Ash (14 page)

‘Does she realize she’ll be here for a very long time, possibly years?’

‘Her parents were supposed to explain everything to her, but I don’t think she understands what
internment
means, or why she and her brother Peter had to be separated in the first place. She attempted suicide twice in the absence of her twin – fake attempts to get her own way to be with him, I believe – which certainly worked. I don’t think her parents were too reluctant to allow it, despite the cost, and as far as Petra knows, Comraich is the Scottish equivalent of the Priory in London, only far more expensive and with a better class of addict.’

‘And I suppose, as usual, you question the legality of all this?’ It could have been a sneer, or it might have been said mockingly. Delphine was never quite sure with Rachael.

‘It
is
a form of imprisonment.’

Delphine turned away from the senior nurse’s censorious expression and went back to the bureau, as if the notes there really required further attention.

‘You need to grow up, Delphine,’ came Rachael’s sharp rebuke. Then her voice softened as she followed the psychologist over to the bureau. She gently touched Delphine’s upper arm. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said, ‘but I did miss you. I thought at least we might lunch together today.’

Delphine shrugged off the offending hand and her own voice was brittle. ‘I was only away for a week. For God’s sake, we’re not a couple.’

‘We could have been. We could st—’

‘No, Rachael. Not in the way you mean. To put it bluntly, I’m not that way inclined.’

‘You were once.’

‘Yes,
once
. When I was grief-stricken over my father’s death. I just needed comfort. I had no one . . . no one to turn to.’

‘It was sexual. You know it.’

Delphine angrily thumped the heel of her hand on the bureau’s top. ‘No! It wasn’t!’

‘I finger-fucked you, here, in this room. And you didn’t object then. Did you?’

For a moment, Delphine was shocked by the nurse’s crudity about what had taken place between them.

Rachael’s face was flushed red as she moved even closer to Delphine again. Her voice was full of sly insinuation when she said, ‘And let’s not forget,
you
came to me later that night, and we made love, properly this time, in my bed!’

The room suddenly brightened as the sun made a late appearance, finally breaking through the overcast sky, gloomy clouds beginning to fracture and move on. But even so, the lightening of the day could do little to lift Delphine’s mood.

‘Yes,’ she responded to Rachael’s jibe, ‘but only because I was afraid to be alone that night. You know I needed comforting.’

‘Huh! Of course you were upset – you only learned of your father’s death that morning. But listen to me, Delphine, you were passionate, wild even, and you soon lost any inhibitions. I showed you how beautiful and intense physical love could be between two women, and you were eager to learn. There was not one thing you resisted or were reluctant to try. Oh, you were close to hysteria, I grant you that, but that night with me you showed your true nature, the side of you that you’d repressed for such a long time.’

‘It was an aberration! I don’t regret it and I thought it would help at the time. I was hurting so much that I needed to reach out for help from someone –
anyone
! – and you were there.’

Delphine’s eyes sparkled with tears that, as yet, were unshed.

She went on, ‘Rachael, why can’t you accept it was for one night only, when I was at my weakest, and so very lonely? For the first time in my life I was truly on my own.’ The first tear trickled down the light tan of her cheek. Delphine straightened, tried to get a grip on herself. ‘It – it wasn’t the beginning of an affair for us. There
is
no us! Surely you must understand I’m not interested in you that way. Surely you’ve noticed I’ve avoided being alone with you ever since.’

‘Or kept your distance from me because you were in denial.’ Krantz’s voice was cold.

Delphine was becoming angry, despite the tears that now streaked her cheeks. ‘I felt ashamed of what happened that night, that’s why I’ve kept my distance. It’s been difficult because of working together, but you must have realized the same thing would never happen again.’

‘You could have talked to me. I could have helped you recognize your self-abnegation.’

Delphine’s words were sharp, as if there were no reasoning with Rachael, and that she, herself, had to be uncompromising. ‘Whatever you say, especially about that first – and
last –
night together, it doesn’t make me a lesbian. It’s
not
for me.’

