The King of Terrors (a psychological thriller combining mystery, crime and suspense)

by Mitchell, D. M.

  ‘Go ahead, nothing would give me greater pleasure,’ she said.

  Gareth fumbled in his pocket, brought out the gun Muller had given him back at the hotel. He brought it to bear on the woman. ‘I don’t know who the hell you are, but let the man go,’ he said, rather more confidently than he felt.

  She didn’t even bother turning round to him. ‘Put that thing away, Gareth; it’s not even loaded.’

  He looked helplessly down at the gun, unsure now what to do. He’d no idea how to check to see if she were telling the truth.

  ‘OK, Muller, drop that thing and close the door,’ she snarled, her jaw chewing agitatedly at the gum in her mouth. He did as he was told and she kicked the fallen weapon away. ‘Over there, by the wall,’ she ordered and Muller complied with a scowl. She saw Gareth studying the gun in his hand. ‘Oh, for Christ’s sake give it here!’ she said, snatching it from him. With a deft working of her left hand she flicked out the cartridge case and handed the gun back to him. ‘See, it’s as empty as a politician’s promise. He was pissing up your back, Gareth, lulling you into a false sense of security.’

  ‘You’ve come to kill me!’ he said, horrified, backing away.

  She peered at him through narrowed eyes. ‘You really are dumb, aren’t you? No, I’m not going to kill you. I’ve come to save your arse. Someone else isn’t going to be so lucky though.’

  ‘He’s the police,’ said Gareth.

  ‘The police? Nice one, Muller.’ She waved the gun at the man who had his hands behind his head. ‘Let’s see the ID, Muller. Throw it over to Davies.’

  He reached carefully into his pocket, took out a wallet and tossed it to the floor in front of Gareth. He bent down to pick it up. ‘You bitch,’ said Muller.

  ‘Yeah, right. Now give it to me, Gareth,’ she said, gun aimed solidly at Muller’s head. She glanced at the contents of the wallet and sneered. ‘I’m surprised at you, Muller; I’d be ashamed to use such cheap Mickey Mouse stuff. I know there’s an economic depression, but still...’

  Muller remained tight-lipped, averting his eyes, breathing heavily.

  ‘They’re false?’ said Gareth.

  She rolled her eyes. ‘I’m seriously wondering whether you’re worth all the trouble,’ she scoffed. ‘Of course this shit is false. Everything about him is false.’

  ‘Don’t trust her,’ Muller said. ‘It’s real enough.’

  ‘He saved me from Camael,’ Gareth defended. ‘I’d be dead if it weren’t for him.’

  ‘He saved you alright; he saved you for himself,’ she corrected. ‘Isn’t that right, Muller?’

  ‘She’s crazy!’ he fired back in return. ‘Don’t believe a word she tells you.’

  The woman took out the ball of gum and tossed it into the cold, dead hearth. ‘Maybe I am crazy, maybe I’m not,’ she returned calmly. ‘How is Randall Tremain these days? Still the same heartless bastard? I’m betting he’s really pissed off with you right now. Not the kind of man you’d deliberately cross, so I say you’re very brave, very desperate or as thick as pig shit.’ She caught sight of a flash of recognition on Gareth’s face. ‘That’s right, Davies, this guy, your guardian angel, your Errol Flynn, is in the pay of Randall Tremain, who, as you know, is in the pay of Lambert-Chide, where the dirty salary chain stops At least as far as we can tell. Only I reckon Muller here thought the pay wasn’t up to scratch and ever the sleazy opportunist decided to give himself a pay rise, isn’t that so, Muller?’

  If ever a man’s face betrayed his inner turmoil it was Muller’s, thought Gareth, as he sized up the situation, running through limited options. For the first time he saw a fault line of nervousness open up in the man’s iron-hard exterior.

  ‘Is this true, Muller?’ asked Gareth.

  Muller gave an emphatic shake of his head. ‘She works for Camael,’ he fired bluntly. ‘You listen to her and you’re as good as dead, Davies.’

  ‘You were at Gattenby House. I saw you talking with Tremain,’ he said. ‘What’s the truth, Muller?’

