SEVEN
Nothing Stays Hidden
For a moment that stretched, we all stood our ground and looked at each other. A tableau of the living and the dead. The accused and his accuser, two wide-eyed witnesses, and two severed heads that weren’t interested in anything any longer. MacKay looked at me with death on his mind, waiting for me to answer him, but I just looked right back at him. I could feel Penny trembling at my side, not with fear but with anger. Wanting to say something, do something, but not daring to as long as MacKay had his gun trained on me. Because she knew that whatever my origins might be, I was still human enough to die from a bullet to the head. MacKay’s gaze never wavered, but in the end his expression turned sour and he snarled at the still sobbing Doyle.
“Hush your crying, Doctor Doyle! She cannot hear you.”
Doyle stopped. His tears didn’t slow or die away, they just stopped as though he’d been slapped across the face. I glanced at him. His face was pale but his eyes were suddenly hot, full of an anger that needed to go somewhere. He looked at MacKay and then at me, and then at the gun in MacKay’s hand. Doyle fell back a step, and then another, and MacKay let him. He kept his cold gaze fixed on me, and the gun in his hand never wavered once.
“I don’t think you should be pointing that gun at Ishmael, Mr. MacKay,” Penny said steadily. “It’s not safe. For you.”
“Don’t interfere, Miss Belcourt,” said MacKay. “This man is a murderer.”
“Of course he isn’t a murderer!” said Penny. “We were sent here to protect Parker. Remember?”
“What better cover?” said MacKay.
“Where have you been all this time?” I said. Keeping my voice carefully calm and reasonable, with just a touch of “Let’s not do anything either of us might regret.”
“What happened when you went upstairs to talk to Redd?”
“You do not get to ask the questions, murderer!” MacKay’s voice shook with barely controlled emotions. “I should have known it was you. Everything was going just fine until you arrived. You’d not been in the Lodge a few hours before people started dying. I should have known . . . Only another field agent could have brought down someone as experienced as the infamous Frank Parker.”
“Who put these ideas into your head?” I said.
“Stop talking!” MacKay said loudly. “It doesn’t matter who. I have you now, and I will see justice done for the horrors you have perpetrated under my roof.”
There was a scuffle of movement behind me, and Penny cried out. I’d been concentrating so hard on MacKay I’d lost track of everything else. I’d just started to turn when Doyle plunged a hypodermic needle into my neck. The needle stung fiercely as it sank in, and Doyle slammed the plunger all the way home. He jerked the needle out of my neck and stepped back, smiling triumphantly. He was breathing hard, and his eyes were dangerously bright.
“Alice isn’t the only one who likes to keep sedatives handy for emergencies,” said Doyle. “For suspects who turn dangerous, to themselves or to others. The dose I’ve just given you would knock out an elephant. More than enough to keep you quiet until the reinforcements arrive.” He laughed softly. A dark, unpleasant sound. “And when you wake up, I’ll be waiting for you. To begin your interrogation.”
Penny made a soft, horrified sound.
“Well done, Doctor Doyle,” said MacKay.
He lowered his gun a little, and then he and Doyle looked at me expectantly. Waiting for the drug to kick in and for me to fall to my knees. Penny started towards me, and then stopped as I smiled at her reassuringly. I turned my smile on MacKay, and felt it become something different. Something dangerous. MacKay raised his gun to cover me again, but I didn’t even look at it, holding his gaze with my own.
“I’m a field agent for the Organization,” I said. “And we’re protected against all kinds of attack. Including poisons, drugs and overexcited doctors.”
In fact, Doyle’s sedative was useless against me because of my alien heritage. I might have been made over into a man, but there were other things hiding inside me. Protections against anything my new world might throw at me. I’m like a Russian doll with another face hidden inside another face: the wolf in the fold and the snake in the grass, and everything else you never see coming until it’s far too late. I am human, but I’m other things too.
Penny laughed shakily, relieved. MacKay and Doyle looked at each other, and the certainty went out of them. I’d just changed the rules of the game, and they could tell. Doyle looked at the hypodermic in his hand as though it was an empty gun. He started to scrabble in his jacket pocket for something, perhaps a stronger dose, and Penny decided she’d had enough. She stepped quickly forward and slapped the hypo right out of Doyle’s hand. It made delicate fragile noises as it skidded across the floor and hid itself in the shadows. Doyle looked after it and then looked back at Penny. His face turned ugly. He raised a hand to hit her, and I winced. On his behalf, not hers.
