring into his face. It’s the man who almost killed him. The one who left him for dead in his father’s burning study. Gideon’s eyes drift down to the man’s hands. There, on a small finger, is the distinctive signet ring that opened up the wound on his face. Behind the man is what looks like deserted woodland. The perfect place for a grave to be dug and a body to be hidden.
Smithsen walks into view and is smiling. ‘This is Musca and from now on you will know me only as Draco. You will treat us both like long lost brothers. Either that or we’ll kill you. It’s your choice.’
Musca pulls a gun from the seat of his trousers, presses the barrel hard into Gideon’s forehead. ‘I don’t mind which.’
Draco sits casually on the back ledge of the van and puts an arm around Gideon in a gesture of mock chumminess. ‘One of our rules is secrecy. Enforced secrecy, if you get my meaning. And the Master relies on Musca and me to enforce it.’ He squeezes Gideon. ‘If you live, then you live by the rules. On no account do you speak about the Craft, the Followers or the Sacreds to any non-members. Ever. You don’t telephone us. You don’t turn up at our houses or our businesses. You never contact us. We contact you. If we call you on the phone, you don’t mention your name or our names. You use the name that you will be given, should you be initiated. You use that name at all times. Don’t forget these things. If they slip your mind, my friend’s finger might slip too.’
Musca’s eyes dance and he pushes the gun harder against Gideon’s skull. ‘Boom.’
Draco gets to his feet. ‘Put him in the front, then you can go.’
Musca guides Gideon around to the passenger’s door, helps him into the cab, slams the door and heads to a Mercedes parked nearby. The indicators flash orange as he zaps the central locking.
Draco talks as he starts up the van and drives. ‘Here’s how it goes. I take you home and stay with you while you collect these books that your father has written. You hand them over to me and I return you to the Master. It is that simple.’
‘Then you should be able to manage it, shouldn’t you?’
Draco laughs. ‘You and I need to get some things straight. The Inner Circle voted a few hours ago on your initiation. The Master’s vote carried it. One vote. That’s all. So listen rather than talk. All right?’ His eyes flash menace. ‘For the next twenty-four hours you are my responsibility. I will deliver you to the Master’s knife and hammer. If you survive the initiation, mine will be the first face that you will see. From that point on, I own your loyalty. You do what I say, when I say, how I say. Do you understand?’
Gideon can see he’s riled. ‘Clear as day. You’re acting tough but really you’re just the Master’s messenger boy. You don’t do anything unless he tells you.’
Draco hits the brakes. The van skids to a halt and the engine stalls. He throws a meaty right-hander into Gideon’s face, cannoning his head into the side window. Gideon tries to fend him off with an arm but Draco is already out of his seat, raining blows down on his head and face.
The beating lasts less than ten seconds. Draco holds him by the neck in iron-like fingers and delivers one final blow. The most painful one of all. ‘Remember this, Mr Smartmouth, when we’re alone, I am your master. I own you. I was ready to kill your father and I’m more than ready to kill you.’
108
The rest of the journey to the Chase estate takes place in a painful silence. Particularly so for Gideon. His lip is busted and a tooth feels loose.
Draco frogmarches him through the front door and straight upstairs to the hidden room.
‘Neat job,’ he says as Gideon reveals the panel in the landing wall. He taps it with his big perma-grazed builder’s knuckles. ‘Not bad at all. If I hadn’t already been in the room behind here, I would never have guessed one existed.’
Gideon ignores him and steps into the long narrow space.
Draco can’t hide his shock when he sees the shelves are empty. Just dust and faded paintwork marking where the diaries had been.
Gideon blots his bleeding lip. ‘What did you expect?’
‘Watch your mouth.’ He smiles at his own joke and walks the room. Knocks on walls. Thumps his heels in a few places. ‘Are there any more secret places in here?’ He bangs his foot down again on the flooring.
‘Aren’t you worried about my damaged rafters?’ says Gideon sarcastically.
‘They’re oak,’ chides Draco. ‘It would take the Great Fire of London to burn them down.’
He bangs his way along a line of ceiling panels. Gideon’s eyes focus at the far end, the one above his father’s telescope.
Draco stops just inches short of it. ‘So where are they? Where have your old man’s books gone?’
The sound of electric chimes pre-empts a reply. The gate bell. Draco looks edgy. ‘You expecting anyone?’
Gideon shrugs. ‘No. There’s a security monitor in the kitchen. We can see who it is.’
They go downstairs. The small wall-mounted screen shows a woman waiting in a car idling outside the gates to the house.
‘I know her,’ says Gideon. ‘It’s the detective heading the investigation into my father’s death. She’ll be able to see my car and your van on the drive.’
‘Let her in but get rid of her quickly.’ He heads towards the fire-damaged study. ‘Looks like I’ve got some work to do after all.’
Gideon buzzes Megan in, opens the front door and walks outside to greet her as she parks. He blots his lip once more on the back of his hand.
‘Good morning, Inspector. I didn’t expect to see you today.’