  ‘The truth,’ interrupted the woman, ‘is that this man is a hired private investigator, hired initially to find your sister. They’ve been searching a long time. Lambert-Chide has many people looking for her. But there was a shift in plan when Muller realised your connection, your importance to Lambert-Chide. He was instructed to bring you in, but obviously thinking about his old age and retirement to some exotic location or other, he decides to keep you for himself, and then broker a better deal with Lambert-Chide for your handover. Foolproof. Except that I’ve been tracking you for a while now, Muller, and what a trail; as bright as Halley’s Comet. You may be good at finding people but you’re shit at covering your own tracks when you thought no one was watching.’

  Muller’s eyes were looking resignedly at the floor. He’d abandoned exploring options for tackling the woman; he’d shifted to consideration of new and different plans. The change was plain to see, thought Gareth, physical, plastered all over the man’s face, in the way he carried himself. The woman went over to the old armchair and sat down letting Muller stew in his heated thoughts for a while.

  ‘I followed you when you first came to look at this place, when you hired two cars and when you booked the hotel room. So what’s going on here, I thought? Then the penny dropped; you never intended delivering Davies to Tremain. I’m afraid there’s a rather dark and damp cellar here, Gareth, in which you would no doubt have spent some considerable time until negotiations were complete and you were handed over to Lambert-Chide. If you don’t believe me take a look downstairs. There’s a bed made up for you, even a portaloo; no expense spared.’

  ‘Is this right, Muller?’ Gareth said. But he didn’t need a reply. He knew it was. He could read it in the man’s shattered resolve.

  ‘OK, so what’s your point?’ said Muller. ‘Where is all this headed?’

  ‘But before you could get to Davies Camael turned up, didn’t he?’ she continued. ‘Took him for himself. It would have been down to me to get him out but I figured you’d be so desperate to secure your investment you’d go ahead and do it on my behalf. And so here we are. Tell me if I got any of that wrong, Muller,’ she said.

  ‘You want a share, is that it?’ said Muller. ‘We can work something out.’

  If Gareth had any lingering doubts then they were swept away by Muller’s statement. ‘What the fuck is it with you guys?’ he fired angrily. ‘I’m not a piece of meat to be bought and sold, to be bounced from one set of weirdos to another! Give me some fucking answers!’ he demanded.

  They both looked at him. ‘How much have you told him?’ the woman asked.

  ‘Jack shit.’

  She shrugged. ‘Might be for the best, for now,’ she conceded.

  ‘I’m going to phone the police right now!’ he said. ‘The fucking real ones!’ They watched silently as he went over to the old phone and lifted the receiver. He gave an exasperated sigh. ‘The line’s dead,’ he said flatly.

  ‘Really?’ she said. ‘Now sit down, Gareth, and be a good boy.’ She motioned with the gun and he looked at it warily, quietly going back to his place on the sofa.

  This time it was his turn to mull over options, and none of them looked good. He felt totally helpless, a piece others were moving around a board in a game he couldn’t fathom.

  ‘So who is paying you?’ Muller asked.

  Her stony expression didn’t waver. ‘I’m doing it for love,’ she said.

  ‘Yeah, so you are. What’s your price?’

  ‘Not everyone’s like you, Muller,’ she said. ‘Let’s say I’m motivated by other things. I know you’ve already been in contact with Tremain, when you made the call in the service station car park. You made him an offer. How did he take it?’

  ‘He’ll come round when he sees he hasn’t got a choice,’ said Muller.

  ‘What he wouldn’t give to know your whereabouts right now, eh, Muller?’

  Alarm fired up in his eyes. ‘What are you getting at?’

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nbsp; ‘Let me put you out of your misery. I’ve told Tremain I have Davies and I have you.’ She looked at her watch. ‘By my reckoning we have a couple of hours before they get here.’

  ‘You crazy bitch!’ he said, terror leaching colour from his face. ‘You gotta be kidding!’

  ‘I don’t do humour,’ she returned.

  ‘What do you want? Half? It’s yours.’

  ‘I don’t do money either. This way, Muller,’ she pointed to the door to the next room. ‘We’re going to put you down in the cellar. I hope the bed’s comfy.’

  ‘Tremain will kill me!’ he protested. ‘He’ll kill you too!’

  ‘Comes with the territory,’ she said, and waved for him to get a move on. Reluctantly he led the way through the door. They paused by another door in the corner of the room. ‘Go on, Muller, open it.’ He did so. It opened out onto a series of stone steps leading down into a darkened basement. He made one last attempt to reason with her but she prodded the barrel of the gun between his shoulder blades and he clumped downstairs. There was a door at the bottom with a shining new padlock on it. ‘Inside, Muller,’ she said. He went quietly inside the room and she closed the door on him, snapping the padlock in place. She heard him cursing her from the other side.

