Very Important Corpses

  ‘But are they human?’ said Penny. She leaned forward, her eyes shining. ‘I mean … you do hear stories about the Bilderburg Group and others like them. That they’re all secretly Lizardoids, or Alien Greys, or Secret Ascended Masters. Running the world from behind the scenes, manipulating the economic fortunes of nations for their own nameless purposes …’

  ‘You’ve been reading those weird magazines again, haven’t you?’ I said. ‘Most conspiracy theories only exist to comfort people. The idea that there’s some group of evil masterminds in charge of everything is actually preferable to the idea that there’s no one at the wheel. That all the world’s governments are just bumbling along, doing the best they can, and screwing up because the job is too big for them is a much scarier prospect than some inhuman secret cabal.’

  ‘But … if there was such a cabal, human or otherwise, would you know about them?’ Penny said craftily.

  I sighed. ‘I have heard things … but rarely anything I could verify. There are all kinds of secret groups operating in the shadows, but they’ve got more important things to worry about than world finances.’

  ‘But are any of them aliens?’ said Penny. ‘Have any of them made contact with aliens and struck secret deals with them?’

  ‘Don’t ask me,’ I said.

  ‘Ishmael … Have you ever met another alien?’

  ‘Not as such,’ I said. ‘I’ve met some people who weren’t strictly speaking human; you can’t avoid them in this line of work. Like the Immortals. Now they really were out to rule the world. Nasty bastards. Shape-shifters, too. But there were never enough of them to make a real difference. And you don’t have to worry about them, because they’re all dead now.’

  ‘What happened?’

  ‘They annoyed someone even worse than them. The Droods.’

  ‘Yes! I’ve heard about them!’ said Penny, bouncing eagerly on her seat. ‘An ancient family, dedicated to fighting monsters and protecting Humanity! I thought they were just an urban legend.’

  ‘You believe in ghosts,’ I said, ‘but balk at the Droods?’

  ‘Are they real? I mean, are they everything they’re supposed to be? Have you ever seen one?’

  ‘Only from a distance,’ I said. ‘Which is always the safest way to see a Drood. I don’t think they approve of people like me.’

  ‘Who else?’ demanded Penny. ‘Who else have you met?’

  I knew I shouldn’t indulge her, but it was hard to deny her when she was so enthusiastic.

  ‘Well,’ I said. ‘There’s the Spawn of Frankenstein … All the various people – some of them only technically people – created by the Baron.’

  ‘Oh, you are kidding me!’ said Penny, her eyes wide. ‘They’re real? He’s real?’

  ‘Yes,’ I said. ‘The living god of the scalpel. Most of the stories that have grown up around him aren’t nearly as bad as what he really got up to. The terrible things he created in the butcher shops of his laboratories. The Baron’s still out there somewhere, hiding from his many enemies and selling his awful secrets, in return for privacy and enough funding to continue his work.’

  Penny sighed happily. ‘You’ve led such an exotic life, Ishmael. Why do you never want to tell me about all the amazing things you’ve done?’

  ‘Because mostly you’re better off not knowing.’

  ‘What about … people like you?’ said Penny.

  ‘Nothing I could ever prove,’ I said. ‘No one I believed.’

  ‘What about Roswell?’ said Penny, like a card player slapping down an ace. ‘Were there really aliens at Roswell?’

  ‘Yes,’ I said. ‘And a great deal nastier than most of the stories would have you believe. But they’re all dead now.’

  ‘Why? What happened?’

  ‘They came up against something worse than them.’

  Penny’s eyes widened. ‘The Droods again?’

  ‘They do get around,’ I said. ‘Change the subject, please.’

  ‘All right,’ said Penny, reluctantly. ‘Answer me this one. Why is the Baphomet Group called the Baphomet Group? What does the name mean?’

  ‘Supposedly, a mysterious creature the old Knights Templar used to worship in a stone labyrinth carved out under their castle in France.’

  Penny looked at me, until she realized there wasn’t going to be any more. ‘But what does that have to do with world economics?’

  ‘Good question,’ I said. ‘I suppose it’s always possible that a long time ago the original Group made a deal with this Baphomet. Or it could just be another piece of misdirection to make the Group seem more powerful and mysterious than it actually is.’