She grabs her handbag as she climbs out and shuts the door. ‘I wanted to see how you are.’ She notices the swollen and bloodied mouth. ‘Which doesn’t look very good. What happened?’
Gideon touches his mouth again. ‘I took a fall while trying to fix up the study. It’s not as bad as it looks.’
Her eyes drift past him as Draco comes walking out towards his van. ‘You having some work done?’
Gideon glances towards him. ‘Yes, Mr Smithsen did some jobs for my father and he kindly came by when he learned of the fire.’
‘That’s neighbourly.’ She remembers their conversation in the pub near the crematorium, what Gideon had told her about the builder’s previous visit and how he suspected he was linked to his father’s death.
‘Can’t believe Mr Chase’s bad luck,’ says Draco loudly, as he steps closer to them. ‘What’s the world coming to? You lose your father, then the scum of the earth break in and nearly burn you out of house and home. Terrible affair.’ He heads back to the van, rattles a large bag full of tools.
Megan knows they’re being watched, given no real chance to talk. ‘I came by to ask you a few more questions about your father – is this a bad time?’
‘It is,’ answers Gideon. ‘Do you
mind if I call you? I can come into the station, if that makes it easier for you.’
‘That would be fine.’ Out of the corner of her eye, she sees the builder watching them. ‘Before I go, can I use your loo? It’s quite a drive back.’
‘Of course. Let me show you where it is.’
They peel away from Draco and once through the door she leans close and asks. ‘Are you all right?’
‘Not really. I have to go with him when you leave. They want my father’s books.’ He flicks a light on in the corridor and glances back towards the open front door. Draco slams shut the van door and is heading their way. ‘I can’t talk now.’
Megan has no choice but to slip into the downstairs toilet as Draco strides through the front door and pulls Gideon towards him. ‘I saw you both talking. What did she just say to you?’
Gideon tries not to panic. ‘Take your hands off me. It was my father’s funeral yesterday. She was just being sympathetic.’
He unclenches his fists and lets go of Gideon’s shirt. ‘Get her out of here. Quickly. Or you’ll be going to another funeral.’
109
Gideon walks Megan to her car and holds the door for her. He knows he only has a few seconds.
‘I was threatened this morning at gunpoint.’ He nods to the house. ‘By Smithsen and another man. The burglar who attacked me. They’re working together.’
Matt Utley’s photo flashes in her mind. She wants to tell him about her trip to the butcher’s shop but there’s no time. ‘Get in the car. We can sort all this out down at the station.’
He glances nervously to the front door. ‘I can’t do that. I have to go with him.’
‘Why?’
‘My father killed himself rather than condone what they’re doing.’
‘What are they doing?’ She looks at him quizzically, remembering again his fragile mental state.
Gideon sees doubt rising in her eyes. ‘I told you before. Sacrifices. I think they’re about to make another one.’
Megan wants to challenge him but spots Smithsen by the side of the house. He’s carrying a length of burned timber, trying to look busy. Now is the wrong time. She starts the engine and slips off the handbrake. ‘I’ll call you later.’
Gideon steps away as she drives off. Smithsen walks towards him, his eyes tracking the car to the electronic metal gates and out on to the country lane.
‘What was that all about?’
‘Money,’ says Gideon. ‘My father traded artefacts. Made millions from them. Probably some tomb-robbing in his time. The force’s art and fraud people want to interview me about his last set of accounts.’
‘She ask about your face?’
‘I told her I’d had an accident.’
‘Good.’ He turns and starts back to the house. ‘Come on, we’re wasting time. Let’s get those books and get out of here.’
‘Wait,’ says Gideon. ‘You think I’m stupid enough to leave them in the house?’
Smithsen’s face sets like concrete. Gideon digs his car keys from his pocket and opens the boot of the Audi. The builder peers inside and sees a thick blanket-wrapped bundle. He leans in and tugs off the outer layers. Inside are four A4 diaries, two from each decade of Nathaniel Chase’s time in the Craft.
‘Is this all?’
‘All for now.’
Smithsen opens one up and stares at the coded text. ‘How do we even know this is what you say it is?’
Gideon takes the book from him. ‘Only my father and I understood this code and that’s a good thing. Good for me and good for you. Most people would just throw these things away if they came across them, but they would be wrong to do that. Very wrong.’ He closes the journal, rewraps it in the blanket and hands the bundle over. ‘That’s my side of the bargain. Now complete yours.’
110
By the time you reach the rank of DI, you’ve usually suffered a few professional wounds. And if you are a woman, you’ve certainly set some personal rules along the way. From leaving early at end-of-case parties to never marrying another copper, you’ve laid down the markers. Megan has broken both of those little beauties. But there is one guideline she always follows.
Look at the bigger picture. Don’t make knee-jerk decisions. Stand back and weigh everything up. Big. Small. Important. Mundane. Take every factor into consideration.
