Dedication

To Bev Manders, for her invaluable and intelligent  insights and her unswerving support during the writing of this book.

And to Emily Rose and Macie Rose, the new generations of love and support.

Chapter One

The young woman held the dress up to her slender body and stared at the reflection in the full-length mirror attached to the wardrobe door. Her cold blue eyes narrowed critically and she shook her head, her shock of long, blond curls drifting over her shoulders like a yellow cloud. No, it wasn’t right.

The evening dress was purple silk, long enough to touch the floor, with thin shoulder straps and a swooping neckline. It was much too old for her, too sophisticated. She closed her eyes and concentrated. When she opened her eyes again the person that stared back at her from the mirror was older. The blond curls had been replaced by an elegant, dark brown, chin-length bob that shone in the electric light. The haircut framed an older face—haunting chestnut eyes and a thin, aquiline nose above a full-lipped mouth.

That was better. 

The body in the reflection was different too. It fitted the dress perfectly. Maybe she’d take the dress with her when she left the house, after she’d done what she’d come here to do. Maybe not. She hadn’t come here to steal. 

As she pulled open the wardrobe again to replace the dress, her eye was drawn to a cashmere sweater folded neatly on the shelf above the hanging space. It was a rich shade of burgundy and would really enhance her new eye color. As she reached up to slide it from the shelf, her sleeve caught an empty wooden coat hanger and dislodged it, sending it clattering to the floor of the wardrobe. She froze in mid-stretch, listening hard, waiting to see if the noise had attracted the attention of the one other person in the house. 

There was no sound of feet climbing the stairs, no sounds at all apart from the low rumble of Leonard Cohen’s velvet-bass vocals issuing from the stereo speakers in the lounge. 

It was as well because she wasn’t ready yet. She still had another wardrobe to search through before the act, as she liked to call it. She thought briefly about what she was going to do and flicked a hungry tongue across her full lips. 

There was a small, delicious knot of anticipation in the pit of her stomach that never changed, never varied, no matter how many times she performed the act, and in whatever form it took. The sense of anticipation and the accompanying excitement remained constant…and she loved it.

Sophie Gillespie lifted her head and stared at the ceiling. She was sure she’d heard something—a rattling sound of wood falling against wood, as if someone had dropped an armful of kindling on a parquet floor. She listened hard, her hand reaching for the remote and reducing Leonard Cohen to a low grumble. 

Not for the first time she had the feeling she wasn’t alone in the house, but there was never any evidence to show she was right. She thought maybe she should go upstairs and investigate, but the truth was the house frightened her, always had. From the moment she and Mark moved in two years ago she’d been beset by misgivings. Not that she ever voiced them to her husband. Much to her dismay, he’d set his heart on the place from the first moment he’d seen it. 

In her opinion the house was much too old, too big, too dilapidated and too spooky. Too everything. He’d brought in a team of builders and decorators to completely gut and renovate the place, and while it was now a smart and elegant home Sophie held on to her reservations. It was still too old and too bloody spooky.

Location, location, location. It was her father’s favorite phrase when he got onto the topic of houses and, more importantly, buying them. For him, where it was located was much more important than what the house actually was. 

“Houses can be fixed, Sophie. They can be redesigned, renovated, extended. Damn it, if you don’t like it that much you can always pull the bloody thing down and build it again. But where it is, where it sits…that’s the crux, the nub, the heart of the matter. That’s something you can’t change.”

She could still hear his voice in her mind. Her father had approved of the location of this house almost as much as he’d approved of Mark and their marriage.

“He’s got a good head on his shoulders, that one. He’ll be a millionaire by the time he’s forty.” His enthusiasm for Mark was palpable. “Snap him up, Sophie, before somebody else does.”

So far her father had been proved right. Mark still had four years to go before he reached forty, but he was already over halfway towards his first million and Sophie was sure that her husband would justify her father’s high opinion of him. As for the house, in many ways, her father was right again.

Set deep down in Yorkshire’s Calder Valley in the north of England, surrounded by lush, tree-clad hills, it was the grandest house in the town of Ravensbridge. The walls were Yorkshire stone, the color of clotted cream, and the tiled roof was a rich slate gray. It was a picture postcard type of house, the type that, as a teenager and through into her early twenties, she would stare at for hours in the pages of glossy magazines and dream of owning. It was a bitter pill to swallow knowing that her dreams and aspirations bore little resemblance to the reality of actually living in one.

She pressed another button on the remote and switched discs. Maybe it was Leonard Cohen that was making her feel so gloomy. Cohen’s bass tones were replaced by the mellow soul crooning of Marvin Gaye. Better, she thought. She leaned back on the sumptuous leather cushions of the couch and closed her eyes, letting the music transport her back to happier times.

The idyll lasted no longer than thirty seconds before the splintering sound of crashing glass made her jerk her head and stare hard at the ceiling.

The blond curls were back. They were much more suited to the Armani suit she was holding against her. Taupe. That was the color. It was elegantly cut and she could imagine slipping into the expensive fabric and letting it hug her body. That would feel good. 

With a sigh she put the suit back on the rail and went across to the bed.

It was nearly time.

There was a water carafe on the cabinet next to the bed. She picked it up and turned it over in her hands, letting it slip through her fingers and smash on the antique oak floor. “Whoops!” she said quietly, and then sat on the edge of the bed to wait.

Sophie switched off the stereo and listened to the crushing, pregnant silence. She felt sick. She tried hard to rationalize what she’d just heard, telling herself that maybe a cat had gotten into the house and knocked something from a shelf, but she knew that wasn’t the case, and she knew she’d have to go upstairs and investigate. She glanced at her watch. Three hours before Mark was due home. She couldn’t even wait it out. 

She sat for a moment more in a quagmire of indecision and then suddenly sprung to her feet. “Right!” she said, her voice loud, steady with resolve. “Let’s do this.”

She took a heavy, wrought-iron poker from the hearth and started to climb the stairs. As she climbed she strained every sense, listening, watching, even sniffing the air, trying to detect anything that was in any way out of place. 

Nothing.

She reached the landing and stopped, her breath coming in quick, startled-hare gasps. The noise of breaking glass had come from the room directly above the lounge. The master bedroom, the room she shared with Mark. If only he were here. As she’d climbed the stairs she’d felt her resolve draining away, slowly, like water down a blocked drain. Now she struggled to get it back, to reclaim it as her own. She hefted the poker in her hand and stared hard at the bedroom door. 

Her fingers tightened around the brass doorknob and she twisted it gently, twisted it until it stopped turning, and then, taking a deep breath, she hurled the door open and stepped into the room with an incoherent cry, the poker raised above her head.

The young woman with the blond curls was sitting on the bed, staring at her impassively. Her gaze travelled from Sophie’s face, to the poker and then back again, locking on Sophie’s wild eyes. “Hello, Sophie,” she said in a lilting, almost musical voice.

Sophie’s gaze took in the broken carafe at the young woman’s feet. Her arm was beginning to ache with tension and with the effort of holding the heavy poker aloft, but she kept it steady. “Who are you?” she said, immediately infuriated by the pitch of her voice. She sounded like a frightened schoolgirl. She made an effort to adjust it. “What are you doing in my house?” Better—deeper, more mature.

The blond woman’s eyes widened slightly. “Your house? Well that’s an interesting concept. Your house.” She said the words again, seeming to mull them over, to digest them. Finally she said, “How long have you lived here, Sophie? Oh, and you’d better put the poker down. It’s very hot.”

Sophie glanced at the poker. She’d pulled it cold from the hearth and carried it up the stairs, comforted by the icy metal in her hand. So why was the tip now glowing red and the conducted heat from the poker scorching her palm? She cried out and dropped it, letting it clatter to the floor.

“You were saying,” the young woman continued. “Something about this being your house?”

“It is my house. Mine and Mark’s. We’ve lived here two years now.”

“And the people before you, the people before them and before them. They all thought it was their house too.” She looked about the room. “Strange, I remember this house being built and I remember hating it because it was my house they pulled down to make way for it. Oh, it wasn’t much, my house. A hovel. We used to bring the animals inside in the winter to keep them warm…to keep us warm too.” She laughed, a harsh, brittle sound. “Christ, it stank!” The laughter ceased abruptly. “But it was home. This land, the land now occupied by this…this monstrosity, was our land, me and my family’s. We still have rights. We still belong here.”

There was a fervent light in the young woman’s eyes as she spoke.

Mad, Sophie thought. Absolutely barking mad. A small thrill of fear shuddered through her. How was she going to get the woman out of her house?

“Oh, I’ll leave in my own sweet time,” the woman said, reading her thoughts. “But first we’re going to have some fun. Would you like that, Sophie, some fun?”

Sophie nodded slowly, deciding to humor her. “Yes,” she said. “I’d like that.”

The young woman’s gaze swept the floor, alighting on a shard of glass from the carafe. It was about four inches long, curved and wickedly sharp. “Perfect,” she said and picked it up. 

In that second, when the young woman was distracted, Sophie could have run, turned and dashed down the stairs and out of the house. But the moment passed and instead she watched, captivated as the woman retrieved the shard of glass from the floor and held it to the light, making it glint and glisten.

“Now, Sophie, I want you to do something for me.”

“What?” Sophie said.

“Take off your clothes. All of them.”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Sophie said, but at the same time her fingers were fumbling with the button on her jeans. She popped the button and slid the denims down over her thighs, letting them drop to the floor.

“Good girl.” The young woman smiled encouragingly. “That’s good. And now the rest of them.”

As Sophie pulled her shirt over her head, her mind was crying, I don’t want to do this! But there wasn’t a damned thing she could do to stop herself. 

The young woman moved towards her, the glass shard clasped tightly in her hand, so tightly it had sliced through her palm and fingers. She seemed oblivious to the blood that dribbled from her hand and dripped to the floor where the oak floorboards were sucking it in. 

Once Sophie was completely naked and standing shivering, cold and vulnerable, the young woman moved closer still. 

Sophie cried out at the first cut, but after that she was silent, unable to do anything but accept her fate.

Chapter Two

Sheep are stupid, probably the most stupid creatures on God’s earth. Mark Gillespie decided this a long time ago when he’d first driven from his home in Ravensbridge to his offices in Bradford. The drive took him out of the valley and up onto Feldshaw Moor. Over the Tops, as the locals liked to say. 

The road was bordered by moorland with rocky outcrops, moss-covered and imposing. In places there were sheer drops at the side of the road where the land fell away. There were lines of small boulders, strategically placed along the edge of the road to indicate the drop, but they were a token barrier, nothing more. For a car travelling at even moderate speed, they would do nothing to prevent a serious plunge over the edge should the driver lose control. So you had to keep your wits about you driving over the Tops. Avoiding the sheep that wandered from the grazing fields and onto the road was one of the driver’s tests up here.

He felt comfortable behind the wheel of his new Range Rover. His previous car, a BMW coupe, was faster and flashier but didn’t give him the sense of security the Range Rover afforded him. The Beamer was a great status symbol, a reflection of how successful his business was, but he was higher in the seat of the Range Rover and could see oncoming hazards—like wandering sheep—much earlier, and the black powder-coated bull bars offered more protection. He’d worked hard to achieve his current status and he didn’t want it cut short by a stupid road accident.

As he drove he drummed his fingers on the steering wheel in time to an old rock classic blasting from the Range Rover’s speakers. Blue Oyster Cult. One of his favorites. 

Heading down into the valley, he could see the lights of Ravensbridge in the distance and he felt the usual surge of contentment. As a young man he’d aspired to live here and now he had achieved his ambition. It was one of the many ambitions achieved over the last few years, and probably the sweetest. 

He had a beautiful house, a beautiful wife and enough money in the bank to ensure that should his business suddenly founder, he would survive. It was an enviable position to be in, but by Christ, he’d worked hard enough for it. All those eighteen-hour working days, lost weekends and meager holidays had propelled him into the lifestyle he now enjoyed. So he was smiling with self-satisfaction as he swung through the gates of his house and glided up the York-stone driveway.

The smile slipped from his face as he entered the house. He felt immediately there was something wrong. The lights were on in all the downstairs rooms and the house was clean and tidy, with everything in its place, exactly as it should be, but of Sophie there was no sign. More tellingly there were no cooking smells coming from the kitchen and that was just wrong. Sophie was a cordon bleu cook and prided herself on having a superb meal ready for him when he got home from the office in the evening. 

He took off his overcoat, hung it on the antique coat rack by the door and walked through to the kitchen. The granite work surfaces were clear and sparkling clean, the range-style cooker stone cold. This wasn’t right.

He wondered for a moment if his wife had been called out on some emergency or other. Perhaps her mother, who was in a nursing home in Leeds, had suddenly taken a turn for the worse. He opened the door from the kitchen to the garage. Sophie’s VW Golf was still sitting there, engine cold.

Wandering back into the house, he called her name and listened but was met by total silence. He stood for a moment in the center of the large kitchen, undecided. If she’d been called away she would have telephoned him. They kept in contact during the day. Unlike a lot of couples they knew who barely spoke to each other during office hours, he and Sophie prided themselves on the frequency of communication. In their opinion it kept their marriage alive, vital. 

He thought back to their last conversation at lunchtime. Sophie was her usual bright and chatty self, telling him about a new shirt she had bought him from her favorite boutique in town and about how he was going to love it. Usual, normal Sophie, so pleased with herself that she had found something for him. He was always buying her gifts—jewelry, perfume, whatever caught his eye. But she rarely bought him anything. It wasn’t a lack of thought on her part, simply the case that there was very little he wanted—certainly very little he needed.

It occurred to him that maybe she’d been taken ill and was lying down. 

He took the stairs two at a time, but slowly, carefully. If she was asleep then he didn’t want to wake her. At the door to the bedroom he paused. It was closed. He put his ear to it, listening, hoping to hear the rise and fall of her breathing. For some reason he couldn’t explain he was nervous about entering the room. The hairs on the back of his neck were prickling and his hands had suddenly become icy cold. He recognized the sensations. Trepidation. Fear. 

In the past he’d experienced similar feelings, usually before crucial business meetings, and in general he welcomed them. They put him on his mettle, got his adrenaline pumping and psyched him up. But this was different. This felt more like a sick dread, as if he were going to open the door and find behind it something hideous beyond belief.

He gripped the handle and turned it slowly, opened the door a crack and peered through. He could see the bed and saw that the duvet was humped with Sophie’s form underneath it. The room was in darkness, the only illumination coming from a quarter moon that spilled its milky glow through the window. The moonlight shone on her hair, spread out on the pillow like a golden fan. She was lying on her back, the duvet tucked up to her neck.

“Sophie,” he whispered, fearful of waking her, but needing to hear her voice to reassure him that everything was all right. He tiptoed across to the bed. The moon was making her face pale, curiously characterless.

“Sophie,” he whispered again, stretching out his hand to stroke her cheek. He touched her skin and recoiled. It was icy cold. He took a breath and reached out again, touching her forehead with his fingertips.

As he touched it Sophie’s face slid beneath his fingers, skin slipping away, falling in a soft fold onto the pillow, leaving him staring at nothing but a bloodied skull covered in strips of muscle and sinew. Her lipless mouth grinned at him whilst her lidless eyes stared at him accusingly. Why weren’t you here? Why did you let this happen to me? He pulled his hand away, made a fist and rammed it into his mouth to stifle the scream that was forming in his throat.

“I think she’s prettier that way.”

Mark spun round at the sound of the voice. A young woman was standing in the corner of the room. She was smiling at him coyly, her golden curls glinting in the moonlight. She was naked. Full breasts, a neat triangle of fair pubic hair. A familiar nakedness. 

He couldn’t speak. He just stared at the young woman uncomprehendingly. Who was she? Why was she here? Why did her naked body seem so familiar to him? The strawberry birthmark just to the left of her navel, just like the one Sophie had. The silver scar on her thigh. Sophie had injured herself in a fall the second day into their first skiing holiday together. A hidden rock had sliced her thigh open and left her with a scar just like the one he was staring at now. 

The young woman took a step towards him. It looked wrong. As she moved her whole body rippled. He could see a livid red mark at her throat, almost as if the skin had been slit and was peeling…

Realization hit him with the force of a tsunami and he reeled across to the bed, grabbing the corner of the duvet and yanking it back. It came away with a wet, sticky, sucking sound and he stared down at Sophie’s flayed body. He jerked his head around to stare at the young woman with blond curls, the young woman who was wearing Sophie’s skin like an obscene designer cat suit. 

Tears coursed down his cheeks. “Why?” he said, his voice barely above a whisper. “Why?”

The young woman smiled. “Your house!” she said condescendingly. “She said it was your house.”

He wanted to kill her, to smash the mocking face, to beat it to a pulp. He grabbed the stainless-steel lamp from the bedside table and hurled it across the room, but it never reached her. The cable was still plugged in and the lamp stopped in midair before it clattered to the floor, the bulb smashing with a loud pop. He retrieved it from the floor, twisting it in his hands to use it as a club, yanking at the cable, trying to pull the plug from its socket.

“Stop!” The young woman spoke sharply.

Mark stopped. His mouth was working but there was no sound coming from his lips. The woman held his gaze for a moment, and then she blinked. Just the once.

Mark stared down at the lamp that was twisting again in his hands, only this time he wasn’t consciously doing it. His hands were moving of their own accord, bringing the lamp to within inches of his face, turning it around so he had a clear view of the broken bulb, ragged and sharp, lethal. 

He concentrated fiercely, trying to regain control of his hands, but they were beyond any conscious will. When the lamp was inches away he opened his mouth. Again he had no control. His bottom jaw just dropped and kept dropping, opening his mouth wider and wider. He could feel tendons and ligaments popping in his cheek, and the pain was excruciating. His arms positioned the head of the lamp and smashed it into his mouth, the broken bulb slicing through his tongue and gums, the stainless steel crunching through his teeth.

The young woman snapped her fingers and the switch flicked on, sending a pulse of electricity coursing through Mark Gillespie’s head. For a moment he stood, convulsing as his brain fried, and then he crumpled to his knees and pitched forwards, the lamp taking the full impact and burying itself deeper into his mouth, snapping his jaw. His eyes were open but losing focus. The last thing he saw was the cable of the table lamp curled like a thin, white snake on the floor. The plug was clear of the socket, lying on the floor, mocking him. But if it wasn’t even plugged in, he thought, how did…? 

And then he died. 

The young woman clicked her fingers again and Mark stopped twitching. She stared dispassionately down at Mark Gillespie’s lifeless form, poked it once with her foot, then shucked Sophie’s skin from her body, draping it over him like a blanket. 

She padded into the en suite bathroom and showered away the blood. As she toweled herself dry she studied her reflection in the mirror. A hundred different faces stared back. A hundred different identities, a hundred different lives. 

They were all smiling at her. 

Chapter Three

Robert Carter peeled off the motorway and took a right, heading towards Halifax. Ravensbridge was a few miles farther on from there. It was a long time since he’d seen Annie Ryder and was looking forward to the reunion. 

Downtime was a premium at Department 18 and after the last few cases he’d tackled for them he felt he deserved some, and he couldn’t think of a better location for a holiday. Ravensbridge settled at the start of the Pennines, and it was easy to envisage a week or more spent hiking in the hills, taking in the dramatic and beautiful scenery and then coming back to Annie’s cottage in the evenings, tired but relaxed, and ready for her delicious home cooking and some convivial conversation with her over a glass or two of Merlot. It was an image he carried with him for a few more miles.

Carter first met Annie Ryder fifteen years ago when he was staying at the Institute of Psychic Research in Kansas. She was young, fresh from university, and he discovered that she’d been born in the north of England and come to America with her father at the age of seven when her parents divorced. 

The two of them struck up an instant rapport. She was a technician and he was one of the test subjects, and her presence at the institute made the years he spent there more tolerable. At that time Annie Ryder was a lively twenty-one-year-old—pretty in a rather unconventional way, with a sharp wit and an even sharper tongue, but they found they got along fine. There was no hint of a romance between them, but then neither of them were looking for that kind of involvement. They’d spar with each other in a light-hearted way and be there for each other when things got tense.

When he finally left Kansas after three years and returned to England to start work with Department 18, they kept in touch, mostly by letter, occasionally by phone and later email. A few years back she wrote to him to say she was moving back to England, to Yorkshire. Her father had died suddenly from a heart attack and she found she was missing her homeland. Carter had not long moved into his cottage in the picturesque Lake District when he received an invitation to go down to Ravensbridge to stay with Annie for a few days. He’d spent a week there and found the chemistry between them hadn’t changed. She was still single and happy to be that way. She’d taken up a post as teacher at a local primary school and settled into the slower-paced northern lifestyle with ease. For her, coming back to England to live in a small town in the country was like coming home.

In the years that followed any contact became less and less, until the letters and emails dried up completely. He figured that maybe she had met someone, got married and maybe even started a family. It was all speculation of course, with nothing at all to back it up. The email that appeared in his inbox three weeks ago broke the silence of five years.

She was at the door to greet him as he pulled up outside the cottage. A thin drizzle was falling from an aluminum sky. He switched off the wipers and ignition and sketched a wave. As he got out of the car she flew at him, wrapping her arms around his neck and planting a kiss on his cheek. 

“Robert Carter, as I live and breathe! It’s so good to see you. Man, you haven’t changed a jot.”

“Neither have you, Annie, neither have you.” It was a lie. She had changed a great deal. Her long, chestnut hair had been cropped to a chic, pixie style and was now flecked with gray. Her dark brown eyes had retained their sparkle but there was an awareness and maturity there now, and she’d gained a few pounds, but it suited her, making her look less the college student and more like a woman.

She held him at arm’s length and stared into his face, looking for the lie and finding it in his eyes. “I’ve got fat,” she said with a smile. She ran her fingers through her hair, tousling it. “And this is a lot shorter. More practical.”

“Seriously, you look great…just different from how I remembered you.”

“Different. An interesting choice of words. Better or worse?”

Carter felt himself flush. “I…I…”

She shook her head and smiled. “I’m teasing you, Rob. Come on, let’s get inside out of this rain.” She threaded her arm through his and led him through the front door. 

Annie Ryder’s house was set on a hill and was deceptively large. From the street it looked like a modest cottage, but once inside it opened out, stretching quite a way back into the hillside. There were two large reception rooms and a study on the ground floor, and upstairs three good-sized bedrooms and a bathroom. In the hallway the walls were decorated with photographs set into simple clip frames, mostly black and white, moody shots of the Yorkshire landscape, with the occasional splash of color provided by glorious depictions of India—a country she’d developed a passion for many years ago.

“Kerala,” she said, coming up behind him as he admired a picture of two young Indian children running through a market place. “My spiritual home.”

“Have you been there recently?”

“That was taken three years ago. I haven’t been back since.”

“Was that your choice?” 

She shrugged. 

“Or a matter of circumstance?” he said.

“A little of both. Coffee?” 

“Sounds good,” he said, following her down the flight of stone steps to the kitchen. 

The kitchen was large and set in the cellar of the house, and was Annie’s pride and joy. She loved cooking and, equally, loved entertaining. A large range cooker stood at one end of the room. Various-sized pans were bubbling away on the hotplates.

“You’re cooking,” he said rather obviously.

“Lamb hot pot,” she said. “That okay?”

“It smells delicious.” 

She poured coffee into two mugs and handed him one. “I hope you don’t mind but I’ve invited a few friends over to eat.”

It was not what he was expecting and he couldn’t help a slight twinge of disappointment, hiding it with a smile. “Fine,” he said. “Anyone I know?”

She shook her head. “Penny Chapman who I work with at the school, and Adam, her husband. He’s an artist and sculptor. The other two are new to the area. He’s American, a professor no less. He’s living on a narrow boat on the canal—quite the bohemian. The boat belongs to the girl he’s living with, but I’m not sure if they’re a couple. Her name’s Holly. Holly Ireland, a really lovely girl. She’s a jewelry designer. Have you heard of her?”

“Should I have done?”

“She seems to be making quite a name for herself in the galleries in London.”

“Not really the kind of circles I mix in,” he said, sipping the coffee. It was good. A strong, rich roast. Annie always did make good coffee.

In the center of the kitchen was a huge oak refectory table surrounded by eight wheel-backed chairs. He pulled one out and sat down. “So what’s his subject, this professor of yours?”

“History. He’s written a number of books. Not that I’ve read any of them.”

“What’s his name?”

“Henry Norton. Ring any bells?”

“Not a tinkle.”

“No matter. He seems nice enough. A little intense sometimes, but I’m sure you’ll get along fine. And Holly really is a sweetheart. She’s the reason I invited them.” She reached under the neck of her sweater and pulled out a thin metal pendant. “This is her work. Do you like it?”

It looked pretty enough in an angular, modern way but the aesthetics were lost on him. “Very pretty,” he said. “Opals?”

“Opals set in titanium.”

“I thought opals were meant to be unlucky.”

She frowned at him. “And when have you known me to be superstitious?”

He finished his coffee. “Would you mind if I freshened up? It was a long drive.”

“Of course. I’ll show you where you’ll be sleeping.”

She led him to his bedroom and then left him to get settled in. There was a futon set in the middle of white-painted floorboards. Furniture was sparse, an empty pine wardrobe, another of the ubiquitous wheel-backed chairs—she told him later she’d bought a set of twelve at an auction in Halifax—and, next to the futon, a low, chunky-legged table that looked as if it had been made somewhere in Asia by a blind carpenter. There was a radio alarm clock on the table with a green liquid-crystal display. It read five after six. Annie’s guests were due at seven thirty. He had a quick shower and then lay down on the futon. He was wearier than he’d thought, and a nap might help to psych himself up for the evening ahead. He wasn’t feeling particularly sociable but didn’t want to let Annie down.

The doorbell woke him. The radio alarm clock told him it was seven thirty. He swore, hauled himself from the futon and threw on some clothes. Black denim jeans and a black crew-necked sweater. It wasn’t going to be a formal evening so he slipped a pair of leather moccasins on his bare feet and padded down the stairs. 

Annie was in the hallway, helping a middle-aged couple off with their coats. She glanced up as Carter trotted down the stairs. “This is Adam and Penny,” she said. The sculptor and the teacher.

“Penny, Adam,” she said. “Robert Carter.”

“Rob, please,” he said.

“Very pleased to meet you, Rob,” Adam said, pumping Carter’s hand. He had a strong grip, a man who was used to working with his hands. He was probably mid-forties, tall and slight, with eyes that sparkled with good humor, as if he’d looked at life and found the whole charade slightly amusing.

“Annie’s told us a lot about you,” Penny said, air-kissing Carter’s cheeks. She was older than her husband, late fifties, early sixties, but the vitality that danced in her eyes belied her age.

Before any more pleasantries could be exchanged, the doorbell rang again. Annie glanced over her shoulder at Penny Chapman. “Pen, be a sweetie and pour the drinks, would you? I’ll have my usual.”

“Of course,” Penny said. “Adam? Usual?”

Adam nodded.

“Rob?”

“A vodka and tonic please.”

Penny smiled. “Right.” And then she scurried off to the lounge.

Annie opened the door. 

Holly Ireland was first through, shaking the rain from her wild, blond hair. Pretty, early thirties and as thin as a stick. Norton followed her in. Annie made the introductions and then led them through to the lounge, where Penny was standing by a cabinet in the corner pouring the drinks.

“Henry, what can I get you?” she said.

“Just a club soda for me. Holly?”

“Do you have any Campari?” she asked Penny.

“I’m not sure. Annie, help!”

Annie crossed to the drinks cabinet and crouched down in front of the open doors. “I kinda think I do,” she said and started moving bottles around.

“Sorry,” Holly said. “Am I being a pain?”

“Yes, you are,” Henry Norton said. There was an edge to his voice that they all caught.

“Sorry,” Holly said again, seeming to shrink into herself slightly.

“Yes!” Annie said triumphantly. “I thought I had a bottle somewhere in here.” She got to her feet and handed the bottle to Penny.

“Do you want ice, Holly?” Penny said.

“No, just as it comes. Thanks.”

Annie disappeared to the kitchen downstairs, leaving them to get better acquainted. 

In the living room it was obvious that something had happened between Norton and Holly on the way over to Annie’s that had soured his mood. Carter tried to engage the professor in conversation, but the man’s answers to his questions were monosyllabic and non-committal. He kept firing poisonous glances at Holly who was discussing art with Adam Chapman. Carter tried another question and saw it shot down in flames. His gaze caught Penny Chapman’s and she raised her eyebrows in sympathy. Before the embarrassment became palpable, Annie ascended from the kitchen and announced that dinner was ready.

They trooped, single file, down the stone stairs. Annie hadn’t set place names so Carter took a seat at the end of the table, next to Adam Chapman and as far away from Norton as possible.

“Red or white?” Penny said, indicating bottles of Merlot and Pinot Grigio.

“Red, I think,” Carter said and watched as she poured the wine into his glass. “Steady,” he said as the wine threatened to overflow. “I wouldn’t want to be too drunk to enjoy Annie’s cooking.”

The food when it came was up to Annie’s excellent standard and conversation subsided slightly as everyone tucked in. It picked up again in the break before dessert. 

“So you’re a ghost hunter, Robert. Is that right?” Norton said.

“In a manner of speaking,” Carter said, shooting a questioning glance at Annie who shrugged and shook her head slightly, giving him an I’m sorry look.

“Really?” Adam said, twisting in his seat to stare at Carter. “How esoteric,” he added without sarcasm.

“Actually much of what I do is pretty mundane,” Carter said.

“Oh, I doubt that,” Norton said, seemingly determined to stir things up a little. “Give us some examples.”

Annie jumped in. “I don’t think it’s a suitable subject for polite dinner party conversation,” she said.

“Oh, rubbish,” Adam said. “It sounds fascinating.”

“Let the poor man be, Adam,” Penny said. “Annie’s right, we don’t want to talk about ghosts.”

“Well I do,” Adam persisted. “Go on, Rob, don’t be a spoilsport. Tell us a ghostly tale or two. Make our spines freeze.”

Carter glanced across at Norton who was smiling. “Yes, go on, Robert. As Adam says, don’t be a spoilsport.”

The man had a problem. That much was obvious. But Carter hadn’t yet worked out what it was.

Penny was glaring at Adam, Annie was looking helpless and Holly just looked embarrassed.

“Okay,” Carter said, sensing the sudden tension at the table. If he wanted to he could have told them stories to guarantee that none of them would get any sleep that night or the next week for that matter, but he had no desire to share his recent Department 18 experiences with anyone, and they were certainly not the subject of dinner party conversations, polite or otherwise. “Let’s try this one,” he said. “The Phantom Cat of Welham Green.”

He began the story, a slightly humorous encounter he’d had during his first week with the department. It seemed to satisfy Adam who sat with a look of fascination on his face, but Norton looked slightly irritated. It was obvious Carter wasn’t giving him what he wanted.

Further stories were curtailed by the dessert. Annie had made a Pavlova with fresh strawberries, whipped cream and melt-in-the-mouth meringue. After they’d all eaten their fill and progressed to coffee and liqueurs, the conversation had moved onto the subject of Ravensbridge and how it was gradually being taken over by what Adam and Penny referred to as incomers. With one American and three Southerners around the table, it struck Carter as slightly ironic they should be complaining. “But surely, you’re all incomers,” he said.

“That’s very true,” Penny said. “Adam and I are both Londoners. We’ve been here over thirty years now and I think the true locals still treat us with suspicion. When Adam first started his free art classes at the community center the initial take up was very poor. It’s improved since but it took a long time to win people’s trust. Both Annie and I work at the school, and every day we come into contact with people who’ve been born and bred here and whose parents and grandparents were born and bred here. It’s their concerns we’re voicing.”

Adam stepped in. “Over the past few years the district council has ignored local feeling and tried to turn Ravensbridge into a tourist trap. They’ve raised business rents and rates and forced out a good number of the traditional shops and small businesses. There used to be three butchers, two bakers and several green-grocers in the high street. They’ve all gone. The council gave permission for one of the large supermarket chains to open a store just two miles away. With that competition and the hike in rates, the local shops just couldn’t survive.”

“And it’s not only the shops that suffered,” Annie said. “Over the last three years six estate agents have moved into the town. House prices have gone stratospheric. Local people can’t even afford to buy houses in their own town anymore. Instead we’re getting in all these God-awful city types who are not actually interested in living here and contributing to the community. They just want a second home in a picturesque valley to impress their friends. A lot of them are only here for a few weekends a year, and perhaps a week or two during the summer. Apart from that the houses are empty. It makes the locals’ blood boil. And I sympathize with them.”

“Is that why they’re being killed off, do you think?” Norton said.

“Killed off? What do you mean?” Carter said.

“Take no notice of him, Rob,” Annie said. “Henry’s just being controversial.”

“Come on, Annie. You’re not another ostrich,” Norton said. He turned to Carter. “People in this town have a habit of burying their heads in the sand, Robert. I thought, when Annie invited you here, she might be one of the more enlightened ones. Obviously I was mistaken.”

“Would somebody mind explaining to me what you’re talking about?” Carter said. “Annie?”

Annie looked flushed. She was glaring at Norton furiously. “What Henry is talking about, Rob, is a series of unexplained deaths in the valley.”

“How many deaths?” he said.

“Six and counting,” Norton said. “All incomers.”

“Over what period of time?” 

“Over the last eleven years,” Penny said. “One every two years or so. And Henry’s right. The victims are all incomers.”

Carter took a sip of brandy. “And you believe the locals are killing them off?” He couldn’t resist a smile.

“No!” Annie said vehemently. “The idea’s preposterous.”

“Yes,” Carter said. “It is. But you think the deaths are related?”

“I’m starting to think they are.”

“So am I,” Penny Chapman said. “Adam thinks so too, don’t you, hun?”

Adam Chapman nodded. 

“Eleven years is quite a wide time-frame,” Carter said. “What do the police think? Are they linking the deaths?”

“I’m not sure they are,” Annie said. “Each of them is different, you see. Three of them are apparent suicides. The other three… Well, they’re just odd, inexplicable.”

“Odd?” Carter said.

“I think you ought to tell your friend about the nature of the deaths,” Norton said.

“Henry! I said I’d handle this my own way. Stop interfering.” 

“I’m not interfering,” Norton said. “I’m simply tired of dancing around the subject. You brought Robert here for a reason. I think it’s only fair you tell him what the reason is.”

“Annie?” Carter said.

Annie Ryder looked at him helplessly. “I’m sorry, Rob,” she said.

“I see.” Carter finished his brandy and helped himself to another. Events had taken a turn he had not been prepared for, and his first instinct was to go upstairs, grab his bag and head on home as fast as he could. He was furious with Annie.

“If you want to go, Rob, I fully understand,” she said. “I haven’t been entirely up front with you.”

The others around the table were staring at Carter expectantly, waiting for some kind of reaction. He sipped at the brandy and tried to gather his thoughts. Finally he said, “I think you should tell me everything, Annie. Don’t you?”

“You mean you’re staying?” Norton said. There was a look of incredulity on his face. “Even though you’ve been dragged here under false pretenses?”

“I’d hardly call it that,” Carter said. “Annie and I go back a long way. She was always there for me when I needed her. This is just repaying the favor.”

The expression on Norton’s face softened. “Then I think I owe you an apology,” he said. “I’ve been behaving like an asshole.” He turned to Annie. “You were right about him. I should have trusted your judgment.” He stuck out his hand for Carter to shake. “No hard feelings?”

Carter took his hand, shook it. “No hard feelings,” he said.

“Good.” He poured himself a port and leaned back in his seat.

Carter looked at each of them in turn. “Now, would somebody mind telling me what all this is about?”

Chapter Four

“The first person to die was Helen Brown,” Annie said. “She was headmistress at the school when I joined. She gave me my first job in Ravensbridge. I thought she was very brave, taking a chance on a Yank to teach the local children English, but she was very supportive and if there was any flak flying about, none of it reached me.”

“How did she die?” Carter said.

“She hanged herself in the school gymnasium, from the climbing bars. The school caretaker found her on the Saturday morning. There was a soccer match on and he’d gone to the storage cupboard in the gym to fetch the ball and corner flags. According to the post mortem, she’d hanged herself on the Friday evening, not long after school ended.”

“So it was suicide,” Carter said.

“That was the finding of the coroner at the inquest.”

“I can tell from the tone of your voice that you didn’t agree with the verdict.”

Annie shook her head. “In the two years Helen was my boss I got to know her pretty well and she wasn’t the type to commit suicide. Plus the fact there was no note. Nothing to explain why she’d decided to take her own life.

“I know for a fact that at that particular time she was very happy. She’d not long met a man and was very keen on him, as he was on her. There was even talk of marriage. But the inquest came and went, the verdict was reached and that was the end of the matter. That was in 1999. It wasn’t until a couple of years later that there was another death.”

“Another suicide?” Carter said.

Annie nodded. “Another death and another inquest with an unsatisfactory verdict,” she said.

“Susan Grant was twenty-nine years old, two small children and a loving husband. She was in the garden when she rammed a hosepipe down her throat and turned on the outside tap. They found her sitting in a deckchair, drowned in the middle of the lawn. At the inquest the coroner recorded a verdict of suicide.”

“And you don’t think it was?” Carter said.

“Again there was no note. According to family and friends, she wasn’t depressed in any way. She had an incredibly loving relationship with her husband and she doted on her kids. She was a young woman with everything to live for. Why would she kill herself?”

Carter shrugged. “None of us see what goes on behind closed doors. Maybe the assessment of her family and friends was wrong. She may have been deeply troubled and nobody knew.”

“It doesn’t explain how they found her in a deckchair in the middle of the lawn,” Adam Chapman said. “The tap providing water to the hose was twenty yards away. What did she do? Shove the hosepipe down her throat, turn on the tap, calmly walk to the center of the lawn with gallons of water pumping into her and then settle herself down in the deckchair to die?”

“She could have kinked the hose,” Carter said. “Folded it so the water was blocked, turned on the tap and then walked to the deckchair. She sits down, swallows the pipe and then un-kinks it, letting the water through. That would work.”

“I suppose,” Adam said grudgingly. “But you’ve got to admit it’s pretty far-fetched.”

“I agree, it’s not the most obvious way to kill yourself, but it’s effective.”

Norton was watching the exchange, a look of wry amusement playing on his lips.

“What about Sylvia Allyn?” Annie said. “She was nearly decapitated by an electric hedge trimmer, for Christ’s sake. That wasn’t even an apparent suicide.”

“What was it then?” Carter said.

“The verdict was accidental death. They reckon she fell from the ladder while cutting the hedge and the hedge trimmer fell on her.”

“Accidents happen all the time,” Carter said.

“It was no accident, I’m sure.”

“I take it the police investigated. Did they find evidence to suggest that someone else was involved?”

“No, but…”

“I’m sorry. Can we change the subject now?” Holly Ireland said suddenly. They all turned to look at her but she was staring down at the table, avoiding their eyes.

“But Rob needs to hear this, Holly, if he’s going to decide whether to investigate or not,” Annie said gently.

“I told you on the way over that this was how the evening could go,” Norton said.

“And I told you that I’d rather stay on the boat if it was going to pan out this way,” Holly snapped back at him. She turned to Annie. “I’m sorry, Annie, I really appreciate the invite. You’ve been one of the few people in the town to make me feel welcome since I arrived. But I can’t do this.” She got to her feet. “I’m sorry. Goodnight, everyone.”

“Holly! Wait!” Norton said, but Holly was already up the stone staircase. They heard the front door shut.

“Don’t you think you’d better go after her, Henry?” Annie said. “We didn’t mean to upset her.”

Norton shook his head. “Don’t blame yourself, Annie. It wasn’t you. It wasn’t any of you,” he said, encompassing the table. “This subject really bothers her. She has nightmares about it. I don’t suppose I help any. I tend to use her as a sounding board for my own theories. She probably feels she can’t get away from it.”

“Poor girl,” Annie said. “I’ll call her tomorrow to apologize.”

“You’ll do no such thing. Holly needs to grow up a little and join the real world. She should apologize to you…and I’ll make sure she does. Ruining a perfectly good dinner party. Silly girl.”

“Silly girl or not, Henry,” Penny said, “you should still go after her. I wouldn’t want to walk alone along the canal towpath at this time of night.”

For a moment Carter thought the professor might argue the point, but then Norton’s shoulders sagged and he nodded. “I suppose you’re right.” He turned to Carter. “We’ll have to do this another time—when Holly’s not around.”

“I think we’d better be making a move ourselves,” Penny said. “I’ll get your coat, Adam.” 

“But we’ve hardly begun,” Annie said.

Penny looked from her to Carter. “Oh, I think we have,” she said. “I told you this wasn’t such a brilliant idea, Annie. It was wrong of you to involve Rob in this. It’s our business. We’ll handle it ourselves.”

Henry Norton was on his feet, swaying very slightly. Carter hadn’t noticed him drinking excessively, but there was no doubt that alcohol was getting the better of him.

“We’ll walk with you to the canal, Henry,” Penny said, taking his arm. “Thanks for a lovely evening, Annie. And it was good to meet you, Rob.”

“Likewise,” Carter said. 

When Annie came back down from seeing them out Carter had the kettle on and was making coffee. “Want some?” he asked.

“Not for me,” she said. “If I have caffeine now I’ll be bouncing off the walls all night.”

“You don’t mind if I do?”

“No, please. While you’re here, treat the place as your own. I don’t stand on ceremony.”

“Yeah,” he said. “Actually, I’m heading home in the morning.”

“Ah,” she said. “Look, Rob, I’m sorry. I should never have invited you here with all this going on.”

“But that’s just it, Annie. I can’t see that there’s anything going on. Six deaths over the space of eleven years, and three of them suicides. It’s not exactly out of the ordinary.”

“It is for Ravensbridge.”

“You’re telling me that people don’t die in this part of the world?”

“Of course they do…but not in such extraordinary circumstances. Thanks to Holly the conversation ended. I didn’t get a chance to tell you about the other deaths.”

“And with all due respect, Annie, I don’t want to hear about them.” He poured boiling water onto the instant coffee in the mug, added a spoonful of sugar and a splash of milk.

“I see,” Annie said. 

“No. You think you see, but you don’t, and that’s probably my fault. I tend not to talk about my job and I don’t intend to go into details now. What I will say is that the past few years have been hellish. I’ve lost a number of good friends, and almost been killed twice. I’ve been up against some of the most evil forces I’ve ever encountered, and now I find myself totally depleted. I’m knackered, Annie. I needed this break to help me recharge my batteries, and to help me try to forget some of the horrors I’ve seen. I couldn’t get involved in another investigation, even if I wanted to. I’m completely drained, mentally exhausted. There’s nothing left. It’s as if someone’s switched me off. Do you understand?”

“Yes,” she said. “I think I do. I remember the state you were in when you left Kansas. I’m sorry. I didn’t realize. Penny was right. We should never have involved you. I just thought…”

“Don’t apologize, Annie. You weren’t to know. You did what you thought was right. I’m just sorry I can’t help you but, as I said, I’m burnt out. Now if you don’t mind I’ll take my coffee to bed.”

Annie sat back down in her chair and surveyed the aftermath of the dinner party—dirty dishes, empty wine bottles, the half-liquefied, ruined remains of her Pavlova. “Screw it,” she said. “The washing up can wait ’til morning.”

Norton said goodbye to the Chapmans at the top of the slope leading down to the canal. They’d seen no sign of Holly. “Don’t worry,” he said to them as they headed off towards their house. “She’s probably tucked up in bed with a book by now. Goodnight.” He gave a mock salute and walked down the slope to the towpath. 

There was a bitter, easterly wind blowing along the length of the canal, rippling the surface of the water, and making it lap against the hulls of the narrow boats moored along the bank. He loved this part of the world—the complete antithesis of San Francisco where he’d grown up—but he had to admit that sometimes Ravensbridge and Yorkshire in general could be astonishingly bleak. Tonight was one of those times. 

He checked his watch. It was only a little after eleven but the canal bank was empty, devoid of life. The narrow boats moved listlessly on the black water, most of them in darkness, but then most of them were empty. Very few people lived on the canal these days. He remembered, when he’d first come here to visit, the canal had been bustling with life, but in recent years there had been a decline. Several of the boats had For Sale notices pasted to their windows and many of them were quietly decaying, their owners abandoning them for the comfort of bricks and mortar. 

Holly Ireland was made of sterner stuff. For a number of years she had travelled the canals around London, making her home for a while in Little Venice. High mooring fees had finally forced her out of London and she’d made her way north. Now the Rochdale Canal was her home and she was fiercely passionate about canal life, its customs and its rituals. Her boat was testament to that passion. It was brightly decorated in traditional motifs, with panels of brightly colored flowers, rose-bordered landscapes, crudely painted but with a charm all their own. The interior was similarly adorned, but it housed every modern convenience—a TV and DVD player, state of the art stereo and a computer. One end of the boat was given over to her studio, and it was here she designed the pieces of jewelry that the fashion houses and galleries of London were so hungry for.

He’d first met her in New York seven years ago. It was her first time in the States and he’d been invited to the preview of her first exhibition by a mutual friend. He’d clicked with Holly instantly, over champagne cocktails and expensive canapés, and found himself in her bed that same night. It was never going to be a permanent union. She was based in England and he in the States, but on the occasions they got together there was no denying the strong, sexual bond that cemented their friendship. On his regular trips to England he would always stay with her. He fitted easily into her world and embraced it. In his life lovers came and went but Holly Ireland was a constant. He couldn’t confess to loving her, but he felt a deep affection for her, and for the most part it was reciprocated.

It was strange that on this visit frictions had started to develop. Her behavior tonight was by no means typical and he was at a bit of a loss to know what had triggered it. He figured they needed to talk. But not tonight. He’d drunk too much and alcohol always made him aggressive. It could wait until morning.

He could see the lights of Holly’s boat away in the distance, just beyond the stone arch of the bridge that crossed the canal. He shivered as the wind cut through the thick tweed of his overcoat. The boat lights looked inviting and he picked up his pace.

As he approached the bridge he paused. He’d seen something ahead, a shadow slightly darker than the regular shadows thrown by the dim sodium lamps that lined the towpath. He picked his way gingerly through the puddles left on the path by the earlier rain and strained his eyes to see the shadows better. There was something moving under the arch of the bridge in a fluid, sinuous way, like a liquid cat.

Norton glanced behind him. The path was deserted. Damn it! It was all that talk of death at the dinner table. It had unnerved him, made him jumpy. He pressed on.

A yard before he reached the bridge he stopped, watching, listening. There was no sound except water slapping against hulls and the steady drone of the wind. Movement under the bridge had ceased and there were only the regular shadows to be seen. Beyond the bridge Holly’s narrow boat was alive with light and deliciously inviting.

He took one more step forwards and something grabbed him by the neck and lifted him off his feet. As he ascended his face was dragged against the rough-hewn stone of the ancient bridge, and blood started to seep from raw patches where the skin was rubbed away. The pressure on his neck tightened and he flailed his arms, trying to fend off his assailant, but he met no resistance. There was nothing for his arms to make contact with.

Suddenly the pressure on his neck was released and he fell, fifteen feet onto the puddled towpath. For a moment he lay winded, fighting down a rising wave of nausea that threatened to overwhelm him. Shakily he pushed himself onto his elbows and looked about him. Nothing. He twisted around and got to his knees, using his hands to push himself to a half-standing position, but his balance was all wrong, and when the attack came it knocked him off his feet. 

Blows rained down on him but he couldn’t see who was inflicting them or where they were coming from. He was only aware of the pain as his body and head were pummeled mercilessly. 

When he felt the first bite he tried to scream, but the noise that issued from his lips was little more than a gurgle. Blood was filling his mouth and throat, threatening to choke him. Instinctively he curled himself into a fetal ball, but it did nothing to stop the pounding and the biting. He was beyond thought. He just wanted to escape the pain.

When unconsciousness finally claimed him he could only welcome it like an old friend not seen for many years.

Chapter Five

Annie was sitting at the kitchen table, nursing a large mug of coffee. When Carter trotted down the stairs she pulled a handkerchief from her pocket and blew her nose.

“I want to apologize for last night,” Carter said, sitting down opposite her and filling an equally large mug of Italian coffee from the pot that sat in the center of the table. “I was very rude. I should have let you finish your story.”

Annie shrugged. “So are you still going today, or have you reconsidered?”

Carter caught the crack in her voice and peered at her closely. “You’ve been crying.”

“Yes,” she said wearily. “I’ve been crying.”

“Not because of me?”

She shook her head. “No, Rob, not because of you. I’ve just had a phone call from Adam. His sister’s a dispatcher at the local police station. Henry Norton was attacked on his way home last night. He’s in intensive care at Calderdale Royal Infirmary. He’s in a coma, and they only rate his chances of survival at fifty-fifty.”

Carter pulled out a cigarette and lit it, blowing out the smoke in a thin, blue stream. “Was he mugged?”

“He still had his wallet when they found him, so a mugging’s unlikely.”

“What about Holly? Did she make it home okay?”

“No one knows. Constable Ellis went round there to break the news, but there was no sign of her.” She reached out suddenly and grasped Carter’s hand. “Oh, Christ, Rob. What the hell’s going on?”

He patted her hand. “Let’s not jump to any conclusions. Okay, we know Norton was attacked, but Holly… Well she could be anywhere. Could Adam Chapman shed any light? He and Penny were walking with Norton back to the canal. Did they see anything suspicious?”

“He says not. They left Henry at the path leading down to the canal and that’s the last they saw of him.”

“So what do you want to do?”

“Do?”

“The hospital, perhaps? Or maybe you want to see if you can track down Holly? Whatever you decide I’ll come with you.”

“No, Rob, I couldn’t let you. You said you were going home today…and you’re exhausted, remember?”

Carter smiled grimly. “I’ve reconsidered. Perhaps another day or two.”

That brought a smile to Annie Ryder’s lips. “The hospital then. I doubt they’ll let me see him, but at least I can check on his condition for myself. And you never know, Holly may have got wind of what’s happened to him. She might even be there at the hospital.”

“Okay. Get your coat. I’ll drive.”

The drive to the hospital in Halifax took no more than thirty minutes. Finding a space in the rammed car park added even more minutes to the proceedings. When they finally got inside they were stonewalled by a nurse who refused to give them any information about Henry Norton.

“I’m afraid it’s a police matter,” the nurse said. She was in her late thirties with black hair so severely pulled back from her pinched face it looked in danger of coming out at the roots.

“But you must be able to tell us something,” Annie tried again.

The nurse said nothing but her expression remained implacable.

“Hello, Annie.”

Annie Ryder spun round and found herself face to face with a young uniformed police constable. “Doug!” She turned to Carter. “Rob, this is Doug Ellis, our local bobby. Doug, this is Rob Carter, a friend of mine who’s staying with me for a few days.”

The two men shook hands. Doug Ellis had a kindly, open face with a hint of mischief in his eyes. He turned to the nurse who was eyeing him suspiciously. “Is there a problem here?”

“They were asking about Professor Norton. I told them it was police business.”

“And so it is,” Doug Ellis said. “But I can vouch for them. I am, in case you hadn’t noticed, a policeman.”

The nurse’s eyes narrowed furiously. “Yes. You are,” she said in a voice dripping with contempt. “Room 208.” 

“Yes,” Ellis said. “I know.”

The nurse made a sound like a cat growling, and then spun on her heel and stalked off down the corridor. Ellis grinned at her departing back. “So what are you doing here?” he said.

“We came to see Professor Norton,” Carter said.

“Henry was at my house for dinner last night,” Annie explained. “He was on his way home from mine when he was attacked.”

“So you were among the last people to see him.” Ellis looked thoughtful for a moment. “Come on. This way. We’ll take the lift. They’ve sent the big guns in from Bradford to tackle this. They’ll want to speak with you.” As the lift doors slid shut behind them he said, “Strangest case I’ve ever seen.”

“In what way?” Carter said.

“It was me that found him by the canal. I was on patrol last night. He was unconscious on the towpath. At first I thought he was drunk…it wouldn’t be the first time…but when I got closer and saw the state of him… He looked as if he’d been in an RTA, and, at first, I thought that was what had happened to him. I figured he may have been hit by a car and staggered down to the canal bank. His clothes had almost been ripped from his back and he was cut and bruised to hell. It was only when I saw the bite marks that I began to question my earlier assessment.”

“Bite marks?” Carter said.

Ellis nodded. “Covered in them. His arms, legs, torso. It looked as if he’d been savaged by a pack of wild animals.”

“What kind of bite marks?”

“Nothing like I’ve ever seen before. They certainly weren’t dogs. I used to breed Staffordshire bull terriers, so I know. Been bitten a few times myself, and dog bites have a very distinctive pattern. The canines leave pretty deep wounds. But these bites weren’t like that. They were even, as if all the teeth were more or less the same length. They were what I imagine a human bite would look like…if our mouths were about three times the size they are, with three times as many teeth. Weird-looking things. And the other thing was that there were no tracks.”

“Tracks?” Carter said.

“Around the professor. There were his footprints, of course, but no one else’s, and certainly no animal tracks. The ground was wet from the rain earlier last night, so someone or something would have left marks, but it was as if he was totally alone on the towpath when the attack happened, and that’s just not possible. As I say, weird.”

The lift arrived at the second floor and they stepped out as the doors slid open onto a long, cream-painted corridor.

“All the private rooms are up here. Norton’s in the one at the end.”

As they looked along, the door to Norton’s room opened and a young Indian doctor in a white coat stepped out, followed by two men, both dressed in overcoats.

“That’s them,” Ellis said. “West Yorkshire Constabulary’s finest. Detective Inspector Ian Lacey and Detective Sergeant Matthew Sparks. Together they make quite a team. One hell of a clean-up rate between them.”

As the three of them approached, Lacey turned and stared at them. “Who’ve you got there, Ellis? I told you to keep people away. It’s not a bloody floor show.”

“Witnesses, sir,” Ellis said.

A frown crossed Lacey’s brow, but he beckoned them forwards with a quick motion of his hand. He was a big man in his late forties, scruffily dressed, with prematurely gray hair and a complexion that made him look the outdoor type—wind-hewn and rugged. Sparks on the other hand looked like he rarely ventured out of the office. His skin was pale, almost white, and his fair hair was precision cut and very neat. The suit he wore carried a designer label and his black shoes were polished to a mirror finish.

As she approached, Annie held out her hand. “Annie Ryder,” she said. “I teach at Claremont.”

“And you say you saw the attack on Professor Norton last night?” Lacey said.

“No.”

Lacey glared at Ellis. “You said they were witnesses,” he said.

“Professor Norton was on his way home from Ms. Ryder’s house when he was attacked, sir,” Ellis said quickly, feeling Lacey’s laser-gaze boring into him.

“I knew that,” Lacey snapped. “I spoke to Mr. and Mrs. Chapman earlier. They told me the self-same thing. And as I understand it…” he said, turning his attention to Annie, “…it was them and not you who were the last people to see him before the attack.”

“Yes, that’s right,” Annie said.

“Then why are you here? And why did you tell the constable you were witnesses?”

“We didn’t,” Annie said, suddenly flustered by the inspector’s accusatory tone.

Carter watched the exchange with a wry smile playing on his lips. He’d come across policemen like Lacey before, who used brimstone and bluster to disguise the fact that there was a razor-sharp mind working underneath the façade. It was there in his eyes. They were watcher’s eyes, picking up the slightest changes in Annie’s demeanor and body language and analyzing them in a blink.

“Is something amusing you, sir?” Sparks said to Carter. His voice was smooth and devoid of accent. A university voice—classless and anodyne.

Carter shrugged away the question. “No,” he said. “Nothing at all.”

“And who might you be, sir?” Lacey said, taking an interest in Carter for the first time.

“This is Robert Carter, a friend of mine,” Annie said. “He was at the dinner last night as well.”

“Why are you here?” Lacey said.

“I gave Annie a lift.”

“How well do you know Professor Norton?”

“Barely. Met him for the first time last night.”

“And did you hit it off?”

“No. Not really,” Carter said.

“And why was that?” Sparks said.

Carter assumed that Penny and Adam Chapman had given the policemen chapter and verse on the events of the previous evening, including the initial antipathy between Norton and himself, so there was no sense in pretending otherwise. “I thought he was an arrogant bore,” he said.

“And is he?” Lacey said to Annie.

“Henry has his moments,” Annie said. “Usually he’s delightful company, but last night…” Her voice trailed off.

“Perhaps he was put out that there was another man on the scene. Someone to divert your attention away from him.”

“I don’t think I like what you’re insinuating, Inspector,” Annie said. “Henry and I are friends. Nothing more, nothing less. Besides, he’s in a relationship.”

“Ah, yes, with Ms. Holly Ireland. Of whom neither hide nor hair has been seen since last night. A coincidence, Sergeant?”

“I don’t believe in coincidences, sir,” Sparks said.

Lacey rubbed his chin. “Hmm. Neither do I.”

“I’d like to see him,” Annie said.

“I’m afraid that won’t be possible,” Lacey said. 

“Actually, that might be a good idea.” The young doctor had been standing in the background during the entire conversation. Now he stepped forwards.

“And why would that be, Dr. Jhadav?”

“The professor is in a comatose state. Perhaps a familiar voice, a voice of a friend, may help bring him out of it.”

“Do you want him out of it?” Lacey said. “From what I’ve seen of him, he’s pretty banged up and when he regains consciousness he’s going to be in a world of pain. Might it not be in his best interests to leave him as he is for the time being?”

“Inspector, I agree, he’s not going to be comfortable but I’d prefer him to be conscious. We have drugs to combat any pain he’s in and it will be much easier to assess any brain damage he may have suffered. We need to see if there is a case for neurosurgery.”

“Well, you’re the expert,” Lacey said.

Jhadav smiled, white teeth gleaming in his handsome Indian face. “Yes,” he said. “I am.” He opened the door to room 208. “This way,” he said to Carter and Annie Ryder.

Chapter Six

Room 208 reeked of antiseptic and Carter gagged as he stepped through the door. He’d awoken to find himself in a room very much like this one several months ago, and the memories were still lodged in the back of his mind. The antiseptic smell brought them rushing to the forefront and he found himself hanging back in the doorway, ready to flee if they started to overwhelm him.

Norton was lying in the bed. Wires hung from pads stuck to his chest and trailed back to a vital signs machine standing at his bedside. An intravenous drip was suspended from a stand next to it and fed a clear solution through a tube into a vein in his arm via a cannula.

Annie gasped when she saw him and tears sprung to her eyes. “Oh my God!” she said softly. “I wasn’t expecting anything like this.”

Carter took her hand and squeezed it reassuringly. “He’s in the best place, Annie,” he said, but even he was shocked by the severity of Norton’s injuries. There wasn’t a square inch of skin on his face that wasn’t cut, grazed or bruised. Thankfully they couldn’t see the rest of Norton’s body, but Ellis’s description of the state the professor was in when he found him painted its own vivid image in their minds.

Lacey and Sparks followed them into the room and shuffled around the wall so they had a clear vantage point. Dr. Jhadav crossed to the vital signs machine and checked the monitor. When he turned away from it he appeared satisfied. “Perhaps you would like to talk to him, to let him know you’re here,” he said to Annie.

Annie nodded. “Yes, yes, of course.”

Carter pulled a green tubular steel chair across to the bedside and gestured for her to sit. She was hesitant. 

“Give it your best shot, Annie,” Carter said.

“But I hardly knew him. It should be Holly speaking to him, not me.”

“Try anyway.”

Annie settled at the bedside but seemed uncertain what to do or say.

Jhadav smiled at her. “You can hold his hand if you like. It’s one of the few parts of him that isn’t bruised or broken.”

Annie took Norton’s hand in hers and squeezed it very gently, scared it might crumble to dust if she gripped too hard. “Henry,” she croaked. Her mouth and throat were impossibly dry. There was a water jug on the stand at the side of the bed. She poured herself a glass and sipped it before trying again. “Henry, it’s me, Annie.”

Jhadav made a carry on motion with his hand when she fell silent again.

“Henry, can you hear me?”

Norton lay motionless. The only movement was the steady rise and fall of his chest, helped by a ventilator that was pumping air into his lungs by a tube inserted into a hole in his throat.

“Henry?” she tried again. “Oh, this is useless. He can’t hear me.”

“Here, let me try,” Carter said.

He helped Annie from the chair and handed her a tissue to dry her eyes. He took her place and picked up Norton’s limp, clammy hand and nestled it in both of his.

He started to speak. A soft, toneless monologue. After a few moments he closed his eyes. His words continued in a steady flow but he was no longer aware of them, even if they made any sense or not. They were coming from one part of his brain, but another part was communing with the figure on the bed, communicating with him on a much deeper level.

Images started to flow into his mind, sketchy and unclear at first but gradually becoming clearer, more vivid. Overriding the images was something else. An emotion so deeply felt it was almost screaming at him. Terror. Sheer, bloody terror.

Carter tried to calm the emotion, sending wave after wave of reassurance into Norton’s mind, and gradually the scream quieted to a whisper.

The scene changed suddenly. From the deserted towpath Carter found himself transported to a black steel door set into a vast, white brick wall. Gradually the door swung inwards and Carter stepped inside. 

Inside the doorway hung a heavy brocade curtain, vibrant reds and golds embroidered in images so hideous Carter averted his eyes. He pushed the curtain to one side and stepped through only to be confronted by a short, white-brick corridor and another curtain, this one even more grotesquely embroidered than the last. Impatiently he moved forwards, sweeping the curtain aside.

Another short corridor, another curtain.

He encountered three more before he finally found himself in a large, rectangular chamber, painted a stark white like the wall and the corridors, and lit blindingly by spotlights set into a black ceiling.

In the corner of the room a figure crouched. He was naked, arms thrown over his head. It was Henry Norton. And Norton was crying softly.

Carter approached and crouched down next to him. “Henry,” he said softly, gently. “Remember me? It’s Robert Carter. We met at Annie Ryder’s house last night.”

Norton continued to sob.

Above the sound he was making came another. The soft, swishing sound material makes when it moves in the air. Someone else was making their way through the corridor of curtains.

Carter glanced over his shoulder but the curtain at the doorway to the chamber was unmoving.

He put a hand out and touched Norton’s shoulder. The man winced, shrinking back as if trying to bury himself in the stark, white brickwork.

