‘No. Our absolute condition of admission was that he be chemically castrated at Comraich to avoid more problems of a sexual nature. Although his preference was for the very young, who knew what substitute he might use once he was here? Sister Thimble acts both as his acolyte and his nurse, administering his medication.’
Ash opened his mouth to speak, but found he had nothing to say. He was too stunned. And he felt sorry for the nun. What had she ever done to be incarcerated, apart from being too loyal for her own good?
‘When the archbishop arrived,’ Derriman went on, disregarding the astonished look on the ghost hunter’s face, ‘he was given a choice of two methods to check hyperarousal and intrusive sexual fantasies. The third method, the complete removal of the testicles, was not even offered as a choice. We’re not barbarians here at Comraich.
‘The first offer was a twice-daily intake of tablets called Androcur, an anti-libidinal drug which opposes the action of testosterone rather than interfering with its production.
‘The second choice was Leuprorelin, which acts on the pituitary gland to halt the production of testosterone. This drug takes the form of a monthly injection.’
‘Is it legal in this country?’ enquired a dismayed Ash.
‘It is now,’ came the swift response. ‘It’s voluntary here. Archbishop Carsely volunteered for the first option. Sister Thimble ensures he takes an Androcur tablet twice a day, and so far they appear to have been effective. There are some side effects, as one would expect from any drug, but none has actually caused the archbishop any distress. Not the best of solutions, I admit, but the best we have at present.’
Both men started walking again until Derriman stopped by a solid-looking door on their left. He knocked loudly, then entered a code on a keypad beside the door. A voice from within called out ‘Okay,’ and the lock clicked before the door was opened.
Ash entered behind Derriman, and in a day of shocks, some good, some bad, some confusing, he was taken by surprise yet again.
27
‘Awesome,’ Ash murmured quietly to himself.
It wasn’t the size of the high-ceilinged room that astonished him, but the sophisticated hi-tech equipment that filled it. It was completely out of context with the venerable building in which it was housed.
This might well have been a mini-control complex for the space shuttle at NASA, but for the juxtaposition of new with old, and that, to Ash, was the shock of it.
Banks of CCTV time- and date-stamped screens filled one wall entirely; three observers sat before them at a long desk filled with computer workstations and joysticks to control the cameras that monitored the entire castle and its grounds. At a second desk uniformed men and women typed and Skyped in various languages. Above a door across the wide room a red warning light shone, while below, on the door itself, bold capital letters announced PROCESSING ROOM. Looking around, Ash took in computers and laptops, more desks occupied by data processors, large flat-screen televisions showing CNN, Bloomberg, Al Jazeera and BBC News 24.
A separate television monitor showed the monochrome interior of the guardroom by the estate’s second set of gates that Ash had passed through earlier that day. Another single monitor revealed the area just outside the first gate by the lodge at Comraich’s initial, innocent-looking first entrance where he’d caught the camera zooming in on him. A third monitor displayed what looked like a docking area for both large and small vehicles and Ash guessed this had to be the castle’s delivery point where vans, lorries and transporters unloaded goods. In fact, there was already an articulated lorry backed up there with several uniformed men transferring cardboard boxes of various sizes onto a raised loading bay.
Ash spotted Kevin Babbage sitting at a desk on a long dais in front of a whiteboard that ran the length of one wall. He was in shirtsleeves, his tie loosened. Babbage’s shoulders somehow looked even broader without his jacket, the shirt stretched as if the muscles beneath were striving to break through. His buzz-cut hairstyle was perfectly suited to the launch-pad activity among his staff, and his granite expression looked as if he would break legs if annoyed.
He stood, pulled on his jacket, straightened his tie and hopped off the dais. Babbage headed straight for Derriman and Ash, ignoring a young, bespectacled man who tried to catch his attention as he went by. Babbage came to a halt directly in front of Ash, ignoring Derriman entirely.
‘You ready to get your hands dirty?’ Babbage’s voice was gruff, suiting his appearance perfectly. He lowered his voice and continued, ‘I suppose you’ll want to see Hoyle’s room first?’
