Denied to all but Ghosts (46 page)

During the course of the previous few weeks,
Beckett had heard Flash Seminary frequently mentioned, but as he
drove through the iron gates, he had no idea of what to expect. The
overcast sky and the scudding clouds did little to enhance the
appearance of the great house and he was not heartened by what he
saw. He could not have described the architectural style of Gothic
Revival to anyone, but he thought the house was typical of what he
believed the firm would admire. Why not just put up a sign saying
‘welcome to the house of horrors’.

Their journey through the secluded pinewood
plantation up to the house was uninterrupted, embellishing his
preconceived sense of doom. Beckett parked the car on the forecourt
outside the main entrance and killed the engine. The silence,
broken only by the ever-present mocking carrion added to the
terrible foreboding.

Beckett instinctively reached over and
clutched Emily’s hand. Now he eagerly embraced her beseeching gaze,
as they looked deep into each other’s eyes, neither of them wishing
to make the first move.

The driver’s side door suddenly swung open
and a startled Thomas Beckett lurched back into his seat.

“Hello, Thomas. Good afternoon, Dr Spelman.
Good of you to join us.” Emily and Beckett glanced to their right,
greeted by the grinning face of Marchel Cavendish; his head was
twisted to the right, so making his scar the most prominent feature
of his lean face.

Emily offered Beckett's hand two tense
squeezes before releasing it; she unclipped her seat belt and
precisely placed her heeled shoes onto the gravel and raised
herself elegantly from the car. Cavendish approvingly watched Emily
swish her hair several times before she exaggeratedly smoothed it
into place with her hands.

“Good to see you, Thomas,” said a still
smiling Cavendish enthusiastically as he held out his hand for
Beckett to accept. A grim-faced Thomas Beckett unusually accepted
Cavendish’s hand, shuffled threateningly forwards and whispered
into Cavendish’s left ear.

“If you harm a hair on her head I’ll fuckin’
kill you.”

Beckett did not wait to hear or observe
Cavendish’s reaction. Instead, he walked angrily around the front
of the car towards Emily, thus he would perhaps have been as
astounded and perplexed as Emily was to observe Cavendish’s hardly
subtle wink aimed directly at her.

“Leave your bags in the car, I’ll take care
of them, Kate will show you to your rooms,” suggested
Cavendish.

Beckett slowly led the way, clutching Emily’s
hand, towards the house entrance. He was greeted effusively by the
immaculately dressed Kate Watercombe who suddenly emerged from the
cloister.

“Welcome to Flash, Mr Beckett. It’s so good
to finally meet you, we’ve been hearing so much about you! And Dr
Spelman, it is a pleasure to meet you, I’m sure a historian of your
standing will find your stay at Flash fascinating and fulfilling.
Come, let me show you inside.”

Kate took Beckett’s arm and led him into the
cloister as Cavendish advanced to stand imposingly at Emily’s right
shoulder.

“Shall we?” he suggested as he extended his
right arm towards the open door.

Beckett was swiftly through the cloister and
into the grand hallway. Meanwhile, Cavendish guided the compliant
Emily through the doorway on the left into the library.

“Hey, where is Emily,” Beckett shouted, “What
the fuck have you done with her!” He shoved Kate fiercely to one
side and headed for the door through which he assumed Cavendish had
led Emily.

Beckett was suddenly aware of a pair of
strong arms encircling his chest and felt his feet lifted off the
ground. He recognised but could not place the scent of a familiar
aftershave.

“Get the fuck off me!” cried Beckett in
desperation as he struggled against the bear hug, flaying his feet,
attempting to unbalance his assailant.

“Calm down, Tom. It’s Josh, just calm the
fuck down!” Beckett recognised the voice but did not curtail his
resistance. “Blanch, for Christ sake, grab his legs, he’s kicking
the shit out of my shins!” begged Houghton.

Blanch Nichols made a timely appearance.
Dashing in from the drawing room, she restrained Beckett’s legs
with surprising ease.

“It’s okay, Tom; Marchel is only going to
have a word with her,” advised Houghton in his most pacifying tone
and was perplexed when Beckett struggled even harder to break
free.

“Good to see you again, Dr Spelman, please
take a seat,” offered a convivial Cavendish.