  Penny frowned. ‘Could this Baphomet, whatever it is, still be alive somewhere? Still connected to current members of the Group?’

  ‘Another good question,’ I said. ‘Think about it, there’s a creature connected with the Group, a creature connected with the House, and Jennifer was apparently killed by some unseen creature. All of which leads me to suppose that there’s a creature involved in this case. Unless, of course, that’s what someone wants me to think.’

  ‘You don’t trust anybody, do you?’ said Penny admiringly.

  ‘All part of the job,’ I said. ‘In our line of work, paranoia isn’t just a way of life. It’s a survival skill.’

  ‘OK,’ said Penny. ‘Let’s start with what we can be sure of. The Baphomet Group doesn’t actually run the world?’

  ‘Almost certainly not,’ I said. ‘The world is simply too big and too complicated. There are various groups who like to say they do, but a lot of that is just whistling in the dark to make themselves feel better. The members of the Baphomet Group are certainly rich enough to influence things, but that’s as far as it goes.’

  ‘Who are the principals?’ said Penny. ‘Would I recognize any of them?’

  ‘I doubt it,’ I said. ‘They won’t be anyone you’d know from the financial pages or the celebrity magazines. They don’t represent governments, or even countries. They’ll be members of old financial families; long-established money. People with power, but no responsibilities and no accountability. That’s what makes the Group so dangerous. There’s no one to tell them they can’t do things.’

  ‘How does that make them different from the Bilderburg Group?’ said Penny.

  ‘Because the world doesn’t know the Baphomet Group exists,’ I said patiently. ‘Apart from some of the more feral conspiracy sites – who tend to view the Group through their own particular beliefs and interests. Alien Infiltration, New World Order, the Great Satanic Conspiracy … The usual. I wouldn’t be at all surprised to find a few of the more dedicated fringe journalists trying to sneak into Coronach House. Looking for evidence of the truth; to prove they’re right and everyone else is wrong.’

  ‘Would you kill them?’ said Penny. ‘For being in the wrong place at the wrong time?’

  ‘Of course not!’ I said. ‘Why would I want to do that?’

  ‘You talked about killing whoever’s replaced the dead principal.’

  ‘Only to see what my orders were,’ I said. ‘I’m not going to throw some poor journalist in the loch just because he’s got a bee in his bonnet.’

  Penny smiled dazzlingly. ‘So, off we go to Coronach House. Where we will solve the mystery, catch the killer, keep the Baphomet Group safe, and look good doing it!’

  ‘Damn right!’ I said.

  We finished our drinks, and got ready to leave. Penny looked at me thoughtfully.

  ‘Which conspiracy theories do you believe, Ishmael? Which ones do you know to be true?’

  ‘I believe in all of them,’ I said. ‘It saves time …’

  ‘Even when they contradict each other?’

  ‘Especially then. Because the only truth behind all the stories is that the world really is very complicated.’

  TWO

  House Rules

  Out in the Purple Heather’s car park, a great gleaming silver-grey beast was waiting for us. The Rolls-Royce P
hantom stood alone, a discreet distance from all the other cars, so it could look down its long bonnet and intimidate them. Penny made happy ‘Oooh!’ and ‘Aaah!’ noises while I walked around the car, studying it suspiciously from every angle. Beware Colonels bearing gifts. I hit the remote, opened the front door, and then crawled all over the interior, checking every inch with a practised eye. Penny watched me for a while, then cleared her throat in a meaningful sort of way.

  ‘Ishmael, what are you doing?’

  ‘Looking for hidden cameras and microphones,’ I said.

  ‘You don’t even trust the people you work for?’

  ‘Today’s friend can be tomorrow’s enemy,’ I said, feeling around inside the glove compartment, because it looked bigger than it had any right to be. ‘Better safe, than ending up in a Black Heir petting zoo. Or stuffed and mounted in some collector’s private museum.’

  ‘People actually do that?’ said Penny.

  I thought it kinder not to answer that one. ‘I haven’t survived this long by relying on the kindness of strange organizations.’

