Kissing Toads (46 page)

‘He had a good lawyer,' Harry said. ‘Expensive. A lot of important people support these groups on the quiet.'

‘And then?' Roo prompted.

‘He said they'd get me. The police offered me some sort of witness protection scheme, but I didn't fancy it. I preferred to look out for myself. This –' he glanced round, shrugged – ‘seemed like a good idea at the time.'

‘Were you planning to do an undercover exposé on me?' HG was standing in the hall doorway. He must have been there a little while, but we hadn't noticed.

‘Probably,' Harry said bluntly. ‘It's not really my thing, but at least it meant I was still doing my job.'

‘I read your piece in the
Indy
,' Ash said. ‘They ran it over three or four days, didn't they? It was very good.'

‘Peak of my career,' said Harry. ‘Unfortunately, it nearly finished me too. In more ways than one.'

‘That isn't my problem,' HG said. ‘You can leave now. Give me a forwarding address and I'll see to it you get your final pay cheque. I guess you've earned it.'

‘Okay.'

‘Before you write your story, I should warn you I'll be consulting my lawyers. Journalist or not, when you came to work for me you signed a confidentiality agreement that guaranteed your loyalty and discretion—'

‘Oh, shut up,' I said. Suddenly, HG didn't look like an icon any more, just an ordinary small-minded egoist who thought the world revolved around him. ‘This isn't about you. I may be only a B-list celeb, but I'm the one who spent last night and . . . and part of this afternoon shagging him, and that's a much better story than anything he's got on you, so I'm first in the queue for injunctions and so on. If I'm not mad, why should you be?'

‘You were the only one who suspected me,' Harry said. His face had lightened at my outburst. ‘I took the piss, but you gave me a few bad moments.'

‘I searched your room,' I said. ‘I
knew
it was fishy there was no personal stuff – no family photos or anything – and your laptop was locked away. Nobody locks up their laptop unless they've got something to hide. I even had someone check out your London address.'

‘Bloody hell,' Harry said appreciatively. ‘You're in the wrong job. Have mine.'

I caught a glimpse of HG's face, which wore an expression that combined anger, intrigue and reluctant amusement. When you've got that many lines, you can do several expressions at once. But I wasn't worrying about him just then.

‘These people,' I said, ‘are they . . . would they try to
kill
you?'

‘Possibly. Attila dropped a hint to that effect when he left court.'

I stared at him. TV is a cut-throat business, but people don't actually kill each other, though they've been known to tear up contracts, sue, throw the occasional punch, and even bite colleagues in the jugular. But a world where people threatened to kill you, and meant it, was outside my experience.

Until now.

‘We'll call the police,' I said.

‘You'll have a long wait,' said HG. ‘They took at least an hour after we reported finding the skeleton.'

‘I'll have to get out,' Harry said. ‘It means driving through the village, but with luck they'll miss me.'

‘Was that in one of my cars?' HG drawled.

At that point, I lost my temper completely. ‘You selfish bastard! You want to talk about loyalty: where's yours? Harry hasn't just been your butler, he's been your
friend
. He's worked for you and put up with you and . . . and stood by you, and now his
life
is in danger, and all you can think about is whether he might just write a few words about you in one of the papers! You've had thousands – probably millions – of words written about you in the last four decades: what difference would a few more make? Anyway, you won't have to lend him one of your
fleet
of cars because we're going to call the police and he's going to stay here till they come. It's much too risky for him to leave – that's what this Attila lot will be expecting. If the paparazzi can't get past Jules and Sandy, then I'm sure those neo-Nazi thugs won't manage it. And,' I added, as HG opened his mouth to speak, ‘you can cancel the series or demand that I'm fired or whatever – I
don't care
! Do your worst! I'm standing by Harry, and so's Roo, and Ash, and—'

‘Calm down,' HG said. ‘Stop turning me into the villain of the piece. I just don't like my help being taken for granted. Of course Harry must stay until the police come. Has anyone called them?'

‘I'm on it,' Roo said, telephone in hand.