Penny kicked him square between the legs, with such vicious force I half expected something to break loose and go rolling across the floor. All the breath shot out of Doyle’s mouth. His eyes squeezed shut from the horrid pain, tears streaming down his cheeks. He turned slowly and hobbled away, one painful step at a time, making small pitiful sounds. I almost felt sorry for him. Penny glared after him, and then turned her glare on MacKay, standing shocked and somewhat bemused on the stairs. He still had his gun aimed at me. Penny started towards him with a worryingly speculative look on her face, and I quickly raised a hand to stop her.
“That’s enough, Penny,” I said. “Thanks for the support, but I think I can take it from here.”
“Are you sure?” said Penny, still glaring coldly at MacKay. “That gun doesn’t frighten me.”
“That’s because it isn’t pointed at you,” I said. “Let me talk to the man. I’m sure reason and common sense can prevail.”
“First time for anything, I suppose,” she said, unwillingly. “But you listen to me, MacKay. If you shoot Ishmael, you’d better be really fast with your second shot. Because if you’re not, I will beat you to death with my bare hands.”
MacKay just nodded. He was an old soldier and, while he recognized the cold intent in her words, he wouldn’t let it move him one inch from what he intended to do. I took a step forward to draw his attention back to me. The gun rose just a little, to aim squarely at my heart. I fixed MacKay with my best commanding stare.
“What happened up there, on the top floor?” I said. “What happened between you and Redd so that he ended up down here, like this?” I gestured at the severed head on the bottom step, but MacKay didn’t look away from me for a moment. I pressed him, raising my voice. “Was there an argument? A fight? What did he want to say that he could only say to you? And what did you do with his body?”
I hit him with one question after another, like a boxer throwing combination punches, but MacKay didn’t so much as rock on his feet. And yet I could tell that some of it was getting through to him, though he answered me in a cool and distant voice.
“I did nothing to Mr. Redd. I never even met him. When I arrived at the top of the stairs, he was nowhere to be seen. I walked all the way down the corridor to your room, and I didn’t see anyone. The door was closed; and when I tried it, it was locked. Even though it had been open on Mr. Martin’s screen. Didn’t you watch all of this?”
“No,” said Penny. “All the screens went down the moment you got to the upper floor. No vision, no sound. I don’t know where you people got this surveillance equipment, but I think you should ask for your money back. It’s a disgrace.”
I smiled inwardly. I knew she was trying to distract him. I kept my voice calm and steady, and unyielding.
“What happened up there, MacKay?”
“I called out to Mr. Redd,” said MacKay. “He didn’t answer. I used my master key to unlock the door to your room and went inside, but he was not there.”
“Our door was open before you went up,” said Penny. “As though Redd had been inside.”
“Indeed,” said MacKay. “But there was no sign to indicate he had ever been in there. I considered the situation. If he was not in the room and not in the corridor, where could he be? The answer came to me in a moment. I have always believed that a house this old must have secret passages in it somewhere. It is in the nature of a building like this. And it was the only way in which Mr. Redd could have disappeared so quickly. The only way the murderer could be moving around and be sure of remaining unnoticed by any of the security cameras.
“So I went back out into the corridor, locked your door again, and started tapping the walls. Once I was sure what I was looking for, I found the hidden panel quite easily. Cunningly concealed in the woodwork of the wall at the far end of the corridor. Right next to your room. I soon found the trick of opening it and uncovered the hidden passageway beyond.
“I went inside, closing the panel behind me, because I did not wish to be found or disturbed until I had fathomed its secrets and had some idea of who might have been using it. The tunnel led to other tunnels and secret rooms, and hidden passageways deep beneath the Lodge. I have been walking up and down in them for some time, seeing what there was to see and thinking about many things.”
“I told you there had to be secret passages here, Ishmael!” said Penny. “All old houses have them. It wouldn’t be fair if they didn’t.”
“And then I found the awful evidence of what you had done, Mr. Jones,” said MacKay. “And I came down here to find you and put a stop to your madness.”
