Serpent in the Heather Read online

  “And we’re going to send in a trauma view asset. To get next to the baroness or her son and see what deviltry they’ve been party to. No guarantee she’ll pick up anything, but if she does, we’ll feel a damn sight more justified on the resources we’re putting into the Coslett end of things.

  “One more thing,” he went on. “Let’s put Rabbit on watch at Wrenfell for a few days while Sparrow is at Sulcliffe. The Babbages will be spending the weekend in the manor, so Martin won’t be alone, but Walter has his duties around the place and I want a close watch on Rose and Martin. Particularly the boy who’s more the age of the victims.”

  “He’ll be on his way this afternoon,” Elsa said. Preparing to leave the shelter of his umbrella, she pulled up the collar on her raincoat. “What’s your hunch, then? Can we pin this on the Cosletts?”

  “You know how these things go. You’ve got a whole lot of nothing, and then the dam breaks.”

  Scowling, she took her leave, muttering, “Could use a little dynamite.”

  20

  WRENFELL, EAST YORKSHIRE

  SATURDAY, AUGUST 22. “It’s nobut a thorn,” Walter said, examining Shadow’s paw. “We’ll ’ave it out, if ye keep ’old of ’im.” He went off to find something to pry out the thorn while Shadow looked trustingly up from the bale of hay where he lay.

  “There’s my boy,” Kim soothed, petting the border collie’s warm coat.

  Walter had found his implement, a pair of large iron pliers that looked like it could extract a hippo’s tooth.

  “Nah, then,” Walter said, taking the paw, and without further preamble, clasped the thorn with his extractor and yanked. Shadow cringed, but honor forbade yelping. Walter wrapped the paw in a length of torn rag, winding medical tape around to secure it. He pronounced that Shadow should stay in the barn until morning, since there’d be no “runnin’ aboot on a bum paw.”

  She patted Shadow again and helped him down from the bale. A quick look at her watch showed she’d be late if she didn’t hurry. Kim was seldom, if ever, late, but when she was, it was likely to be for an animal.

  Owen’s phone call, a wrong number, had by prearranged code terms announced a meeting at Abbey Pond at one o’clock. Time to set out.

  As Walter and she parted ways at the kitchen garden, Flint, her father’s best hunting dog, cocked his head and pricked up his ears, unsure whether to follow Walter or her. Flint whined, then trotted after Walter into the barley field, where Martin was cleaning out an irrigation trap.

  Kim headed past the Babbage’s cottage and the paddock and was soon traversing the south field, its grasses just lifting in the sun after yesterday’s drenching rains. Surrounding her were low, checkered hills pillowed with barley and grasses. Wrenfell nestled in the soft hills of the Wolds, and in August at this time of day the heights shimmered in golden light. She was glad that Owen was meeting her at Abbey Pond—a place that had hundreds of years ago sported an abbey. She was drawn to the place, though some of its memories were dark. The dogs from the animal shelter. As a young girl she’d liberated them one night. The worst winter in memory. The next day they discovered their bodies on the frozen pond. Wolves. Who knew that there were wolves in England?

  Her meeting with Owen must be important if he was willing to drive the forty-five minutes from Monkton Hall. It was sure to be her assignment for Wales. Time to wring the truth from Sulcliffe Castle, mute as Idelle, dark as the old widow. Once, Kim had longed to be free of her Talent, the ability that caused friends to fall away. Once, she had felt like a voyeur, or intruder, learning things that were best left hidden. With the Office, all that changed. There was a point to it, a necessity. Until that sense of mission, she had always felt that there was something wrong with her. Not only had that belief subsided, but, remarkably, she felt like now there was something right.

  She came to the overgrown road, little more than a deer path, and crossed it, descending the hillside to the pond, glinting between the trees.

  A man was waiting for her by the fallen log. Owen.

  “My editor is thrilled with my piece on earth mysteries,” Kim said over the telephone. “Did you see it?” The Register had given it a nice splash, something that in former days she might have relished. But her intended audience this time had been only Lady Ellesmere.

