Sepulchre (30 page)

And as he lay there, his mind absorbed in his own suffering, something inside the sepulchre that was hidden away in the blackest depths of Neath, throbbed once.

33 INSIDE THE LODGE

From his position by the main entrance, Monk watched the Shield operative descend the broad staircase and wondered what was inside the black case he was carrying. The bodyguard's thick lips set in a sneer, his heavy-set body tensing as Halloran approached.

'I'm taking a look around the grounds,' Halloran told him.

'You'll get your ass bit off.'

The hope in Monk's high-pitched voice did not go unnoticed by the other man. 'I intend to stay in the car,' Halloran replied. 'Did the Arabs let you know how Kline is?' Khayed and Daoud had returned some hours earlier, rushing up to their master's roam immediately they learned of his condition.

'They ain't been down,' said Monk, shaking his large head.

*All right, let's assume it's nothing drastic. Dock the door behind me when I go out and don't open it far an}body until I return. I'm taking a spare key, but I'll let you know it's me before I come in just so you don't get over-excited. If I knock a regular three times it means there's trouble and I'm not alone. I'll repeat that knock after a pause so you'll know it's for real. You got that'?'

Monk smirked rather than reply.

'Check around the house every fifteen minutes„ test windows and doors each time. And I mean test them -try them, make sure they're properly locked.'

'What the fuck for?' Outrage accompanied the bodyguard's hostility now.

'Just do it. I'll be back in about an hour. Any calls, far me: and you write down the message. Don't try and remember."

'You think I'm stupid, talisman'?'

'We both know it.'

Monk's shoulders visibly straightened and he almost took a step forward. Only Halloran's hard-eyed smile stopped him.

The Shield operative went by the American and unlocked one side of the double-doors. A breeze of cold air from the lake made him shiver as he stepped outside. It was like the first chill of winter out there instead of the coming of summer. Vic called back to Monk: 'Lock it and take out the key.' Then he walked

through the porch to the outside.;

Although cold, the night had temporarily cleared, the moon, an edge sliced off, still low in the sky. There were thunderous clouds on the horizon. The slopes around the house and lake were of deep-toned greys, trees and shrubbery the darkest patches. The lake itself appeared smooth and unbroken. even though a wind ruffled the grass before it.

Halloran climbed into the Mercedes, placing the black bag on the passenger seat beside him. He switched on the engine and lights and pulled away, gravel crunching beneath the tyres, bringing the car round in an arc. As he did so, he glimpsed the neglected topiary garden at the side of the house, the tortured shapes resembling surrealistic figures, misshapen limbs twisted towards Neath like a frozen tableau of anguished souls.

He left the house behind, heading uphill towards the main gates, the woods soon closing around him, the car's beams seeming to swathe a path through the trees. Halloran kept a vigilant eye on either side of the road, searching for low shapes slinking through undergrowth, but saw nothing that moved. A sharp crack on his left startled him. A thin branch had snapped against the side window. Halloran eased over the road's centre, realising he had drifted too close to the edge.

The Mercedes rounded a curve and from there the roadway became a straight line running up to the gates. Halloran eased up on the accelerator, approaching the beginning of the drive at a cautious speed. The headlights picked out the iron gates, and he dipped the beams to reduce the glare. His foot touched the brake pedal, slowing the car even more so that he came to the lodge-house at a smooth glide.

Halloran pulled over onto the rough verge in front of the old building, switched off the lights and cut the engine.

The lodge was in darkness, not even a glimmer showing from the grimed windows. Halloran sat there for several minutes, watching for any sign of life. There was none. But that didn't mean the house was empty.

Without using the interior light, Halloran unzipped the black bag by his side. He lifted out the stubby weapon an inch or so, loosening it, making sure it wasn't snagged on the inner lining. lie carefully lowered the sub-machine gun again, then reached fur the doorhandle.

A breeze ruffled his hair as he stood outside the vehicle studying the upper windows of the lodge. The moon was rising behind the building so that its frontage was an unlit void, the windows merely black shapes, barely distinct against the brickwork.

Again the unshakeable feeling of being observed. Carrying the gun bag in his left hand. Halloran walked into the shadow of the house.