  ‘Want me to look underneath the car?’ said Penny.

  ‘Too obvious,’ I said.

  I finally backed out of the Phantom and stood beside Penny, frowning thoughtfully. I hadn’t found anything, and short of tearing the whole car to pieces I probably wasn’t going to. But knowing in advance that I would search any car I was given helped keep the Colonel honest.

  I opened the back door and took out the suitcase the Colonel had left for me. Inside was a smart black suit, white shirt and black tie, expensive black shoes, and a pair of very dark sunglasses. The Colonel’s idea of making a good first impression. I climbed into the back seat to get changed, while Penny stood guard to make sure I wouldn’t be interrupted. Not that I gave a damn, but Penny can be surprisingly bashful over some of the more public forms of impropriety. There wasn’t a lot of room to manoeuvre in the back seat, but I managed.

  I finally got back out of the car, slipped on the sunglasses, and struck a pose. Penny clapped her hands delightedly.

  ‘Oh, Ishmael, you’re a Man In Black!’

  She had a point. I looked just like one of those mysterious people who turn up to interview UFO contactees and lecture them on not talking to the media. Like that has ever worked. I wasn’t sure Men In Black existed outside popular culture; but it was a really good look. I had to smile.

  ‘Smell the irony …’

  ‘You don’t suppose the Colonel actually knows about you?’ said Penny. ‘And this is his idea of a joke?’

  ‘No,’ I said. ‘No one knows, apart from you. I’ve gone to great pains to be sure of that.’

  ‘Is there another suit in the car?’ Penny said hopefully. ‘I’d make a great Woman In Black …’

  ‘Sorry,’ I said. ‘This is all the suitcase contained. Still, your black dress and hat should complement my look nicely.’

  At which point the gusting wind snatched the hat right off Penny’s head and sent it bowling across the car park. While Penny went racing off in hot pursuit, I retrieved my backpack and her suitcase from the hired car and transferred them to the Phantom. I travel light, so I can travel fast; while Penny likes to pack for every conceivable occasion. And then expects me to carry the suitcase. She came back with the broad-brimmed hat clapped firmly on her head, with one hand up to hold it there.

  ‘Don’t laugh,’ she said. ‘Don’t even smile.’

  ‘The thought never crossed my mind.’

  ‘Are we going to just leave the hire car here?’

  ‘The Colonel can send someone to pick it up,’ I said. ‘Should be safe enough. It’s not like anyone’s going to steal it.’

  And so we set off for Coronach House, following the directions programmed into the Phantom’s sat nav. The officious little box dispensed its instructions in languid, disdainful tones, as though the voice had been provided by some minor member of the aristocracy forced into gainful employment through savage death duties, intent on taking it out on someone. He always sounded just a moment away from criticizing my driving, my clothes and my attitude, but I’d never have found the House without him. I’d memorized all the relevant locations, but Coronach House wasn’t on any map. It was a private place, and determined to stay that way.

  The Phantom carried us swiftly along the narrow winding roads, the powerful engine barely murmuring. The car handled like a dream, and the ride was delightfully smooth. It only lacked front-mounted machine-guns and an ejector seat to make it the perfect secret agent’s car. Penny practised waving at the passing countryside, like the Queen on a royal progress.

  It didn’t take long to get to Coronach House, for which I was quietly grateful. The light was going out of the day, the shadows were lengthening, and the first mists of the evening were gathering. They thickened and thinned as the road changed direction, so that the surrounding views came and went in a series of brief glimpses. Details became indistinct and directions uncertain, as though we were driving through a dream. I tried turning on the headlights, but the light just bounced back off the mists. My hands tightened on the steering wheel. I really don’t like it when I can’t be sure of what’s going on around me. Dark shapes loomed up in the mists at the sides of the road, and then disappeared again. Penny sat up straight and stuck her face against the side window.

  ‘What were those?’ she demanded. ‘Anything I should be worried about?’

  ‘Not as long as they stay off the road,’ I said. ‘They were deer. We are in Scotland, remember?’

  Penny glared suspiciously into the shifting mists. ‘How can you be sure?’

  ‘Because I recognized their scent.’

