by Kim Fleet
She made a quick tour of the outside of the building, checking in case anyone was lurking. No one was about, not even a teacher grabbing a crafty fag. The satellite buildings were in darkness, but she thought she saw a light far off in the gardens, then it was extinguished.
There was a small, frosted-glass window round the side of the main building. A sash, and someone had left it unhooked. Maybe the school now had a fake Vermeer they wanted to claim on the insurance. Too easy to slide up the window and climb inside. She dropped down on to a linoleum floor, flexing her ankles and knees to land cleanly and quietly. She strained her ears for footsteps coming towards her. Silence. She clicked on the torch. She was in a small lavatory: an old fashioned cistern with a chain, and a washbasin on a wrought-iron stand. She snapped the torch off again.
Easing the door open, she peeked out. A short corridor led to the main entrance hall, where a magnificent staircase curved up towards a domed skylight. Rosalind Mortimer’s office lay through a doorway to one side of the huge stone fireplace. A door on the other side bore a brass nameplate that stated ‘Reception’. The far side of the entrance hall had a door marked ‘Common Room’. She went in.
The room was gloomy: the curtains had been drawn but were thin and didn’t quite meet in the middle. A vague light came from outside, enough to make out a fireplace, sofas and chairs arranged in clusters, a bookcase and a stack of magazines. The room smelled of old upholstery and toast, and the ghosts of many cigarettes from long ago.
Eden padded across the room, imagining where Wayne and his light-fingered friend might have hidden. Possibly behind this large sofa. She crouched down to establish his field of vision. She could see the door from there, but nothing else unless she stood up. Wayne said that he heard the girls and the man with them pass him by, then a door opening. There must be another door. She was crawling out from behind the sofa when a hand grabbed her shoulder.
She stifled a scream. Clutching the hand on her shoulder, in one move she twisted down and away, springing to her feet with the stranger bent over, keeping the arm taut and the wrist under pressure.
‘Eden, let me go, please. You’re breaking my wrist.’
She was so astonished she dropped his hand. He curled away, rubbing his arm. ‘That really hurt.’
‘Aidan!’ she hissed. ‘What are you doing here?’
‘Waiting for you.’ She saw his teeth flash in a smile. ‘Where else would you be on a Monday night but breaking into Cheltenham’s most exclusive school?’
‘How did you get in?’
‘Front door was open. You?’
She flicked the torch briefly, and scowled at his grin. ‘What are you doing here?’ she whispered.
‘Looking for you. I’ve found something I think you’re going to like.’
‘Sh!’ She stiffened. ‘A car. Quick.’
She pulled him down behind the sofa as a car’s headlights swept across the windows. Voices outside; doors opening and slamming. She ducked down further as the door to the common room opened.
‘Right, girls, in you go,’ a male voice said.
Long, pale bare legs passed inches in front of her. Three girls in school uniform, dragging their feet, stumbling and unsteady. She held her breath as the footsteps moved down the room. A door opened and closed, and the air in the room flowed back in to fill the gap.
Slowly she raised her head. The room was empty. She turned to Aidan and pressed her fingers to her lips.
‘Do you want to follow them?’ Aidan mouthed.
She nodded. ‘Give them a few minutes. I’m not sure what we’re getting into here but I suspect it’s not going to be nice.’
‘Should I have brought my service revolver?’ Aidan asked, ‘so I can be Watson to your Holmes?’
‘Do you have one?’
‘No. Do you?’
‘Not any more.’ She sighed. ‘You’d better go home, Aidan, this could get nasty.’
‘You’re not doing this on your own.’
‘It’s my job and my case. And I’ve had training for this sort of thing.’
‘Whereas I can’t even break into your flat without your knowing.’ He caught her hand. ‘I’m a complete shit, and I’ll piss off out of your life if that’s what you want, but only after we finish this. You might hate me but I’m not letting you go in there on your own.’
‘Why?’
‘Because I have an idea what they’re up to,’ he said. ‘And I love you.’
She got to her feet and moved about the room, hunting for a doorway, tapping on the panelling and running her hand around the decorative mantelpiece.