“Don’t let it get me,” Norton whispered. “Keep it away. Don’t let it get me again!” His voice climbed to a shriek of despair. 

He took his arms away from his head.

Carter stared at a face that was physically unmarked but wracked with an expression of abject fear. 

“There,” Norton said, pointing at the curtain. “There!”

Carter glanced back in time to see the curtain swept aside. He caught his breath.

It was the most beautiful woman he’d ever seen in his life. She was tall and slender, with long, auburn hair that swept over her shoulders. Her eyes glowed, pale blue and intoxicating. She was wearing a long, emerald green silk dress, strapless and low cut. She was barefoot and seemed to glide rather than walk towards them. He watched her, captivated. When she was halfway across the chamber she stopped.

“Why are you here?” she said. The voice seemed to fill his head. “This has nothing to do with you. You will leave now.”

Carter turned back to Norton who was shaking uncontrollably. “What are you doing?” he hissed. “Can’t you see what it is?”

“What is it, Henry? What can you see?”

“Oh, Jesus fucking wept! Look out!”

Carter spun round but it was too late. The woman had closed the space between them and was now no more than a yard away. Her hands had turned into claws and her mouth was opening…and opening. Carter watched in horror as the beauty melted away. Still the mouth opened, until the face was obscured and he found himself staring at nothing more than a gaping maw filled with rows of needle-sharp teeth. The woman threw her head back and with a sound somewhere between a shriek and a growl, lunged at him.

In room 208 Carter tried to wrench his hand away, but the comatose Norton was gripping it tightly. Carter struggled for a second, prizing the man’s fingers away from his own. Finally he was released and he reeled in his thoughts, dragging them away from the chamber and back into the hospital room.

His face was bathed in sweat. As Annie laid a hand on his shoulder he jerked away from her. In his mind’s eye he could still see the creature from the chamber. He got to his feet, sending the chair flying backwards, and headed towards the door, pushing through it, and out into the corridor where he leaned against the wall, doubled over, trying to regain his breath.

Annie was the first to join him, followed closely by Lacey and Sparks.

“Would you mind telling us what that performance was all about?” Lacey said.

“It was as if you were in some kind of trance,” Sparks added. “You kept muttering something about curtains.”

“Leave him alone,” Annie said. “Can’t you see he’s distressed?”

“I’m bloody distressed,” Lacey said hotly. “Why I let you clowns in to see him in the first place God only knows.”

He put his head around the door. “Is the patient all right, Doctor?”

Jhadav was at the monitor again. “There was a massive surge in brain activity, and his blood pressure climbed so high it was nearly off the chart. But he’s okay now. Things are settling back to normal.”

“Is he still in a coma?”

Jhadav leaned over Norton and raised one of his eyelids. And then he nodded. “Yes, he’s still comatose.”

“Well, that was a bloody waste of time,” Lacey said.

Annie had a hand on Carter’s shoulder. “Are you okay, Rob?”

Carter took a long, head-clearing breath. “Let’s get out of here, Annie. There’s nothing we can do to help him. And I need some air.” He still had the stench of the woman’s fetid breath in his nostrils. If he didn’t breathe fresh air soon he was going to vomit.

As they made their way back towards the lift Lacey called after them. “Wait a minute. I haven’t finished with you two yet!”

Annie turned. “14 Samuelson Road, Ravensbridge. If you want to speak with us further that’s where we’ll be.” She punched the lift button and the doors opened instantly. She pushed Carter inside and hit the button for the ground floor. The doors slid shut and the car started to descend. “Just like old times,” she said. “Sometimes I miss Kansas.”

Carter smiled at her. “You know, I think you really do.”

“Well it’s going to be an interesting ride home. I’ll drive. You can tell me what you saw in Henry’s mind.”

“Do you really want to know?”

“You betcha,” she said.

Chapter Seven

“Come on then,” Annie said. “Tell me why you’re still here. What changed your mind?”

“I spent the night tossing and turning, thinking mostly about Susan Grant and her horrible suicide.”

“And what conclusion did you come up with?” She signaled to turn and pulled out of the hospital car park and onto the main road.

“Maybe I was too hasty. I was angry with you for inviting me here on an ulterior motive. We’ve always been straight with each other…even when it hurt.”

She changed gear. “I know. It was stupid of me. I regretted it as soon as you arrived, but by then it was too late. Am I forgiven now?”

“Of course.”

“But if I’d told you I wanted you to investigate some suspicious deaths, would you still have come?”

“I doubt it. I meant what I said about being burnt out. The last few years have been hell, and I do feel I need to rest up and recharge my batteries.”

Annie was silent for a moment, drumming her fingers on the steering wheel. Finally she said, “What I saw in that hospital room was not a man yearning for rest and relaxation. Admit it, Rob, what you do is a intrinsic part of who you are. I recognized that years ago. If you weren’t involved in something weird you’d be climbing the walls.”

He smiled ruefully. “Yes, I suppose you’re right.”

“I know I’m right.” She signaled again and turned onto a smaller road that took them across country, away from the main drag. “So tell me what you saw in Henry Norton’s mind.”

“It wasn’t pleasant.”

“The way you recoiled away from him, I hardly thought it was. So tell me.”

Carter sighed and recounted what he saw—the curtains, the corridors, Norton crouched naked in the corner of the chamber and the woman.

“And you think it was the same woman that attacked him on the towpath.”

“No doubt about it.” He lit a cigarette and opened the window to let the smoke out. “I suspect it was a demon of some kind. I’ve encountered similar before.” He flicked ash into the slipstream. “A lesser demon, I think, but vicious nonetheless.”

“Does it have a name, this demon?”

He shook his head. “Not that I’m aware.”

“Why did it attack Henry?”

“I don’t know, but I suspect it was being directed.”

“Directed?”

“These lesser demons are, on the whole, pretty mindless, and fairly easy to control if you know the right summoning spells.”

“Hired muscle then.”

Carter laughed. “I suppose it was, yes, though I’ve never regarded them quite that way.”

“So you think there was someone else out to get Henry. Someone who summoned a demon to do their dirty work for them.”

“It’s likely. Years ago the department was investigating a case and came across a man, a thoroughly evil bastard called Edward Mangan, who could summon these lesser demons and use them to do his bidding. He was a businessman and he used the demons to eradicate his business rivals. He killed three people like that.”

“How did you stop him?”

“We didn’t. He was over-confident and he lost control of them. The demons ripped him to shreds.”

“Christ! You make it sound so mundane. Just another day at the office.”

“A lot of the time that’s just what it’s like. Once you get your head around the fact that what we see and experience on an everyday level is just a tiny part of what is actually out there, it’s easier to deal with. You’re one of the lucky ones. Your time at the Kansas institute opened your eyes to the possibilities. That’s another reason why I’m still here. I trust your judgment. I know you’re not just the victim of an overactive imagination like so many people.”

“Well, thank you for that. But then I never thought I was.”

Carter ground out the cigarette in the car’s ashtray and lit another.

“You smoke too much,” Annie said.

“It’s been said before. But I’m past caring these days. I’ll die when it’s time for me to die.”

“Oh, very fatalistic.”

“True though. Believe me, I’ve come very close to it over the last few years, but I’m still here, so I have to assume there’s a reason for that.”

A light drizzle was falling from a thunderous-looking sky. Annie switched on the wipers. “It’s funny,” she said. “I never had you pegged as the religious type.”

“Religion’s got nothing to do with it, at least not in the conventional way. But you can’t do what I do without realizing that there are much greater forces at work out there. The universe is like some gigantic machine. We’re just the tiny cogs that keep the machine running. We’re put here for a purpose and it’s up to the individual to discover what that purpose is. I think it’s fortunate that very few people ever do.”

“Fortunate? Why?”

“Because if they knew they would be so weighed down with the responsibility of fulfilling that purpose it would probably drive them insane.”

“And do you know what your purpose is?”

“Good God, no. I just drift through it all, blown about like a reed in the wind.”

“Well, if you don’t know, I don’t hold out much hope for the rest of us.”

They passed an ornate sign on the left-hand side of the road. Welcome to Ravensbridge. 

“Nearly home,” Annie said.

“Take us down to the canal. I want to see if Holly’s turned up.”

“Are you worried about her?”

Carter nodded. “I think she may be in danger, simply through her association with Norton. Whoever orchestrated the attack did so for a reason. We need to find out what that reason is.”

Annie parked in the car park of the Three Tuns pub and led Carter down a steep path to the canal.

“Holly’s boat is about fifty yards along, just the other side of the bridge.” She threaded her arm through Carter’s. “It’s so good to see you again, Rob,” she said.

“Same here,” he said.

A few yards before they reached the bridge, Carter stopped. “This is where it happened. This was where Norton was attacked.”

“Really? How can you tell?”

“I can still feel her. The demon. This is where she struck.”

Annie glanced around nervously. “I can’t feel anything,” she said.

“You won’t. It doesn’t matter. Come on. Just up here, you say?”

“It’s that boat there. The one with all the paintings.” She pointed to a narrow boat twenty yards away. It was nestled between two others, but was set apart from its neighbors by its sheer exuberance. Holly Ireland obviously loved her home. It was there in every brush stroke of every crude painting.

As Carter climbed aboard and tried the door, Annie cupped her eyes with her hands and peered through one of the side windows. 

“No reply,” Carter called. “Anything?”

“No. She’s not here.”

Carter stepped back onto the bank. “Is there anywhere she hangs out? A pub? Club?”

Annie shook her head. “I wouldn’t know. I’ve only ever seen her here.”

“Hey! You two!”

They turned to see Holly Ireland emerge from under the bridge, walking towards them. She was wearing the same clothes as the night before.

Annie ran to greet her. “Holly! Thank God you’re all right.”

“All right? Why shouldn’t I be all right?”

“The police are looking for you.”

The smile slipped from Holly’s lips and confusion clouded her eyes. “Why on earth are the police looking for me?”

“Did you come back here last night?” Carter said. “After you left Annie’s?”

“No. I went straight round to Sarah’s. Sarah Bennett, a friend of mine. Henry was in a combative mood last night and I didn’t fancy spending the night with him. And all that talk of death was starting to freak me out, so after I left I went round to Sarah’s and we sunk a couple of bottles of Soave and crashed out about four, drunk as skunks. Why the questions?”

“Can we go inside?” Annie asked.

“Sure,” Holly said. She hopped aboard the narrow boat and unlocked the door, disappearing inside. Annie and Carter followed.

Inside Holly was at the sink filling the kettle. “I need a cup of tea. I’m parched. Actually, dehydrated would describe it better. And my head… You two?”

“Tea would be good,” Carter said.

“Coffee for me please,” Annie said.

Holly flicked the switch on the kettle, then went across to one of the bunks and sat, tucking her legs underneath her. “Now will you tell me why the police are looking for me?”

Annie sat down next to her and took her hand. “It’s Henry. He was attacked last night on his way home from mine.”

Holly looked at her incredulously. “Henry? Attacked? That’s ridiculous. Who on earth would attack Henry?”

“That’s what the police are trying to find out,” Carter said. “It’s why they want to talk to you.”

“They think I attacked him?”

“No, I didn’t say that. I think they just want to check everyone’s whereabouts.”

Holly looked about her, as if noticing for the first time that Henry wasn’t there.

“Ridiculous,” she said again. “Where’s Henry now?”

“Calderdale Royal Infirmary,” Annie said. “It was quite a vicious attack.”

“But he’s going to be okay, right?”

“It’s too early to tell.”

Holly snatched her hand away. “What are you telling me here? No! No, I don’t believe you.” She pushed off the bunk and went across to the kettle, pulling mugs from a cupboard.

Carter stepped forwards. “I’ll do that. You sit down. You’ve had quite a shock.”

Holly looked at him as if trying to digest what he was saying. She stared down at the mugs. “Yes,” she said at last. “You do it.” And then she started to cry. Annie came across and put her arm around Holly’s shoulders and led her back to the bunk.

Carter finished making the drinks and handed a mug of tea to Holly and passed a coffee to Annie.

“How has Henry seemed recently?” Carter said.

“Sorry?” Holly said.

“His mood. Has he been distracted? Did he seem like something was bothering him?”

Holly managed a smile. “No more than usual. He’s mostly always distracted by his work. And always a little paranoid too. Last weekend he was convinced someone was following him.” She suddenly realized what she was saying. “Oh my God. Perhaps he wasn’t being paranoid. Perhaps he was being followed.” She jumped up from the bunk suddenly and pulled open a cupboard under the worktop. “I laughed when he brought this home last week, but he said he needed it to protect his work.” In the cupboard was a small, but very robust-looking safe. “It was a bugger to get it in here…almost gave himself a hernia, but he seemed much happier when he’d locked everything away.” She sat back down.

“You said he was combative last night. What prompted that?” Carter said.

“Me probably. I’m sorry, Annie, but I really didn’t want to come last night. Henry told me you had Robert coming to stay, and he thought it would be invaluable to have his input. Said it would help his research immensely. I knew we would be revisiting those horrendous deaths again and, quite frankly, I was sick of hearing about them. It’s all Henry’s been banging on about for months.”

“So what was the subject of his research?”

“Oh, that’s an easy one,” Holly said. “Witchcraft in the Calder Valley. Witchcraft is one of his obsessions. One of the first books he wrote was a history of the Salem witch trials. He’s had an interest in it ever since.”

Carter turned to Annie. “Did you know that was what he was working on?”

She shook her head. “I knew he had some theories about the deaths, but Henry always plays his cards very close to his chest. He’s a very secretive man. I rather hoped he’d open up to you last night, but he seemed to resent you being here, which is odd if, as Holly said, he thought you might help him with his research.”

“He was testing you out,” Holly said to Carter. “To see if he could trust you. I told you, he’s quite paranoid.”

“Do you know the combination to the safe?” Carter said. “I’d like to see his research for myself.”

Holly bit her lip pensively. “I do, but I don’t think I should tell you it. Henry would be furious with me.”

“Do you want to know who attacked him?”

“Of course I do.”

“Then let me see his research. It might point the finger at whoever put him in the hospital.”

Holly thought for a moment, and then slowly nodded as she came to a decision. “I’ll make a deal with you. I’ll tell you the combination if you’ll drive me to the hospital to see him.”

Carter smiled. “Deal,” he said.

Chapter Eight

“Thirty-three clockwise,” Holly said and twisted the dial. “And forty-two counter-clockwise. That’s it.” She turned the combination lock again, felt the tumblers click into place and then turned the handle. “Got it.” She pulled open the safe door and peered inside. The safe was half-full—cream folders stuffed with papers, three leather-bound notebooks, a black leather organizer and a laptop computer. 

“There’s an awful lot to go through,” she said.

Carter turned to Annie. “Annie, could you take Holly to the hospital now?”

“What about you?”

“I think I’m going to have my work cut out for me going through that lot. I’ll stay here and make a start. Take my car.”

“No problem,” she said.

Carter crouched down next to Holly, reached inside the safe for the laptop but recoiled as soon as his fingers brushed against the silver plastic casing. It was hot and his fingers tingled as the skin started to redden. Suddenly smoke spiraled up from the stack of files and the entire contents of the safe burst into flames. Carter swore and pushed Holly to one side, away from the flames. He tried to grab the computer but the heat was too intense. He could only watch helplessly as Norton’s research burned.

As smoke billowed out of the safe there was a hissing sound behind him. Holly was on her feet and had grabbed a small fire extinguisher from the wall. She was aiming the spray at the flames but missing most of them. Annie tossed a damp cloth across to Carter. “The laptop,” she said. “Get the laptop.”

After wrapping the cloth around his hand, Carter reached into the safe again, grabbed the computer and pulled it from the inferno. The plastic had softened and buckled slightly. He hoped the damage was only cosmetic.

It seemed to take an age for the extinguisher to take effect. Eventually the flames guttered and died, but all that was left in their wake was a pile of sodden, smoldering ash. The interior of the boat was filled with choking, acrid smoke. Annie and Holly went round opening windows to let it out and to let in some fresh air.

When they could breathe easier Annie said, “So what caused that?”

Carter shrugged. “No idea. But I think it’s clear that one of Henry’s theories has come a little too close to the truth. Someone is trying to silence him and bury—or in this case cremate—the evidence.”

“Is there anything left?” Holly said.

Carter peered into the safe. “Very little.” The fire may not have burned for long, but it burned long enough to almost totally destroy everything. “Holly, do you have a blank CD or a memory stick?”

“I think so. Why?”

“The laptop. I don’t know how much damage has been done, so I might need to back-up some files quickly.”

“Give me a moment.” She went down to the end of the boat and started opening and searching drawers in the metal cabinets positioned under her drawing board. “Found it,” she muttered at last and handed a memory stick to Carter.

Carter set the laptop down on the bunk, lifted the lid and switched it on. After a few moments the screen glowed into life. “It seems to be working okay.”

A few seconds later a window opened in the center of the screen, asking for his password.

“Do you have any idea what Henry’s password is?” Carter asked Holly.

She shrugged. “No idea. Sorry.”

“I told you he was a secretive man,” Annie said.

“I thought that as Holly knows the combination to the safe she might know the password.”

“No,” Holly said. “Henry didn’t tell me the combination. I just happened to be watching him setting it up when he installed the safe and I guess it just stuck. If he’d realized I knew it, he would have changed it.”

“Shame about the password though. Any thoughts, guesses?”

“Sorry.”

Carter switched the computer off and shut the lid. “Not to worry. I know a guy over in Rochdale. He’s done computer work for me before. He may be able to crack it. I’ll give him a call.” He pulled out his mobile phone and started to punch in a number. “Annie, if you can take Holly to the hospital in your car, I’ll drive over to see him.” Carter smiled. “Ollie Tucker is a self-confessed geek. Computers are his life. To him, solving a problem like this is like doing a crossword over breakfast. He loves it.”

He tapped in the last number on his mobile and waited. After a long pause the phone at the other end was picked up. A sleepy voice said, “Hello.”

“Ollie, it’s Rob Carter. How are you fixed to do me a favor?”

“Rob, good to hear from you. I’ve just crawled out of my pit. I was up ’til five this morning.”

“Working?”

“Gaming. What’s the favor?”

“I have a laptop I can’t get into. I don’t know the password.”

“Is it yours?”

“No.”

“Naughty.”

“It belongs to a friend of mine. He’s been hospitalized and the laptop may hold the answer as to who put him there.”

“I see. PC or Mac?”

“PC.”

“Windows or Linux?”

“Windows Vista.”

“Then it’s a piece of piss. I have a program to crack the password. Takes all of five minutes. I’ll send it to you on a disc.”

“I was hoping I could bring the computer over to you.”

“Are you at home?”

“No, I’m in Yorkshire.”

“Okay, bring it over. I’ll have the place cleaned up before you get here.”

“Don’t trouble on my account,” Carter said.

“Oh, I think I should,” Ollie said. “I had friends round last night for the game. Pizza boxes and beer bottles everywhere. The place is a shit hole. Catch you later.” He rang off.

“He’s agreed to help,” Carter said.

“I’ll take Holly to the hospital then,” Annie said. “Once you get into the computer perhaps you’ll call me to tell me what you find.”

“Sure,” Carter said. 

The boat rocked slightly as if someone had climbed aboard. It was followed shortly by a knock at the door.

Holly went to answer it.

When Lacey and Sparks came through the door neither Carter nor Annie were that surprised.

“Has someone been having a bonfire in here?” Lacey said, sniffing the air.

“See for yourself,” Carter said and indicated the ruined contents of the safe.

“Why did you set fire to it?”

“It was an accident,” Holly said quickly.

“Some accident. How did it happen?”

“It was really stupid. I was smoking while I was looking for some papers and must have left the cigarette smoldering on the edge of the safe. Suddenly, whoosh! The whole lot went up.”

Lacey eyed her skeptically. “Careless,” he said. “I take it you’re Holly Ireland.”

She nodded.

“And I also take it these people have told you the news about Professor Norton?”

“We put her in the picture,” Carter said.

“We’d like to ask you some questions, Ms. Ireland.”

“Would you mind if I come along to the station later? I was about to go to the hospital to see Henry.”

“This won’t take long,” Lacey said, pulling up a chair and settling his large frame into it, making it clear he wasn’t going anywhere. He looked from Annie to Carter. “Don’t let us keep you.” 

“I was going to take Holly to the hospital,” Annie said.

“You still can. We’ll only be fifteen minutes or so, if you wouldn’t mind coming back.”

Carter tucked the laptop under his arm. “Yes, well, I have to get off.”

“Is that your computer, Ms. Ireland?” Lacey said, noticing the fire-buckled plastic case.

“No it’s Hen…” She stopped herself, but too late.

Amusement glimmered in Lacey’s eyes. “The laptop, Sergeant,” he said.

Sparks stepped forwards, effectively blocking Carter’s path. “If you wouldn’t mind, sir?” he said, holding out his hand.

“Yes I would,” Carter said and tried to move past the detective.

Lacey sighed. “Don’t be difficult, Mr. Carter. The computer was Professor Norton’s. It might contain important clues that could lead to his attacker, so hand it over, there’s a good chap.”

“I don’t wish to pull rank, Inspector, but if I have to…” He reached into his jacket pocket, produced his Department 18 ID card and passed it to Lacey. Ian Lacey flicked his gaze over the laminated card, looked hard at Carter and then passed the card to Sparks. 

The sergeant read the card carefully. “What is Department 18?”

“Government Spook Squad. And we’re not talking spies here, are we, sir?”

“No, Inspector, we’re not,” Carter said.

Lacey’s eyes narrowed. “Are you here officially?”

“At the moment I’m just looking into things. I’m actually on leave…but I can make it official with one phone call.”

Lacey pursed his lips, nodding slowly. “My chief constable knows your boss. Crozier, isn’t it? They’ve played golf together.”

“Simon Crozier, yes. What has that got to do with anything?”

“Nothing at all, really. It’s just that I could make a phone call too. I’m sure Simon Crozier wouldn’t approve of one of his operatives obstructing police business.”

“I’m not interested in obstructing your investigation, Inspector. The computer’s password protected. I’m taking it to someone I know to get the password cracked. Once I’m in I’ll go through Norton’s files, and anything I think will help your investigation I’ll pass on to you.”

“I’d prefer it if you’d just hand over the computer once you’re finished with it.”

“Fair enough.”

“Sir?” Sparks said. “You’re not letting him take it?”

“It would appear that I am,” Lacey said.

Sparks was glaring at Carter, a mixture of incredulity and anger in his eyes.

“Oh, simmer down, Matt,” Lacey said. “You’ll give yourself an ulcer.”

“But, sir…”

“We’re on the same side, Sergeant. I trust Mr. Carter here to do the right thing.” He turned to Carter. “You will do the right thing, won’t you?”

“Of course. Where can I reach you?”

Lacey dipped into his pocket and pulled out a card. “That’s my direct line. I don’t know if I’ll be here or back in Bradford, so call that and you’ll be patched through.”

Carter turned to Annie. “I’ll ring you.”

“Later, Rob.” She turned to Holly. “I’m going to pick up my car. I’ll be back in twenty minutes, and then I’ll take you to see Henry.”

Holly smiled at her gratefully.

Once they were alone Lacey sat forwards in his seat and rested his hands on his knees. “Perhaps we can start with you telling me about last night,” he said to Holly.

Chapter Nine

Ollie Tucker had never been keen on housework and today was no different. He lived in a small flat situated at the very top of Cavendish House, a run-down block on the outskirts of Rochdale. The block was built in the 1960’s when vertical living had been the architects’ dream. Now the dream was devalued, a graffiti-daubed nightmare that had destroyed local communities and ruined neighborhoods. The lifts smelled of urine and the majority of the windows were filmed with grime and grease. Many of the residents had moved out, leaving their vacated properties vulnerable to squatters. Other doors had been boarded up and secured with iron grilles and padlocks designed to keep the squatters out. 

Ollie Tucker was oblivious to his surroundings. In his flat living space was at a premium. In the lounge there were a few tatty items of furniture, a TV connected to a games console and a 1950’s jukebox jostling for space with ten computers and various pieces of hardware. He cast a cursory glance around the place. He gathered up and binned the empty beer bottles and pizza debris, threw a moth-eaten blanket over his unmade bed and then went back to his computer screen. 

He was still there when Carter rang his doorbell an hour later. Tucker was five feet eight and weighed close to three hundred pounds. His long, thinning, gray hair was scraped back from his stubbled face and held in a straggly ponytail by an elastic band. He covered his bulk with baggy khaki shorts and a very loose-fitting Jethro Tull T-shirt that bore the legend Roots to Branches Tour 1996. The T-shirt was faded and marked with cigarette burns and curry stains. 

“You shouldn’t have dressed up just because I was coming,” Carter said with a smile as Ollie Tucker let him in.

“One has to make an effort,” Tucker said. “Welcome to the penthouse.” He eyed the computer tucked under Carter’s arm. “Is that it?”

“That’s it,” Carter said, handing it to him.

Tucker took it gingerly, noticing the buckled casing and the scorch marks on the plastic. “Barbecued laptop. Nice. What the hell have you done to it?” He sounded affronted, as if the damage to the computer was a personal insult.

“I rescued it from a fire,” Carter said. “But from what I can tell it still works.”

Tucker cleared a space on a cluttered dining table and set it down, opening the lid gently and stroking his finger over the On button. As the computer whirred into life he glanced over his shoulder at Carter. “There’s coffee in the kitchen. Help yourself. I take mine black with three sugars.” He pulled an office chair over from the corner of the room and settled his bulk into it.

Carter went through to the kitchen and began the search for clean mugs. Finding none, he unearthed two from a pile of dirty crockery and rinsed them under scalding hot water. When he returned to the living room he found Tucker tapping keys and bringing up menus on the screen.

“The password was no problem then?”

“I told you. Five minutes,” Tucker said, and then, “Fuck it!” as the screen went black.

“What happened?” Carter said.

Tucker shook his head. “Don’t know. Could be the battery.”

“Can you get it working again?”

“Probably.” He rolled himself across the room on the chair, coming up against a pine chest of drawers. He pulled open the third drawer down and produced a cable attached to a transformer. “This one might do it.”

He rolled back to the table and plugged the cable into the computer. The screen remained black and lifeless. “Well, it’s not the battery.”

“What now?”

Tucker turned around in his chair to stare at him. “Now the magic begins.” He closed the lid and flipped the computer over onto its front. From the clutter on the table he produced a thin-bladed screwdriver and set about taking the laptop apart.

“Will it take long?”

“It’ll take as long as it takes,” Tucker said.

Carter found an empty spot on a scruffy vinyl couch and settled down to wait.

Lacey stepped from Holly’s narrow boat to the canal bank. Sparks followed him seconds later. “Not very helpful,” he said.

“Drop me off at the station and then go and check out her alibi. What was her name, that friend of hers?”

Sparks consulted his notebook. “Sarah Bennett.”

Lacey nodded. “That’s it. Check her out.”

They walked the towpath in silence on their way back to the car. Finally Lacey said, “Come on, Sergeant. Out with it.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about, sir,” Sparks said.

“Bollocks! You’re pissed off with me because I let Carter have the computer.”

“Am I?”

Lacey looked at him sharply. “You know full well you are.”

Sparks stopped walking. “Well, you’ve got to admit, it was a bloody unorthodox thing to do. You don’t know the man from Adam and you let him swan off with what could be a vital piece of evidence. God knows what Superintendent Knox is going to say.”

“I wasn’t planning on telling him. Were you?”

“You’ll have to put it in your report.”

“I’ll have the computer back by the time I come to write it up. Knox doesn’t need to know anything about it.”

They veered off the towpath into the lane where they’d left the car.

“I still don’t understand your reasons for letting Carter take it.”

“Because, Matt, I have a gut feeling about this case. This wasn’t an ordinary assault. At the hospital I asked that Indian doctor…Jhadav…to show me the bites Norton sustained. They were like nothing I’ve ever seen before. And I can’t imagine any animal that could inflict them.”

“So what’s your conclusion?”

They reached the car. Lacey took the keys from his pocket and let them in. As he settled himself in the driver’s seat he said, “My conclusion is that we need help on this one, and I’m willing to let Carter and his Department 18 cronies supply that help.”

Sparks muttered something under his breath as Lacey started the car.

“I didn’t catch that,” Lacey said.

“It doesn’t matter.”

“No, it does matter. I want to know we’re both singing from the same song sheet.”

Sparks sighed. “Have you had dealings with this Department 18 before? I find it odd that I’ve never heard of them.”

“Nature of the beast, Matt. They don’t exactly advertise their presence. And, to answer your question, yes, I’ve dealt with them in the past. Only once, but that was enough to convince me that they know what they’re doing when it comes to cases like this.” He eased away from the curb and headed down to the main road.

“Do you feel like sharing?”

“It was about fifteen years ago,” Lacey said. “I was a sergeant working out of Leeds. My inspector at the time was a man called Charlie Fulford, a good copper, but liked the bottle too much. Charlie had been assigned a case, a triple murder, but was getting nowhere with it. No leads, no witnesses, nothing. Three young men found dead in a house in Beeston. There was nothing to show how they died but all of them had been exsanguinated. Not a teaspoon full of blood between them. The investigation carried on for weeks and Charlie, bless him, was getting more and more disturbed by the case. He started drinking heavier than usual and in the end he came to the conclusion that the only explanation was a supernatural one.”

“What was your take on it?”

“I thought that Charlie had taken one drink too many and the booze had rattled his marbles, but I could understand that. The case had received a fair bit of media attention and he was getting a lot of pressure from the assistant commissioner to wrap it up. In desperation he got in touch with a chap called Harry Bailey who, at that time, was one of Department 18’s chief investigators.”

“And Bailey solved the case for him?”

“No, he didn’t. Well, at least, not directly. Bailey was aware of the killings and they tied in with an investigation the department was running.”

“So what happened?”

“Charlie Fulford had the case taken away from him and was forced into early retirement. From what I can gather Department 18 took it over completely and within a month had brought it to a conclusion.”

“Which was?”

“I’ve no idea. I was effectively as much out of the loop as Charlie.”

Sparks looked at him sharply. “Are you winding me up, sir?”

Lacey smiled. “No. I’m trying to make a point. Department 18, like all the other government departments, MI5, MI6 and so on, have an awful lot of clout. They have influence…enough to whip an investigation out from under the noses of a highly respected police force, and enough to suppress media coverage. The story of the three strange deaths in Beeston never again made it into the press. The whole thing was buried.”

“Yet you’re willing to co-operate with them. Why?”

“Because this isn’t the only case I’d like them to look at. I have copies of open files dating back to the late nineties. Cases that have never been resolved by normal police methods. They’ve niggled away at me for years, and I’ve always thought that they needed specialist attention. The type of attention that Department 18 can provide.

“You see, Charlie pissed off his superiors. By going over their heads and contacting Department 18 himself, he left himself vulnerable. The fact that he was a heavy drinker certainly didn’t help, because it gave them a lever to ease him out. But the moment he contacted Harry Bailey and asked for the department’s help, Charlie’s days were numbered.

“For me, meeting Robert Carter is a godsend. It gives me a way in without upsetting anyone. If I can build up a working relationship with him I may get some of these cases solved without ending up like Charlie Fulford. I like my job, Matt. I don’t want to lose it.”

Carter peered over Tucker’s shoulder. “Any joy?”

“We’re about to find out.” He tightened the last screw on the laptop’s case and switched it on.

The screen was blank for a moment, but then the hard drive began to whir and the screen burst into life. Tucker turned and grinned at him. “It’s all yours, man,” he said and hauled himself out of his seat. 

“Ollie, you’re a genius,” he said, sliding into Tucker’s warm chair.

“I know,” Tucker said. “More coffee?”

Carter shook his head. “Not for me. I’m going once I’ve backed this lot up.” He took Holly’s memory stick, fitted it into the USB slot at the side of the computer and started backing up the files. 

While the files were transferring he opened a directory. The screen was filled with yellow folder icons. He scrolled through them, checking the folder names. He stopped at one called Gillespie and opened it.

There were several documents in the folder, the first giving an account of Sophie Gillespie’s death. The story seemed more horrific when set down in black and white. At the end of the document was a footnote—See Elinor Yardley, 14th October 1608.

He returned to the directory list, found a folder entitled Yardley and clicked it. For a moment nothing happened and then the folder opened and the screen was filled with forty or fifty files. Before he had a chance to open any of them the icons started to vanish, as if an unseen finger was pressing the Delete button and holding it down.

“Ollie! Quick!”

Ollie Tucker lumbered out of the kitchen, took one look at the screen, slammed down the lid of the computer and yanked out the power cable. “What the hell did you do to it?”

“Nothing. I was just checking the files and it started to wipe everything off.”

Tucker shook his head. He pulled the memory stick from the slot. “How much had you downloaded?”

“I don’t know. The transfer had barely started.”

Tucker took the stick across to his main computer, inserted it, clicked the mouse several times and then swore. “It’s fried. Sorry, man. There’s nothing on it. Let me check the laptop again.” He plugged in the cable again, hit the On button and waited, drumming his pudgy fingers on the tabletop. Finally he shook his head. “Hear that?”

“I can’t hear anything,” Carter said.

“Exactly. There’s no sound. The hard drive is fucked. Sorry, Rob. I think we’ve lost it. It’s dead.”

Carter sighed and ran his hands through his hair. “So there’s nothing you can do?”

“If you leave it with me for a couple of days I might be able to retrieve some of the information from the hard drive, but there’s no quick fix, not this time.”

“Do what you can, Ollie.”

“You got it,” Ollie Tucker said.

Chapter Ten

“Sarah Bennett?” Sparks said to the young woman who opened the door to him. She was small and bird-like with shoulder-length, mousey hair pulled back from a nondescript face. She peered at him blearily through a pair of rimless glasses and with her hand swept a few stray tendrils of hair away from her face. 

“I might be,” she said, blinking rapidly as if trying to get him into focus. “I’m not too sure at the moment. Who are you?”

Sparks introduced himself.

“ID?”

Sparks produced his warrant card and let her study it for a few moments.

“You’d better come in,” she said. “Excuse the mess. I wasn’t expecting visitors.”

She had thrown on a toweling robe but Sparks could still see the brightly patterned pajamas beneath it. She flopped down on a shiny, brown leatherette couch and closed her eyes with a sigh. “Sorry,” she said. “Not feeling quite human today. Too much to drink last night.”

“Last night is why I’ve come to see you,” Sparks said, looking about the room. One wall was taken up with a floor-to-ceiling bookcase, with hardbacks and paperbacks crammed into every conceivable space. Where the books didn’t quite reach the edge of the shelves, various ornaments and knick-knacks filled the spaces. 

“Has that old bitch downstairs been complaining about the noise again? Because she complains even when I sneeze loudly.”

Sparks smiled. “No, this has nothing to do with your neighbor. I wanted to ask you a few questions about Holly Ireland.” He sat down in a red, velvet-covered armchair opposite her and took out his notebook. 

“What about Holly?” Sarah said. “What’s happened to her?”

“Don’t be alarmed. Ms. Ireland’s fine. Nothing’s happened to her. When did you last see her?”

“About four o’clock this morning when we went to bed. She’d left before I got up.”

“So you spent the evening with her?”

Sarah shook her head. “No. She didn’t turn up here until gone eleven.”

“Is it usual for her to come calling so late?”

“No, but then Holly’s impetuous. She’d been to a dinner party, got pissed off with the company and left early. She dropped in for a nightcap.”

“Do you remember the exact time she arrived?”

Sarah thought for a moment. “I know it was after eleven because I’d been watching a film on TV. It had just finished and I was making a cup of chamomile tea to take to bed with me. So it was 11:10, 11:15. Around about then.”

“And she was here from then until you went to bed at four? Is that right? She didn’t pop out at any time, to stretch her legs perhaps?”

Sarah smoothed her hair back again. “No, she didn’t. Look, what’s this about? Is Holly in some kind of trouble?”

Sparks sidestepped the question. “What do you know about her relationship with Henry Norton?”

“If I’m in for an interrogation I’m going to need coffee.” She got up from the couch and padded out to the kitchen. “You want one?”

“Black. No sugar. Thanks.”

Sparks stood and wandered across to the bookcase. His eyes scanned the piles of books but his mind was elsewhere. He was thinking back to Holly Ireland’s narrow boat and Ian Lacey’s decision to let Carter take the computer. It was true he had never heard of Department 18 and had no idea how they operated, but it bothered Sparks that his inspector had given ground so easily. In the five years they had been paired up he’d found Lacey to be a bulldog of a man, pugnacious, stubborn, even dogmatic, and yet he’d rolled over when confronted with an official from a little-known government department. The story Lacey had told him in the car about Charlie Fulford went some way to explain his actions, but not far enough to account for Lacey’s sudden personality switch. And what were the files he wanted to run past Carter? Sparks wasn’t aware that they had any unresolved cases on their books.

The only conclusion to draw was that Ian Lacey had his own agenda at work here and that he, Sparks, didn’t know the man half as well as he thought he did. And that bothered him.

Sarah came back with the coffee, gave a mug to Sparks and resumed her perch on the couch.

Sparks went back to his seat and set the mug down on a coffee table littered with pamphlets and flyers, most of it relating to feminist issues.

“How would you describe the relationship between Ms. Ireland and Professor Norton?” he said. 

Sarah thought for a moment. “Convenient,” she said at last.

“Convenient? In what way?”

“It suits them. Sex without commitment.”

“And had Ms. Ireland ever indicated that she wanted more from the relationship than that? That perhaps she wanted more commitment from Professor Norton?”

Sarah Bennett laughed. “Good God, no. Holly likes things just the way they are. As she said once, ‘Henry’s a great fuck, but I wouldn’t want to be washing his socks every week.’ No, Holly’s not into commitment. She rather likes her free spirit status. It’s who she is.” Her eyes clouded for a moment. “Has something happened to Henry?”

“Professor Norton’s in hospital. He was attacked on the canal towpath on his way home last night.”

“And you think Holly…”

“We’re not making any assumptions.”

“Well don’t,” Sarah said. “Holly’s the kindest, gentlest person I know. Violence is not in her nature.”

“I’ll bear it in mind. One last question?”

Sarah shrugged.

“Has Professor Norton made any enemies since he’s been living in Ravensbridge?”

“And how the hell would I know that?”

Sparks swallowed the last of his coffee. “Just a long shot.” He got to his feet. “I won’t take up any more of your time.”

“Look,” she said. “Henry is not the easiest person to get along with. He’s off in his own little world most of the time, but he is very intelligent, and very opinionated. We’ve had some run-ins in the past, but I don’t think anyone takes what he says very seriously, certainly not seriously enough to attack him for it. Is that helpful?”

Sparks smiled at her. “Very,” he said.

He shut the door behind him and walked out onto the street where he’d left the car. He glanced to his left, to the end where the street ended in a brick wall. He walked along to the wall and, standing on tip-toe, peered over it at the torpid water of the canal. Five hundred yards to his right was the bridge where Professor Henry Norton was attacked. He pulled his notebook from his pocket and made a brief sketch, and then went back to his car, started the engine and drove back to the station. 

Carter was stuck in traffic on his way back from Rochdale. The road was solid with cars and lorries, nose to tail, inching along in a frustrating crawl. He used the time to call Annie and give the bad news about the computer. Next he telephoned Ian Lacey.

“So your guy thinks he can retrieve data from the hard drive? You realize we have IT guys in Bradford who can probably do the same thing?”

“I’m sure you have,” Carter said. “But I trust Ollie Tucker. He’s one of the best there is.”

“Did he give any time scale?”

“He just said it wouldn’t be a quick fix. I’ll give him a day or so, then call. Does that suit?”

“Do I have a choice?” Lacey said.

“No. I don’t suppose you do.”

“Okay. Call me when he’s done. We’ll talk again then.”

There was silence on the other end of the line for a few seconds and, at first, Carter thought Lacey had rung off, and then he heard him breathing. “Lacey?” Carter said.

“You know what attacked him, don’t you? And it is a what, not a who.”

It was Carter’s turn to lapse into silence. 

“Carter? Did you hear what I said?”

“I heard you,” Carter said.

“And?”

“I have a pretty good idea what attacked Norton.”

“So I’d be wasting my time looking for a young thug or petty criminal?”

“Yes, Inspector, you would.”

Carter could almost hear Lacey digesting this.

“Thought so,” Lacey said. “Perhaps we should talk soon.”

“Yes, maybe we should.”

Lacey rang off. Carter stared at his dead phone, then slipped it back in his pocket and started the car. When he finally did run into Detective Inspector Ian Lacey again, he suspected it was going to be an interesting conversation.

When he got back to Annie’s he found both Annie and Holly sitting in the kitchen. It was obvious Holly had been crying. Her eyes were red and puffy and there was a pile of soggy tissues on the table in front of her.

“Any news?” he said.

“No change,” Annie said. “I’ve told Holly she’s welcome to stay here for a few days, if you’ve no objections. I don’t think she should be alone at the moment.”

“I agree,” Carter said. “And I really don’t think it’s my place to raise objections. After all, it’s your house, Annie.”

“Yes, I know. I just thought I should run it by you.”

Carter sat down with the two women and reached for the coffee pot. “I spoke to Lacey and put him in the picture regarding the computer. He’s willing to wait.”

“He seems very amenable,” Annie said.

“Yes, he does, doesn’t he? There’s something else going on there. He wants to talk to me, and I don’t think it’s just about Henry.”

“Did he give you any clues what he wants to talk about?”

“Not really, but he seems more open minded than most of the policemen I’ve come into contact with. He could be a useful ally.”

Holly dropped another sodden tissue on the table, stared at it for a few moments, then scooped up the pile and took them across to the bin. “No more tears,” she said decisively. “I’m really not the crying kind. It’s just that this has come as such a shock. It’s really knocked me for six.” She sat down again and poured herself a coffee. “Do you think the police will find who did that to Henry?”

“They will, or I will,” Carter said.

“I thought you didn’t like him,” Holly said.

Carter smiled. “I think we got off on the wrong foot,” he said. “But I wouldn’t say I don’t like him. Besides, I think the attack last night is a small part of something much larger.”

“Meaning?” Annie said.

“Meaning, Annie, I want you to tell me everything you know about the deaths here. All your theories, all your suspicions. I want to hear them.”

Annie got to her feet. “In that case I’ll put the kettle on again. It’s going to be a long evening.”

Chapter Eleven

It was ten thirty before Annie turned in for the night. Holly had bailed out earlier. At about nine o’clock she pleaded a headache and Annie showed her up to her room. Carter suspected it was less to do with an aching head but more to do with the subject matter of the conversation and the fact that, for Holly, it had been a very stressful day. Once Annie returned she continued listing the circumstances of the deaths in the town and why the nature of them aroused suspicion. 

“The Gillespies were the last,” she said. “Sophie and Mark. Horrible, horrible deaths. She was skinned alive and he committed suicide by electrocuting himself with a table lamp. The police found him on the floor of their bedroom, draped in Sophie’s skin. The police believe that he flayed her and then, overcome with remorse, killed himself.” She shuddered.

“I remember it,” Carter said.

“You remember it?”

“Vaguely. It made the national press and the TV news. Quite a sensation, I seem to remember.”

“Oh Christ, we had reporters camped all around town. It blew over eventually, but while it was still high profile it was pretty grisly living here.” She thought for a moment. “But if you read about it or saw it on TV then I’m surprised you didn’t make the connection to me. You knew I lived in Ravensbridge.”

“To be quite honest, Annie, at that particular time I was distracted by something nasty that was happening on a rather remote and hostile Scottish island. I had too much on my mind to take much notice of yet another three-ring media circus. What was the outcome of the inquest?”

“Murder and suicide.”

“And those were the last deaths?”

“Yes…but something else has happened since then.” She paused. “Look, I don’t know if this is related to the deaths…but Penny and I think it is.” She was avoiding his eyes.

“Tell me. Let me be the judge.”

“Laura Sallis. She’s disappeared.”

“Who’s Laura Sallis?”

“She worked with Penny and me at the school. Supply teacher. She moved to Ravensbridge two years ago. Bought a house in Trent Street with her mother, Edith. Edith has a form of Alzheimer’s, early stages, but bad enough to make her fairly dependent on Laura. 

“Anyway, one Monday morning Laura didn’t turn up at school. We didn’t think much about it at first. We knew things at home were difficult for her—Edith can be very demanding. After three days we started to get concerned. Penny got a phone call at the school from one of her neighbors, trying to track Laura down. Penny went round to the house in Trent Street to find Edith living there on her own. The place was a state. Edith had been trying to cook for herself. How she didn’t burn the house down is anybody’s guess. She didn’t know where Laura was and claimed she hadn’t seen her for days.”

“So no explanation about where she’d gone?” Carter said.

“Penny tried, I tried, but we couldn’t get any sense out of Edith. She said that the previous Friday Laura simply packed a bag and walked out of the door without saying goodbye, and she hadn’t seen her since.”

Carter ran a hand through his hair and lit a cigarette. “And that’s it? Perhaps the strain of living with an invalid mother proved too much for her.”

Annie shook her head. “Not Laura. She’s very…capable. Plus, she was devoted to Edith. For her to simply walk out, leaving her to look after herself, is unthinkable.”

“But that would appear to be the case.”

“That’s what the police said.”

“So you reported it to the police.”

“Penny did, and we called in Social Services. We couldn’t leave Edith there to fend for herself.”

Carter took a long pull on his cigarette and stubbed it out. “I’m sorry, Annie, I can’t see a connection with everything else you’ve told me. It’s a sad story, sure, but I can’t see anything sinister there.”

Annie took a breath. “For a couple of weeks before she vanished Laura had been acting oddly.”

“In what way?”

“Leaving early, coming in late, sometimes not coming to work at all.”

“Which again ties in with what you’ve told me about the mother. If she was sick…”

Annie shook her head. “No, there was more to it than that. Laura became secretive, furtive almost. It was as if her whole personality changed. Both Penny and I challenged her about it.”

“And how did she react?”

“Angrily. She told us to keep our noses out of her business.”

“Quite justified, I would have said.”

“No, Rob. You don’t understand. Laura and I were close. We had no secrets from each other.”

“When you say close…” he said and let the question hang.

Annie frowned. “We were close…like sisters. She gave me this.” She reached behind her neck and unclipped the opal pendant, laying it on the table between them. “She wore it all the time. When I admired it she gave it to me.”

Carter stared down at the pendant. “Annie, what are you trying to tell me here?”

“I’m trying to tell you that if there was something troubling her, and if she was planning to leave Ravensbridge, she would have told me. I know she would.” There were tears in Annie’s eyes.

Carter sat back in his seat, not sure where to take the conversation next. Eventually he decided to jump in with both feet. “Were you and Laura lovers?”

Annie bit her lip pensively. “Not lovers, no. I love Laura with all my heart…but no, not lovers.”

“Is it possible then that she met someone and decided to run away with them?”

“It’s possible but unlikely.”

Carter sighed. This part of the conversation was going around in circles. He didn’t think for one moment he was getting the full story from Annie, but was reluctant to delve any further. “Okay. So we’ve got Susan Grant, drowned by her garden hose, Amy Clarke, dead in a house fire, suspected arson, Sylvia Allyn, killed in suspicious circumstances, Helen Brown, suicide, and Mark and Sophie Gillespie, apparent murder and suicide. That’s the six deaths, right? And now we have Laura Sallis, missing. We’ll leave her on the table for the moment and concentrate on the others.”

“Before we do, I was hoping you might try something.”

“Yes?”

“The pendant. As I said, Laura used to wear it all the time. Do you think you could connect to her?”

“Through the pendant, you mean. No, Annie. If you remember our time in Kansas you’ll remember that I was always crap at psychometry.”

“You didn’t do so badly with Henry at the hospital earlier.”

“That wasn’t psychometry, not in its real sense. I built a bridge into Henry Norton’s subconscious through flesh-to-flesh contact. That was all. To try to pick up something from an inanimate object, well…”

“So you won’t even try?”

“How long ago did Laura give you the pendant?”

“About three months ago.”

“And you’ve worn it ever since?”

Annie’s cheeks flushed and she averted her eyes. “Yes.”

“So if the pendant had been carrying Laura’s energy signature, yours would have overwritten it by now. Right?”

Annie nodded reluctantly.

“Okay, so let’s get back to the deaths,” Carter said, anxious to move on. “Apart from the fact the victims were all incomers, there’s nothing else to connect them.”

“No, but Henry seems to think there is. It’s why he’s here in Ravensbridge.”

“And we can’t talk to him, because he’s been taken out of the picture. Did he say why he thought the deaths were connected?”

She raised her eyes to the ceiling. “This is Henry Norton we’re talking about here. He gave us clues, but the trouble with Henry is that he likes to be enigmatic. He’ll give you enough information to get you hooked and then he’ll drop little snippets in every so often just to keep you on the line. But he’ll never give you enough so you can get the full picture.”

Carter sighed. “I know he’s your friend, Annie, but as far as I’m concerned, Henry Norton is nothing more than a bloody pain in the ass.” He drummed his fingers on the table. “Does the name Elinor Yardley mean anything to you?” he said, switching tack.

“No, should it?”

“Probably not. It’s just a name I saw in a footnote on one of Norton’s files. I wondered if he’d mentioned her at all.”

“Not that I can recall. I could ask Penny. She and Adam are a lot closer to Henry than I am. Would you like me to call her? They’re late birds, never in bed before midnight.”

“No, it can wait until morning.”

“Okay,” she said. “Then I’m off to my bed. It’s been a helluva day.” She gave him a peck on the cheek and left him pouring yet another cup of coffee.

“Annie,” he said as she was halfway up the stairs. “If Laura is connected with all this, I’ll find her and bring her back to you.”

Annie Ryder paused on the stairs, but didn’t look back at him. “Thanks, Rob,” she said softly and made her way to bed.

Carter sat looking through the notes he had taken during his conversation with Annie and then took out his mobile phone and punched in a number. The phone at the other end of the line rang a few times before it was picked up.

“Hello. Martin Impey.”

“Hi, Martin. It’s Rob Carter.” 

“Robbo! Good to hear from you,” he said. Martin Impey was head of research at Department 18. He lived in a comfortable, three-bedroomed, semi-detached house in a small Hertfordshire town with his wife Emilie and their two young children, Charlie and Molly.

“Not disturbing anything, am I?”

“Only the football highlights on the TV, and that’s no big deal. Spurs are losing again anyway. What can I do for you? I thought you were on leave.”

“I am. I’m staying with a friend in Yorkshire. Listen, how are you fixed to do a little private research for me?”

“Well,” Martin said. “It’s the usual bun fight in Whitehall, and Crozier seems to be getting more anal by the day, but I should be able to do something for you. What do you need to find out about?”

“I’m in a place called Ravensbridge. It’s a small town in the Calder Valley, West Yorkshire. There have been a series of deaths over the past eleven years. I need everything you can find out about them, police files, inquest results, anything the press ran on them…the usual really.”

“Names, dates?” Martin said.

Carter read from his notes. “The dates are approximate,” he said.

“No problem. The names should be enough to go on. Anything else?”

“Yes. I’ve run into someone up here. I need a full background search. Professor Henry Norton. American. Professor of History.”

“Right. The usual type of dossier?”

“As comprehensive as you can make it.”

“No sweat,” Martin said. “How quickly do you need this?”

“As soon as you can. You can send it all through to my PDA.”

“I’ll need a couple of days. That okay?”

“Best you can do. I appreciate you’ll have to slot it into your schedule. One more thing. This one might test you. See what you dig up on the name Elinor Yardley. I can’t give you much, but she was either born or died on the 14th October, 1608.”

“Ancient history. English?”

“I would think so, and I’m guessing she was from around this area.”

“I’ll see what I can do.”

“Thanks.”

“Oh, and by private I take it you mean beneath the radar?”

“Beneath Crozier’s radar certainly.”

“I figured as much. Enjoy the rest of your leave. It sounds like you’re having fun.”

That’s one way of putting it, Carter thought as he disconnected the phone.

Chapter Twelve

Martin Impey switched off his phone and retrieved the remote control.

“Who was that, hun?” Emilie came into the room, a bundle of bedclothes clutched in her arms.

“Rob Carter.”

The smile dropped from Emilie’s face. “Oh.” She took the bundle through to the kitchen and Martin heard the washing machine kick into life.

“Everything okay?” Martin said when she returned.

“Well, Molly’s got a really bad teething rash and won’t settle for the night, and Charlie’s just chucked up over his new quilt. Hence the washing machine. Apart from that, just another fun-packed evening in the Impey household. What did he want?”

“Who?”

“Rob Carter.”

“Nothing really. He just wants me to check a few things out for him.”

“That bloody department! They don’t believe you should have a life.”

“Don’t get upset, Em. It’s not the department, it’s just Rob. He asked me to do him a favor, that’s all. Unofficially.” He could tell as soon as the word was out of his mouth that he’d said the wrong thing.

“Sometimes, Martin, you beggar belief. Robert Carter rings you up at stupid o’clock tonight night to ask you to do something quite against the terms of your contract with Department 18, and you’re actually considering it. Does he want you to lose your job?” She shook her head. “No, I doubt that possibility has even crossed his mind.”

“Rob’s not like that,” Martin said, but the words were wasted. Emilie wasn’t listening anymore. Strange that they’d never argued before Molly came along, but the birth of their second child had produced a fundamental change in his wife. She looked tired most of the time now, and she no longer laughed as much as she used to. As for her tolerance level…

“You’re going to do it, aren’t you?”

“I’ll be careful. Crozier won’t find out.”

“Well, you’d bloody well better be careful. Or else…”

“Mummy! I’ve been sick again.”

“Oh, bloody hell!” Emilie said and chased back up the stairs.

Martin pressed the button on the remote.

“So with just under a quarter of an hour to go, it’s Spurs, nil, Manchester United, four…”

He hit another button and the screen went blank. It looked like Tottenham Hotspurs, his beloved Spurs, were getting hammered again. “Fantastic,” he muttered under his breath, went across to the computer in the corner of the room and switched it on. He pulled out his office chair from under the desk and picked his notepad filled with scribbled names and dates. “Half an hour,” he promised himself. “No more.” 

When Emilie came downstairs two hours later he was still there sitting in front of the screen.

She set a mug of hot, sweet tea down on the desk and kissed his cheek. “Sorry, hun,” she said. “Hormones.”

Martin squeezed her hand. “Love you.”

“Not too much longer, eh. You’ll be wrecked in the morning.”

“Another ten minutes and I’ll be up. Promise.”

She looked at him skeptically and left the room. He picked up the mug and sipped the hot, sweet liquid. Sometimes he loved his wife more than anything else on earth.

Carter leaned back in his chair and yawned. There was little more he could do tonight. 

He took his mug across to the sink and ran water into it and then switched off the main light. As he walked back across the kitchen to the stairs, the light from the moon was pouring in through the window and catching something on the table, making it glint. The opal in Annie’s pendant was glowing. He scooped up the pendant and held it tightly in his fist, concentrating fiercely.

Nothing.

With a sigh of resignation he tossed the pendant onto the table and went to bed.

Ollie Tucker hauled himself from his chair and went across to pull open the drapes. A watery sun was peering out from behind some low cloud. He’d been up all night trying to fix Carter’s laptop. He opened the French doors and stepped out onto the narrow balcony, breathing in the morning air, trying to revive himself. He was like a dog with a bone when faced with a computer problem, worrying at it, chewing it over in his mind. He was convinced he could fix it, or at least retrieve the data from the hard drive, but so far his efforts had been futile.

He hadn’t gone to bed, but he had taken a few naps in his chair, and now his back was aching. He ran on the spot for a few moments until he was breathless, made a few token stretches, pulling the kinks out of his arms and legs, and then went back inside to switch on the kettle and make himself a pot of tea. Rummaging in the kitchen cupboard, he found an unopened packet of chocolate biscuits. He tore the packaging and took out three biscuits, thought for a moment, considering his bulging waistline, then took out three more. He’d skip breakfast to make up for the sugar intake, but at the moment he needed an injection of instant energy and the sweet digestives covered in thick, dark chocolate would do the job.

He took the tea and biscuits back to his desk and settled down again. There was a light breeze eddying in from the open French doors, chilly but not enough to bother him.

The laptop lay in pieces around him, the hard drive at the forefront connected by a series of cables to an independent power supply and another computer. He dunked two of the biscuits into the hot tea and popped them into his mouth. Reaching over, he tapped a few keys on the ergonomically designed keyboard and waited to see the results on the screen.

SYSTEM FAIL.

SYSTEM FAIL.

“Bugger!” he said and took a mouthful of tea. He was running out of ideas.

At the second mouthful of tea he realized his bladder was uncomfortably full and went to relieve himself. In the cramped bathroom he washed his hands at the sink, cupped some water to bathe his eyes and stared long and hard at his reflection in the mirror.

“Think, Ollie,” he said to himself. “The solution is simple. It’s staring you in the face. Think.” He realized after a moment or two the only thing staring him in the face was his own image. He looked into the bloodshot eyes and grimaced. “Admit it, mate,” he said to the Ollie in the glass. “This one’s defeated you.”

With a long sigh of resignation he padded back to the lounge and to the crippled hard drive. As he sat down it took him a moment to realize that the computer screen was filled with folder icons. 

He studied the icons for a while before deciding he didn’t recognize any of them. They had nothing to do with him. His mind made the leap. If they weren’t his files then they must be…

He stared long and hard at the hard drive, which had miraculously come back to life. “Oh, you little beauty,” he said to the thin metal box sitting on the desk.

Before the hard drive had a chance to die on him again, he highlighted the files and ran a copy program. When he was sure that the drive was backing up properly he picked up the phone and dialed Robert Carter’s number. The call went straight to voice mail.

“Hi, Rob, it’s Ollie. Good news, my friend. I’ve fixed the hard drive and it’s backing up as I speak. Get back to me and let me know when you’re coming to Rochdale and I’ll have everything burned onto disc for you.” 

He hung up the phone and turned his attention to the screen. He’d been wondering on and off throughout the night what it was on the hard drive that was so important to make Robert Carter go to such lengths to retrieve it. He scanned the folder names but nothing screamed out at him. Grant, Brown, Clarke, Gillespie, Yardley. He picked one at random and opened it. Inside was a single file. He clicked on it and a word processing document appeared on the screen. His eyes flicked over it quickly. It seemed to be a report of a house fire in which a young woman, Amy Clarke, was killed. There didn’t seem to be anything remarkable about it. At the bottom of the page was a footnote. See Alice Yardley, 21st May 1606.

He closed the file and ran the cursor across the screen, hovering over the folder called Yardley. His finger was poised to click the mouse button when the doorbell rang. 

“Bugger!” Ollie Tucker said and lumbered across to answer it.

The young woman standing at the door was not one of Ollie Tucker’s typical visitors and he was thrown. She was tall, slender and pretty, with blond curls hanging to her shoulders and with not a trace of geekiness about her. As he opened the door she smiled and for Ollie, it was as if someone had switched on the sun. “C-C-Can I help you?” he said.

“If you’re Oliver Tucker you can,” she said. “May I come in?”

“Why?”

The smile widened. “Because I want to.”

Let her in, you bloody fool, he thought. How often does a beautiful young woman come to your door?

“Yes,” he said. “Yes, of course.”

She floated in past him, leaving him to shut the door behind her. When he entered the lounge behind her he found her standing at his desk, in front of the computer, staring at the screen.

He moved past her and minimized the image.

“Sorry,” she said. “I didn’t mean to pry, but computers fascinate me and I hear you’re a bit of a wizard with them.”

“Oh, I wouldn’t say… No, I would say. Yes, I’m a wizard.”

“That’s useful, because I’m a witch.”

She said it deadpan and Ollie stared at her, hard. When he saw the twinkle in her eyes he figured she was teasing him and he felt himself blush. “So how can I help you? A computer problem you want fixed? That’s why people normally come to see me.”

She perched on the edge of the desk. “Well,” she said. “It involves a computer, and it’s very much a problem. But I don’t think you’ll be able to fix it.”

“I think I’m better placed to judge that, don’t you?” he said, an edge of condescension to his voice.

She shook her curls. “Not this time, Ollie. You see, the problem is you.”

“Me? I don’t understand.”

“Well, let me try to make you see. Do you have a hammer?” 

He screwed up his face, trying to work out where this situation was heading. “Look, who are you? Why are you here?”

“I’m here about this,” she said, pointing to the hard drive sitting on the desk.

“The hard drive? Did Rob Carter send you? No, he couldn’t have done. I only phoned him a few minutes ago.”

“You didn’t answer my question, Ollie.”

He was starting to lose patience. “Yes, I have a hammer. Why?”

“Just fetch it.” There was something in her tone.

He shook his head.

No, that wasn’t right. The tone was fine, sweet and light, but there was something underneath it, something compelling. He went across to his tool drawer and produced a small steel hammer.

“Will this do?”

She cocked her head to one side and considered the hammer clutched in his pudgy fist. “I should think so. Now come here.”

He started to move towards her, but a small voice in his mind was shouting at him. This was wrong…all wrong!

He reached the desk.

She slipped from her perch and stood next to him. “Good,” she said. “Now smash it.”

“What?”

“The hard drive. Smash the hard drive.”

“No!” he said, but even as the word left his lips he raised his arm and brought the hammer crashing down onto the slim metal box.

His eyes widened in horror when he saw what he had done.

“Again,” she said.

He smashed it again, and again, until there was nothing left but a pile of twisted metal and circuit boards.

The young woman was smiling at him. “Good,” she said again. “And now the computer.”

He shook his head. “No, I won’t.”

“Ah, I think you will.”

Before he could even try to stop himself, he demolished his precious computer with a few well-aimed blows of the hammer.

Sweat was pouring from his face and he was panting heavily.

“Poor, Ollie. You look all hot and flustered,” she said. “I think you need some fresh air.”

Ollie Tucker stared at her slack jawed, dropped the hammer at her feet and started to walk towards the French doors.

“Oh, and don’t forget the cable.”

“The cable…yes.”

He went to the cabinet and pulled open the drawer. After a moment’s searching he took out a length of electrical cable, showed it to her for her approval and then carried it out to the balcony. He turned and the young woman was standing in the doorway, smiling again.

