Big eyes leered at Nina from under the dripping, unkempt eyebrows. “Oh, he has friends, Dr. Gould. He has friends with lots of money who back his campaigns and pay for all his trips and meetings.”
She sat him down in front of her warm hearth, where the fire was licking at the mouth of the chimney. From her sofa, she grabbed a cashmere throw and wrapped it around him, rubbing his arms over the throw to warm him. He stared up at her in brute sincerity. “Why do you think they tried to run me over? I was the principal rival of their proposals during the rally. Me and Anton Leving, remember? We stood against McFadden’s campaign.”
Nina nodded. “Aye, I do remember. I was in Spain at the time, but I followed the whole thing on social media. You are correct. Everyone was convinced that Leving would win another stint in the town council chambers, but we were all devastated when McFadden won out of the blue. Is Leving going to object or propose another vote in the council?”
The old man scoffed bitterly, staring into the fire as his mouth cracked in a morose smile.
“He is dead.”
“Who? Leving?” she inquired in disbelief.
“Aye, Leving is dead. Last week he,” Mr. Hemming looked at her with a sarcastic expression, “had an accident, they said.”
“What?” she scowled. Nina was completely taken aback by the sinister goings on in her own town. “What happened?”
“Apparently, he fell down the stairs of his Victorian while intoxicated,” the old man reported, but his face played another card. “You know, I knew Leving for thirty-two years and he never had more than a tot of sherry in a blue moon. How could he intoxicated? How did he get so drunk that he could not walk the bloody stairs he walked for twenty-five years in the same house, Dr. Gould?” He laughed, reminiscing about his own near tragic experience. “And looks like, today was my turn at the gallows.”
“That’ll be the day,” she sneered, mulling around the information while she pulled on her robe and tied it.
“Now, you are involved, Dr. Gould,” he cautioned. “You spoiled their chance at killing me. You are in the middle of the shit storm now.”
“Good,” Nina said with a steely look. “That is where I am at my best.”
11
The Marrow of the Matter
Sam’s captor took the off-ramp east onward the A68, heading toward the unknown.
“Where are you taking me?” Sam asked, keeping his voice even and amicable.
“Vogrie,” the man answered.
“Vogrie Country Park?” Sam responded without a second thought.
“Aye, Sam,” the man replied.
Sam gave the swift answer some thought, assessing the level of threat connected to the venue. It was quite the pleasant place, actually, not the kind of area where he would necessarily get gutted or hanged from a tree. In fact, the park was frequented continually, being laid out by woodlands where people came to play golf, hike or entertain their children at the resident play area. He instantly felt better. One thing prompted him to ask again. “By the way, what is your name, mate? You look very familiar, but I doubt I actually know you.”
“My name is George Masters, Sam. You know me from ugly black and white photographs courtesy of our mutual friend, Aidan, at the Edinburgh Post,” he elucidated.
“When referring to Aidan as a friend, are you sarcastic or is he genuinely your friend?” Sam pried.
“No, we are friends in the old fashioned sense,” George answered, his eyes sternly on the road. “I am taking you to Vogrie so that we can talk and then I will let you go.” He slowly turned his head to bless Sam with his countenance and added, “I did not intend to chase you, but you have a tendency to react with extreme prejudice before you even know what is going on. How you compose yourself during sting operations are above my comprehension.”
“I was drunk when you cornered me in the men’s room, George,” Sam tried to explain, but it had no corrective effect. “What was I supposed to think?”
George Masters chuckled. “I suppose you did not expect to see someone as pretty as I am in that bar. I could have done things better… or you could spend more time sober.”
“Hey, it was my fucking birthday,” Sam defended. “I was entitled to get pissed.”
“Maybe so, but that is irrelevant now,” George retorted. “You ran then and you ran again, without even giving me a chance to explain what I want with you.”
“I suppose you are right,” Sam sighed, as they turned off into the route leading to Vogrie’s beautiful environment. The Victorian house from which the name of the park came, appeared through the trees as the car slowed considerably.
“The river will obscure our discussion,” George mentioned, “just in case they are following or listening.”
“They?” Sam frowned, fascinated by the paranoia of his kidnapper, the same man who criticized Sam’s own paranoid reactions not a moment ago. “You mean, anyone who did not see the carnival of high speed fuckwittery we engaged in through the neighborhood?”
“You know who they are, Sam. They have been disturbingly patient, watching you and the pretty historian… watching David Purdue…,” he said as they walked to the bank of the River Tyne that ran through the estate.
“Wait, you know Nina and Purdue?” Sam gasped. “What do they have to do with why you are after me?”
George sighed. It was time to get to the marrow of the matter. He stopped without saying another word, combed the horizon with eyes hidden under mutilated brows. The water gave Sam a sense of peace, eve under the drizzle of the gray clouds. His hair whipped about his face as he waited for George to clarify his purpose.
“I will keep it short, Sam,” George said. “I cannot explain now, how I know all this, but just trust me that I do.” Noting that the journalist was just staring at him without expression, he continued. “Do you still have the footage of the Dire Serpent, Sam? The footage that you recorded while you were all in the Lost City, do you have it on you?”
Sam thought quickly. He elected to keep his answers blurred until he was certain of George Masters’ intent. “No, I left the footage with Dr. Gould, but she is abroad.”
“Really?” George replied nonchalantly. “You should read the papers, Mr. Renowned Journalist. Yesterday she saved the life of a prominent member of her hometown, so either you are lying to me or she is capable of bilocation.”
“Listen, just tell me what you have to tell me, for fuck’s sake. Your shitty approach had me writing off my car and I still have that shit to deal with when you are done playing games in the play park,” Sam barked.
“Do you have the footage of the Dire Serpent on you?” George reiterated with his own brand of intimidation. Each word was like a hammer on anvil blow to Sam’s ears. He had no way out of the conversation, and no way out of the park without George.
“The… Dire Serpent?” Sam persisted. He knew little about the things Purdue asked him to film in the gut of the mountain in New Zealand, and he preferred it that way. His curiosity was usually restrained to that which interested him, and physics and numbers was not his thing.
“Jesus Christ!” George raged in his slow, slurry speech. “The Dire Serpent, a pictogram made up of a succession of variables and symbols, Cleave! Also known as an equation! Where is that footage?”
Sam threw up his hands in surrender. People under umbrellas noticed the raised voices of the two men, peering out from their shelters, and hikers turned to see what the commotion was about. “Alright, God! Relax,” Sam whispered hard. “I do not have the footage on me, George. Not here and now. Why?”