  When she came back up the stairs Gareth was waiting for her. He’d picked up Muller’s gun. ‘I’m betting this one is loaded,’ he said, pointing it at her.

  She ignored him. ‘I’m famished,’ she said, walking over to the fridge. ‘What have we got to eat?’ She opened the fridge door. ‘What is it with men and empty fridges?’ she opined.

  ‘I mean it; I’ll use this thing if I have to. I want some answers. Talk.’

  ‘So now you want to listen to me? If you’d have done that before it would have saved us both a lot of trouble.’ She pointed to the case Muller had brought from the car. ‘Open it, Gareth, if you don’t believe me.’

  He went over to the black case, the gun trained on her still. He snapped open the gold fasteners. There were many documents inside, including a variety of passports and plane tickets. ‘I don’t get it,’ he said.

  ‘As soon as you’d been handed over he was planning on making a quick getaway and losing himself somewhere exotic and far away.’ She nodded at his hands. ‘It could have been far worse than a few pinpricks.’ She removed her leather jacket. She wore a tight-fitting T-shirt that emphasised her slender torso, her small breasts. ‘Camael wants you dead; Lambert-Chide wants you alive – it’s all a matter of taste, I guess.’

  ‘Is that supposed to be funny?’

  ‘Like I said, I don’t do humour.’

  ‘Enough of the mind games. Who are you?’

  ‘Caroline Cody.’

  ‘And who exactly is Caroline Cody?’

  ‘Someone sent to help save you.’

  ‘I’ve been told that once before and I’m not about to fall for it again.’

  She gave a careless shrug. ‘Suit yourself, but I’m all you’ve got between people like Muller and Camael. She opened a cupboard door. ‘We’ve got bread. You like bread?’

  Gareth ran a hand through his hair, his hand trembling. ‘This is complete and utter madness. I have to get out of here.’ He lowered the gun, then dropped it onto the sofa as if it were something dirty and offensive.

  ‘Sure you do. You go out there and you won’t last more than a couple of days. One or the other will get you. And don’t even think of going to the police. That’s a shortcut to your funeral. Like I said before, life is never going to be the same again for you. Gareth Davies? Forget him. As far as you’re concerned he doesn’t exist anymore, not if you want to stay alive.’ She began to hum the Bee Gees’ song Staying Alive. ‘Great, we have crab paste,’ she said. ‘You like crab paste?’

  Gareth rubbed his tired eyes. ‘How did I ever get into this mess? One day I’m going quietly about my business, the next thing I know a sister I never knew I had throws herself in front of my car, and then I’m on the run for my life not knowing who to trust, and best of all not knowing why.’

  Caroline took the lid off the crab paste and sniffed it. She threw it back in the cupboard. ‘You’ll know soon enough. Look, I don’t mean to sound so vague, but right now is not a good time to hit you with the full story. Trust me, it will either freak you rigid or you’ll think me crazy.’ She angled her head. ‘Crazier,’ she said. ‘Or both, which is the most likely scenario.’ She nodded at his bandaged hands. ‘How are the hands and feet?’

  ‘Sore but I’ll survive.’

  ‘That’s my little soldier,’ she said.

  They heard a dull rumbling from down below as Muller pummelled the cellar door. ‘Is he going to be OK?’ Gareth asked.

  ‘Only until Tremain gets here.’

  ‘You really believe Tremain is capable of killing someone?’

  Her face steeled. ‘I know it,’ she said. ‘From personal experience.’

  * * * *

  34

  Weeping Blood

  Detective Chief Inspector Stafford stepped out of the car, his expression as sullen as the Derbyshire weather. He buttoned up his coat. There was a distinct chill in the air, the sky busy with an armada of angry, grey clouds urged on by a brisk, biting wind. Massive hills towered all round, like the backs of washed-up humpback whales, enclosing them in a solemn embrace. The road shone like wet leather.

  ‘Cold, sir?’ asked Styles. He carried a cardboard folder under his arm.

  ‘I must have been up north the best part of twenty years, and in all that time it’s never warmed up,’ he returned, scowling.