“Hold it!” I said. “It’s good to know what you’ve been up to all this time, but you make a far better suspect than me. You had all the time you needed to kill Redd and Hayley. You have a master key to unlock anything, including Parker’s cell and that window in the lounge. You know about the secret tunnels. And none of your victims would have seen any need to defend themselves against you, would they? The man whose job it was to protect them? Finally, you have the best motive. You knew you were getting too old for your job. That the MoD would have to let you go soon, despite all your experience. So you reached out to the opposition for one last big payment, so you could at least live comfortably afterwards. How much did they offer you to silence Parker before he could speak? And are you on a bonus for the rest of us, or did you just get carried away?”
MacKay met my gaze squarely through all of this, still covering me with his gun. And despite all the accusations I’d hit him with, his confidence didn’t waver once.
“You are the killer, Mr. Jones. And you are not going to talk your way out of this.”
I saw his finger tighten on the trigger. Saw the decision to kill me, and to hell with the consequences, rise up in his eyes. I charged forward, crossing the distance between us in a moment, snatched the gun out of his hand before he could finish pulling the trigger, placed my other hand on his chest, and pushed hard. MacKay fell backwards on to the stairs, sitting down so heavily it knocked all the breath out of him. His eyes were still widening at how fast I’d moved as I stood over him, his gun aimed at his face, not even breathing hard. And then I stepped back, hefted the gun lightly in my hand, and grinned at Penny. She laughed out loud, and clapped her hands delightedly. I waggled the gun meaningfully at MacKay when he looked like moving, and he stayed where he was. He wanted to look furious, but he was too shocked and baffled at how quickly I’d turned the tables on him.
“How did you do that?” he asked shakily. “I never even saw you move . . .”
“I’m a trained field agent. Remember?” I said.
He glared at me defiantly. “Go on then, Mr. Jones. Do it. Kill me. I’ll not beg for my life.”
“How many times do I have to say this?” I said. “I’m not the killer. And to prove it . . .”
I turned the gun round and offered it to MacKay. He looked at me, unable to believe it, and then he snatched the gun out of my hand and shot me at point-blank range. My more than human reactions kicked in, and I was already moving to one side as he squeezed the trigger. The bullet shot through the space where my head had been just a moment before. I grabbed the gun away from him again and hit him sharply on the point of the jaw. His head snapped back, and he was unconscious before he hit the stairs. I stepped back again, and looked at Penny.
“Now that worked fine the last time I did it, at Belcourt Manor,” I said. “Giving up the gun is supposed to win them over, as a sign of trust. Why did he try to shoot me?”
“Because he’s an old soldier,” said Penny. “And you don’t get to be an old soldier by missing out on a chance to kill your enemy.”
“I suppose so,” I said. “Spoiled a perfectly good gesture, though. Hold it! What happened to Doyle?”
We both looked around, but there was no sign of the doctor anywhere. The wide open hall was empty and almost unnervingly quiet.
“Oh hell!” I said. “Not another unexpected disappearance while we were distracted! I’m starting to feel like I should search the floor for trapdoors. And I really don’t think I could cope with another murder.” I looked at the gun in my hand, and then handed it to Penny.
“Here. You probably need this more than I do. Would you have any problem using it?”
She looked at the two severed heads, still in place on the bottom step despite everything that had happened around them.
“No,” she said firmly.
“Do you know how to use a gun?”
“Yes,” said Penny, hefting the gun in a familiar way. “I took some lessons at a private shooting club in London once I’d decided I was going to work alongside you as a spy girl. I thought one of us ought to know what to do with a gun.”
“I do know,” I said. “I just prefer not to use them, whenever possible. Guns make it far too easy to make the kind of mistakes you can’t put right afterwards. And they tempt you into dramatic gestures, when a little thought and some careful diplomacy would probably get you further.”
“We don’t all have your built-in advantages,” Penny said dryly. “How are you feeling? Did that sedative have any effect on you?”
I considered for a moment, then shook my head. “Whatever was in that needle, my system seems to have given it a good kicking. I feel fine.”
“What are we going to do with MacKay?” said Penny.
“Well to start with, you can point that gun somewhere else,” I said. “We are not shooting him.”
“I never said we should,” said Penny. “I was just . . . covering him. In case he woke up suddenly and decided he was in a bad mood.”
“We can’t leave him here,” I said. “It wouldn’t be safe.”
“I don’t think he’s the murderer,” said Penny. “He seemed very convinced it was you.”
“Yes,” I said. “I wonder who convinced him?”
“We could always take him to the security centre, put him in with Martin. They could look out for each other.”
“Put our two best suspects together?” I said. “I don’t think so. I don’t trust Martin any more than I trust MacKay.”
