A helicopter sounded somewhere in the distance as Heck unfolded the fire-damaged map on the bonnet of his Volkswagen. He glanced up and around, but saw no sign of it yet. West Mercia had agreed to assist in any way they could, but they’d been caught unawares by his request, and though they’d put all officers on duty on ‘Operation Response’, it would clearly take some time to mobilise, especially as Heck hadn’t really been able to tell them where they needed to deploy.
He had stopped the car at the side of a rural lane. Below them ran a tributary of the River Severn. Far to the west, the last vestige of sunlight was winking out on the horizon, throwing purple-grey shadows across a quiltwork landscape of coppice and meadow. Even with the aid of his pen-light, it was increasingly difficult to make out details on the map. Arrows made in marker pen indicated various locations, none of which were specific to recognisable grid-references.
Visually, the battlefield hadn’t looked the way Heck had expected. There’d been plenty of signposts and route-markers, but the museum and visitor centre was apparently located in a place called ‘The Commandery’ in the middle of the town, several miles southeast of where they now stood, while the area of actual fighting wasn’t just an open plain; it had occurred on several different sides of the city at once, and covered a broad landscape of woods, streams, narrow lanes and humpback bridges.
‘Try to remember, Anthony,’ Heck said impatiently.
The schoolboy was still handcuffed to PC Mapling, but pored over the map, squinting. ‘I’m trying …’
‘What were you doing out here, Anthony?’ Mrs Clayley asked. She still spoke with a tone of disapproval, as if she was trying to understand a pupil who had bunked off school rather than a conspirator in a series of sadistic murders.
‘Things,’ he said, shrugging.
‘What things?’
‘I’m sure you don’t want to know, Mrs Clayley,’ Heck answered for him.
‘There,’ Worthington suddenly said, pointing out a single, unswerving line bisecting the upper right quadrant of the map. ‘That one, maybe.’
‘Any particular reason?’ Charlie Finnegan asked.
‘I remember we took the school minibus along this straight road with fields and hills on every side.’ Worthington ran a grubby, chewed fingernail along the line in question, even though there were no distinguishing features at any part of it.
Finnegan glanced at Heck. ‘This is bloody ridiculous. We need to wait for West Mercia.’
Heck folded the map. ‘If we wait any longer it’ll be pitch black out here … there aren’t even any streetlights.’
‘Heck, we’ve got two civvies with us.’
Heck paused, pondering this very real problem – but thoughts of Claire’s tear-streaked face overrode it. He shook his head. ‘They can stay in the car.’
‘At least wait for the chopper …’
‘I’m not waiting for anyone.’ Heck ushered them towards the Volkswagen’s doors. ‘We can give Air Operations the location while we’re en route. Come on, move it!’
Claire followed the track through the trees for about five hundred yards, before realising that it had never been intended for human passage. It crossed a small river by a stone bridge, and on the other side ended at a gate, beyond which lay a meadow filled with cattle.
She was already sick to her guts and faint from lack of food. But she knew that Arnie would not be far behind. She glanced over her shoulder. The track curved away into increasing dimness – and then something else caught her attention. A wooden stake had been hammered into the dirt on the verge. A sign fixed on top of it, painted in gold leaf, read:
The King’s Way
It pointed down a side-path, running along the top of the river’s embankment.
Was that the way they wanted her to go, she wondered … along the King’s Way? Well, she wouldn’t. She pivoted right. A mirror image of the path, minus the signpost, dwindled away through darkening thickets. She stumbled that way, constantly catching her outfit on thorns and other undergrowth. It had torn at some of its seams just because she’d been running in it. It was rubbish, little more than a carnival costume. She’d managed to pull out most of the nettles they’d stuffed it with, but her flesh underneath was raw, her puckered skin chafing every time it came in contact with the cheap, sweat-soaked material. The path veered away from the river, twisting and looping as the thickets turned to trees. This meant there was more space between them, less ground cover. She slowed down, struggling to get her breath – and in glancing left, spotted the dim shape of one of her captors watching from about a hundred yards away. She couldn’t tell which one of them it was – he (or she) was wearing a dark hoodie top.
Whoever it was, they made no effort to follow as Claire ran frantically on.
Ahead of her, the trees thinned and open, grassy ground rose upwards. She continued forward, but she was so tired that she only managed to ascend the slope at a sideways stumble. When she reached the ridge at the top, she found another of those makeshift signposts.