Rachael was growing angry. ‘You can’t just dismiss—’

‘I
can
dismiss it,’ Delphine cut in brusquely. ‘I
am
dismissing it. I still regard you as a friend and colleague, someone I can talk to about our work, but nothing more than that.’ For a moment she regretted hurting the nurse who had been so kind to her in the past, and she lowered her voice. ‘I still want you as a friend, Rachael,’ she insisted.

It was a mistake, for Rachael closed the short gap between them and took Delphine back into her arms. When the smaller woman didn’t resist, Rachael squeezed her tightly and kissed her hard on the lips.

Delphine broke away, furious now, no longer defensive. ‘I told you, it can’t be like that ever again.’

‘You don’t mean it. You just let me kiss you.’

‘No, you forced it. Please leave, Rachael. Let’s both just get on with our lives with no complications and no false expectations.’ She looked up into the other woman’s eyes, hoping the hardness of her own stare would help enforce the message. ‘Rachael, I don’t want you.’ The words were measured, deliberately controlled, and she didn’t let her gaze drop away.

The senior nurse remained silent, although Delphine could sense the turmoil, the resentment, and, finally, the disappointment reeling through Rachael’s emotions.

Too many moments went by before Rachael, instead of sinking into herself as Delphine imagined she might, suddenly squared her broad shoulders and glacial hatred replaced the hope and confusion in her expression.

She turned and walked to the door, opened it, and took one last look at the psychologist. ‘This is a bad place to be without friends, Delphine,’ she murmured quietly, and that steady quietness of voice made her words sound all the more chilling. ‘More goes on here at Comraich than you realize. And one of these days – possibly not before too long – you may find yourself in need of a good friend. I’m not sure I’ll be there for you any more.’

With that, the senior nurse left the room, closing the door almost silently behind her.

Delphine shivered. As a psychologist, she would rather Rachael had slammed it shut.

The quaint little heather-thatched cottage was not quite hidden in the deeper woods of Comraich, but it was purposely hard to find. Its lime-washed walls and wallhead chimney were in need of some repair, but generally the small house was in good shape. A dormer window overlooked the flower-bordered path that led up to the stable-style front door.

The cottage had been tenanted by generations of chief groundsmen, custodians who saw to it that all was well in the woodlands, lake and glen on the grand estate belonging to the
caisteal
now known as Comraich.

But for the past thirty-odd years, a different kind of professional had occupied the place. Cedric Twigg was no groundsman or park warden, even though he loved to be in his rural retreat where he found quiet solace (apart from the twittering of birds or the rustle of leaves as an animal or two foraged in the undergrowth), and genuine tranquillity. For this was the strange dichotomy of Twigg’s character: he loved nature and the animals that dwelt in his own little woodland kingdom, yet he despised people and their pathetic and selfish ways.

He’d debriefed earlier that day and Haelstrom appeared satisfied with his work. On returning to the cottage, Twigg had first dismantled the phoney umbrella, removing the now empty compressed-gas cylinder, then the injector tip that had contained the ricin poison, putting the separate parts into a wooden box which he’d hidden under the cottage’s loft insulation. After that he’d changed his clothes, shedding the rumpled grey suit, the white shirt and dull tie, the shabby raincoat – all city camouflage – and donned his gardening gear: loose brown cords, wellington boots and a green collarless granddad shirt, sleeves rolled up to the elbows. Tending his garden was a comforting release from the pressures of his true occupation. Even though his missions were infrequent, each one necessitated days, weeks, sometimes
months
of planning, travelling and waiting before the final execution. Assassination was a highly skilled, highly paid profession that required steady nerves and patience. And, of course, a complete lack of compassion for the target.

Now, pulling off the thick gardening gloves that protected his dainty but surprisingly strong hands, he stood on the stone doorstep of the cottage and surveyed his tiny plot with some satisfaction. The mist that had earlier seeped through the trees to curl around the clearing hadn’t been heavy enough to hinder his labours in the garden. At present it was slowly dispersing, as if the journey from the sea had finally sapped its force.