He nodded. ‘Maybe I can pick up some clues there.’
‘This isn’t a detective story,’ Babbage said brusquely, surreptitiously glancing round. ‘We don’t have a murderer here in Comraich.’
‘Maybe not. But something killed him and I’d like to find out what. There may be a clue – or a sensing – in his room.’
Babbage looked sceptically at Ash.
‘Then the sooner we start the quicker we might achieve a result,’ Derriman interceded, obviously conscious of the friction that was building between the two men.
‘Fine by me.’ Ash gave Babbage a broad but humourless smile and the security chief just offered a grunt.
As the trio descended the steps leading down from the ground floor, Derriman eagerly explained the castle’s different levels and layout. Ash felt the stooped man, bundled up as he was in scarf and thick pullover beneath his coat, might have served better as a professor of history rather than a manager in a covert world of high stakes and nefarious dealings. The Inner Court regime he was part of didn’t seem quite right for a man of his apparent sensibilities.
His guide’s voice sounded more hollow with every step they took down the spiral of worn stone steps, and the air was cooler the lower they went. Ash was glad of his jacket, the collar of which he pulled tight around his neck. Babbage seemed unaffected by the chill.
The castle had six levels above ground, Derriman explained, with many confusing chambers, passageways and turret rooms. The very top rooms, which had access to the battlements, contained the living quarters of Lord Edgar Shawcroft-Draker and Sir Victor. Also the fifth floor was the castle’s chapel which was presided over by the defrocked Archbishop Carsely. VIP guests were also accommodated on the third and fourth floors.
For such exalted guests the apartments were more like five-star hotel suites; practically all were full at present, or soon would be. The second floor housed the senior staff and visitors. The first floor was where the dining room, reading rooms and libraries, viewing rooms, cinema (television and radio were not available – Comraich was deliberately isolated from the rest of the world, after all), games and card room were all situated. Also on that floor were the kitchens, the first of which served only the main restaurant, while another smaller one catered mainly for the estate rangers, wardens, guards, gardeners, manual labourers, nurses and others who worked within the complex.
On the ground floor was the long reception hall with various offices along the way. At the rear of the massive property was a gymnasium, health club and small indoor swimming pool. And, of course, there were many, many display rooms exhibiting all manner of fascinating items from the past.
Suits of armour guarded several hallways and there was more than one armoury full of violent-looking weapons of destruction. Displayed in many rooms roped off out of necessity, although the contents of each were in plain view, were four-poster beds, genuine crystal chandeliers, in one a long refectory table, a pair of serpentine marquetry commodes, in others rosewood bookcases, silver cutlery and wine coolers, paintings, marble statues and busts, hand-painted and silk wallpaper as well as tapestries, elegant cabinets, exquisite clocks – all manner of precious antiquities that could keep a serious historian interested for months.
Beneath Comraich there were three subterranean levels. The one they were currently descending to was the hospital unit, where Ash was somewhat perfunctorily shown around; he was
amazed at the state-of-the-art equipment kept in different surgeries or operating theatres. He was also impressed by all of the hi-tech medical paraphernalia on view and the lavishly furnished wards and single rooms.
‘Is this where Douglas Hoyle’s body is being held for the autopsy?’ Ash had asked, only to be assured that there was a discreet mortuary on this floor that was kept well away from the general hospital section. This was where Hoyle was undergoing a post-mortem at that very moment. Below this lower floor was a place specially kept for newcomers, where they could recover from the trauma of leaving behind the world they had known for this new environment. Here they were kept in luxurious but solitary confinement where they could be physically examined by a doctor and counselled by both psychiatrist and psychologist until they were deemed fit to join the general Comraich community. It was a kind of limbo, Ash thought.
‘I take it, then, that guests here are watched by cameras day and night,’ Ash pressed. ‘So whatever happened to Hoyle would have been captured on film.’