“I heard that!” said Martin’s voice.
“Welcome back!” I said. “How long have you been listening?”
“Long enough,” said Martin.
“Did you see what just happened here?” said Penny.
“Oh yes,” said Martin. “Every bit of it. I never saw anyone move that fast in my life, Ishmael. You were just a blur on my screen. Does the Organization supply you with special drugs to supercharge you? And if so, can I have some? And what do you mean, you don’t trust me? I’m the one who’s been supplying you with useful information on everything that’s been happening.”
“Don’t take it personally,” I said. “I don’t trust anyone. Save for Penny, obviously.”
“Nice save, sweetie!” said Penny. “I hardly had to glance at you at all.”
“To hell with both of you!” Martin said loudly. “I’m going to lock myself inside the security centre and not come out again until the cavalry gets here. I know when I’m not appreciated. And don’t come banging on my door begging to be let in when someone’s after you, because I won’t listen. Even if you’re being pursued by the headless bodies of Redd and Hayley carrying chainsaws. So there!”
“About those reinforcements,” I said. “Why aren’t they here yet? You said they could get here in under an hour once an emergency call had gone out, but it’s been a lot longer than that and no one’s turned up yet. What’s happened to them? Hello? Martin? Oh hell, he’s gone again . . .”
“Either his systems have crashed or he’s not talking to us,” said Penny.
“A good way to avoid answering questions,” I said. “We’ve got to put MacKay somewhere safe. Even if Martin stays locked up in his centre, Doyle’s still out there somewhere.”
“You don’t trust him either?” said Penny. “All right, he stabbed you in the neck with a needle, but he was understandably upset at the time. And he was quite definitely with us in the library when these new murders took place.”
“It’s a bit late to start defending the man now,” I said. “After you gave him the full force of your famous St. Theresa’s kick. I felt the impact all the way over here.”
Penny shrugged, unmoved. “He hurt you. I won’t stand for that. But a moment’s panic isn’t enough to mark a man as a murderer. And you saw how upset he was over Hayley’s death.”
“He could have been faking it,” I said.
“If he’s that good an actor, he should be on the stage,” said Penny. “And anyway, if he was a professional agent like you, I wouldn’t have been able to take him down that easily.”
“Probably not,” I said. “Still, he ran away.”
“Maybe his survival instincts finally kicked in,” said Penny. “Because let’s face it, if he isn’t the killer he might as well have ‘Future Victim’ tattooed on his forehead. And anyway, I still think there’s someone else inside the Lodge with us.”
“Are we talking about Parker, the walking undead, again?” I said.
“It could be him,” Penny said stubbornly. “Or there could be some other person, some assassin sent by the opposition, coming and going through that window in the lounge and using the hidden tunnels MacKay found to get around. Martin keeps saying he’s seen someone on his screens who isn’t one of us. If it’s not Parker . . .”
“Let’s take MacKay upstairs,” I said. “We can put him in our room. It has no windows and we can use his master key to lock him in.”
“Does it have to be our room?” said Penny. “He might wake up and start going through our things . . .”
I looked at her. “What is this obsession you’ve got with people going through your luggage? What have you got hidden in there that you don’t want anyone else to know about?”
“Don’t you question me, Ishmael Jones! A woman’s suitcase should be inviolable.” Some arguments you just know aren’t going to go anywhere useful. I gestured at MacKay.
“I’ll take his shoulders, you take his legs. After we’ve dropped him off, I think it’s our turn to go exploring the secret tunnels.”
Penny tucked her gun into the back of her belt, just so she could clap her hands again, grinning from ear to ear.
“About time! It’s not a proper country-house mystery if there aren’t sliding panels and secret passageways. Everyone knows that.”
“Did Belcourt Manor have any?” I said. “I never thought to ask at the time.”
“A few,” said Penny. “They didn’t really go anywhere. Daddy had all the entrances bricked up and sealed before I was born. Apparently they made the old place terribly draughty.”
“Help me shift the old soldier,” I said.
Penny hesitated, looking at the two severed heads on the bottom step. “What do we do with them?”
“Leave them,” I said. “They’re not going anywhere.”