She wrinkled her nose at him. “Go on. You know you want to.”

“Yes,” he said, and tied one end of the cable to the metal railings of the balcony. He made a loop with the other end and slipped it over his head, tightening it around his neck.

“Up you go then. It’s such a beautiful day, don’t you think?”

He pulled an aluminum chair across to the railings and climbed up onto it.

“All the way.”

He lifted one foot and placed it on the top bar of the railings. One foot and then the other.

For a moment he was poised, in perfect balance, on the narrow metal bar, like a ballet dancer about to attempt a difficult pirouette.

“Bye, Ollie,” she said and moved back inside.

In a searing moment of clarity Ollie Tucker realized his predicament and made to step down from the railings, but then his foot slipped from beneath him and he started to fall.

His downward progress was halted for a moment as the cable tightened around his neck with a crack. And then his body was falling again, down past other balconies just like his. Twenty-six of them. Finally Ollie Tucker’s overweight body smashed onto the concrete path below. 

His head followed a few seconds later.

Chapter Thirteen

Carter awoke to the sound of the radio alarm. There was a local news report about a suicide outside a block of flats in Rochdale but his mind was too woolly to absorb it. 

He showered and dressed and went downstairs. There was a note from Annie taped to the kitchen table. She had taken Holly to the hospital again to visit Norton. Carter made himself a pot of tea, cut two slices from a fresh loaf in the ceramic bread bin and slipped them into the toaster. His mobile phone vibrated in his pocket. He took it out and checked it. Two texts and one voice message.

He dialed the number for his messaging service and, as he spread butter onto his toast, listened to Ollie Tucker’s excited voice, surprised that Ollie had managed to solve the problem so quickly. He punched Ollie’s number into his mobile, but all he got was a message telling him that the person he was trying to phone was currently unavailable and he could leave a message after the tone. He hung up.

Both texts were from Detective Inspector Lacey asking that he make contact. The second seemed more urgent than the first. Lacey could wait until he’d finished his toast.

The opal pendant was still on the table where he’d dropped it last night. He picked it up again and ran the chain through his fingers. Thinking about Annie’s relationship with Laura Sallis had kept him awake for some time, and he was left wondering if the real reason he was here was to use the department’s resources to track Laura down. It was not a path he wanted to tread. There could be all manner of reasons for the woman’s disappearance, not least being Annie herself. Maybe his old friend had come on too strong and Laura had taken flight, just to be away from her. It was a possibility he had to consider.

As he popped the last piece of toast into his mouth, his mobile phone rang.

“Carter? Where the bloody hell have you been? Switch on the TV.”

Annie kept a small portable television on a shelf in the kitchen. Carter turned it on.

The first image he saw was Ollie’s flat block in Rochdale. A young female reporter was standing in front of it, microphone in her hand, doing a piece to camera. In the background he could see an ambulance and several police cars. He turned up the sound.

“…police are not treating the man’s death as suspicious, but are appealing for witnesses who may have seen the incident this morning.”

The program then cut to two studio-based presenters and an item about a school in Burnley. He switched off the TV.

“What’s happened?” he said into the phone.

“Your computer guru’s dead,” Lacey said flatly.

“How?” Carter said, feeling hollow inside.

“Took his own life apparently, but not before trashing his flat and smashing his computers to bits with a hammer.”

“No,” Carter said. “Not Ollie. He wasn’t the type to kill himself. As for smashing his computers… Well, you didn’t know him, but his computers were his life. They were his friends, his family almost. He’d never do such a thing.”

Lacey snorted derisively. “Well it looks for all the world that’s precisely what he did do. Battered them to bits and then jumped from his balcony with a few yards of electrical cable around his neck. The cable, combined with his weight, took his head clean off. At least, that’s what the doctor who signed the death certificate thinks. We’ll get more from the post mortem.”

Carter said nothing.

“Are you still there?”

“He didn’t kill himself,” Carter said. “I got a message from him this morning telling me he’d pulled the data from the laptop’s hard drive and was backing it up. He was very up, triumphant almost. He was expecting me to call him to say when I was coming over to pick it up. It was not a message from a man who was planning to jump from the top of a tower block.”

“Do you still have the message?”

“I can retrieve it.”

“Are you still at Ms. Ryder’s place?”

“Yes.”

“Then wait there. I’m coming over. Give me an hour.”

The phone went dead. Carter went upstairs to the lounge and flopped down onto the couch. The news of Ollie’s death had taken something out of him. It brought too many memories flooding back. Over the past few years so many people around him had died. Horrible deaths mostly, all relating to events Carter was investigating, and while the rational side of his mind told him he wasn’t responsible, there was a nagging voice giving testimony to the contrary.

He went across to the drinks cabinet, found a bottle of vodka and poured himself a large measure. It burned all the way down his throat but took away most of the nausea that was churning in his stomach.

Once he’d drained the glass he poured himself another and settled back into the cushions, closed his eyes and let himself drift as he waited for Lacey to arrive.

Lacey slipped his mobile phone back into his pocket and stepped out of Cavendish House. After watching the news first thing this morning he’d called an old friend, Bill Mackie, the D.I. with Rochdale C.I.D. He’d figured that Mackie would be involved in this somewhere along the line and he’d been right. Bill Mackie was already at the scene. 

Mackie extended an invitation and Lacey had jumped in his car and headed to Rochdale, picking up his sergeant on the way.

“What did Carter say?” Sparks said as he followed his boss back to the car from the flat.

“He’s shocked. He doesn’t think it was suicide.”

“Looks pretty open and shut to me.”

“Does it?” Lacey said as he unlocked the car and settled in behind the driver’s seat.

“Yes,” Sparks said. “We don’t know what was going through Tucker’s mind, but the way he’d trashed the computers shows he was fairly unstable.”

“Tell me, Matt, using all your skills as a detective, did you notice anything out of place in Tucker’s flat?” Lacey started the car.

“Hard to say. The place is a shit hole. I doubt it’s seen a vacuum cleaner in the last two years.”

“Agreed, but putting that aside, did you notice anything unusual?”

Sparks thought for a moment. “Tucker had very feminine tastes when it came to aftershave.”

“Exactly!” Lacey said. “Only it wasn’t aftershave. It was perfume. I know because my ex used to wear the same scent. Which leads us to believe what exactly?”

“That Tucker has had a woman in his flat sometime in the not-so-distant past.”

“I mentioned it to Bill Mackie. He’d noticed it too. He’s going to chase down the CCTV footage of the block.”

Sparks nodded. “I noticed all of the cameras. What’s all that about?”

“Cavendish House is notorious in the area. It’s a known crack cocaine house and a number of the flats are used by hookers. The local authority installed the cameras to keep an eye on the place, and to deter some of the more obvious criminals. Mackie’s going to check out the footage from the last twenty-four hours. He’ll let me know if he comes across anything he thinks I should know about.”

At the main road Lacey crashed the gears and swore savagely.

“You’re not happy,” Sparks said.

“The silly bugger had to go and top himself. Worse, he had to smash up the bloody computers, which has dropped me right in it with Superintendent Knox. He’s going to want my balls for breakfast once he finds out about it.” 

Sparks shifted in his seat, flipped open the glove compartment and searched through its contents. “Haven’t you got any chocolate? You always have chocolate. I missed breakfast.”

“Bad for my heart,” Lacey said grimly. “I’m trying to get healthy. I’ve got a Medical Board examination coming up in a couple of week’s time, and I don’t want to give the buggers any reason to pension me off.”

Sparks glanced down at Lacey’s waistline bulging over the top of his belt. “I think the horse bolted years ago. It’s a bit late to shut the door now.”

“I have to make the effort though.”

Sparks shut the glove compartment and sat back in his seat. “They might be salvageable, you know.”

“What might?”

“The computers.”

“You saw the damage Tucker did. I know our IT boys are good but they’re not miracle workers. The whole lot’s kaput. I should never have let Carter take Norton’s laptop.”

“I did say…”

“If you’re going to say, ‘I told you so’, I’ll knock your bloody head off… Sorry, bad turn of phrase in the current circumstances. But I mean it. I’m quite capable of beating myself up, thank you.”

Sparks made a zipping motion across his lips.

In the Fish n’ Chicken café across the street from Cavendish House the young woman watched the comings and goings of the police, ambulances and TV crews. She didn’t look like a young woman now. The blond curls were gone, replaced by ginger hair pulled tightly back in a ponytail, and she’d gained thirty pounds, mostly around her middle. She didn’t look out of place in the surroundings of the café where cholesterol seemed to be the main ingredient of the food served there. She sipped at a disgusting excuse for coffee and thought about Ollie Tucker. She hadn’t gone there intending to kill him, simply to destroy Norton’s computer, but once she realized that he’d seen what was on there she’d had no choice.

Tucker’s death wasn’t useful. It wasn’t part of the plan, and she’d certainly gained nothing from it, except his enduring silence. “Oh well,” she said softly, pushing the mild feelings of regret to the back of her mind.

There was a man sitting at the next table. He looked like a trucker. As she spoke he turned and looked at her. “Did you say something?” he said. His arms were covered in tattoos, mostly crude depictions of slutty women in various stages of undress.

“Not to you,” she said, glancing at him briefly.

“Need a ride?”

She turned. “Where are you headed?” 

“Carlisle.”

“I’m going to Ravensbridge.”

“It’s on my way,” he said, the lie coming easily.

She considered his offer for a moment. “Okay then.”

He smiled at her. His teeth were tobacco stained and he had a slight squint in his left eye. “It’s your lucky day,” he said.

She smiled back. “It sure is,” she said. She paid for her coffee and followed the driver out to his truck, a large tanker for hauling flour. She glanced back at Cavendish House. Two men were coming out through the door. One was considerably older than the other and much scruffier. Police, she thought. She stared at the older man. He stared back at her, but without really seeing her. He seemed troubled, a lot on his mind. At the same time she was picking up danger signals from him. She had a feeling she was going to meet him again further down the line and when she did she was going to kill him.

“Are you going to get in?” the trucker said, a note of impatience in his voice.

She shook herself out of her reverie. “Sure,” she said and climbed into the cab of the tanker. She took one more look at the older policeman as he climbed into his car. “I’ll remember you,” she said, almost to herself.

The trucker showed her his brown teeth again and winked. “Sure you will, darling. By the way, the name’s Dave. Dave Scott.”

“Hello, Dave,” she said.

“What’s your name?”

“It’s whatever you want it to be,” she said.

Dave nodded thoughtfully. “Yeah,” he said. “I like that. Okay, I’m going to call you Lisa. Had a dog called Lisa once, Labrador cross—fine little bitch.”

“I’m touched,” she said.

“Yeah,” he said. “Fine little bitch.” 

She watched him start the tanker and within minutes Cavendish House and Ollie Tucker were just memories.

Chapter Fourteen

“I’ll take you back to the station and go on to Ravensbridge to see Carter,” Lacey said.

Sparks looked at him sharply. “Why?”

Lacey shifted gears. “Why what?”

“Why go and see him on your own? I’m as much involved in this investigation as you are.”

“Don’t be difficult, Matt,” Lacey said. “There are half a dozen cases sitting on our desks. We can’t neglect them for the sake of this one. Besides, it will give you a chance to go to the canteen and get some breakfast.”

Sparks stared straight ahead, unconvinced. He suspected Lacey had his own agenda running and he didn’t like being shut out. They were partners and he felt he should be included.

“Don’t go all broody on me, Matt. I have enough on my mind at the moment without worrying about upsetting you.”

“Have you thought about sharing? All this stuff that’s on your mind, you could talk to me about it.”

“I will, Matt, I will. But in my own time. Is that good enough?”

“I suppose it will have to be.”

Lacey sighed. “You’re a good copper, Matt. You’re young, bright, and with the right breaks you could go all the way. I’m older than you. My days with the force are numbered, and I certainly don’t expect any more in the way of promotion. I’m a D.I. and that’s my limit. I’ve ruffled too many feathers along the way to expect any more. Well that’s fine. I can live with that without bitterness. Only myself to blame. But there are things I need to do now, for my own satisfaction. I might well stir up some shit while I’m doing them, and I don’t want any of that shit to stick to you. It wouldn’t be fair.”

Sparks looked at him. “I appreciate it,” he said. “Just make sure you don’t fuck up your pension.”

Lacey smiled. “I’ll try not to let that happen.”

He dropped Sparks at the station and spent a few moments sitting in the car park, sifting through the files he’d shoved hurriedly into a carrier bag before he left the house that morning. If his superiors knew he was planning to reinvestigate some of these cases, they’d bury him. As far as they were concerned the cases were closed, and they would not appreciate him spending time and resources looking into them again. But it was something he’d wanted to do for some time and now he had an opportunity to move the investigations forwards, and he wasn’t about to waste it. He loaded the files back into the carrier bag and set off for Ravensbridge.

It was obvious when he arrived at Annie Ryder’s house that the man had been drinking. Lacey couldn’t blame him. One of Carter’s friends had died in a most horrendous manner, and Lacey was very aware that he hadn’t pulled his punches when informing him of Ollie Tucker’s death.

“Come in,” Carter said and left the door open for him, walking back into the house, fully expecting Lacey to follow.

“Sorry about Tucker,” Lacey said, following him into the lounge.

Carter was at the drinks cabinet pouring a vodka. “Drink?” he said.

“It’s a bit early for me,” Lacey said. “Upsets my ulcer.”

“Fair enough. You don’t mind if I do?”

“So long as you’re not intending to drive anywhere.”

Carter noticed the plastic carrier bag hanging limply from Lacey’s hand. “What’s in the bag?”

“We’ll get to that in a moment.” Lacey dropped onto the couch and crossed his legs. “I was there earlier,” he said.

“Ollie’s place?”

Lacey nodded. “It was a bloody mess.”

Carter smiled, remembering the last time he was there. “It usually is.”

“I was referring to Norton’s laptop. Smashed to pieces. Bits of it everywhere. Tucker’s computer too. They found a hammer. The current thinking is that Tucker was a lonely type, probably a depressive. Obviously something upset him and he took out his frustrations on the computers before wrapping a power cord around his neck, tying it to the rail of the balcony and then jumping.”

Carter was listening, but shaking his head slowly.

“You’re convinced it isn’t suicide, aren’t you?” Lacey said.

“You know damned well I am. I told you that on the phone.”

“Yes, you did. You did. Would you be surprised if I said I agreed with you?”

“Not really, no,” Carter said. “You’re not exactly the average copper, are you, Lacey?”

“I like to think my mind’s more open than most.”

“What do you think really happened to Ollie?”

“I don’t know. But I don’t think he was alone this morning. There was a strong smell of perfume in the flat.”

“Perfume? Ollie?” Carter said. “His flat usually smells of cold pizza and sweat, rank enough to keep any self-respecting woman away. And to my knowledge he’s never had a girlfriend. I’ve always thought of the place as a female-free zone.”

“Yes, that’s what I figured. It hardly looks the typical shag-pad.”

“All Ollie’s women were virtual. Fantasies. I think he used to obsess over the characters in the computer games he played.”

“Well, I think a woman, a real woman, paid him a visit not long before he died. Any ideas?”

Carter’s mind went back to the contact he made with Norton in his hospital room and the beautiful woman in the green silk dress. He shook his head to clear the image. “No,” he said.

Lacey stared at him for a moment and then lifted up the carrier bag and tipped the contents out onto the floor. There were five manila folders. He hastily arranged them on the coffee table.

“What are they?” Carter said.

“Case files,” Lacey said. “Files that have bugged me over the years. Although they’re officially closed, in my mind, they’re still very much open.”

“Why?”

“Because they all have the similar elements to the Ollie Tucker case. Ostensibly straightforward, open and shut cases, but I’ve never been satisfied that they were as simple as they appeared.”

Carter looked at the names on the files. Grant, Gillespie, Brown, Allyn, Clarke—names now familiar to him. “Why are you showing me these?”

Lacey shifted in his seat, crossed and recrossed his legs. “Because I think that all these cases will interest you. I want you to read through them and see what conclusions you draw.”

“You’re asking for my help?”

“You and Department 18,” Lacey said. “Not officially, of course. The last person I knew who asked Department 18 for help lost his job because of it. Will you look at them?”

Carter pulled the Gillespie file from the table, opened it and riffled through the pages. It was all there—the initial police report, details of the investigation, a transcript of the inquest. He closed the file. “Yes,” he said. “I’ll look at them.”

Lacey let out his breath in a sigh of relief. “Thank you,” he said. “When you’ve finished we’ll talk.”

“You want me to go through them now?”

Lacey glanced at his watch. “Well, we’ve already established you’re in no condition to drive anywhere, and I’ve got the rest of the morning.”

Carter shook his head in resignation, opened the file again and started to read.

“This isn’t the way to Ravensbridge,” she said, looking through the side window of the tanker. They had entered a wood and the moorland had been replaced by trees.

“It is,” Dave Scott said. “Shortcut.” He licked the sweat from his top lip with a yellow-furred tongue and swept a strand of lank, greasy hair away from his face. 

He was very familiar with the track through the wood. He’d lost count of the women he had brought here, but it must have been into double figures by now. He glanced around at the woman in the passenger seat. She was a little older than he liked, a bit on the plump side and she could probably make more of herself, but she wasn’t unattractive. He wondered if she’d give in without a fight. They usually did. He had ways to persuade them if they hesitated.

The eggs and bacon he’d eaten for breakfast sat in his stomach like a pile of stones. He belched and maneuvered the truck through a narrow gap between two trees. It was an entrance to a clearing. There was nobody about, but then he knew that at this time of the morning there rarely was. He stopped the truck, applied the parking brake and switched off the ignition.

“Why have we stopped?”

He smiled at her. “I thought we could have a little fun. Would you like that, Lisa? Yeah, of course you would. I saw the way you were looking at me in the café.” He reached out and stroked her leg with his hairy knuckles.

“You’re making a mistake,” she said.

“I don’t think so.”

“A very big mistake.”

He grabbed her ponytail, pulled her towards him and lunged forwards, his lips crushing hers, his free hand reaching for her breasts. As his fingers closed around the plump flesh, a searing pain lanced through his head and the world went black. He had the sensation of flying through the air. He could feel air rushing against his skin, blowing through his greasy hair, and then his whole body shook as it slammed to the ground.

Winded and sore he opened his eyes. He was out of the tanker’s cab and was lying on the soft, damp earth of the woodland floor. Confused and wincing with pain, he levered himself up onto his elbows and looked about him. The tanker was a hundred yards away. The young woman he called Lisa was standing by the cab, staring at him impassively.

There was a mechanical noise in the air and, as he watched, the truck’s storage silo started to rise from one end, pushed upwards to an angle of forty-five degrees by the hydraulic lift. 

Flour was pouring from an opening at the lower end of the tank and gathering in a soft, white heap on the earth.

“Hey! Stop that!” he shouted. “You’ll cost me my job!”

The young woman said nothing but continued to stare at him.

He couldn’t read the expression in her eyes but he felt she was mocking him. Anger surged through him. Despite the pains that were throbbing through his body he hauled himself to his feet and stood there swaying slightly. “Right, you bitch,” he said and took an unsteady step towards her.

Before he had taken half a dozen steps, a gust of wind hit the pile of flour at the rear of the tanker. It lifted in a thick, white cloud, hanging in the air like a fog. He opened his mouth to shout at her again but the words died on his lips as the flour-cloud launched itself at him.

He cried out, turned and started a limping run towards the cover of the trees. The cloud caught up with him before he had covered half the distance, and he found himself enveloped in a choking mass of the fine, white powder.

He continued to run but now he was blinded and couldn’t gauge where the trees were. Flour filled his nostrils and poured into his mouth. His airways were becoming clogged with the stuff. Choking and spluttering, he ran on and collided with the trunk of a silver birch. His nose smashed and the trunk opened a two-inch gash in his forehead. Blood mingled with the flour to form a thin, pink mud that rolled down his face, covering it like a mask. 

Another step forwards and a tree root snagged his foot, tripping him and sending him sprawling down onto the leaf-strewn earth. He lay there for a moment, fighting for breath. The air about him was clearing. He rolled over onto his back and stared back at the tanker, but the young woman was nowhere to be seen. He hacked a cough and blew air through his nostrils, trying to clear them.

A twig snapped behind him. He spun round and cried out. There was a figure shambling through the trees towards him. He rubbed his eyes, trying to get a clearer view, but the blood and flour mixture smeared and he couldn’t wipe it away. It stung and blurred his vision further.

The figure was almost upon him and he watched it with frightened and disbelieving eyes. At first he’d thought it might be the girl, might be Lisa, but the figure was larger, nearly twice her size, and there were no features to the face, just an oval ball of flour, expressionless, bland.

There was a fallen branch to the side of him. He grabbed it and swung it through the air. The figure stopped, swaying slightly as if deciding whether or not to proceed.

Scott swung the branch again, gathering his courage. “Come on then, you bastard!” he said, nearly choking on the flour in his throat.

He coughed to clear it and in that second of distraction the figure moved forwards once more and was now within striking distance. He hefted the branch in both hands, pulled it back and swung it in an arc, hitting the figure in the side of the head, watching as the head exploded into dust.

He yelled incoherently in triumph and waited for the figure to fall.

But it didn’t fall. The white, headless body stood motionless for a moment and then another cloud of flour accumulated above its shoulders. Within seconds a head had formed once more and the figure advanced upon him.

He took a few rapid shuffles backwards but a tree stopped his retreat, cracking against his spine. He dropped the branch and held his hands out in front of him, a futile gesture to halt the flour-creature’s progress. It stopped within a few feet of him. A gash opened in the lower half of the head, forming a mouth.

“Let’s have some fun,” it said in a powdery voice.

And Dave Scott started to scream.

Chapter Fifteen

In his office in Whitehall Martin Impey scrolled down the computer screen and scribbled a few notes on the A4 pad beside him. He called up a search box and typed in Ravensbridge. He’d tried the same last night and come up with nothing useful, but then he had only been using the Internet. Now he was in the office he could utilize the powerful Department 18 servers to access databases from across the world. Housed within the mainframe computers of various security services and private companies, the databases gave Martin much wider search parameters.

He listened to the whirring of the hard drive and drummed his fingers on the desk as he waited for the results to appear on the screen. A box appeared and gradually began to fill up with text. Some of the text was highlighted in blue—hyperlinks to various external links.

Many of them he’d checked out last night, but there were a few he didn’t recognize.

“Right,” he said to himself. “Let’s get started.”

In a plush, immaculately decorated office on the next floor Simon Crozier’s laptop bleeped at him. He looked up from the file he was reading and saw that a small window had appeared in the corner of the screen. The box contained the word Ravensbridge and the number five. The box belonged to a program he and he alone had on his computer. All the computers at Department 18 were networked. The program on his laptop was a watchdog. It alerted him if certain keywords were used on any other computer in the building. The digit, in this case, 5, told him the terminal belonged to Martin Impey.

Using a mirror program, he called up Martin’s screen onto his own and checked out what his head of research was working on. He watched the searches for five minutes and then went into his own directories and found the file entitled Ravensbridge, opened it and started scrolling down the pages.

The file had been created two years previously. It gave a list of deaths in the Ravensbridge area. He remembered it now, and remembered there appeared to be nothing to interest the department. The deaths seemed to be unrelated and consisted of suicides and accidents. It had been dismissed and consigned to a holding directory. 

He took half an hour to read through the file and then sat back in his chair, tapping a pen against his teeth. As far as he could see there was still nothing of interest there. So why was Martin Impey wasting valuable department time looking into it? He rose from his desk and walked down the corridor to Martin’s office. 

Martin minimized his screen as soon as Crozier entered the room and looked up at his boss, affecting a pleasant, good-morning type of face.

Crozier said nothing but came around the desk, leaned over Martin’s shoulder and hit a key. The page Martin was reading filled the screen.

“Ravensbridge,” Crozier said. “Something I should know about?”

Martin glanced at him nervously. “Just a little private research,” he said.

“Really? And what specifically are you researching? You know my views about employees using department time to their own ends.”

“Well, not private exactly,” Martin said, wondering how on earth Crozier had found out what he was doing so quickly.

“Explain.”

“Carter called me last night. He’s up there at the moment. He wanted me to look into a few things.”

Simon Crozier frowned. Robert Carter knew the rules and knew what he had asked Martin Impey to do was a flagrant disregard of them. But then that was typical of the man—always the maverick, never the team player. If he wasn’t so good at his job Crozier would have sacked him years ago.

“Leave that,” he said, waving a finger at the computer screen. “Come through to my office.”

Martin Impey’s heart sank. He’d overstepped the mark this time. Emilie was going to kill him.

He followed Crozier along the corridor and into the office.

“Shut the door,” Crozier said. “And sit down.”

Martin pulled a chair up to the desk and sat, folding his arms with a nonchalance he certainly didn’t feel.

Crozier went around to the other side of the desk and sat down in his brown leather chair. He typed something into his computer and then swiveled it around on the smoked-glass desktop to let Martin see the screen.

“So, in your search of Ravensbridge, what have you come up with?”

“Very little,” Martin said. He saw Crozier’s eyes narrow slightly and found the need to elaborate. “In fact, nothing. Bugger all.”

“So nothing about the series of deaths in the area?”

Martin uncrossed his arms and leaned forwards in his seat, focusing on the laptop’s screen. “Where did you get this?” he said after a few moments.

“If my memory serves me correctly it was sent anonymously a few years back. I read it through at the time but didn’t see anything to relate the deaths, and certainly no paranormal aspect to them, so I consigned it to the holding directory. Buried it.”

“And now you’re having second thoughts?”

Crozier shook his head slightly. “No, not really. But the fact that Carter has broken off his vacation to contact you and get you to start digging probably means I’ve either missed something, or there have been further developments.”

“So you want me to continue digging?”

Simon Crozier rubbed his chin. “I’ll give you twenty-four hours. See what you unearth. I’ll download this lot to your terminal. It might give you something to get you started.”

“It will certainly help. Thanks,” Martin said, inwardly breathing a huge sigh of relief. He got to his feet. “Anything else?”

“No, that’s all.”

Martin had reached the door when Crozier called him back. “Actually, Martin, I’ve just remembered. There was something else. Anything you find hits my desk first before you send it to Carter. Clear?”

“Crystal,” Martin said and headed back to his office.

Carter dropped the last file onto the coffee table and rubbed his eyes. “I need a coffee,” he said and went down to the kitchen. 

Ian Lacey gathered up the folders and slipped them back into the plastic carrier bag and then went to join Carter in the kitchen. He sat down at the table. “That’s a pretty thing,” he said, lifting up Annie’s opal pendant and examining it.

“It belongs to Annie,” Carter said, glancing round. “Holly Ireland made it…or at least she designed it.”

“Clever girl,” Lacey said. “What do you make of her?”

“Holly? I don’t know really. I hadn’t given it much thought.”

“She’s been living with Norton. You’d think they would have talked about his reasons for being here. When I interviewed her she gave me some background on him—told me he’d written a few books—but very little else. She was a bit vague, to tell you the truth. I got very little out of her.”

“So she didn’t tell you he was studying witchcraft in the area?”

“No, she didn’t…well, not specifically. She did tell me he’d written a book about the Salem witch trials.”

“According to Holly, witchcraft is one of his obsessions. Did she tell you he thought he was being followed?”

“Yes, she did. But she also told me he was paranoid.”

“So you didn’t give it any credence?”

“I’ll be following it up as one line of inquiry, but I don’t think it will lead anywhere.”

Carter poured two cups of coffee, passed one to Lacey and lit a cigarette.

“Can you spare one of those?”

“Sure,” he said, sliding the packet across the kitchen table. “I didn’t realize you smoked.”

“I don’t normally,” Lacey said. “I gave up two years ago, but sometimes, like now, I get the urge.” He tapped out a cigarette from the pack and accepted Carter’s offer of a light. “I think Norton would have had his work cut out for him if witchcraft was the subject of his research. This valley has quite a history of it. There were never any witch hunts or trials, but witchcraft has been part of the valley’s culture and it persists to this day. But the people around here don’t really like to talk about it, certainly not with outsiders. I doubt he would have had any help from the locals.”

“But it sounds as if you know quite a bit about it,” Carter said.

“No, not really, but you can’t live in these parts without picking up the odd local legend, the occasional old wives’ tale.”

“And do you live in these parts?”

Lacey smiled. “I was born and bred in Halifax and I’m still there. But my grandparents lived here in Ravensbridge. I used to spend a lot of time here as a boy. It was a great place to grow up.”

“I can imagine,” Carter said.

“My gran considered herself to be a bit of a witch.”

Carter narrowed his eyes. “Really?”

“Oh yes,” Lacey said. “She took it very seriously. White magic, of course. Healing potions, love charms, that kind of thing. And I suppose, growing up with it, it never struck me as in any way strange. I think she was responsible for opening up my mind. She taught me that there was more to life than what we see on the surface. It’s kind of stuck with me.” He drew on the cigarette and washed down the smoke with a mouthful of coffee. “I’d give anything to see what Norton was working on. Were all his papers in the safe?”

“According to Holly, yes. Along with his laptop.”

“How did the fire start?”

“I’ve no idea,” Carter said. “Holly opened the safe and the whole lot went up. It burned fast. I barely had time to save the laptop.” 

Lacey leaned forwards in his chair. “So you don’t think Ms. Ireland could have set fire to the papers accidentally with her cigarette as she said?”

“I was watching her the whole time. She wasn’t smoking.”

“So why did she say she was?”

“I think you intimidated her.”

“Me?” Lacey said. “Surely not.”

“That, and the fact that if she’d told you what really happened, you wouldn’t have believed her.”

Lacey took another sip of coffee. “So what really happened?”

“She opened the safe and the whole lot just went up in flames.”

Lacey’s eyes narrowed. “Spontaneous combustion?”

“More or less.”

Lacey didn’t look convinced. “But she obviously had access to the safe and the papers. If she didn’t want anyone to read what Norton was working on she could have planned the fire. There are plenty of accelerants around. She could have treated the papers with it and then, when the safe was opened, a single spark, say from a cigarette lighter, could have started the fire. That would explain why it burned so fast. You’re sure she couldn’t have started it?”

Carter thought hard. He could picture Holly crouched down by the safe, spinning the combination this way and that. Once the door was opened it effectively blocked his view of her. She could have set fire to the papers without him seeing, but Lacey’s scenario made no sense to him. “I think you’re on the wrong track,” he said. “I don’t see that she would have had the time to do what you’re suggesting. She got to the boat after us. She’d spent the night away at her friend’s house. And before that she was there with Norton.”

“But we only have her word that she spent the night with her friend.”

“So Sarah Bennett didn’t corroborate the alibi?”

“She did, in as much that Ms. Ireland turned up late. Then, from what I can gather, they got drunk together. There’s nothing to say she didn’t slip out of the house once her friend was asleep, go back to the boat and…”

Carter stopped him. “You’re building a case against her with no hard evidence whatsoever. It’s all supposition. If, as you say, she went back to the boat to set up the fire, why didn’t she destroy the papers then? Why wait until she had witnesses?”

“Smoke and mirrors,” Lacey said. “She knew that once Norton was attacked we’d be investigating. The question of the safe would come up sooner rather than later. If it was empty we would certainly have been asking her some very difficult questions. To stage the fire in front of witnesses lets her off the hook. Very convenient.”

Carter sighed. “I certainly believe that someone out there doesn’t want Norton’s research made public, and I’m certain that the fire was in no way accidental, but I’m not convinced Holly’s the culprit. I think whoever destroyed Norton’s papers also destroyed his laptop and killed Ollie Tucker. Holly Ireland was here this morning and then went to the hospital with Annie to visit Norton. She couldn’t be in two places at once.”

“And you saw her this morning?”

Carter took a lungful of smoke and shook his head.

“Then we can’t dismiss her as a suspect,” Lacey said.

“Fair enough. But I still think you’re wrong.” Carter changed tack. “Does the name Laura Sallis mean anything to you?” he said.

“Should it?”

“Laura Sallis is a friend of Annie’s. She went missing a while ago. Annie seems to think there might be a connection to these cases.”

“Sallis, Sallis. No. It doesn’t ring any bells. Did Ms. Ryder file a missing persons report?”

“I’m not sure, but I believe Penny Chapman called you lot in.”

“Then there’ll be a file. I’ll check it out when I get back to the station. If there’s anything interesting I’ll let you know.”

“I’d appreciate it.” Carter paused and swallowed the last of his coffee. “Do you know anything about an Elinor Yardley? Does that name ring any bells?”

Lacey looked at him sharply. “Now how on earth do you know about Elinor Yardley?”

“I saw it on Norton’s laptop before it died. He’d added her name as a footnote on one of his files.”

“And what was in this file?”

“A report on Sophie Gillespie’s death.”

“Hells bells! Are you telling me that Norton was researching these deaths as well?”

“I can’t swear he was looking into all of them. I didn’t get enough time to check all the folders before the computer crashed. But he had a file on Sophie Gillespie very similar to the one you’ve just shown me.”

“And he’d added Elinor Yardley’s name at the bottom. Some kind of cross-reference, do you think?”

“I imagine so. ‘See Elinor Yardley, 14th October 1608’. So I should think there was a file about her as well.”

Lacey sat back in his seat. “Interesting.” He ground out the cigarette. “Filthy things,” he muttered. He remembered now why he’d given them up. “Elinor Yardley was one of the Yardley sisters. My gran used to tell me stories about them when I was a kid. There were seven of them in all, and they came to Ravensbridge in the early 1600’s.”

“So who were they?”

“They were witches,” Lacey said with a smile. “A whole family of witches.”

Chapter Sixteen

The woods looked like a scene from a Christmas card. The ground was white and the whiteness extended to the branches of the trees, giving a phantasmagorical feeling of freshly fallen snow. All it needed was a robin with a holly twig clamped in its beak, Matthew Sparks thought as he climbed from his car and walked across to where Phil Reilly, the police doctor, was crouched over a body. 

His presence and that of the dead body clashed with the eerily festive landscape, as did the Scene of Crime officers dressed in white coveralls going about their painstaking work—two of them closely examining the cab of a large tanker, its storage silo pointing up at the sky at an angle of forty-five degrees. 

The tanker was another incongruity, an ugly intruder into an otherwise peaceful, rural setting.

Sparks crouched down next to the doctor and looked hard at the flour-dusted body. The area around the body was clear of the all-pervading flour. Sparks glanced around him and realized that Scott was lying in an almost perfect circle of brown earth. “What have you got for me, Phil?” he said, turning his attention back to the corpse.

“Been dead about two hours. Suffocation by the look of it.”

“Suffocation?”

“Look.” Reilly pointed at Dave Scott’s mouth, open wide in a silent scream.

The mouth was filled with densely compacted flour.

“Both nostrils are the same,” Reilly said. “Suffocation, as I say.”

There was a police constable hovering nearby, his blue serge uniform dusted with white. “Any idea who he is?” Sparks said to him.

“David Scott, driver of the tanker,” the constable said. “According to his driver’s license, he was thirty-five and lived in Burnley. 45 Thicket Rise. We’ve been on to his employer, Westmill’s, the flour company. He left their depot in Leeds at six this morning and was on his way up to Carlisle.”

“So what the hell is he doing dead in the middle of a wood?” Sparks said, almost to himself. “Any witnesses to what happened here?”

“One. An old man who was walking his dog. He saw the tanker enter the wood about seven this morning.”

“Did he see anything else?”

“He’s over there, if you want to speak to him.” The constable pointed to an elderly man wearing a green waxed jacket and holding a brown leather leash that secured a boisterous cocker spaniel. 

Sparks wandered across to him. “The constable there tells me you saw the tanker this morning.”

The old man nodded enthusiastically. His hair was white and swept back from a lined, leathery face, and his watery blue eyes glinted excitedly. “That’s right, I did, and not for the first time.”

“You mean you’ve seen the tanker before, here in the wood?”

“Five or six times over the past eighteen months, I should say. Always the same driver.”

Sparks frowned. The track into the wood led nowhere, so it couldn’t be a shortcut. “Do you have any idea why the tanker driver should be coming through the wood?” he said.

“I should think that would be for the sex…most probably,” the old man said.

“Pardon?”

“It’s why he brought them here.”

“Brought who?”

“The women.”

Sparks looked steadily at the old man. “You’re telling me that the tanker driver brought women into the wood to have sex with them?”

“Well, I shouldn’t think they were playing Scrabble. Not the way the cab used to bounce around.”

Sparks suppressed a smile. “And did he have a woman in the cab with him this morning?”

“Of course.”

Sparks took a beat, weighing up whether he could trust the old man’s testimony. He looked reliable enough. “So did you see what happened here?”

The old man shook his head. “Sandy came upon it before I did.”

“Sandy?”

“The dog.” He reached down and ruffled the cocker spaniel’s throat. “Didn’t you, girl?” The dog panted gleefully and nudged his hand with her head when he took it away. “She came back to me with her paws covered in flour. I wondered what on earth had happened to her. She led me back here and I found this.” He made an expansive sweep with his arm. “Damnedest thing I’ve ever seen.”

“You didn’t happen to see where the woman went?” Sparks said.

“Woman?” The old man looked confused.

“The woman he had in the cab with him.”

“Oh, that woman. No. No sign of her.”

“Okay. Thank you. You’ve been very helpful. Perhaps you would come along to the station to give a formal statement.”

The old man nodded enthusiastically. “Of course. Anything I can do.”

“Well, thank you, Mr.…”

“Hodgson. Basil Hodgson.”

“Thank you, Mr. Hodgson. The constable will take your details and tell you when to come in.”

“There was one other thing. It might be important, but that’s for you to decide. I don’t know much about police investigations. Only what I see on the TV…and that’s not real life, is it?”

“And what would that be, Mr. Hodgson, this one other thing?”

“Well, it was Sandy. Normally she’s a curious little devil. Has her nose into everything. But not here. I could see that she hadn’t ventured very near the body and she hung back from the whole area, shaking, she was. She was better when I got her on the lead, but even then I nearly had to drag her to get her to come this far. She kicked up a terrible stink, howling, barking. It was as if she could see something I couldn’t. And whatever it was she could see was scaring the living daylights out of her. I hope that’s useful.”

“I’ll certainly bear it in mind,” Sparks said, then called the constable over to take Basil Hodgson’s details.

Back at his car he called Lacey’s mobile.

“Lacey. What is it, Matt?”

“Another suspicious death. I could handle it myself, but in light of what happened at Cavendish House this morning, I thought you might want to cast your eye over it.”

“Where are you?”

“Draper’s Wood. About a mile in. Follow the track and look out for a tanker. You can’t miss it.”

Lacey closed his phone and slipped it back into his pocket. “I’ve got to go,” he said to Carter.

“You were about to tell me about the Yardley sisters.” 

“It’ll keep. There’s been another death. Matt’s at the scene, waiting for me. Perhaps we could have a drink later. There’s a great pub in town. The Fox and Goose. They have a fantastic choice of real ales. We could meet up there, say eight o’clock, and continue this conversation then.”

“Suits me,” Carter said. 

A key turned in the front door lock.

“I’m back,” Annie called.

“Down here.”

Lacey was on his feet as Annie trotted down the stairs. “Oh, I didn’t realize you had company.”

“Inspector Lacey was just leaving.”

“You don’t have to go on my account,” Annie said.

“Duty calls.” Lacey turned to Carter. “Eight o’clock. I’ll see myself out.”

“Holly not with you?” Carter said as the front door closed.

“She’s staying on for another hour or so. Poor kid. She’s a wreck.”

“No change in Norton then?”

She shook her head. “I’ve got a bad feeling about it, Rob. He looks like a corpse, just lying there.”

“His mind’s retreated into itself,” Carter said. “He’s lucky to be alive. The fact that he is says a lot for his resilience. He just needs time to get over it.”

“I wish I had your confidence. What did Lacey want?”

“He had some files he wanted me to see. It seems that one member of the West Yorkshire Constabulary at least shares your concerns.”

“What do you mean?”

“Let’s just say you’re not the only one to see a connection between the deaths here over the past few years.”

“Well, if he’s made the connection, why the hell isn’t he acting on it?”

“He is,” Carter said. “He came to see me.”

Chapter Seventeen

“What the bloody hell is this?” Lacey said to Sparks as he got out of his car.

“Flour,” Matthew Sparks said, pointing to the tanker.

“Who’s the victim?”

“David Scott, the tanker’s driver. He’s over there with the pathologist.” 

Lacey ran his hand through his hair. Two deaths in four hours. Not a great way to start the week.

Miriam Shepherd, the pathologist, was crouched next to the body. Her iron gray hair was tied back from her lined, but still attractive face with a navy blue ribbon. As Lacey crouched down next to her she said, “Hello, Ian,” but didn’t look round at him. Her attention was focused on lifting Dave Scott’s eyelid and shining a penlight into the very dead eye beneath.

“Any idea of cause of death, Miriam?”

“There are a couple of superficial injuries to the face. I think the nose is broken, and he sustained a nasty gash to the head, but nothing serious…or life threatening. No, he appears to be suffocated by flour. Look.” She shone the penlight into Scott’s open mouth, showing the solid white blockage. “But appearances can be deceptive.”

“Meaning?”

“I’ll know more when I get him back to the lab, but I think he was dead before the bulk of the flour entered his body. I suspect heart failure.”

“So if he didn’t inhale the flour, how did it get there?”

“Your guess is as good as mine at the moment, but it looks like someone filled him up with the stuff. Look there.” She shifted the beam of the penlight to reveal slight indentations in the surface of the flour.

“Are they fingermarks?”

“That’s what they look like.” She raised her arm and made a beckoning motion with her hand. Moments later a technician with a camera arrived. “Get a picture of these,” she said, and then pushed herself to her feet, the joints in her knees cracking like twin gunshots. She leaned forwards to rub them. “I’m getting too old for this. I think I’ll retire. A nice farmhouse, somewhere in southern France, sitting drinking Pastis and watching the grapes in the vineyards ripen. Very appealing.”

Lacey stood upright. “Nonsense,” he said. “You’d be bored out of your skull within a week.”

She smiled ruefully. “Alas, you’re probably right. I’ll let you have my report as soon as possible. I have the Rochdale suicide to deal with first or else Bill Mackie will be chewing my ear off. A woman’s work is never done.” She called another assistant across. “Bag him, but carefully. Try not to dislodge any of the flour.” 

Lacey watched her as she headed back to her car. He’d always had a sneaking admiration for Miriam Shepherd, and despite the fact that she could give him five years, had always found her deceptively attractive. She had the kind of sexuality that crept up unannounced and smacked you over the head like a hammer.

“Well?” Sparks said, bursting into his reverie.

“She’ll know more once she’s performed the post mortem, but at the moment she’s guessing that it wasn’t natural causes.”

Sparks looked around, taking in the abandoned tanker and the flour/snow scene. “There’s nothing very natural about this,” he said.

“I agree,” Lacey said. “Come on. I want to take a look in the tanker’s cab. There might be a clue about what we’re dealing with here.”

“Do you really think we’d be that lucky?”

“You know me, Matt. The eternal optimist.”

Lacey walked across to the tanker, hopped up onto the cab and stuck his head through the open window. There wasn’t much to see. Many truck drivers personalized their cabs with photographs of their families, lucky mascots, some even with religious iconography, with St. Christopher and the Virgin Mary being at the top of the list. In Scott’s cab there was nothing like that. A few CDs, a rolled-up tabloid newspaper and a half-eaten bar of chocolate were the sum total of Dave Scott’s possessions. Lacey scanned the titles of the CDs. The Clash, The Stranglers and Dolly Parton.

“Anything?” Sparks said.

Lacey looked down at him. “Apart from an eclectic taste in music, not a lot.” He sniffed at the air in the cab. It was there. The same, slightly cloying perfume he’d smelled in Ollie Tucker’s flat.

He jumped down from the cab. “Do we know anything about Scott’s movements before coming to the wood?”

“That’s being checked now. We’ve checked with his company, so we know his route was Leeds to Carlisle.”

Sparks was silent for a moment. He took a few steps away from the tanker, staring at it long and hard, and then he slapped his forehead with the heel of his hand. “Idiot!” he said. “A blind, bloody idiot. It was staring me in the face and still I didn’t see it.”

“See what?” Lacey said.

“The tanker. I’ve seen it before. This morning when we were coming out of Cavendish House. It was in the car park of that greasy spoon opposite the block of flats. I’ve only just recognized it. The silo was lying down before, not pointing up at the sky. It just didn’t register.”

“So it was parked outside Ollie Tucker’s place when he died. I’m betting that’s where Scott picked up the woman he was seen with. The cab reeks of her perfume and it’s the same scent I smelt in Tucker’s flat.”

“So it could be the same woman?”

“All the signs point to it,” Lacey said. His phone vibrated in his pocket. He took the call.

“That was Bill Mackie,” he said as he disconnected. “They’ve got the CCTV footage from this morning at Cavendish House.”

“Anything interesting?”

“Well, we should see who was with Ollie Tucker just before he died. I said we’d shoot over there once we’ve finished here.” 

An hour later they were sitting with Inspector Bill Mackie in a small room in the basement of Cavendish House that had been turned into a makeshift security center. The room was cramped with the three of them in it. There was a cheap plywood desk and four wall-mounted CCTV screens, and one chair that Mackie commandeered. The small room smelled of industrial cleaning products.

“What is this place?” Sparks said, wrinkling his nose in disgust.

“According to the janitor, it used to be his storeroom. The local authority installed the cameras and screens after a spate of vandalism and drug dealing. The janitor seemed most put out.”

“Who monitors the screens?” Lacey said.

“A couple of agency workers signed up to a local security firm. They work in shifts.”

“Where are they now?”

“Eric Barber was on this morning. I sent him to get some tea just before you got here. He should be back in a minute and then I’ll let him run through the tapes with you. He’ll be quicker at it than me. He knows how the recorder works.”

The door to the room opened and a small, middle-aged black man with long dreadlocks spilling over the shoulders of his royal blue nylon uniform edged into the room, clutching two polystyrene cups. He handed one to Mackie and put the other down on the desk.

“This is Detective Inspector Lacey,” Mackie said.

Lacey shook the man’s hand and inclined his head towards Sparks. “My sergeant, Matt Sparks. I take it you were on duty here this morning, Mr. Barber.”

Barber nodded his dreadlocks. “That is correct, Inspector. My shift is from four a.m. to four p.m.” Barber had a mellow, cultured voice that seemed completely at odds with his appearance.

“Did you see anything unusual this morning?”

Barber smiled. “You assume that I sit here for twelve hours a day watching the screens. That would lead to insanity, Inspector. No, I check them every twenty minutes or so. The rest of the time I sit where Inspector Mackie is sitting now and read my books. I’m studying for my PhD, so this job is heaven-sent. I get an awful lot of reading time.”

“But you have a taped record of everyone entering or leaving the building.”

“Indeed I do.”

“So,” Lacey said. “Can we see the recording of the time in question?”

“Indeed you can…if Inspector Mackie would be so kind as to vacate my chair.”

Mackie grinned at Lacey and got to his feet. With an economy of movement Barber slid into the chair in his place and started hitting buttons on the recorder.

“Working on the fact that Tucker jumped from the balcony at about six, I asked Mr. Barber here to show me the tapes thirty minutes either side of that time,” Mackie said. “If you would play the tape, Mr. Barber.”

“Certainly.” Barber hit a switch.

One of the screens was filled with an image of the foyer of the building. The digital clock in the bottom right-hand corner of the screen read 5:30.

“If we just fast forward five minutes…” Barber said.

Barber edged the tape on.

At 5:36 the double glass doors opened and a young woman entered the building.

“Pause there,” Lacey said. “Is there any way we can enlarge the image? I’d like to get a good look at her face.”

Barber shook his head. “I’m afraid the system isn’t that sophisticated. You get a better view of her though once she enters the lift.”

The young woman was tall, slim and dressed in denims—jeans, jacket and shirt. Her hair was a cloud of golden curls and they tossed on her shoulders as she walked quickly across to the lift and hit a button. The doors opened and she stepped inside.

Barber flicked another switch and the second screen came to life. The camera captured her features perfectly. The eyes were blue and clear, the expression calm, almost serene. She was very pretty.

“She doesn’t look like a killer,” Sparks said. “But then, who does these days?”

Lacey was watching the screen with rapt attention, memorizing the young woman’s face, tracing every contour, scrutinizing every detail. For a second she stared straight at the camera, and Lacey could feel her eyes burning into his. And then the eyes blinked and the image vanished, to be replaced by static.

“What happened to the picture?” he said.

“A glitch,” Barber said, reached out and pressed another button.

The third screen came to life.

“This is the top floor,” he said. “Watch.”

They watched as the lift doors opened and the young woman stepped out. She looked one way along the corridor and then the other, seemed to focus in on the camera, blinked and the picture vanished under a crackling, fuzzy cloud.

“I’m figuring she’s got some kind of jamming device,” Mackie said. “She must have come prepared.”

Ian Lacey caught Eric Barber’s eye. The corners of Barber’s mouth turned up in a very slight smile and he gave an almost imperceptible shake of his head.

“Is that all there is?” Sparks said.

“Oh no,” Mackie said. “We also have her coming out…which is even more remarkable.”

“Let’s see it,” Lacey said.

Eric Barber again worked his magic with the recorder.

This time the young woman didn’t hesitate. She walked out of Tucker’s flat, glanced at the camera and killed it. In the lift she did the same. As soon as the doors closed they lost the picture.

“Now watch the first screen closely,” Mackie said.

They all focused on the lift doors in the picture from the foyer camera. After a few seconds the doors slid open and a woman stepped out. She was smaller, fatter, with frizzy, ginger hair pulled back in a ponytail.

“What the hell…?” Sparks said.

Ian Lacey stared at the screen. “Where did our blond go? And who’s that?”

Mackie shrugged. “No idea. Mr. Barber here checked the feed from every floor during the lift’s descent. It didn’t stop once on the way down. There was no opportunity for anyone to get in or out. Strange, eh?”

“Strange indeed,” Lacey said. “Can I get a copy of what we’ve just seen?”

“Sure,” Mackie said. “I’ll get it done and couriered over to Bradford.”

“As soon as you like, Bill. Thanks.” 

“You’ll have a copy by this afternoon.”

Lacey turned to Barber. “Thank you for your efforts.”

“You’re very welcome,” Barber said, inclining his head courteously. “Of course, if I was an uneducated heathen, I’d say that what we have just witnessed is nothing short of witchcraft. But I’m an educated man, a man of science.”

“So what does your educated mind make of it?” Lacey said.

“My mind tells me that what I’ve just seen flies against logical and rational thought. At such times the sophisticated veneer with which we cloak ourselves peels away and we are left as frightened children, cowering, whistling in the dark, terrified of the bogeyman.”

“In other words,” Sparks said, “you haven’t got a clue what to make of it.”

Eric Barber smiled again. “No, Sergeant, you’re wrong. I know what I think. I’m just very glad that my role in this particular drama has come to an end. And I wish you luck. I think you’re going to need it.”

Chapter Eighteen

Lacey and Sparks emerged from Cavendish House and headed back to the car.

“You reckon you saw the tanker parked over there this morning,” Lacey said, pointing to the Fish n’ Chicken car park.

“Certain of it.”

They reached the car. Lacey tossed his keys in his hand but didn’t unlock the door. He looked across at the café and made a decision. “Okay, let’s go and see if they can shed some light.” He dropped the car keys back in his pocket and set off across the street. 

Inside were a few people sitting at tables, eating from platefuls of greasy-looking, unappetizing food. They took no notice as the two policemen entered. Behind a high counter a man and a woman were working. The man wearing white overalls, splashed with grease stains, the woman in her forties, with bright orange hair and too much make-up. She was dressed as a waitress, with a bright red tabard over white T-shirt and a fawn skirt that was much too short and tight. The tabard clashed noisily with her dyed hair.

“No Michelin stars here then,” Lacey said quietly, looking around at the grubby décor and the faded color photographs pinned to the walls, depicting the various concoctions on the menu. 

“You’d think the Public Health people might take an interest though,” Sparks said.

“Can I help you?” The man behind the counter wiped his hands on a stained cloth and stood ready to serve.

Lacey produced his warrant card and introduced himself and Sparks.

The man behind the counter glowered at them. He was in his fifties, clinically obese, with small eyes set in a belligerent face. He wore a white paper hat decorated with a cod and a rooster and bearing the legend Fish n’ Chicken. “I told you lot everything I know earlier on this morning. I’ve nothing to add. I didn’t see anything, nor did Jeanie. First I knew about it was when the police car and ambulance arrived.”

“We’re not here about the incident at Cavendish House,” Sparks said. “We want to ask you about one of your patrons.”

The man looked puzzled for a moment, then his expression drifted into incomprehension. “One of your customers,” Lacey said. “A tanker driver. David Scott. Drove a tanker for Westmill’s Flour.”

“Scotty,” Jeanie said. “He’s talking about Scotty, Mick.”

“Yeah, I know.” He leaned forwards on the counter. “What about him?”

“He was here this morning. Do you remember if he left with anyone?”

Mick shrugged. “Couldn’t say. I was working.”

Sparks turned his attention to the waitress, Jeanie. “And you?”

“Can’t say I took much notice. He wasn’t one of my favorite customers. Wandering hands and a lousy tipper. But now you come to mention it, there was a woman. Sitting over there by the window watching the commotion going on at Cavendish. I saw them talking at one point. I think Scotty offered her a lift.”

“And she accepted?”

Jeanie chuckled. “They always do. Though what they see in him God only knows.”

“So he made a habit of picking up women here,” Lacey said.

The belligerence rushed back to Mick’s tiny eyes. “Are you trying to say this is some kind of pick-up joint?”

Jeanie jumped in. “I don’t think he was, Mick. Calm down.” She turned her attention back to Lacey. “Scotty sees himself as a bit of a ladies’ man, though as I said, God knows why. I think he’s an ugly bastard. But yes, he’s picked up others here in the past.”

“The one this morning, can you describe her?”

“Early thirties, I should think. A bit plump. Ginger hair, scraped back in a ponytail. Nothing to look at.”

Lacey and Sparks exchanged glances. Jeanie had just described the woman they’d seen emerging from the Cavendish House lift.

“And you’re sure they left together?” Lacey said.

“Well one minute they were both there talking to each other, and when I came back from my comfort break they’d both gone. So I assumed…”

“Fair enough,” Sparks said. “Did anything about the woman strike you as unusual?”

“In what way?”

“Anything. Anything at all that seemed out of place…different.”

Jeanie thought for a moment, chewing on her bottom lip pensively. When she finally spoke she had a film of lipstick coating her teeth. “She liked her perfume. Smelt like she bathed in it. Classy stuff too. Not the cheap muck you get down the market. So that was odd. I mean, she didn’t look the type to be able to afford expensive perfume.”

“Anything else?”

Jeanie shrugged. “Not that I can bring to mind.”

Lacey smiled. “You’ve been very helpful.” He gave her his card. “If you think of anything else about Scotty or the woman perhaps you’ll give me a call.”

Once they were back out in the fresh air Sparks said, “So how did they perform the switch?”

“Switch?”

“The blond and our ginger mystery woman. It must have happened in the lift on the way down. But how? And why for that matter?”

Lacey climbed in behind the wheel of his car. “There was no switch, Matt.”

“What do you mean? You saw it with your own eyes.”

Lacey turned the key in the ignition. “There was no switch,” he said again. “We’re only looking for one woman.”

“That’s ridiculous.”

“If you say so, Matt. If you say so.”

Lacey eased out into the traffic and pointed the car in the direction of Bradford.

“Does Laura live far from you?” Carter said to Annie.

“Walking distance.”

“Do you fancy a stroll then? We could call in and see Laura’s mother.”

Annie looked at him askance. “Why on earth would you want to do that? I told you about her condition. It’s unlikely we’d get any sense out of her. The carers who call in twice a day to check on her condition gave up trying to hold a conversation with her weeks ago.”

“Well, it would do no harm, would it? Besides I wouldn’t mind looking around the house, to see if I can turn anything up.”

“Do you think that’s likely?”

“Who knows? Besides, there’s little I can do here at the moment. Martin Impey hasn’t been in touch and I’m not meeting Lacey until this evening. I thought it might be a constructive way to kill some time.”

“Let me get my coat,” Annie said.

Laura Sallis’s cottage was in the center of a block of five, flanked by a pub at one end and a parade of shops at the other. There was a small courtyard at the front, cluttered with terracotta pots filled with herbs that had been left to go to seed. Tired window boxes added their weed-strewn chaos to the general neglect that permeated the nineteenth-century building.

“It’s sad,” Annie said as she climbed the three stone steps to the front door. “Laura used to be so proud of this place. She kept everything immaculately. Now look at it.”

She rang the doorbell.

A few moments later the door was opened by a plump woman, mid-fifties, her sensible clothes covered by an equally sensible nylon overall. A smile split her ruddy face. “Can I help you?” she said.

“I’m Annie Ryder, a friend of Laura’s. We’ve come to see Edith.”

The plump woman’s smile became broader. “Oh, that’s nice. Edith gets so few visitors these days. Do come in.” The woman opened the door wide and beckoned them inside. “I’m Joan, Joan Maitland. I look in on Edith every day, just to make sure she’s eating properly, and to see that she has everything she needs.”

“Are you a neighbor?” Annie said.

“I live at number three. I’ve known Edith for years. We used to be good friends once upon a time—before the…” The smile slipped a little as she remembered happier times. “These days though I’m not even sure she knows who I am.” She led them through the house. “Just through here. She’s in the sitting room.” 

They reached the room at the back of the cottage and Joan surprised them by knocking lightly on the door. She pushed it open and said breezily, “Edith, visitors for you.” She turned to them. “Go on in.”

Edith Sallis sat in a high wing-backed chair facing the window where she could look out at life as it passed by on the street. She was white haired and looked impossibly frail. Her hands were folded in her lap but they weren’t still. Her fingers were making small picking movements.

“It’s the pins,” Joan said quietly in Annie’s ear. “She thinks her skirt is covered in pins and she has to find them and pick them all up.”

Annie went across and crouched down by Edith’s chair. “Hello, Edith. It’s Annie, Laura’s friend.”

Edith didn’t acknowledge her. She continued to stare out through the window and her hands continued to pluck the imaginary pins from her skirt.

“She’s gone down badly since Laura left,” Joan said to Carter, sympathy bringing a well of tears to her eyes. “Still, we all do our best for her.”

“I’m sure you do. She’s very lucky to have such good friends.”

Edith became aware of Annie squatting down beside her. She blinked hard and tried focusing on Annie’s face. “You’re not Diana,” she said. “I thought Diana was coming to see me.” The expression in her eyes clouded again and she went back to staring out through the window. 

Annie pushed herself upright and went back to Carter and Joan Maitland.

“Who’s Diana?” she said.

The cheeriness dropped from Joan’s face. “Don’t mention that woman to me,” she said.

“Who is she? I don’t remember Laura ever speaking about anyone called Diana.”

“Well, she wouldn’t. It’s because of that…that woman that Edith finds herself in her current predicament with no one but a few friends and a couple of charity workers to look after her. Diana!” She spat the name out. “I curse the day Laura invited her into her home and her life.”

“Are you saying that this Diana is the reason Laura’s not here now?” Carter said.

“Lured away is more like it,” Joan Maitland said.

“Diana?” Edith said loudly. “Are you still here?”

Joan gave a heavy sigh. “You see, even after all this time that bloody woman’s spells are still working. I always said she was evil, that one. Pure evil.”

“So have you any idea where Laura is now?” Carter said. His interest piqued. Another dimension had been added to this puzzle. Perhaps Annie’s assertion that Laura Sallis’s disappearance was linked to the mystery deaths in Ravensbridge wasn’t so wide of the mark.

Joan Maitland shrugged. “I haven’t seen her since she packed her bags and left.”

“I want Diana,” Edith shouted petulantly.

“Look,” she said. “Come into the other room. We can talk in there without distressing Edith. She may not seem aware of what’s going on around her but I feel that part of her mind still takes everything in. She may not process it like you or I would, but I think she can still get upset by what she hears.”

She led the way through to the room at the front of the house. In all the time Annie had known Laura she had never been in this room, and it took her by surprise.

The furniture in here was much more modern and stylish than in the rest of the house. The walls were adorned with posters advertising rock concerts and art exhibitions, and dotted between them were modern, heavily stylized oil paintings. Mostly nudes. Mostly women locked in passionate embraces. A huge plasma television occupied one corner of the room, in another a futuristic-looking sound system. 

Joan noticed the look on Annie’s face. “Laura’s inner sanctum. She never let anyone in here. She told me once that if she didn’t have this room, this place to be totally herself, the strain of looking after Edith would have overwhelmed her. You seem surprised.”

Annie nodded. “You think you know someone…”

“We all have our private places,” Joan said. “Most of us just keep them in our heads though. Laura needed to give her private side a physical expression. This is it.” 

Annie’s eyes scanned the titles of the CDs on the rack by the stereo. Leftfield, Faithless, Massive Attack. Modern dance and trance. She always pictured Laura going home and curling up to Billy Joel and Barry Manilow. She was beginning to realize that she didn’t know Laura Sallis anywhere near as well as she thought she did. The realization saddened her.

“Are you okay?” Carter said, noticing the change in Annie’s mood.

Annie shook herself out of the sudden melancholy that had swept over her. “Yes. Yes of course.”

Carter turned to Joan. “What else can you tell us about this Diana person?”

Joan Maitland hesitated.

“It’s okay,” Annie said. “You can speak freely. I asked Rob to help me look into Laura’s disappearance.”

“Very well,” Joan said. “I’ll tell you what I know.” 

Chapter Nineteen

“I couldn’t tell where or when they first met. Diana just appeared one day and she and Laura seemed to be very close from the outset. Inseparable, I’d say, and as for Edith… Well, Diana was all she could talk about.”

“And how was Diana with Edith?” Annie said.

Joan Maitland shifted her plump body on the couch, the nylon of her overall squealing on the black leather. “Well that was one of the strangest things. Whenever Diana was here Edith would become quite lucid. They’d be in Edith’s room talking and, from what I overheard, Edith was always calm and rational.”

“I don’t suppose you overheard what they were talking about?” Carter said.