  The baroness’s voice rang clearly, rather unsettlingly so, through the earpiece. “We might have changed a phrase here and there. But on the whole, I’m quite pleased.”

  “Oh, I’m so glad, Lady Ellesmere.”

  “I must say it’s not often that an outsider quite grasps what we’re about.”

  “It was essential for me to hear your views on the subject. We’ve had such lovely reception to the feature, including a flood of phone calls. It’s as though the country was just waiting for someone to bring the concepts more forward. For the common man.” She paused to give emphasis to her next words. “I’d love to do a follow-up article, Lady Ellesmere.”

  A long pause. “I see . . .”

  “To keep momentum going.”

  “Momentum?”

  Kim imagined the cold, deep castle breathing in the background, warning the old woman.

  “To go more in depth on earth spiritualism. While people are paying attention.” She added a casual laugh. “While my boss is paying attention.”

  “Ambitious, aren’t you? That surprises me. I took you for more of a dabbler.”

  Kim soldiered past this. “Well, this has been one of my successes. And another article might explicitly bring home to people what their alternatives are. For those who’ve given up on the church.”

  “People like you?”

  The woman would have a nose for lies if she had hyperempathy. “I don’t know what I believe. But I’m interested.”

  “Interested. You seem to have put your profession before your spirit, I must say. However, if you’re asking my permission, I don’t mind if you write another piece.”

  “Well, I was asking that, but I’d need a more thorough interview. On the deeper aspects of Ancient Light. Nothing intrusive, just what you feel might take people to the next stage.”

  Silence at the other end. Kim wondered if there was someone else in the parlor where Lady Ellesmere’s telephone lived. Perhaps the dowager was waiting for her sister-in-law to drift out of hearing. Idelle, a woman who had perfected the art of silence, and might be in any castle room, but unobserved. Or perhaps Powell was there, urging his mother to allow a young woman to visit.

  The dowager said, “We’re having a fair next weekend. You might come then, I suppose.”

  “Oh, that’s—”

  “It might suit better,” Lady Ellesmere interrupted, “if you came for just a few hours. Must it be overnight? I don’t mean to be inhospitable, but I am not well.”

  She needed more than an afternoon. “My goodness, that would be a long day. . . .”

  At length, the baroness gave in. “Oh, very well. Come on Friday. We’ll manage.”

  “That’s excellent, thank you. It’s such a long way from Uxley, though. I wonder if I might bring a companion. She’s a close friend and very discreet. A woman traveling alone isn’t always the best.”

  “I’m afraid it won’t do.” Kim heard a crack like the old woman’s cane thumping down on the stone at her feet. “We’ll have a hundred people camped on the field. And I am expected to minister to them. The strain. I’m sure you understand.”

  When Kim hung up, she had succeeded in her primary objective: an invitation to Sulcliffe. Alice, however, would not be going with her. There would be no trauma view in this phase of the operation. And no best friend with whom to share the dreadful raspberry room.

  But at least she was going to Sulcliffe. The place did not want her to come, she felt sure. It preferred its stony isolation, and its cold embrace of a dying woman, the unhappy son.

  As she turned toward the stairs, she found that Martin had come down.

  Usually, he clambered down the stairs. Well, he had tri
ed to be quiet for the sake of her call. Lately, Martin had been making a very good effort to mind his p’s and q’s.

  She smiled at him, but since the diary incident he had resumed that lonely, skittering-away glance.

  A MANSION FLAT IN MAYFAIR, LONDON

  THAT EVENING. Lady Sarah Desborough waylaid Julian in the hall outside the drawing room. “Julian! I had given up on you.”

  A tall woman, Lady Desborough had an athletic figure admirably suited for riding, a pastime she shared with her older husband, whom Julian had known for years at his club. She took his hand. “Lovely to see you. Do let’s get over this being my birthday, I don’t look forty, say it, and we’ll have done.”

  From the drawing room came the drowned roar of guests. “You don’t look forty, of course not.”

  She smirked. “Hardly effusive.”