  ‘Maybe southerners are just too soft,’ said Styles.

  Stafford groused something disparaging into the pulled-up lapels of his coat. He nodded towards the house, half-hidden by fir trees in need of a haircut. ‘This the one, Nobby?’

  Styles sighed. ‘I wish you’d not call me that.’

  ‘What? Nobby?’

  ‘Yes, sir; Nobby.’

  ‘Can’t see your problem. Nobby Stiles was a hero of mine. He helped lift the World Cup for us back in ’66. Skinny, bald, gap-toothed and not very pretty, but a hero all the same.’

  ‘So you say. But Nobby has other connotations these days, as you are well aware. Anything but Nobby, is all I’m saying.’

  ‘Let me think about it,’ said Stafford lifting the gate catch and strolling down the path. He looked back over his shoulder. ‘Yeah, this is the one, Nobby!’ He saw Styles curl his lip and he smiled inwardly. Young pups should always know who the top dog is, he thought. Didn’t hurt to remind them now and again, especially someone as irritatingly ambitious and self-centred as Styles. ‘Sort of place you’d half-expect a historian to live, ain’t it? House on its last legs, garden overgrown, weather damp and dreary. Northern.’

  ‘You’ve make it perfectly clear; history is not your thing.’

  ‘Hated the fucking subject,’ he said with venom. ‘Dry old farts lecturing me about dry old dates that no one gives a toss about.’

  ‘Except for ’66, of course’ he said.

  ‘That’s not history!’ he retorted.

  ‘It is to me,’ Styles drove home with a wry smile. ‘Positively medieval.’ He looked back at the high hills, the clouds wrapping themselves around their summits like gauzy scarves. ‘We learn from the past,’ he continued. ‘Or at least we should do, if people’s minds are open to it and they want to learn.’

  ‘Bollocks!’ scoffed Stafford.

  ‘My point exactly.’

  ‘Nobody learns from history,’ he said. ‘That’s a joke. Talking of which, did you hear the one about the new origami museum?’

  ‘No, sir,’ he said absently.

  ‘It folded.’

  ‘Great.’

  ‘Or the calculator museum?’

  ‘If you must.’

  ‘It didn’t work out.’

  ‘Your point being, sir?’

  ‘My point being history is like the pencil museum.’

  ‘And that is?’
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br />   ‘Pointless!’

  Styles stopped before the door, its paint peeling or scuffed away to reveal past incarnations of colour. ‘That’s not true. The book is a case in point,’ he said, pointing at the volume of True Crimes in Stafford’s hand. ‘What point is there in being here unless we want to learn something from the past, find a connection?’ He reached for the brass doorknocker, so in need of a clean that it looked as if it had been smeared in green-brown boot polish.

  ‘Yeah, whatever you say,’ he said absently. ‘The curtains are all drawn,’ he noticed.

  Styles rapped the knocker hard. Presently the door opened, a gloomy hallway glimpsed sketchily beyond. Whoever opened the door remained unseen behind it.

  ‘Hello?’ said Stafford.

  ‘Please come in,’ a disembodied voice invited. ‘I take it you are DCI Stafford?’

  Stafford stepped over the threshold, Styles following close behind. A man stood in shadow behind the door. ‘That’s right,’ Stafford said, ‘and this is DI Styles. You are Charles Rayne?’

  The man closed the door swiftly, whipped back a thick curtain to cover it entirely. ‘That’s correct. Please forgive me,’ he said warmly, reaching out and flicking on a light switch. ‘My condition,’ he explained. ‘I have to avoid all sunlight.’

  Stafford did his best to hide his surprise at seeing the old man before him. His face was a mass of tumour-like growths, particularly down the left-hand side of his face. His lips looked painfully cracked and sore, his eyes rimmed red. His white hair had all but fallen out, clumps of it desperately clinging onto the yellow skin of his head. There were growths on the top of his skull too, above the ear. He held out a gloved hand for Stafford to shake.

  ‘Don’t be alarmed; it isn’t contagious.’

  ‘No, of course not,’ Stafford said, shaking his hand.

  ‘Over the years my exposure to sunlight has caused me to have a few skin problems, as you can see. It is more unsightly than harmful. Is that the book?’ Rayne said. ‘Can I see it?’

  The officer handed it over. ‘Your grandfather was a famous man in his time. A good police officer by all accounts,’ Stafford complimented.