Here, gallant Sir Edward Massie was wounded
She tottered past it, now on flat but rugged pasture, covered with clumps of gorse. A figure emerged into view about thirty yards ahead, also with hood drawn up. Sobbing, she veered left, but the ground sloped downward again. She halted on the edge of it, sensing open space in front of her. A pale margin of dying light lay along what had to be the western horizon, but everything else between here and there was turning black.
She glanced back across the pasture. There was no one in view now, but night had fallen like a cloak; they could be creeping right up on her and she wouldn’t spot them.
Helpless, she lumbered down the slope, constantly stumbling in the damp, tussocky grass. Hot saliva seeped from her mouth; flaps of rubber slapped at the sides of her face. She descended onto flat ground, but again half-tripped, turning her ankle in the process. She yelped in agony.
A pillar of fire exploded upward maybe twenty yards in front.
Claire came to a staggering halt.
A huge pyramid of timber had simply exploded, gouts of flame roaring into the night, hot sparks cascading whichever way the wind blew them – as if petrol had perhaps been thrown upon it (which was almost certainly what had happened, she realised). Other, lesser bonfires erupted into life on various sides of her, throwing rippling orange light across the whole of the rugged meadow, revealing several other things at the same time: only twenty or so yards to her right, an ancient, rambling oak with a trunk as thick as three or four men and a colossal spread of branches; perhaps forty yards beyond that, more trees – a thick, dark belt – but in the middle of them a farm gate, and on the other side of that what looked like a road; a real road, made of tarmac. Claire’s heart leapt at the sight of this, and she stumbled forward, heart pounding, only to come to another tottering halt when she spied something to the right of the farm gate.
At first she’d taken it for a stand of foliage, but now she saw that it was a lorry parked under a green tarpaulin, with camouflage netting thrown over the top. Even as she stared at this, three figures in hunting garb filed out from behind it. They were Heather, Jasmine and Dr Enwright, the latter’s bespectacled eyes like two crimson blobs as they reflected the firelight.
‘No,’ Claire moaned, backing away, only for her boots to slide in the grass. ‘Nooo!’
When she tried to run the other way, more figures were coming down the slope towards her: the boy called Luke and a tall, robust, long-faced girl, who she hadn’t seen before. The driver, she realised. The one who’d driven the lorry here – to this fatal spot.
‘The traitor rejected the King’s Way,’ Dr Enwright announced. ‘Sure proof of guilt.’
Heather assisted the other two as they grabbed hold of Claire.
‘You bloody mindless idiots!’ she wept, but they ignored her, twisting her hands behind her back, lashing them together with ropes.
They frog-marched her around to the other side of the oak tree, where she saw several items so horrific that at first they didn’t fall into place: a noose fashioned from what looked like orange silk dangled from a lower bough; a three-legged stool stood directly beneath this; to one side, a trestle-table had been set out and was arrayed with glittering implements – knives, shears and cleavers, a heavy mallet and, more terrifying still, upright against the table, a five-foot length of serrated steel with grip-handles at either end: a two-man saw.
Before Claire could vent the horror she felt at this sight, there came a shout of ‘Dr Enwright!’, and another figure hurtled around the tree. It was Arnie, blowing hard.
‘What happened?’ Enwright asked. ‘She was expected fifteen minutes ago.’
Arnie scowled at Claire. ‘She got away from me.’
‘So it’s only good fortune that she’s here at all?’
‘He tried to rape me,’ Claire said. ‘He’s not interested in playing your stupid game.’
‘If that was true, I wouldn’t have come at all,’ Arnie retorted. He turned back to his mentor. ‘We’ve got a problem … a car’s pulled up in a lay-by a few hundred yards away. I just saw it as I was on my way down here.’
There was silence as the group absorbed this. Enwright didn’t look alarmed or frightened, as much as frustrated. ‘Which direction?’ he asked.
Arnie pointed.
Enwright snorted. ‘Most likely a courting couple.’
‘All the way out here?’ Arnie said.
‘It hardly matters. There’s dense woodland between here and there. They won’t see us.’
‘What if it’s the police?’
‘Use your loaf, Arnold. How could it be the police?’
‘What if one of the others talked?’
‘Impossible.’