‘Is this what you’re looking for?’ Aidan said, at the far end of the room, holding a door open. It was hidden behind a bookcase, a front of leather-bound tomes that swung out into the room.
‘How did you know where it was?’ Eden asked.
‘Looked up the architect’s plans this morning. Come on.’
The door led into a dark passageway that ran a short distance along the side of the house, then dipped down a flight of stone stairs. They inched down them, deeper and deeper, until they reached a hard floor. Eden pointed her torch down and flicked it on and off, just enough to make out a narrow tunnel stretching in front of them. They stood silently in the dark for a moment, listening. No sound of the girls or the man.
‘Where does this lead to?’ Eden asked, her mouth close to Aidan’s ear.
‘To the Temple of Venus on the other side of the gardens,’ he whispered back.
‘The Paternoster Club,’ Eden said. ‘Donna wrote P.N. in her diary every Monday. I thought it stood for Paul Nelson.’
She gripped the torch firmly and set off down the tunnel, keeping one hand on the slimy stone wall to steady herself. She daren’t switch on the torch. With Aidan close behind, they crept along the tunnel until they bumped into another set of stone steps, leading up. At the top of the steps was a small room lit by two candles. The meagre light revealed more than enough. Every inch of wall was painted with grotesque images.
‘Regency snuff,’ she breathed, her stomach churning. A year working on illegal pornography hadn’t hardened her to face this. Out of the corner of her eye, she caught Aidan flinching.
On the far side of the room was a doorway. A line of light seeped underneath it. She edged towards it and bent her ear to the door. Voices and moans. Girls crying. She counted the different voices and her heart sank.
‘Four men,’ she told Aidan in a whisper. ‘I’ve got to go in, those girls are in danger. Go back through the tunnel and call the police. Tell them it’s a Code Tango Sierra. Got that?’
‘No, we’re going in together,’ he said.
‘Aidan, I’m serious.’
‘So am I.’
One glance at his face showed her he wasn’t going to budge.
‘OK,’ she said. ‘On my signal. Ready?’
As they burst into the room, she had a split second to take in the candlesticks burning along each wall; two girls, huddled together in a corner, crying; the sadism depicted on every wall; and a long velvet chaise in the centre of the room occupied by a man in his early fifties and a girl of about fifteen. She was screaming.
Aidan lunged at the man and dragged him off the girl. Eden was aware of the two men grappling on the floor, but before she could help another man leapt at her. She swung the torch and smashed it into his temple. He staggered and came at her again. This time she cracked him hard across the face, spinning him back against the wall. He crumpled against it and lay still.
Arms clamped round her arms, dragging her backwards, lifting her off her feet. She snapped her head back and her skull connected, hard, with bony skull. Dazed, it was a moment before her vision cleared but the grip around her body had loosened. She hooked her foot behind her and twisted it around his ankle. Jabbing both elbows down with as much force as she could muster, and stabbing her heel into his instep, she managed to topple him. They both crashed to the floor. She heard the explosion of air as he land
ed hard on the stone floor, but his arm was still round her neck.
As the pressure on her windpipe increased, stars exploded in her eyes and the edges of her vision narrowed. Stretching behind her head, she rammed her fingers into his eye sockets. He screamed and the pressure on her neck released just enough for her to wriggle round. Sitting astride him, she swung the torch across his face, busting his nose in an arc of blood, and sending a tooth flying. His head lolled. She swung again, but the fourth man grabbed her wrist, bending it back until she released the torch. It rattled away across the floor.
He dragged her to her feet. She ducked and twisted, pain searing her shoulder socket, but it loosened his grip. She chopped the back of his neck and he let go of her. Straightening, she found herself looking at the blade of a knife.
‘Game, set and match to me, I think,’ Greg Barker said.
Two of the men were still unconscious on the floor. She glanced round for Aidan. He’d gone. So had the man he was fighting. Her guts twisted with fear.
Don’t look at the blade. That’s what she’d been taught. Look them straight in the eyes. She fixed her gaze on Greg’s eyes, chilled to find nothing there. His eyes were blank and cold and devoid of emotion, like a shark.