We carried the unconscious MacKay up the stairs to the next floor. At least, the two of us started carrying him; until it became clear MacKay’s dead weight was too much for Penny to manage. She didn’t actually say so, but the unladylike grunts and increasing bad language made it clear she was having problems. So I threw MacKay over my shoulder and trudged up the stairs. Penny followed on behind, saying nothing very loudly. I paused at the top of the stairs, just in case, but the corridor was empty. It stretched away before us entirely untroubled by people or ghosts, and there wasn’t a moving shadow anywhere. The two doors I’d kicked in were still standing open; the rooms beyond were quiet and empty. I strained my hearing against the hush, but all I could hear was Penny’s harsh breathing behind me.
I hurried down the corridor, MacKay bouncing uncomfortably on my shoulder, until we got to our room. The door was standing half-open. I stood and looked at it for a long moment. I was sure MacKay said he’d locked it after he left. I put one foot against the door and kicked it open. The door slammed back against the inside wall, the flat heavy sound echoing loudly. Inside, all the lights were burning brightly. More than enough illumination to show no one was home or rummaging through our things. Penny leaned in close and peered past me.
“What are you looking for, Ishmael?”
“Just one thing in this whole mess that makes sense,” I said.
“It’s only a mess until you understand it,” Penny said wisely. “Have you really no one in mind for the murderer? You sounded very convincing when you were accusing MacKay.”
“That was just to hold his attention,” I said. “He’s a good suspect, but I’m still working on a few ideas. I think the key to all of this was the way Parker disappeared between the top and bottom of the stairs, even though I was right behind him.”
“That was just impossible!” said Penny.
“Yes,” I said. “It was.”
Penny sighed and looked round the room. “We didn’t get to spend much time here, did we? And in the meantime, who’s been sleeping in our bed?”
“If three bears should turn up,” I said, “you have my permission to shoot them.”
“I don’t suppose there’s any porridge, is there?” said Penny. “I’m feeling a bit peckish.”
“Would it be OK if I was to take MacKay in and dump him on the bed?” I said. “Only he isn’t getting any lighter, you know.”
“Go ahead,” said Penny. “Don’t let me stop you. You’re the one hanging around in the doorway talking about bears.”
I dropped MacKay on to the bed and arranged him reasonably comfortably, while Penny quickly checked her various pieces of luggage for signs of tampering. MacKay made a few growly noises in his sleep, but showed no intention of waking up. When I hit people, they stay hit.
“Someone’s taken your socks off the security cameras,” Penny said quietly. “I’m not sure if that means anything, or not.”
“It might,” I said.
Penny waited. “Well?”
“Let’s go check the secret tunnels,” I said.
“Let’s,” said Penny.
I searched through all of MacKay’s pockets to find his master key, and of course it had to be in the last pocket I looked in. Just the usual electronic key card. We went back out into the corridor, and I closed the door and locked it, slipping the master key into my back pocket, just in case it might come in handy later. Penny and I stood before the end wall and looked it over carefully. It didn’t take me long to find the outlines of the concealed sliding panel. It had been hidden very skillfully, with centuries-old craftsmanship, but the outlines all but jumped out at me now that I knew what I was looking for. Opening the panel took longer, and I was almost ready to give up and kick it in when Penny’s sensitive fingertips found a concealed trigger. The panel slid back smoothly, revealing shadows and cobwebs and a dark space stretching away beyond. Penny started to stick her head in, then stopped to wrinkle her nose.
“This smells seriously foul! I don’t think anyone’s sent a cleaner in here for generations.”
“That would rather give the game away,” I said. “But someone must have oiled the mechanism recently so we wouldn’t hear it being used.”
Penny scowled into the dark opening. “I’ll bet there are rats and spiders, and horrible scuttling things. And all kinds of droppings.” She paused, as a thought struck her. “Speaking of which, if Parker really is a walking dead man, shouldn’t you be able to tell from the smell? All the decay and stuff? Couldn’t you track where he’s been with your amazing nostrils?”
“I may be specially gifted,” I said, “but I’m not a bloodhound.”
Just to keep her happy, I took a good sniff at the stale air inside the wall.
“OK,” I said, “I’m getting mould, rising damp, rotting wood, and dust from crumbling stone . . . But that’s about it.”
“No rats?” said Penny.
“No,” I lied. Because otherwise I knew I’d end up having to push her into the tunnel ahead of me.
“It’s very dark in there,” she said dubiously. “I mean, I’m all for exploring but maybe we should go back downstairs and get some torches first?”
“If the killer has been using these tunnels, he must have some way of seeing where he’s going . . .” I said.