Which is why she doesn’t beat down her boss’s door and ask for an arrest warrant and a tactical firearm unit to take in Dave Smithsen. Instead, she talks it through with Jimmy and tries to make sense of it all. ‘I saw Gideon Chase this morning. He looked like he had been roughed up. Said he’d been threatened at gunpoint by two men. A builder called Smithsen and the man who broke into his father’s house last week.’
Jimmy’s surprised. ‘I thought you said Chase hadn’t seen the burglar?’
‘I did. It turns out he had.’
‘So why did he lie about it?’
‘Long story. Says he felt he had a personal duty to find out what his father was mixed up in.’
‘So where did he get threatened and why?’
She shakes her head. ‘I don’t know all the details. I didn’t have the chance to ask him. Smithsen was there with him at the house, fixing the fire damage.’
Jimmy adds it all up. ‘So this builder and his burglar mate threaten Chase and then a few hours later he comes round to his house to fix it up? Sounds strange.’
‘You’re right. It is strange. But it got me wondering whether the suicide of Nathaniel Chase isn’t somehow connected to the ransom demand for the kidnapped American girl.’
Jimmy’s eyes widen. ‘Why? How on earth can you connect the two?’
‘Cast your mind back to when you saw Jake Timberland’s body in the barn. You said you had a gut feeling that the crime scene had been staged. Can you remember what you put that down to?’
‘Sure. Location, location, location.’
‘That’s right. Well, location is the factor that’s been bugging me. Both cases share the same focal point. Stonehenge. It’s where Lock and Timberland were probably heading for a romantic sunrise before the kidnap and murder. And it’s the place Nathaniel Chase wrote books about and where he wanted his ashes scattered. Come to think of it, it’s also where his son claims he was cured of hereditary cancer when he was a child and where he believes a prehistoric cult makes human sacrifices so they can benefit from its powers.’
Jimmy screws up his face. ‘You don’t really go for all that mumbo-jumbo, do you?’
‘Just playing devil’s advocate for a minute. Why not? People have been digging up the bones of thousands of human sacrifices for centuries. The practice has been recorded in the Bible and dozens of other historic documents.’
‘I get the history, but even if such a cult still existed, why would it want to sacrifice an American politician’s daughter and the son of an English Lord? And how do you explain the ransom demand?’
Jimmy’s logic pulls her up short. The cult is a stupid idea but one she’s not yet ready to completely write off. ‘Cults pick victims for a whole range of reasons. Just like rapists and murderers, they have their own secret criteria. It could be sexual, racial, gender-oriented. Maybe it fits or offends their belief systems. Perhaps Caitlyn fitted one of those categories.’
‘And Timberland?’
‘It could be that he didn’t fit the criteria, that’s why he got killed. He was just defending Caitlyn. Being gallant.’
Jimmy shows his ace card again: ‘And the ransom?’
She taps her fingers on the desk. Her nails sound like a hungry woodpecker. ‘Forget the ransom for a minute. I’m not done with the locational aspect.’
Jimmy thinks that argument is just as flawed. ‘Stonehenge. Okay. So how could a cult carry out a ritualistic killing there? The place is slap bang in the middle of two busy roads. Always crawling with tourists. Twenty-four-hour security.’
Megan’s eyes light up. ‘What if the security team at Stonehenge is involved?’
Jimmy thinks for a second. It would certainly change things. ‘Sean Grabb worked security there. I heard he’s been missing since the abduction and murder.’
‘You sure?’
‘Overheard it in the canteen. And remember this guy has previous for burglary and assault.’
Megan looks energised. ‘So if Grabb and others working security were part of the cult, they could fix access to the site at any time they wanted.’
‘It’s possible. I’ll check with English Heritage and the security company they use. See what Grabb’s attendance record is like. Could be that he pulls sickies all the time and often goes missing. Or maybe this is the only day he’s had off for years.’
Megan is only half-listening. ‘Good. Good idea. Give it a shot.’
Jimmy has implanted another idea in her head. One more unorthodox than any she’s considered in her career. One that could solve the case. Or get her sacked.
111
Cuffed and hooded in the back of Draco’s van, Gideon tries to work out the route they are taking back to the Sanctuary. He’s sure from the turn out of his gate that they’re heading west from Tollard Royal along the B3081 past the King John Inn.
He wriggles into a seated position behind the driver’s wall at the front of the van and navigates according to which direction he gets thrown. A jerk to the left tells him Draco has turned right and is driving north. Gideon tries to judge the passing minutes and comes to the conclusion that they’ve reached Shaftesbury and are now headed in the direction of Gillingham and Warminster.
The last part of the journey is the quietest. Few cars can be heard. From the reduced speed and increasingly bumpy ride, it seems they’ve gone off road. Gideon is thrown around for several minutes before the vehicle stops and its back doors clunk open.
Three, maybe four men pull him out and manhandle him over hard ground. They walk him into a chilly, enclosed space where footsteps create echoes. Some kind of door is being unlocked in front of him. There’s a lot of noise now. Sounds of people grunting. Things shifting. Something heavy sliding.