He began to climb the narrow wooden treads which gave painful creaks as he put his weight on them. He reached the tiny landing at the top, a bedroom directly on either side of him. He shone a torch inside one room. It was totally empty. ‘You in here, Courtney?’ he said, stepping across and into the other room. Again it was empty, save for a pile of soiled rags in a corner of the room. The windows boarded up. ‘I’ll have your guts for garters when I get my hands on you, Courtney,’ he said under his breath, carefully descending the stairs. ‘Let’s get out of here, Nobby,’ he said, his frustration mounting. But he didn’t get a reply. The smell of gas was becoming stronger. There certainly was no mistaking it now. He reached the bottom of the stairs. ‘Styles?’ he said. ‘Where the hell are you?’ What the fuck was going on here, he thought. With a grimace he choked on a sudden wave of gas and put a hand to his mouth. He looked towards the kitchen and saw something dark and formless lying on the floor. To his horror his torch beam revealed it to be a body. ‘Styles!’ he said.
He couldn’t explain why but in an instant his mind was filled with the vision of Inspector Thomas Rayne of the Yard being put out of action by his own nark, and how the case of the Body in the Barn had become his lifelong curse.
‘Christ, no!’ he said, just as the explosion threw him off his feet and a massive fireball bowled through the rooms, engulfing him completely. He had no time to scream, no time to shield his face. As he hit the floor, the searing heat enveloping him like a thousand slashing razors, he was vaguely aware of the fragile ceiling above him giving way and come crashing down in a deafening cacophony, his helpless body being pummelled by falling timbers.
41
He did not recognise the reflection in the mirror as belonging to him. In Lambert-Chide’s mind he remained young, but this perversion, this dried-up, time-eaten man in the mirror stood like a skeletal reminder that though he might control almost all his life with the flick of a finger, he could not exercise any control over this, the most fundamental aspect of all. He could not control growing old.
He had been so close all those years ago and it had been snatched from him. And now, just as he thought it might once more be within his grasp it might all be an illusion. DNA tests would prove if Davies and the woman were related one way or another, but the thought that the woman locked away downstairs might not be Evelyn caused his insides to screw into a tight ball. Time was fast running out, he knew that, even for one as powerful and as tremendously wealthy as he. He didn’t like to dwell on the fact that even if she were Evelyn there wouldn’t be enough time to unlock her secrets, despite the huge amount of revenue at his disposal. And in truth did he really care about immortality for the masses? No, he cared only about finding it for himself first and foremost. Yes, find it soon and he’d become one of the world’s most powerful men, but what use to him the discovery after he had died?
On his dressing table was an ebony-framed photograph of his mother and father on their wedding day. A mother he had loved and lost, with that loss in some way being the font of his all consuming bitterness and selfishness. Strange how such things can stain you from an early age, he thought, and the remnants of that emotional stain still in evidence all these years later, fainter perhaps, but there all the same and carried with you always.
He envied them. They had found love. A deep, trustful, complete love that he had never known in all his long years. Money acted as a wax jacket to that particular commodity, he soon realised, but somehow allowed the false to soak through. Money couldn’t buy him love, as the old song went, not the kind his parents had. It bought only cheap, shallow substitutes. It bought him his young wife, whom he knew cringed at the sight of his old, naked body, though she’d never let it show. She was hanging in there, waiting for him to kick the bucket, like so many of the hangers-on were. Vultures in suits. Hyenas in Gucci. He didn’t care she slept in a separate bedroom. She was there if he needed her. But he couldn’t sleep with a lie.
It riled him all the more to think on these things. Made him determined to hang onto every last breath in his body; made him determined to try to live forever, and no jumped-up little con artist was going to stand in his way. If that’s what she turned out to be she was as good as dead. Davies as well. He had ways and means of efficient, discreet disposal at his command. He’d employed it before to great effect.
Tremain was a problem, though. In the past he’d been very good, progressed swiftly to become his trusted right-hand man. But lately he’d become careless. Perhaps he was too old for the job now, he thought. Perhaps it was time to end his service. Time for his retirement.
David Lambert-Chide got into bed, the room now in almost total darkness. That’s when the fear began in earnest. It had been a gradual thing, becoming more pronounced the older he became. The thought that he’d close his eyes and never open them again. Death, that King of Terrors, would come stealing into his bedroom whilst he slept and snatch him away forever. So he fought sleep as long as he could. He took a variety of drugs, drank copious amounts of black coffee, anything that helped him stay awake at night. He was grateful that as his body had aged it had required less and less sleep, but he could not resist it entirely. There was always a black curtain of unconsciousness ready to be drawn and that was the time he feared the most.
So he sat in the dark, his eyes growing accustomed to the gloom, feeling his heart beating, the sounds of silence rushing in his ears, growing ever more afraid. Staying awake in order to cheat death.
But of course he could not resist indefinitely. His thoughts began to fuse and take strange detours as his mind gradually succumbed to slumber, distantly aware that he ought to fight it, afraid of something but not knowing what.
He was brought abruptly awake by a sharp stabbing sensation in the side of his neck, just below his jaw. His instinct was to rise, to move, to lash out at whatever was pressing painfully into his flesh. But a voice close by his ear made him freeze.
‘Not one move, not one breath, or I’ll sink this knife into your gizzard.’
He could not mistake the voice. ‘How did you get in here?’ he asked, careful not to move his jaw any more than he had to.
‘Access is something I’m good at,’ said Caroline Cody. ‘Keep your hands inside the covers for now, away from any panic button you might have.’
He strained in the dark to make out the blurred, pale disc of her face, heard the telltale squeak of her leather jacket as she reached across for the bedside lamp. She flicked the switch and he screwed his eyes up momentarily against the bright light. ‘What is it you want?’ he said.
‘I want you,’ she said. ‘I want you out of bed and dressed.’ He hesitated so she pressed the knifepoint in a little deeper. ‘Time is of the essence.’ As he rolled back the duvet and slid his feet out onto the thick carpet she gave another warning. ‘Don’t try anything stupid. No heroics. At all times keep your hands where I can see them. And, oh, I also have a gun…’ She tapped the weapon she’d tucked into her jeans.
‘Where is my security?’ he said, his composure returning to fill his words with venom.
She put an index finger to her lips. ‘Quiet, please, there’s a good little billionaire. One of them is still outside in the corridor. Not very bright, if you don’t mind me saying. Really, I am surprised at you; all that money and you hire some of the worst gorillas in the zoo. But there again you hardly expected anyone to get this far inside, did you?’ She gave a mocking shake of her head. He could smell the perfume of her skin wash over him. She stood close by him as he began to get dressed.
‘What do you want? Money? Aren’t we paying you enough for what you did for us? You want more, is that it?’