There followed a confused half-hour while Roo tried to convey to the Law the urgency of the situation, Harry went to his room to pack, HG took over on the blower to get past reception and make high-handed demands to speak to superior officers, and beyond the windows the summer sun drew the moisture out of the ground, congealing it into a thick white mist which turned the world to a blank and hid even the loch from view.

Harry had just returned when there was a disturbance in the entrance hall – a door slamming, hasty footsteps – and Sandy walked in. In his arms was the limp bulk of one of the dogs, its cream-coloured fur damp from the mist, its head resting in the hollow of his shoulder. There was blood on Sandy's chest, more blood on the dog. Lots of blood.

‘Boss,' he said, ‘they got him. They got Elton. I didn't think no journo would do that. They came over the wall – three of 'em. I saw one bloke raise his arm . . . He must've had a cosh or something. He's dead, boss. Elton's dead.' His voice was hoarse and I could have sworn there were tears on his cheek.

For a minute, no one said anything. This brought the violence home to us – all the way home. And Elton had been so beautiful, so gallant and brave . . .

‘It wasn't a journalist,' Ash said.

HG was bent over the dog, stroking its fur. ‘This them?' he asked Harry.

‘Sounds like it,' Harry said. ‘Look, I'd better go. I'm just bringing trouble on everyone else.'

‘No way.' I said it first, but the others followed suit. Even HG. ‘This is a castle. You –' I turned to the boss – ‘you said it yourself. We can withstand a siege. We've got more weapons than paint guns. There are shotguns in the gun room, and the claymore in the old hall, and some pikes, and Cedric has a couple of old-fashioned spits in the kitchen. We'll fight. There are only three of them. They won't get past us.'

Everyone was staring at me in a mixture of astonishment and horror – everyone except Harry. He had a look on his face that was both rueful and surprised, with a trace of something else I couldn't describe.

‘You know, Dacres,' he said, ‘you may only be a C-list celeb, but you're an A-list human being.'

‘I'm a
B-list
celeb!' I retorted on a reflex.

‘I think . . . no shotguns,' HG said. ‘I don't really want to cap my career by being sent to prison for murder. However . . .'

Sandy put the body of the dog carefully on the floor. ‘Who are these blokes,' he demanded, ‘if they're not journos?'

‘Attila 33,' said Roo. ‘Neo-Nasties. It's a long story, but they're after Harry.'

‘We'll get them,' Sandy said grimly. ‘Jules and Sting are still searching the grounds. I better warn him.' He strode back through the entrance hall and out into the fog.

‘Could they just walk in here?' I wanted to know. Harry nodded. ‘How many entrances does this place have?'

‘Too many,' Harry said. ‘The front door, the door from the kitchen – the garden door from HG's private sitting room, the cellar door. Not to mention the lower windows.'

‘We need to make a stand somewhere,' I declared. ‘The old hall. That's where the weapons are.'

HG said, ‘I'm not happy with the idea of weapons—'

‘You didn't see these guys,' said Roo. ‘They aren't going to be stopped because you're a big star and the police are on the way, believe me.'

Fenny had come in and was sniffing at Elton's body, making bewildered whimpering noises.

‘Better get him out of here,' Harry said, distracted. ‘He may be a Rottweiler at heart, but he doesn't have the physique to go with it.'

I swept him up in my arms, trying not to look at poor Elton. ‘I'll shut him up in one of the bedrooms. Back in a sec.'

I went out, then halted at the foot of the stairs. It would take several minutes to get to the nearest bedroom, and I didn't want to be gone that long. Anything could happen. Besides, I
really
needed a weapon. I could just see myself as a modern-day Amazon, defying the forces of violence and thuggery. Of course, the danger of seeing yourself in a particular role is that it might inspire you to actually go for it . . . I made my way to the old hall, still clutching Fenny. There was a sort of study beyond it which had been used as a dressing room during the re-enactment scenes; I could shut the puppy in there. In passing, I grabbed a leftover bottle of stage blood. It suggested something to me – not a plan, more a scenario. When I shut the door, Fenny barked and scratched on it, but that couldn't be helped. ‘Quiet!' I ordered, dragging a chair on to the vast hearth. Fenny paid no attention to me, still barking furiously, and I did my best to pay no attention to him. I climbed up on the chair and lifted the claymore down from the chimney-piece.