Emily said nothing as she lowered herself
into the armchair by the fireplace; she ran her hands along her
thighs to straighten the tight skirt and hid the tremor in her
hands by tightly clenching the armrests. She listened with alarm to
the shouts and protestations emanating from the mouth of Beckett
out in the hallway until the commotion slowly subsided as he was
presumably led away. Cavendish sat in the opposite chair, staring
at the library door as he too waited for calm to be restored to the
seminary.

“Don’t worry about Thomas, he’ll be fine. You
are looking very lovely today, may I say,” smiled Cavendish. A
chill seeped insidiously down Emily’s spine.

“Wish I could say the same,” Emily replied
defiantly, proud of her bold response.

Cavendish wore the light blue jacket that he
had worn on the evening of their meal in Bristol. His arms were
crossed, his head tilted to the right, as he stared enquiringly at
Emily. He appreciated the effort she had made for their reunion and
felt a pang of jealousy as he considered what the late Paul
Slingsby had enjoyed.

His notebook remained unopened on the arm of
the chair. Emily held his gaze for what seemed an inestimable age
with no exchange of words, only the mournful ticking of the
grandfather clock marked the passage of an eternity.

“Where is my sword, Emily?” asked Cavendish
piercingly, the abruptness of the delivery unsettling her.

“I don’t know,” her voice did not convey the
intended self-assurance.

“Who took my sword, Emily?” continued the
inquisitor forcefully, his pale blue eyes slowly closed as he
waited for her reply.

“I guess it was the American, Brad.” Emily’s
delivery was whispered inviting Cavendish to lean forward to
discern her reply.

"Blanch tells me you remember nothing of what
Brad said to you," stated Cavendish.

"No, all I remember was the gun. It was the
first time I've ever seen one for real."

“Did Brad kill your lover?” The question was
intentionally confrontational.

“He wasn’t my lover, and yes, I suppose he
must have done.” Her reply was instant, emphasising the denial.

“Suppose?”

“There wasn’t anyone else there.”

“Are you sure about that, Dr Spelman?” She
bit her bottom lip in consternation as she confronted the events
she had so consciously blanked from her waking memory.

“No, I guess I don’t know that for a fact,”
she admitted.

“So who asked you to steal my sword?”

“No one, it was our idea, Paul and I.”

“So who approached who, did you approach
him?”

“No, he approached me.”

“So how did he come to know about my
sword?”

“He must have discovered its existence during
his researches, or...”

“Or?” he encouraged.

“Or someone informed him.”

“Did you ever hear Slingsby make reference
to, or speak to anyone else?”

“No,” replied Emily diffidently.

Cavendish smiled, unfolded his arms and
placed his right hand on his notebook. “Fine, I thank you for your
help, Dr Spelman. If you think of anything else in the next day or
so you’ll be sure to let me know wont you?”

“Is that it?” Emily looked confused. She
remembered Cavendish’s wink back at the car.

“Is that what?” asked Cavendish innocently.
Emily again chewed her bottom lip and said nothing; Cavendish
picked up his notebook and stood up.

“What about Brad?” asked Emily as she watched
Cavendish walk smartly to the gothic framed window at the end of
the library.

“Oh, we’ll find him,” answered Cavendish idly
as he stood with his back to her looking out onto the gravelled
forecourt where Beckett had parked the Focus.

“And the sword?” she enquired.

“In the words of Thomas Beckett, I refer to
our Thomas, not the venerable horsehair shirt wearing saintly
tosser, ‘I don’t give a shit about the sword’. I suppose Thomas
told you the sword is a fake, grant you a very good fake.”

“Yes,” she said meekly.

“And don’t you despise him for that?” he
asked provocatively.

“No,” she found her voice unintentionally
rising in pitch.

“The odd thing is he patently does not hate
you, I can’t understand why. He’s like that, very forgiving, even
after you tried to kill him.” Emily glared fiercely at Cavendish’s
back.

“I never tried to kill him, you bastard!” she
barked defiantly.

“No, I don’t believe you did. And I suspect
that it was only Slingsby’s intervention that fateful night that
convinced you to go through with the doping.”

“You mean you saw what happened?” Emily was
thunderstruck.