The ringing of the telephone came almost as a relief. Mother laid the newspaper on the pile of Sundays, foreign as well as English, by his feet, exhausted with reading of yet more terrorist outrages and despairing of various governments' weakness in dealing wrath them, despite the vowed joint intention to do so over the past decade. Unfortunately it was the price paid for a world without major conflicts, the major evil giving ground to the lesser evil, a fact recognised by those same governments. Nevertheless, the atrocities committed in the name of so-called freedom or religious beliefs were hard to stomach and the time was coming when 'official' war would have to be declared on those countries and states who overtly supported and encouraged the multifarious terrorist groups. And even then the problem would never be eradicated.

He stood up from the dining table on which more journals were spread and limped out into the hall.

'I'm here,' he called out to Agnes, who was in the sitting room no doubt indulging herself in the current television trivia with her evening sherry.

'Mother,' he announced into the phone, first removing the pipe from his mouth.

'I'm sorry to disturb you. It's Sir Victor Perilock here.'

'Sir Victor?' Mother's brain stepped up a gear, alerted by the gravity in the Magma chairman's voice.

'I'd like you to meet me at my office once again. My apologies for calling on you twice in one day, particularly as it's a Sunday, but I'm afraid I had no other choice.'

'That's perfectly all right. Do I take it Mr Kline and my operative will also be there?'

A pause first. 'No. No, this will be strictly between you and me. It's rather serious, so do you think you could come immediately?'

'Shouldn't take much more than twenty minutes this time of evening.'

'It's very much appreciated. I'll let Security know you're on your way. One other thing: no one else must know about this. Can I have your word on that?'

'Naturally, although I don't understand why.'

'I'll explain when you get here.'

When Mother replaced the receiver he went into his study and, as a precaution, wrote a note of his destination and whom he was to see, then sealed it an envelope on which he scribbled his wife's name. He left the envelope propped up on his desk.

The stench at the back of the lodge-house caused Halloran to catch his breath. No doubt this was where the jackals were kept when they were not prowling the grounds. He shone the thin beam of the penlight around the yard, expecting to find kennels or a stockade of some kind. There was none, and no animals either. But the light reflected on something shiny.

With a twist of the torch's head, the beam was broadened to take in more. Halloran recognised the three metal containers Khayed and Daoud had carried from the house the day before. All were lying on their sides, the lids close by, as though the contents had been spilled out. He moved closer, using the light to guide himself through the mounds of excrement scattered around the yard. Drawing near to one of the bins he bent low to shine the light inside. His foot crunched something beneath him. He shifted to see shattered bone where he had been standing, and realised that there were many more pieces around him, clean and meatless. At the bottom of the container there were clogs of maggot-infested meat, the jackals obviously having been unable to reach them. Much of the yard's putrid stink came from these containers.

Halloran straightened, relieved at least that the beasts themselves were nowhere in evidence. He flashed the beam up at the windows, heedless of giving anyone inside warning of his presence; he had, in fact, already pounded on the front door, knowing that his approach in the Mercedes would not have gone unnoticed by anyone supposedly guarding the estate's entrance. The lodgekeeper might have been roaming the grounds with his pack, of course, but Halloran could not rid himself of the notion that there was someone inside. Even now he sensed he was being watched.

He lowered the torch, finding the backdoor, then man oeuvred his way through the faeces and bones towards it. As expected, this door, like the front, was firmly locked. He moved along the wall to a window and, although also locked, this was less of a problem. Placing the bag on the windowsill, Halloran ,lid a knife blade up alongside the catch, then forced it aside, its movement stiff but yielding. He closed the blade into its handle, dropped it into his jacket pocket, then heaved at the lower frame. The window resisted at first before, with a groan followed by a squeal, it opened upwards.

Halloran lifted the bag, switched off the torch. swung a leg over the sill. Once inside he quickly stepped away from the window, where moonlight had silhouetted his shape. He leaned back against the wall and waited, holding his breath, listening for sounds.