  

I'm not quite a stranger to violence, but that doesn't make it any easier. Once, in Bucharest, Kyle had been interviewing a kidnap-victim-turned-prostitute when some heavies showed up and we'd had to get out fast, for her sake. Another time, investigating corruption in famine relief in Africa, someone had pointed a gun at us: I still remember very clearly how it felt, staring into that little black hole, knowing that at a touch – just a
touch
– death would come out of it. But I'd never met anyone who frightened me quite as much as Attila the Suit, with his civilised clothes and his civilised smile and the visible brutality just under the skin.

And there was Elton on the floor with his head beaten in. Whoever had hit him hadn't just done it once to knock him out – they'd gone on hitting him, and hitting him, enjoying it, enjoying the violence and the blood and the act of killing . . . And now they were out there, prowling through the fog, seeking a way into the castle (there were dozens), coming for Harry, ready to crush anyone who got in their way. Delphi was brave, but she didn't understand. She thought her superstar temper – the terror of directors and researchers alike – would have an effect on people to whom all her second-rank fame meant less than nothing. HG was older but hardly wiser; he'd spent his whole life in splendid isolation. And Ash, though accustomed to the dark side of human nature, generally encountered it in the form of the supernatural, which doesn't usually come armed with a club.

But Harry knew. He was pale and tense and resolutely practical. ‘I think you should all go upstairs,' he said. ‘Ruth, go after Delphi – keep her out of here. This is my problem; I'll deal with it.'

‘How?' Ash asked bluntly.

And from HG: ‘This is my home – my castle. I'm not running away from anyone.'

‘Sir—' Morag spoke, from the door through to the back. ‘Have ye got a minute, sir?'

We knew instantly something was wrong. Her voice was pitched a little too high, and none of the staff
ever
called HG ‘sir'.

Besides, it was much too normal a request for Morag, containing as it did no references to God or the devil.

HG said: ‘Yes?'

She came in, slowly. ‘These men, sir . . . They want tae see Harry.'

They were behind her. The fat skinhead had the cosh; he was slapping it on his palm like a tough guy in a film, which was such a cliché it should been funny, but nobody laughed. Then there was greaseball: he seemed to be literally trembling with anticipation, or the effort of holding his natural urges in check. And lastly Attila. Attila the Suit. When he saw Harry his smooth veneer seemed to slip sideways, so you saw something else peering out – something ancient and savage. He smiled his alligator smile, full of gleamy teeth.

There was a sharp intake of breath close by, but I didn't know if it was Harry, or Ash, or possibly me.

‘Well, well,' Attila said. ‘Harry – my old mate. Where
have
you been hiding yourself? Me and the boys, we've been looking for you everywhere.'

Thump . . . thump . . . went the cosh in Skinhead's fat palm.

HG said with commendable calm: ‘Get out of my house.'

Attila glanced at him as if he were a child or a pet, someone powerless and insignificant.

‘This the big star? Not that big really, is he? D'you know, I could break him with one hand? I could snap his neck like a chicken. Maybe I should do that. Way past his best, isn't he? Maybe it would be a kindness. Anyway, I've never killed a star.'

‘If you touch me,' HG said, ‘you'll go down for a
very
long time.'

Attila laughed. ‘
Talks
big, don't he? He don't know about me and the courts. Pals with all the judges, I am. Got my own little witness protection scheme.'

(Thump . . . thump . . .)

‘Let them go.' Harry spoke with evident difficulty. ‘You've got no quarrel with any of them.'

The rest of us just stood there. Frozen.

I was thinking: they'll have knives somewhere. Maybe a gun. (Please God, not a gun.) I looked for a bulge under the suit, but Attila seemed to be all bulges, as if the muscles were bursting out of his body, straining at his clothes. Or possibly the suit just didn't fit.