‘Are you so sure?’ Claire blurted out. ‘These are children you’ve got doing your dirty work for you … you really trust them that much?’
Enwright smiled. ‘Heather … gag this traitorous bitch!’
Claire squealed and struggled as the Tomboy slapped a sticking plaster across her mouth, then wrapped a scarf over the top of it, pulling it tight. But as she did, a distant repetitive thudding now intruded on them. They glanced skyward.
‘Chopper!’ Arnie said, darting towards the farm gate. ‘Into the trees!’
‘Stay where you are!’ Enwright shouted, with such force that even Arnie came to a standstill. ‘You bloody little fools … have you learned nothing!’
‘You’re right, we are fools,’ the boy whined. ‘We’ve lit bloody great fires to lead them right to us.’
‘They’ll have heat-seeking cameras … they’ll find you anyway.’
‘Let’s just get away then!’
‘No! We haven’t come this far to run like rabbits.’ Enwright turned to the rest of the team. ‘We carry on as planned.’
Claire struggled again, but with her hands bound there was only so much she could do as her captors again descended on her, fastening a belt around her legs, buckling them together. Only Arnie played no part. He backed slowly away.
‘Dr Enwright … we haven’t got time for this! Look … I always said this plan was too ambitious … that we’d be lucky to get away afterwards!’
‘Get away?’ Enwright snorted. ‘Surely you’ve realised by now, Arnold? This was only ever a one-way deal.’
The signpost was knee-high, so Heck had to crouch to examine it with his pen-light.
Here fell William, 2nd Duke of Hamilton
He straightened up again, none the wiser. A few yards away, though almost invisible in the darkness, Charlie Finnegan was on the phone to the Comms suite at Castle Street Police Station. ‘Sorry sir, I can’t give you the proper coordinates. Well … we haven’t got a real map. Yeah, I can hear India 99. Haven’t seen him yet …’
Heck walked back across the meadow to the shallow ditch, and stepped over this into the lay-by where his Volkswagen was waiting. Worthington was still in the rear seat, handcuffed to PC Mapling.
‘You sure you parked here?’ Heck asked him, leaning in at the window.
Worthington shrugged. ‘We stopped in lots of different places, but I think this was one of them. We walked for miles, I know that. We were setting up signs and stuff. Not real ones, just pretend. Dr Enwright said they were stage dressing.’
Stage dressing, Heck thought sourly. It gave him no consolation to realise how close to the button he’d been in his very first assessment of these murders.
‘Worcester think they know roughly where we are,’ Finnegan said, also stepping over the ditch. ‘They’ve got support units out, and dogs. So we just sit tight. Soon as the chopper spots us, the world and his brother will be here.’
Heck felt exasperated but helpless; as far as he could tell, the sound of the helicopter’s rotor blades was diminishing. ‘Sounds like he’s going the wrong way.’
‘He’s circling. Apparently it’s part of the search system they use.’
‘So we’re officially lost. Bloody great!’
Claire didn’t have much strength left, but she fought with every inch of it as they carried her towards the makeshift gallows.
With hands and legs bound, all she could really do was squirm – but she managed to get free twice, dropping to the ground on each occasion. They yanked her back up with increasing anger and violence. Heather, Luke and Susan did most of the work, while Jasmine covered them with her firearm. Arnie still hung back, glancing nervously onto the meadows beyond the oak tree.
‘If you open your ears, Arnold,’ Enwright said, ‘you’ll note the helicopter has gone.’
‘We should go too … while we still can. They’ll be setting up roadblocks.’
‘What does that matter?’ Jasmine snapped at him. ‘Gareth took a fall covering our backs. Are we going to waste that sacrifice?’
Enwright smiled at Arnie through the firelight, his gloved fingers laced together. His expression was almost fond, but again the flames writhed brightly in the lenses of his glasses. ‘Even Jesus found a Doubting Thomas in his circle. But in the end that fearful saint came good. He died by lance at the hand of a godless potentate.’
‘We’re not saints,’ Arnie said, retreating. ‘And I’m not dying by anyone’s hand.’
At which point a vehicle rumbled past on the nearby road. Everyone stopped what they were doing as they spotted it through the trees, catching fleeting glimpses of white bodywork, a thick black grille over its windows, the word POLICE stencilled in black lettering. The vehicle swept on up the narrow lane, the roar of its engine fading, but it was too much for Arnie.