Joan bridled a little. “I don’t make a habit of eavesdropping on other people’s private conversations.”

“I wasn’t suggesting for one moment you do, Joan,” Carter said. “I just wondered if you caught the drift of any of the chats Edith had with Diana. It could be important.”

Mollified, Joan Maitland stroked her chin and gave it some thought. “The past mostly,” she said at last. “They talked about the past a lot. People, places, who lived where, how long they had been living there. Nothing very earth-shaking.”

“What did Diana look like?” Annie said.

Joan shook her head. “That’s another strange thing about her. I really can’t say. That sounds odd, doesn’t it? But it’s the truth. What can I say? Medium height, medium build, late twenties, early thirties.” She shook her head again, as if trying to clear it. “A chameleon. That’s the word I’d use to describe her. You see, in my head I get a clear image of her, but as soon as I focus on it and try to convey to you what she’s like, the image loses focus, gets all hazy.” She stood up from the couch suddenly. “There might be a picture, a photograph of her, somewhere.”

She went across to a cabinet in the corner and pulled open a drawer. Carter and Annie exchanged looks, both of them suspecting that this wasn’t the first time Joan Maitland had rummaged through Laura Sallis’s personal effects.

“Yes,” Joan said. “I thought so.” The hand she pulled from the drawer was clutching a brass frame. She stared at it for a moment, confusion clouding in her eyes. Whatever she was expecting to see in the frame clearly wasn’t there. “But I don’t understand…” she muttered.

Annie went across and took the frame from her. It was a fairly recent color photograph of Laura. Laura, in a woodland setting, looking relaxed and happy, leaning against a tree, her bobbed, brown hair gleaming, sunlight dancing in her chestnut eyes. Annie felt a lump form in her throat. She passed the photo to Carter.

“What is it you don’t understand?” Carter said.

Joan Maitland started at the sound of his voice, as if she’d just been brought back to reality with a bump. “The photograph,” she said. “The last time I saw it they were both in the picture. Both Laura and Diana, Laura against one side of the tree, Diana leaning against the other. Now she’s gone. Diana’s gone.”

“You’re sure it was the two of them in the photograph?” Carter said.

“Of course I’m sure!” Joan Maitland snapped back at him, her sunny disposition deserting her for a moment. She went back to the couch and sat down heavily, her head making small shaking movements, as if denying the evidence of her own eyes.

“You said earlier that Diana was evil,” Carter said. “What did you mean by that?”

“I meant evil in the truest sense. It was there in her eyes. She was always perfectly pleasant, always polite, always smiling. But she had the ability to manipulate both Laura and Edith, to twist their wills to suit her own.”

“That doesn’t necessarily mean she’s evil,” Annie said.

“I mentioned her eyes,” Joan said. “They were like cold, bottomless pools. I remember I said something to her once, some innocent remark about how she was tiring Edith out by constantly engaging her in conversation, and the look she gave me… Well, I can only describe the effect it had on me. It was like she was burrowing into my head and scrambling my thoughts, scrambling my mind. I felt waves of nausea sweeping over me, and my head began to pound. It felt as if my brain was expanding in my skull and might burst through at any moment. I blacked out and fell. Luckily Laura caught me before I could hit the floor. When I came to Diana was still staring at me. My nose had bled and I was covered in blood, and I couldn’t see or hear clearly. Everything was blurred, fuzzy. I could see Laura’s lips moving and I could read them enough to see that she was asking me if I was all right, but Diana was standing there glaring at me with those hateful eyes and I was paralyzed. It was only when she finally left the room… I think Laura told her to go, but I can’t be sure… It was only when she left the room that I started to feel better. My vision cleared and my hearing returned. I asked Laura what had happened, but all she could say was that I had fainted. I’m sorry, but I’m not the fainting type. And there was fear on Laura’s face. What happened to me…what Diana did to me, had frightened Laura to the core, I swear it.”

Carter was watching Joan Maitland closely. Just relating the incident had produced a thin film of sweat on her face. She pulled a handful of tissues from the pocket of her nylon overall and dabbed at her brow. 

“How long after this did Laura leave?” Annie said.

“I can’t actually say. After what had happened I couldn’t bring myself to come back here. It was only when I realized I hadn’t seen Laura for a few days that I steeled myself to enter the house again. I came in to find Edith on her own and in a terrible state. I called the school, trying to trace Laura, and a nice woman, Mrs. Chapman, came round and got everything organized. She hadn’t seen Laura for days either. She hadn’t turned up at the school.”

“I know,” Annie said. “I work at the school.”

“Well you’d probably have a better idea than I when Laura actually left.”

“But how do you know Laura left with Diana?” Carter said.

Joan Maitland frowned. “I may be lots of things, Mr. Carter, but I’m not naïve. I could see that the relationship between Laura and Diana went beyond mere friendship. It was as if Laura was in the woman’s thrall, as if she was under some kind of…” She hesitated.

“Spell?” Carter said.

“Well, you used the word, not me. But, yes, that’s exactly how I’d describe it.”

The door opened and Edith stood there, supporting herself on a Zimmer frame. “Has Diana gone? I thought she’d come to see me.”

Joan Maitland pushed herself from the couch. “You’ll have to excuse me,” she said, and then rushed across to Edith and took her arm. “Come on, my love,” she said soothingly. “We can’t have you upsetting yourself. Come and sit down again and I’ll make us a nice pot of tea.”

Edith looked beyond her to Carter and Annie. “I miss her,” she said, her voice tremulous. “We had such lovely conversations.”

“We’ll let ourselves out,” Annie said to Joan Maitland.

“Probably for the best,” Joan said as she guided Edith Sallis back to her room.

Martin Impey had hit a brick wall investigating the leads Carter had given him. After researching the deaths in Ravensbridge he was prepared to accept there could be a tenuous link between them, but nothing concrete, and he was wondering how much more time he should devote to them. 

He’d had a little more success with the name Elinor Yardley who, if the data he’d uncovered on the Web was to be believed, was a witch who lived in both Lancashire and Yorkshire in the 1600’s. Again the details were sketchy, but he’d discovered that Elinor was a member of the Yardley family whose history was recounted in a book written in the 1930’s by the Oxford scholar Sylvester McCutcheon. The Yardley Sisters—First Family of Witchcraft in the North of England was a small book, cloth-bound and privately published in a very limited edition, and long out of print. Martin’s efforts to track it down through his usual sources had come to nothing, and he was planning a trip to the British Library who, according to their vast database, had a copy on file.

He ran the idea past Simon Crozier.

“Do you think there’s a connection between the deaths and the Yardley sisters?” Crozier said, leaning back in his chair.

“There’s no evidence to suggest there is,” Martin said. “But Rob must suspect a link. Why else did he ask me to dig around?”

Crozier nodded slowly, staring thoughtfully into space. “I don’t know,” he said after a long pause. “I’m not sure we should devote any more of the department’s time to this. Our case load is not exactly light and you’ve already given up half a day and, frankly, got nowhere.”

“With all due respect,” Martin said, “I don’t think Rob would have bothered me with this unless he suspected there was something to it. I saw him a short time before he went to Yorkshire and, quite honestly, the last thing he needed was to get involved in another case. He was exhausted.”

“Okay. I accept that. But why not make it official, instead of all the cloak-and-dagger stuff? Calling you at night, asking you to ignore department policy. Sometimes I think he behaves as he does just to get under my skin, to rub me up the wrong way.”

Martin Impey suppressed a smile, knowing that there was more than an element of truth in Crozier’s assertion.

“You say the only copy of this book is in the British Library?” Crozier said.

“The only copy I’ve been able to track down. There probably are more around, but I wouldn’t know where to start looking for them.”

“Then go and take a look at it. It might shed some light.”

“I’ll go now.”

“But if it doesn’t illuminate this in some way then I’m pulling the plug. There are more pressing matters that will demand your full attention.” Crozier flipped open a file sitting on his desk and began to read.

Martin hesitated for a moment, waiting to see if his boss was going to add anything else. When he realized there was nothing more he went back to his office, telephoned the library to request the book, then pulled his coat from the rack in the corner and took a taxi down to the Euston Road, to the huge, modern red-brick building at number 96 that housed some of the greatest works of literature the world has ever known.

Twenty minutes later, as he climbed from the taxi and paid the driver, he felt a knot of excitement twisting in the pit of his stomach. He didn’t get out of the dour offices of Department 18 that often during the working day and to not only get out, but to come here of all places was a thrill. The British Library housed over fourteen million books and was quite simply, Martin thought, as he approached the stone steps leading up to the entrance, a researcher’s paradise. 

He was about to walk through the bronze gates of the building when his mobile phone vibrated in his pocket. He took it out and flipped it open. Someone had sent him a text.

Enter here and you’ll never leave.

A frown creased his brow as he read the message again. There was no number. Once back at the office he could probably trace who had sent it, but here he was helpless. He wanted to believe the message was a joke, but apart from Crozier the only people who knew he was coming here were his assistants, Maggie and Christine, and he couldn’t imagine either of them pulling a stunt like this. 

The frown deepened as he closed the mobile and slipped it back into his pocket. His ebullient mood had evaporated. He walked heavily across the granite-paved plaza, barely noticing the other people there sitting on the stone benches, some of them tapping away on laptop computers, some reading, others just sitting and enjoying the ambience. The plaza had been designed as an oasis, away from the teeming London streets just yards away. 

Martin reached the doors at the entrance of the library building and they slid open obligingly. Before he stepped inside, he took his mobile from his pocket and read the text message again.

Enter here and you’ll never leave.

He switched the phone off, snapped it shut and entered the library.

Chapter Twenty

“I feel like I never really knew Laura at all,” Annie said as they hit the street. “Even down to the music she liked to listen to. I mean, Massive Attack? The Laura I saw in that room is nothing like the Laura I used to see every day at school, the Laura I used to go drinking with at the Three Tuns.”

“I wouldn’t upset yourself about it,” Carter said. “Quite often we don’t actually know the people we think we’re closest to. We think we have them pegged, that they can offer up no surprises, and then they do something so random, so out of character, that they completely throw us.”

“Are you still seeing Jane Talbot?” Annie said.

Carter looked at her sharply. 

“Oh, come on, Rob, I used to see you nearly every day when we were in Kansas together. I got to know you pretty well. I can tell when you’re in pain.”

“That obvious, eh?”

Annie nodded and steered him onto the canal towpath. “I remember when you first wrote to me about her. I could tell from the way you described her, the words you used, that she was someone pretty special.”

“It’s very rare, that feeling. As if you’ve only ever been half a person and then somebody comes along who makes you feel complete, whole. It was like that with Jane.”

“So what happened?”

“I could bore you to death with the details, Annie, but I won’t. Let’s just say life happened and leave it at that.”

“Is there any hope that you might get back with her?”

“Oh, there’s always hope.” He stopped walking, reached down, picked up a stone from the towpath and sent it bouncing across the torpid water of the canal. “That’s me,” he said. “Skimming across the surface of life.”

“Only connecting with it at certain points,” Annie continued for him. “I really thought that with Laura I’d found an anchor, someone to tether me, to make me feel grounded. But like you I’m skipping over life. Even more so now I’ve seen the other side of Laura…the side she kept hidden from me.” She gripped his arm urgently. “I have to find her, Rob.”

“We will, Annie. We will.”

His phone rang. 

“It’s Ian Lacey. Are you sober enough to get yourself over to Bradford police station?”

“Probably not, but I’m sure Annie could drive me. Why?”

“I want to show you something. You’ll find it interesting.”

“Forty minutes?”

“Fine.” Lacey disconnected.

“Who was that?” Annie said. “And where am I driving you?”

“Lacey. He wants to show me something. Do you mind driving me to Bradford?”

Annie shook her head. “Not at all.”

Forty-five minutes later they pushed through the doors of Trafalgar House, Bradford’s main police station, and approached the desk. The uniformed sergeant looked up from the form he was filling in and smiled. “And how can I help?”

“Robert Carter and Annie Ryder,” Carter said. “Here to see Detective Inspector Lacey.”

“Concerning what?” Still smiling.

“None of your damned business, Sam,” Lacey said, seeming to appear from nowhere. “Let them in.”

Sam Taylor, the duty sergeant, widened his smile still further and pressed a button by his right hand. There was a buzz and a click. “Come on through,” he said.

The door swung outwards. Lacey was there to meet them. “Follow me.”

He led them through a maze of corridors, each freshly painted in blue and white. Finally he opened one of the many doors and ushered them into an interview room. There was a table, four chairs, a flat-screen television and a DVD player. “Take a seat,” he said. “Matt will be along in a moment.”

“What’s this about?” Carter said.

“You’ll see shortly, but I want to wait for my sergeant. He’s having a few problems getting his head around things. Hearing your opinion on what you’re about to see may help bring him into the daylight.”

“I’ll do my best,” Carter said. “But it might be easier if I knew…”

Lacey raised his hand to silence him. “I don’t want to influence your thinking or your opinions. I want you to watch what I’m about to show you without any preconceptions.”

“Fair enough,” Carter said, sat down and crossed his legs.

Annie joined him, taking the next chair along. A few seconds later Matthew Sparks entered the room, nodded at them both and sat, saying nothing.

“Well, if we’re sitting comfortably, I’ll begin,” Lacey said. He picked up a small remote control unit from the table, pressed a button and the TV screen flickered into life.

What played on the television was a DVD copy of the CCTV tapes from Cavendish House. Bill Mackie had been true to his word. He’d copied the tapes and sent the disc over to Lacey by courier.

The images of a blond-haired woman entering the lift on the top floor and a ginger-haired woman exiting on the ground floor was just as impressive and perplexing as it had been the first time around. At least it was for Lacey. Sparks was leaning forwards in his seat, elbows on his knees, chin in his hands, watching the screen with rapt attention as if trying to work out the mechanics of a Penn and Teller illusion. When the disc finished he sat back in his seat and shook his head slowly.

Lacey turned to Carter. “Well?”

“The tapes were unedited?” Carter said.

“Essentially, yes. There were source tapes and Bill Mackie, or his technician, have spliced them together in the correct timeline. But the descent from penthouse to ground floor is in real time. No edits, and Bill timed the descent, and it’s accurate to the second, so it didn’t stop on the way down.”

“So no way they could have switched.”

“No.”

“Bloody impossible!” Sparks said. “I’ve watched this disc five times now and still can’t work out how they did it.”

“A chameleon,” Annie Ryder said.

Lacey turned to her. “Pardon?”

“A term we heard a short time ago, used to describe someone connected to the disappearance of Laura Sallis,” Carter said.

“Laura Sallis? Who’s Laura Sallis?” Sparks said. “I’m not following this at all. I thought this was about the death of Ollie Tucker.”

“It is,” Carter said. “And, unless I’m mistaken, it’s about a whole lot more. Tell me, Sergeant, as someone who, as you say, has watched the disc five times, can you describe the two women, the one who entered the lift and the one who came out of it?” 

“Of course I can,” Sparks said. “The one who entered has blond hair, the one who stepped out was ginger.”

“And that’s it?” Carter said. “Years of police training and that’s the best you can do? One’s blond, the other’s ginger. Describe what they looked like, what they were wearing.”

Sparks opened his mouth to speak, then snapped it shut, his brow furrowed in a frown. “I can’t bring them to mind,” he said after a few moments. He looked to Lacey for help.

“Can any of us?” Carter said. “I know I can’t.”

Annie shrugged and shook her head.

“I’ll be damned,” Lacey said. “How the fuck does that work? It’s like trying to remember a dream. At first it all seems so vivid, but then the more you think about it the vaguer it becomes.”

“I think we’re dealing with a shape-shifter,” Carter said. “I’ve read about them but never encountered one before. But the perception barrier, the fact that none of us can recall her features, that’s a different kind of magic, a much higher level entirely.”

“Shape-shifters? Magic?” Sparks said, an edge to his voice. “Come on, Ian, this is fantasy land.”

“And today, Matt, you saw the driver of a flour truck, apparently suffocated by his own load, in the middle of a wood. Not exactly your average, every day felony, is it? There’s something going on here, Matt. Something that flies in the face of logic and even sanity. We have to keep our minds open to every possibility, no matter how outlandish it may appear.” 

Sparks got to his feet. “Bollocks to that!” he said and stalked from the room.

Lacey watched him leave and sighed.

“I think your sergeant protests too much,” Carter said.

Lacey nodded slowly. “I was thinking much the same. I’ll have a word with him later. See if I can discover what the real problem is. In the meantime you’d better tell me what you’ve learned about Laura Sallis’s disappearance.”

“The driver in the wood, suffocated by flour,” Carter said. “Is it connected?”

“He picked up the ginger-haired woman from a café opposite Cavendish House and that’s the last time anyone saw him alive. Connected? Yes, I think so. Now, Laura Sallis. What can you tell me?”

Simon Crozier closed the file on his desk and rubbed his eyes. It was only early afternoon but he was weary. He’d gone to his club the evening before and met up with an old friend who’d insisted on taking him to dinner. Sir Andrew Martin was a high-ranking civil servant who worked out of the Treasury. He’d had the ear of various chancellors over the last decade and was widely seen as the power behind the throne. He was also a notorious womanizer and a lush, with a capacity for alcohol only equaled by his capacity for recreational drugs. But at least he was discreet, Crozier thought as he accepted the invitation. Four hours later he was regretting it. 

Andy Martin had gotten himself into a spot of bother with a young prostitute, and the incident was threatening to expose the civil servant’s hedonistic lifestyle. He’d wanted a shoulder to cry on and Simon Crozier just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. 

The evening had dragged on until four o’clock in the morning and finished when Crozier packed his old friend into a taxi and sent him back to his Bayswater home. Crozier had finally gotten back to his riverside flat close to five, thrown up the best part of a bottle of Dom Perignon and crawled into bed, only to be awoken two hours later by the savage ringing of his alarm clock.

Now, at four o’clock in the afternoon he was feeling fairly wretched. He was about to take his coat from the stand and head for home when the door of his office opened and Trudy, his secretary, bustled into the room.

“Oh, good. You’re still here.”

“Only just,” Crozier said. “I was about to call it a day. I’ve got a splitting headache.”

“You might want to reconsider,” Trudy said. “I’ve just had Kings Cross police on the phone. There’s been an incident at the British Library. Martin Impey’s been seriously injured.”

Crozier froze, arm outstretched, hand clasped around the astrakhan collar of his coat. “How seriously?”

“He’s been taken to the University College Hospital where he’s now in intensive care, but apart from that they wouldn’t say.”

Crozier seemed to shake himself. It broke the spell. He removed his coat from the stand and slipped it on. “Get me a car. I’ll drive down to the hospital and get an update on his condition myself.”

“What about Emilie?”

“Emilie?”

“Martin’s wife. She should be told.”

“Yes,” Crozier said. “You’re probably right. Text her number to my phone and I’ll call her from the hospital.”

“Don’t you think news like this is better delivered face to face?” Trudy said.

“No, I do not,” Crozier said. “Besides, Impey lives in the wilds of Hertfordshire. That would be a round trip of over two hours, and I have plans for tonight.”

“Very well,” Trudy said, unable to keep the disapproval out of her voice. “I’ll order your car and text you her number.” She spun on her heel and left the office, muttering darkly under her breath.

Crozier walked back to his desk and sat, waiting for Trudy to tell him when his car was ready. “Hertfordshire,” he said quietly to himself. “Absurd.” 

Chapter Twenty-One

The girl who came to sit next to Martin Impey in the reading room of the British Library was pretty, about eighteen or nineteen, with almond eyes, a slightly upturned nose with a smattering of freckles across the bridge and an almost completely shaved head. There was about an eighth of an inch of dark brown hair, but it did little to hide the oriental motif tattooed on her scalp. Probably a student, he thought as he flipped over a page and continued to read.

The book was there waiting for him when he arrived at the library. The assistant who had retrieved it for him was waiting to hand it over personally. He was a young man, dressed in black jeans, with an acne-marked face and a blue British Library sweatshirt, several sizes too big for his gaunt frame. “Remarkable,” he said cheerily as he checked the book out to Martin. “A book lies dormant in our storage facility for more than fifty years, and then, in the space of four weeks, it’s requested twice.” He read the title and mouthed the words silently. “Witchcraft, eh? Are you writing a book? The other guy was.”

“Something like that,” Martin said. It always paid to be vague. He didn’t want a long, explanatory conversation about the workings of Department 18 to eat into his research time.

“What a coincidence. Two people writing a book at the same time, about the same subject.”

“Who was the other guy? The one who requested the book before?”

“I’m afraid that information is confidential,” the young man said. “I can’t give you those kinds of details.”

“Fair enough,” Martin said easily. “No big deal. Thanks.” He took the book from him, ignoring the slightly deflated look on the young man’s face, and started to move away from the desk.

“He was American,” the assistant blurted out, eager to engage in some kind of dialogue, keen to validate his standing at the library. “A university professor.”

“Right,” Martin said, refusing to take the bait. “Thanks again.”

“But don’t you…?”

Martin smiled and shook his head. “I wouldn’t want to get you into trouble,” he said, and walked away without looking back.

The young library assistant glared at him, then shrugged and turned his attention to his computer, calling up a half-finished game of Spider Solitaire to the screen. Christ! This day was never ending! 

Martin had been reading for half an hour when the girl came to sit next to him. “Do you mind if I sit here?” she said. “Only all the other desks with electrical points are taken and I noticed you weren’t using yours, and I have this.” She indicated the slim laptop tucked under her arm.

“No, please. Feel free.”

She beamed a smile and settled down in the chair next to him, pulling a cable from a plastic carrier bag and slotting the plug into the power point. She set the laptop down on the desk and fed the other end of the cable into the computer’s power inlet.

Martin glanced across at the screen as it blossomed into life. It bore the legend City University. It was as he thought. The girl was a student.

He went back to the book. It was starting to make fascinating reading. There were seven Yardley sisters who had made their home in the Lancashire town of Pendle. Martin had heard of Pendle before. Back in the late fifteen and early sixteen hundreds it was the focus of the church’s war against witchcraft. Witch hunts were commonplace as were the trials and executions.

According to McCutcheon, the book’s author, the Yardleys were targeted by Jacob Barker, a Lancashire magistrate whose estate bordered the Yardley’s land. Reports were filed and the family’s arrest was imminent. When Barker and his subordinates raided the Yardley’s house they found it empty, the sisters having fled south into Yorkshire, specifically the area in the Calder Valley close to Ravensbridge.

Martin opened a large notepad and started scribbling down notes. At last he was making some connections. He checked the notes he’d written down during Robert Carter’s call the previous evening. Elinor Yardley. That was the name Carter had asked him to look into. He reached for the book but it was no longer on the desk in front of him.

The girl with the shaved head was sitting back in her seat, leafing through the pages, a frown on her face.

“Excuse me,” Martin said, reaching for the book. “Do you mind?”

The girl pulled back from him, the frown deepening. “Yes,” she said. “I do mind. In fact I mind very much. I never asked for this book to be written. Just who the hell does this McCutcheon person think he is? To have the audacity to think he could ever understand my family.”

Martin tried a smile. “I think you’ll find he’s dead,” he said lightly, trying to humor her.

“Good.”

“Can I have the book back, please? I’m a bit pushed for time.”

The girl closed the book and laid it down on the desk in front of her, placing her hands on top of it. “You shouldn’t have come here,” she said. “I did warn you.” She closed her laptop and unplugged the cable.

“Look,” he said. “I can be as patient as the next man, but I really must insist…”

Without any kind of warning the girl grabbed the edges of the laptop and swung it in an arc, catching Martin full in the face.

With a cry he fell backwards, his hands reaching up to cup his nose that was spurting blood. “What the hell…?” He was stunned, not only by the blow, but by the suddenness and surprise of the attack. The second blow from the laptop cracked against the back of his head. He rocked forwards and struggled to his feet.

The girl was already standing, holding her computer like a weapon. “I warned you,” she said. “I sent you a text.”

Martin stared at her uncomprehendingly. “Who are you?” he said, but the words sounded wrong. He touched his fingers to his mouth. The lips were split and already swollen to nearly twice their normal size. He looked frantically about him but the reading room was deserted. He couldn’t remember anyone leaving the room but all the desks were empty. There was just him and the girl, and the girl was advancing on him. 

There was something in his mouth. Something small and hard. He ran his tongue over his teeth and found the gap. “You knocked my tooth out,” he said and spat the tooth out into the palm of his hand. He closed his fingers around it, forming a first. He had never hit a woman in his life, but he thought he might just make an exception this time.

The girl said nothing but took another step towards him.

“Don’t come any closer,” he said through the blood. 

A smile flickered on the girl’s lips. She raised her hand and splayed her fingers and then closed them rapidly.

It was as if the hand had reached into his chest and grabbed his heart. He gasped at the pain. And then he was being hurled backwards through the air. He crashed into a row of cabinets and slid down to the floor, winded, the pain in his chest making him feel nauseous. She was going to kill him, he was convinced of that, and there was nothing he could do about it. She was too strong, had too much power. This was the kind of adversary the teams of Department 18 faced on a regular basis. He was protected from this kind of conflict, sitting in his office, in front of his computer, sifting facts, providing back-up to the teams. That was his role. Safe, secure, out of harm’s way.

Not today though. Today he was in danger of losing his life. He wondered what Robert Carter would do in this situation. He tried a conciliatory smile but his mouth hurt too much. “Please,” he said. “No more.” Pathetic!

The girl had the book in her hands and was leafing through the pages. As Martin spoke she looked up from her reading. “You people,” she said. “You think you’re so bloody clever.” She snapped the book shut and took a few steps towards him. “Do you honestly think you can stop me from bringing my family back together?”

Martin looked at her blankly. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he said.

She made a swift movement of her hand and Martin’s head was knocked backwards, jarring against the wood of a cabinet, the brass handle opening a gash in his scalp. He felt the blood trickle down the back of his neck. He looked up at her blearily. She was still two yards away from him. How did she do that? 

He struggled up until he was propped on his elbows.

She looked at him pityingly. “I’ll be kind,” she said. “I’ll finish you quickly. You’re of no use to me.” She tossed the book at his feet. “That’s what you came here for. Take it.”

Martin hesitated, wondering briefly if he could make a break for the doors, but he knew he’d never make it.

“I said, take it!” she said, her voice rising.

He scrambled forwards and grabbed the book.

As his fingers closed around the cover she raised her hand swiftly and Martin was hauled to his feet. For a moment he stood there, swaying slightly like a stringless puppet, and then she made a swirling motion with her hand and he was engulfed in a vortex of freezing air. It spun around him, scouring his skin, plucking and ripping at his clothes. He was lifted bodily into the air and started to spin in the vortex. The air was sucked from his lungs and he felt his heart pounding against his ribcage. 

Gradually the light around him began to dim and he felt consciousness slipping away. His last thought before the blackness claimed him was, And in the British bloody Library of all places!

Crozier entered the hospital room and stopped dead. Martin Impey lay in the bed, wires and tubes trailing from his body. Cuts and contusions covered his semi-bandaged face. What unmarked skin was visible was a sickly gray-green color.

The doctor who accompanied him into the room was in her early thirties, dusky skin, hair pulled back from a fairly plain face and held in a tight ponytail. She went across to the bed, lifted Martin’s wrist and checked his pulse, checking it against her gold wristwatch. And then she leaned over him and lifted his eyelid. “No change, I’m afraid,” she said.

“Is he in a coma?” Crozier asked, dreading the answer. He’d telephoned Emilie on the way to the hospital and she’d been distraught. She was on her way here now and Crozier didn’t relish the prospect of giving her more bad news. A hysterical woman was a beast he had no idea how to handle.

“Not as such. Just in a very deep state of unconsciousness.”

“How bad are his injuries?”

“We’re running tests, but most of them seem fairly minor. We haven’t been able to locate the source of any trauma serious enough to bring about this lack of consciousness. Certainly no head trauma, apart from the nasty-looking gash on the back of his skull, but that in itself is quite superficial, certainly not serious enough to account for his current condition. It’s as if he’s shut himself down for his own protection.”

Crozier frowned at her. “What do you mean by that?”

“It happens sometimes. The mind simply switches off. I’ve had accident victims who’ve lain there for days, very little brain activity, but all the while their bodies are fighting, trying to repair themselves.”

“So it’s an encouraging sign?”

“Usually. Sometimes not. Sometimes they never regain consciousness. Their bodies give up the fight and they simply drift away.” 

“So what about Impey? Which category does he fit into?”

She smiled sympathetically. “I’m afraid it’s too early to say.”

Crozier glared at her and stalked from the room, nearly colliding with a uniformed police constable who took a step back to let him pass.

“And what do the police say?” he said.

“Sorry, sir?” the constable said.

“About the attack?”

The constable was about Crozier’s age. Obviously a stalled career, or lack of ambition. Maybe both.

“I’m afraid I’m not at liberty to say.”

Tiredly Crozier took his ID card from his pocket and shoved it under the constable’s nose. “Think again,” he said.

The constable took a step back. “Sorry, sir, I didn’t realize. We’re holding a suspect for questioning at Kings Cross police station. A young woman, about eighteen.”

Crozier looked at him incredulously. “Are you trying to tell me that the damage to my colleague was inflicted by a child?”

“It certainly looks that way, sir. She’s denying it, of course. Claims to know nothing about it, but she was the only person at the scene when we arrived, and she had Mr. Impey’s blood on her hands and clothes. Looks pretty clear cut.”

Crozier shook his head and took his phone from his pocket. A nurse who had been hovering nearby during Crozier’s conversation with the constable bustled forwards. “I’m sorry, sir. You can’t use that in here,” she said. “It’s a hospital,” she added unnecessarily.

Crozier waved his ID in her face and continued to punch in numbers.

“Put me through to Harry Bailey,” he said when the switchboard at Department 18’s Whitehall headquarters responded.

“I’ll check if he’s in the building, sir,” a female voice said.

“If he isn’t, find him and tell him to call me on this number.” He closed the phone and started to pace the corridor. 

A few moments later his phone rang.

“Simon, I was just about to leave for the night. I’ve got a leg of lamb in my slow cooker and I’m famished.”

“Never mind that. Meet me at Kings Cross police station in thirty minutes. Your expertise is needed.”

Crozier didn’t wait for a reply. He snapped the mobile shut and walked from the hospital.

Chapter Twenty-Two

Harry Bailey stuck his head around the door to Trudy’s office. “Any idea why Simon’s in such a flap?” he said. “He’s just told me to meet him at Kings Cross police station. No explanation, nothing.”

“It could have something to do with Martin Impey being attacked.”

“Martin? When?” Harry came across and perched on the edge of Trudy’s desk.

“It happened at the British Library a short time ago. He’d gone there to do some research. Someone attacked him.”

Bailey’s eyes narrowed. “Someone or something?”

“Your guess is as good as mine, Harry.”

“How is he?”

Trudy shrugged. “They’ve taken him to the University College Hospital. That’s all I know.”

“Has Emilie been told? They’ve just had another little one, haven’t they?”

“A baby girl, Molly, yes. Simon said he was going to call Em with the news. Whether he has or not…” The disapproval rang loud and clear in her voice. Trudy Dawlish was in her early sixties and saw herself as very much the mother of the department. She cared about the people the department employed, perhaps a little more than she should, and she despaired at Simon Crozier’s lack of empathy with them.

“He’s an insensitive clod,” Harry said. “Always has been, always will be.”

Trudy sighed. “I know. I’ve tried to change him over the years, but nothing I do makes any difference.”

“I wouldn’t waste your time on him,” Bailey said. “He’s beyond help.” He hopped from the desk. “I’d better get myself over to Kings Cross.”

“Shall I order you a pool car?”

“No, I’ll take the bike. Traffic will be murder this time of the day. See you tomorrow.”

He’d reached the door when Trudy called him. “Harry.”

“Yes, my love?”

“It’s good to have you back.”

“It’s like a bloody drug, this place,” he said. “And I can’t get off it.”

Trudy smiled sympathetically and went back to her work.

In the basement car park Harry Bailey wheeled his bicycle out of the rack and swung his leg over the crossbar. At this time of the evening the bike was the quickest way to negotiate his way through the heaving city streets. 

He had only recently been reinstated to the full Department 18 status after a premature retirement and relocation to southern Ireland. Now he was back, living in a flat in the Barbican complex and very much an integral member of Simon Crozier’s inner circle. Not that the knowledge sat easily with him. 

He’d been friends with Crozier for many years but was very aware of how the man was regarded by the rest of the department. He was extremely good at his job, but would never win any popularity contests.

He pedaled up the concrete ramp of the car park and out into the busy London streets. He was puffing heavily after just a few hundred yards. Cycling was just a part of the new regime he’d adopted to try and turn his life around. A long-time affection for the bottle had brought him perilously close to full-blown alcoholism. In an attempt to escape the rigors of his Department 18 caseload, he retreated to Ireland, a country where Guinness and whiskey flowed like the waters of Dublin’s Liffey River. The retreat did nothing to help his situation. 

It was only when Simon Crozier sought him out and persuaded him to help out on an extremely difficult and perilous case that Harry Bailey discovered a renewed zest for the work, and for life itself. He owed Crozier for that. Owed him big time.

He was waiting for him outside the reception area of Kings Cross police station, tapping his foot with ill-concealed impatience as Bailey chained his bicycle to a railing.

“Sorry to keep you, Simon,” Bailey called. “Must do this. Thieving load of buggers around here.”

Crozier glared at him and tapped his watch.

Bailey sighed and shook his head. “So what have you got for me?” he said.

As they walked into the police station Crozier filled him in on the facts.

“And the girl?” Bailey said.

“Her name is Annabel Levy. Nineteen, a student at the City University, reading law. A very bright girl by all accounts. Never been in trouble before. What she did to Martin Impey is so out of character that everyone is quite shocked. Her mother’s here, as is one of her lecturers. We’ll avoid them. The police can deal with that side of things.”

“So why do you need me here?”

“I’m going in to talk to her. I want you to observe. Study her. You can get inside her mind. Find out if she’s telling me the truth or just spinning me a yarn.”

They entered an ante-room, separated from the interview room by a sheet of one-way glass. Bailey pulled up a chair and sat so he could have a clear view. “Pretty little thing,” he said. “Would probably be prettier with hair. And you’re telling me this is the girl who beat Martin to within an inch of his life?”

“They found her standing over him, his blood on her hands and clothes. There was no one else around. And she kept saying over and over, ‘I think I’ve killed him’.”

“Fair enough,” Harry Bailey said. “Go in and talk to her.”

It was warm in the interview room. Crozier glanced up at the window, checking if he could open it to let some air in, but there were no catches or hinges. It looked solid, built in.

Annabel Levy was sitting on a plain wooden chair, her hands resting on the plain wooden table before her. She stole a glance at Crozier as he pulled up another chair and sat, but it was only a glance. As soon as she’d taken him in, she let her gaze drop and went back to staring at her hands.

“Hello, Annabel,” Crozier said.

No response.

“It is Annabel, isn’t it?”

The girl nodded. Her eyes were red from crying, and she had chewed her bottom lip enough to produce a smear of blood.

“Your mother’s here, waiting to take you home. And one of your tutors, a Professor Dawson. They don’t think you did it.” He paused. “I’m Simon Crozier, by the way. I’m just here to ask you a few questions. I’m sure we can get this mess sorted out, don’t you?”

Annabel finally met his eyes. “Please,” she said, and a large tear trickled down her cheek.

In the ante-room Bailey watched through the glass, slightly astonished at the gentleness Simon Crozier was displaying. He could charm the fleas off a dog’s back, he thought, if he really wanted to.

Crozier pulled a crisp, clean handkerchief from his pocket and handed it to her. She stared at it blankly for a moment, as if wondering if she dared soil it. Crozier nodded encouragingly and she dabbed her eyes.

“Okay, better now?” he said. “Tell me when you first saw Martin.”

“Sorry?”

“The man the police said you attacked.”

“I didn’t attack him,” she said, suddenly vehement. She started screwing the handkerchief into a knot.

“Well he was certainly attacked. He’s in hospital…on life support.”

The last part was a lie, but the girl wasn’t to know that.

She gave a small wail and collapsed back into her seat.

“So, let’s start again. When did you first notice him?”

Annabel took a breath. She was trying hard to get her head around what was happening to her, and failing miserably. All she could see was that a simple trip to the library had ended in a situation that could put an end to her legal career before it had even started. She was close to panic.

“I was sitting outside the library. I’d been there since the morning. I’d met some friends for lunch…we had it in the café…and then they’d left me to my reading. And then I was inside standing over…Martin, is it?… and there was blood on my hands, and on him, and he was barely breathing.”

“When the police arrived you said to them, ‘I think I’ve killed him’. What did you mean by that?”

“I don’t know. I had so many images running through my mind. I saw myself hitting him with my laptop, but I don’t remember actually doing it.”

“So you remember nothing in between sitting outside on the plaza, to being inside and standing over his body?”

She sniffed more tears away. Even to her the story sounded preposterous. She wracked her brains but there was nothing concrete to pinpoint. It was as if, for that period of time, her body had been taken over by something, someone else, and it was they who had attacked that poor man. “I can’t remember anything clearly,” she said. “It’s like looking back through a fog. I get glimpses, but nothing to cling on to, nothing to make real.”

She twisted the handkerchief again. If she told them that someone had invaded her body and made her do those awful things, they’d be sending for the men in white coats. She couldn’t allow that to happen.

“Don’t worry, I believe you.”

The voice sounded in her head. She looked sharply at Simon Crozier, but it hadn’t been his voice she’d heard. The voice in her head was rough, but kind. Reassuring, offering her hope when she’d thought there was none.

There was a tap at the door and Crozier went to answer it. He said a few words to someone standing in the corridor. Annabel craned her neck and looked past Crozier to see who he was talking to. It was another man, tall, gray-haired, with a face that looked as if it had lived two lifetimes. The older man met her eyes for an instant. There was kindness and compassion there and she knew instantly it was his voice she’d heard in her head. Crozier turned and smiled back at her and then stepped outside the room, closing the door behind him. 

“I’m telling you. It wasn’t her,” Harry Bailey said.

“You’re certain?” 

“Positive. She’s like an open book. She has no more idea of what happened than we do.” Bailey stared at Annabel through the one-way glass. She was crying again, dabbing at her eyes with Crozier’s handkerchief.

“Shit!” Crozier said. “I hate it when a lead turns to nothing.”

“Hold on. I said she didn’t do it. That doesn’t mean to say I didn’t learn anything from being inside her mind.”

Crozier regarded him patiently. “So, are you going to tell me what you learned, or are you just going to play the sphinx and keep me in the dark?”

“First we get the police to release Annabel. The poor kid’s been through the wringer. She’s studying to be a lawyer and she thinks this has just ruined her chances of a future in law.”

Crozier stared through the glass at the shaven-headed girl and something moved inside him. “Yes,” he said decisively. “You’re right. I’ll have a word with the chief superintendent.”

“They’re not going to like it, releasing their only suspect. It will go against the grain.”

“Frankly, Harry, I don’t give a tinker’s cuss if it upsets them or not. Apart from a smattering of circumstantial evidence they haven’t got a case against her. Wait for me outside.”

Less than ten minutes later, as Bailey was unchaining his bicycle, the door to the police station opened and Annabel Levy stepped out into the evening air, flanked by her tearful mother and a young man Bailey took to be Professor Dawson. They walked down the steps and had almost reached the bottom when Annabel stopped and looked round at Bailey. They held each other’s gaze for a moment and something passed between them. She ran across to him and pecked him on the cheek. “Thank you,” she said. “I don’t know how you did it, but thank you.” 

On the street her mother had hailed a taxi. “Annabel,” she called.

“Go on,” Bailey said. “The taxi’s waiting.”

She looked up at him as if wanting to say more. 

“Oh, and you’re going to make a fine lawyer,” he said.

“You know that?”

“You have all the tools. It’s up to you. But one word of advice.”

“What?”

“Grow the hair. Otherwise you’ll just intimidate your prospective clients.”

She smiled and rubbed her hand self-consciously across her scalp. Then she turned and ran down the steps to the waiting taxi.

“Very touching,” Crozier said as he emerged from the police station. He pulled on a pair of black calf-skin gloves. “There’s a chill to the air. Otherwise it’s a pleasant evening.”

“Are you going back to the office?” Bailey said. “We have a fair bit to talk about.”

“The hospital first,” Crozier said. “I want to have a word with Emilie. She should be there about now. You can follow on that bone shaker.”

Harry Bailey watched his boss walk off down the street to his waiting car and shook his head. 

Sometimes Simon Crozier was the most unpredictable person he knew.

Chapter Twenty-Three

Emilie was sitting at Martin’s bedside, holding his hand. Her other hand clutched a tear-soaked tissue.

Crozier tapped at the door and pushed it open, entering the room, followed closely by Harry Bailey. “How’s he doing?”

Emilie let go of Martin’s hand, stood and walked around the bed. 

“He hasn’t come round, and they can’t say when he will,” she said, an edge of fury to her voice. Without warning she swung her arm and caught Crozier a stinging slap across the cheek.

Bailey moved between them and caught her arms, pinning them to her sides. “Hey, Em, settle down. This wasn’t Simon’s fault.”

But Emilie’s temper was fired up. “Of course it was his fault. Martin’s no field agent. Computers, databases, research. That’s his field. That’s what he knows about. He shouldn’t be out there risking his life.”

Crozier rubbed his cheek. “He wasn’t on an assignment, Emilie. He was simply doing his job, researching a case. We don’t know who attacked him, or why.”

“But the police have someone in custody. The policeman here told me that.”

“Then he was speaking out of turn,” Crozier said. “The girl they were holding was released a short time ago without charge.”

For a moment anger flared again in Emilie’s eyes, but then it subsided and she returned to her bedside vigil, taking Martin’s limp hand in hers and squeezing it tightly.

Crozier pulled up a chair next to hers and sat.

“I’m sorry, Emilie. We’re doing all we can to get to the bottom of all this. We believe it’s related to a case Robert Carter’s working on in Yorkshire. Harry’s going up there in the morning to see if he can get to the bottom of what’s going on. I’ll keep you informed of his progress.” All the while he was talking, he was watching Harry Bailey who was leaning against the wall, arms folded, eyes closed. He hoped Emilie hadn’t noticed. He doubted she had. Her eyes were fixed on Martin’s face and her lips were set in a thin, grim line. He couldn’t even say for sure whether or not she’d heard a word he’d said.

He sat there for a few moments more, then stood and walked to the door. “We’ll leave you in peace,” he said, grabbed Harry Bailey’s arm and steered him out of the room.

As they walked along the corridor Bailey said, “What the hell was that about?”

“What?”

“You never said anything to me about going up to Yorkshire. And what makes you so sure the attack on Martin’s related to Carter’s investigation?”

Crozier reached inside his coat. “Superintendent Branch at Kings Cross gave this to me as I was leaving. Impey was clutching this to his chest when they found him. So tightly, I might add, that his fingers have made indentations in the cover.” He handed Bailey a slim, hardcover book. “Bedtime reading for you.”

Harry Bailey read the cover. The Yardley Sisters—First Family of Witchcraft in the North of England. 

“That was the book Impey was reading at the library when he was attacked. Elinor Yardley was a name given to him by Carter. Ergo, there’s a link.” He changed the subject abruptly. “What did you get from Impey? I saw you scanning him.”

Bailey shrugged. “Nothing. Nothing at all. Martin’s in there somewhere, but I’m buggered if I could find him. It’s like a wall has gone up in his mind, and I couldn’t breach it. And I sent out some pretty fierce surges of energy. They just rebounded back at me.”

“So he’s protecting himself psychically? Is that what you’re saying?”

“Either that, or he’s being protected. I couldn’t tell. Have you put Carter in the picture about all this? Have you let him know Martin’s in hospital?”

“You can tell him when you make contact with him tomorrow, once you get to Ravensbridge.”

“I don’t even know where he’s staying.”

“I’ll give you his phone number. You can call him when you get there.”

“Or you could call him tonight and let him know I’m coming.”

“What, and spoil the surprise?”

They reached the hospital doors. “You really don’t like him, do you?”

Crozier stepped out into the night. “Carter? I have no feelings for him either way.”

“Liar.”

Crozier shrugged. “Let’s find a bar. We have a lot to discuss before you go up there. You can start by telling me what you saw in Annabel Levy’s head.”

“And you think a bar is the best place to talk? Remember who you’re with, Simon. I’m trying to turn over a new leaf.”

“Then it will be a test of your newfound resolve.”

Bailey shook his head resignedly. “Sometimes, Simon, you are an absolute bastard.”

“I know, Harry. I know.”

They found a bar in Pentonville Road. Crozier remembered it as being a traditional English pub, but a recent refurbishment had stripped away all the charm and left a neon-lit shell in its place. At least there were still a couple of old-fashioned beers on tap at the bar. Crozier ordered a pint for himself and tonic water with lime for Bailey and took them across to a booth in the corner.

Harry Bailey had squashed himself into the corner of the booth and was flicking through the book Crozier had given him.

“Interesting reading?” Crozier said.

Bailey shook his head. “It’s not exactly James Patterson,” he said, closing the book and laying it on the seat beside him. He took a swig of his tonic water and grimaced, eyeing Crozier’s pint enviously.

“Annabel Levy. What was going on in her mind?”

“Anger, bitterness, resentment. None of it hers.”

“Explain.”

Bailey took another sip of his drink and pushed it away in disgust. “Most of what I felt in there were echoes. I could feel Annabel, but it was as if her mind was hiding in a corner of a large, dark room, terrified to leave the shadows. Does that make any sense?”

Crozier nodded. “You think she was possessed during the attack and whatever possessed her left behind traces of emotion.”

“That would be my best guess.”

“Any clues as to what or who possessed her?”

Bailey sighed. “I’m not Sherlock fucking Holmes. I wasn’t in Annabel Levy’s mind, crawling around on my hands and knees with a magnifying glass stuck in my hand. It doesn’t work like that. I open my mind to hers and pick up impressions. As I said, anger, bitterness and resentment.”

“Yes, but whose?”

“I got the impression of great age. I imagine that whoever it was who took control of the girl has been around for many years, possibly centuries.”

“Centuries?”

Bailey nodded.

In the bar the volume level was steadily rising. It was filling up with office workers, released from their daily routines and determined to get off their faces before tackling the commute home. Someone behind the bar decided that this daily ritual needed some musical accompaniment and had turned on a CD of throbbing dance music.

Crozier swallowed the last of his beer. “This was a bad idea on my part. This used to be a nice place to drink. Let’s get out of here.” 

They walked out into the fresh evening air.

“Do you have any theories about what’s going on here?” Bailey said as they headed back to the hospital where he had left his bicycle.

“You know me, Harry. Theories are not my style. That’s why I employ people like you.”

“And Robert Carter.”

“Yes, and people like Robert Carter. He’s good, you know.”

“Oh, I know. I worked with him, remember? One of the most powerful and focused psychics I’ve ever come across. Combined with that he’s a man of deep compassion. I don’t understand what you’ve got against him. And what he’s got against you for that matter.”

“We clash,” Crozier said. “We bang heads almost every time we meet. I used to think it was because he’s a maverick. Rules mean little to him—consequently he’ll break them at every turn. He’s also irresponsible. He takes chances with his own life and the lives of those around him.”

“You said you used to think that was the reason. Don’t you still?”

“I stand by what I’ve just said, but…”

They crossed the street into the Kings Cross Road. 

“But there are other reasons?”

Crozier nodded. “And those I’m not prepared to discuss.”

“Not even with me?”

“Not even with you, Harry.”

They reached the hospital and Bailey unchained his bike. 

“My place for a nightcap?” Crozier said.

Bailey shook his head. “Early night,” he said. “I’m driving to Yorkshire in the morning. Remember?”

“So you are,” Crozier said. “So you are.”

Emilie went out into the corridor and found a pay phone. She pulled a diary from her bag, flicked to the address book at the back and dialed a number.

“Jane Talbot.”

“Jane, it’s Em.”

“Emilie.” The delight was obvious in Jane Talbot’s voice. It had been ages since they had spoken. “How are the kids? And Martin? How’s Martin?”

“Charlie and Molly are fine. It’s Martin I’m phoning about. Jane, I’m at the University College Hospital. Martin’s been attacked.”

“Oh God, Em, no. What was it? A mugging?”

“It wasn’t that kind of attack, Jane. Martin was researching at the British Library when it happened. Simon Crozier’s been to see me. He had Harry Bailey with him, so I’m assuming it’s something pretty serious.”

“What did Simon tell you?”

“A man of few words, that’s Simon Crozier.”

“It’s his job, Em. He has to be like that.”

Emilie sighed. “I know, Jane. I appreciate his position. But that doesn’t help me. Martin’s in a coma—at least that’s what it looks like to me, even though the doctors insist it’s not—and he shows no sign of coming out of it. I’ve just spent two hours with him, holding his hand, talking to him, and I might as well have been at home watching TV for all the difference it made.”

“What do you want me to do, Em? If Simon doesn’t want to hand out information, he won’t, not even to me.”

“No,” Emilie said. “I don’t want you to talk to him. I want you to speak with Rob Carter.”

“Rob? Why?”

“Because Crozier thinks this has something to do with a case Rob’s working on up north. It makes sense. Last night Martin got a call from Rob, asking him to carry out some private research for him.”

“That’s against the rules.”

“I know, Jane, and Martin knew it too. That didn’t stop him though. He was up until gone two tapping away on his bloody computer.”

“And you have no idea what this case is about?”

“None, but I’m scared, Jane. Martin’s no field agent. He has no psychic powers whatsoever, no defenses. He’s just an ordinary man, doing an ordinary job in an extraordinary field. And now he’s in hospital… I don’t know if he’s going to pull through…if he’s ever going to see his children…” The words trailed off in a sob and Jane could hear Emilie crying on the other end of the line.

“Em, don’t cry, don’t upset yourself.”

Emilie sniffed back the tears. “I’m sorry. I’m trying to hold it together, but I just don’t know what I’d do without him.”

“I’ll call Rob and see if he can shed some light on what’s going on. What about Charlie and Molly? Who’s looking after them?”

“They’re with Kath, my neighbor, for tonight. Tomorrow I’ll call Mum. She can take over from there. You’ll get back to me once you’ve spoken to Rob?”

“Of course. How long are you staying at the hospital?”

“I’d like to stay here all night, but I’m sure they’ll kick me out sooner rather than later.”

“Can I get you on your mobile?”

“I switched it off when I arrived at the hospital. I’ll turn it back on now.”

“Okay,” Jane said. “I’ll be back in touch once I’ve spoken to him. But don’t hold your breath. He may not accept my call.”

“Are things still…?”

“Difficult? Yes, they’re not brilliant.”

“Jane, I’m sorry. I wasn’t thinking.”

“No, Em, don’t apologize. This transcends everything else. We’re adults—at least we were when I last checked—we’ll deal with it.”

Jane put the phone down and went back upstairs where David, her husband, had their two daughters in the bath.

He glanced around when she entered the bathroom. “Work?” he said.

“Yes.”

“I thought it might be.” He wasn’t smiling.

“I’m sorry. I have another call to make.”

“Well you’d better go and make it then. But make it a short one. It’s your turn to read to the girls tonight.”

“Yes, I know,” she said. “I won’t be long.”

She went back downstairs and picked up the telephone again. There would be hell to pay for this later. She stared at the receiver for a long moment. “Oh balls!” she said, and dialed Robert Carter’s number.

Chapter Twenty-Four

Carter was just outside the Fox and Goose public house when his phone rang. He checked the caller ID, saw it was Jane Talbot and accepted the call. “Jane,” he said.

“Hi, Rob.”

There was an awkward silence for a few seconds, both of them unsure how to proceed, the history of their past relationship throwing up barrier after barrier. Carter was mentally reading the last communication he’d received from her. An email telling him how much she loved him and how she had decided to stay with David for the sake of her two daughters. Jane was thinking about the man upstairs in the bathroom with Emma and Amy, a man she could no longer bring herself to love but felt duty-bound to stay with.

“How have you been?” It was Carter who broke the silence.

She wanted to say she’d been in hell since sending him the email. She wanted to say that not a day went by that she didn’t think of him and that she wished circumstances were different. “Fine,” she lied. “I’ve been fine.”

“And the girls?”

She gathered herself. “This isn’t a social call, Rob. I’ve just had Emilie on the phone. Martin’s been attacked and is in hospital, seriously ill. Simon went to see her and told her the attack probably happened because of a connection with a case you’re working on. What were you thinking, Rob? Asking Martin to carry out some off-the-radar research for you? He could have lost his job. Why didn’t you go through the proper channels?” This was easier. Keep it about work, keep it official.

“How badly was he injured?”

“It’s not good. He’s in some kind of coma and shows no sign of coming out of it.”

“Shit!” Carter muttered. He was thinking of Henry Norton, lying in his hospital bed, his mind trapped in that cavernous, white room. If Martin was in the same state he’d never forgive himself.

“Can you get up here, Jane?”

“What?”

“I’m staying with Annie Ryder in Ravensbridge. It’s in West Yorkshire.”

“I remember you talking about her. You met in the States, didn’t you?”

“That’s right. Kansas. Can you come?”

“Why, Rob?”

“I could use a fresh perspective. An awful lot has happened up here. Two deaths since my arrival. I could do with your help.”

“You know what you’re asking, don’t you?”

“I do, believe me. I respect your decision to stay with…the girls…” He couldn’t bring himself to say stay with David. “Had I been in your position I would have made the same call, but I really do need your help on this.”

“Tell me what’s been going on up there,” she said. “Start at the beginning.”

For the next thirty minutes Carter gave Jane Talbot all the details of his trip to Ravensbridge.

Inside the Fox and Goose Ian Lacey sat in the corner, nursing a pint of bitter beer. Occasionally he glanced at his watch, his fingers beating an impatient tattoo on the beer-stained table. His mind kept drifting back to his conversation with Matthew Sparks. He’d caught up with his sergeant ten minutes after Carter left the station. Sparks had been sipping at a strong black coffee and staring morosely into space.

Lacey pulled up a chair and sat down opposite him. “Would you like me to reassign you?” he said.

Sparks shook his head.

“Well, this case is obviously bothering you. I just wondered if you’d like to tackle something a little less…esoteric?”

Sparks met Lacey’s gaze. “You just take it all on board, don’t you? It doesn’t faze you in the slightest.”

“I wouldn’t say that,” Lacey said.

“I would. You’re enjoying this, relishing it.”

“Well, you’ve got to admit, it’s a lot more interesting than your common house-breaking or mugging.”

Sparks took a long swig of coffee. “It’s like trying to catch smoke. The rules keep changing. You follow a path and think you’re getting somewhere, and then something shifts and you’re back at the beginning, but this time the path’s changed and you’re heading in a completely different direction.”

“Surely most cases are like that,” Lacey said.

“Most cases have a crime, a victim and a perpetrator. And the perpetrator is just another criminal, not a bloody shape-shifter with some kind of supernatural power.”

“It’s the supernatural side that really bothers you, isn’t it?”

Sparks said nothing but finished his coffee and set his mug back down on the table.

“You’re not a skeptic at all, are you, Matt? You believe in it as much as I do.”

Sparks made a sound of annoyance in his throat and made to rise from his seat.

Lacey laid a restraining hand on his arm. “Sit down,” he said. “If we’re going to work together, we have to talk about this. Or else we’re going to keep on butting heads. And I have no wish to damage our working relationship. I think we’re a good team, you and I. I thought you did too.”

“It’s not easy,” Sparks said.

“What isn’t?”

“Talking about it.”

“Try me.”

Matthew Sparks stared off into space again. “I was brought up in a small village. Everyone knew everybody else, and knew everybody else’s business. When I was about eight I had a friend. Johnny Wilmott. Even then he was a bit of a tearaway, but he had a good side as well. There was an old, dilapidated house right on the edge of the village and two old ladies lived there. The Marsdens, Lucy and Effie. They were sisters, both spinsters and both crippled with arthritis. Johnny used to run errands for them—trips to the local shop to get provisions, he’d mow their lawn, clean their windows, that sort of thing. He had the edge over most of the local kids. None of them would go within a hundred yards of the Marsdens’ house, believing the local rumor mill, I guess. According to the stories spread by the kids, if you trespassed on their land, they’d turn you into a frog, or worse.”

“The kids thought they were witches?” Lacey said.

“Something like that. Two old ladies living on their own and they owned a black cat. You know what kids are like. We’d all seen The Wizard of Oz. Witches were evil.”

“But Johnny Wilmott didn’t think like the others?”

“No. To him, helping them out was a way of supplementing his pocket money. He took me round there once. The old ladies had invited him for tea and he dragged me along. I think, to him, it would be funny to see my reaction to them.”

“And how did you react?”

“I couldn’t wait to get out of there. The place stank. Camphorated oil and wintergreen mixed with boiled cabbage and cat’s piss. Horrible. That was bad enough, but the old ladies I just found weird. They had this huge, chintzy sofa, big, puffy cushions, and they sat, one at each end with Johnny in the middle. They were holding his hands, and they kept referring to him as their precious Johnny, or their baby. Looking back on it he had a very unhealthy relationship with them.

“They made us tea. Cucumber sandwiches and fruit cake. Even the food tasted odd, kind of scented. As soon as we’d eaten I told them I had to get home. They didn’t like that. As I said, they were old, probably in their seventies, but they didn’t dress like old ladies. They were both wearing pink dresses and it was obvious they both dyed their hair. A kind of rusty brown color. And their mouths were smeared with a hideous, orangey lipstick. Anyway, I said I was leaving and they turned rather nasty. Their Johnny wouldn’t be so rude, their Johnny wouldn’t eat their food and up and leave.

“I was making frantic eye contact with Johnny, trying to get him to back me up, but he just sat there, holding their hands, with a strange, faraway look on his face. Kind of dreamy. In the end he said, ‘Matthew, just go. We don’t want you here.’ But his voice wasn’t his own. Weird.”

“What do you mean, wasn’t his own?”

“It was flat, lifeless. As if he were reading the words aloud from a script.”

“So did you go?”

“Oh yes. I couldn’t get out of the house quick enough. I was only eight, but I remember being overwhelmed by the feeling that if I didn’t leave, right then, I would never get away.”

“And Johnny stayed?”

“I left him sitting there, holding hands with the two old ladies, with them cooing over him as if he were some kind of pampered pet.”

“And that’s it?”

Matthew Sparks shook his head. “I wish,” he said. “I wish.” He stood, went across to the canteen, ordered two coffees and brought them back to the table.

“I never saw Johnny Wilmott again after that.”

“What happened to him?”

“To this day no one knows. He never went home after his visit to the Marsden house. I think, at the time, his parents thought he might have run away—as I said, he was a bit of a tearaway—but when he didn’t return that night or the next day, the police were called in and a full-scale search of the area was undertaken. The police interviewed me as I’d been with him that afternoon. I told them about the Marsden sisters and they went round to talk to them. They told them that Johnny had left a little after five o’clock. I think they searched the house, to see if he had decided to hide out there, but they found nothing.”

“And I take it he was never found,” Lacey said.

Sparks shook his head. “Not a trace of him. After a year his parents sold up and moved to Leeds, and that was the end of that.”

He took a mouthful of coffee.

“A few years later…I would have been about sixteen…I went back to the Marsden house. The old ladies were long dead and the place had been boarded up. A couple of my mates decided it would be a bit of a laugh to break into the place. We had a few of the local girls with us and we’d been drinking cider. I think the plan was to tell the girls a few exaggerated ghost stories, give them a bit of a scare to make them a bit more…amenable.

“We forced our way in through a window at the back where the boards had rotted and found ourselves in the kitchen. The girls were giggling and my two mates were coming up with all manner of stories about the house.”

“And you?”

“Oh, I wasn’t an innocent in all this by any means. I was a teenager with testosterone on overdrive. I was up for it as much as my mates were. I had vague, uncomfortable memories of my last visit to the house, but nothing powerful enough to deter me. 

“I’m not really sure how I ended up on my own. Perhaps the others went upstairs—who knows now? And it doesn’t really matter anyway. I had a flashlight and, even at sixteen, I was certainly big enough to look after myself. So being in the house, ostensibly alone, didn’t really bother me.

“I made my way through the house. I reached the parlor where Johnny and I had taken tea with the old ladies. The door was closed but I could hear voices coming from the room. I put my ear to the door and listened. I suppose I should have left the house there and then, just turned and walked away, but something made me grab the door handle and twist it.” Sparks stopped speaking. A film of perspiration had coated his brow, and when he picked up his coffee mug Lacey noticed that his hand was shaking slightly. He looked up. “Sorry,” he said.

“In your own time, Matt.”

“It’s just that this is the first time I’ve told this story in nearly twenty years. It’s a bit of a shock to me just how vivid the memories are.”

“So, you were alone, downstairs in the house, you hear voices from the parlor and you opened the door.”

Matthew Sparks nodded. “I opened the door and stepped into the room. The table was laid out for tea, as it’s been the last time I was there. Plates of sandwiches, two cakes, cups and saucers and a china pot of tea. Lucy and Effie Marsden were sitting either side of the table, still wearing those ridiculous pink dresses. As I opened the door and walked in they turned and smiled at me. ‘Matthew,’ they said, their voices blending together, almost becoming just one voice. ‘How kind of you to come and visit us. Look, Johnny, your friend Matthew’s come to visit. Perhaps you can go and play in the garden after tea.’”

“Johnny Wilmott was there too?” Lacey said.

“Johnny was sitting between them at the head of the table,” Sparks said, his voice tremulous. “He was sitting in this weird, giant-sized high chair, Ian. In a fucking high chair! The two old ladies were both holding spoons, dipping them into a bowl of what looked like porridge, and then shoving the mess into his mouth. And Johnny… Johnny just looked vacant, staring at me like some kind of imbecile, porridge and spittle dribbling down his chin as he chewed and swallowed.

“The old ladies were smiling at him, like a couple of doting parents. ‘It’s so good to have our baby home,’ they said. Their baby, for fuck’s sake!”

Sparks faltered again. His face had reddened and there were tears pushing out from behind his eyes.

“What happened next?” Lacey said encouragingly.

“I’m not really sure. One of the boys I was with burst into the room and slapped me across the back. ‘There you are, Sparky,’ he said. ‘We thought you’d buggered off and left us.’