  She turned her attention away from the window to give me a hard look. ‘From inside a travelling car? I know you like to boast your senses are superior to anything we mere mortals might have been blessed with, but that is downright eerie. Particularly since you still can’t tell one of my perfumes from another.’

  ‘Sorry,’ I said. ‘It’s all just musk to me.’

  Penny gave me a considering look, from under heavy eyelids. ‘And does musk have the same effect on you as it does on mere mortals?’

  I grinned at her. ‘What do you think?’

  ‘Drive on,’ she said, satisfied. ‘And keep your mind on the road. The last thing I want to see is the startled look on a deer’s face as it bounces off our bonnet.’

  Sometime later the mists began to lift, and the last of the sunlight bathed the road ahead in a golden glow. We left the woods behind and headed straight for the loch. The satnav instructed me to take a sudden sharp turning to the left that wasn’t supposed to be there, and we shot past a large sign saying ‘WARNING! TRESPASSERS WILL BE …’

  ‘Will be?’ said Penny. ‘Will be what?’

  ‘I think we’re supposed to fill in the gap ourselves,’ I said. ‘With something suitably ominous and cautionary.’

  ‘They don’t know us,’ Penny said happily. ‘They’re the ones who should be worried.’

  We were driving down a long straight road now, heading into a characterless expanse of open ground with Loch Ness some distance beyond. At the very end of the road I could just make out a large old-fashioned house standing alone, perhaps just a little too close to the banks of the loch. The mists were forming again, adding a grey haze to the dimming sunlight.

  Well short of the house the road was suddenly blocked by a heavy steel-barred gate. I brought the Phantom to a halt. There was no sign to confirm where we were, and the satnav had gone ominously quiet. I peered past the gate at what had to be Coronach House. A large three-storied structure of old grey stone, solid and stern, with an almost brutal sense of style. Built in the old days, when clan feuds and bands of marauding reavers were common dangers and a family dwelling had to be a man’s castle as well as his home. Light blazed fiercely from all the windows, but that was the only sign of life. Coronach House looked like some last outpost of civilization, set in place ages ago to stand guard against
a wild and threatening region.

  I sounded the car’s horn, to let everyone know two important guests had arrived. Somehow, what should have been an imperative blast sounded small and lost in the heavy quiet of the falling evening. Two dark figures came striding up the road to glare at us through the gate, both of them heavily armed and wearing flak jackets. They had the look of men just waiting for an excuse to use their automatic weapons, and kept their guns trained on the car as the gate slowly opened. Penny and I both decided we felt like sitting very still. One of the armed men came round to my side and frowned balefully at me as I lowered the window.

  ‘You’d better have a really good reason for being here, sir,’ he said. In the kind of voice that told me he was hoping I hadn’t.

  ‘Will this do?’ I said, presenting him with the ID card the Colonel had given me. The guard reluctantly lowered his gun, and all but snatched the card out of my hand. He studied it for a long moment, his lips moving as he checked the number against the one he’d been made to memorize. He glared at the card and then at me, clearly hoping to find something he could argue about to make up for all the standing around in the cold with nothing to intimidate but the local wildlife. He returned my card but made a point of phoning ahead to the House, to make sure we were expected, while the other guard kept his gun trained unwaveringly on the car. The first guard then winced as someone on the other end shouted at him, and he put his phone away and quickly stepped back from the gate. The other guard lowered his gun and moved to the other side of the gate, and I smiled serenely at both of them as I sailed on by. The gate shut itself the moment the Phantom was through.

  Important-looking limousines had been lined up in neat rows a polite distance away from Coronach House, so I made a point of bringing the Phantom to a smooth halt right outside the front door. The small crowd of impeccably uniformed chauffeurs standing by their cars watched silently as Penny and I got out of the Phantom. I ignored the chauffeurs and the House, and headed straight for the bank of Loch Ness. Penny scrambled quickly after me, one hand clapped to her big hat, just in case. The ground was bare earth and hardscrabble rock, with just the odd tuft of grass. I got as close to the edge as possible and looked out over the loch. Penny snuggled in beside me and we stood quietly together, taking in the view. We’d come a long way to be here.