I reached inside the panel and felt around the grimy stone wall, and sure enough there was a light switch. I hit it and leaned inside. A series of dull lights had come on, stretching away at intervals the whole length of the tunnel. The passageway was full of filth and cobwebs and the dust of centuries, and the floor dropped sharply down. I stepped inside the tunnel and waited patiently, until Penny had screwed her nerve up enough to join me.
“I thought you wanted to see the sights?” I said.
“The tunnels, yes,” she said. “Rats and other small scurrying things, not so much.” She glared about her. “Where are we exactly?”
“The outer wall of the Lodge must be hollow,” I said. “But MacKay said there were tunnels leading off tunnels. This could take some time . . .”
“Then we’d better get moving,” said Penny. “We have a killer to track down.”
She looked at me meaningfully until I took the lead.
The tunnel dropped sharply away before us, rounded a corner, and then became a narrow stone chimney dropping a long way down. There was a series of steel rungs hammered into the wall to serve as steps. We descended for quite a while before we were able to step out into another tunnel, with a roof so low Penny and I had to stoop right over to avoid banging our heads. The rough stone walls were pitted with age and spotted with dark mould. Thick mats of spider webs hung down like ragged grey curtains. Great holes had been torn through them, where someone had forced their way through before. Puffy clumps of milk-white fungi blossomed where the walls met the floor. The air was stale, full of unpleasant odours, and so dry it irritated my throat. The various scents grew thicker and heavier; and I had a growing feeling there was something underneath them that I didn’t like at all. I glanced back at Penny to make sure she was OK and was surprised when she grinned cheerfully back at me.
“I don’t care if there are rats,” she said defiantly. “This is cool! Exploring centuries-old hidden tunnels . . . It’s like walking back into history. What do you suppose this was all about originally? I mean, someone went to a lot of hard work to build all this. It’s like a house within a house.”
“Could have started out as the support structure for a priest hole,” I said. “Back in the days when a lot of the wealthier families were still Catholic, even after Henry VIII decided the whole country was going to be Protestant, no matter whether it liked it or not. Hanging on to their own private priest was just another way for old titled families to establish their independence from an overbearing monarch. Or this could all be down to smuggling. A very popular and profitable pastime, back in those days. You could hide a lot of illegal goods down here, and people.”
We kept passing openings in the walls, gaping stone mouths that led to more tunnels, and small dark rooms where the light couldn’t reach. The passageways twisted and turned so often that I lost all track of where we were. Except we clearly weren’t inside the Lodge any longer. We were deep down underneath it, and the smell was getting worse. As though we were getting close to something bad.
“No wonder our killer could appear and disappear so easily,” said Penny. “He was literally running rings around us. Which is cheating, really.”
“A good way to avoid the surveillance cameras,” I said, “when the damned things are working.”
“Pardon me for asking,” said Penny, “but are we headed anywhere in particular? I’m starting to think I should be leaving a trail of breadcrumbs behind us. You seem very sure of which turnings we should take.”
“There’s something up ahead,” I said. “Something really bad.”
“So of course we’re heading straight for it,” said Penny. “At some point, we’re going to have to sit down and have a serious talk about making better lifestyle decisions.”
I stopped so suddenly she bumped into me from behind. She started to say something, then broke off as I raised a hand and nodded at the way ahead.
“Someone’s in here with us,” I said quietly.
Penny squeezed in beside me for a better look. Standing side by side we filled the narrow tunnel, our shoulders pressed against the rough stone walls. The bare light bulbs hanging from the ceiling at long intervals provided just enough light to show the tunnel ahead was empty. Penny put her mouth next to my ear.
“I don’t see anyone . . . Are you smelling someone?”
“No,” I said. “I heard them. I don’t just rely on my nose.”
“Sorry,” said Penny. “Who do you think it is?”
“The footsteps are heavy enough to suggest a man,” I said.
“A living man?” Penny said carefully.
I sighed, just a little. “He’s not dragging his feet and I’m not hearing any low moans, so yes, almost certainly.”
“What do we do?” said Penny. “Chase him down?”
“He must have come into these tunnels for a reason,” I said. “Either to look for us or to check on something. I say we sneak up on him and see where he’s going. Unless he’s just here to kill us, of course.”
“I’ve got my gun,” Penny said immediately.
“In such a confined space?” I said. “I hate to think what a ricochet would do in here.”
“All right! I was just being prepared . . .”
“Listen,” I said.