“It broke the spell. When I looked back into the room the old ladies and Johnny had gone. There was just an old table and a few broken chairs. We got out of there. The next morning I told my dad what I’d seen at the Marsden house. Dad was an old-time copper. Was in the force over thirty years and never made it above constable.”

“And what did he say?”

“Told me to stop being so bloody stupid and asked if I was doing drugs.”

“And you never told anyone else what you saw?”

Sparks shook his head. “Until now.”

“A hell of a thing to carry around with you,” Lacey said. “A hell of a thing. If it’s any consolation, Matt, I believe you. And I want you to stay on this case with me.”

The doors to the Fox and Goose opened and Robert Carter entered the pub. Lacey shook himself out of his reverie and joined him at the bar. “You’re late.”

“Sorry,” Carter said and ordered two beers from the barman. “Something’s come up.”

“Connected to the case?”

“I think so, yes,” Carter said.

“Well, let’s go and sit down and you can tell me all about it.”

Chapter Twenty-Five

After listening to what Carter had to say, Lacey sat back in his seat and folded his arms. “The question I’m asking myself is, why are they still alive?”

“I’m not sure I follow,” Carter said.

“Think about it. Your friend Martin, hospitalized in London, Henry Norton in hospital up here, both in comas, or something similar, granted, but both still very much alive. Ollie Tucker and the tanker driver, Scott, dead, both killed in bizarre circumstances. And all the others, the Gillespies, Susan Grant, Helen Brown, Sylvia Allyn and Amy Clarke, none of them spared. But Norton and your friend survive. Why do you think that is?”

Carter shook his head. “At the moment I haven’t a clue. I need to do some more digging. You were going to tell me about the Yardley sisters. Let’s start there.”

“Fair enough,” Lacey said. “Remember, all I know about them is what my grandmother told me. According to her, they were a family of witches hailing from Pendle, who’d fled their home after being persecuted by a local magistrate who wanted to get his hands on their land. They settled in the Calder Valley and quickly established themselves within the community. You have to remember that witchcraft was viewed differently in those days. These women were perceived as healers, wise women who the local population would go to for all sorts of reasons. They were revered and trusted and they, in turn, were very protective of their new home and the people who lived here.”

“That’s not what I was expecting,” Carter said. “You make them seem like paragons of virtue. Pillars of the community.”

“That’s how they were viewed. There were seven of them, the seven sisters. Elizabeth was the eldest, followed closely by Rachel and Rebecca, twins, and there was Alice, Ruth, Megan and finally Elinor, the youngest. From what I can remember it was Elinor who was the rebel. Nan never spoke much about her but I gather she was a wild child in today’s terminology. She flirted with black magic as much as she did with men. My grandmother made it clear she didn’t approve of her.”

“Do you know if there were any children?”

“Nan never mentioned it, but then she wouldn’t. She had very staunch Victorian values and there were some things she thought inappropriate to speak about. But that’s not to say there weren’t any.”

“Have you checked the parish records for that period?” Carter said.

Lacey shook his head. “I’ve had no call to. This was just a story my gran used to tell me. I had no idea it would have any relevance to cases I’d be working on today.”

“So what happened to the seven sisters? Did they live out safe and happy lives in the valley? Somehow I suspect not.”

“And you’d be right. As I said, they were persecuted by a Lancashire magistrate eager to get his hands on their land. Jacob Barker was a pretty ruthless character. Over the space of a number of years he sent groups of men across the border into Yorkshire to hunt down and kill the Yardley sisters. A kind of black ops strategy. Totally illegal, of course, but Barker wielded a lot of power and he got away with it. The sisters had spread out across the valley, with the twins, Rachel and Rebecca, settling in Ravensbridge. The people in the area gave them a lot of protection, but Barker’s men were relentless and one by one the sisters succumbed. The twins were the last to be killed. Barker’s men caught up with them here in Ravensbridge when they were visiting a local farmer who’d had a fall and broken his ankle tending his sheep. They killed Rachel and Rebecca in the most horrible way imaginable, and then went on to kill the farmer and his entire family.”

“When you say, ‘in the most horrible way imaginable’, what do you mean?”

“They were found in the farmer’s barn, tied to a cross beam. Their tongues had been cut out, as had their eyes. Their bodies were then mutilated, hundreds and hundreds of cuts. Their breasts were sliced off and placed on the floor at their feet, and when their bodies were examined it was found that each of them had a large bronze effigy of Christ rammed up into their vaginas and hammered home.”

Carter shuddered. “And all in the name of Christianity. What about the other sisters? How did they die?”

“I know one of them was drowned and another burned at the stake, but I couldn’t say about the other three.”

“We need to find out.”

Lacey rubbed his chin thoughtfully. “Susan Grant, drowned with a garden hose, Amy Clarke, dead in a house fire… Is that where you’re coming from?”

“It’s possible that the manner of killings could be important to the person committing the murders.”

“Well. It’s certainly an avenue I haven’t explored.”

The conversation was interrupted by the shrill ring of Carter’s phone. He took the phone from his pocket. “It’s Annie.” He accepted the call. “Hi, Annie.”

Lacey watched the frown crease Carter’s brow, watched it deepen. “What is it?” he said as Carter ended the call.

“Holly’s just rung her from the hospital. It’s Norton.”

“Dead?”

“Gone,” Carter said. “The nurse checked him at three and he was still comatose. When she went back at six he was missing. His room and his bed were empty.”

“We’d better get over there,” Lacey said.

“I agree, but I’m not sure what we can do. The hospital staff have searched the building and the grounds and there’s no sign of him.”

“We’ll search again. Come on, we’ll take my car,” Lacey said, dragging his raincoat from the back of the chair where he’d draped it.

“But he was in a bloody coma,” Holly Ireland said tearfully. “And you’re telling me that suddenly he just woke up, pulled the wires off his body, got himself dressed and walked out of the hospital without anyone noticing. How does that happen?”

Dr. Jhadav shifted uncomfortably from foot to foot. He’d been called in urgently once the staff on the night shift realized Norton had gone. It was the last thing he needed tonight. It was only a short time ago he’d finished a grueling, eighteen-hour shift and he’d just fallen asleep in his bed when the call came in. He stifled a yawn. “I’m sorry, Ms. Ireland, I truly am. When he was last checked there had been no change in Professor Norton’s condition. There were no signs that he was coming out of his coma.”

“I was told that when I first arrived and found him missing. That’s not the point. I want to know how he could have just walked out of the building without anyone noticing.”

Jhadav shrugged helplessly. He had no idea how it could have happened. It just had.

“It’s all right, Holly. We’ll take it from here.”

Holly Ireland spun round to see Carter and Lacey approaching along the corridor. Her chest heaved as she breathed a huge sigh of relief. “I wasn’t sure if Annie would be able to get hold of you.”

“She tracked me down,” Carter said. “No developments?”

“He’s still missing,” Holly said. “I don’t believe this place. You’d think they’d take more care of their patients.” She directed the last at Jhadav who stared at his feet, even more embarrassed in the presence of Carter and Lacey.

Lacey went across and put his arm around the doctor’s shoulders and led him farther along the corridor, out of Holly’s earshot.

“You can find him,” she said to Carter. “Annie told me how you got inside his head. You’ve done it once. Surely you can do it again.”

“It’s not quite as simple as that. The last time I was making physical contact with him. Without that I’ve nothing to go on.”

A frown of disappointment creased her brow.

“Holly, are you okay?”

Carter turned at the sound of the voice to see a young woman trotting along the corridor towards them. “I came as soon as I got your message.”

“Sarah!” Holly ran to meet her, flinging her arms around her neck and burying her face in the other woman’s shoulder.

Finally they parted and Holly grasped Sarah’s hand and led her across to where Carter was standing. “Rob, this is Sarah. Sarah Bennett.”

“Your alibi,” Carter said with a smile.

The smile wasn’t reciprocated by Sarah Bennett who looked at Carter through narrow, disapproving eyes. “Meaning?” she said.

“Holly said she was getting hammered at your house when Henry Norton was attacked.”

“Yes,” Sarah said. “She was. And I’ve told the police the same. What are you doing about finding him?” 

“We’ve only just got here,” Carter said. “Me and Inspector Lacey.” He pointed along the corridor to where Lacey was shaking hands with Jhadav and sending him on his way.

“Police,” Sarah said disdainfully, as if she were uttering a dirty word.

Carter didn’t rise to the bait. 

The door at the other end of the corridor opened and a young police constable came through and made a bee-line for Lacey.

“I’ve checked the CCTV. The professor hasn’t left the hospital by any of the exits. He must be still inside.”

“Have all floors and all rooms been checked?” Lacey said.

“Yes, sir.”

“What about the basement area?”

“The hospital staff did a thorough sweep.”

“The roof?”

The constable shook his head, looking crestfallen. “Not as far as I know.”

“Not that thorough then,” Lacey said. He went back to Carter. “He’s still somewhere in the hospital. The roof would be a good place to start. It’s the only place they haven’t checked. Follow me.”

Lacey pushed open the metal door and stepped out onto the roof, Carter at his shoulder. They spotted Norton almost immediately on the far side, standing against the low perimeter wall, peering over the edge at the ground below.

The two men exchanged looks. “How do you want to handle this?” Carter said.

“Softly, softly, I think.”

“Which of us should talk to him?”

“You,” Lacey said. “He doesn’t know me at all.”

“I should talk to him.” Holly had followed them up the stairs to the roof. “I know him better than you, Rob.”

“Agreed, you do,” Carter said. “But I’m not sure it’s such a good idea.”

“I don’t know,” Lacey said. “It has some merit. She’s been at his bedside since he entered the hospital.” He turned to Holly. “I take it you haven’t been sitting in silence. You’ve been talking to him, right?”

Holly nodded, her wild, blond hair flapping in the steady breeze blowing across the rooftop. 

“I think she should try,” Lacey said. “She has a much stronger connection with him than either of us.”

Carter turned to Holly. “Take it gently. We don’t know his state of mind.”

“Okay.” She flashed a smile and started to walk steadily across to where Norton was standing.

When she was less than three yards away Norton spun round. “Don’t come any closer.”

“Henry, it’s me. It’s Holly.”

His lips twisted into a sneer. “I know who you are.”

“Can we talk?” She took a tentative step forwards.

Norton’s eyes were wild. They had the look of a frightened, cornered animal. “I said, don’t come any closer!” He looked beyond her to Carter and Lacey. “You keep back as well. I’ll jump. I swear I’ll jump.” He edged backwards until he was up against the perimeter wall.

“We’re just here to help, Henry.”

Norton’s face crumpled into a mask of pain and he flung his hands to his head. “Get out!” he wailed. “Get out of my head!”

“What’s he doing?” Lacey whispered to Carter.

Carter ignored him. He was focusing. He was standing outside a black steel door, set into a vast, unending white brick wall. This time he couldn’t get in. Something was blocking him, stopping him from entering Henry Norton’s mind.

Lacey tugged at his sleeve, bringing him back to reality.

“It’s no use. Something’s stopping me from getting inside his head,” Carter said. “It’s much more powerful this time.”

Lacey looked at him askance. “What are you talking about?”

“I was trying to link with Norton. I did it before, the morning after he was attacked, but now I can’t. There’s another presence there and it’s put up a barrier.”

“Will he jump?”

Norton climbed up onto the perimeter wall, giving Lacey his answer. “Shit!” Lacey said. “Is there nothing we can do?”

Carter said, “It’s all down to Holly now.” 

As Holly took another hesitant step forwards, Norton shuffled precariously on the wall. He raised his arm and pointed an accusing finger. “You!” he said. “I won’t let you do this to me!”

He took a step backwards.

“Henry! No!” Holly screamed. But she was screaming at the empty air. 

Henry Norton had vanished over the side of the building. 

Chapter Twenty-Six

Lacey rushed forwards but much too late. Holly was swaying, her eyes glazed with shock. Her legs buckled and she started to fall, but Lacey caught her and lowered her gently to the ground. 

As Norton tumbled from the roof Carter ran back to the doorway. He could hear footfalls on the stairs as someone descended. He took the stairs two at a time in pursuit, but before he reached the second floor he heard a door slam and knew he wasn’t going to catch up. He stopped and leaned against the wall to get his breath. 

Moments before Norton stepped into space, he’d glanced back at the doorway, following the line of Norton’s accusing finger. There had been someone there, standing in the shadows. Someone who had followed them up to the roof, someone who wanted to silence Henry Norton for good. He caught a fleeting glimpse, and in that moment several pieces of the puzzle slotted into place.

They were sitting in Lacey’s car in the hospital car park, watching the ambulance crew stretcher Henry Norton’s body into the waiting vehicle.

Carter looked across at Holly Ireland who was sitting on the step of the ambulance, a red blanket draped around her shoulders to ward off shock. She looked forlorn and very, very young.

Lacey followed his gaze. “Norton was pointing at her,” he said. “Pointing at Holly.”

“No. He was pointing beyond her, to the doorway.”

“Why?”

“Because the person tormenting his thoughts was standing there.”

“So that’s why you went charging off when Norton jumped.”

“Did you think I was rushing down to see the body?” Carter smiled grimly.

“Did you see who it was standing in the doorway?”

Carter nodded. “Sarah Bennett.”

“You’re sure it was her?” Lacey scratched at the stubble on his chin. “You saw her?”

“Only for a second,” Carter said. “But long enough for me to recognize her.”

“Well, I’ll be damned. I only met her for the first time tonight. Matt interviewed her originally. I’ll call him and get her address, then we’ll go and see her.”

“Did Sparks get anything useful out of her when he interviewed her?”

“Not that I’m aware. She corroborated Holly’s story and that’s about it. Matt did say though that her place is just a stone’s throw from where Norton was attacked.”

“I need to talk to Holly, to see what she can tell me about her.” But when he looked back he saw the red blanket had been tossed in a heap on the ambulance’s step, but of Holly Ireland there was no sign. “Shit!” he said, and bolted from the car.

“A woman in a blue Citroen picked her up,” the ambulance driver said.

“Describe her, can you?” Carter snapped.

“Youngish, mousey hair, glasses.”

“And did Ms. Ireland go with her willingly?”

The driver shrugged as if to say, how the fuck should I know?

Carter went back to the car. Lacey was on his mobile phone. As Carter got in Lacey hung up. “Well?” he said.

“From what the ambulance man said she’s gone off with Sarah Bennett.”

“I just spoke to Matt and got her address. Let’s pay her a visit. Matt’s going to meet us there.”

“We should check Annie’s house and Holly’s boat as well, just in case Sarah Bennett’s just given her an innocent lift home.”

“But you don’t believe that, do you?” Lacey said.

Carter shook his head. “No, I don’t. Just covering all the bases, that’s all.”

There was no sign of Holly at Annie’s house and the narrow boat was locked up and in darkness.

“Well that’s two bases covered,” Lacey said. “Let’s try the third.”

Matthew Sparks was pacing up and down the street outside Sarah Bennett’s, gazing up at the lighted windows and occasionally checking his watch. In his mind he was playing back the interview with her. Was there something incriminating that he’d missed? He’d been distracted, concerned that Lacey was shutting him out and not being open with him. His mind hadn’t been on the job.

So far he hadn’t seen any shadows moving behind the drapes to suggest the flat was occupied, and certainly nobody had come or gone from the place since he arrived. But he didn’t intend to make an approach until Lacey arrived, so he continued to pace, every now and then glancing either way along the street, hoping to catch sight of his boss’s car.

Finally Lacey arrived, Robert Carter sitting in the passenger seat.

A new double act, Sparks thought but said nothing.

“Anything?” Lacey said to him as he stepped from the car.

“The place seems deserted.”

“Fuck!” Lacey said. 

“I didn’t expect them to be here.” Carter joined them on the pavement and lit a cigarette. He drew from it deeply and blew out the smoke, a blue-gray cloud eddying into the night air. “At least it will give us a chance to look around, to see if there are any clues to where the Bennett woman might have taken her.”

“You’re convinced Holly Ireland’s been abducted then,” Sparks said.

“Pretty much. It’s Laura Sallis all over again.”

“Who?” Sparks said.

“Ian will fill you in.”

“Come on,” Lacey said. “There’s no point in us standing around in the street. Let’s get inside.”

They made their way up to Sarah Bennett’s flat. Lacey leaned heavily on the doorbell and waited for a response. When there was none he pulled a bunch of keys from the pocket of his raincoat and started trying them in the lock.

“So we’re not waiting for the niceties of a warrant?” Sparks said.

“We’d never get one,” Lacey said. “No crime has been committed.”

“I don’t need one,” Carter said and reached for the keys. “Here, let me.”

“Department business?” Lacey said.

“We’ll call it that, shall we?” Carter said with a smile.

“Just what powers do Department 18 have?” said Sparks, irritated that the rule of law was being so openly flouted.

“Oh, many,” Carter said. “We’re not tied up in so much red tape as you lot.” A key turned in the lock. “That’s it. We’re in.” He pushed open the door and entered the flat.

Lacey followed, pausing to look back at Sparks who was hesitating in the hallway. “Look lively, Matt. We haven’t got all night. And for Christ’s sake stop looking so aggrieved. Just be thankful Rob’s on our side.”

Sparks relaxed a little and followed Lacey inside. “Right,” he said. “What are we looking for?”

“Rob?” Lacey said. “What are we looking for?”

“Anything to tie Sarah Bennett into the deaths.” Carter walked across to the bookcase and started to scan the titles. Lacey tackled the rest of the lounge, opening drawers and sifting through their contents. Sparks went through to the bedroom and did the same there.

After a while Lacey said, “I’ve found nothing.”

“Nor me,” Carter said. He’d been through the entire contents of the bookcase, but apart from a few stray horror novels scattered amongst the shelves of feminist tracts and political biographies, there was nothing to suggest that Sarah Bennett knew anything about witchcraft. He said as much to Lacey.

“I agree. If she is involved in this, she’s giving us no clues.”

Matt Sparks emerged from the kitchen, ashen-faced. “You might want to see this,” he said. After finding nothing in the bedroom, he’d gone through to the kitchen and started opening cupboards and drawers. Again there was nothing to suggest Sarah Bennett had any involvement in the case. He opened the fridge to be confronted by a tub of butter, two bottles of chardonnay and very little else. And then he opened the freezer.

Carter and Lacey followed him through to the kitchen and stopped dead. Sparks had left the freezer door open and he watched their faces, watching the shock register in their eyes as they stared at the frozen, naked body folded into the freezer.

“I don’t know who was with you at the hospital, but it wasn’t Sarah Bennett,” he said. “This is.”

“This isn’t a shortcut,” Holly said.

The young woman driving the car looked at her pityingly. “God,” she said. “You’re so dumb.”

Holly stared at her. She’d accepted a lift from a woman she thought was her friend Sarah Bennett, but the longer the journey progressed the more she was coming to the conclusion that she had made a huge mistake. “Stop the car,” she said.

The woman continued to drive, pressing her foot down on the accelerator, increasing their speed.

“I said, stop the car!” 

They were travelling along an unlit country road, twisting and turning, rising and falling, and Holly didn’t have a clue where they were. It didn’t matter. She wanted out of the car. Now.

She made a lunge for the steering wheel, but the woman simply blinked her eyes and Holly was thrown back into her seat, the impact knocking all the wind out of her. She gasped, trying to get her breath. The woman blinked again and Holly’s arms and legs were paralyzed.

“Now, just sit there and shut up. When I want you to talk I’ll tell you.”

Holly opened her mouth to protest but, like her limbs, her vocal cords were frozen. The only noise she could make was a harsh cawing sound, like an angry magpie.

As she watched, the woman began to change. She seemed to be getting bigger, increasing in size as she sat in her seat. The long, mousey hair was falling away from her head, leaving her totally bald. But the effect lasted only seconds. New hair was growing, alarmingly fast. Blond and curly, it pushed out through her scalp, fine curls at first but soon thickening and growing longer, tumbling over her shoulders. The contours of her face were moving, remolding themselves. The angular features of Sarah Bennett were being replaced by softer lines, slightly plumper and much prettier. The woman turned and smiled at her. “That’s better,” she said. “That’s much better.”

Eventually the road turned into little more than a track. The car bumped over ridges and potholes and Holly was bounced around in her seat, cracking her head more than once on the side window, but she couldn’t move her arms to brace herself.

They drove through a five-barred gate and the track continued. There were fields on either side of the track, containing a motley collection of sheep. A few of them struggled to their feet and started ambling silently towards them. Holly looked out through the windscreen. They were approaching a house, old and weather-beaten, white, stuccoed walls and a gray slate roof. There was a single light burning in a downstairs room.

The young woman stopped the car and switched off the engine. “Home,” she said and got out of the car. She walked around and opened Holly’s door. “Get out.”

Holly just sat there, staring at her.

“It’s all right, you can move your legs. Now, get out.”

Holly swung her legs from the car and planted them firmly on the earth. She still couldn’t move her arms, so getting out of the car was difficult. She rocked her body in the seat, trying to gain momentum. Losing patience, the young woman grabbed her by the front of her T-shirt and tugged her forwards. Holly finally stood.

“Right. Inside.” The young woman planted a hand in the middle of Holly’s back and propelled her forwards. Holly resisted. 

“Have it your way,” the young woman said and left her standing there while she went to open the door. Once inside the woman turned and snapped her fingers. 

Holly’s legs started to move of their own volition. First one foot and then the other, small, shuffling steps that brought her ever closer to the doorway. She shuffled across the threshold and found herself standing in a dimly lit hallway. She sensed rather than saw the door closing behind her, but heard the click of the latch as it shut.

Tears rolled down her cheeks. With a sickening feeling of certainty she knew that now she was inside the house she would never, ever leave.

The young woman was standing in front of her. She reached out and with her finger wiped a tear from Holly’s cheek. She stuck the finger into her mouth. “Sweet,” she said and smiled. “The sisters are going to love you.” 

Chapter Twenty-Seven

“How long do you think she’s been in there?” Lacey said.

Carter was crouching down in front of the freezer, examining the ice crystals covering Sarah Bennett’s skin. He reached out and touched her arm. “She’s frozen solid. I’d say at least two days.”

“And you can’t see any wounds or marks? Nothing to suggest how she was killed?” Matthew Sparks was leaning against the wall on the far side of the kitchen. He couldn’t bring himself to get any closer.

“Look at the attitude of the body,” Lacey said. “Crouched, arms wrapped around her knees, fingers entwined. It doesn’t look to me like she was murdered and just dumped in the freezer. It looks as if she got in there herself and settled down to die.”

“You mean she climbed in there of her own free will?” Sparks said incredulously.

“Who said anything about free will?” Carter said. “The person we’re dealing with here—Diana, for want of a better name—has incredibly powerful abilities. She can get into people’s minds and bend them to her own will. Take Ollie Tucker for example. Despite his obesity and penchant for recreational drugs, he loved his life and clung to it like a limpet. There’s no way he would have wrapped a cable around his throat and jumped from his balcony, unless he was somehow coerced.”

“And Susan Grant,” Lacey said. “Sticking a hosepipe down her throat to drown herself. There are easier ways to commit suicide.”

“So Sarah Bennett simply allowed herself to be frozen to death. Is that what you’re saying?” Sparks asked.

“That seems the most likely scenario,” Carter said, getting to his feet.

Lacey stepped past him and shut the freezer door.

“What are you doing?” Sparks said.

“Preserving the evidence. I don’t want her thawing out before forensics get here.”

“Are you calling this in?” Carter said.

“I don’t have a choice. I’m a copper. It’s my job.”

“And what will you tell them when they ask you how you discovered the body? You said yourself you have no legitimate reason to be here,” Carter said.

“Let me worry about that. You’d better make yourself scarce. I can bullshit a reason for Matt and I being here. I might have trouble explaining your presence.”

“Good point. I’ll speak with you tomorrow.”

Carter left them standing in front of the freezer and walked back to Annie’s. 

Holly opened her eyes. She was lying on a single divan in a room decorated with Laura Ashley wallpaper and dark cream paintwork. There was an oak chest of drawers in the corner and floral drapes at the window. The room brought back memories of a childhood vacation. 

Her parents had taken her to a sixteenth-century farmhouse in South Wales, and she and her sister Sally had shared a room just like this one. She turned her head to the left. There was another single bed, just like the room in Wales, but it wasn’t Sally lying there. This bed was occupied by a young woman she’d never seen before. 

The woman appeared to be asleep, breathing deeply, chest rising and falling. “Hello,” Holly said softly. And then louder. “Hello. Are you awake? Where are we?”

The woman on the other bed didn’t stir.

“She can’t hear you, I’m afraid.”

Holly jerked her head around at the sound of the voice. The woman with the curly, blond hair was sitting on a Queen Anne style chair in the corner of the room, watching her with a wry smile on her face.

“Who are you?” Holly said.

“Ah yes, time for introductions, I think. You can call me Diana.” She pointed to the other woman. “That is Laura. She’s been with me for a while now, more or less as you see her. I’m sure she could wake if she wanted to but”—she lowered her voice to a conspiratorial whisper—“I don’t think she wants to.”

Holly tried to push herself upright but found that, apart from her head, her body was frozen, paralyzed again. She made a noise of frustration in her throat, a cross between a growl and a stifled scream. “Why are you doing this?”

Diana’s smiled widened. “So the sisters can live again,” she said. “Simple really.”

It was the second time she had mentioned the sisters.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Holly said.

“And why should you? You know nothing of the past, how the sisters were hunted down, one by one, like animals, like dogs, and put to death, killed in the most inhuman ways.”

“But what’s that got to do with me?”

“Because you’re an incomer. Because you and your kind don’t belong here in the valley. The sisters cared for the people of the valley and I should do the same. But incomers are evil. It was the incomers who betrayed and gave up the sisters to the hunters. These were people who had no right to be here, who refused to understand the ways of the valley. So it’s only fitting that incomers are sacrificed so the sisters can return to the lives they once had.”

“You’re mad,” Holly said.

Diana smiled. “If you say so. I’m not sure madness comes into it, but what I am is very patient, and I’ve waited a very long time to reunite my family.” She rose from the chair and walked to the beds, leaning first over Laura, Annie’s friend, stroking her cheek, and then turning her full attention to Holly. She crouched down so their eyes were level. “Still,” she said. “Not long to wait now.”

Later, as Carter entered the house he heard voices coming from the basement kitchen. Annie was down there with Adam and Penny Chapman.

Annie had been crying. Her eyes were red-ringed and there were a pile of crumpled, damp tissues on the table in front of her. The Chapmans flanked her, Penny holding her hand, her husband sucking on a cigarette as if his life depended on it. As Carter stepped into the kitchen, Adam Chapman took the cigarette from his mouth and ground it out in the overfilled ashtray. “It’s all over the local news,” he said. “What happened? Were you there when Henry jumped?”

“We came over as soon as we saw it,” Penny said. “We didn’t think Annie should be on her own.” She gave Annie’s hand a reassuring squeeze.

“I’ve been behaving like a complete wimp,” Annie said. “I can’t believe how much Henry’s death has bothered me. Sorry, Rob.”

Carter pulled out a chair and sat down at the table. “It gets worse,” he said. “I’ll answer your questions in a moment, Adam, but first I want you, all of you, to tell me what you know about witchcraft in the Calder Valley.”

“What do you mean exactly?” Penny said.

“You’ve all lived here for years. You must have heard stories, folk tales, rumors, anything. Wrack your brains. I want to know everything you know, no matter how trivial you may think it is.”

“Why?” Annie said.

Carter reached across to Adam Chapman’s packet of cigarettes, extracted one and lit it. He was out of them. He’d smoked his last one on the way back from Sarah Bennett’s flat.

“You asked me up here,” he said, blowing out a plume of smoke. “Because you wanted me to investigate a number of suspicious deaths and the disappearance of Laura Sallis. From what I’ve learned I’d say that all the incidents are related, as are the deaths of Henry Norton and Ollie Tucker. And now Holly Ireland has gone missing and I’m afraid she could be the next victim in all this.”

“Oh, no!” Annie said, reaching for another tissue.

By the time the Chapmans went home and Carter went to bed, it had gone three a.m. It had been an excruciatingly long day and his body ached, but he found it difficult to sleep. His mind refused to switch off, churning over the events of the day and reviewing the stories Annie and the Chapmans had told him. When Penny Chapman herself told him she was a white witch it didn’t surprise him. The whole valley was steeped in witchcraft with people, usually women, adopting Wicca as their religion and embracing the whole alternative lifestyle it presented. But there was a difference between the Wiccan ideal and the powers exhibited by Diana. Her magic came from a much darker philosophy.

Diana.

Even the name seemed significant. In legend Diana was the goddess of the hunt—so did she see herself as a huntress? And there was even a predominantly feminist branch of Wicca named after her. Dianic Wicca. So had the name been given to her or was it one she had simply adopted? Whatever the truth might be it was obvious she had set herself some kind of mission. There was a purpose to the killings, he was sure of that. But he was equally sure that she was deliberately muddying the waters to make detecting that mission nigh on impossible. Henry Norton and Ollie Tucker had been killed to prevent them from discovering the truth about her. Martin Impey had been attacked in the British Library while researching the Yardley sisters. Dave Scott, the driver of the flour tanker, had been killed because… Why? 

His mind hit a brick wall.

He rolled over in the bed and punched his pillow in frustration. When sleep finally found him it was fitful and dream-filled. It was almost a relief when the persistent ringing of the front door bell brought him back to wakefulness.

He pulled on a robe and padded from his bedroom. The bell hadn’t roused Annie. He could still hear her snoring slightly in the next room.

He tiptoed down the stairs and saw a familiar silhouette through the glass panel in the front door. He unlocked it and pulled it open.

Jane Talbot stood on the doorstep, umbrella raised against the thin drizzle falling from the sky.

“Good to see you,” Carter said. “Thanks for coming.” He leaned forwards to kiss her, but she turned her head, presenting him with her cheek.

“I’m doing this for Emilie,” she said flatly. “I’ve brought a friend.” She stepped to one side and closed the umbrella. Beyond her Carter could see her car parked on the street. A familiar figure was hauling a small suitcase from the trunk.

“Harry Bailey?” Carter said. “What the hell’s he doing here?”

“Sorry, Rob,” she said. “Your one-man show is over. Crozier’s made this official now.”

In the street Harry Bailey slammed the lid of the trunk and carried the suitcase to the house. “Rob, good to see you again,” he said, extending a hand. To Jane, he said, “Your bag, madam.”

“But how…?” Carter said.

“Easy explanation, old son,” Bailey said. “Simon set me the task of tracking you down and coming to Yorkshire to give you some help. I hadn’t got a clue where you were staying, so I called Jane, figuring she might know, and she said she was coming up here today, so I cadged a lift.”

“Fortunate,” Carter said.

“Born lucky, me,” Bailey said with an easy smile.

“Where are you staying? There’s no room here.”

“Don’t worry about me. I’m sure there’ll be a bed and breakfast somewhere, or I’ll pitch up at one of the pubs. I saw at least one of them advertising rooms.”

Carter turned and saw Annie, dressed in a toweling robe, padding down the stairs. “What’s going on, Rob? Who are these people?”

“This is Harry Bailey, a department colleague of mine. And this,” he said. “This is Jane Talbot.”

Annie Ryder frowned. “Well invite them in. Don’t keep them standing out there in the rain.”

Jane shook the rain from her umbrella and stepped over the threshold. Harry Bailey followed.

“I take it Rob didn’t tell you I was coming,” Jane said to Annie.

“Not a word,” Annie said, shaking her head. “Not a bloody word. Come through, I’ll put the kettle on.”

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Harry Bailey reached into the pocket of his overcoat and pulled out a book, dropping it on the table in front of Carter. “This was what Martin was reading when he was attacked.”

Carter picked it up and read the title, smiling tightly. “The Yardley sisters,” he said. “Why doesn’t that surprise me? What are you doing with it?”

“The police found it when they were called to the library. They handed it to Simon who, in turn, passed it on to me to read through.”

“And have you?”

“I sat up half the night. Interesting reading. A testament to intolerance and bigotry. Those poor women were persecuted, hunted down one by one and killed horribly.”

Carter nodded. “I know something of the story. The Yardley sisters are part of the folklore around here. I pointed Martin in their direction. There was a footnote on one of Henry Norton’s files that mentioned an Elinor Yardley.”

“Well I think we can safely say that the Yardley sisters play an integral role in all this,” Bailey said.

“Yes, but how?” Carter said.

Jane Talbot leaned forwards in her seat. “That’s what we’re here to find out,” she said.

Annie looked troubled. “How did Diana—we’ve given her a name, we might as well use it—how did she know your friend Martin was going to the library to look at that particular book?”

“Some kind of location charm or spell, I should imagine,” Harry Bailey said. “At some stage she would have had contact with the book and applied the spell. After that it would be quite a simple matter to keep tabs on who was taking it out to read.”

“That easy?” Carter said.

“Oh, yes. I’ve encountered these spells before. They’re pretty big in Haiti.” He turned to Annie. “I spent a number of years there when I was in my twenties, when Papa Doc’s son, Jean Claude, had the country in a stranglehold.”

“So you believe in witchcraft?”

“There’s too much evidence not to,” he said. “I’m not saying that all witches have powers. Some, if not most of them, are self-delusional. To them it’s a belief system, as flawed as all belief systems that rely on blind, unquestioning faith. But I’ve met a couple of genuine witches in my time and I believe they had real powers. They may not be up there with Harry Potter, but I’ve seen them perform some remarkable feats of what we’d call magic.”

“So Diana is aware that Martin had checked the book out of the library,” Jane Talbot said. “And then what? She somehow possesses the girl who then goes on to attack him?”

“That seems the most likely scenario,” Harry Bailey said. “The girl’s name is Annabel Levy, training to be a lawyer, and definitely not the type to attack a total stranger.”

“I’d go along with the possession theory,” Carter said. “It makes sense.”

“Do you think that’s why Martin wasn’t killed? The fact that Diana was using someone else to carry out her dirty work?” Annie said.

“I can’t be sure,” Bailey said. “But it could be that using a third party weakens her powers in some way.”

“We know she had close contact with Ollie Tucker and Dave Scott, but not with Henry Norton until yesterday,” Carter said. “The result being that they are all dead, but it’s taken her days to kill off Norton after that initial attack, so you could be right.”

“Then it’s imperative we keep her away from Martin,” Jane said.

“I agree,” Harry Bailey said. “I’ll call Simon and get him to instigate a twenty-four-hour guard at the hospital.”

Carter said, “Do it, but it could be futile. Diana is a shape-shifter. For all we know she could take the form of one of the nurses, a doctor or even one of the guards.”

“How can we protect him?” Jane said.

Carter thought for a moment. “Is John McKinley on assignment?” 

Bailey shook his head. “Not as far as I know. The last time I saw him he was in his office, buried under a mountain of paperwork and complaining bitterly. You know John. Hates sitting on his arse when he could be out working on a case.”

“I’ll call him and put him in the picture,” Carter said. “He’d be better equipped to deal with Diana should she surface in London. I suspect though that she’s going to have enough to deal with up here to worry much about Martin. I could be wrong but I think that whatever plan she has is gaining momentum. If you think about it the first attack we ascribe to her was about eleven years ago. And then there were a few other killings in the period up until now. But, suddenly, things are speeding up, the tempo’s increasing, and now she’s abducted Holly Ireland and possibly…no, probably…Laura Sallis. I think she’s entering the end game.”

“And you think it relates to the Yardley sisters?” Jane said. She reached across, took the book from Carter and started thumbing through it.

“It’s likely. Both Norton and Martin were researching them, both were attacked. A link is likely, don’t you think?”

Jane nodded, not looking up from the book.

“All the sisters were killed,” Carter said. “But Ian Lacey told me that one of them, Elinor, was something of a wild child. Apparently she dabbled in black magic, but she also liked men.”

Jane was quick to get the gist of what Carter was saying. “You’re thinking she may have got pregnant, thus continuing the bloodline,” she said.

Carter shrugged. “It’s possible. It’s something we should look at. Diana might have Yardley blood running through her veins.”

“Then I think I’ll make a start with the local church,” Bailey said. “That would probably be the best place to begin. Parish records can tell you a lot. If Elinor, or one of the other sisters, had a child, it might be documented. What about you, Jane?”

“I’m going to read this,” Jane said. “And then, Rob, I want to meet your tame policeman.”

“Lacey?”

“You told me he had files linked to the deaths. I’d like to see them. Do you think he’ll let me read through them?”

“I don’t see why not. I’ll call him as well.”

“What can I do?” Annie said. “I’d like to help in some way.”

“Do you know the vicar of the church here in Ravensbridge?” Bailey said.

“Peter Wright, yes. He’s a lovely man.”

“Then you can come with me and make the introductions,” Bailey said. “It would help if I’m seen with you, a local face and all that.”

Carter got to his feet. “Best get started then.”

Jane Talbot snapped the book shut. “Will Diana know I’m reading this?”

Harry Bailey shook his head. “No. It’s clean now. I applied a counter charm to it before I left London.”

Carter looked at him incredulously. “You know how to do that kind of stuff?” he said.

“As I said, Haiti. I got fairly friendly with one of the local houngans—a kind of witchdoctor. He taught me a lot.”

“You never cease to amaze me, Harry. It’s no wonder Crozier values you so highly.”

“It’s a pity he doesn’t pay me more then, isn’t it?” He rested his hand on Annie’s shoulder. “Come on, Annie. Let’s go and meet your vicar.”

“He’s an interesting man,” Jane Talbot said once Bailey and Annie had gone. “Talked all the way up here. Some of the stories…”

“Harry’s one of a kind,” Carter said. “He left the department after his own personal demons drove him to the bottle, but after closeting himself in Ireland for a few years, he seems to have got his act together again.”

“This job!” Jane said scornfully.

“What about it?”

“It ruins lives.”

“It can…if you let it,” Carter said grimly.

It had been a hell of a night. Holly had hardly slept at all and now her eyes were gritty. There was a dull aching behind her eyes, and she desperately wanted to pee. Diana obviously didn’t think of that very basic need when she paralyzed her. Holly swiveled her head to look at Laura, but the woman hadn’t moved all night. She lay like a stone statue, eyes closed, only the steady rise and fall of her chest as she took in air and breathed it out, giving any indication that she was still alive.

“Laura,” Holly hissed at her. “Laura, can you hear me?”

Rise and fall, rise and fall, but no answer.

“Oh for God’s sake, this is ridiculous!” Holly’s voice rose in frustration. The bedroom door opened and Diana swept into the room. She was dressed totally in black. Black jeans, black T-shirt covered by a black sweater, with black pumps on her feet. She had tied her hair back, making her look much more conservative.

“Good morning,” she said brightly. “I hope you slept well.”

Holly swallowed, trying to work some saliva into her mouth so she could speak. “What do you care if I slept well or not? It’s not as if you’re concerned for my well-being.”

“Ah, but how wrong you are,” Diana said, settling herself down on the edge of the bed. “I’d hate it if anything happened to you, Holly. I’ve waited much too long for something to go wrong now.”

“Waited for what?” Holly said, exasperated by the woman’s enigmatic pronouncements. 

Infuriatingly Diana just smiled benignly at her, but the smile never reached her eyes. They were cold and calculating and Holly suddenly had an insight into just how dangerous Diana was. When she spoke next she moderated her tone of voice. “I need to pee,” she said.

“Go on then,” Diana said and blinked her eyes.

Holly felt a tingling sensation in her toes that travelled through her feet and up her legs, and suddenly she could move again. She swung her legs to the floor and stood shakily.

“Second door on the left,” Diana said, watching her closely.

Holly waited for the woman to stand and accompany her. When it was obvious she wasn’t going to, Holly walked uncertainly to the door and opened it. She glanced back at Diana who was still sitting on the edge of the bed, her attention now focused on Laura.

Feeling slightly confused, Holly slipped from the room and made her way along the corridor to the bathroom.

Once she’d relieved herself she left the bathroom and closed the door quietly behind her. If she turned left she would find herself back in the bedroom with Diana and Laura. Turning right led her along the landing to the stairs. She turned right.

The stairs were kind to her. They didn’t creak as she tiptoed down them. She was holding her breath, only pausing to exhale softly once she reached the bottom. She crept through the narrow hallway, stopping every few steps to listen for any movement from above, but there was nothing to hear. There was a green-painted door at the end of the hallway. Inset into the door was a window with an orange art deco sunray design. The door had a single lock with a brass knob. It all looked normal enough. Taking a deep breath, she twisted the knob, pulled the door open and stepped outside into the early morning sunlight.

The door gave onto a small front garden with beds filled with multi-colored tulips and vivid, purple-blue clumps of aubrietia, flanking a red brick path, the bricks flaking and moss-covered. At the end of the path was a cream-painted wooden gate that opened onto a wide mud-track, its surface ridged by tire tracks and spotted with water-filled potholes.

She walked up the path to the gate and pushed it open and looked to her left along the track. It curled away into the distance, becoming lost in the trees of the surrounding woodland. The view to the right was identical. She stepped through the gate and mentally tossed a coin. Right or left. It didn’t really matter. She had no idea where she was, and anyway, whichever direction she took would lead her away from the house and Diana. She glanced back at the house to check whether her absence had been noticed. There was no sign that it had. 

Right it is then, she thought. She turned, took one step along the path and stopped dead. No, she thought. This is too easy. Why was Diana not trying to stop her? 

The question was answered by a low growl to the left of her and she stopped dead. Very slowly she turned her head to look back over her shoulder. The dog was sitting on its haunches, large and black. It bore a vague resemblance to a Rottweiler, but the head was broader, the brow more pronounced. Saliva drooled from its mouth as it sat watching her and it sniffed the air once or twice, trying to catch her scent.

She wanted to run. Her heartbeat increased as adrenaline coursed through her veins, a typical flight reaction, but she knew she could never outrun the dog should it decide to chase her.

Very slowly she edged back to the garden gate, her hand stretched out behind her, reaching for the wooden palings. The dog gave another rumbling growl and Holly could swear she could feel the ground vibrating beneath her feet. Her arm was beginning to shake with the effort of trying to reach the gate, and the shaking was beginning to spread to the rest of her body, turning her knees to jelly and robbing them of strength.

Finally her fingers curled around the rough wood of the gate. She tensed her muscles, pulled at the gate, darted inside and slammed it behind her, shutting out the dog. She started to run back to the house, and for an instant she thought she’d evaded the dog. But the triumph was short-lived. She was halfway up the path when she glanced back to see the dog smashing through the gate, powering through it and sending wooden palings spinning into the air.

With a cry of despair she ran faster, but knew she didn’t stand a chance. The dog hit her in the middle of her back with its giant paws and brought her to the ground. She rolled over and threw up her arms to protect herself, but the dog was straddling her, its huge, misshapen head inches away from hers. As it opened its jaws to reveal long, sharp, yellowing teeth, hot, fetid saliva dripped from its cavernous mouth into Holly’s eyes. 

She wanted to scream, but she didn’t have the energy. She simply made a small whimpering sound as the dog gave a final, feral snarl and lunged at her unprotected face.

Chapter Twenty-Nine

Holly opened her eyes and found herself staring up at the bedroom ceiling. 

Bewildered she looked around her. She was in the bedroom. She hadn’t been anywhere. Diana was still sitting at the end, smiling at her indulgently.

But the dog! The teeth!

Holly gasped and threw her hands to her face, expecting to feel bite marks, but they encountered only smooth, unbroken skin. Confused, she looked at Diana.

“You were saying you wanted to use the bathroom?” Diana said.

Holly could feel the pressure in her bladder. “Yes,” she said. “Yes, I do.”

“Off you go then.”

“But…”

“Off you go. We wouldn’t want you wetting the bed.”

Holly climbed from the bed and crossed to the door. She reached the threshold and paused, glancing back at the room. Diana hadn’t moved. “Well, go on,” she said, her smile widening. “Make sure you come straight back. I wouldn’t want anything to happen to you.”

Holly looked from her to the other bed. Laura’s eyes were wide open and she was staring at Diana, a look of total loathing on her face. Holly’s mouth opened to speak but Laura saw her and gave a tiny shake of her head and Holly’s mouth snapped shut. Laura’s eyes closed again.

She walked from the room and carried on along the landing to the bathroom. She shut the door behind her, crossed to the toilet bowl, crouched down and vomited. When she pushed herself to her feet her whole body was shaking. Diana had given her a warning. She had gotten inside her head and planted the image of the dog and the attack. 

That’s what is waiting for you outside should you try to escape.

“Oh shit,” she whispered quietly to herself.

The interior of the church was still and quiet. Their footsteps echoed off the stone floor and the sound seemed to fill the place, an unwelcome intrusion into the peace and serenity. The two gray-haired women arranging the flowers in the nave obviously thought so. They stared at Bailey and Annie with ill-concealed irritation, their morning communion shattered by the unexpected arrivals.

The vicar stepped out from the vestry, clutching a sheaf of papers. He was a young man with prematurely gray hair and a slim, athletic body. His shirt was partly covered by a black windcheater and he wore black jeans and black, polished loafers. He passed the two women arranging the flowers. “The church is looking lovely, ladies. It’s a credit to you.” He turned to walk up the aisle but stopped when he saw Bailey and Annie standing at the back of the church.

“Hello there,” he said brightly. “I’m afraid you’re a little early for Matins.”

“Hello, Peter,” Annie said.

A smile lit up the vicar’s face. “Annie, is that you? I’m sorry, I can’t see a thing without my glasses.” He fished in the pocket of his windcheater and pulled out a pair of horn rims that had seen better days. He perched them on the bridge of his nose. “That’s better,” he said and turned to Bailey, a question in his eyes.

“This is a friend of mine, Peter. Harry Bailey.”

“A new parishioner?” Peter Wright said hopefully.

“Afraid not,” Bailey said. “Just visiting.”

“And Annie brought you here to show you the beauty of our church?”

Annie shook her head. “Harry wants to delve into your parish records, Peter.”

“Does he indeed? Another one raiding the history of Ravensbridge. Writing a book, are we?”

Bailey shook his head. “Haven’t the talent, I’m afraid. Has someone else been asking to see the records recently?”

Wright nodded. “Another acquaintance of Annie, I believe. Professor Norton.”

“Ah, I see,” Bailey said. “Any idea what he was looking for?”

A slight frown crossed Wright’s face. “I’m not sure I’m at liberty to share that information,” he said.

“Henry’s dead,” Annie said flatly. “He died yesterday.”

Wright looked shocked. “I know. It’s awful. Annie, you have my deepest sympathy. Was it a long illness?”

“It wasn’t an illness, Reverend,” Bailey said. “He threw himself off the roof of Calderdale Royal Infirmary.”

“Oh my Lord! That’s shocking news. Why would he do such a thing? I only met him once or twice and he never struck me as a potential suicide. He was a vibrant man, full of enthusiasm and drive.”

Annie was nodding in agreement.

Harry Bailey decided to play it straight with the vicar and tell him his suspicions. “I think he was coerced into killing himself.”

The two women arranging flowers in the nave had stopped to listen to the conversation.

“Come through to the vestry,” Wright said. “We can talk about this…in private.” He glanced at the women to make sure they had heard. They withered under his gaze and went back to torturing their flowers into uncomfortable-looking arrangements.

There was a small, baize-covered table in the vestry with two chairs. Wright ushered them into the seats and opened a folding wooden chair that was leaning up against the wall. He settled himself into it across the table from them and leaned forwards, folding his hands, resting them in front of him on the blue baize. “Surely this is a matter for the police,” he said. “Not the subject of an amateur investigation. I take it that’s why you’re here.”

Bailey nodded. “I’m trying to get to the bottom of it, yes. But the police are involved. I’m assisting them.” He reached into his pocket, produced his Department 18 ID card and slid it across the table to Wright. 

The vicar picked it up and peered at it through his badly fitting spectacles. “Should this mean something to me? I’ve never heard of Department 18.”

“You and most of the population, Reverend, so don’t worry, you’re not alone.” He sat back in his chair and crossed his legs. “We’re a government department dedicated to investigating the paranormal.”

Something glimmered in Peter Wright’s eyes, but Bailey couldn’t decide whether it was interest or annoyance. It looked more like the latter. Wright confirmed it with his next words.

“And we, the taxpayer, provide the funding for this?” he said acerbically. 

“We draw our funding from the Treasury, so yes, I guess you do.” He slipped his ID card back into his pocket.

“If only the government were as generous to the Anglican church. I have a roof that badly needs renovating, our hymn books are falling apart and our prayer books have been repaired so often you can’t read the prayers through the layers of sticky tape. But if we need money we have to raise it ourselves with the usual round of coffee-mornings, sponsored walks and the spring fair. And yet the powers that be decide the moral welfare of the country doesn’t deserve the kind of investment it reserves for more dubious schemes.”

Bailey didn’t respond. He didn’t want to get drawn into an argument with the man. Wright had a fair point but he didn’t know the full extent of the department’s work. Perhaps if he did he wouldn’t be so quick to judge. For Harry Bailey the work with Department 18 was all about fighting evil, and in a much more tangible and effective way than organized religion could ever manage. He could have spent many hours explaining this to Peter Wright, but he didn’t think that the vicar would be an easy convert, so he saved his breath. “What can you tell me about the Yardley sisters?” he said.

Wright looked at him steadily. “They were a family of witches who lived in this area in the seventeenth century.”

“You’ve heard of them then?” Bailey said.

“Yes, but then their name is well known in these parts.”

“How much do you know about them?”

Wright’s eyes narrowed. “Where are you going with this?” he said. “What relevance does it have to the death of Henry Norton?”

“It seems there’s a link between a number of deaths in the valley and the sisters. It’s a line of investigation I’m pursuing.”

Wright sat back in his chair. “Well I hate to pour cold water on your investigation, but as far as the Yardley sisters are concerned I think you’re wasting your time.”

“Really? Why?”

“Because, basically, they were good people. They brought a lot to their respective communities, and they were highly regarded.”

“You sound as if you know a fair bit about them,” Bailey said. 

Wright smiled. “Do you remember when I first arrived in Ravensbridge, Annie?”

“I do indeed,” Annie said. “You looked like you’d just left school. You were so young.”

“I was, and filled with youthful zeal. Know your enemy. One of my old tutors used to drum it into us. He believed there was evil lurking behind every door, under every stone. And he thought it was the role of the clergy to identify it and expose it to the light. You’ve probably noticed that the Yardley sisters are something of a local legend in this part of Yorkshire. When I first heard about them and discovered they were witches, I took it upon myself to find out as much as I possibly could about them, and to expose them, to show them in their true colors. But after much research I found they had no evil intent. After being hounded from their Lancashire home, they embraced the Calder Valley and made it their own. They became fiercely protective of their neighbors and helped them in every way they could.”

“With witchcraft?” Bailey said. “Surely you, a man of the cloth, couldn’t condone such blasphemous behavior.” His tongue was planted firmly in his cheek, gently goading Wright, but the vicar refused to rise to that bait. When he spoke again his tone was even.

“We’re talking over four hundred years ago,” Wright said. “People then were not so…sophisticated as we are today. Much of what was called witchcraft was more than likely basic psychology. They were healers but many of those they healed recovered from their illnesses simply because they believed the Yardley sisters had supernatural powers. A simple case of mind over matter.”

“Or faith healing,” Annie said.

“More or less the same thing,” Harry Bailey said.

“I agree with you, Mr. Bailey, it is. But then I’ve witnessed some remarkable results with faith healers using the power of prayer.”

Bailey opened his mouth to speak but Annie nudged him gently with her elbow. “We really should get on,” she said.

“Yes,” Bailey said. “We should. Perhaps we can continue this another time, Reverend.”

Wright got to his feet. “I just wanted to put you in the picture regarding the Yardley sisters,” he said. 

“And that you have done, Peter,” Annie said. “Thank you.” She glanced at her watch. “The parish records?”

“Indeed,” Wright said. “They’re kept in the cellar.” He walked across to an oak door set in the wall. After taking a large bunch of keys from his pocket, he selected one and slid it into the lock, turning it sharply. The lock opened with a loud click. He pulled the door towards him and flicked a switch on the wall. A cobweb-shrouded bulb glowed into life, bathing the stairs in a dim, milky light. “Watch yourselves on these stairs,” he said. “They’re solid enough, but fairly narrow. There’s a handrail, Annie. To your left.” 

With Wright leading the way they gingerly descended the wooden stairs down to the cellar.

Chapter Thirty

Ian Lacey rapped on the door and entered the office. Chief Superintendent Alistair Knox looked up from the file he was reading, gestured to the chair on the other side of the desk and turned his attention back to the file. Lacey settled his large frame into it and waited. Finally Knox shut the file and turned his cold, gray eyes on him. 

“Sarah Bennett,” he said.

“What about her?” Lacey said.

“You found her body last night. Would you care to tell me what you were doing in her flat?”

“I explained that to Chief Inspector Holden when he arrived at the scene.”

“Explain it to me,” Knox said. He wasn’t a particularly big man physically, but he had a certain presence about him that most found intimidating. He presented himself immaculately from the knife-edge crease of his trousers to the ruler-straight part in his jet-black hair. Lacey had seen many a subordinate officer wilt under Knox’s scrutiny. 

He’d known Knox for a number of years, worked under him for seven and knew that the man’s bite was far worse than his bark. Beneath the polite, quietly spoken exterior was a ruthless, career policeman who could end other careers with a stroke of his pen, and had done so on a number of occasions. Lacey would have to tread carefully. He wasn’t ready to pick up his pension just yet.

“Detective Sergeant Sparks and I were in pursuit of Ms. Holly Ireland, a witness to the death of Professor Henry Norton. As Ms. Bennett was a friend of hers it didn’t seem unreasonable to check to see if she was there. On arrival at Ms. Bennett’s flat we found the door open. We investigated. The flat was empty, but we found Ms. Bennett’s body in the deep freeze.”

“Fortuitous,” Knox said. “And I suppose you had a reason to open the deep freeze during your illegal search of Ms. Bennett’s flat? I take it you didn’t have a warrant?” 

“Ms. Ireland had fled a potential crime scene. I thought it imperative that we find her.”

“And you thought she may be hiding in the freezer? An odd place to hide, I would have thought.”

Lacey shrugged. “No stone unturned,” he said and tried a slight smile. The expression on Knox’s face made him wish he hadn’t.

“I’m sorry, Detective Inspector, I don’t buy it. Not for a moment. You illegally entered Ms. Bennett’s flat and carried out an equally illegal search. I’m passing this along to Internal Affairs and I’m suspending you on full pay until their investigation is complete. Have you anything to say to mitigate your behavior?”

Lacey thought for a moment. This had been a long time coming but he always knew it would come eventually. He shook his head.

“In that case I’ll have your warrant card.” Knox stuck out his hand. “You’ll leave the station immediately. You’re to have no contact with any other officer, especially Sergeant Sparks. Is that clear?”

“Perfectly, sir.” Lacey handed Knox his warrant card, and wondered vaguely if he’d ever get it back. “I would like to speak to you in Matt Sparks’s defense. He was only following my lead…”

“And should have known better,” Knox said, cutting him dead. “I will be dealing with Sergeant Sparks shortly—the outcome of that particular meeting is of no concern to you. Do you understand?”

“Yes, sir.” Lacey got to his feet. “Will that be all, sir?”

“Yes. Close the door on your way out.”

Lacey turned on his heel and walked to the door. His hand was twisting the knob when Knox said, “Ian?”

Lacey turned. 

“You’re a bloody fool, you know?” Knox said.

“Thank you, sir. Thank you very much. I’ll bear it in mind.” Ian Lacey walked from the office, trying very hard not to slam the door behind him.

Matthew Sparks was sitting on an uncomfortable steel chair in the corridor. Sparks looked up at Lacey as he came out. “Well?”

“Suspended on full pay,” Lacey said. “The bastard.”

Sparks’s face looked grim. “Janis is going to kill me.” Janis was Matthew Sparks’s wife of six months. They had just moved into a new flat and Lacey knew they were trying for a child. This could be disastrous for them. Lacey laid a hand on his shoulder. “I’m sorry, Matt. I tried to get you off the hook, but Knox wasn’t listening.”

“Don’t worry about it. I knew what the risks were.”

“Knox was right about one thing though,” Lacey said. “I am a bloody fool. A total bloody fool. I should have quit the force a long time ago, then I wouldn’t have arseholes like him breathing down my neck at every turn.”

The office door opened and Knox stuck his head out. He glared at Lacey. “Are you incapable of following even the simplest of orders?” He turned to Sparks. “In my office. Now!” 

Sparks got to his feet and followed the chief superintendent into his office, leaving Lacey standing in the corridor alone. As the door clicked shut Lacey stepped towards it and put his ear against the wood, but the door was thick and all he could hear was the muffled murmur of conversation.

“Oh, bollocks to it!” he said and walked away, along the corridor, down the stairs and out of the station.

He reached the car park and climbed in behind the wheel of his car. What now? he thought. After reaching into his pocket, he took out his phone and dialed a number.

“Carter.”

“I have a problem, Rob,” Lacey said. “Are you around?”

“Sure. I’m at Annie’s. Come on over,” Carter said.

“I’ll be there in half an hour.” He hung up, twisted the key in the ignition and drove from the car park, heading towards Ravensbridge.

Carter found Jane in the lounge. She was curled up on one of Annie’s heavily stuffed sofas, legs tucked underneath her, chin resting on her hand. In the other she held the book. Reading glasses were perched halfway down her nose and her mouth was set in a firm line of concentration. A strand of hair had fallen in front of her eyes and she kept driving it away with impatient flicks of her head. She was deeply engrossed in her reading. So much so she didn’t even hear him enter the room. When he spoke she jerked in her seat, dropping the book to the floor.

“Do you have to creep up on people?”

“Sorry,” Carter said. “I didn’t realize you were so into it.”

She uncurled herself and bent to retrieve the book. “Well I was. Anyway, what did you say?”

“I said, it looks like you’re getting your wish.”

She frowned at him. “What?” When she frowned she wrinkled her nose, making her look like a petulant teenager. It was one of the many things he found so adorable about her.

“Lacey, my tame policeman. He’s on his way over. You get to meet him.”

She nodded slowly, in understanding and something else. He could almost see her brain working behind her eyes. “Will he have the files with him?”

Carter shrugged. “I should imagine so. Why?”

“I’ve nearly finished this,” she said, holding up the book, and he could see that she only had a few pages to go.

“Your point being?”

“Just an idea I have. I want to see the files before I say what it is.”

“Are you going all mysterious on me?” Carter said.

“No. I just want to check a few things before opening my mouth and making an idiot of myself.”

“Fair enough.”

“Do you know what it is in two days’ time?”

“The anniversary of when we met? Your birthday?”

“My birthday’s in November. Scorpio, remember?”

“Ah, the sting in the tail. Yes, how could I forget that?”

She ignored the barb. “Beltane,” she said. “Beltane is in two days’ time.”

“And that’s significant how exactly?”

“Because Beltane is a very important pagan festival and it’s also the day the last two Yardley sisters were put to death.”

“I’m still not following you.”

“Wait until I’ve seen Lacey’s files. I’ll know more then. Now, get out of here and let me finish my book in peace.”

He held up his hands in mock surrender and backed out of the room, nearly bumping into Annie who was coming along the hallway with a tray bearing a pot of coffee, a mug and three chocolate biscuits on a plate. 

“I wasn’t expecting you back so quickly,” he said. “Where’s Harry?”

“He’s still at the church going through the records. There’s a mountain of them, but he said he didn’t need my help, so I thought I’d come back to see if I could be of some use here. I left him a front door key, just in case we had to go out somewhere.” She sniffed. Her eyes were red from crying and she had a balled-up tissue in her hand.

“Are you okay?” Carter said.

She shook her head. “I keep thinking about them. Laura and Holly. Do you think they’re still alive?”

“We have no evidence to say they’re not.”

“This is horrible, Rob. When I asked you to come I only had the vague suspicion that something was happening here. Now I’ve been proved right. And I wish to God I hadn’t.”

She took the tray in to Jane. Carter heard a brief exchange of words and then Annie reappeared in the hallway.

“She seems lovely,” she said.

“Yes,” Carter said. “She is.”

“And there’s no chance you two…”

“From where I’m standing, Annie, not a hope in hell.”

“Shame. Come down to the kitchen. I made enough coffee to go round.”

“Ian Lacey should be here soon.”

“Then I’ll make him one too.”

He followed her along the hallway and down the stairs to the kitchen.

They were still sitting in the kitchen when Ian Lacey rang the doorbell. Annie ran up the stairs quickly and showed him down to the kitchen. He had just taken a seat when Jane appeared at the top of the stairs, still clutching the book.

“Finished,” she said, trotting down the rest of the stairs and pulling up a chair next to Lacey. “Jane Talbot,” she said to him without waiting for introductions. “I work with Rob at the department.”

“Ian Lacey,” he said, turning awkwardly in his seat to shake her hand.

“It’s Detective Inspector, isn’t it?” Jane said.

“At the moment, technically, no.”

“What do you mean?” Carter said.

“I mean that of ten thirty this morning I’m suspended, pending an internal inquiry,” Lacey said, a wry smile on his face.

“Last night?” Carter said.

“That’s the rope they’ll use to hang me with, but it’s been coming for quite a while. My boss, Chief Superintendent Knox, has been after my pelt for a long time. Now he can finally nail it to his trophy wall. Perhaps—and it’s a very big perhaps—but perhaps now he’ll leave me in peace, which will give me some space to pursue all the lines of inquiry that have just opened up. If you don’t mind me asking, Ms. Talbot, why are you here?”

“I asked Jane to come up from London,” Carter said.

“So have Department 18 made this official?”

“Semi-official,” Jane said. “One of our officers was attacked in the British Library. Simon Crozier decided it was time to take some kind of action.”

“Jane hasn’t come alone,” Carter said. “Another colleague of mine, Harry Bailey, came up with her.”

“I see,” Lacey said.

“He’s at the church now, checking out the parish records.”

“Not wasting much time then, is he?” Lacey said.

“I don’t think time is a luxury we have,” Jane said. “The files you showed Rob, do you have them with you?”

“In the boot of the car, yes. You want to see them?”

“If you wouldn’t mind.”