‘Shit!’ he said. ‘Shit, shit, shit … we’ve got to get out of here!’ He wasn’t so much edging away now, as taking long strides.
‘Where are you going?’ Jasmine demanded.
‘You made me do this!’ Arnie pointed at Enwright. ‘You tricked me … I’ve had enough …’
He turned to run, but he stumbled first – and that slowed him down.
Fatally.
With a nod from Enwright, Jasmine fired.
Heck and Finnegan spun around alongside the car. Finnegan lowered his phone. He’d been about to contact Comms at Worcester again to tell them that a fast-moving unit had just passed them by in the dark without stopping and was now headed in completely the wrong direction, when both he and Heck had heard a gunshot – from fairly close by.
‘Don’t like the sound of that,’ Finnegan muttered.
‘Me neither,’ Heck replied. He yanked open the driver’s door, extracted the keys from the ignition and tossed them through into the back seat, where PC Mapling caught them. ‘You’re in charge of these two,’ he said. ‘If this thing cuts up, get them away from here as fast as you can.’ Mapling nodded, though he looked distinctly unnerved by the prospect. ‘In the meantime …’ Heck extended an empty hand, ‘I’ll need to borrow your baton and your CS canister.’
‘What are you doing?’ Finnegan asked as Heck pocketed the CS spray and snapped open the extendable baton to its full one and a half feet.
‘What are we doing, you mean.’ Heck stepped back over the ditch.
‘You can’t be serious,’ Finnegan said, reluctantly tagging along.
Heck struck off along the meadow. ‘We’re finding out what’s going on.’
‘But they’re obviously armed …’
‘Taking a look won’t hurt anyone. But if it bothers you, here …’
Finnegan snatched the baton that Heck handed to him, and got quickly back on the blower to Worcester Comms. ‘Tell those fucking hayseeds of yours to turn around and get back here!’ he said gruffly. ‘They’re going the wrong way! No, I don’t give a shit who I’m talking to … we need armed support pronto!’
‘Knock that crap off, Charlie!’ Heck said. ‘You’ll let the bastards know we’re here.’
‘They probably already know,’ Finnegan muttered. ‘What’s that light?’
They’d advanced into a copse of thinly spread trees, and were knee-deep in young spring foliage. The reddish glow of what looked like a fire was now visible over the tops of the hawthorn thickets about a hundred yards ahead.
Heck didn’t reply, simply filched his own phone from his pocket and punched in a quick number. ‘Yeah … Eric,’ he murmured. ‘I can’t speak any louder than this. I don’t care if the Deputy Chief Constable’s arrived, tell me where you’re up to … quickly!’
They didn’t bother to check if Arnie was dead. Even if he wasn’t, it hardly mattered: he wasn’t going anywhere. He lay face down, his back a jumble of mangled, smouldering meat. They were too busy lifting the struggling Claire onto the three-legged stool, finally planting her feet on top of it.
She still writhed in their grasp, though weakly, exhaustedly. It was astonishing how suddenly nothing else in her life mattered – all the usual worries: bills, mortgage payments, car insurance. None of that had significance any more; only the sweating and the grunting …
From somewhere close by came the sharp bleeping of a mobile phone.
Enwright and his acolytes froze, then gazed into the wooded area a few dozen yards to their left. It was all the distraction Claire needed; she jumped from the stool again, throwing herself full-length on the ground.
‘Mr Stapleton!’ Enwright snapped. ‘Miss Cavanagh! See what that is! Fix it!’
As Luke and Susan scuttled out of view, the other two girls – Jasmine and Heather – grappled with Claire even as she lay flat. She tried to roll away. Heather swore, landed vicious blows on her. Overhead, the orange silk noose swung wildly.
If Heck and Finnegan hadn’t been around twenty yards apart when Finnegan’s phone rang again – at full volume – Heck would probably have taken a swing for him.
‘Worcester Comms,’ Finnegan said, still not moderating his tone.
‘Turn the bastard thing off!’ Heck hissed.