We both stood perfectly still, breathing shallowly so we could concentrate on the quiet sounds up ahead. Footsteps, slow and steady, pausing now and again as though someone wasn’t too sure where he was. Or where he was going. And always there was the smell, that bad smell, filling my head. Penny stirred at my side and put her mouth next to my ear again.
“I can’t hear any footsteps, but I am quite definitely hearing small and nasty scurrying sounds behind me. We had better start moving soon, because if something furry runs over my foot I am going to make the kind of noise that will rattle around inside your head for days.”
“It’s probably more frightened of you than you are of it,” I said.
“Daddy used to say that to me when I was small,” said Penny. “But even then I had enough common sense to know complete and utter bullshit when I heard it. You’re really not bothered by things like this, are you? You’re the only man I ever met who didn’t freak out at a spider in the bath.”
“Such things don’t bother me,” I said.
I didn’t say, “Because I get glimpses of much worse things in my dreams—in brief glimpses of my old life.”
“Whoever this is, he’s directly ahead of us,” I said. “Definitely just the one person.”
“Then let’s go grab him,” said Penny. “I’m far less scared of confronting a murderer than I am of some great lumpy mutant rat. Are you ready, space boy?”
“Ready, spy girl,” I said.
I charged forward down the narrow corridor, not even trying to hide I was coming. Penny pounded along behind me. A dark figure emerged from an opening in one of the walls up ahead and ran for it. I chased after him, unable to make out more than just a dim shadowy figure that might have been anyone. I could have caught him easily enough, but I didn’t want to run on and leave Penny behind on her own. So I just chased the man through tunnel after tunnel, sticking on his tail, following the sound of his feet when I lost sight of him. Until he stopped suddenly and screamed. A harsh, lost, despairing sound.
The bad smell was very close now, and it was exactly what I’d thought it would be.
I rounded a corner and stopped before an opening in the tunnel wall. Just a dark hole, where the smell was coming from. Dark enough to hide anything. I went in, and found myself in a small stone chamber. My eyes adjusted to the gloom almost immediately, and I saw why the man ahead of me had screamed. The room might have started out as a priest hole, but now someone was using it to dump bodies.
Penny caught up with me, breathing hard, and stepped into the room with me. I heard her shocked gasp, but I didn’t look away. There was no light bulb in the room, only what dim illumination spilled in from the tunnel. Which was just as well. The scene was hard enough to look at, as it was.
The dark stone walls and filthy stone floor were splashed with blood. Some of it still drying. There were long bloody scuff marks, where the bodies had been dragged across the floor. This was a murderer’s place, steeped in horror and the terrible weight of desires indulged. A storage room for victims. And yet not just a holding room, but somewhere the murderer could come to gloat and savour what he had done. Death hung heavily on the air, a presence in itself.
Baxter sat propped up against the opposite wall, his head hanging down over the bloody wound in his chest. His eyes stared helplessly back at me, as though trying to understand how he could have ended up in such a terrible place. Redd’s headless corpse sat next to him, only recognizable by his bloodstained jacket. The two of them sat almost companionably close together. Not separated, even in death.
The headless body of Alice Hayley was sitting propped up against the left-hand wall, her smart suit soaked in gore. And sitting facing her, against the right-hand wall, Parker. Indisputably dead, with the single bloodstain high up on his chest. His eyes drooping and his mouth hanging open. He seemed such a small broken thing, too insignificant to have been the cause of so much blood and horror.
His being unkillable was just another story, after all.
There were beetles moving back and forth on the floor, and around the bodies. Along with clear signs that rats had been here too, gnawing at the bodies. Our arrival had scared them off, but they would be back.
Doyle was kneeling before Hayley’s headless body. He was the one we’d been chasing through the tunnels. He was still breathing hard, though mostly from harsh emotions now. He knelt before the dead body of the woman who had changed his life for good and bad, but he wasn’t crying. And when I stepped cautiously forward, he didn’t look round. Penny moved with me, holding my arm tightly, as much to comfort herself as me.
“Dear God!” she murmured. “Are you sure we’re not dealing with a monster after all, Ishmael?”
“Men can be monsters,” I said. “This is how the killer made the bodies disappear. This is why I couldn’t detect any trace of them.”
“So it was him?” said Penny. “It was Doyle?”
“Of course not,” I said. “Look at him. Look at what finding this place has done to him.”
I moved across to stand before Parker’s body, and placed two fingertips against the side of his neck.