  “But sincere, Sarah. You won’t get much of that here.” He glanced cheerfully toward the salon, as though looking forward to mixing. It was his job to see and be seen, polishing his contacts and exuding what charm he could manage, even if a German plot was intent on killing British young people. The Babington girl. In the Adder club she had joined, her Talent was reportedly attraction. Imbuing one with approval, charisma. He’d always wondered whether he had ever met someone with that Talent, and how it differed from plain appeal. It might explain how some scoundrels were rather enjoyable.

  Lady Desborough took his arm and steered him into the Georgian drawing room, with its ornamental plaster and somewhat out-of-place Italian vases brought back from the grand tour. Her well-appointed guests stood in clusters, women in stylish silk, men in dinner jackets. Servers wound among them with trays of champagne.

  “You know everyone, I think, except for Lady Graham, perhaps? Well, she’s having a political discussion on the divan, so you won’t want to get in the crossfire.” She brightened as she saw someone crossing the room. “Guy,” she called, bringing Julian along to meet a fair-haired, slightly built chap with a receding hairline. “Julian, I don’t believe you’ve met Guy Ascher. Guy, this is Julian Tavistock.” They shook hands. “Guy is my cousin, and he managed to bring a date this time, didn’t you, sweet?”

  After Lady Desborough had spun away to shepherd her guests, Julian got through a conversation about the Desborough passion for riding, and whether Julian would go down in October for the grouse at the Desborough estate. Pleasantries concluded, Julian sought a drink, which he hoped would not have to be champagne but was. He headed for the political discussion at the divan but caught a glimpse of a woman standing in front of the open verandah doors.

  Olivia. She stood alone, looking out on the garden.

  He made his way to her. She wore a light pink dress with something shimmery in it. It was intriguing to see her so transformed: gone, the workday updo, her hair now pulled back from her face and elegantly collected at the nape of her neck.

  “Good evening, Olivia.”

  She turned, and for a second her expression wobbled, and he could not quite discern if she was happy to see him.

  “Julian!” she said. “Oh, do you know Lady Desborough, then? How nice to see you.”

  He glanced at the room full of people. “I’ve known her and her husband for years.” She looked exquisite, so much so that he reminded himself not to stare.

  There were a few moments of silence. “May I get you a drink?”

  “Oh, please.”

  She was still there when he returned with her champagne. Accepting it, she leaned in toward him. “You should know, E is here.” She glanced at the fireplace where a group of men stood.

  He had already noted E’s presence. Julian occasionally found himself in company with E—Richard Galbraith to everyone except those in the Office. When they met, they conducted themselves as two men who’d known each other at Eton, and were on distant but friendly terms.

  “I’m sorry we haven’t been in touch,” Olivia said. “It’s my fault.”

  “You’ve been avoiding me, I think,” he said mildly. If he was never going to see her alone, he would press her now.

  “Oh, I . . . I think perhaps we’ve been—”

  “Don’t say ‘avoiding each other.’ It isn’t true. I’ve missed you.”

  “Have you?” Her voice was shaky. She looked around, as though hoping for an excuse to include someone, anyone, on a more agreeable topic. He hated this dance of avoidance, with them unable to say what was really going on. And what was going on? For him, nothing more than that he loved her, and was miserable because of it.

  He lowered his voice. “Olivia, please look at me.” When she finally did, he said, “I love you. Where have you gone?”

  She closed her eyes as though to reset her thoughts. Taking her by the arm, he led her out onto the terrace. It was surrounded by a small garden that faced on Berkeley Square, where couples could be seen strolling the pavement in the lingering warmth of the evening.

  Olivia turned to him, her face losing its studied control. “God, Julian, what are we to do?”

  “Talk to E.”

  She shook her head. “I already have.”

  “Then E be damned.” They’d had this conversation before, and Julian was offering nothing new, except this bluff to dare E to sack one of them.

  Glancing in Galbraith’s direction in the drawing room, she murmured, “You might ask him for a word in the garden.” Her voice was wistful. If she had sounded bitter or angry, he would have known what to say, he would have drummed up a response. But her tone of kindness, hopelessness, threw him off guard.