It was Babbage who answered. ‘There are CCTV cameras in every important room in the castle, including Douglas Hoyle’s, but when we examined the observation tape the morning after the incident, all the video file was blanked. And I mean all the CCTV files were blank, as if somehow they had been overexposed. Not a single image on any of ’em. That same night practically all staff members and guests felt nauseous. At first, we thought food poisoning was to blame, but all the kitchens were spotless and what was left of the food was subsequently analysed in our own lab. No dodgy bacteria or poison was found in any of it. All normal.’ He paused on the stairs and faced Ash. ‘I’ll say this – it was a night none of us, staff or guests, ever want to go through again.’
Little else was said on the subject as Ash was led down to the next level. On the stairs, they met Rachael Krantz, on her way up. She carried a clipboard on which was a graph of some kind.
Derriman, who had been leading the way, stopped and looked anxiously at her. ‘Is-is everything all right?’ he asked timidly.
She gave him an unpleasant look, then switched her eyes to Ash.
‘Everything is as it should be,’ she answered curtly, as if to Ash alone.
‘Yes, yes, of course,’ Derriman stammered, as if realizing he might have made a mistake in questioning the nurse’s ability to run a tight ship. ‘We-we’re just showing Mr Ash the different levels of Comraich.’
Krantz looked alarmed, as did Babbage, Ash noticed. Derriman looked terrified, and Ash wondered who he was more scared of, Haelstrom or Krantz?
‘We’re taking Mr Ash to Douglas Hoyle’s room,’ Babbage intervened. ‘Seems it’s important to him.’ The last comment sounded like a rebuke. Ash had come to expect hostility from the chief of security by now. He expected nothing less of a man who must have felt this parapsychological investigation was a waste of everyone’s time and money, even though Babbage could offer no feasible explanation for the bizarre events himself. On the other hand, Krantz’s obvious dislike of him remained a mystery. Unless she, like many other ‘normal’ people, thought he was a crackpot who shouldn’t be allowed near her patients.
‘I haven’t had time to get Mr Hoyle’s room cleaned up yet,’ Krantz said discourteously.
‘All the better,’ Ash responded. ‘I need to see the scene as it was.’
With a cold stare, she stepped aside to let them pass, but she never took her eyes off Ash as he went by.
Outside the room messily vacated by the unfortunate Douglas Hoyle, opposite the lift, the three men paused.
‘If neither of you minds, I’d like to go in alone to begin with. Just to get the feel of the place. What I don’t want is your own emotions interfering with whatever psychic field or subliminal intimation has been left in there.’
Babbage stared at him as if he were crazy and Derriman started fidgeting with his fingers.
Ash grinned, but it was a hard expression, for he could already feel some kind of presence beyond this closed door. Years ago he might have ignored it, but for him, life – and death – had changed.
He pulled himself together, looked at Derriman, and waited.
‘W-what?’ the general manager stuttered.
Ash pointed at the keypad fixed to the door. He’d already peeked through the small observation panel.
‘Of course. I’m sorry.’ Derriman reached into his inside breast pocket and drew out a small plastic-covered notebook and quickly scanned through the pages, his hands now trembling instead of fidgeting. ‘Ah.’ He stopped at a page. ‘Sub-room 3a,’ he murmured. To Ash, he said, ‘Four numbers. Two, six, four and eight.’
The investigator tapped them in, mindful of his own hand trembling slightly. Something clicked and the door shifted a fraction as if freed from its surrounding frame. Ash pushed the door open wide and walked through.
He cried out as he was immediately thrown back into the corridor by some fierce, invisible force.
28
Babbage caught him before he went down.
‘Jesus, feller . . .’ the security boss spluttered.
Derriman had backed away from the room, the expression of alarm on his face almost comical.
But Ash wasn’t laughing. Still held by Babbage, he struggled to regain his balance.
‘Somebody – something – doesn’t want me in there.’
The chief of security muttered another blasphemy ‘That wasn’t you? You didn’t throw yourself backwards?’ he growled in disbelief.
‘Believe me,’ said a shaken Ash, ‘something really doesn’t want me in there.’