“Yes, I can only assume he had something very
potent to use against you." Cavendish placed his hand inside his
jacket pocket and reverentially turned to face Emily. In the palm
of his hand lay a small digital voice recorder.

“Josh made a search of Slingsby’s artefacts
which they found in the basement in Wells. They found a memory
card. Would you like to hear it?”

Cavendish switched on the device and the
library was filled with Emily’s animated voice. He switched the
device to fast forward as he spoke.

“Rather dull, listening to you berate your
peers...” He pressed the play button and the airwaves were resonant
with Emily’s enthusiastic groans and shrieks of libidinous ecstasy,
insistent that someone administered to her needs more
energetically. “Much more stimulating on the laptop...” Cavendish
smirked meaningfully. “I wonder if I should let Thomas watch
it.”

Emily leapt from her armchair.

“Stop it! Please, stop it!” she pleaded.
Cavendish smile evaporated the instant he stopped the playback.
Emily glared savagely at him.

“Here,” he declared dismissively, “I have no
need for it.”

He carelessly tossed the machine across the
room towards Emily. She was taken unawares by his throw and failed
to make the catch, the device falling noiselessly upon the thickly
carpeted floor in front of her. With trembling hands, she bent down
and snatched the player from the floor.

“You bastard!” whispered Emily as she retook
her seat.

“So you have said before, you’ve been mixing
with Mr Beckett too much and have picked up some wayward
words.”

Emily bit her bottom lip, her heart was
pounding against her ribs and she could feel her temples throbbing
with every heart beat.

“So are you prosecuting me for theft?” she
asked dejectedly. She felt tired and suddenly the whole charade
seemed futile and pointless.

“No.” Cavendish sounded as unemotional as
ever.

“And for what I did to Tom?”

“Oh, I think you have done a splendid job on
Thomas. Do you know he threatened to kill me if I hurt you? Well
done.”

“I’m very fond of him,” she felt reluctant in
Cavendish’s presence to be any more demonstrative.

“Even though he knew the sword was a fake?
Like the way you were ‘very fond’ of the late Mr Slingsby?”

“You bastard,” uttered Emily again but with
less venom.

“I’ve been called worse, but I appreciate
your consistency. I assume Thomas told you who I actually am and
the organisation I represent.”

“He called you an inquisitor and mentioned
some crazy organisation he called the firm. Blanch filled in some
gaps.”

“Blanch told you,” said Cavendish half as a
question, half as a statement, “I must say I didn’t see that as a
possibility. You have risen even higher in my estimation. Tell me,
what was your paternal Grandfather’s name?” Emily was thrown by the
question and frowned at the Untersucher. “Your Grandfather, what
was his real name?” repeated Cavendish.

Emily suddenly realised the implication of
the question. She shrugged before answering as if to indicate her
ambivalence to his question.

“Grünwald, he changed it when he brought his
family to England from Germany.” The ‘Greenwood’-images of the
designs that had intrigued him in Bath and the carved wooden
embellishments in the grand hall at the seminary flashed before his
mind’s eye. His surreptitious smile puzzled Emily.

“Excellent! Now I suggest you find Mr Beckett
before he does any harm to me or anyone else,” announced Cavendish,
pointing towards the door.

In a haze of confusion, Emily walked to the
exit.

“Emily,” said Cavendish as she reached the
door. She paused and looked at him blankly. “I know I’m a bastard,
but I do my job as well and as efficiently as I can. You may have
guessed that I don’t have many friends. I hope Thomas is still my
friend after this. Please don’t hurt him, he is not like us.”

Emily’s blood boiled with the tension of the
past few weeks and shouted her reply to the Untersucher.

“Who the hell are you to judge me? What about
Tom, he’s a big boy, I’m sure he knows what he’s doing.”

“Do you really think so, Emily? I don’t think
Thomas is that far sighted, do you?” Cavendish could not prevent
himself from smiling.

“I am actually sorry for what you have been
through,” continued Cavendish. “I am Marchel Luc Cavendish,
appointed Untersucher medius by the power of the Holy Roman Empire.
I have the prerogative of life and death as ordained by God, or so
I was initiated,” he scoffed at his own bombast. “You have been a
victim in this story, as I suspect you have been for much of your
life. I would like to change that.”