  She looked up, turning as someone approached them. It was the fellow Lady Desborough had introduced him to.

  Olivia smiled at the man and asked Julian, “Do you know Guy Ascher?”

  “We just met.” He nodded to Guy, who held two glasses of champagne.

  Guy put one glass down on the balustrade. “Thanks for doing the honors,” he said to Julian. He sipped his drink, eyeing the two of them. “Splendid out here, isn’t it?”

  Not by any measure. Guy was Olivia’s date, perhaps the friend of the family that he had suspected was his rival. “I thought I’d smoke,” Julian said, “but since Olivia likes gardens . . .” He shrugged.

  “Do you?” Guy asked her.

  “Other people’s.” She turned to look out on the grounds, dark except in the spill of light from the drawing room.

  “Olivia’s father served in the navy with mine,” Guy said. “How do you know Olivia?”

  Olivia’s face grew tight as Julian rushed in with the answer. “Since we both know Lady Desborough, we’ve met several times.”

  A chime from inside. “The gong for dinner, I’m afraid,” Guy said, and held out his arm for Olivia. The three of them followed the other guests to the table. As he passed E, Julian greeted him, and E shook his hand. Further pleasantries were easily avoided by the press of diners and Julian’s cooled enthusiasm for the gathering.

  It was the longest dinner he could remember enduring. He sat between an earl’s sister and the niece of Lady Desborough, one being too old and one too young for him, if he were seeking a wife.

  He managed not to look very often at Olivia and Guy. And with despicable cowardice, sneaked out early, with apologies to his hostess.

  ALBEMARLE STREET

  It was very late when the knock came at his door. A discreet knock, but loud enough to wake him if he’d retired.

  He hadn’t been sleeping. It was Olivia.

  Wordlessly, he drew her into the flat. “Have you come with bad news?” He took her wrap. “If so, let me have it all at once.”

  “No. I’ve come for a drink.”

  He smiled in relief. If she was going to leave him—and they had only been seeing each other three months—at least it wouldn’t be tonight. He poured two whiskies and sat next to her on the sofa.

  “You are stunning,” he said. “I left early so I wouldn’t stare.”

  “And men always look good in dinner jackets. You bastards.” She smiled
, and attacked her drink.

  “Olivia, I . . .”

  She put a hand up to his mouth. “Let’s not talk. I just wanted to be with you for a moment’s peace.” She put her hand in his, and they sat side by side, looking at the drawn blinds of his window onto Albemarle Street, the parlor shadows helping to suppress the words that kept rising to his lips. How are you really? What have you been doing? How can you be with this Ascher fellow?

  After a time, he brought the decanter and poured. And still they were quiet.

  He stroked her hair at her temple. “Are you hungry? I have bread and butter.”

  “No. If you had offered cake or sandwiches . . .”

  He laughed softly. “Not much of a cook, I’m afraid.”

  “Me either.”

  She stood up, extending her hand. He took it, rising from the divan. She was right; there was no need to talk. Well, there might be need, but sometimes silence was best.

  As she led him to the bedroom, she pulled the pins from her hair.

  21

  STOURBRIDGE, WORCESTERSHIRE

  SUNDAY, AUGUST 23. From the corner of the abandoned stone hut, they watched the boy heading in their direction, toward the pigpens. Low clouds spilled off the moors to the north, cloaking the farmhouse and outbuildings with a mossy-green fog.

  A harsh whisper. “Is this the one?”

  “Ja,” Dries hissed.

  A pail in each hand, the boy plodded his way from the farmhouse, hidden around the curve of the wooded path. The pigsty, out of sight from the main buildings, was a perfect setting, giving them the privacy for a bit of mayhem. It had taken several days for Dries to find the right spot, the right young person. Then, a phone call to the baron assigning the meeting place on a road outside of Stourbridge. All that was left was to apply the scalpel.

  “He’s big,” Coslett whispered.