So far that morning he’d replaced the fading summer bedding with winter pansies and wallflowers, cleared the fallen leaves that had accumulated in his absence, cut down flower stems, pulled weeds, then put all the detritus into two large black plastic bags for burning later. He planned to spend the rest of the day picking off any rose leaves disfigured by black spot, checking tree ties before the autumn gales arrived and planting the new shrubs he had brought back with him. There was plenty more to do before the autumn’s chill set in, but it could wait till after he’d eaten his lunch: cheese sandwich and tomato soup.

Twigg always regretted the time spent away from his countryside idyll these days, shadowing the mark through city and urban streets, noting their habits, their routines, their schedules, and time-keeping. It had become a bore over the years, and even the kill was losing its pleasure – the moment of dispatch less thrilling, the adrenaline rush not as keen, the flatness afterwards lasting longer and longer. And on top of that, he had an idiot trainee deputy to contend with. Eddy Nelson, his so-called ‘apprentice’, was a quick learner and had plenty of muscle (although that wasn’t always necessary for the job), but he was thick, stupid, brainless – too brainless, in fact, to realize how brainless he was. Oh, he had the attitude, the physical quickness and the stamina all right, but he also had an alarming propensity to fuck things up every so often.

The death of Dr David Kelly was a case in point.

In 2003, the reputable weapons scientist and microbiologist had let slip to a journalist that Tony Blair’s government had exaggerated, perhaps even lied about, Iraq’s capability to attack Britain with weapons of mass destruction that could be activated within forty-five minutes.

On the day that Dr Kelly ‘committed suicide’, Twigg was out of the country on another and entirely different mission, so was unable to carry out the assignment himself. Catastrophically, the Inner Court gave Nelson the job instead.

Knowing that the scientist took regular afternoon strolls to the woods on Harrowdown Hill, near his Oxfordshire home, Nelson had hidden himself among the trees and waited for the mark to come to him. All he had to do was rush up behind the man and snap his neck in one swift but deadly movement. It was an efficient technique favoured by many in the same trade as Twigg and Nelson, but it required force and skill.

As a freakish if inexplicable accident, with no clear evidence of foul play, it would have been swept under the carpet and forgotten in a few months, but Nelson, instead of leaving the body where it lay, had decided to be smart and make the death look like suicide.

Foolishly, stupidly, the apprentice assassin had found a small garden knife in the scientist’s own coat pocket and used it to slash the still-warm corpse’s left wrist. Then –
then
– he’d discovered a packet of co-proxamol tablets in another pocket and had attempted to force them down the dead man’s throat.

Finally, Nelson had, for some peculiar reason of his own, dragged the body to a nearby tree and left it there, half-slumped against the trunk.

Suddenly, the sun brightened the landscape, though it was unable to lift Twigg’s mood, for the trembling in his hands had begun again. He dropped the garden gloves on the doorstep and retreated into his sanctum, closing both halves of the door behind him. The legs of the chair screeched against the tiled floor of the tiny cottage’s kitchen-cum-sitting room as he pulled it out from the old wooden table (so small was the cottage, sitting room, kitchen and scullery were all one).

He sat and laid his hands on the tabletop, palms downwards as if, with enough pressure on the hard surface, the trembling would stop. It was a forlorn hope though: his hands had a will of their own. The doctor he’d consulted had explained to him that the debility would only grow worse over the coming months and that there was little he could do to slow the disease’s progress. Naturally, he would refer Twigg to a specialist, but the prognosis was bleak, the outcome inevitable. Well, Twigg had asked for a frank assessment and that was precisely what he’d got.

Sunlight ventured into the gloom, dust mites carousing in its shafts.

Realizing his head was bowed as if already in obeisance to his illness, Twigg straightened and stifled a groan of despair.

His days as an executioner would soon be over – of that there was no doubt. But he’d planned his own unforgettable swansong.

And now, despite the telltale tremors that would soon be noticed by others, he managed a quiet, bitter smile. What he had in mind would shock the world.

Ash sat as if transfixed, mesmerized by the strangely apocalyptic vision before him.

Because of the heavy mist that swept in from the sea, the lower walls of Comraich Castle were invisible, making the building appear rootless, as if its great darkened bulk floated in the air, unattached, like some mythical citadel that defied both natural physics and human logic. Dread seeped through him like cold black oil.