“Not at all. I’ll fetch them in. Do you mind me asking why you want to see them?”

“Jane has a theory,” Carter said.

“Well I’d be interested to hear it, because I’m buggered if I do,” Lacey said. “I’ll be back in a tick.” He got to his feet and climbed the steps. A moment later they heard the front door open.

“He seems okay,” Jane said.

“He is,” Carter said. “He’s invested a lot in this.”

“Including his job, it would seem,” Annie said.

“Yes,” Carter said. “I know how he feels, kicking against the pricks.”

“You’ve made a career of it,” Jane said.

“I do my best,” Carter said and winked at her.

Annie shook her head. “I feel like banging your heads together.”

“Why?” Jane said.

Before Annie could answer Lacey was back. He handed the carrier bag full of files to Jane and said, “Right. Let’s get started.”

Chapter Thirty-One

“How are you getting along?” Peter Wright asked.

Harry Bailey hadn’t heard him come down to the cellar—he’d been too busy. He had a couple of pages of notes and his eyes were aching from trying to decipher the faded ink, let alone the handwriting of the numerous vicars who’d been incumbent here over the years.

“Getting somewhere, I think,” Bailey said. “How well do you know your records?”

“Not very well, I’m afraid. I don’t have much reason to sit down with them. Of course, I try to keep them up to date but I rarely delve into the past. Especially as far back as you’re going.”

Bailey was seated at a table, notepad in front of him, three large, hide-bound volumes to his left, another open to his right. “This entry here.” He pointed to a line halfway down the page in the open volume. “Elinor Yardley. She had a child, but there’s no mention of the child’s gender, nor is there any mention of the father. It’s not exactly comprehensive.”

“It’s not all that unusual,” Wright said. “You can imagine in those days, a child born out of wedlock was not something to be celebrated. In fact I’m surprised it’s even acknowledged. The vicar at that time must have been very thorough.”

“How can you be sure the child was born out of wedlock?” Bailey said. 

“You’ve been through the entries previous to that one. Did you find any mention of Elinor Yardley getting married?”

“No, nothing at all.”

Wright shrugged, as if that was explanation enough.

Harry Bailey wasn’t prepared to let it go. He had a feeling the vicar was holding out on him. “Forgive me, Reverend, but I think you know more than you’re saying.”

“Whatever makes you think that?”

“Because one minute you’re telling me that you rarely look at these old records, but you seem pretty well informed about Elinor Yardley’s bastard child. What aren’t you telling me?”

Wright looked at him, his eyes narrowing slightly. “Have you finished down here?” he said.

“I think I’ve gleaned all I’m going to,” Bailey said.

“Okay. When you’ve finished come up and see me. I’ll be in the vestry.”

“And you’ll answer my question?”

“I’ll tell you all I know,” Wright said.

It was only fifteen minutes later when Harry Bailey knocked on the vestry door.

“Take a seat,” Wright said.

Bailey sat across the table from the vicar and looked at him expectantly.

“You have to understand,” Wright began. “These were primitive times when compared to today.”

“I understand all that,” Bailey said impatiently. “Things were done in the name of the church, in the name of Christianity, that have left an unpleasant taste in the mouth. I’m not interested in that. But I am interested in the Yardley sisters, especially Elinor. So what more can you add to what I’ve just read in the records?”

Wright sighed. “As I said earlier, the Yardleys were held in very high regard around here, except that is, Elinor. She was the only one of the seven who embraced the darker side of her craft.”

“Black magic?” Bailey said.

“In essence, yes. There were many tales of her excesses. Remember, she’d seen some of her older sisters hunted down, so I suppose she may have been pushed towards the dark side by that. But some would have it that she, unlike her sisters, was born evil. She created a coven here in Ravensbridge and there was talk of secret, and not so secret, ceremonies. When I said earlier about knowing your enemy, it was her I was talking about. The more I looked into the stories about her, the more I found there was some substance to them.

“She and her coven were implicated in at least ten deaths. The victims were all people who in some way or another had displeased Elinor. There was a blacksmith, for instance, who refused to shoe her horse. He was a devout, pious man and doing anything to aid a self-confessed witch who embraced Satan and all his works, well, that was anathema to him. Elinor’s horse had thrown a shoe when she was visiting town. She took it to the blacksmith who not only refused to tend to the animal, but also drove Elinor away by brandishing a cast iron crucifix he’d forged in his own furnace. He was found two days later nailed to the wall of his house. The nails were through his hands and feet in a mockery of the crucifixion. His belly had been sliced open and crudely sewn up again. When the wound was examined and opened up they found that a black cat had been sewn up inside him, and the cat, before it suffocated, had eaten away most of his internal organs.”

Sweat was beading on Peter Wright’s brow, as if just telling the story of Elinor Yardley was taking a physical toll on him.

“On another occasion a woman who had openly mocked Elinor and her beliefs was found dead in her cottage. Her body was little more than a husk, as if all the water had been drained from her. She was twenty-three but looked over a hundred.”

“What about the child? Why is there no record of the father?” Bailey said impatiently.

Wright ignored the questions. His face darkened further as the frown lines deepened. “Those are the most disturbing of the stories I heard. As I said, Elinor formed a coven, thirteen of them, including her. They engaged in many rituals, from simple devil worship to necromancy. On one particular occasion Elinor decided she wanted to summon Satan himself to bear witness to her devotion to him. According to the stories, the others in the coven weren’t so keen on the idea and only four turned up for the ritual. Well, they and Elinor certainly conjured up something that night. Whether it was Satan or not we’ll never know. Three of the four disciples were killed outright, their bodies torn apart. The one who survived was a gibbering wreck, totally insane and raving.”

“And Elinor?”

“Elinor was found wandering around in the woods the next day, naked and dazed. She’d been raped and badly beaten, but she wouldn’t talk about it to anyone. A few months later, obviously pregnant, she turned up at the church and sought out the vicar there at that time, a man named, appropriately enough, Parsons, Caleb Parsons. She was seeking forgiveness for her past ways, offering to devote herself to God for the rest of her life.”

“So what did Parsons do?”

“He forgave her and welcomed her into the congregation. When the baby was born Parsons made every effort to keep Elinor and the child on the path of righteousness.”

“And did he succeed?”

“According to the journal he left, yes, he did. Elinor became a pillar of society, a devout believer and a mainstay of the church. Whatever happened to her that night in the wood changed her forever.”

“And yet she was still killed as a witch.”

“Ironic, isn’t it?” Wright said. “But then there was always more to the deaths of the Yardley sisters than the simple desire to eradicate witchcraft. Jacob Barker, the Lancashire magistrate who instigated the campaign against the Yardleys, was no saint. In fact, he was a thoroughly evil man. He wanted to get rid of the sisters because their land bordered his and he wanted it. The Yardleys’ land had a river running through it, Barker’s didn’t, and he wanted access to that water supply. To him the answer was simple—get rid of the Yardleys and claim the land for himself. The fact that they were self-confessed witches played straight into his hands. With the backing of the church he could justifiably hunt them down and kill them, which is exactly what he did.”

“So Elinor was killed. What happened to the child?” Bailey said.

“Well. For the first ten years you could say the child had a normal childhood. Jacob Barker’s men didn’t catch up with Elinor until the child was eleven.”

“Was the child a boy or a girl?”

“A girl,” Wright said. “And when I say she had a normal childhood, there were stories about her that belie that.”

“What kind of stories?”

“Apocryphal, for the most part. Stories brought about by the fact that Elinor Yardley was her mother and all the attendant baggage that brought with it. In the eyes of the church—well, Caleb Parsons in particular—Elinor may have changed and embraced Christ, but people in the area were distrustful, based on her past, which wasn’t really that unreasonable. So Elinor’s daughter was tarred with the same brush. There was talk that she had strange powers, that if anyone crossed her she would turn them into a frog or a rat…the usual nonsense. I know she was shunned by the other children at the time. They refused to play with her and wouldn’t let her join in with their games. Consequently the girl grew up very much a loner, which only added to the stories.” Wright paused, got up from the table and went across to a shelf at the back of the vestry. When he returned he was clutching a small, vellum-bound book. He sat down again and opened the book. “This is one of Caleb Parsons’ journals. Let me read you something.”

“Go ahead,” Bailey said.

Wright riffled through the pages and then found what he was looking for. He lay the book down on the table in front of him and started to read from the spidery script that filled the pages. “‘I worry about the child. She is excluded from society and has become withdrawn and isolated. There has been talk that she spends most of her time playing with the animals in the forest, moreover, that she can become as one with them, taking their shape, and running with them on all fours across the forest floor. I take such stories lightly, brought about by fear and ignorance. I will persevere and bring her back into the fold and make her one of us.’” Wright shut the book. “You see what I mean?” he said.

Bailey was nodding slowly. “Is there more?” he said.

“Yes, unfortunately there is.” He flicked over a number of pages, finding a place near the back of the book.

“‘Barker’s men finally caught up with Elinor Yardley last night and killed her in a horrible manner, too horrible to be recorded here in this journal. That this atrocity was perpetrated in the name of Christ is an obscenity. Elinor was a true convert, a woman who eschewed her past and who had made her peace with God. The manner of her death is a violation of all that is holy. I pray to my Lord, our Savior, that her daughter does not meet the same fate. I have had it vouchsafed to me that the men hunted for the child as they had hunted for her mother, but were unsuccessful in their quest. Another of Elinor’s neighbors told me that the girl changed her form to evade Barker’s men. That statement I will take with a large dose of skepticism. The belief that anyone can change their shape, can take on the form of another, goes against every teaching of the Holy Scriptures. Unless the child is the offspring of the Devil himself, I have to treat such fancies as the twittering of deranged minds.’”

“So another reference to her being able to change her shape,” Bailey said.

“Indeed,” Wright said, closing the book.

“What do you think happened to her?”

“There were rumors that she was smuggled out of the country by some of Elinor’s old friends. France, maybe Spain, but we’ll never know for sure.”

“Did you give Henry Norton this information when he came to see you?”

Wright shook his head.

“Why not?”

“Because the church failed Elinor Yardley, and I didn’t want him broadcasting that failure in a book,” Wright replied candidly. “Also, I didn’t much care for the professor. I found him to be arrogant and rude. I had no desire to help him.”

“But you’re telling me.”

Wright clasped his hands together. “I think I made the wrong call with Norton and now he’s dead. I’m assuming the reason you’re here is because there’s a link to Norton’s death and the Yardley sisters. Am I right?”

“We think there is.”

“Perhaps if I’d told him what I know he might still be alive?”

It was a question Bailey didn’t know how to answer. Peter Wright seemed like a good man and Bailey didn’t want him to have Henry Norton’s death on his conscience. “It’s too early to make that assumption,” he said.

“Thank you for that,” Wright said. “If I thought I had in some way contributed to a man’s death… Well…”

“Did Elinor’s daughter have a name?” Bailey said, cutting him off.

“Of course,” Wright said. “Diana. The child’s name was Diana.”

Abruptly Bailey got to his feet. “Thank you for your time, Reverend,” he said, extending his hand.

“Have you finished your research then?” Wright said, surprised at Bailey’s apparent rush to leave.

“For the time being,” Harry Bailey said. “For the time being.”

Wright watched him leave the vestry and then stared down at the vellum-bound book. He placed it back on the shelf. He then sat back down at the table, clasped his hands together once more and began to pray.

Chapter Thirty-Two

“Well?”

In the kitchen Carter, Lacey and Annie were watching Jane Talbot as she flicked over the pages of Lacey’s files, stopping every few minutes to do the same with the book on the Yardley sisters. She was scribbling notes on the large pad at her elbow. She ignored them for a few moments more. Finally she laid down her pen, stretched and rubbed her eyes.

“I guessed right,” she said. “Annie, any chance of more coffee?”

“Of course,” Annie said and went to switch the kettle on.

“Well?” Carter said again, craning his neck so he could read the notes Jane had scribbled, but the scrawl was impossible to read upside down.

“The dates of some of the killings coincide with the deaths of the Yardley sisters,” Jane said. “Helen Brown supposedly hanged herself on the 21st of January 1999. Elizabeth Yardley was caught and hanged by Jacob Barker’s men on the 21st of January 1599. Susan Grant apparently drowned herself on the 13th of August 2001. Ruth Yardley was captured by Barker’s men and subjected to a prolonged death on the same day in 1601. They used a ducking stool.”

“So she was drowned as well?” Lacey said.

“Oh yes,” Jane said. “The manner of deaths all seem to match. Amy Clarke, killed in a mysterious house fire, Alice Yardley, burnt at the stake. Sylvia Allyn, decapitated by a wayward hedge trimmer, Megan Yardley, beheaded by Jacob Barker’s men. On the 14th of October 1608 Elinor Yardley was flayed alive by her captors. Three years ago, again on October 14th, Sophie Gillespie was killed, the thinking being that she was skinned alive by her husband, Mark, who then went on to electrocute himself.”

“Does the husband fit into this theory of yours?”

“This is about the women, not the men,” Jane said. “There are probably many more deaths that don’t fit any particular pattern, but you can’t ignore the fact that, so far, five women have been killed, and the dates and manner of their deaths mirror the deaths of five of the Yardley sisters.”

“Four hundred years apart,” Lacey said.

“Absolutely,” Jane said. “All we’re left with are the twins Rachel and Rebecca, and they were killed by Barker’s men on the first of May 1611.”

Annie put a fresh pot of coffee on the table. “To follow your theory, Jane, that gives us two days.”

“May the first. Beltane,” Jane said.

“And you think that’s when Diana will claim her next two victims,” Annie said. 

“It seems the most likely scenario,” Jane said. “And I think it’s safe to assume that Holly Ireland is one of those victims. Diana went to extraordinary lengths to lure Holly away.”

“By shutting Sarah Bennett in the freezer, you mean?” Carter said.

Jane nodded.

“But it doesn’t make much sense,” Lacey said. “If she was just looking for victims, why didn’t she just take Sarah Bennett? She was going to kill her anyway.”

“That’s part of the puzzle,” Jane said. “But you’re right, she could have used Sarah Bennett. Instead she went after Holly Ireland, killing Sarah in the process. There must be a reason for that. I personally think she’s hand-picking her victims. Maybe they’re people she knows. Women she’s built up some kind of relationship with, not necessarily in her Diana persona. Remember that as far as Holly was concerned it was Sarah who picked her up in the car last night. Not Diana.”

Carter glanced across at Annie who was sitting at the far end of the table, fat tears running down her plump cheeks. He reached across and covered her hand with his. “Are you okay?”

“I was just thinking. Diana needs two more victims. She has Holly. It seems likely that Laura is the other one. She had a relationship with Diana. The evil bitch has probably been holding Laura somewhere all this time, just waiting for the first of May. Waiting for Beltane.” She blew her nose.

There was silence around the table. Everyone was thinking much the same and no one could offer Annie any words of comfort.

“I’m right, aren’t I?” Annie said after a long pause.

Carter finally nodded. “I said I’ll do my best to find her, Annie. We all will. We’re making progress. We’ve made the connections.”

“All we have to do now,” Lacey said, “is to find out where she’s keeping Holly and Laura.”

“And find out who the hell Diana actually is,” Carter said.

“That’s the easy bit.”

They all turned at the sound of Harry Bailey’s voice. He was standing at the top of the stairs, wiping the remains of a brief April shower from the sleeves of his jacket. “Elinor Yardley had a daughter who escaped Jacob Barker’s men,” he said as he walked down to the kitchen. “Who’s this?” he said, gesturing to Lacey.

“Detective Inspector Ian Lacey,” Carter said. “Ian, this is Harry Bailey.”

“Yes, I know. We’ve met before.”

Harry Bailey stared at Lacey for a few seconds, trying to place the face. “Charlie Fulford,” he said at last. “You were his sergeant.” He stuck out his hand. “Good to see you again.”

“And you,” Lacey said.

It was Carter who voiced the others’ puzzlement. “Would one of you care to explain?” he said.

“It must be ten years ago,” Bailey said.

“Fifteen. My boss at the time, Charlie Fulford, called Department 18 when we were struggling with a series of vampire-like murders. The department sent Harry here to help us out.”

“How is Charlie?” Bailey said.

Lacey shook his head. “No idea. I lost touch with him once they booted him off the force.”

“And it looks like Ian could be following the same path,” Carter said. “He’s been suspended for his extracurricular activities.”

“Is that right?” Bailey said.

Lacey shrugged. “Let’s get on. You say Elinor Yardley had a daughter. What happened to her?”

“It seems likely she was given help to leave the country. After that, who knows?”

“Jane has a theory about the deaths,” Carter said to Bailey. “The dates of the deaths coincide, albeit with a four-hundred-year gap between them.”

“And the way they were killed echo the way each of the Yardley sisters were killed,” Jane said. “Fire, water, hanging…it goes on.”

“So. What do you think? A descendent of Elinor Yardley’s daughter?” Bailey said.

“Or the daughter herself,” Carter said, making the leap.

“That would make her over four hundred years old,” Lacey said.

“Yes, I know. But we’ve encountered stranger things over the years. Isn’t that right, Harry?” Carter said.

Bailey nodded. “It’s a possibility we have to consider. And the daughter’s name was Diana.”

“We have to find out why she’s killing these women,” Jane said. “And why now, after all this time?”

“I might have a few ideas about that,” Harry Bailey said.

“Are you awake?” Holly whispered.

Laura turned to look at her. “Of course,” she said, her voice loud in the confines of the small bedroom. She was very pretty, with clear skin and dark chestnut eyes. Her brown hair was cut in a short, blunt bob, giving her the appearance of a 1920’s flapper. “You’re Holly Ireland,” she said in the same strident voice.

Holly was taken aback. “Yes. Yes I am. How do you know that?” she whispered.

“I bought a pendant from you. Opal and titanium.”

Holly hushed her. “Keep your voice down. She’ll hear us,” she whispered.

“She won’t. She’s not here,” Laura said.

“Not here?” 

Laura shook her head. “She always leaves as early as she can.”

“I don’t understand. I thought she’d drugged you or something, to make you sleep, to keep you here.” 

“I wasn’t sleeping,” Laura said. “Meditation. It’s my way of coping with what’s happening.”

“So why are you still here?” Holly swung her legs to the floor and sat up. “You must have had plenty of opportunities to get away, to escape.”

“I’ve tried, believe me. You’ve seen the dog?”

Holly nodded. “At least I think I did. I may have dreamt it.”

“You weren’t dreaming. It’s real enough. It’s my guardian. With that thing outside I’m going nowhere. Diana knows it, that’s why she’s content to leave me here alone.”

“Aren’t you afraid?”

“I’m scared out of my wits for most of the time, but I won’t show her that. I wouldn’t give her the satisfaction. The meditation helps. I used to teach yoga, so I find it fairly easy.” Laura sat up and stretched, running her hands through her short, bobbed hair. Holly watched her. There was defiance in Laura’s demeanor, an inner strength that showed in the set of her face. 

“We have to get away from here,” Holly said.

“If you get past the dog I’m sure Diana will have cast a few spells to ensure you won’t get very far.” 

“You speak about her like she’s some kind of witch.”

“Because that’s exactly what she is. To be precise, she’s the eighth witch. The seven Yardley sisters and her.”

“So what does she want with us?” 

“She intends to kill us,” Laura said flatly.

“But why? What have we done to her?”

Laura got off the bed and walked across to the window, staring out through the grimy pane of glass at the surrounding countryside. A watery sun was painting the tops of the trees with silver and reflecting in the puddles of the muddy track. “We’ve done nothing to her. We were just unlucky enough to be chosen.”

“But chosen for what?” Holly said, unable to keep the frustration from her voice.

“I’ve no idea, but she has some kind of plan and we’re integral to it.”

“Why us?”

“Me, because I was seduced by her. When I met her I had no idea of what she was.” She turned away from the window. “I fell in love with her, shared that love with her, shared my bed and my body with her. When she asked me to come away with her it seemed like the answer to a prayer, an escape if you like. All I escaped to was another prison. Ironic really, and I suppose no more than I deserved. I should never have left my mother. She can’t really cope without me. I knew that and I still ran away with Diana. I guess this is my punishment. How did you meet her?”

“I didn’t. I’d never set eyes on her before until last night.”

“No,” Laura said. “That’s not true. You may have thought you’d never met her, but you had. Maybe not in that body though. She has many guises. She can change her appearance in an instant. As I said, she’s a witch. You’ve probably met her but never realized it. In fact I wouldn’t be surprised if Diana is someone you know very well. You just don’t recognize her in this form.”

Holly’s mind went back to the previous evening. Sarah Bennett, or a woman she thought was Sarah Bennett, picking her up in the car, and the frightening transformation that followed. Could Sarah, someone she considered to be one of her best friends, really be the evil Diana? She refused to believe it.

“This is insane,” she said. “It’s the twenty-first century for fuck’s sake, not the Middle Ages! Witchcraft doesn’t exist.”

Laura reached out and stroked Holly’s hair. “Poor you. You just don’t get it, do you? Diana is a witch, whether you accept it or not. And I’ll let you in on another secret you’re going to find hard to accept. The dog, our guardian, isn’t really a dog.”

“What is it then?”

“Just pray you never have occasion to find out,” Laura said.

Holly sucked at her lip pensively. She felt like she’d stepped into a nightmare. “We can’t just sit here and wait for her to kill us.”

“So would you be willing to try?”

“Try what?”

“To escape. To get away from here. She showed you what would happen if you tried to escape. Would you be willing to face that again?”

Holly’s mind conjured up an image of the dog’s jaws, dripping saliva, closing over her head. She shuddered. She shook her head. “I can’t,” she said hopelessly.

“Well I suppose we could wait here to be rescued, but the main problem with that, as I see it, is that nobody knows where we are.”

“You said you’d tried to escape. Obviously you failed. Why should it be any different now?”

“I tried, yes, but that was just me, on my own. What would our guardian do if we both made a break for it? What if we ran in opposite directions?”

Holly gazed at her bleakly. “You’re mad. We wouldn’t stand a chance.”

“I disagree,” Laura said. “We do have a chance. We must do, mustn’t we? A slim one, I grant you, but if we don’t try we have no chance at all. If we can make it to the trees there’ll be plenty of cover.”

Holly considered it for a moment, but she was far from certain it would work, and the thought of encountering the dog, or whatever it was, this time in reality, made her quake. 

“I have friends out there who are probably looking for me, even as we speak. They know about witchcraft and that kind of stuff. If I make it I’ll bring them back here. We’ll stop Diana and all her nonsense once and for all.”

“But what if you don’t? What if it’s me who escapes?”

“Do you know Annie Ryder?”

“Yes. I was having dinner with her a few nights ago, before all this kicked off.”

“Head for her place. I know she’s dealt with some weird stuff in her past, when she was in the States. She must still know people who can help.”

“She has someone staying with her now. He works for the government, some weird department or other. They investigate paranormal phenomena.”

“Even better,” Laura said enthusiastically. “What’s his name?”

“Robert Carter.”

“I’ve never heard the name.”

“I’m sure he’ll help us.”

“So you’re coming around to the idea?”

Holly was silent for a moment. Staring into space while her fingers plucked at the threads of the candlewick bedspread. “I’m scared,” she said.

“That makes two of us. But I know one thing for certain. If we stay here we’re both going to die. And I’m sure as hell not ready for that.”

“When do you want to try?” Holly said.

“Now,” Laura said. “We’ll do it now, before we have a chance to change our minds. Well, are you up for it?”

Holly Ireland took a deep breath. Laura was absolutely right. Their lives were on the line. This might be a wild and reckless plan, and its chance of success was slim to say the least. But there wasn’t really an alternative. “Okay,” she said softly.

Chapter Thirty-Three

“Do you think it’s possible that Diana is trying to bring the Yardley sisters back from the dead?” Harry Bailey said.

Carter and Jane Talbot exchanged looks. 

“I suppose it’s a possibility,” Jane said.

“It would explain a lot,” Carter said. “What makes you think that?”

“Well it’s partly based on the research Jane’s done, each of these women being killed on the exact day a Yardley sister perished. A life for a life is classic necromancy, and that ties in with something Peter Wright told me. Elinor Yardley ran a coven and, as Wright said, they engaged in rituals from plain devil worship to necromancy. One of the rituals apparently was to raise Satan himself. Needless to say it was a disaster. They appear to have raised a demon of some kind—whether it was Satan himself is unclear—the result was that Elinor Yardley was raped and impregnated by the demon. Once pregnant Elinor rejected Satanism and embraced the church before Diana was born, but there was the coven itself. They may have had some influence on Diana as she was growing up. When Elinor was killed by Barker’s men, Diana was aided in her escape from the country, and it’s possible it was members of her mother’s coven who helped her.”

“That’s pure speculation,” Carter said.

Bailey ignored him and continued. “Wright said that Diana was something of an outcast as a child, and that it was reported that she had strange powers. What if Diana’s powers came not from Elinor, but from her father?” 

Carter ran a hand over his unshaven chin, memories of the demon in the green dress still vivid in his mind. “I suppose it makes some kind of sense,” he said.

“Well, I’m glad it does to you,” Lacey said. “I’m lost, and I’m not even sure what necromancy means. I’ve heard the word before but never really know what it is.”

“Necromancy is the black art of raising the dead,” Jane said. “In some form or other it’s common to almost every culture in the world.”

“Okay,” Carter said to Bailey. “Let’s say you’re right. It does give us another question. If the five women Diana killed have been some kind of sacrifice and Diana has been successful in bringing five of the Yardley sisters back to life, then where the hell are they?”

“I think there’s another, more pressing question,” Lacey said. “How does Diana know so much?”

“What do you mean?” Jane said.

Lacey took a mouthful of coffee and swallowed. “She always seems to be one step ahead of the game. She knew Norton was digging deep into the Yardley mythology and we can assume, from what Rob glimpsed of his notes, he was making the same connections we’ve just made. She knew Ollie Tucker would be trying to fix Norton’s computer, giving us access to his files, and she killed him. She knew about Department 18’s involvement, hence the attack on Martin Impey, and she was aware Norton had regained consciousness and killed him before he could tell us what he knew. So how does she do it?”

“And why hasn’t she done anything to stop our investigation?” Bailey said.

Annie suddenly slammed her hand down on the table. “For Christ’s sake! Theories and questions! Is that the best you can do? I think it’s safe to assume that the evil bitch is holding both Holly and Laura, and the odds are she’s going to kill them unless we do something to stop her. And all we seem to be doing is sitting around, drinking coffee and speculating. Is this how Department 18 conducts all its investigations?”

“Hardly,” Jane said, taken aback by Annie’s outburst. “But we have to do the groundwork or else we’ll all be running around like headless chickens.”

“Jane’s right, Annie,” Carter said. “At the moment we’re still in the dark. We don’t know where to find Diana, and we still don’t know exactly what she’s capable of. We know she kills without compunction, and it seems she’ll kill anyone who threatens to stand in her way. Yes, we’re speculating about her, but it’s the only thing we have.”

“Rubbish,” Annie said, still distraught. “We could be out there hunting her down.”

“And where would you start looking, Annie?” Bailey said. “We don’t even know for sure what she looks like.”

Annie Ryder glared at him but said nothing, staring sullenly down. The hand with which she’d slapped the table was stinging like hell.

Jane attempted to defuse the situation. “We could try the farm where Rachel and Rebecca Yardley were killed,” she said.

“Does it still exist?” Carter said.

“It’s local. Annie might know.” She flicked open the book and riffled through the pages. “Pett’s farm. Annie? On the Burnley Road?”

Annie dragged her gaze away from her throbbing hand. “I know it. It’s been empty for a few years, since the farmer died. He had no children so there was nobody to leave it to. The last time I drove past it looked pretty derelict.”

“Is it worth a look though?” Carter said.

“We have to start somewhere,” Annie said.

“Do you have a recent photograph of Laura Sallis?” Harry Bailey asked. “It might be good if we have some idea who we’re looking for.”

Annie went to a shelf in the corner and plucked a six-by-four color print out from behind a vase. She handed it to Bailey who studied it for a moment before passing it on to Lacey and Jane.

“It was taken last summer,” Annie said. “We drove up to Whitby for the day. It was beautiful. The sun didn’t stop shining and…”

The ring of Lacey’s mobile interrupted her. Lacey took it from his pocket and checked the caller ID. He got to his feet and walked to the bottom of the stairs. “Matt,” he said into the phone. “How did it go?” He climbed the stairs and went into the lounge, closing the door behind him to take the call in private.

“Annie and I will check out the farm,” Carter said. “What about you two?”

Harry Bailey considered the question for a moment. “Well, if Jane agrees I think we should try to find answers to some of the other questions.”

“I’ve no objections,” Jane said. “What about Lacey?”

“What about me?” Lacey said, descending the stairs.

“Rob and Annie are going to check out Pett’s farm, where Rachel and Rebecca were killed. Jane and I are going to see how many more links we can find.”

“Sounds like a good idea,” Lacey said. “Do you mind if I pitch in with you two?”

“Feel free,” Harry Bailey said. Jane nodded in agreement.

“Did your sergeant get suspended as well?” Carter said.

“Matt escaped with a rap across the knuckles, but I think our days as a team are numbered. He’s been temporarily assigned to another partner, another DI.” He sighed. “We’ll see.”

The doorbell rang. Annie went to answer it.

“What’s this?” Penny Chapman said as she trotted down the stairs. “A council of war?” 

Annie followed closely behind. “I’ll get rid of her,” she mouthed to Carter.

“Penny,” he said, getting to his feet and accepting her air kiss. “Good to see you again. These are some of my friends from London. Harry Bailey, Jane Talbot. Detective Inspector Lacey.”

“My word, a detective inspector,” Penny Chapman said. “Are the police taking this seriously at last, Annie?”

Annie nodded, giving her friend a patient smile. “What can I do for you, Penny?” she said.

Penny Chapman pulled up a chair and sat at the table, reaching out to feel if the coffee pot was still warm and looking up at Annie hopefully.

“I’ll get you a mug,” Annie said.

“Just a quick one,” Penny said. “I can’t stop. I’m meeting Adam in town. He has an appointment with the dentist. Root canal, so I’m expecting him to be fairly useless for the rest of the day.”

“So you’re just killing time?” Annie said. 

“Yes,” Penny said. “And no. I heard something you, and especially you, Rob, might find interesting.”

Annie fetched a mug and poured the coffee.

“Thanks,” Penny said. “Anyway, I was in town earlier and dropped in at Blake’s, the hardware store. I got chatting to old Mr. Blake. You know him, Annie, but for the benefit of the rest of you, Mr. Blake is older than Methuselah and probably the biggest gossip in town. I happened to mention—stupid of me—that it seemed we had a witch in the area. ‘Another one?’ he said. I asked him what he meant and he told me a rather lurid tale. It seems that there’s a house up on the Tops, quite an isolated place, nothing around it but trees and grass. Well, old Mr. Blake still takes the van out to make the deliveries. Yesterday morning he was up on the Tops and he had to deliver paraffin to that very house. The woman who owns it, Florence Tibbs, is—how shall I put it?—eccentric, to say the least. Mr. Blake has had his suspicions about her for some time now, but then he’s a very superstitious man, old school, wrapped up in the past and convinced that Ravensbridge is a hotbed of witchcraft and the black arts. He drove up to the house, got out of the car and was confronted by what he said was the biggest dog he’d ever seen. According to him, it was a monstrous brute, with massive jaws and vicious-looking teeth. He tried to get back into the van but the dog had positioned itself between him and the driver’s door. The dog sank to its haunches and looked as if it was going to leap on him. He really thought he was done for.” Penny paused and took a sip of her coffee.

“So what happened?” Annie said.

“Well just as the dog was about to pounce, Florence Tibbs emerged from the house. She shouted something at the dog—something foreign, Mr. Blake said—and the dog backed off.”

“So nothing really happened?” Carter said. They didn’t have time for this.

“Well it did, and it didn’t. This is why I thought of you, Rob. Do you remember the story you told us? The Phantom Cat of Wrexham Green?”

“Welham,” Carter said. “It was Welham Green and yes, I do remember.”

“Well, old Mr. Blake claims a similar thing happened to him. When he got back into his van Florence Tibbs was standing at the front gate, the dog at her side. She was stroking its head. Blake pulled away and glanced in his rear-view mirror. Mrs. Tibbs was still there, but the dog had vanished.”

“It probably wandered off,” Annie said. “They do that, dogs.”

“Ah, but it didn’t,” Penny said. “Blake turned and looked out through the back window and the dog was still there, still being petted by Mrs. Tibbs. He checked the mirror again—no dog. The dog cast no reflection. Now what do you make of that?”

“How old is Mr. Blake?” Lacey said.

“Eighty if he’s a day,” Annie said.

“But as sharp as a tack,” Penny said. “I’m sure he wasn’t imagining it or making it up. He said it was as if Mrs. Tibbs didn’t want him in the house, as if she had something to hide. The dog made sure he kept his distance.”

“It could be her familiar,” Harry Bailey said.

“You’re giving some credence to this?” Carter said.

“In light of the fact that we have very little else to go on I’m thinking it might be worth investigating. Diana, if she has abducted Laura Sallis and Holly, must be holding them somewhere. It makes sense that she’d want to deter visitors. How well do you know this Mrs. Tibbs?”

“Not at all,” Annie said.

Penny shook her head. “I don’t know her, but I’ve heard some odd tales about her over the years. As I said earlier, eccentric.”

“Then we’ll make it our first port of call. Are you up for it, Detective Inspector?”

“Ian, please. Yes, I’m up for it. Jane?”

Jane Talbot nodded, even though the look on Robert Carter’s face told her it would probably be a complete waste of time.

“Right,” Penny Chapman said, finishing her coffee and getting to her feet. “Duty done. Now I must dash or poor Adam will think I’ve deserted him. Keep me in the loop, Annie.”

“I always do, Pen. I always do.”

Chapter Thirty-Four

Holly stood at the sink in the cramped kitchen of the house, staring out through the grimy window at the surrounding countryside. Beyond the back garden was a field left to grow wild, mainly rye grass and poppies with a few small clusters of wheat, remnants of more prosperous times, times before the constraints of the EU Common Agricultural Policy closed down farms and put farmers on the dole queue. 

The field converged with woodland, with no hedge to define the boundary. The woodland was their main hope. There they could lose themselves amongst the trees and gradually make their way towards the road.

“I’ve checked the front,” Laura said as she came into the kitchen and joined Holly at the window. “No sign of the dog.”

“Same here,” Holly said. She had a heavy, nauseous feeling in her stomach, a sense of foreboding. If they were going to do this then they had to do it now, before what little courage she had deserted her completely.

“Well, we know it’s out there,” Laura said. “The question is, where?” She ran a hand through her hair. “I’ll take the front, you take the back. When you hit the trees bear left. If I make it to the trees at the front I’ll head right. We should meet up and we can make for the road together.”

Holly nodded. “Okay,” she said, though the thought of leaving the house made her quake. 

“Give me a moment to get to the front door. Count to five and then go. Oh, and leave the door open, in case you have to dash back.”

Laura left the kitchen and Holly began to count. 

By the count of three she had her hand wrapped around the handle of the back door. By four she had turned it, opening the door a fraction. On five she took a deep breath, yanked the door open wide and ran from the house. Negotiating the wooden gate in the picket fence, within thirty seconds she found herself in the field.

The coarse grass scratched at her ankles and the earth beneath her feet was rutted and uneven, making it difficult to run with any confidence. There was the fear that with every step one of her feet might land awkwardly and turn underneath her. A twisted or sprained ankle now would effectively end her escape attempt.

She strained her ears, trying to tell if she was being followed, but the only sounds were those of her feet crunching down the rye grass and her ragged, panting breaths as she sucked air into her lungs. Not daring to look around to see if anything was behind her, she ran on, ducking low, trying to make herself as inconspicuous as possible and concentrating on her footfalls, watching each foot as it hit the ground and looking out for potholes or anything else that might trip her.

By the time she reached the trees her chest was burning, as were the muscles in her legs, but she kept running. There were different hazards here. While the ground was more even, the layer of leaf mold on the woodland floor concealed tree roots designed to trip her. Finally she stopped running and glanced back the way she’d come. 

Nothing had followed her.

She leant against the trunk of a large pine. Through the gaps in the trees she could see the house, back door still hanging open. Holly felt as if she’d run miles but the house seemed only a stone’s throw away. She was far from safe. 

Pushing herself away from the tree trunk, she was about to start running again when she saw a dark shape moving behind the palings of the picket fence of the house. She gave a small moan in her throat as the dog burst out through the gate and stood at the edge of the field, its misshapen head raised, nose sniffing the air, trying to get her scent.

Very slowly she edged around the tree, putting the trunk between herself and the dog. She stood for a moment, taking long, slow breaths, and then peered around the tree trunk, back to the house. To her dismay the dog was halfway across the field, running in loping strides towards her. Taking one more massive breath, she pushed herself away from the tree and started to run again.

The woodland was getting thicker, the trees more tightly packed, the undergrowth dense and lush—gorse, bracken and brambles that scratched her legs through the denim of her jeans, hampering her progress, slowing her down to almost walking pace. Behind her she could hear the dog gaining on her. At least if it was chasing her there was hope that Laura had escaped.

The undergrowth suddenly thinned and she could run again. Past one stand of trees, and then another. Glancing back, she saw a dark shape parting the bracken and gorse like a ship plowing through waves. Holly turned back, ran a few more steps and found herself in a wide clearing. No more trees, no more cover. Instead she found herself confronted by a huge, white-painted brick wall.

It was so high the top of the wall disappeared into the leafy crown of the woodland, just as the sides of the wall disappeared into the surrounding trees. It stood there in front of her, a stark, white edifice, an impenetrable barrier.

“Impossible.” Holly said the word aloud. What she was seeing made no sense. There shouldn’t have been a wall here, in the middle of a wood.

Laura’s words came back to her. “If you get past the dog I’m sure Diana will have cast a few spells to ensure you won’t get very far.”

So was the wall one of Diana’s spells? What other explanation could there be?

Behind her she could hear the dog crashing through the undergrowth. She looked back. It wasn’t visible but it was getting closer.

Turning to face the wall, Holly noticed the door. It was partially hidden behind a tree to the left of her but that did nothing to explain why she hadn’t seen it before. She approached it cautiously.

The door was larger than average, painted a matte black with a round glass window set near the top. She peered through the window but the glass was obscured, revealing nothing. There was a small, round doorknob but no lock. Gripping the knob, she turned it and then pushed. 

The door was heavy but opened easily. She took one last look behind her. The dog had reached the clearing and stopped. It sat on its haunches at the edge of the trees, staring at her, its long, pink tongue lolling out over its bottom jaw as it panted for breath. 

Holly didn’t hesitate. She pushed the door open a few inches more and slipped through, slamming it behind her, hearing the satisfying click of the latch. But as the door closed all light was extinguished, plunging her into total darkness. 

“Oh shit!” she said softly.

“How much further?” Carter asked.

Annie checked the map laid out across her lap. “About another mile.”

It had started to rain again in a thin and steady drizzle. Carter switched on the wipers. 

“What did you really think about Penny’s story?” Annie asked.

“Not a lot really. I think Diana’s far too clever to have decided to live as the local, archetypal crone. It’s too obvious. I’m quite willing to believe that she’s living amongst you all as part of the local community, but I doubt she would want to draw attention to herself.”

Annie nodded in agreement and stared out through the side window, lost in thought. “I’m wondering if I actually know her and don’t realize it.”

“It’s a possibility. With your work at the school you come into contact with a lot of people.”

Annie shuddered. “It’s a horrible thought,” she said. “Diana could be someone I see on a regular, day-to-day basis.”

“What did you mean when you said you could knock our heads together?” Carter said.

“Sorry?” Annie said, thrown by the sudden change of subject.

“Jane and me. You said you wanted to knock our heads together.”

Annie turned in her seat to look at him. “You’re in love with her, aren’t you?”

Carter said nothing.

“I’ll take your silence as a yes then. You love her and it’s pretty obvious she adores you. It’s written in every look she gives you, every gesture she makes.”

“So you’re an expert in body language now.”

“Actually I am. I studied it for five years. Body language was just one of the behavioral sciences I was studying. It was a field I wanted to get into.” 

“Why didn’t you?”

“Unfortunately circumstances got in the way.”

“Circumstances?”

“They’re unimportant now, and anyway you’re deflecting. We’re talking about you and Jane, not me.”

“No, you’re talking about it. I just asked why you wanted to bang our heads together.”

“But I’m right, aren’t I?”

Carter stared stonily out through the windscreen. “It’s never going to happen,” he said.

“She still loves her husband?”

He shook his head. “No, I don’t think so. But she won’t do anything to hurt her kids. And I can’t really blame her.”

“That’s a shame,” Annie said. “I’d like to see you settled down.”

Carter smiled. “I’ve never seen myself as the settling down kind. Pipe and slippers, reading the newspaper in bed on a Sunday morning…” He gave a mock shudder. “No, not for me.”

It was Annie’s turn to change the subject. “Just up here on the left. Do you see the gate?”

“I see it,” Carter said and flicked the turn signal.

The gate stood about four yards back from the road and was broken in at least three places. Repairs had been tried over the years but they were half-hearted attempts, odd planks of wood hammered over broken slats, with nails long rusted. There was a sign attached to a half-rotted post, the letters faded to mere outlines.

“So this is Pett’s farm,” Carter said.

“That’s what it says on the sign.”

“You can read that?”

“Just about,” Annie said.

“We’ll have to walk from here. Look.” Carter pointed at a heavily rusted chain wrapped around the gate and the gate post and secured by an equally rusted padlock.

The gate groaned and wobbled as they climbed over it and jumped down to a muddy track. The track ran for a quarter of a mile through a scrubby field cluttered with the detritus of farm life. To their right there was a huge contraption that stood on deflated rubber tires. Measuring about fifteen feet across, the bulk of it comprised of circular steel blades, each about a yard in circumference, attached to a rusting steel frame. Carter could only guess at its purpose. There was an old tin bath half-filled with filthy, brown water, next to it a Belfast sink, the white porcelain chipped and streaked with green trails of moss. Also to their right there was the incongruous sight of a large, overstuffed settee, its floral upholstery faded to a dirty gray. It sat in the middle of the field as if inviting them to sit for a while and enjoy the decaying remains of Pett’s farm. 

“Do you want to sit and put your feet up for a while?” Annie said with a smile.

“I’ll pass,” Carter said. He wasn’t smiling. He’d stopped walking and was standing, hands in pockets, staring at the house and outbuildings that comprised the farm.

He pulled out his cigarettes and lit one. Annie noticed that the hand that held the lighter was shaking slightly.

“Are you okay?” she said.

He drew in a lungful of smoke and shook his head slightly. “I’m picking up some very nasty vibrations,” he said. 

“Well we know that two of the Yardley sisters were killed here,” Annie said.

“Yes, but it’s more than that. You might want to wait in the car.”

“Like hell,” she said.

“Well, I’m warning you, it could be very unpleasant.”

“I’ll take my chances.”

Carter turned to look at her.

Annie was alarmed to see that the blood had drained from his face, giving it a waxy, almost deathly pallor. “It’s that bad?” she said.

“Yes,” he said and started to walk towards the farmhouse.

Chapter Thirty-Five

“Well,” Harry Bailey said. “That’s the house.”

They were up on the Tops, parked in a narrow lay-by a hundred yards away from the dirt track that led to Florence Tibbs’ eighteenth-century cottage.

“So what do we do?” Ian Lacey said. “Walk up to her front door and ask her outright if she’s a witch?”

“Why not?” Jane said. “I’ve always favored the direct approach.” She let in the clutch and eased back onto the road.

The small Renault’s suspension made hard work of the holes and bumps in the track, and more than once both Bailey’s and Lacey’s heads cracked against the roof of the car. Both of them sighed with relief when Jane pulled up at the end of the track and switched off the engine.

Lacey was first out of the car, shutting the door behind him and leaning against it, stretching his legs, ironing out the creases caused by being hunched in the back of the Renault. Harry Bailey was next out and stood surveying the cottage and its surroundings.

“Anything?” Jane said, coming to stand beside him.

Bailey shook his head. “You try.”

Jane closed her eyes, her brow creasing into a frown of concentration.

Lacey looked at them both, puzzlement in his eyes.

“I’m not picking anything up at all,” Jane said.

“Psychically dead,” Bailey said.

“I could use you on the force,” Lacey said when he realized what was going on.

Bailey smiled at him. “It’s not foolproof. We can scan a place with our minds, and sometimes we can detect certain energy fields. Evil creates a very distinctive wave form.”

“But that in itself creates its own problems,” Jane said.

“In that it’s subjective,” Lacey said. “Diana might believe what she’s doing is totally justified, therefore not evil. We just think of it like that.”

Harry Bailey’s smile widened. “You catch on fast,” he said to Lacey.

“For a copper, you mean?” Lacey said.

“I didn’t say that.”

“You didn’t have to,” Lacey said. “You don’t have to be psychic to pick up on prejudice and attitude. When you’re dealing with violent criminals, intuition can save your life.”

“You could argue that intuition is just a psychic ability by another name,” Jane said.

“Let’s save the metaphysical debate for another time,” Bailey said, marched up to the front door and leaned on the bell.

He waited for a full minute, then rang again.

Jane peered in through the window. There was nothing unusual to see, just a neat and uncluttered lounge. “It all looks totally normal,” she said.

“I’ll check out the rear,” Bailey said.

Lacey took a few steps backwards and stared up at the bedroom windows. In all of them the curtains had been pulled back, hiding nothing. “I think we’re chasing wild geese,” he said. 

“I agree,” Bailey said as he emerged from the rear of the cottage. “There’s nothing out of the ordinary back there. A couple of sheds, all but empty.”

“And no sign of Mrs. Tibbs,” Jane said.

“Or the mysterious dog, although one of the sheds looks like it could double as a kennel.”

“Let’s give it up then,” Lacey said. “There’s no point wasting our time.”

A low growl rumbled over the last of his words and as Lacey spun round, a dog emerged from behind the shelter of the car, slinking along, low to the ground, eyes alert, watching them warily. It was a huge, black-and-tan bull mastiff with a solidly muscled body and jaws that could snap a man’s arm. 

“No sudden movements,” Harry Bailey said, and stepped forwards, putting himself between Jane and the dog, but when it was within ten feet of him, the dog stopped and sat back on its haunches, regarding them all with baleful eyes.

“Do you know much about dogs, Harry?” Lacey said.

“No. You?”

“I know you shouldn’t stare them in the eyes. They take it as a challenge.”

Bailey immediately averted his gaze. He’d been staring into the dog’s eyes from the moment it stepped out from behind the car. There was something compelling about the dog’s expression, a kind of innate intelligence, but nothing malevolent.

Jane started to move forwards, avoiding Bailey’s hand as he reached out to block her. “Jane!” he hissed.

She ignored him, moving closer to the dog. When she was within six feet she dropped to a crouch. Ian Lacey’s hand closed over her shoulder. She shrugged it off. “It’s okay,” she said quietly. “I know what I’m doing. My grandmother used to keep dogs. I grew up with them.”

Lacey nodded and backed off.

Still crouching, Jane stretched out her hand for the dog to sniff. “Here, boy. I won’t hurt you.”

The dog was still growling but now its attention was focused solely on Jane, staring suspiciously from her hand to her face.

Both Bailey and Lacey were poised, tense, ready to spring into action should the dog decide to attack. Harry Bailey had searched the ground with his eyes and located a weapon, a rusting metal stake about three feet long and an inch in diameter. It was stuck in the middle of what had once been a flower bed, now badly overgrown. Bindweed spiraled up the metal stake, but it would do at a pinch. He edged closer towards it.

“Come on, boy,” Jane said, her voice gentle, melodious. “I won’t hurt you. Promise.”

As the dog lifted itself to its feet, Bailey’s fingers closed around the metal stake and pulled, inching it slowly from the ground. Finally he pulled it free and hefted it in his hand. The length and weight of the stake was reassuring but he hoped he wouldn’t have to use it. There had been too many deaths already.

The dog took a step towards Jane, still growling, but there was a look of curiosity in its eyes. Another step and it stopped again, sniffing the air, trying to get her scent. Jane edged closer.

Ian Lacey realized he was holding his breath as the tension of the moment continued to increase. He let out the air in his lungs in a long, controlled exhalation, and then exchanged looks with Harry Bailey, noticing the metal stake clutched in his fist. He gave a small nod of approval.

Jane stretched out her hand even farther. She was almost within touching distance, inches away from the dog’s snout. A trickle of perspiration was worming its way sinuously down her back, betraying the fact that she was nowhere near as confident as she pretended to be. The dog could lunge at her any moment, and those teeth could rip her face to shreds.

She was deliberately avoiding the dog’s eyes, staring at a point just over its head, but she could sense it watching her, evaluating her. What she could not tell was whether the dog was regarding her as a friend, a threat or a victim. She hoped it was the former and prayed it wasn’t the latter. She shuffled forwards on her haunches and stretched her fingers a few inches more. 

And then the world exploded into a cacophony of deafening barking as the dog lunged.

Holly stood stock-still in the blackness with her back pressed tightly against the door. She barely dared to breathe as she listened to the almost deafening silence. She waited for her eyes to adjust to the dark, but they showed little sign of doing so. 

Out of the frying pan, into the fire.

The ridiculous phrase kept circulating in her head as she fought down a rising feeling of panic.

The light when it came was almost painful and she threw up her hands to her eyes to shield them. Blinking hard, she peered through her fingers at a large, white rectangle apparently hanging in the air twenty yards ahead of her. As she refocused her watering eyes, she realized what the rectangle was and why it was so familiar.

A screen. She was staring at a cinema screen.

What happened next confirmed it.

The screen flickered into life. Numbers appeared in a countdown. 

5…4…

Holly glanced upwards, but there was no cone of light projecting the figures onto the screen. Nothing, only blackness.

3…2…

There were no rows of seats in front of her. Not a cinema then.

1…

She recognized the image instantly as it appeared. A home movie, shot by her father. A little girl running around a neat, well-kept garden. A plastic, inflatable paddling pool, brightly colored, decorated with stylized waves and improbable dolphins. A ginger tabby cat basking on the lawn. A woman, her mother, wearing a floral, off-the-shoulder dress and a pink straw sun hat, staring at the little girl with affection and not a little pride.

And the little girl, a five-year-old Holly pulling faces at the camera, running to the paddling pool, dipping her toe in the water and giving a theatrical shiver before dashing back to where the cat was basking and flopping down next to it.

The scene changed. Her parents in the living room of the semi-detached house, older, arguing furiously.

“She’s your daughter. I never wanted a bloody kid.” Her father.

“You think I wanted to get pregnant? My life was all mapped out. Then you came along and wham, bam, thank you, ma’am. ‘That’s you and your life totally fucked.’” Her mother.

“Same old, same old. Change the bloody record, will you?”

It’s not real, a small voice in her head said. How could it be real? There was no one there to film it.

Another change. Another clip.

A broken and dejected Holly lying in a pool of her own vomit, a group of girls standing over her, jeering. “She can’t take it!” “Lightweight!” “Pathetic!” The blond girl, Mandy Smallwood, heavy make-up and tattoos on her arms, drawing her foot back and kicking Holly in the stomach as she lay on the ground.

“Stop it!” Holly yelled into the darkness. “I don’t want to see this! Any of it!”

Another change. Another clip.

Henry Norton walking along the canal towpath at night. Approaching the bridge. A dark shadow, blacker than the night, hovering above him, ready to attack.

Holly closed her eyes and slid down the wall. Clamping her hands over her ears to block out Henry’s cries.

“Stop. Please stop.”

It stopped.

The light died and the screen disappeared into the darkness.

Footsteps, the clicking of heels on concrete, getting louder, getting closer.

She took her hands away from her ears and the footsteps were louder still. Someone was approaching. She could see an outline, a shape cutting through the black. A woman, tall and lithe. A svelte black dress, dark auburn hair tumbling over her shoulders and down her back in waves, warm brown eyes set in a beautiful face.

Holly pushed away from the wall as best she could, raising her arms, ready for the embrace. “Mummy?” she said, her voice soft, tremulous. “Mummy, is it really you?”

The woman smiled indulgently. “Holly, you’ve been such a naughty girl, running away like that.”

“I was scared.”

“Of course you were. I understand. But there’s nothing to be scared of.”

“But she’s a witch, an evil witch.”

“Nonsense. There are no such things as witches.”

“There are, there are. Laura told me.”

The smile dropped from her mother’s lips. “What have I told you about playing with that girl? She’s a bad influence.”

As her mother drew closer, her body began to lose focus, growing blurry and indistinct. The black dress fell away to be replaced by jeans and a track suit top. The hair had turned blond. Short and choppy. And the face was familiar, a face she knew well. 

The woman stopped moving forwards and stood in front of Holly, no more than a yard away, regarding her dispassionately.

Holly stared into the cold brown eyes, her mind trying to make some sense of what she was seeing. “Penny?” she said.

Penny Chapman said nothing, made no move to help her.

“Please, Penny,” Holly beseeched her. “Help me get away from here.”

Penny Chapman’s face twisted contemptuously and she shook her head slowly. “I always had you figured as a thick bitch, Holly. I wasn’t wrong.” Her fist shot out and caught Holly on the point of her chin. Lights exploded in her head and her knees buckled. As she sank to the ground, her eyes focused on Penny Chapman’s face.

But it was already changing again.

Chapter Thirty-Six

Jane toppled backwards as the dog lunged, her hands flying up to protect her face. But the dog sailed past her and began to run towards the dirt track. Harry Bailey had the metal stake raised but the dog shot past him too and the stake hung impotently in the air. When the dog reached the dirt track it checked itself, started to bark furiously and began to run again.

Bailey rushed across to Jane, dropped the stake and helped her to her feet. “What the hell was all that about?” he said.

“Sshh, listen,” Lacey said.

They listened and heard it. Almost inaudible at first but rising steadily in volume—the sound of a car approaching.

The dog had reached the road and stood there panting as a red Ford Fiesta streaked with brown trails of rust came into view. The small car signaled a turn and swung off the road and onto the dirt track, bumping over the pitted surface towards them, the dog trotting contentedly behind it, wagging its stump of a tail.

“It’s not often I have visitors,” Florence Tibbs said as she hauled her arthritic body from the Fiesta. She turned and reached into the car to retrieve a stout bamboo walking stick from the back seat. Once she had it clenched tightly in her fist she planted it firmly on the grassy earth and started to limp towards the house, the dog at her side. As Bailey, Lacey and Jane made to follow, the dog stopped, turning to watch them. He started to growl again.

“Be nice, Bruno,” Florence Tibbs said. “Be nice,” and then to them, “Don’t you mind Bruno. He won’t hurt you. Come inside and I’ll get the kettle on. Why was it again you wanted to see me?”

“We didn’t actually say,” Jane said.

Florence Tibbs glanced back over her shoulder at them. “You’re not from Social Services, are you? Because I’m not wasting good tea bags on you if you are. Don’t need bloody do-gooders here, do we, Bruno?” She reached down and ruffled the dog’s neck.

“Nothing like that,” Jane said.

“Good. Come on through then,” Florence said and entered the house.

She showed them into a comfortable lounge with chintz-covered sofas and a low oak coffee table. In the corner of the room stood a polished mahogany credenza, the top of it cluttered with framed photographs. The photos were mainly of dogs, Labradors, German Shepherds, Pointers. Alongside a recent color photo of her current dog, Bruno, was a faded black-and-white portrait of a strikingly good-looking young man dressed in the uniform of a naval officer.

“Your husband?” Lacey said, leaning forwards to study the portrait.

“Arthur, my brother,” Florence said. “A fine man with a good heart. Bloody Germans torpedoed his boat. Sank it. I’ve never forgiven them.”

Jane settled deeper into one of the sofas. It seemed less and less likely that this frail, elderly woman could have anything to do with their investigation. She glanced across at Ian Lacey and from the expression on his face it was obvious he was thinking exactly the same. Even the dog looked innocent and harmless. It had moved its massive bulk to the rug in front of the fireplace and settled there, folding its huge front paws over its face. It was now beginning to snore gently, eyelids fluttering between open and closed.

“Have you lived here long?” Lacey said, moving to the other sofa to sit down next to Harry Bailey.

“All my life,” Florence said. “And my parents before me. I was just a girl when that photo of Arthur was taken. I’m seventy-five now.”

“You look well on it,” Lacey said.

“Try telling that to my bloody legs,” Florence said, a chuckle in her voice. “Arthritis. I hate it as much as I hate the Germans. Now, tea?”

Once she’d left the room, Jane said, “I think we’re wasting our time.”

“You think so?” Bailey said with heavy irony.

“I’m not so sure,” Ian Lacey said. “Go and look at the photographs.”

Both Bailey and Jane rose from their seats and went across to the credenza.

“What are we supposed to be looking for?”

“This, I should think,” Bailey said. He reached out and plucked a small snapshot from the corner of a silver frame where it had been wedged. He studied it for a few moments and then passed it to Jane.

She studied the photo for a moment before turning to Lacey. “But this is Laura Sallis. Who’s the woman with her in the picture?”

“Three guesses,” Ian Lacey said.

Bailey took the photograph from her, placed it back in the frame, on the credenza and then went to sit on the sofa. 

The house on Pett’s farm was falling down. Corrugated iron sheets covered the windows to keep out pigeons and more human vandals. A larger sheet covered the front door but it was only a token gesture. The nails holding it to the doorframe had long since rusted through and it slid easily on, squeaking hinges, when Carter pushed it to one side.

They entered the house but it only took a few moments to realize that it had been unoccupied for some time. All the rooms were empty and dilapidated, the furniture and carpets stripped out. Bird droppings peppered the floor and there was evidence that mice and rats were in residence.

“There’s nothing here,” Annie said unnecessarily.

Carter hadn’t said a word since entering the house. He simply nodded in agreement.

“What about outside?” Annie said. “The barn?”

“It’s coming from somewhere,” Carter said.

“What is?”

“The bad feeling. It’s weaker in the house.”

“Can you identify what it is yet?”

Carter shook his head, turned on his heel and strode from the house, leaving Annie to run to catch up with him.

The barn was in a better state of repair than the house. The woodwork of the walls was intact and the two twenty-foot-high doors looked sturdy enough. They were secured by a heavy padlock attached to a black-painted, pressed-steel hasp. Carter pointlessly rattled the lock.

“We need to see inside,” he said. “Whatever it is that’s infecting this place has its origins here.”

“Well,” Annie said. “This is where they found the bodies of the Yardley twins so it figures there will be a few negative vibrations.”

“I agree,” Carter said. “But what I’m picking up is disproportionate to a four-hundred-year-old tragedy.”

“Murder,” Annie said.

“Nevertheless…”

Carter took a step backwards, lifted his foot, kicked out at the doors, paused and kicked again. And then he checked the lock and hasp that seemed as solid as they had been before.

“We need something heavy to smash the lock,” Annie said and glanced about her as if half-expecting to see something just lying about that she could use.

“I don’t think that will be necessary,” Carter said. “Look.” He pointed at the lock.

As they watched, the screws holding the hasp to the doors were starting to rotate. Millimeter by millimeter they disengaged themselves from the wood as if being turned by an invisible screwdriver. The padlock and hasp dropped with a clatter to the ground and one of the doors started to swing open.

Carter moved forwards but Annie grabbed his arm, holding him back. 

“It’s okay. I know what I’m doing,” he said.

“It’s a trap,” Annie said.

“Yes.” Carter took her hand from his arm and let it fall. “I’m sure it is. But I wouldn’t want to disappoint whomever, or whatever, set it. Wait here.” He flashed Annie a smile and stepped into the barn.

“Tea,” Florence Tibbs said as she returned to the lounge, carrying a tray laden with a teapot, milk jug, sugar bowl and four china cups. The tray tilted at an alarming angle and Lacey sprang to his feet to take it from her. He set it down on the coffee table.

“Shall I pour?” Jane asked as Florence lowered herself gingerly into an armchair.

“Be my guest,” Florence said. “White, two sugars please.”

There was silence in the room while Jane poured the tea into the cups and passed them round. Florence Tibbs took a sip of hers and then rested the cup and saucer in her lap. “So if you’re not from Social Services, who are you?” She pointed to Ian Lacey. “You don’t need to answer that. You’re a policeman through and through. But you two…” She gestured towards Bailey and Jane. “…you two I can’t get a handle on.”

“We work for Department 18. A government body set up to investigate paranormal occurrences,” Bailey said.

“And what would they be, these paranormal occurrences?”

“Ghosts,” Bailey said.

“And witchcraft,” Jane added pointedly.

“Witchcraft, eh?” Florence said. “Well, you’ve certainly come to the right place, haven’t you?”

“In what way?” Jane said.

“This valley has been steeped in witchcraft for centuries.”

“And are you a witch?” Jane said.

Lacey and Bailey glanced at each other. Jane hadn’t been kidding when she said she would come out and ask Florence Tibbs directly.

The old woman stared hard at Jane for a moment and then her face creased into a smile. She began to chuckle and then a few moments later she was laughing so hard there was a danger of her spilling her tea into her lap. She pulled a tissue from a box on a small occasional table next to her and dabbed at her eyes.

“Oh, my heavens, girl, whatever gave you that idea?”

Jane smiled and shrugged, and said nothing.

Lacey leaned forwards in his seat. “We’re investigating a number of deaths in the area that may be related to witchcraft,” he said, his voice hard, official.

Florence Tibbs snapped her mouth shut and the laughter stopped as if someone had thrown a switch. “That’s not funny,” she said. “Not funny at all. Who were these poor souls?”

“I’m afraid I’m not at liberty to say,” Lacey said. “Do you know any practicing witches in the area?”

Florence’s eyes narrowed suspiciously. “Do you mean helping the sick and needy type witches, or the type that supposedly ride on broomsticks and cast evil spells on people?”

“Either. Both,” Jane said.

Florence Tibbs nodded slowly. “Well, there are both types here in the valley. I suppose you want to know who they are.”

“That would be very helpful,” Lacey said.

“I’m sure it would, son, but I’m afraid you’re speaking to the wrong woman. I don’t know. I know there are both black and white witches in the area and have been for centuries, but I can’t tell you who they are.”