‘Why did you kill Paul?’ she asked, playing for time. Please God let Aidan be calling the police right now. ‘Didn’t you want him to join your little club?’
‘Of course we didn’t want him!’ Greg laughed without humour. ‘Do you really think he’d fit in here?’ He cast a glance at the paintings on the walls: a vision of hell.
‘So why invite him to join?’
‘We didn’t. He found out about the Paternoster Club, found out that members enjoyed a certain level of business success. He thought it was some sort of networking group, business leaders working together for the common good and inspiring each other with entrepreneurship.’ He laughed again. ‘That’s not what we’re about. But he’d heard about the club so we went through with a certain amount of formality, for form’s sake.’
‘An initiation ceremony,’ Eden said. ‘You killed him.’
‘That kind of talk’s slander.’ The blade swung close to her eyes. She fought the urge to step back. Play for time, keep him talking. Where the hell was Aidan? Please God, let him be safe.
‘Not if you have proof,’ Eden spat back at him. ‘Paul was killed with a lucky bean, a Paternoster pea. It’s poisonous if you chew it. You didn’t tell him to swallow it whole.’
‘A lucky bean? A poisonous pea?’ Greg mocked. ‘Where would I get such a thing? A fairy tale?’
‘Your wife’s necklace. Those red and black beans are Paternoster peas. The necklace broke. You didn’t throw the beans away, did you?’
‘You have no proof.’
‘It’ll be in your house, Greg. And your wife still has the matching bracelet.’ Her vision swam. ‘Did Donna Small tell you to kill Paul?’
‘Donna! What a pain she was. No, she wanted Paul to join the club, thought it was a good business idea.’
‘She knew about the planning applications, didn’t she?’ Eden said.
‘Yeah,’ Greg sniffed, ‘and she made me pay. I paid for her gormless son to go to the Park School, paid her credit card bills every month and by God could that woman spend.’
‘What happened?’
‘She fancied herself as Paul’s new wife, spending his money as well as mine. Thought if he joined the Paternoster Club, he could keep her in style. Thought telling him about it was a way to win him back.’ He shook his head. ‘Silly bitch.’
Eden let her gaze travel round the room. The two men were stirring, lifting their heads and rubbing blood from their eyes. She didn’t have long.
‘Did Donna know about the girls?’ Eden asked.
‘No, she challenged me about Paul, and started blabbing about seeing something suspicious at the school.’
Wayne was wrong: Donna had listened to him. If only she’d gone to the police instead of confronting Greg, she would still be alive.
‘So you strangled her.’
Greg flashed his teeth. He stepped towards her, and pressed the blade against her throat. ‘Donna didn’t approve of our little love nest here.’
‘I wonder why.’ Eden fixed her eyes on his as the blade pushed cold against her skin. ‘Now!’
At her word, a candlestick crashed down hard on Greg’s skull. He staggered and fell, the knife clattering from his hand. Gasping and brandishing the candlestick, stood one of the girls.
‘Well done, Chelsea,’ Eden said. The girl collapsed in tears on the floor. Eden wrapped her arms around her and stroked her hair. ‘It’s fine, you’re safe. You’re all safe.’
Eden yanked the belts from the three men and pinioned their arms to their sides. Greg cursed as she fastened him to the chaise in the middle of the room. Chelsea helped her secure the men, tugging the belts tight, tears dropping from her eyes as she worked. Her left eye was swollen, a cut splitting her eyebrow like a burst plum. The other two girls hunkered in the corner of the room, eyes staring, too shocked to move.
‘You must be daddy Sussman,’ Eden said, pulling the belt so tight around him that his eyes popped. ‘And you must be Zamir. Nice family business you’ve got here. The people trafficker and the paedophile.’
In the distance came the sound of sirens. Thank God, Aidan must’ve called the police. Eden straightened and spoke to the girls. ‘I’m going to give you a few moments alone. You don’t have long: the police will be here soon.’