‘So what do we do?’
‘We try again.’
But this time the investigator entered more cautiously. Although he still felt pressure pushing against him, it had weakened considerably, as though whatever unseen psychic force was present had become depleted.
Vapour escaped his mouth and he shivered against the deep, frigid atmosphere inside the room. Babbage waited on the threshold while Derriman peered fearfully over the thickset man’s shoulder.
‘It’s here,’ Ash announced calmly. ‘But it’s fading, taking the chill with it.’
‘You gotta be kidding,’ rasped Babbage. ‘There’s no one else in the room.’
‘Feel it,’ Ash told him. ‘Feel it draining away. Come on in, it can’t hurt you any more. I think all its energy was used up when it tossed me out.’
The security chief walked in, but Derriman remained by the door.
The room contained one large bed, at the foot of which were its rumpled bedclothes. As it was an underground bedroom, there were no windows to the outside world, but there were paintings, all of them peaceful landscapes, presumably to take away the starkness of the walls. Some were tilted, while others had fallen to the floor. Across the room was an upturned armchair, and a sofa leaning almost upright in a corner, cushions scattered around it. A bedside cabinet had been turned over, its contents strewn across the carpet.
And on one wall, to the investigator’s right, was the definite imprint of a man’s figure, formed by hundreds of dark red spots and smears. Bigger patches of blood shone dully.
The silhouette of gore ended at least two feet from the floor, although rivulets of blood had run down to the skirting board, and Ash imagined the helpless man transfixed there, crucified without nails.
The room also reeked of the coppery scent of blood that mingled with the nauseating stink of excrement. Fortunately, this too, was swiftly fading.
‘Was Hoyle conscious when he was taken away?’ Ash asked the security chief, taking a thermometer from his shoulder bag.
‘Nurse Krantz said he was delirious,’ replied Babbage, ‘mumbling words she could only just hear, but couldn’t understand.’
Still partly shielded by the security chief’s muscled body, Derriman, his voice querulous, spoke up. ‘B-by the time they reached the surgery above us, he w-was making no sound whatsoever. Nurse Krantz said his eyes were open and there was a look of sheer terror in
them. He never woke from his catatonic state.’
‘Caused by loss of blood?’
It was Babbage who answered Ash. ‘We’ll know more after the post-mortem, but our pathologist’s initial opinion was that it wasn’t his wounds or loss of blood that killed him, but myocardial infarction. Heart attack.’
‘Like the medium, Moira Glennon.’
‘Yeah, like her. Scared to death.’
29
Breathless, Twigg stood back to survey his work. He leaned on his shovel to steady himself.
The six-foot-long trench he’d dug in the peaceful woods should easily be deep enough to accommodate what was left of Nelson’s corpse. When Twigg backfilled it, the dead apprentice would easily be covered. A scattering of fallen leaves over the patted-down bump should conceal the grave from any warden or rambling guest.
Now to move the body. It was a good thing he wasn’t squeamish, Twigg told himself, because just the sight of the eviscerated body when it was dragged out of the heap of dead leaves and forest ferns he’d partially hidden it under would be enough to turn a normal person’s stomach. Most people wouldn’t go near the wreck of a corpse, let alone touch it.
He straightened, wiping drool from his chin as he did so. But once he took his hand off the embedded shovel’s handle his fingers began to shake again. He tried to hold them still, but could only do so by pressing his hand against his upper thigh.
The assassin drew in deep breaths, slowly letting go of them until he felt well enough to finish the chore. Twigg cursed. He used to be so much stronger than he looked – which on some occasions seemed to surprise his victims – but he knew his age as much as his illness contributed to his breathlessness. Even so, despite his years, he would have remained a valuable asset to the organization, because killing someone these days rarely depended on strength. There were more subtle methods, such as poison or even the garrotte, which no mark could fight against so long as the wire was sharp and the positioning around the throat swift and accurate. Blades were good, providing they went in deep and cut the correct arteries or destroyed the right organs.