‘Help me!’ he screamed. ‘Can anyone hear me?’
The cry fell away fast and silence crashed down on him again. He was left listening to the sound of his blood rushing in his ears. He yelled again; yelled until his throat burned with the effort. Once more the silence fell like a thick and oppressive blanket. He was about to shout again when he thought he heard a noise, far off, the scrape of footsteps, perhaps? His imagination creating the equivalent of a thirsty man’s oasis mirage?
‘Hello?’ he shouted. ‘Can you hear me?’ Then, miraculously, he saw a glimmer of light and he felt a rush of unadulterated relief at this wonderful, flickering vision. ‘Help me! Help me!’ he cried. ‘I’m being kept a prisoner!’
The light clearly came from some kind of lamp and he was surprised to see that it illuminated a long, low tunnel. He made out the shadowy forms of three men loping slowly and silently towards him. As they approached their lamp lit up his prison cell. He was in a large, oblong chamber, the stone walls relatively flat, the ceiling very low, also carved flat. He noticed the men were bent low to avoid cracking their heads.
‘Thank God you heard me!’ he said, gratitude flooding his voice. ‘Please untie me. I was attacked and now I’m being held against my will.’
The three men stopped before him, the lamp held out towards him, the light blinding after his long immersion in total blackness. Their forms disappeared in a hazy fizz of white light.
‘Be quiet,’ one of the men said.
That’s when he knew he wasn’t out of trouble. He yanked hard at his bindings and screamed out in panic again.
‘It’s no use wasting your energy like that; we’re a good fifty feet underground and tucked nicely away at the end of about six miles of corridors and chambers. It’s an old quarry, you see. Abandoned, forgotten; not unlike you,’ he said. The man came round into the light, crouched down onto his haunches, his leering face a foot or two away from Gareth’s.
Gareth squinted in the light at the man before him. His hair was long, black and straight; it shimmered healthily, like the plumage of a raven, in the lamplight. His skin was a ghastly pale colour, and, strangest of all, his eyes were hidden behind heavily tinted glasses. Fifty feet below ground and he was wearing shades. He lifted a thin hand, his forefinger and thumb grasping the edge of the tape on Gareth’s mouth. ‘Who’s a clever boy then?’ he said, his voice quiet, calm, assured. He gently peeled away the tape and tossed it to the ground.
‘Who the hell are you?’ Gareth snarled. ‘Untie me you bastard!’
‘Don’t do that, Gareth; it’s so demeaning and I rather expected better of you.’
‘How do you know my name? Who are you people?’
‘I know all about you, Gareth. In fact I know more about you than you do.’
‘Untie me!’ he said.
‘I’m afraid I cannot do that. And anyhow, even if I did, where would you go? You wouldn’t get far. There is an absolute maze of old tunnels down here, dead-ends galore, and of course there’s also the total darkness. So escape is not only futile but impossible. No one ever comes here now — it was abandoned by the miners a century ago.’ He reached out and tested the binding at Gareth’s right wrist. ‘They used to mine something called firestone, so called because of its resistance to heat. It was used in furnaces and the like, places where temperatures reached as hot as Hell. Ironic, isn’t it, that here you are but a single step away from the real thing.’
‘You’re crazy. Let me go. The police will be looking for me.’
He laughed. ‘Really? You do live in a fantasy world. ‘Down to business, Gareth. Where is she?’
‘Where is who?’
He sighed. ‘Where is the woman?’
‘What, the crazy red-head? No idea and quite frankly I don’t care.’
The man looked back at one of his companions. ‘She must have been the one talking to him at the railway station.’
‘And?’
‘I thought she’d simply taken a fancy to him, or was just making conversation. Never paid her much heed. Sorry, Camael.’
‘Listen, Camael, or whatever they call you,’ said Gareth, ‘there’s been some kind of big mistake here. I’m not who you think I am. I take photos, in heaven’s name! Whatever it is that you’re all mixed up in then you can bet I’m not involved in any of it.’
‘Yes you are,’ he said, head snapping back. ‘You’re right at the heart of it and so is she. So, please tell me where she is.’
‘I’ve told you, I’ve no idea what it is you’re going on about.’
‘Where is the woman you went to see at the hospital?’
‘My sister?’ he said, his eyes widening. ‘She’s involved with you?’
‘Your sister?’ Camael said. His brow crumpled into a frown. ‘Yes, tell me about your sister. Where will we find her?’
‘I don’t know anything, other than I’d never clapped eyes on her till the day I nearly killed her. And even if I did know where she was, do you think I’d tell a bunch of weirdo thugs?’
‘I ask you to reconsider, Gareth. Try to remember, for your own sake. It would be easier on yourself if you played along.’
‘Go to hell!’
Camael’s breath hissed out through his noise like gas from a leaking pipe. ‘It is not I, fortunately, that will be making that particular trip, Gareth. I’m afraid that will be you. Yes, they call me Camael. Some call me the Dark Angel of Doradus. I am your one-way ticket to Hell.’
30
The musky scent of lilies was overpowering. If there were one flower that Stafford disliked it was the lily. Death, that’s what they always reminded him of. The sweet smell of death and loss. Every funeral he’d ever been to as far back as he could remember he’d seen lilies. There was something about their bloated flower heads he found quietly disturbing. They were in abundance here, along with more condolence cards than they had on the racks at Clinton’s. Wood must have been a popular man in life, Stafford thought. It caused him to ponder on how many cards and lilies he’d receive after he’d died. As many as this? More? Fewer? Did it really matter?
That it mattered to Mrs Wood was plain to see; the flowers and cards were given prominence and one tiny area near the TV in the corner of the room, on which stood a photograph of the late Mr Wood, had become something of a shrine. She was running out of room to put them all.
She was a small woman, very quiet, everything about her being round; round eyes, round face, round body like a ball dressed in tweed. She was putting on one of those forced welcoming smiles, behind which he could tell there was a frenzy of dark, conflicting emotions. She offered Styles and him a cup of tea, and appeared glad of the task which helped occupy another few seconds of her mind’s time. Styles never drank tea; he was a strong black coffee man, but he made appreciative noises when she brought in a tray bearing china cups and saucers that must have been in their possession since they got married, brought out, he imagined, only for special occasions. Everything in the house pointed to a life made for two suddenly halved.
Mrs Wood sat down, hands clasped in her lap, scrutinising the arranged crockery to satisfy herself that everything was as it should be. Only everything wasn’t as it should be. It was an acted-out normality, Stafford thought. He glanced at Styles, whom he thought looked faintly uneasy in the face of the woman’s automaton intensity. Or maybe he was transplanting his own mood there. Stafford pictured his own wife sat in Mrs Wood’s place. Would she behave the same way if he had died?
‘You were there when he passed away,’ she said to the two officers.
‘We arrived afterwards,’ Stafford explained. ‘There was nothing we could do, I’m afraid,’ he added.