The room smelled musty, damp, unlined in. Light from outside revealed sparse furniture: an armchair, its cushions lumpy, arms threadbare, a nondescript cabinet, neither antique nor modern, against one wall, a curled rug, and nothing else. Apart from the small rug, the floorboards were bare. Halloran flicked on the penlight once more, the beam still broad, and waved it around the room. Wallpaper hung away in strips and black fungus grew in the corners and near the ceiling. There were ashes in the ancient iron fireplace, but they looked solid, as though they had set many years ago. There was an open door to the right.

Halloran listened for a while longer before allowing himself to breathe normally. He swept the light across the floor to make sure there were no obstacles in his path, them crossed the room to the door, unconcerned with the creaking of floorboards. Narrowing the torch beam, he peered out into the hallway, shining the light along its length. Moonlight glowed through the grime of the tiny windows above the backdoor. The hallway had a turn in it and he surmised that it straightened again and led towards the lodge's main door. The stairway would be in that direction too.

lie eased himself from the room, holding the torch away from his bode. Keeping close to the wall opposite the door he had just left. Halloran slowly walked towards the front of the building. fie passed another door on his right. but did not try the handle, guessing it would Dead to a cellar.

He reached the point where the hallway turned, and hesitated, listening intently far a few seconds. Only silence. But the smell of oldness was even stranger here.

Halloran noticed a lightswitch close to where he stood and he reaches Diut, pushing it down with one extended finger, the thin torch gripped with the others. Nothing happened, and he was not surprised. Whoever lived in the lodge-house enjoyed the darkness.

He went on, rounding the bend. and pointed the torch at the front door. There were large baits, top and bottom, rusted fixtures that looked as if they hadn't been shifted for decades. Another door nn his left, the staircase rising above him on his right. Halloran made his way towards the door.

Slipping the straps of the bag over his left shoulder and changing the penlight to that hand, he used an elbow to push open the door. Its creaking was explosive in the silence of the house.

Before entering, he shone the torch through the crack by the hinges, satisfying himself that nobody lurked behind the door, and only then did he step into the room. It was empty, devoid of any furniture, its curtains colourless with age and filth. The mustiness prevailed and here the mould festered in thick clusters. Ceiling struts could be clearly seen where plaster had fallen away. Halloran left the room, leaving the door open wide.

The staircase loomed up before him.

And it was from there that the worst of the smell wafted down.

Halloran began to climb.

Mather parked directly outside Magma's main entrance, disregarding the double-yellows. As he limped around the bonnet of his car, he could not help but gaze up at the towering building, its glass and bronze facade brooding under a sky that was quickly filling with leaden clouds from the east. He felt a charge in the atmosphere, the coming of an electrical storm.

The two security men inside had noticed his arrival and one was crossing the concourse towards the closed entrance while his companion at the circular reception desk lifted a phone. Mather started forward again, an urgency in his stride.

The security guard had come to a smaller door beside the main entrance and had already opened it a fraction by the time the Shield Planner was outside.

'Mr Mather?' the guard enquired, and Mather opened his wallet to display his Shield identity. 'Sir Victor's waiting for you. I'll take you right up.'

The guard said nothing as the lift swiftly ascended to the eighteenth floor, but he appeared tense, as much on edge as Mather himself. They trudged the thick-carpeted corridor to the chairman's outer office, passing through, waiting when the guard rapped on the inner door. The guard opened the door after a voice on the other side responded, then stood aside to allow the older man entry, still not uttering a single word. Mather heard the door close behind him.

Sir Victor did not rise from his seat. In front of him was a tumbler half-filled with Scotch.

'Good of you to get here so quickly." the Magma chairman said, taking Mather forward.

Although on first glance Sir Victor appeared his usual immaculate self - grey, double-breasted suit, thin-striped shirt and now tie - there was an indefinable dishevelment about him. Perhaps it was the weariness in his eyes, the slight sagging of his jowls, a few lapse strands of silver hair hanging over his forehead that gave the impression, the Shield Planner mused. As well as the unexpected laxity in manners, far Mather had not been offered a sent, nor had Sir Victor risen when he had entered the office. Hardly a return to Stone-age etiquette, but surely an indication of the stress this usually most civilised of men was under.