“Can’t, or won’t?” Harry Bailey asked.

“I don’t gossip,” Florence said pugnaciously.

“That’s a laudable sentiment, Mrs. Tibbs,” Lacey said. “But not one that helps our investigation.”

Florence folded her arm across her chest. “I won’t be browbeaten,” she said defiantly. “I could name names…but what if I’m wrong? What if I get some innocent person into trouble?”

Lacey pressed her. “If they’re innocent they don’t have anything to worry about.”

Harry Bailey was watching the old woman closely throughout Lacey’s mild interrogation. Every time witches or witchcraft were mentioned she’d steal a furtive glance at the credenza.

“How well do you know Laura Sallis?” Bailey said.

Florence Tibbs almost flinched and made an effort to gather herself. “I’ve known Laura since she was a baby,” she said, steering her gaze towards Bruno lying on the rug and keeping it fixed on the dog. “Edith, Laura’s mother, and I are friends from way back. Mind you what with my arthritis and her illness we haven’t seen much of each other over the last couple of years. Why on earth would you want to know about Laura?”

“She’s missing,” Lacey said gently. “No one’s seen her in over a month and you have a picture of her over there.”

A sob broke in Florence’s throat and she threw a hand to her mouth as if to contain it. “She’s not…”

“We don’t know if Laura is one of the victims,” Lacey interrupted. “But we believe strongly that her life may be in danger.”

Jane got up from her seat, went across to Florence, squatted down beside her chair and laid a comforting hand on the older woman’s arm. “We didn’t come here to upset you, Mrs. Tibbs, but any information you have could help us find Laura before something bad happens to her. You have a photograph of Laura on the credenza. Who’s that with her?”

Florence’s face twisted into a scowl. “Diana,” she said, almost spitting the name out. “You ask me about witches? Well she was a bloody witch if ever I’ve met one. A witch of the darkest kind.”

“Perhaps you’d better tell us about her,” Jane said gently.

Florence Tibbs sniffed away her tears and nodded slowly. “All right,” she said. “I’ll tell you what I know.” 

Chapter Thirty-Seven

Laura had lost track of time and had no idea how long she had been running. She had always prided herself on her fitness, weekly Pilates classes, grueling racquetball games with a selection of male partners and daily yoga exercises had honed her body to as near perfection as she could reasonably expect it to be, but her chest throbbed from the exertion and her legs were starting to cramp. 

The plan to rendezvous with Holly had come to nothing. By running in the direction she’d said, they should have met up in minutes but there was no sign of her. So she carried on in the same direction, looking for Holly, fearing that in her agitated state she may have taken a wrong turn when she reached the wood. After twenty minutes there was still no sign of her, so Laura turned back in the direction of the road, and now it seemed she had managed to get herself lost. 

How she didn’t know. She had been running for well over an hour and there was no sign of Holly and, worse, no sign of the road. She leant against a tree, all the while trying to work out where she was and in which direction she should head next. 

“Face it, Laura,” she muttered to herself. “You haven’t got a clue where you are or where you’re going.”

The sky wasn’t giving her any clues at all as she squinted up at it through the trees. All she could see was a layer of sultry gray clouds, so thick not even a glimmer of sunlight showed through.

Moss grows on the north side of trees.

The truism popped into Laura’s head unbidden. It was one of those random pieces of knowledge she had acquired over the years.

“That’s fine, but how does it help me?” She turned to look at the tree she was leaning against. Sure enough one side of it was green with dusty moss. “Right, so north is that way.” She tried to think back to when she last drove along the road that edged the wood. Which way was the sun shining? East to west? West to east? Due south? If she could remember it would give her an idea in which direction to run in order to reach the road.

Laura wracked her brain, infuriated with herself that she couldn’t clearly remember. Then from nowhere the memory popped into her head. She’d been driving along the road some six months ago, Diana in the passenger seat, on their way to a Jessie J gig at the Mechanics in Burnley. Throughout the entire length of the road she had driven with the sun visor down, squinting against the glare on the windscreen. The sun was low in the western sky.

It was enough. Laura now knew where the road was in relation to where she was standing. Buoyed by the knowledge she pushed away from the tree and started to run again.

It seemed only minutes later that the sound of a car’s engine wafted through the still air. She broke through the trees and found herself on the road. With a sob of relief Laura sat down on the grassy verge and took stock of her situation. There was no getting away from the fact that Holly had probably not been as fortunate as her, so it was vital now to get back to town and try to enlist some help. Fighting Diana by herself was not an option. The woman was too clever, too cunning and much too powerful. Her suggestion to Holly they seek out Annie Ryder still seemed like the best plan, although she wasn’t too sure what kind of reaction she’d get from Annie. Laura had realized over the past few days that she’d treated Annie appallingly. They had grown very close over the last few years but, as soon as Diana had come along, Laura had dropped Annie like a stone. Now Annie had every right to be bitter and Laura wouldn’t blame her if she wanted no more to do with her. 

Getting to her feet, Laura moved out into the road and started to walk. She realized she would have to hitch, which in itself was odd, not having hitched a ride since her final year at university. As she walked she glanced down at herself, taking in the mud and moss streaks on her clothes. She ran her hand through her hair but it felt like a recently abandoned bird’s nest. Finger-combing might improve matters, but if she were driving this road she couldn’t imagine stopping to pick up someone who looked as scruffy and unkempt as her.

Her fears were well founded. A dozen cars drove past without even slowing down and she figured she had walked at least two miles down the road. A Ford Focus slowed as it passed her and the driver, a man probably in his early thirties, stared out at her through the side window of the car. For a moment it looked as though he might stop and offer her a lift, but then his face curled into a sneer. He gunned the accelerator and sped away.

“Thanks a bunch,” Laura muttered and continued to walk.

Her luck changed with the next car along. A dark blue Kia drove past, then signaled it was pulling over. It stopped a hundred yards along the road.

Laura broke into a trot, hesitating briefly when she realized it was a woman behind the wheel. “It’s not Diana,” she told herself. “Not Diana.”

As she reached the Kia, the electric window slid down. Laura peered inside.

“Laura, my God, it is you,” Penny Chapman said. “I thought I was seeing things when I passed you. We’ve been out of our minds with worry since you took off.”

Laura’s face split into a smile of relief. “Penny! You’re the last person I expected to see.”

“Get in. Where are you headed?”

Laura climbed into the car, shut the door behind her and snapped on her seatbelt.

“I need to get to Annie’s. I’ve got so much to tell you two.”

“I’m all ears,” Penny said and pulled back onto the road. 

Once Carter stepped into the barn, the door slammed shut behind him and he could hear Annie outside pounding on the wood, unable to get in. “It’s okay, Annie,” he called. “I’m fine.”

The pounding subsided but he could imagine her pacing backwards and forwards in front of the doors, seething, angry that she’d been shut out and worried for his safety.

After crossing to the center of the floor, he stood there, arms hanging loosely at his side, and cautiously opened his mind to access to whatever was in here. And there was something in here.

“Who are you?” he called out.

There was no obvious reply but a small breeze blew a handful of moldering straw across the compacted earth floor. 

“What do you want?”

Again silence, but a wave of melancholy swept over him, so intense it was almost debilitating. He sank to his knees, gasping as tears trickled down his cheeks. Such sadness and grief. It felt as if someone was reaming him out, robbing him of every moment of happiness he’d ever known.

Toppling to the floor, he brought his knees up to his chest and hugged them with his arms. He tried to shut down his mind, to block out the sadness, but it was too strong, and riding on the back of the melancholy came images and sounds. 

Sophie Gillespie being flayed alive with a shard of glass, her skin being stripped from her body with fatal precision. Mark Gillespie ramming the table lamp into his mouth and his screams as raw electricity flowed through his convulsing body. Susan Grant pinned down in the deckchair while Diana forced a gushing hosepipe down her throat.

And there were more, countless victims of Diana’s evil. The images filled Carter’s mind. He vomited once, violently, the muscles in his stomach going into spasm, making him pull his legs up tighter to his body.

“Get up!”

“You have to fight her.”

“There are more deaths than we’ve shown you.”

“There will be more in the future. Many more.”

“She has our sisters. If she gets us too her power is complete.”

“You’ll never stop her.”

“Make her leave us alone!”

Women’s voices were shouting in his brain, shrill and strident.

“Make her stop!”

“Leave us in peace!”

“We’re not coming back!”

“We’ll never come back!”

Wiping away the tears with the back of his hand, he struggled to his feet. Someone was standing in the shadowy corner of the barn, a small figure, dressed in a long, ragged, gray skirt and a torn linen blouse. The brown hair was long and matted, hanging halfway down her back. The face was filthy, streaked with mud and blood. A woman, ageless. As he watched another woman stepped out from behind the first, similarly attired, the only difference being the hair that looked like it had been hacked from her scalp with blunt shears, leaving untidy tufts and small patches of bleeding skin.

“Who are you?” Carter asked, but he knew the answer to his own question. 

Rachel and Rebecca Yardley, the two young women who were murdered right here in this barn, were standing now just feet away from him. He could feel their pain, feel their despair. They stood, gazing at him out of dead, sunken eyes, not moving, not speaking.

“How can I help you?” he said softly.

“You have to stop her.” The words rang clearly in his mind, although neither of the women moved her lips.

“How?”

The image of the two women was beginning to lose form, rippling in the stagnant air inside the barn.

“How?”

“Make her stop!”

This time the words were screamed, reverberating inside his skull. The pain was ferocious. He shut his eyes and clamped his hands to his head, trying to get the noise under control, but already his nose had started to bleed. His teeth were aching and the pain in his ears was excruciating. He managed to keep on his feet but when the noise stopped he was swaying. His balance was off and he staggered to the door, crashing against the splintering wood. The door swung open and he fell through.

Annie caught him before he hit the ground. “What happened?”

“I met the Yardley sisters, the twins,” he gasped. The pain in his head was ebbing away. He pressed the balls of his hands to his eyes. 

“And?”

“Give me a moment.” Carter took several deep breaths, filling his lungs and expelling the air in a steady, calming stream. Finally he took his hands away from his eyes and met Annie’s questioning gaze. “They want us to stop Diana,” he said.

“Pardon? I’m sorry, I’m not sure I understand.”

“No. I didn’t either. When we first got the idea that Diana was trying to raise her family from the dead I just assumed that she was doing it out of some sense of grief, bringing the Yardley sisters back because she wanted to be reunited with them. I don’t believe that anymore.”

“Then why is she doing it?”

“Power,” Carter said simply. “She’s bringing them back to use their powers.”

“How can you be so sure?”

He jerked his thumb back at the barn. “It’s why Rebecca and Rachel Yardley want me to stop her. They showed me what we can expect if Diana succeeds.”

Chapter Thirty-Eight

“Shouldn’t we have taken a left there?” Laura asked as they passed a fork in the road.

“Road works,” Penny Chapman said, not taking her eyes from the road.

“Even so, I’m not sure we can get into town this way.”

“Laura, you worry too much.”

Laura spun around in her seat. “Are you kidding me?” she said angrily. “I’ve just escaped from Diana and whatever she had planned for me. Believe it or not I loved that woman, really loved her. When we were together I felt whole. For the first time in my life I felt like a complete human being. Can you understand that?” She didn’t wait for an answer. “We connected on so many levels, from our musical tastes to the amount of milk we liked on our breakfast cereal. So many levels it was uncanny. And now I discover it was all a charade, an act. She was just playing with me, stringing me along. She betrayed me, Penny. Betrayed me.”

“Oh for pity’s sake, Laura, shut up!” 

Laura reacted to the words as if she’d been struck. She flinched and sank down in her seat. “I thought you of all people would understand.”

“I told you to shut up.” Penny made a zipping motion across her lips.

Laura opened her mouth to say something else but nothing came out. She struggled, trying to force the words out, but there was nothing there. She’d been struck dumb.

Penny glanced around at her and smiled. “That’s better,” she said. “Now sit there like a good girl until we get to where we’re going.”

It was that smile, the way it connected with her eyes. A mixture of mischief, arrogance and contempt. She knew it so well now.

She mouthed the name silently. “Diana.”

“Full marks, sweetie. Perhaps you’re not as stupid as I thought.”

As she fell back into her seat, Laura’s mouth opened and she screamed silently. 

“How could you tell Diana was a witch?” Jane asked.

“The same way I knew he was police,” she said, pointing at Lacey. “Some people give off certain vibrations. Ever since I was a girl I’ve had the gift of picking them up.”

“A gift,” Harry Bailey said.

“Or a curse. I’ve never worked out which. It’s got me into hot water a number of times, I can tell you.”

“So with Diana you knew immediately?”

Florence Tibbs shook her head. “No, she was very guarded at first, and I was thrown by the fact that she and Laura were a couple. As I said I’ve known Laura since she was a babe in arms, and I had no idea she was gay. So seeing them together the first time rocked me. I wasn’t expecting it. Still they seemed very happy and I’ve no objection to people finding love, in whatever form it comes.” She took a sip of her tea. “I didn’t even pick it up the second time they called. Mind you it was only a flying visit to drop off some photographs Laura had unearthed of Edith and me when we were in our twenties. Laura wanted me to have them because she didn’t think her mother would appreciate them, given her condition.”

Another pause, another sip of tea.

“No, it was the third time they called. It was obvious to me that something was very wrong, but I couldn’t put my finger on it at first. We were talking, about the old days really, as you do. I can’t remember who brought up the subject of witchcraft. Probably me, thinking about it. It’s always been one of my hobby-horses. Anyway, I was saying how witchcraft has always flourished in the valley, how the people who live here have always been tolerant of such unorthodox beliefs. Diana flew at me as if I’d told a massive lie and been caught out. She ranted on for a good half an hour about the persecution of witches, stretching back over centuries. It was then I knew she was a witch herself.”

The ringing of Harry Bailey’s mobile phone interrupted Florence Tibbs’ flow. He apologized as he pulled it from his pocket and checked the screen.

“Excuse me,” he said, getting to his feet. “I need to take this.” He walked to the door and stepped outside. “Simon, what can I do for you?”

“How are things going up there?” Simon Crozier said.

“Slowly,” Bailey said. “We don’t seem to be making much headway.”

“Then I need you to come back down to London, with immediate effect.”

“Why on earth?”

“Martin Impey’s gone missing.”

Harry Bailey took a few seconds to digest this new piece of information. “Missing? I thought he was comatose.”

“He was.”

“Carter told me he’d sent John McKinley to the hospital to guard him.”

“McKinley was guarding him against an attack from outside,” Crozier said. “He wasn’t expecting an attack from Martin himself.”

“Martin attacked McKinley?” Bailey said incredulously, picturing the imposing stature of John McKinley against the diminutive frame of Martin Impey. “Was he hurt?”

“Broken ribs, ruptured spleen and a fractured skull. Ironically he’s now occupying the same bed that Impey vacated. So you see, it’s fairly important that you stop what you’re doing and get back down here. We need to find Impey before more people are hurt.”

Bailey was rocking on his heels. This was the last thing he’d expected. “Emilie and the kids?”

“I’ve brought them into protective custody. I have them in a safe house guarded by three of my best people. He can’t get to them.”

“And you have no idea where he is now?”

Crozier sighed impatiently. “No, Harry. I haven’t got a clue. That’s why I want you here. As I just said, we need to find him. He’s one of ours, Harry. If he’s gone rogue it’s down to us to stop him.”

“By stop him you mean…”

“We do whatever it takes,” Crozier said heavily. “Now, when can I expect you?”

“I’ll borrow Jane’s car,” Bailey said. “Expect me in about five hours.”

The phone went dead. Bailey slipped it into his pocket and stepped back into the house. 

As he walked back into the lounge Lacey and Jane were preparing to leave. 

“Important call?” Jane asked.

“I’ll tell you when we get outside,” Bailey said, his voice hushed.

“Would you mind if we borrow this?” Lacey said to Florence. He plucked the photograph of Laura and Diana from the frame.

“No, of course.”

“Keep it in the frame,” Bailey said. “Diana has a habit of erasing images of herself. That one’s survived and I’m guessing it’s the silver frame that’s protecting it. Silver’s a magical metal as anyone who’s dealt with werewolves will tell you.”

“Take it all,” Florence Tibbs said. “And good luck if you go up against her. I think you’re going to need it.”

“I’ve missed something,” Bailey said.

“We’ll fill you in on the drive back,” Jane said. “Florence was very forthcoming.” She smiled at the old woman, who blushed slightly.

“I’m only too happy to help. I didn’t like Diana at all, and I’m really quite shocked that Laura Sallis showed such poor judgment in her choice of friends.”

They trooped back to the car and climbed inside. Lacey glanced back through the window and waved at Florence Tibbs who stood in the doorway of the small house, with Bruno next to her. The dog leaned against her leg protectively and barked once as they drove down the track and onto the road.

Once he’d settled into the back of the car Lacey pulled out his phone and dialed Robert Carter’s number.

Carter answered on the third ring.

“Rob, it’s Ian. Are you at Pett’s farm?”

“Just leaving. Why?”

“According to Florence Tibbs, that’s where Diana is living.”

There was a pause on the other end of the line.

“Are you still there?” Lacey said.

“Tell Florence Tibbs she’s wrong. I had an interesting encounter with the Yardley twins, but there’s no sign of anyone living here.”

“Is that Rob on the phone?” Bailey said, leaning over from the front seat.

Lacey nodded. Bailey held his hand out to take the phone. “Rob, it’s Harry. I’m driving back down to London. Simon just phoned. Martin Impey’s disappeared.”

“Disappeared?” Carter said, disbelief in his voice. “I thought McKinley was watching him.”

“McKinley’s in hospital, pretty beaten up. It seems Martin attacked him.”

“I doubt that. At least not the Martin I know.”

“Yeah,” Bailey said. “But then it’s like the girl at the library. Who would have thought a slip of a girl like that could have put Martin in an ICU.”

“We need to regroup,” Carter said. “We have to talk this through. I think I’ve been coming at it from the wrong angle, treating it like a parochial disturbance.”

“Underestimating Diana, you mean?” Bailey said.

“Greatly. But it’s more than that. I think it’s something to do with being in the valley. It affects your mindset. I’ve only been here a few days but already I’m losing sight of the fact that there’s a world beyond it. Meet me back at Annie’s before you head down to London, will you?”

“Will do.” Bailey snapped the phone shut and handed it back to Lacey, who took it without comment and slipped it back in his pocket.

“You heard all that?” Bailey said.

Jane and Lacey nodded.

“It’s starting to get messy,” Bailey said.

“It always was,” Ian Lacey said. “But then maybe something else is going on.”

“What do you mean?” Jane asked.

“It could be that we’re getting too close and Diana’s getting rattled.”

“It’s a possibility. But how does she know we’re getting too close?”

“That’s one of the things I want us to discuss when we get back to the house,” Lacey said.

Laura made a noise of frustration as they pulled off the road and took the lane leading to the farm. She could no longer move her arms and legs. All that was possible was to sit there and be driven towards her fate.

“Don’t worry. Holly will be waiting for you when we get there.”

Laura turned her head sharply. It was no longer Penny Chapman driving the car. Diana had reverted to her more familiar form. She studied Laura for a moment. 

“You didn’t really think I’d let you both escape, did you? You are both far too valuable for that.”

She pulled up outside the barn and got out of the car, immediately noticing the padlock lying in the dirt. “It looks like your friends have been here,” she called back to Laura. “Never to worry,” she said with a smile. “They wouldn’t have found anything. And if they come back… Well, I have that covered too.” She walked across to the car and opened the door on the passenger side. “Get out.”

Laura started to move, slowly, like an automaton. First one foot and then the other. She cracked her head on the doorframe, but her body ignored the pain and kept moving forwards, taking haltering steps towards the house.

As she approached, the door opened.

“Go on in,” Diana said. “You should know where to go by now.”

Laura walked through the hallway. At the stairs she began to climb, slowly, stiff-legged. As she reached the bedroom the door swung open, revealing Holly lying on the bed, her ankles and wrists bound.

“As you can see, I’ve had to take extra precautions to make sure you stay here, but it can’t be helped.”

Holly stared at her from the bed. “You’re mad.” 

Diana pushed Laura in the small of the back, steering her towards the other bed.

“I could well be,” Diana said. “But then I’ve been waiting so long for this. Centuries spent waiting for the chance for me to complete myself. I’m very grateful to you both.” 

“You’re going to kill us,” Holly said.

Diana smiled. “Of course. But you can take comfort from the knowledge that in giving your lives you will be enriching mine. Now, Laura, be a good girl and lie down on the bed.”

As Laura lay down on the bed Diana went to a small chest in the corner of the room and took out a coil of white nylon cord. “Perfect,” she said and started to bind Laura’s wrists. 

Chapter Thirty-Nine

They gathered around the table in Annie’s kitchen, Carter at the head. “So going to see Florence Tibbs was a complete waste of time,” he said.

“Not a complete waste. We now have a photograph of Diana,” Jane said.

“A photograph of a shape-shifter. Very helpful,” Carter said with heavy irony. “And the address she gave you was useless. Annie and I were there. The place is deserted. There’s no sign that anyone’s lived there for years.”

Jane glared at him. “Maybe you should have gone to see her. Maybe you would have got more.”

“You’re being unfair, Rob,” Annie said. “Let’s face it, we didn’t do much better ourselves.”

Carter let out a sigh. “You’re right,” he said after a moment. “It’s the news about Martin. It’s completely floored me. I thought he’d be safe with McKinley watching him. I just wasn’t expecting it.”

“None of us were, Rob,” Bailey said. “Once I get to London I’ll pull out all the stops to find him. You know that.”

“That’s the other thing,” Carter said. “Crozier asking you to go down there to help.”

“You mean he should have asked you,” Jane said.

“Yes, I do. No offense, Harry, but I know Martin better than you. He’s a good friend.”

“None taken,” Bailey said. “Did you consider that your friendship with Martin was the very reason why Simon didn’t ask you to go down?”

“What do you mean?”

“Would you be prepared to do whatever’s necessary to stop him, to bring him in?”

“Of course I would.”

“You’re kidding yourself, Rob,” Jane said. “You’d be compromised. We know it, you know it and Crozier knows it. By asking Harry to return to London, he’s done you a huge favor.”

“She’s right, you know,” Annie said, reaching across and laying her hand on Carter’s arm.

“Yes,” Carter said. “I know.”

Harry Bailey got to his feet. “I have to go,” he said. “Are you sure you don’t mind me taking your car, Jane?”

“It’s fine.” She tossed him the keys. “And good luck.”

“That goes for all of us,” Carter said.

Bailey climbed the stairs. This was an assignment he would happily leave for Robert Carter. Although he would not class Martin Impey as one of his close friends, he liked him and respected his talents. Losing Impey would be a great loss to the department. “It might not come to that,” he said to himself as he opened the front door.

There was a young man standing on the doorstep, his finger poised, ready to press the bell. He was tall, blond and smartly dressed. He took a step back as Bailey opened the door. “This is Annie Ryder’s house?” he said.

“Yes,” Bailey said.

“I’m Matthew Sparks. I’m looking for Detective Inspector Ian Lacey.”

“You’re his sergeant,” Bailey said. “I’ve heard about you.” He stood to one side to allow Sparks to enter. “Along the hallway and down the stairs at the end. You’ll find Ian in the kitchen with the others.”

Sparks waited until Bailey had shut the door behind him, then followed the directions.

Lacey got to his feet as Sparks came down the stairs to the kitchen. The two men shook hands. “Pull up a chair, Matt,” Lacey said. “Annie and Rob you know. Jane Talbot you don’t.” He turned to Jane. “Jane, this is Matt Sparks, my sergeant. Matt, Jane is one of Rob’s colleagues from Department 18. I take it you met Harry Bailey on the way in. Harry and Jane have been helping us.”

Sparks took a seat between Annie and Jane.

Lacey sat back down at the table. “Did you go through the files again?”

Sparks nodded. “I did and you were right.”

Lacey turned to the others. “When Matt rang me earlier today I asked him to do some digging for me. It’s been bothering me that Diana seems to know an awful lot about what we’re doing. As I said before, she knew about Ollie Tucker, she knew Henry Norton had regained consciousness, and in general she always seems to be one step ahead of us. I wondered how that could be, unless she had an inside track. What did you find, Matt?”

Sparks took his notebook from his pocket and opened it. “It wasn’t obvious, unless you knew what you were looking for. But once you pointed me in the right direction it didn’t take too long to make the connections. All the deaths are linked, albeit tenuously, but the link is there.” He consulted his book again. “Helen Brown, headmistress at the school. Sylvia Allyn, has two children at the school…”

Annie sat forwards in her seat. “What are you implying, Ian?” she said hotly.

“Bear with us, Annie,” Lacey said. “Carry on, Matt.”

“Susan Grant attended an evening class in astrology at the school. Amy Clarke also took an evening class there, the history of ceramics.”

“So you’re saying the school is the link? My school?” 

“No,” Matt Sparks said. “From what I could see, Sophie Gillespie had no connection at all with the school. No children. No evening classes. Nothing.”

Annie visibly relaxed.

“But she did attend Adam Chapman’s art class,” Sparks said.

“Something you said earlier today, Jane, got me thinking,” Lacey said. “You said you thought Diana was hand-picking her victims, that she had probably built up relationships with them, got to know them, maybe not in her Diana persona. Only Laura Sallis can be linked directly to Diana, but the others, including Holly Ireland, all have links to Penny Chapman.”

“That’s ridiculous,” Annie said. “I’ve known Penny for years, ever since I moved to Ravensbridge.”

“Hold on,” Carter said. “Let’s backtrack a moment. Ian, are you saying that Penny Chapman knows Diana and has been feeding her information?”

“I’m saying more than that,” Ian Lacey said. “I believe now that Penny Chapman is Diana.”

Annie was on her feet. Her chair toppled backwards and clattered on the stone floor. “That’s absurd. That’s really fucking absurd! Penny Chapman is my closest friend.”

“And as such you’ve been keeping her in the loop,” Jane said quietly.

“I’m not listening to any more of this…this crap,” Annie said. “I want you all to leave. Just get out of my house.” She ran to the stairs. At the top she spun round. “Now!”

“So what’s our next move?” Jane said.

“I’ll speak with Annie when she’s had a chance to calm down a little,” Carter said.

“So we’re not leaving?”

Lacey stood. “I think it’s best that we do. Come on, Matt. We’ll pay a visit to the Chapmans.”

“I take it you have their address, because I don’t think Annie will give it to you,” Carter said.

“33 Lockfield Road,” Sparks said. “I checked it out before I came here. It’s only five minutes away.”

“Do you think going to see Penny Chapman is a wise move?” Jane said. “In light of what you’ve just discovered?”

“She doesn’t know we suspect her,” Lacey said. “If we ask the right questions she might just let her guard down enough so we can confirm our suspicions.” 

Carter rapped lightly on Annie Ryder’s bedroom door.

“Go away. I’ve nothing to say to you.”

Carter pushed open the door and stepped inside. Annie was kneeling in front of an oak chest of drawers, the contents of it scattered all around her. She was clutching a handful of light-blue envelopes with one hand. In the other she held a single sheet of paper. A letter.

Carter went across to the bed and perched himself on the edge. “I’m not going anywhere, Annie. You asked me here to do a job. I’m going to see it through.”

Annie didn’t look up at him. “This is a letter Penny sent me,” she said. “Adam and her were having a trial separation and she’d gone abroad, travelling. When she wrote the letter she’d reached Mexico, and was helping out at a homeless shelter in Puebla. In this she sounds happy, fulfilled.”

“How long did the separation last?”

“Three months. She came home a few weeks after this letter was written. They managed to patch up their differences and, as far as I know, they’ve never been apart since.” She turned to Carter. “Do you think I wouldn’t know if Penny was Diana?”

“When was the separation?”

“Twelve years ago.”

“And she comes back and the murders start.”

“It’s a coincidence.”

Carter leant forwards, resting his elbows on his knees. “You don’t believe that. If you did you wouldn’t be reading the letters. And it looks like you went to a lot of trouble to find them,” he added, indicating the mess on the floor.

Annie closed her eyes and her shoulders sagged. A small tear dribbled down her cheek. “Oh, Christ, who am I kidding?” she said. “I thought it was strange at the time, but I put it down to something else.”

“Riddles, Annie. You’re talking in riddles.”

Her eyes snapped open and she wiped the tear away impatiently with the sleeve of her shirt. “In this letter she said she’d met someone, a woman, who had shown her exactly what was wrong with her life and what steps she could take to change it. I knew she and Adam were having problems before she went away. I think at the time the age gap between them was having an adverse effect on the relationship. She was always insecure about it and was convinced Adam would eventually meet someone more his own age and take off with them. He was making a pretty poor living at that time and she was more or less supporting him, so that added to the friction between them. What finally pushed her to leave was Adam’s affair with a girl he was using as a life model. The girl was barely out of her teens and as pretty as a peach. It was too much for Penny. She just picked up her passport, packed a bag and headed for the airport, telling Adam he needed space away from her to sort his life out. Of course his affair with the girl didn’t last, just over a month, and when it ended Adam realized he had probably thrown away the best thing in his life. Penny. He wrote to her asking her to come back but Penny refused.”

“She was discovering who she really was,” Carter said.

“Exactly. As this letter proves. As I said, she was happy and fulfilled.”

“And yet she came back.”

“Yes, she did. I received one more letter from her after this one.” Annie pulled an envelope from the pile in her hand and dropped the rest on the floor with all the other clutter. Taking the letter from the envelope, she scanned it quickly. “In this one she says she’s missing Adam desperately and that she’s flying back to England, giving me her flight number and asking if I can pick her up from the airport.” Annie handed both letters to Carter.

He read them quickly. “The woman she met in Puebla, her name’s Dee.”

Annie nodded. “In the second letter, the tone’s wrong. The first one sounds like the Penny I knew before she went away. The second one doesn’t sound like her at all. Even the writing’s slightly different, more jagged, not as neat. I didn’t think much about it at the time. Penny said the woman she’d met, this Dee, had told her how to change her life. I thought the tone of the letter was a way that change was manifesting itself.”

“What was she like when you picked her up at the airport?”

“Brighter, I think. More confident, but more or less the same old Penny.”

“And now you’re not so sure?”

“I don’t know, Rob. I remember a few months after she returned, Adam and I had a heart to heart. He thought she’d changed, but for the better, and said their sex life had gone through the roof, so he wasn’t complaining. He thought that Mexico was the best thing that had ever happened to them.”

“And you?”

“I just got used to the new Penny. Yes there were changes, but fundamentally she was the same person.”

“And now?”

Annie shook her head. “Now I don’t know what to believe. There is one thing though.” She bit her lip pensively.

“Go on.”

“Puebla, where she stayed, is in a region of Mexico called Cuetlaxcoapan.”

“So?”

“Cuetlaxcoapan means, ‘where serpents change their skin’.”

Chapter Forty

Adam Chapman took a long time to answer the door. When he finally did it looked like he’d just crawled out of bed. Dressed in only a toweling bathrobe with nothing on his feet, he looked irritated by this intrusion. While Sparks flashed his warrant card, Ian Lacey stole a surreptitious glance at his watch. A little after three. “May we come in, Mr. Chapman?” he said.

“Now is not a particularly convenient time,” Chapman said. “I was up working all night. I was just trying to catch up on my sleep.”

“It should only take a few minutes. By the way, is your wife at home? We’d really like to talk to her too.”

“No, she’s not here. As I said, it’s not convenient. I was in bed.”

“Would it be more convenient to do this at the station? We can wait if you want to get dressed.”

A number of emotions flickered across Adam Chapman’s face in an instant. The primary one was annoyance. “You’d better come in.”

“Thank you,” Lacey said with a smile.

Chapman led them through to an untidy lounge. “Wait there. Take a seat. I’ll just put some clothes on.”

He took the stairs two at a time. When he returned he was dressed in jeans and a jumper.

“Will your wife be back any time soon?” Sparks said. “Only we really would like to speak with her.”

Something registered in Chapman’s bleary eyes. “Oh, this isn’t about those bloody unpaid parking tickets, is it? Because sending two detectives for something so trivial…” 

“No, this isn’t about parking tickets, sir,” Lacey said, cutting him off mid-flow. “Has she gone away? Visiting friends, family perhaps?”

“I don’t know,” Chapman said.

Lacey frowned. “Isn’t that a bit unusual? Not knowing where your wife has gone?” he asked pleasantly.

“No, not really. Look, has something happened to Penny? Has she been hurt in some way?”

“Not to our knowledge, sir,” Lacey said.

“So you haven’t seen your wife since first thing this morning,” Sparks said. “Does she make a habit of taking off without saying where she’s going?”

“As a matter of fact she does, yes.” Chapman flopped down heavily on a scuffed leather armchair and flapped his hand at the equally scuffed couch, indicating that they should sit. “Penny and I don’t have what is known as a traditional marriage. We’re not in each other’s pocket. She has her life, I have mine. Simple.”

“Really,” Lacey said.

“Yes, really. We both see ourselves as free spirits. We travel on parallel paths, coming together on occasion and then going our own way again.”

“And that works for you, does it, sir?” Sparks said.

“It works for us. Anyway, I’m sure you didn’t come here to discuss the state of my marriage and it’s not about the parking tickets, so what is it you actually want?”

“Sophie Gillespie and her husband, Mark. They were killed a while ago. I understand from our records that Mrs. Gillespie was a member of your art class,” Lacey said.

“That’s right. She was very talented. It was tragic that she died so young. She would have made a fine artist. Perhaps not Royal Academy standard, but she could probably have made a reasonable living at it.”

“How well did you know her?” Sparks asked.

“About as well as any tutor knows their student. I wasn’t shagging her, if that’s what you’re implying.”

“The thought never crossed our mind, sir,” Lacey said. “No, what my sergeant is getting at was, did you have a social relationship with her? Not sexual, but something more than just tutor and student. Perhaps the occasional coffee together, maybe dinner together with your wife and her husband?”

Chapman shook his head. “No, nothing like that. Penny had no time for Mark Gillespie. The man was an upwardly mobile arsehole, totally oblivious to his wife’s talents, or her happiness for that matter. He was very much the main breadwinner, my dinner on the table when I get home type of guy. I didn’t have a problem with him, but Penny couldn’t stand him.”

“So your wife knew Sophie Gillespie?” Lacey said.

“Penny knew her, yes. They met one day when Penny came to pick me up. They got chatting, as women do, and Penny took her under her wing. I think she sensed that Sophie’s marriage left a lot to be desired and that Sophie was basically unhappy. You could see her anger and frustration in her paintings. Angry brushwork and some fairly disturbing images. She wasn’t the twee, watercolor type of person.”

“So your wife was, what, a shoulder to cry on?” Lacey said.

“Penny’s very good like that. Empathy. She has great empathy.”

“She sounds like a very special kind of person,” Lacey said.

“Mexico,” Chapman said. 

“Pardon?”

“She’d changed when she came back from Mexico.”

“How long ago was this?”

“A dozen or so years ago. Our marriage was going through a rocky patch so we agreed on a trial separation. Penny took herself off abroad and came back a different person. It was quite magical, the transformation, I mean. It was like living with a different woman. All her insecurities had gone. She was stronger, more capable. I’m sure it’s how she managed to empathize with Sophie Gillespie so well. She’d been through it herself, you see?”

“I think so,” Lacey said.

“I can hear the skepticism in your voice, Inspector. But it’s true. I think had she not met Dee in Mexico she would have come home the same old Penny.”

“Dee?”

“A woman Penny became quite close with when she was out there. Penny called her ‘my mentor’. Penny used to write to me quite regularly, and in the course of the letters you could sense the change in her. Dee worked wonders for her. Made her the woman she is now. I’ve a lot to thank her for.”

“Are they still in touch?” 

“Sadly no. Dee passed away, just before Penny left Mexico. One of the last things Penny did there was to go to her funeral. Cancer. A horrible disease, but as Penny said, a happy release for Dee.”

“We’d really like to talk to your wife,” Lacey said. “You’re sure you have no idea where she is?”

Chapman shook his head. “How many more times do I have to tell you? She was meant to pick me up from the dentist this morning, but never showed.” He shrugged. “Typical really. She probably forgot. Got involved with something else and I just went out of her head. It isn’t a problem. Happens all the time. It’s just Penny.”

Lacey got to his feet. Sparks followed.

“Well, I think we’ve taken up enough of your time, Mr. Chapman. Thank you for being so…so forthcoming,” Sparks said.

“Perhaps you could ask your wife to call me when she returns?” Lacey handed him his card.

“No problem,” Adam Chapman said. “I hope I’ve been some help to you.”

He ushered them towards the door.

At the door Lacey hesitated. “One more thing, if you have time. The night Henry Norton was attacked, I understand you and your wife were the last people to see him. Did you go straight home after you said goodbye to him?”

“I did. Penny went for a walk to clear her head. We drank far too much wine. I got in, went to bed and crashed out. I didn’t even hear her come in. And my head in the morning… Jesus! I thought my brain was going to explode. Penny was fine though. No hangover. Perhaps I should have gone for a walk with her.”

Lacey smiled indulgently at him. “Yes, perhaps you should have, sir. Thank you again for your time.”

“Well. What do you think?” Lacey said when they got back to the car.

“He certainly didn’t appear to be hiding anything.”

“No, he didn’t, did he? But then why should he?” Lacey said. “Do you know what I think?”

“I’m sure you’re going to tell me.”

“I think that Penny Chapman went to Mexico, but Diana returned in her place. I think it was Diana attending Penny Chapman’s funeral, not the other way around.”

“Dee equals Diana, you mean? You could be onto something.”

“I’m sure I am.”

“But surely Chapman would have realized that the woman who came back to him wasn’t his wife.”

“You’d think. But then again, I’d swear blind that the woman I divorced wasn’t the same woman I married. She underwent a complete personality change in the years we were together. That’s the point, Matt, people do change, and for much of the time the changes are so small we don’t even notice. You’ve changed yourself over the past few days.”

Sparks turned to look at him. “I don’t think so.”

“But you have. A week ago could you imagine yourself giving any credence whatsoever to notions of witchcraft or shape-shifters? And now here you are, putting your career on the line to help me investigate those very things. How did you swing it, by the way, getting the time away from D.I. Phelan to help me out?”

“Pleaded a migraine,” Sparks said with a smile. “And I haven’t changed, not fundamentally. I’m still not a true believer like you. I’m only helping you so that we might reach some kind of conclusion to all this, if only to stop you banging on about it all the time.”

Lacey shook his head and laughed. He started the car. “Have it your way, Matt,” he said. “Have it your way.”

“I’ve tried calling Penny on her mobile. Nothing,” Annie said.

Carter shook his head. “Did you really expect her to answer?”

“And if she had, what would you have said to her?” Jane added.

They were sitting in the lounge. The light was draining from the sky and the gloom outside was reflected by the mood inside.

“I don’t know,” Annie said. “I just had to do something. First Laura, and now Penny. Rob, I’m losing all my dearest friends.” Her voice caught in her throat. “I don’t know how much more of this I can take.”

Both Carter and Jane were at a loss how to comfort her. The arrival of Lacey and Sparks did little to lighten the mood. The policemen told them what they had found out from Adam Chapman.

“We knew about Mexico. Annie has the letters Penny sent her when she was out there. We knew nothing of the funeral though.”

“The other interesting fact to emerge was that Penny Chapman didn’t go straight home the night Henry Norton was attacked. According to her husband, she went for a walk, apparently to clear her head after drinking too much here.”

“But she didn’t drink that much that evening,” Carter said. “Two glasses of wine, tops.”

“So she was spinning him a line,” Jane said.

“Giving her the opportunity to attack, or at least to orchestrate the attack, on Norton,” Carter said. “I’m afraid, Annie, the evidence is beginning to stack up against her.”

“But it brings us no closer to finding her, or Holly and Laura either,” Jane said.

“Well there’s nothing more we can accomplish this evening. We’re losing the light,” Carter said. “I suggest we call it a day and start again in the morning.”

“And tomorrow’s the eve of Beltane,” Jane said. “We’re running out of time.”

“Yes,” Carter said. “I’m aware of that.”

Chapter Forty-One

“You made good time,” Crozier said.

“The traffic was light. Any news?”

“It’s as if he’s vanished from the face of the planet.”

“How’s McKinley?”

“He’ll live. You’ve had plenty of time to think on your drive down, Harry. Any ideas on what our next step should be?”

They were sitting in Crozier’s flat. Through the window they could see the lights on the Thames, pleasure boats ferrying partygoers along the waterway, tugs hauling cargo barges on the still, torpid water.

“To be honest, Simon, I haven’t really got a clue. The main thought I’ve had is that Diana has contrived this business with Martin as a diversion, to pull us away from our primary focus, which is of course to find her and stop her before more innocent lives are lost.”

“Do you see that as a possibility?”

“It makes sense, and the evidence, although circumstantial, has weight. Someone sent us on that wild goose chase this morning. Florence Tibbs was no witch, and her dog no familiar. We learned nothing from her and it wasted an entire morning that we could have spent hunting for Diana. And now this. I’ve been pulled away from Yorkshire, when I should really still be up there, lending my expertise to their investigation.”

“But Diana couldn’t know that I was going to call you back down to London,” Crozier said.

“She could have made an educated guess that one of us would have to return. Either way, Martin Impey’s disappearance has muddied the waters and split the focus. Now we have two manhunts to deal with instead of just the one. Rob was right when he said he’d been thinking about this all wrong. It’s not just a local issue, not confined to Ravensbridge, the Calder Valley or even Yorkshire for that matter. Diana is striking at us here in London. God knows what she’ll be capable of should we fail and she adds the powers of two more witches to her arsenal.”

Crozier went across to his drinks cabinet and poured himself a scotch and a mineral water for Bailey. He handed the water to his friend who took it and stared at it morosely. 

“I’d kill for one of those right now,” Bailey said, nodding towards Crozier’s drink.

“You’re no use to anyone, including yourself, drunk. Cheers.” He raised his glass.

“You’re a sadist. You know that, don’t you?”

“It’s been said before.”

“It’s nothing to be proud of.”

The telephone rang. Crozier picked it up on the second ring. He listened for a few seconds and then disconnected.

“Impey’s been spotted.”

“Where?”

“Soho. He was seen entering a lap-dancing club.”

“You are kidding,” Bailey said. “Martin Impey in a skin palace?”

“I know, it beggars belief, but when he first went missing I enlisted the Met to try to find him. They circulated his description with instructions not to approach or try to apprehend. One of the regular Soho police patrols spotted him entering the club about thirty minutes ago.”

“Best get down there then.” Bailey went across to the coat rack, grabbed his raincoat and headed for the door, leaving Crozier to gulp down the last of his whisky and catch him up.

The Platinum Chip Gentleman’s Club is situated just off Denmark Street. The upper floors house a casino while the ground floor and basement play host to the usual bumping and grinding.

“Why they call these places gentlemen’s clubs is beyond me,” Crozier said as he stepped out of his car. “Find somewhere to park and meet us inside,” he said to his driver.

The driver acknowledged the request with a small salute and drove off, leaving Crozier and Bailey standing on the pavement in front of the club. A young policeman was standing just outside the door, flanked by two tough-looking men wearing cheap black suits, sporting almost identical shaved heads. Crozier beckoned the PC over to them and flashed his ID card. “Well?” he said.

“As far as I can tell, he’s still in there, sir,” the policeman said.

“Well is he or isn’t he?” Crozier demanded.

“I haven’t seen him leave, sir.”

Crozier pushed past him and approached the two men at the door. He fished a photograph of Martin Impey from his pocket and handed it to one of the men. “This man, did you see him enter the club?”

The two of them stared at the photo. “I did,” the slightly smaller of the two said.

“Would you mind going inside and checking to see if he’s still there?”

“And if he is, tell us which floor he’s on,” Bailey added.

“Sorry, sir, I can’t leave my post.”

Crozier sighed and turned away. Bailey stepped forwards and put his arm around the doorman’s shoulder. “Look…” He peered at the man’s name badge pinned to the lapel of his polyester suit. “…Danny, is it? Do yourself a favor. We haven’t got all night and this is really important. Do as the man said or we’ll be forced to go and get a warrant to search the place. We’ll leave him…” He pointed to the young PC. “We’ll leave him here standing guard until we return. Not a great advert for your club, is it?”

Danny shrugged off Bailey’s arm. “If I do as you say, he buggers off, right?”

“He’ll vanish like the mist on a summer’s day.”

Danny thought about the offer, sniffed once and then, without another word, turned and entered the club. His partner moved to the center of the door and stood there, legs slightly apart, arms folded.

“Ah, the British at work,” Crozier said, moving back to the pavement. “A heart-warming sight.”

Danny returned five minutes later. “He’s still here, in the basement, having a private dance. He won’t thank you for interrupting him. He’s got Naomi, and my God she’s hot.”

“Thanks, Danny, you’re a star,” Bailey said. Crozier offered the man a frosty smile as they pushed past him into the club.

Once they were inside a pretty cloakroom girl, wearing an outfit that left little to the imagination, offered to check their coats. “Another time,” Crozier said. “We’re not stopping.”

A man in a much more expensive suit than the two doormen approached them from out of the shadows. He was handsome in a very Byronic way, with dark, brooding eyes and a chiseled jaw and, as he smiled at them, a diamond-set gold tooth in his upper jaw caught the light and glinted. “Gentlemen, lovely to see you but I’m afraid I don’t recognize your faces. Have you been to the Platinum Chip before? Only it is members only.”

“No, and we’re not members,” Crozier said, pulling the photograph of Martin Impey from his pocket. “And I very much doubt that this man is either.” He handed the photograph to the concierge. “And yet miraculously he’s downstairs enjoying a private dance with…” He turned to Bailey for guidance.

“Naomi. He’s having a private dance with Naomi.”

“So, be a good chap and let us through.”

The concierge shrugged and smiled, flashing his diamond tooth at them once more. “Members only, sir. I’m sorry.”

Crozier produced his ID card again. The concierge took it from him and studied it closely. “Sorry,” he said, handing back the card. “I’ve never heard of Department 18.” 

“Well, believe me, if you don’t let us through, you’ll be hearing an awful lot about us and by God you’ll wish you hadn’t.”

For the first time uncertainty appeared in the man’s eyes. “Wait there a moment, please.” He pulled a mobile phone from his pocket and disappeared into the shadows once more.

“God, this is harder than trying to get into MI6,” Crozier said.

“What are a few state secrets compared to the reputations of a club full of inveterate skirt-hounds?” Bailey smiled. “He’s coming back.”

The young man was all diamond-lit smiles again. “I’ve consulted with the club’s owner and of course you may enter. Free of charge, I might add.”

“You’re too kind,” Crozier said and waited for the concierge to open the door for him.

“The basement?” Bailey said. 

“Along the corridor and turn right down the stairs,” the concierge said. “Enjoy your evening with us.” As Bailey passed him he said, “Your friend chose well. Naomi, she’s…”

“Hot,” Bailey said, cutting him off. “Yes, I know.” 

“Why are these places always so dark?” Crozier said as they walked along the dimly lit corridor.

“I wouldn’t know,” Bailey said. “I’ve never been to one before.”

“Well, neither have I,” Crozier said defensively. “I just imagine they’re all like this.”

Bailey laughed. “No, Simon, I can’t imagine you getting your rocks off to a few topless girls.”

“The concierge though. Very pretty.”

Bailey shook his head. “You never change, Simon.”

“It’s heartening to think that some things in this life are a constant.”

“A constant what though?” Bailey said.

The banter was very necessary. It relaxed them and helped them to prepare themselves for whatever they might face once they reached the basement.

Martin Impey was seated at a table in the far corner of the room. It was slightly lighter in here than in the corridor, but the lights were colored red, blue and green, making everyone in the room look either demonic, ice-cold or nauseous, depending on how the lights changed. The music was loud and pulsing, issuing from hidden overhead speakers, and all the tables in the room were occupied. A young girl writhed in front of Martin, naked apart from a G-string. As she danced, she fondled and stroked her well-oiled breasts, all the while keeping them tantalizingly just out of Martin’s reach. On the table in front of him was a half-empty bottle of champagne and several flutes.

Crozier and Bailey crossed the floor to his table and stood in front of the dancing Naomi. Martin looked up at them through alcohol-glazed eyes. “Get out of the sodding way,” he slurred.

“Time to go, mate,” Bailey said affably.

“Sod off. Naomi’s only halfway through her second dance, and I’ve booked three.”

Crozier stepped forwards. “Now then, Impey, pull yourself together. This is no way for a member of the department to behave.”

Martin squinted up at his boss. “Mr. Crozier, I never expected to see you in a place like this. Have a drink.” He reached for the bottle, but instead of pouring the champagne into one of the empty flutes, he grabbed the bottle by the neck and swung it. Crozier stepped back quickly but not in time to avoid being hit. The bottle caught him a glancing blow on the temple, opening a small gash. Martin swung again but this time Bailey grabbed Crozier’s arm and pulled him out of harm’s way. 

As Crozier stood there, stunned and swaying slightly, Bailey moved in.

At the sight of the blood dribbling from Crozier’s cut temple Naomi stopped dancing and screamed. Bailey pushed her out of the way. He threw himself forwards, overturning the table, and grabbed Martin by the front of his shirt. The younger, lighter man let himself be hauled to his feet, threw his head back and brought it crashing forwards into Bailey’s face.

Bailey listened to his nose crack and felt the blood as it began to gush, but he held on to Martin’s shirt with one hand. The other hand curled into fist and he punched Martin in the mouth with all his strength. 

Martin shrugged off the blow and twisted his bloodied mouth into a smile. “Is that the best you’ve got, old man?” he said and moved in close, bringing his knee up into Bailey’s groin. As the air rushed out of him and he began to sag, Martin kneed him in the face, doing more damage to the already damaged nose.

Bailey sank to the floor, finally letting go of Martin’s shirt. The younger man vaulted over him and started to run towards the door. Crozier stuck out a foot and tripped him, sending him crashing to the floor, but within a second Martin was up and running again. 

“He’s getting away, damn it!” Crozier yelled. “Somebody stop him!”

All the girls had stopped dancing and were watching the fight. Naomi was crying noisily.

Martin was almost at the door when Danny and his partner stepped through. The sight of them stopped Martin in his tracks. He turned his head from right to left, looking for another way out. He found it in a pair of fire exit doors on the other side of the room. He spun around and started to run in the opposite direction.

The doors opened by pressing down a steel bar that released bolts in the doorframe. Martin reached the doors, pressed down the bar, yanked the door open and stepped through.

The next thing Crozier saw was Martin staggering backwards, clutching his head. He fell back into the room and lay there unconscious. The doors swung open again and the concierge stood there, slapping a small, black cosh into the palm of his hand. He smiled widely, the lights turning the diamond in his tooth from diamond to sapphire, to ruby and, finally, to emerald.

Crozier ran across to Martin’s supine body. “Call an ambulance,” he snapped at the concierge.

“But sir has only a small cut to his temple. A sticking plaster, no more.”

“Not for me, you fool! For him!” Crozier pointed down at Martin.

“Ah,” the concierge said and pulled his mobile from his pocket.

Later, back at Crozier’s flat, the two men sat, once again looking at the passing traffic on the River Thames.

“Do you think Martin will be all right?” Bailey asked.

“This time we’re doing it right. He’s in a secure room, at a secure facility, strapped to a bed for his and everyone else’s protection. But no, I don’t think he’ll be all right until this Diana business is over.”

“Then it’s best I head on back to Ravensbridge in the morning.”

“Good God, man, you’re in no condition to drive all that way. Your face.”

Bailey grimaced. The paramedics had patched him up well enough, but his face was badly bruised, a rainbow of yellow, red, purple and black, and his nose was covered with a thick bandage. “I’m up to it. Besides, I think they’re going to need me. Martin fought like a man possessed tonight, which is exactly what I think happened to him. He was possessed, like the girl in the library was possessed. It may have been Diana herself, but more than likely it was a demon of some kind doing her bidding.”

He sat back in his seat and closed his eyes for a moment, reached into his pocket and produced a small vial of painkillers. “One of the paramedics gave me these. He said that they give them to cancer sufferers. Pretty powerful drugs. He said I shouldn’t drive, and even walking might be hazardous. So if I could beg a bed for the night…”

“Of course,” Crozier said. “There’s a bed made up in the spare room. You’d be welcome to use it.”

“One thing tonight’s taught me,” Bailey said, shaking a couple of pills from the vial and tossing them into his mouth.

“What’s that?” Crozier asked curiously.

“It’s time we stopped underestimating Diana. Potentially she could be the most dangerous adversary Department 18 has ever faced.”

Chapter Forty-Two

Robert Carter tossed and turned in bed, his dreams filled with nightmare images.

He was back in the barn at Pett’s farm. Rachel and Rebecca Yardley were there but very much alive, not ghosts. They’d been strung up from one of the cross beams with thick hemp robes that bit into their wrists, making them bleed. Men were milling around them, rough men, with brutalized faces who leered and spat at the women.

One of them punched Rachel repeatedly in the stomach while another hacked at Rebecca’s hair with a hinged pair of blades best used for sheep shearing. Both women were crying, begging for mercy, but there was no mercy to be found in the barn that day.

Another man stood in the corner of the barn, watching the scene play out with a look of wry amusement on his face. He was dressed differently than the others, the clothes finer, made from better, more expensive material. Clasped in his hands was a bronze effigy of Christ, the size of a man’s forearm. Not a crucified Messiah, but a gentle, beatific Christ, hands pressed tightly together in prayer.

The man crossed the barn in four easy strides and stood before Rebecca Yardley. Rebecca stared at him, blood from her scalp trickling down her face, her eyes contemptuous.

“Do you repent your sins, witch?” the man said. “Do you embrace the spirit of Christ and accept him into your heart so that your soul may be cleansed?” He stepped closer. “Do you admit that you worship at the feet of Satan and do his bidding?”

Rebecca Yardley lifted her chin defiantly. “It is you who does Satan’s work for him here today, Jacob Barker, not I.”

“Then you refuse to repent?”

“I have nothing to repent. You are the one with wickedness and evil in your soul.”

Jacob Barker took a step away from her, still clutching the bronze effigy in his hands. “You heard that, men. The witch refuses to renounce her evil ways and still embraces the work of the Devil.”

The men murmured agreement. 

“I will bring Christ to this woman. If she won’t take Christ into her soul then, by God, she will take Him into her body.” He took another step away from Rebecca and pointed to two of the men. “Spread her.” 

The two men exchanged glances but stood, one on each side of Rebecca, and pulled her legs apart.

“Bring me the Hammer of God!” Barker yelled.

Another man approached, carrying a large and heavy wooden mallet.

“One last chance,” Barker said.

Rebecca raised her head and stared at her sister, their eyes meeting. Something passed between them. Rebecca turned back to her tormentor and spat in his face.

With her saliva dripping down his cheek he slapped Rebecca hard, his heavy gold signet ring opening an inch-long gash in her cheek. He crossed to the man holding the mallet and took it from him, handing him the effigy of Christ. “Lower her to the floor and hold her there,” he said to the others. “You two, keep her spread.”

Barker glanced back at Rachel who looked on helplessly as her sister was positioned on the floor. “Watch very carefully,” he said to her softly. “You’re next.”

He signaled to the man holding the effigy who scuttled across to where Rebecca was being held and laid the statue down between her outstretched legs, the head pointing towards, and almost touching, her vagina.

Barker stood over her. “You bring this upon yourself,” he said, and then stood astride her and raised the mallet above his head. “May Christ forgive you!” he shouted as he brought the Hammer of God swinging down with all his might.

The scream broke Carter’s dream and he sat bolt upright in the bed, perspiration dripping from his body. It was not yet morning. A half-moon spilt its light through the bedroom window, casting random shadows on the walls. He sat there in the bed watching them, trying to cool his sweating body and forcing the images from the dream away to the back of his mind.

First one of the shadows moved and then another, detaching themselves from the wall and floating into the room. The shadows rippled in the moonlight and gradually took form.

Rachel and Rebecca Yardley manifested a yard away from the foot of the bed.

Carter stared at them from the bed. “I’m trying to stop her,” he said quietly.

“We know.”

“Where is she? You have to tell me where she is.”

The twins exchanged looks. “We do not know. She hides herself from us.”

“Then why are you here if you can’t help me?”

“So you don’t forget us.”

“I won’t forget you. I want to help you.”

“Don’t forget us, Robert. We need you.”

Gradually they faded back to shadow and sank back into the wall.

Carter flicked on the bedside light and threw back the duvet. He pulled on his robe and padded downstairs to the kitchen.

Annie was sitting at the kitchen table, her hands wrapped around a mug of tea.

“Any more in the pot?” Carter asked.

“I’ve just made it. Help yourself. Couldn’t sleep?”

“No. Dreaming. It woke me up.”

“I couldn’t get off,” she said. “I just laid there thinking about Penny, about Laura.” She rubbed her face with her hands. “I’m so sorry, Rob.”

“For what?”

“For getting you involved in all this. I feel I’ve taken advantage of our friendship.”

Carter reached out and took her hand. “You were right to involve me. Diana is dangerous. I suspect the department would have crossed swords with her somewhere down the line. At least now we get a chance to deal with her before she reaches the peak of her powers.”

“But what does she want, Rob? Why is she doing all this?”

“Because she can, Annie. I suspect that vengeance was a motivating force for her at first. What Jacob Barker did to her family was barbaric, and I can understand her wanting to avenge them, but I think her focus was skewed along the way.”

“Once she realized what she could do with her power,” Annie said.

“Absolute power corrupts absolutely,” Carter said. “Lord Acton wrote that in a letter to Bishop Creighton in 1887. He wasn’t wrong. Power is an intoxicating drug. Many famous and infamous figures in history have been ruined by it. Why should Diana be any different? I think she knows now that she can almost have anything she wants.”

“Almost?”

“She needs the other two witches, Rachel and Rebecca, to complete the cycle. Once she’s absorbed their powers she’ll be unstoppable.”

“So how do we stop her before that happens?”

“We track her down and we kill her,” Carter said.

“As simple as that?”

Carter shook his head. “I didn’t say it was the simple option. It’s our only option. We have to succeed. Rachel and Rebecca Yardley know it. That’s why they keep contacting me.”

“Keep contacting you?”

“They appeared again tonight, in the bedroom. I think they’ll keep appearing until we’ve beaten Diana.”

“And if we don’t?”

“Then they’ll be lost forever. And I’m not going to let that happen.”

“Is this a private party or can anyone join in?” Jane said as she walked down to the kitchen.

“Insomnia seems to be the norm tonight,” Carter said.

Jane was clutching a bottle of sparkling water. After unscrewing the top, she took a swig and sat down at the table.

“Did you hear from Harry after I turned in last night?”

“I tried calling him to tell him what we’d discovered about Penny and to ask if they’d had any luck finding Martin, but he wasn’t picking up. The same with Crozier—no reply there either.”

“I got through to the girls,” Jane said. “They were in bed, but David took the phone upstairs so I could say goodnight to them.”

“I envy you, Jane,” Annie said. “I would have loved to have had children.”

“It’s never too late,” Jane said.

“Oh, I think for me it is. That boat sailed a long time ago and nobody was on it.”

“How was David?” Carter lit a cigarette as he asked it, avoiding eye contact with Jane.

“Remote,” Jane said. “He’s still furious with me for going away again.”

“So he still cares?” Annie said.

“Only about the disruption to his plans. He forgets that, as the girls’ father, he has responsibilities too. Why couldn’t you two sleep?” she said, changing the subject abruptly. She had no desire to discuss the state of her marriage, especially with Robert Carter.

“Too much going on in my head,” Annie said.

Carter drew on his cigarette. “The same. What about you?” 

“I was trying to think of ways to lure Diana out into the open, to get her to show herself,” Jane said. “So far she’s setting the timetable for all this. All we seem to be doing is reacting to whatever she does. We’re always on the back foot, playing catch up. If we’re going to defeat her I think we need to take the initiative away from her, to take control of the game.”

“I agree totally,” Carter said. “Have you had any ideas how we actually do that? Because if you do, I’d love to hear them.”

Jane took another swig of water. “As far as we know Diana isn’t aware that we have uncovered her masquerade as Penny Chapman. I wondered if we could use that in some way. Perhaps feed her some information that she will have to respond to. Draw her out that way.”

Carter frowned and stubbed out his cigarette in the glass ashtray. “It’s a good plan, but it would involve Annie getting in touch with her to pass on that information.” He turned to Annie. “Can you bring yourself to do that?”

“Yes. I think I can,” Annie said. “But really it’s more a question of whether I can actually get in touch with her again. Remember she wasn’t taking my calls earlier yesterday.”

“You could text her,” Jane said. “I always read my messages, even if I don’t always answer my phone.”

“I’m the same,” Annie said. “Good idea. I’ll get my phone.”

“Text her later,” Carter said. “She’ll think it odd getting a text in the middle of the night.”

“Any suggestions what I should write to her?” Annie asked.

Both Jane and Carter thought for a moment.

“Something simple,” Carter said.

“Something she won’t be able to ignore,” Jane said. “How about, ‘We know how to stop her’?”

“And arrange to meet her somewhere local. Somewhere that you know well,” Carter said.

“There’s Leo’s. It’s a coffee house on the high street. We often meet there for lunch.”

“Perfect,” Jane said. 

Carter checked his watch. “I think we should all go back to bed and try to grab what sleep we can.”

“Sleep?” Annie said. “I assume you’re joking.”

“Well, at least we should rest up. We don’t know what today’s going to bring, but I think we’re going to need our wits about us.”

“You two go on up. I think I need a drink. Something stronger than a tea. Any takers?”

Both Jane and Carter shook their heads and left Annie to raid her drinks cupboard. 

Chapter Forty-Three

Harry Bailey’s face was aching badly as he passed the sign for Ravensbridge. He pulled into a lay-by and took two more painkillers, swallowing them dry. Before going to bed the previous evening, he’d tried to phone Carter to tell him that Martin Impey was safe but the call hadn’t connected. There wasn’t even a diversion to a messaging service. The phone simply went dead.

It bothered him. 

He’d tried again and again throughout the night, and in the morning asked Simon Crozier to try but with the same result.