She stepped out of the temple into the cold night and watched the blue lights swarm up the driveway. She didn’t hear three terrified girls taking revenge on the men who’d brutalised and sold them. She didn’t hear the men screaming or the girls swearing. She didn’t hear a thing.
She was giving a brief summary of the evening’s events to a police officer when Aidan returned, dishevelled and bleeding. His coat was torn and his lip split open. She ran into his arms, choking with relief.
‘I lost him,’ he said.
‘James Wallis is the man you’re looking for, officer,’ she said. ‘And you should arrest the headmistress, Rosalind Mortimer, too, for defrauding her insurance company over a faked Constable painting, and she knew about the girls being brought here.’
‘How do you know?’ Aidan asked, touching his tip of his tongue to his lip and wincing.
‘When the skeletons were found, she assumed there’d been a murder. Her reaction was to say “the girls”, not “the pupils”. I think she assumed one of the trafficked girls had been killed.’
‘What would have happened to the girls after tonight?’ Aidan asked.
‘Sold on,’ Eden said, shuddering inside.
She looked across at the flashing blue lights, where Zamir, Greg and Don were being loaded, handcuffed, into a police van. The three girls, cocooned in silver blankets, were in the back of an ambulance. They had the rest of their lives to try and forget what happened that night. She understood how that felt.
‘Take you home?’ Aidan asked quietly.
‘Yes, please,’ she said, slipping her hand in his. ‘Take me home.’
CHAPTER
TWENTY-FOUR
Cheltenham, November 1795
The girl at the water fountain wore a mob cap that slipped down over her eyes. She smiled constantly as she poured glasses of water and handed them to patrons, hardly seeming aware of their grimaces as they drank the foul stuff.
Rachel received her glass of water and slid her penny on to the cool marble counter. She carried the glass away from the braying crowds and sucked in a deep breath before she downed it. Over the weeks she’d been coming to the spa for the waters, she’d experimented with a variety of ways to drink the water: sipping it down drop by drop, glugging it in stages, and now, sluicing it down in one. She tipped the glass back, closed her eyes, and swallowed.
When she came up for air, her eyes were smarting and she fought the urge to shake her head like a dog that’s been fed mustard. She
shuddered as the water caught the back of her throat and the whole lot threatened to reappear in a rainbow on the spa’s marble floor. She probably wouldn’t be the first person to be sick after drinking the water. The clenching in her stomach receded and she breathed easily. Another dose done. If only it would have some effect.
She glanced around the spa, at the women wincing as they sipped the water, at the men guffawing and affecting bravery, and misery washed over her. Nineteen, pox-ridden and in need of the mercury cure; a whore held captive by Mrs Bedwin’s evil tongue. She suddenly yearned for her old life: poor, simple and hard though it was. For a second, Rachel wished the water would be the end of her.
The mood passed as quickly as it had come when she saw the women eyeing her gown and reticule. Fine fabrics in the latest colours, not like these frumps. She smoothed her gown and affected not to notice their stares. As she gazed steadily in the opposite direction, her attention was caught by a familiar figure. Darby Roach. She twisted away but it was too late, he’d seen her.
‘Rachel. Miss Lovett,’ he said, trotting up to her side and bowing.
She bobbed a curtsey. ‘Mr Roach.’
‘What are you doing here?’ He saw the glass in her hand and his eyes widened. ‘You’re not ill?’
‘Oh no,’ she said, smiling prettily, pushing aside thoughts of the sores blooming under her hair. ‘The water is said to keep you young and beautiful.’ She fluttered her eyelashes at him.
He wasn’t taken in. ‘I would have thought you’d know more tricks than evil tasting water for that,’ he said. He gripped her arm and pulled her aside. His mouth was so close to her face, she could smell violet cashews on his breath. ‘Only I’ve heard some people take the waters if they have the pox.’
He stared meaningfully at her. She stared back, defying him to contradict her.
‘Is that why you’re here, Darby?’ she asked.
That wrong-footed him. ‘No, no,’ he said, releasing her arm. ‘Meeting my banker. My building plans are going so quickly I need to withdraw more funds to pay the builders.’