“Judging by body temperature, he’s been dead for some time,” I said, taking my hand away. “So there’s no way he could ever have been walking around the Lodge. He was murdered, and he stayed murdered.”
“Are you sure?” said Penny.
I prodded Parker’s chest with one finger, and the body rocked stiffly back and forth for a moment.
“Pretty sure,” I said.
Penny looked at the headless bodies, her mouth a tight grimace of shock and outrage.
“Whoever did this . . . must have been soaked in blood. We’d have noticed.”
“Unless they were wearing protective clothing,” I said. I gestured at a discarded coat and heavy gloves, soaked in dried blood, piled up in a corner. There was a long knife too, caked with blood from hilt to tip.
“What kind of man could do this?” said Penny. “A very determined one,” I said.
I moved over to Doyle and he stood up to face me. His eyes were dry, and his gaze was steady. He was back in control again. What he’d found in this room had forced shock and grief aside.
“Who did this?” he said. His voice was full of cold focused anger.
“Come outside into the tunnel and the light,” I said. “This isn’t a place for people to talk.”
He nodded briefly and shot Hayley’s headless body one last look as though saying goodbye, before allowing me to lead him out of the room full of death. Penny was already outside in the corridor, one hand clapped over her mouth and nose so she could breathe through her fingers. Doyle met my gaze squarely. Ready to demand answers, if necessary.
“Who did this?”
“You don’t think it was me?” I said.
“Of course not,” said Doyle. “Now I’m thinking straight, I know it couldn’t have been you. Sorry about the needle.”
“Sorry about the kick,” said Penny.
Doyle didn’t even look at her.
“How did you end up here?” I said.
“I thought I’d better leave, after the sedative didn’t work,” said Doyle. “And before Miss Belcourt did something even worse to me. Once I was off on my own and thinking clearly again, Martin’s voice came to me. He said he’d found a secret opening in one of the walls, and asked me to check it out.” He smiled briefly, humourlessly. “I got lost and ended up here. Almost as though something, or someone, called me here . . . Do you know who’s responsible for all of this?”
“Yes,” I said.
“You’ve finally got it all worked out, haven’t you?” said Penny.
“Most of it,” I said. “I’ve been putting the pieces together for a while now. But it’s all rather obvious, when you think about it. The computers showed evidence of ghosts in Ringstone Lodge even though I never saw any. The computers showed Parker walking around even though he clearly wasn’t. The computer screens kept breaking down every time they might have proved useful. And the computers said Martin never left his security centre. But who was in charge of the computers?”
“Martin!” said Penny. “It was him!”
“Right from the beginning,” I said. “He manufactured all those ghostly images, and used them to distract us. You heard him speak to us through the hidden microphones; it was just as easy for him to broadcast spooky sounds as well, such as footsteps and knockings. Which is why I never felt any physical vibrations accompanying them. They were all just distractions. To occupy our minds and keep us from thinking about the one thing that really mattered: how could Parker have been killed inside a cell that was never unlocked. Well, who said it hadn’t been unlocked? The computers. Because that’s what Martin told them to say. And it was Martin who unlocked the cell and went in to talk with Parker, who had no reason to fear a simple young techie.”
“The cameras only shut down because he shut them down!” said Penny. “There’s never been anything wrong with the systems!”
“When we thought he was safely locked up in the security centre, he was using the hidden tunnels to run around killing people,” I said. “Then to hide the bodies. And because his victims never saw Martin as a threat, none of them ever defended themselves. Until it was too late.”
“What made you suspect him?” said Doyle.
“Parker’s disappearance on the stairs. That was the clincher. It was just too much to accept. Martin said he saw Parker on his screens and sent me chasing back and forth after him. But I never saw Parker once. His disappearance, between the top and bottom of the stairs, was simply impossible.”
“I said that!” said Penny.
“So you did,” I said. “And it started me thinking. If you ruled out the supernatural explanation, what did that leave?”
“Martin was lying to you . . .” said Penny.
“Exactly,” I said. “If he was lying about that, what else might he be lying about?”
“And we trusted him to protect us,” said Penny. “The little rat-shit!”
“I’ll have his balls,” said Doyle. “But why has he been doing all this?”
“I think I know,” I said. “But I need to ask him a few questions to be certain.”
“Then let’s go talk to the man,” said Doyle.
“Talk?” said Penny.
“Talk first,” said Doyle.