“Don’t forget, they’re in a valley. Topography can play merry hell with mobile phone signals,” Crozier said.

Bailey frowned. “You could be right,” he said. “But I still think I should get back to Yorkshire as quickly as possible.”

Now he was here all he wanted to do was to crawl into a bed and crash out for a week. The combination of lack of sleep and drugs were conspiring to make him woolly-headed and slightly nauseous. “Pull it together, Bailey,” he told himself. “You’re no bloody good to anyone like this.” 

He switched off the engine and leaned back on the headrest, closing his eyes. “Just five minutes,” he said.

He woke and checked the clock on the dashboard. He’d been asleep for a little over an hour. Swearing savagely, he stepped out of the car, rotated his neck through 360 degrees and pressed his fingers into the small of his back, trying to iron out the kinks. His head still ached but now at least it was manageable. He got back in the car and started the engine. Moments later he was back on the road and heading towards Annie Ryder’s house.

“You’ve just missed them, I’m afraid.”

“Annie’s friend, Penny, isn’t it?”

Penny Chapman was letting herself out of the front door. She closed it firmly behind her.

“Have you any idea where they were going?”

“Well, it was all very exciting,” Penny said. “They had a fresh lead. They’ve headed off to Pett’s farm again. They left here about five minutes ago. You can catch them if you hurry.”

Bailey shook his head. “I don’t know where it is.”

“That’s a shame. It looks like you’re just going to have to wait for them. I’d invite you back, you mind, but I have to go into town. I’m meeting someone for coffee shortly.”

“I have a key,” Bailey said. “I’ll just let myself in and wait for them to come back.”

“That’s a good idea,” she said. “It seems such a pity though, to come all this way and then miss the conclusion.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, like I said, it was all very exciting. Robert Carter thinks he’s found a way to stop Diana. He’s tracked her down to Pett’s farm and now they’ve gone there for the…the final showdown, was how he put it.”

Indecision played across Harry Bailey’s face. “They’re going to need my help if they’re going to face Diana,” he said. “Do you know where Pett’s farm is? Could you give me directions, perhaps draw me a map?” He searched through his pockets, hoping to find a pen and some paper.

Penny Chapman smiled. “I can do better than that. You drive, I’ll direct.”

Bailey shook his head. “I can’t let you come with me. It wouldn’t be safe.”

“Then let me out before we get there. I can call Adam to pick me up. He won’t mind. Actually he’s quite used to being my unpaid taxi service.”

“If you’re sure. I don’t want to put you to any trouble.”

Penny Chapman laid a hand on his arm. “It’s no trouble, I assure you. And if it helps rid the world of Diana and saves Laura and Holly’s lives, at least I’ll feel that I’ve helped, in a very small way of course.”

Bailey considered his options. Finally he said, “What about the friend you’re having coffee with?”

“She’s an old friend and knows what I’m like. She won’t mind if I’m a bit late.” 

“Okay,” Harry Bailey said. “Get in. And thank you.”

Annie sat alone at the table in the window of Leo’s coffee house and tried to control her nerves. She knew it was going to be difficult meeting Penny, or Diana, but hadn’t realized just how nervous she would be. Robert Carter and Jane Talbot were nearby. She couldn’t see them, but they’d insisted that she sit by the window, so she assumed they could see her.

Penny was late.

Her text earlier was simple and to the point.

Hi hun. Rob’s found a way to stop Diana. Very exciting. Meet me at Leo’s at 11 and I’ll tell all. X

The response had been almost instant.

Ooh. V. Exciting. See you there. Can’t wait to hear all about it. P xx

They left the house not long after receiving her text, to check out Leo’s and possible vantage points.

Now she was sitting at her table, nursing a latte that was gradually growing cold. It was ten past eleven and there was no sign of her.

Her phone vibrated in her pocket.

She pulled it out and read the incoming text message.

Sorry. Been held up. Going to be late. Please wait for me. Anxious to hear all about it. P xx

She closed the message and called Carter.

“What’s wrong?” he said.

“She just sent me a text. She’s going to be late and asks me to wait for her.”

There was silence on the other end of the line.

“Rob, are you still there?”

“Yeah, sorry. Just thinking. Do you think she suspects anything?”

“I don’t think so. I think it’s just Penny being Penny, or should I say Diana being Penny. She’s staying in character. Penny’s always late for everything. Let’s give it a little while longer. At least give her a chance to show.”

“Okay, Annie, it’s your call.”

Annie hung up and ordered another latte from the barista.

“Problems?” Jane said.

“Diana’s just texted Annie to say she’s going to be late.” She and Carter were sitting in a burger bar across the street from Leo’s. From where they sat they could see Annie clearly but couldn’t themselves be seen from the street. “I don’t like it,” Carter said. “Annie said Diana was just keeping in character, but she must be eager to find out what Annie knows. Annie wants to give her more time.”

The French fries they had ordered to secure the table were getting cold and stiff. The burgers lay untouched, still wrapped in the greasy paper in which they’d been served.

“I like Annie,” Jane said. “She’s got guts.”

“She has, but I think this has taken a lot out of her.”

“You first met in Kansas, didn’t you?”

Carter nodded and smiled at the memory. “She was my lifeline. I think it was Annie who kept me sane while I was there.”

“If you hated it so much there why didn’t you leave? It’s not as if they were keeping you prisoner.”

“Simple answer. I had nowhere else to go. Besides, I wanted to try to understand the psychic powers I had. Understand them and start using them properly. Until I went to the research center in Kansas I’d been little more than a sideshow freak, an end-of-the-pier attraction. I was sick of that. I wanted my life to have more purpose. More meaning.”

“And you found that when you joined the department.”

Carter shrugged. “I thought I had.”

“Now you’re not so sure?”

“I’ve always struggled with it. You know I have.” 

“You don’t like being pinned down, being pigeonholed,” Jane said.

“Do you? Isn’t David pinning you down? Aren’t you being pigeonholed as a wife and mother? Don’t you want to break out the cage and fly free for a while?”

“That’s not fair, Rob. I love my girls. I’d sacrifice everything for them.”

“And David?”

“Please, Rob. Let’s not open these wounds again.”

“Annie thinks we belong together. She says it’s obvious.”

Jane shook her head. “Annie can’t give an informed opinion. She doesn’t know the half of it.” She turned to look out of the window. “We’ll give Diana another thirty minutes and then we’ll pull Annie out. Agreed?”

“Agreed.”

“You look like you’ve been in the wars,” Penny said, slipping the mobile back into the pocket of her jeans. “What happened?”

“I think one of Diana’s demons possessed a friend of mine,” Bailey said.

“And he did that to your face?”

“Yes.”

“Ouch. I bet it’s painful.”

“It looks worse than it is,” he lied. 

“Is there no stopping her?”

“Oh, we’ll find a way, I’m sure.”

Penny smiled. “I’m sure you will,” she said and turned her attention back to the road. “Pett’s farm is just up here on the left.” 

Bailey flicked the turn signal and started to slow. “Then I’ll let you out here,” he said.

Penny shook her head. “I don’t think so, Harry. You’re going to take me to the farm.”

“But we agreed…” He turned to look at her.

She was staring back at him, wry amusement playing on a face that shifted and blurred.

“You,” he said as the realization hit him.

“I’m afraid so. It’s amazing when people can’t see what’s right under their nose. Now, carry on driving to the farm.”

Bailey pressed down on the brake.

“You know I could make you,” she said.

“Go on then.”

Penny sighed wearily and blinked her eyes.

Bailey gasped as pain spread across his already damaged face. It felt as if someone was holding a red-hot poker against his cheek. As his hand flew off the steering wheel to try to stem the pain, the car swerved across the road. Penny calmly reached out and took the wheel and steered them back onto the left-hand side.

The pain in Baileys face stopped as abruptly as it had started. He knocked her hand to one side and took control of the car.

“As I said, up here on the left.”

Bailey glared at her but followed her instructions. 

“Pull over here,” Penny said, pointing to an area just to the side of the barn. Bailey pulled over and stopped the car.

Penny took a deep breath and, as Harry Bailey looked on, transformed herself.

The years fell away, the hair grew, becoming blonder, longer, curlier—even the eyes changed color. It was the most amazing thing Bailey had ever seen.

“Incredible,” he said softly, awed despite himself.

“I think that’s the last we’ll see of Penny Chapman,” Diana said. “I must say I’ll be glad to see the back of her. A really irritating woman. Get out of the car.”

Bailey did as he was told. He had no wish to repeat the agony he’d just suffered. 

Diana walked to the barn and pulled open one of the doors.

“I take it you used a masking charm when Rob and Annie came here yesterday,” he said.

“Very good. You know your stuff, Harry. I see I shall have to keep an eye on you. Yes, it was a masking charm. Very easy, but very effective. They came, searched the house and failed to see a thing. All they saw was a deserted house complete with dirt, dust and rats.”

“I can’t help thinking about what you could achieve if you used your powers for good.”

“Oh, spare me the sanctimonious crap. Wiser, more pious men than you have tried to steer me onto the path of righteousness, and I’ll tell you what I told them. I have my own agenda. What I intend to do has nothing to do with morality, good, evil or any of those abstract notions. This is simply about right and wrong.”

“So you think what you’re doing is right?”

“A means to an end. I do know that what Jacob Barker did was wrong. He slaughtered my family, and I will not rest until every trace of his bloodline has been eradicated.”

“So it’s all about revenge.”

“Of course.”

Bailey shook his head. “I don’t believe you,” he said. “You may have started off with a clear motive, and I agree, from what I’ve read of him, Jacob Barker was a monster. But are you trying to tell me that avenging the death of your family is what’s really driving you? What about all of the innocent people you’ve killed along the way? Ollie Tucker, Sophie Gillespie, Susan Grant and the rest. Why did they have to die?”

“As I said. A means to an end. I either needed them or they were in my way. They had to die. Now, get in the barn.”

“And if I refuse?”

“Then, with a simple blink of my eye, I’ll snap your neck like a twig.”

Bailey shrugged and entered the barn. He didn’t have any doubts. Diana was telling the truth.

Chapter Forty-Four

“Do you mind if I sit here?”

Annie looked up from her coffee. The speaker was a plump woman in her forties, hair set in a style that aged her well beyond her years. She was dressed in a nondescript tweed coat, a string of fake pearls at her throat, a handbag held casually.

“I’m sorry,” Annie said, “I’m expecting someone.”

“Oh, Penny won’t be coming,” the plump woman said, settling her ample behind into the seat.

Annie stared at her, confused. “You know Penny?” The realization hit her and she jolted in her seat. “Oh shit! Diana?” She reached for her phone.

The plump woman shook her head. “I wouldn’t. I really wouldn’t.”

“What do you want?”

“Well, apart from a skinny latte decaff and a piece of that delicious-looking lemon drizzle cake they have at the counter, not very much really. A little chat perhaps.”

“All right. A chat,” Annie said, willing Carter and Jane to look over and realize something was wrong and to come and get her out of here now.

“Don’t look so worried, Annie. I won’t hurt you. Not here anyway. I guessed the text was a ruse to lure me here. It was a ruse, wasn’t it? Robert Carter hasn’t really found a way to stop me, has he?”

“A ruse?” Annie said, looking about her frantically.

“They’re across the street if you’re looking for them. In the burger bar, but don’t worry, they haven’t noticed me yet. I’ll be long gone before they get over here.”

“You killed Penny, didn’t you?”

Diana smiled. The plump woman’s face transformed into a mask of dimples. “Ah, Mexico. It seems like a lifetime ago. Yes, I killed her.”

“So you could steal her identity?”

“Again, yes.”

“But why?”

“I needed to come back to England. To Ravensbridge. I had work to do. I couldn’t believe my luck when I bumped into Penny in that seedy bar in Puebla. It was too good an opportunity to pass up.” Diana smiled at the recollection. “So what next?” she said.

“What do you mean?”

“Well we can’t go on like this. You involved Carter and Department 18, turned the whole thing into a three-ringed circus. I’m a little bit annoyed about that. So much so that I’m going to have to bring the whole sorry affair to a somewhat abrupt conclusion.” She glanced out the window. “Ah, it looks like the penny’s finally dropped. Pardon the pun. I’m leaving now, but perhaps you’ll tell them, if they want to see their friend, Harry Bailey, alive again, they will drive back to London today and never return.”

“You’re bluffing,” Annie said.

Diana got to her feet. “Let them decide that.” She reached into her handbag and threw something down on the table.

Annie watched her bustle out of the coffee house and disappear down the street.

A few seconds later Carter and Jane burst in through the doors, drawing curious glances from the other patrons. Annie got to her feet.

“Quick, you can still catch her!”

“Catch who?” Jane said.

“Diana, of course. She was just here, sitting at this very table.”

Carter and Jane exchanged looks. “We never took our eyes off this place. There was no one sitting with you.”

Annie looked perplexed. “Then why come rushing over here?”

“We got your text,” Jane said, puzzlement showing in her eyes.

“What text?” Annie said. “I didn’t send you a text.”

Carter pulled out his phone and let her read the message.

Come quick. Danger.

Annie read it and shook her head. “It’s my number,” she said. “But I didn’t send it.”

Carter sat down at the table. Jane followed suit. “Sit down, Annie, and tell us what happened.”

Annie was staring off down the street. There was no sign of the plump woman. Shaking her head sadly, she sat down at the table and recounted the events of the last few minutes.

When she’d finished she said, “You don’t believe me, do you?”

“Annie, we were watching,” Jane said gently. “There was no one at the table with you.”

“And she said she had Harry, but Harry’s in London searching for Martin Impey.”

“Then explain this.”

She’d scooped it up and held it in her fist when Diana had thrown it onto the table. Now she opened her hand so they could both see it.

“But that’s…” Jane began.

“Harry’s Department 18 ID badge,” Carter finished for her. “Shit!” 

“Do you believe me now?”

“Yes,” Jane said. “Yes, we believe you.”

“About bloody time,” Annie said.

“I need to find a pay phone,” Carter said as they walked back to the car. “If our mobiles can’t reach London maybe we can get through that way.”

“There’s one outside the bus garage,” Annie said. 

Carter fed coins into the slot and dialed Crozier’s private number.

“Crozier.”

“It’s Carter.”

“We’ve been trying to get through to you. Martin Impey’s safe. We found him at a lap-dancing club last night. He put up quite a fight but I now have him in a secure unit. There’s no way Diana can get to him.”

“She doesn’t have to. She’s got Harry.”

“What? But he only left London a few hours ago. How the hell did that happen?” Crozier couldn’t keep the anger out of his voice. Why was it that nearly every case involving Robert Carter put operatives in danger?

“I don’t know how it happened. We never made contact with him.”

“This simply isn’t good enough, Carter. Get him back.”

“We’ll do our best.”

“No, you do better than that. If anything happens to Harry Bailey it will be your neck on the line. Do I make myself clear?”

“Crystal,” Carter said, but the line had already gone dead. He hung up the phone and swore.

“What did he say? Have they found Martin?” Jane asked.

“Martin’s safe,” Carter said. “It seems that Harry drove up here first thing this morning.”

“So how did Diana get her hands on him?” Annie said.

Carter shook his head. “I don’t know. Harry didn’t know about Penny Chapman. I never had the chance to tell him. Perhaps he ran into her. It’s academic now anyway. I think it’s safe to assume she has him.”

“What are we going to do?” Jane asked.

“Exactly as Diana said. I don’t see that we have a choice.”

Annie grabbed his sleeve. “But what about Laura?” she said. “And Holly?”

“I’m sorry, Annie,” Carter said. “Difficult choices mean difficult decisions.” 

They walked back to the car in silence, Annie Ryder crying softly.

“She’s been here,” Annie said as she entered the house.

“How can you tell?” Jane said.

“The flowers.”

There was a bunch of freesias in a glass vase on the hall table.

“There’s a card attached,” Jane said.

Annie snatched the small envelope from the flowers and opened it. She recognized Penny’s handwriting immediately. Strange that, even after everything that had happened, she still thought of Diana as Penny.

The message on the card was brief.

DO EXACTLY AS YOU’RE TOLD.

“My guess is Harry came to the house, ran into Penny and she somehow persuaded him to go somewhere with her,” Carter said.

“The bitch!” Annie said.

“The clever bitch,” Jane said. “She must have realized the text was a con and played us.”

“Don’t beat yourself up about it. Remember she’s had four hundred years of playing these games. We’re novices in comparison,” Carter said. “Anyway, I’m going upstairs to pack. Jane, you should too.”

“Are you really going back to London?” Annie said.

Carter paused on the stairs. “We don’t really have a choice. I can’t have Harry’s death on my conscience.”

“But you can live with the deaths of Laura and Holly?”

“I’m not responsible for them. Harry’s different. If we stay she’ll kill him.”

Annie raised her eyes to the ceiling. “You don’t honestly believe she’s going to let him just walk away from all this, do you?”

“As I said, we don’t really have a choice.” He disappeared up the stairs.

A sob broke in Annie’s throat.

Jane wrapped a comforting arm around her shoulders. “I’m sorry, Annie, truly I am,” she said and then followed Carter upstairs.

Harry Bailey opened his eyes. He hadn’t seen the blow coming that had floored him, but he’d stepped into the barn and someone just turned off the lights. Now he lay there, his hands tied behind him, his ankles trussed together. He rolled onto his back but the weight on his hands was intolerable, so he turned back on his side. From his position against the wooden wall of the barn he could see most of his surroundings. Not that there was that much to see. The place hadn’t been used in years. The floor was patchily covered with straw. There were a few moldering sacks folded in the opposite corner and a trestle table against the adjacent wall. On the table there was something covered with more sacking, but he couldn’t work out from the shape what it was.

He was looking for something sharp, maybe an old plow blade or perhaps a rusting scythe, or something else he could use to cut through his bonds, but there was nothing.

The thought crossed his mind that perhaps if he focused his attention he could send some kind of telepathic message to Carter or Jane. At least produce a psychic flash and hope that one of them would pick it up. He tried to relax as much as possible, tried to concentrate, but the drugs he had taken a short while ago had crippled his neurological pathways and, no matter how much effort he made, he couldn’t focus. He didn’t even know how long he’d been lying here. His wristwatch was behind him, and with the barn doors closed, he couldn’t tell how light it was outside. His head was throbbing from where he’d been hit, and his broken nose was throbbing. So he lay there and stared at the dusty expanse of the barn, frustrated and powerless, and feeling incredibly stupid. 

Carter hefted his suitcase and put it in the trunk of his car. And then he picked up Jane’s and laid it in the trunk beside his own. Jane was already sitting in the passenger seat, staring straight ahead through the windscreen, unable to look at Annie who was standing in the doorway, a look of helplessness on her face. Carter closed the lid of the trunk and walked back to the house. He took Annie in his arms and hugged her tightly.

“Annie, I’m…”

“Please don’t say you’re sorry, Rob. Just go.”

He held her at arm’s length. “You might not want to hear it, Annie, but I am sorry. If there was another way…”

“Please go,” she said, fighting back the tears.

Carter walked back to the car, started the engine. When he looked back to the house Annie had gone back inside and closed the door. He slammed his hand angrily on the steering wheel and pulled away from the curb.

“So that’s it then?” Jane said. “We’re just going to drive away and leave her to deal with Diana?”

“Don’t start, Jane. This is difficult enough without you getting on my case. When I spoke to Crozier earlier he made it clear that if anything happened to Harry it will be my head that rolls.”

“So it’s all about you,” she said hotly. “Stop the car and let me out. I’m going back. I can’t let Annie face this alone…even if you can.”

Carter signaled and headed out onto the high street. “No,” he said. “I’m not stopping and you’re not going back there. For all we know Diana might be watching the house and I’m not going to let you sign Harry’s death warrant.”

Jane stared at him contemptuously. “Jesus, and I thought I knew you.”

Carter said nothing, just squeezed down on the accelerator and started to put distance between himself and Annie Ryder.

Chapter Forty-Five

“This isn’t the way to the M62,” Jane said. “We should have taken a right at the last roundabout.”

“We’re not heading for the motorway,” Carter said.

“Rob, I’m getting tired of your games. Where are we going?”

Carter pulled over to the side of the road and stopped the car. He took his mobile phone from his pocket and tapped in a number. 

“I thought you couldn’t call out.”

“I couldn’t call London. This is a local call. Hello, Ian, how’s it looking?” He switched to speakerphone so Jane could hear the conversation.

“You were right,” Lacey said. “They’re here, all three of them, Holly, Laura and Diana. And the biggest, ugliest-looking dog you’ve ever seen. It makes Bruno look like a cocker spaniel.” 

“So where are they?”

“They’ve just gone into the barn. Except for the dog, that is. The brute is pacing backwards and forwards outside. It looks like it’s on guard duty.”

“It probably is. Any sign of Harry?”

“No, I’m afraid not. My guess is he’s in the barn, but I can’t confirm that unless I get closer.”

“No. Stay where you are and wait for us. Where are you, by the way?”

“In a bird-watchers’ hide, further up the hill. I have a perfect view of the place.” 

“Good. We’ll be with you in about twenty minutes.” Carter hung up.

“What was all that about? Where is Ian?”

“As he said, further up the hill in a bird-watchers’ hide, overlooking Pett’s farm. Diana’s been there all along.”

“But that’s impossible. You and Annie were there only yesterday. The place was deserted.”

“Yes, that’s what we thought, but what happened at the coffee house today made me think again. We never took our eyes off Annie while she was sitting there, but Diana came and went and we saw nothing. She was obviously using some kind of spell that blocked her from our sight. We only saw what she wanted us to see. I figured that she might have done the same with Pett’s farm yesterday.”

“Only let you and Annie see a deserted ruin, you mean?”

Carter nodded. “I called Ian when I went upstairs to pack and asked him to check it out surreptitiously. He’s just confirmed what I thought.”

“So it was never your intention to go back to London?”

“I guess not.”

Jane shook her head tiredly. “You really are the most infuriating person I’ve ever met. How could you put Annie through that? She’s distraught.”

“Better distraught than dead. I’m protecting her, Jane. This is our area of expertise. It’s our job, what we’re trained to do. We’ve learned how to protect ourselves over the years. Annie has none of those skills.”

“You lied to her.”

“It was necessary.”

“You lied to me too.”

“I had to. I couldn’t take any chances. Diana might have, in some way, been able to listen in to our conversations while we were in that house. I’m sorry.”

Jane thought about it for a moment. “Okay, apology accepted. But don’t shut me out again.”

“I’ll try not to,” Carter said.

“But no promises?”

Carter smiled and pulled back out onto the road.

Bailey had managed to get himself into a sitting position, leaning against the wooden wall of the barn. The door opened and Laura Sallis and Holly Ireland entered, walking like automatons. They didn’t acknowledge him. They didn’t even seem to notice him. Diana followed them inside and pulled the door closed. She turned to Bailey with a smile. “Company for you,” she said, and then proceeded to tie the arms of the two young women to one of the cross-pieces of timber. The women offered no resistance, simply let their arms be tied, all the while staring blankly ahead.

“Another spell?” Bailey said. 

“It makes them compliant,” Diana said. “No kicking and screaming. So much better.” She crossed to the trestle table and pulled back the sacking. Laid out neatly were a large pair of scissors, a heavy wooden mallet and two identical bronze effigies of Christ. She picked up one of the effigies and took it across to show Bailey.

“These are the original statutes Jacob Barker used to kill my aunts, Rachel and Rebecca. It took me years to track them down. I finally found them in a convent in Suffolk, of all places. Of course the nuns were reluctant to part with them.”

“But you persuaded them.”

“You could put it like that,” Diana said with a smile and took the statue back and laid it down next to the other one on the table.

“You’re enjoying this,” Bailey said, contempt in his voice.

Diana wheeled on him. “Well, of course I am. I’ve waited years for this. At midnight tonight I will complete a quest I’ve been on for years. I will raise Rachel and Rebecca from the dead, and then take their powers, and believe me, of all the Yardley witches, their powers were the most considerable.”

“And in the process you take two more innocent lives.”

“What would you want me to do, Harry, fling myself to the floor and weep and wail for them? Collateral damage. That’s what the Americans call it, isn’t it? They have to die for me to live a life to its full potential. I think it’s a fair trade.”

“I think you’re as barbaric as Jacob Barker.”

Diana shrugged. “You’re welcome to your opinion,” she said.

“You’re going to kill me too, aren’t you?”

“Eventually, yes I am. But not yet. At the moment you’re my insurance policy. As things stand now, your friends won’t do anything to stop my plans while there’s a chance that you’ll make it out of this alive.”

“I think you overestimate my importance,” Bailey said.

“No, I don’t think I do. Right now Robert Carter and Jane Talbot are driving back to London. I don’t think they will bother me again.”

Harry Bailey said nothing more but prayed that she was lying.

Diana picked up the scissors and went across to where Holly was hanging. She grabbed a handful of Holly’s hair and hacked it off, and then continued until a pile of hair had accumulated at Holly’s feet like a small sheep’s fleece.

“I want things as accurate as possible,” Diana said and put the scissors back. She turned back to Holly and Laura and snapped her fingers. The two women blinked simultaneously and focused on their surroundings. Realizing their plight, they both began to struggle against ropes that held them to the beam. Both of them were making frantic noises, but still neither of them spoke.

Diana walked to the door. “I’ll be back later. I have to go and prepare myself,” she said. “I’m afraid you won’t get much in the way of conversation out of them. I’ve taken away their ability to speak.”

Bailey glared at her but said nothing.

“No parting remark, Harry? Really, you disappoint me.” She stepped out into the late afternoon sunlight, closing the door behind her.

Laura and Holly still struggled against their bonds.

“It will be all right,” Harry said soothingly. “We’ll get out of this,” he added, feeling none of the conviction of his words.

Ian Lacey watched the farm through a large pair of field glasses. They were something he kept in the trunk of his car and used often when on surveillance duty.

He watched Diana leave the barn and head on back to the house. Once she was inside he switched his attention to the windows, but she had pulled heavy drapes across them and he could see nothing useful, so he swung the field glasses back to the barn. The misshapen dog was still on patrol, but there was nothing else to see. He reached into his back and pulled out a thermos flask of tea and a cheese and pickle sandwich wrapped in aluminum foil. He unwrapped the sandwich and took a bite, then unscrewed the cap of the flask and filled it with tea. He took one swig as the door to the hide opened and Carter and Jane stepped inside.

“You were quiet,” Lacey said. “I didn’t hear your car.”

“We parked in the road and came the rest of the way on foot,” Carter said. 

“Sensible,” Lacey said. “The wind’s blowing in the direction of the farm. The noise of the engine would have carried.”

“That’s what we thought,” Jane said.

“You’ve done this kind of thing before then?”

“More times than I care to remember,” Carter said.

There was room in the hide for the three of them to sit. It was just wooden benches but at least they were dry, and the walls kept out the wind.

“What’s been happening?” Carter said.

“Holly and Laura are still in the barn. Diana’s gone back to the house and that brute’s still standing guard.” Lacey handed Carter the binoculars. “Check it out yourself.”

Carter took them and scanned the farm. “I see what you mean about the dog. It’s like nothing I’ve ever seen.”

“It certainly wouldn’t win any prizes at Cruft’s,” Lacey said. “What breed do you think it is?”

“Demon, through and through,” Carter said.

“Let me see,” Jane said, taking the glasses from Carter and studying the dog closely. “It could be a hellhound,” she said cautiously, unwilling to commit herself.

“Knowing Diana’s history and the fact that her father is reputed to be a demon, my guess is the dog is too. Albeit one of the lesser ones.”

“Could it be Bargest?” Lacey asked.

“Bargest?” Both Jane and Carter turned to look at him.

Lacey shrugged under their scrutiny. “It’s a Yorkshire legend. Bargest the Hellhound. A monstrous black dog that preys on solitary travelers. My gran used to tell me stories about it when I was a kid.”

“I think your grandmother just liked scaring the crap out of you,” Carter said. “Witches, hellhounds. How did you sleep when you were a child?”

“Badly,” Lacey said with a smile.

“Well whatever it is,” Jane said, “we’re going to have to get past it.”

“It’ll be dark in a couple of hours,” Carter said. “We’ll make our move then.”

“You’re the boss,” Lacey said.

Chapter Forty-Six

Diana had left the scissors behind on the trestle table. They glinted in a thin beam of sunlight that slipped in through a crack in the wooden wall. The table was a good eight yards away from where Bailey sat but he could reach it.

He lay down and rolled onto his stomach and then started to move like a caterpillar across the earth floor. Holly and Laura watched him. Small tears still trickled down Holly’s cheeks as she mourned the loss of her hair, but there was the fire of encouragement in her eyes as she willed Bailey on.

He’d covered half the distance when he had to stop. The painkillers were wearing off and his face was aching intolerably. His knees were sore and his shirt had torn. The earth was grazing the skin of his chest every time he pushed forwards. “I’m too old for this nonsense,” he muttered as he lay there. He looked up at Holly and Laura and tried for a smile, but it felt more like a grimace of pain. Both of them gazed down at him sympathetically. “Don’t worry,” he said to them. “I’m not finished yet.” He drew his knees up to his belly once more and pushed on.

By the time he reached the table his chest was bleeding. Small shafts of straw had embedded themselves in the wounds and were stinging like hell. Trying to block out the pains from his face and body, he twisted his body around until he was on his side and then, using his elbow, levered himself up until his head was a foot below the tabletop.

That was as far as he got. He couldn’t get the additional leverage to lift himself up to a sitting position and getting to his feet was out of the question. He lowered himself to the ground again and lay there, perspiring freely and gasping for breath. There had to be another way.

The effects of the painkillers had worn off completely now and his whole body was conspiring against him to inflict as much pain as possible. Driven on by anger and frustration, he kicked out with his bound legs at the trestle table. It rocked slightly. Encouraged he kicked it again. It rocked more. The objects on the tabletop were moving. He could hear them but was too low to see them. He kicked out again and, as the table rocked towards him, hit the legs one last time. Finally the table tilted over and fell on top of him, knocking the wind from his lungs. The effigies of Christ fell to the floor and rolled away. The heavy mallet fell too, missing his head by a whisker. The scissors, the precious scissors, clattered to the ground, landing inches away from him.

He offered up a silent prayer and maneuvered his body so he could at last grab the scissors in his hand. He was crying now with the pain and effort. He sniffed away the tears and looked up again at the women. “Right,” he said, trying the smile again. “Now for the difficult bit.”

He couldn’t be sure but he thought he saw a smile spring to Holly Ireland’s lips and then fade away again.

He fumbled with the scissors, trying to wedge them against the ground so he could saw through the ropes, but they kept slipping and one blade stabbed him in the ball of his hand, just under the thumb. “Bugger!” he said as more pain joined the symphony of agony that was wracking his body. “They make this kind of thing look so easy in the movies. Well, I can tell them first-hand, there’s nothing bloody easy about this.”

It was only then he realized that if he was in pain again then the drugs were no longer working. If that were the case then his neurological pathways would be clear. 

He lay down again, relaxed his body and concentrated his mind. This time it was easy—he could focus.

He shaped his thoughts into a ball of energy, so fully formed it was almost tangible. Taking a deep breath, he let it fly, sending it spinning from his mind, through the walls of the barn and out into the open air.

Carter clutched at his head, almost crying out, and doubled over in pain.

Jane reached across to him. “Rob, are you okay?”

After a long moment Carter sat back up. His breathing was ragged and his eyes were watering. “Yes,” he said shakily. “I think so. That was Harry. He’s still alive.”

“Oh, thank God!” Jane said.

Lacey looked on. “You people,” he said, incredulity in his voice. “You never cease to amaze me. I take it Harry contacted you telepathically?”

“Yes. He’s in the barn. Laura and Holly are still alive. All three of them are tied up and helpless, waiting for Diana to return and kill them.”

“He told you all that?”

Carter shook his head. “Images,” he said. “All I got were images and impressions. We can’t delay much longer. We have to move on this.”

“The light’s nearly gone,” Lacey said, looking up at the sky. “Ten more minutes.”

Bailey tried again with the scissors. The psychic flash had taken more out of him than the agonizing crawl across the floor. His head was splitting and it was taking all his energy to stay conscious. He couldn’t tell if his flash had been successful, whether or not Carter or Jane had picked it up. For all he knew, Diana might have intercepted it. So he carried on with the scissors. He’d managed to jam one end of them into the earth and was now sawing at the ropes tethering his wrists.

He felt a strand go and flexed his wrists. Movement. Got enough to free himself, but it was all the encouragement he needed to carry on.

The barn doors opened suddenly. Diana walked though them and spent minutes lighting heavy church candles dotted around the barn, illuminating the scene in a flickering light. The table was lying on its side, on top of Harry Bailey, the contents of the table were scattered across the floor and Bailey himself was cutting at the ropes tying his wrists.

She stared at him and frowned, fury blazing in her eyes.

“Very resourceful, Harry,” she said, crossed to where he was lying, bent down and plucked the scissors from the earth. Lifting the table back onto its legs, she retrieved the statues of Christ and lay them down on the tabletop.

Bailey stared up at her. “I guess you win,” he said.

Diana said nothing but stepped over him and went across to Laura and Holly, to check their bonds. Satisfied they were still in place she went back to Harry Bailey, drew back her foot and kicked him in the face, knocking him unconscious. Only then did she allow herself a smile.

“It’s almost time, ladies,” she said to Holly and Laura. “Almost time.”

Carter checked his watch. “It’s time,” he said. “I think it’s dark enough. We should go now.”

“Diana’s just gone back to the barn,” Lacey said and set the field glasses down on the bench beside him. “At least they’re all in one place now.”

They left the hide and made their way slowly down the hill.

At the perimeter of the farm they stopped. “That bloody dog hasn’t moved,” Lacey whispered.

“Nor is it likely to while they’re inside,” Carter replied.

“We need a diversion,” Jane said quietly. 

“I’ll handle it,” Carter said. “You two get closer and be ready to move in. Wait for my signal.” He crept away from them and circled the fence that formed the boundary of the farm. 

“How the hell is he going to get that brute to move away from the barn?” Lacey whispered urgently.

“I’m sure he’s got something in mind,” Jane said. “Watch and wait.”

At the farm’s entrance Carter paused and took a few deep breaths, and then launched himself forwards and ran towards the house. All the while he kept his eyes on the dog. It was sitting on its haunches in front of the barn doors. When it got to its feet, Carter swerved and ran around to the back of the house.

The dog started to move, to check out the intruder. Jane tapped Lacey on the shoulder. “Now.”

Carter reached the back of the house and tried the door. It was locked. Looking to his left, he saw a sash window that was open a few inches. He’d seen it when he’d first come to the house with Annie and hadn’t taken much notice of it, believing it to be a symptom of the general dilapidation of the place, but it had registered in his mind. He ran to it, pushed it up and threw himself through into the house. After getting to his feet, he ran to the window and slammed it shut and took a few seconds to take in his surroundings. He was in what used to be the kitchen. The place looked much the same as it did when he’d come here yesterday. There was still no sign of habitation, but he no longer trusted what he was seeing. Diana’s spell might still be working. 

He moved into the hallway. As he did so he heard glass shattering. Glancing back at the kitchen, he saw the dog trying to haul itself though the broken window. What remained of the glass was slicing into the creature’s flanks and blood was beginning to pour from the wounds. It was far too big to get through the opening. It struggled through another inch and then stopped, realizing it was stuck fast. It glared at Carter with baleful eyes and barked once, the sound making the hairs on the back of Carter’s neck prickle.

Carter closed the door to the kitchen, but not before noticing that the dog was beginning to change its form. The head was shrinking. Where there was once thick black fur was now lustrous red hair. From the folds of the dog’s head a stunningly beautiful face was emerging. He recognized it instantly. The demon he’d encountered in Henry Norton’s subconscious was materializing in front of his eyes.

He slammed the kitchen door shut, ran through the house and out of the front door. The barn was only yards away. Jane and Lacey were running towards it. Carter and they would reach it together.

Carter sprinted across to the barn.

Lacey shouted, “Ready?”

“Ready!” Jane and Carter said.

Carter glanced back at the house. The red-haired demon had reached the front door and stopped there. She was staring at them, a cold smile playing on her lips.

Realization hit him like a thunderbolt. “Wait!” he shouted. “It’s a trap!” But Jane and Lacey had already crashed through the doors and were in the barn. He had no alternative but to follow them.

Diana was standing over Harry Bailey, a wicked-looking, long-bladed knife poised at his throat. She smiled at them. “What took you so long to get here?” she said. “I was beginning to think you weren’t coming.”

Chapter Forty-Seven

“Another step and I slit his throat,” Diana said.

“How did you know we’d come for you?” Carter said. He was standing just inside the doors, flanked by Lacey and Jane.

“You hero types are so boringly predictable,” Diana said. “I dug into your background as soon as Annie told me, or rather, told Penny you were coming up here. You have quite a presence on the Internet. I was impressed, although your early life leaves a lot to be desired. ‘Little Bobby, the Psychic Wonder’? Really? Tacky,” she said. “No, I guessed you wouldn’t be able to resist trying to save your friends. I thought I had a winning hand when I took Laura and Holly, but then Harry Bailey presented himself to me and it was too tempting.”

“Sorry, Rob,” Bailey said, his gaze never leaving the hand that was holding the knife to his throat.

“It’s okay, Harry. It’s not your fault.”

The doors behind them opened a fraction wider and the red-haired demon glided through, crossing the floor to stand at Diana’s side.

“This is Nyx, by the way. We were introduced by my father and she’s become an invaluable companion over the years.”

“She attacked Henry Norton,” Carter said.

“Yes, she did. As I say, invaluable.”

Nyx said nothing, but smiled slightly.

“Why are we here?” Jane asked.

“To die,” Diana said. “If I don’t kill you all, you’re going to become a perennial thorn in my side.”

“Then why not just do it and get it over with? Or do you want to preen for a while longer?” Lacey said.

With a movement so quick it was just a blur Diana hurled the knife at Lacey. He couldn’t avoid it. The knife buried itself up to its hilt in his chest. Lacey gasped and sank slowly to his knees, his hands clutching at the knife.

“You’ve never been important to my plans,” Diana said. “You’ve just been an irritation with your constant prodding and poking into my affairs. So there, I’ve granted your wish. Goodbye, Mr. Policeman.”

“Ian!” Jane dropped to her knees and held on to Lacey to stop him from falling forwards onto the knife.

Lacey stared at the knife sticking out of his chest, trying to marshal his thoughts. He couldn’t. His mind was spinning. He felt as if he were falling through space. There was surprisingly little pain, just a dull ache where the knife had entered. He felt cold and welcomed the warm blood as it poured down the front of his shirt. He looked Jane in the eyes and opened his mouth to speak, but a torrent of blood poured out instead, drowning his words. 

So this is what it feels like to die. The thought drifted through his mind as his eyes flickered shut. Not so bad really.

He pitched forwards and lay dead on the floor.

Jane glared up at Diana. “You bitch!” she said. It was trite, inadequate. But what do you say when you see a good man murdered before your eyes?

Diana walked across and pulled the knife from Lacey’s chest, wiping the blade on his jacket to clean it.

Carter lunged forwards, intending to grab the knife from her but Diana raised her hand and he was thrown through space, crashing against the wall of the barn. He slid down the wooden wall and sat there, stunned.

“Stay where you are, Rob.” He heard Harry Bailey’s voice in his head. “We can defeat her. Together we can defeat her.”

Carter stared across at his friend and colleague, but Bailey wasn’t even looking at him. He stayed where he was and made no attempt to move.

“So now we wait,” Diana said. 

“Wait for what?” Jane said. Her voice shook. She was finding it difficult to come to terms with Ian Lacey’s sudden death. Tears were pressing out from her eyes but she fought them back, blinking hard. There was no way she would display any form of weakness.

The image of her two daughters flashed unbidden into her head and she tried to push them away, but they persisted, robbing her of her resolve. She looked across at Nyx who was gazing at her intently. “You’re doing this!” she shouted at the demon. “Leave my daughters out of it!”

Nyx smiled and the images in Jane’s head multiplied and became horrific. Emma and Amy lost in a nightmare forest of human bones while blood fell like rain from a leaden sky. The girls, screaming and writhing as creatures from the forest grabbed them and started stripping their flesh from their bodies. Emma lying dead, her sightless eyes staring at nothing. Amy pulling the flesh from Emma’s arm and ramming it into her own mouth, chewing noisily. 

“Get out of my head!” Jane screamed at Nyx, who gazed back at her impassively.

Carter was staring at Diana who was standing in front of Laura and Holly, speaking softly. He could barely hear her, but the words had cadence, rhythm, and he realized the ritual had begun. We’re running out of time, he thought, but at the moment he couldn’t see any way they could stop her.

Carter checked his watch. It was five minutes to twelve. He looked across to Harry who appeared to be asleep, although his lips were moving, as if he were praying silently. Jane was sitting on the floor, her hand resting lightly on Ian Lacey’s arm, her eyes blank. Diana was stripping off her clothes, aided by Nyx who took the clothes as Diana shed them, folded them carefully and laid them on the table.

When she was totally naked Diana stepped into the middle of the floor and raised her arms. She began to sway from side to side, as if moving to music only she could hear. Nyx took a few paces away from her and stood with her head bowed, her eyes closed.

“I call upon the sisters Yardley. Rachel and Rebecca. Show yourselves to us. Come into the light so we can bestow the gift of everlasting life.” Diana intoned the words precisely. She picked up the knife from where she’d laid it on the floor and began to trace the outline of a pentagram in the air in front of her. When she had finished she took two steps towards Laura and Holly, holding the knife out in front of her.

“Take them down,” she said and motioned with the knife.

The ropes holding Laura to the crossbeam fell away as if they’d been cut. Laura fell forwards but Nyx moved forwards before she could hit the floor. She lowered Laura to the ground, laying her on her back and spreading her legs.

“Rachel Yardley, I offer you this sacrifice, so that you will return and enter me,” Diana intoned.

Nyx took one of the Christ effigies from the table and laid it between Laura’s legs. Laura Sallis lay there unable to move, her eyes searching for and finding Carter’s. 

“Help me!” Carter heard the words in his head. Laura’s lips hadn’t moved.

Next Diana stood in front of Holly Ireland, waved the knife and again the ropes fell away. Nyx moved quickly and within seconds Holly was spread out on the floor next to Laura.

“Rob, do something,” Jane said. “Before it’s too late.”

Diana spun around, glared at Jane and made the same zipping motion across her lips that had rendered Laura speechless. Jane threw her hand to her mouth as her lips bonded together.

Diana turned away from them and started speaking again.

“Rebecca Yardley, I offer you this sacrifice, so that you will return and enter me,” she said.

“They’re not coming,” Harry Bailey said suddenly. He was still lying on his side, but his eyes were open wide. He was staring at Diana. “I’ve blocked them.”

“No,” she said. “You’re lying. You haven’t got the power to stop them.” But as she stared back at him something behind her eyes changed. She turned to Nyx. “Kill him,” she said savagely.

The demon moved towards Bailey, but as Nyx stepped forwards Carter sprung to his feet and barreled into her, knocking her to the ground. Nyx rolled away from Carter and stood upright, the beauty slipping away to be replaced with a face that was half human, half dog. The mouth opened to reveal row upon row of savage fangs. The growl that issued from the demon’s huge mouth was ear-splitting. She leapt forwards but as she moved Bailey swung his legs, catching her across the ankles and sending her tumbling to the floor.

Jane was on her feet. She sprinted across to the table, grabbed the scissors and threw herself on top of Nyx, raising the scissors above her head and plunging them deep into the demon’s eye.

Diana raised her hand towards Jane and Harry Bailey called, “Now, Rob, now!”

The psychic pulse produced by the combined minds of Carter and Bailey knocked Diana off her feet. 

Beneath her Jane could feel Nyx’s body start to wither, to collapse in on itself like a deflating balloon.

Diana was on her knees, getting slowly to her feet. “I’ll crush you,” she hissed. “All of you! This is my destiny. You won’t stop me.”

“But we will, Diana.”

From out of the shadows stepped Rachel and Rebecca Yardley.

“We will stop you, and our sisters will stop you.”

For the first time fear registered in Diana’s eyes. “You won’t,” she said. “You can’t.”

“But we can.” From behind the Yardley sisters another woman emerged. Dressed totally in white, with long hair flowing down to her waist, the woman stepped forwards.

“Mother? How? I don’t understand,” Diana said, not comprehending what she was seeing, but even as she spoke her body was beginning to change, to swell. The slim, attractive body grew distended, gross. Faces started to appear, pressing out from the skin of her belly, faces that stretched the skin, making it split and bleed. Women’s faces all mouthing the word, “No!”

Diana screamed as her stomach finally burst open and, as she fell backwards onto the ground, each of the Yardley sisters rose from her body. One by one they stood, shoulder to shoulder, with Rachel and Rebecca. Alice, Elizabeth, Megan, Ruth and Elinor, the seven Yardley sisters, all of whom stood there and stared down sadly at the dead, broken body of Diana, the eighth witch.

As Carter, Bailey and Jane looked on, the Yardley sisters appeared to shimmer in the light of the barn. Gradually they began to fade from sight and, as they slipped away, the body of Diana crumbled to four-hundred-year-old dust, dispersing and mingling with the dirty straw that covered the floor of the barn.

Epilogue

Thirty-six hours after the incident at Pett’s farm, Annie Ryder sat alone in her kitchen, watching the minute hand of her clock sweep round the dial. She still had a houseful of guests—Laura, Carter, Bailey, Jane and Holly—and, so far, no one had surfaced. Much the same as yesterday.

They had arrived back at her place at about three a.m., shattered and silent. Nobody except Carter wanting to talk about the events at the farm, preferring instead to take themselves off to bed. Laura and Holly looked particularly worn out and traumatized after their ordeal. Harry Bailey looked exhausted but otherwise seemed quite alert. Jane Talbot just looked bone-weary. Annie and Rob Carter sat and he told her everything that had happened. Finally she went to bed and cried silently until dawn broke.

When she crawled out of bed at midday she prepared a number of cold cuts and various salads, and throughout the rest of the day she would find one or another of them in the kitchen, helping themselves to the food. The rest of the time they mostly stayed in bed.

Leaving them to sleep off the exhaustion, she had taken herself off to see Adam Chapman, to try to explain what had happened to Penny but he didn’t want to hear. He was in denial, refusing to believe what she was telling him about his wife. Eventually he snapped and virtually threw her out of the house. She’d try again later when everyone had gone.

She wasn’t surprised when Carter came down to the kitchen, his hair still damp from the shower. Yesterday he had shown few ill-effects from the previous night’s ordeal, but had kept to his room to keep from disturbing the others.

“I just had a call from Crozier,” he said. “They released Martin from the secure unit this morning.”

“So, he’s okay now?” Annie said.

“He doesn’t remember a thing about it. He’s fine.” He poured himself a coffee and gradually, one by one, the others came down to join them.

Harry Bailey still limping but not as badly, Jane, brighter now, her scrubbed skin glowing in the morning light. Laura and Holly still looked washed out and Holly had crammed a beanie hat on her head to hide her ruined hair. Both women had dark circles under their eyes, and the eyes themselves looked haunted, as if they had witnessed much that had burned itself into their memories. Annie stared guardedly at each of them in turn and knew that neither of them would ever look at the world in the same way again.

“I’m going to miss Ian. He was a good man,” Annie said.

“We all will, Annie,” Carter said. “And yes, he was. I rang Matt this morning and told him what happened.”

“How did he take it?”

“Badly. The police will investigate of course, but my guess is that, once they’ve spoken to Crozier, the case will be swept under the carpet. One thing Matt did say though was that Ian was like a father to him, so we’re not the only ones who are going to miss him.”

“Very sad,” Annie said.

Jane leaned across to Harry Bailey and said quietly, “You never explained how you knew Rachel and Rebecca Yardley wouldn’t be summoned by Diana. You told her you blocked them. More subterfuge?”

“Half and half, Jane. The sisters came to me when I was in the barn. I think my experience with them was similar to Rob’s. They told me they didn’t want to return. I just helped them with a blocking spell I learned in Haiti. But Rob must take some of the credit here. His projection of Diana’s mother, Elinor, was the masterstroke that weakened Diana enough for her to lose control of the rest of the sisters. They were just waiting for their chance to break free of her. Rob gave them the opportunity.”

Carter smiled. “It was a gamble,” he said. “I worked on the premise that Diana wouldn’t really remember what Elinor actually looked like. It was nearly four hundred years since Elinor died after all. The image I projected into Diana’s mind was drawn from a few sources. Primarily I was using the twins, combined with the woodcut of Elinor in the book Harry got from the British Library. I put the images together and used that. I just thank God it worked.”

“But I didn’t see Diana’s mother,” Laura said. “I couldn’t work out why she suddenly went to pieces like that.”

“Neither you nor Holly are psychic. I’m surprised you could see Rachel and Rebecca,” Jane said.

“I didn’t see them,” Holly said shakily. “I just laid there watching all hell break loose, wondering what in God’s name was going on.”

“Me too,” Laura said. “I had my eyes closed through most of it. I thought I was going to die.” A single tear rolled down her cheek.

Bailey got to his feet. “Well, I’m heading off. I have to be debriefed by Simon. That’s if you’re ready, Jane.”

“I’m ready, Harry. I want to see my girls,” she said. 

Holly also got to her feet. “I’ll be going too,” she said. “Thanks for letting me stay, Annie.” 

Annie stood and hugged her. “You don’t have to go, you know. If you need more time…” she said.

“Thank you, Annie. But I do have to go. If I don’t try and get my life back to some kind of normality I might just possibly go mad.”

Pulling Holly closer to her, she whispered in her ear, “I think you’re very brave.” She stepped back and adjusted Holly’s beanie hat. “And don’t worry. It’ll grow back.”

“Yeah,” Holly said. “I know it will.” And then more determinedly, “I know it will.” She kissed Annie’s cheek and headed up the stairs.

“And you, Rob? Are you going too?” Annie said. 

Carter nodded. “But I won’t leave it so long this time. Those hills are calling me. I’ll come back for a proper holiday soon.”

“I’ll hold you to that,” Annie said, wrapping her arms around him and holding on tight. “And make it right with Jane. She loves you and you love her. Don’t let the chance of happiness slip away.”

“Easier said than done, Annie. Easier said than done.”

“I expect you want me to go as well,” Laura Sallis said as she heard the front door close behind Robert Carter. “Actually, I’m not sure I want to be on my own right now.”

“You can stay if you like,” Annie said.

“Yes.” Laura nodded slowly. “Yes,” she said. “I think I’d like that. I’d like that very much.”

About the Author

BIOGRAPHY: MAYNARD SIMS www.maynard-sims.com

Len Maynard and Mick Sims have written four supernatural novels, Shelter, Demon Eyes, and the two Department 18 books (www.dept18.com), Black Cathedral and Night Souls, which have been published in mass market in the USA. Currently they have completed two standalone supernatural novels, one of which, Nightmare City, was published by Samhain in 2012, and the other, Stronghold, is out in 2013. They are in discussions about a screenplay based on Department 18, and another unrelated screenplay. 

Collections include, Shadows At Midnight, 1979 and 1999 (revised and enlarged), Echoes Of Darkness, 2000, Incantations, 2002, two retrospective collections of their stories, essays and interviews, The Secret Geography Of Nightmare and Selling Dark Miracles, both 2002, one introduced by Hugh Lamb and the other by Stephen Jones, and Falling Into Heaven in 2004. They have recently completed two collections of supernatural stories, one of which, The Odd Ghosts, they have published direct to Kindle, and the other, Flame, is published by Sarob in 2012. They are working on another collection and are in discussions about a screenplay based on their ghost stories.

Numerous stories have been published in a variety of anthologies and magazines, including the Mammoth Book of Best New Horror, the anthology Strange Tales, which won the World Fantasy Award 2004 and the Del Rey anthology, The Children Of Cthulhu

Novellas Moths, The Hidden Language Of Demons, The Seminar, and Double Act, have been published in 2001, 2002, 2003 and 2007 respectively. 

They worked as editors on the first seven volumes of Darkness Rising, and the two annual Darkness Rising anthologies. They co-edited and published F20 with The British Fantasy Society. As editors/publishers they ran Enigmatic Press in the UK, which produced Enigmatic Tales, and its sister titles. They wrote essays for the Mark Chadbourn website At The World’s End.

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Nightmare City

Coming Soon:

Stronghold

They can control people’s minds. What happens when they can’t control themselves?

Nightmare City

© 2012 Maynard Sims

Three brothers. One rare and terrifying ability: they can control people’s minds.  Robert considers it a gift–he's used the power to set off on a successful career. For Peter, it's been a curse. He couldn't adjust and turned to drugs, a broken man. And Gabriel... he took yet another path. He sees the full potential. He embraces the evil. As he travels the globe, no one in his path is safe.  He's about to unleash his ultimate plan, but first he needs to destroy the only ones who might stand in his way.  His brothers.

Enjoy the following excerpt for Nightmare City:

It’s said that people who were alive on November 22, 1963 can remember where they were and what they were doing when they learned that the President of the United States of America had been shot.

Gabriel Hunter could remember exactly. He was planning to kill his parents. 

The assassination of John F. Kennedy, the thirty-fifth President of the United States, took place on a Friday, in Dallas, Texas.

Just before 12:30 p.m. Central time, Kennedy’s limousine entered Dealey Plaza and moved towards the Texas School Book Depository. Nellie Connally, the First Lady of Texas, apparently said, ‘Mr. President, you can't say Dallas doesn't love you.’ Ironic in hindsight, but a statement of truth at that moment

Gabriel Hunter loved his parents, in his own way. It was just that he knew he had a destiny that involved their deaths. Even though he was only eleven years old and didn’t really appreciate the significance of what had happened in that very different part of America from where he lived he felt it was a sign that he had to act. Not a sign from God. No, quite the opposite.

When the Presidential limousine turned and continued down Elm Street, shots were fired. Most witnesses heard three shots. A minority of the witnesses did recognize the first gunshot they heard as a weapon blast, but many later said they thought it was a firecracker or the exhaust backfire of a vehicle just after the President started waving. 

Gabriel had spent the day with his two brothers, Robert and Peter, mostly fishing at the lake, but when he went to bed that evening he was restless. He had experienced the feeling before and random acts of violence had usually satisfied his fevers. Not this time. This time he knew it was going to take more to satisfy what was driving him.

President Kennedy, Texas Governor John Connally, and Mrs. Kennedy, all turned. Connally, like the president a World War Two military veteran, and unlike the president, a longtime hunter, testified he immediately recognized the sound of a high-powered rifle. Then he turned his head and body right to see President Kennedy behind him. Connally confirmed he couldn’t see the President, so he then started to turn forward again, and it was when he was facing forward that he was hit in his upper right back by a bullet that he did not hear, then he shouted, ‘Oh, no, no, no. My God. They're going to kill us all!’

Gabriel was one of triplets. Born moments apart they shared most things with an uncanny unspoken bond that their parents and the community where they lived had grown used to. Gabriel never grew accustomed to it. He didn’t want to be one of three. He wanted to be alone. He wanted to be unique. 

Mrs. Connally testified that right after hearing a first loud, frightening noise that came from somewhere behind her and to her right, she immediately turned towards President Kennedy and saw him with his arms and elbows already raised high and with his hands already close to his throat. She then heard another gunshot and John Connally started yelling. Mrs. Connally then turned away from President Kennedy towards her husband; another gunshot sounded and she and the limousine's rear interior were covered with fragments of brain, and blood, and bone matter.

Eleven years previously, in 1952, when Harry S Truman was still the president leading the country out of the war years, Kenneth Hunter, the local doctor, and his wife of nine years, Mary, who prior to her pregnancy had run the family farm, were blessed with not one new born child, not two, but three healthy baby boys. They named them Gabriel, after the saint, Archangel Gabriel, Peter, after the Disciple of Jesus, and Robert, because it was Mary’s fathers’ name.

The rural community where they lived had much in common with the Amish with whom they shared many values and beliefs. Church played a big part in their lives and when Mary first learned she was pregnant they asked their Priests to bless the unborn child. Kenneth was a man of medicine so he knew deep down that it could not be so, but a secret part of him always wondered, after the births, if it had been wise to ask all three of their community Priests to perform the blessing.

The community was several hundred strong and they all worked on the communal farmlands, tending the cattle and sheep, raising the crops, feeding the chickens and keeping the fences and buildings strong. The summers in North Carolina were hot and humid but the winters could be cold with fierce winds from the Atlantic testing their carpentry skills.

Kenneth and Mary had waited a long time for their union to be blessed with child. Their parents never made mention apart from occasional subtle references that pricked at Mary’s conscience when another barren month went by. They had no affection for the ways of modern science; their religion was based on firm, some might say blind, belief in the ways of our Lord. He would provide when and if He saw fit to do so. Until then they would contribute in other ways to their community. Kenneth was a fine doctor, and Mary had green fingers that helped the crops yield a bountiful harvest even in the driest and most unlikely of seasons.

When news of the birth of triplets spread throughout the community it was as if all the best harvests had come at once. Other mothers brought their own children to see the magic babies. Three was a special number to them and the Hunter babies were the first set of three to be born on their land. The community had been settled here for over one hundred years; the occasion of the birth was a joyous celebration.

It was summer so the days were long and warm. The seasonal storms were full of hot rain that poured from the Heavens for an hour then ceased. Lightning was like fireworks exploding in the black sky and the thunder that danced with it was the clapping of the Angels in recognition of the fortune that had been granted.

There was a week long party of religious fervor that left Mary tired; one baby was hard work, three was a career. Kenneth was proud of his wife for her achievement and he was secretly pleased that the whole community, which he already perceived thought of him as a man of importance because of his medical skills, now seemed to hold him in such high regard that he wondered if the manner of the profuse congratulations towards him was perhaps a little too similar to homage. 

The birth of the Hunter triplets proved to be a blessing on the isolated community. It could only have been coincidental chance that the next five years brought about such good farming production that there was sufficient for them all to prosper and to sell surplus in the nearby towns. Once a week the men would rotate the duty of driving the horse drawn carts to town where they would sell their produce to the local stores and restaurants. They were not greedy and often accepted payment in goods and essentials they required but could not produce themselves.

When they were five years old, and beginning their schooling at the communal school, the boys started to accompany the men on the trips to town. They had only seen life on the extended farm. Their boundaries were the extent of the fields and the woods and the rivers the community owned. 

The town, with a single main street, stores and houses crowding in on each side was a whole new universe for them. Robert took it in his stride; Peter was a little afraid of the noise and the dust; Gabriel was fascinated by the saloon and the hard looking men who disappeared inside even during the bright sunlit mornings. The characteristics that would shape their later lives were already embedded. All so different despite their common genes.

Most of the townsfolk were used to the farmers who came in regularly on their well kept carts, who tethered the horses at the drinking troughs and politely went about their business. The men looked and wondered, and if there was a suggestion of amusement about the way they considered the modestly dressed incomers it was only because they found them strange and like anything that was unusual or different they were a little frightened by it.

The children, especially the boys, were less equipped, socially, to hide their curiosity.

‘Why’d you dress like that?’

‘You never seen a TV before?’

Robert replied politely. He explained the way his family lived, and he showed genuine interest in the ways of the town. Peter tried as much as he could to stay with the horses, feeding them sugar and grass he pulled up in clumps from the verges.

Gabriel was confrontational.

One time three older boys began to make fun of Gabriel, who was striking in appearance with his black hair and blue eyes.

‘Heh, Amish boy.’

‘I’m not Amish.’

‘What are you, freako?’

The three boys spread out so they circled Gabriel, who was a couple of years and several inches less than them. He didn’t seem concerned.

‘Freako?’

‘Yeah, weird freak farmer boy.’

‘Ever see a farm?’

One of the boys moved closer to Gabriel and pushed him.

‘You’re best not to do that.’

‘What’d you say, shrimp?’

‘I said not to push me.’

A second boy stood behind him and pulled his hair.

‘Do you want to touch me as well?’ Gabriel asked the third boy, who seemed reluctant to approach him but with some encouragement from the other two gathered up the courage to sidle across and shove Gabriel in the ribs.

The boys slouched in a loose circle, ready to beat on the smaller stranger but somehow hesitant to make the next move.

‘You’re best to learn some manners,’ Gabriel said quietly.

‘And are you gonna…’ The boy stopped talking as his tongue began to curl up inside his mouth. As if it had a life of its own it curled up, and back on itself until he was choking for breath.

Gabriel turned and stared intently at another boy. The boy tried to look away but he was transfixed by the blue piercing eyes that seemed to pin him like a butterfly on a cork board, Gabriel’s eyes thrusting into his as if they were rays of the sun. A few moments passed while the two were locked in an intent staring contest, and then the boys’ nose started to bleed. He tried to stem the flow with his fingers but they were ineffectual. Soon his shirt front was the color of dead robin breast.

The third boy decided it was a good idea to run. He started to, and he got a few feet away from the others when his legs began to feel as if they were treading in quicksand. He was still pumping his arms, and his chest was heaving as if he was racing fast but his legs were all but going backwards. Then he felt both knees crack and he fell face first in the dust.

The Eighth Witch

A Department 18 Novel

Maynard Sims

Four centuries ago witch hunters killed the seven Yardley sisters. Now Department 18 must battle…the eighth witch!

Four hundred years ago six of the seven Yardley sisters—all witches—were systematically hunted down and killed.  The seventh lived long enough to give birth to a daughter.  Now, centuries later, that daughter has resurfaced in the town of Ravensbridge, more powerful than her mother or aunts ever were.  She has honed her powers, can change shape at will, and has only one ambition—to bring her family back from the dead to seek vengeance against the descendants of all who slaughtered them.  Ravensbridge once lived in fear of the seven Yardley sisters, but they have yet to experience the terror of…the Eighth Witch.

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This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the writer’s imagination or have been used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, actual events, locale or organizations is entirely coincidental.

Samhain Publishing, Ltd.

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The Eighth Witch

Copyright © 2012 by Maynard Sims

ISBN: 978-1-61921-076-9

Edited by Don D’Auria

Cover by Kanaxa

All Rights Are Reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

First Samhain Publishing, Ltd. electronic publication: November 2012

www.samhainpublishing.com