Finnegan complied, shoving the phone into his pocket. The ferns they were wading through were filled with briars, and a massive hindrance to progress. The blackness among the hawthorns was cloying it was so deep, though sparkles of flames were clearly visible among the meshed branches ahead. Heck could hear what sounded like suppressed voices. He wanted to hurry, to go charging forward, but instinct again made him wary. He glanced left to right, seeing more swathes of undergrowth, more thick clumps of hawthorn – and then spied a hooded figure rise silently from the ferns just behind Finnegan.
Before Heck could shout a warning, what looked like a two-handed mallet had slammed into the back of the detective constable’s ribs; his knees buckled and he slumped forward, gasping. The second blow, a swinging underarm, struck the back of his head. Heck would have lurched over there to assist, but a second figure had now appeared – directly in front of him. Heck glimpsed camouflaged fatigues, a scarf over the lower face. The assailant was of slight build but this made him lithe; more important was the shiny steel cleaver he now struck with in a slashing backhand blow.
By combining muscle-power, Jasmine and Heather had finally scooped their victim up and placed her on top of the hanging-stool. Though it took all their strength, they held her in place there while Enwright fitted the silken noose around her neck.
He didn’t respond to the sounds of combat in the woods nearby. ‘Orange is your colour,’ he said matter-of-factly, as he pulled the noose tight around her throat.
Claire could still breathe, but only just. Suddenly there could be no more struggling. She had to stand perfectly still and maintain her balance – which wasn’t easy, because even as Heather and Jasmine stepped back, she could feel the stool shifting beneath her, as if the legs on one side were sinking into the meadow floor.
‘You’ve fought hard,’ Enwright said approvingly. ‘You’ve earned your Parliamentarian sash …’
Heck had ducked both the first and second blows of the cleaver, but now his legs tangled in strands of briar and he toppled backwards, falling full-length into the ferns. The hooded figure dived down on top of him, determined to seize the advantage, pressing the cleaver’s blade with both hands towards his throat. Only Heck’s left elbow prevented him ramming the blade down with guillotine force. The assailant was wiry and strong, but young and inexperienced; though they were nose-to-nose for several seconds, grunting, covering each other in sweat and spittle, Heck still managed to free the CS canister from his pocket with his right hand, and ejected its entire contents into the glaring, fanatical eyes.
The youngster jerked backward, gasping and choking, then disentangled himself entirely and rolled away, gloved fingers raking at his face. Heck followed, scrambling to his feet and dealing him two swift blows; a left to the gut, a right to the side of the jaw, before spinning around – just in time. The other one came to a stumbling halt some ten yards away, mallet in one hand, baton in the other.
They watched each other across the darkened clearing, breathing hard.
Even in the dimness, Heck could tell that he was facing a female. She too was clad in bulky waterproof coveralls, but her hood had fallen back and straggles of long brown hair hung from under her woolly cap. A scarf covered her mouth, but though her eyes were wild and dangerous, her brow was damp with the sweat of fear.
‘And which one are you?’ Heck wondered. ‘Heather or Susan? My name’s Mark. But no, I’m not telling you that to try and humanise myself … to prevent you attacking me. I’m just letting you know who’ll be clubbing you unconscious in one minute’s time if you don’t drop those fucking weapons.’
Her eyes widened even more – as if she couldn’t believe she was being spoken to that way. Then she reached a decision, flinging the extendable baton at him before racing away. It spun through the air. Heck deflected it with his forearm, though it still stuck him a stinging thwack. He didn’t give immediate chase, but lurched over to Finnegan’s prone form, crouching and checking for vital signs. The idiot was out cold, but breathing.
With a groan, the lad whose face Heck had sprayed rolled over – and promptly began gasping again. ‘Shit!’ he groaned in a thick, mucus-laden voice. ‘My eyes!’
‘They’ll be nothing compared to your arsehole after a year in the lifers’ block,’ Heck said, walking over there.
‘I can’t see …’
‘Keep them closed and stop rubbing them.’ He turned the incapacitated boy over and pinned him down with a knee, while twisting his left arm and his right leg behind his back, and cuffing them wrist to ankle. ‘It’ll wear off in an hour or so.’
‘An hour … Jesus Christ!’
‘That’s only the start of your problems, pal.’ Heck got back to his feet, dragging the phone from his pocket, and stabbed in a number. ‘Eric … you ready?’
‘I’ve done the best I can,’ Fisher replied, having to shout to be heard over a clamour of voices.
‘Let’s hope it’s good enough.’ Heck pushed on through the thickets towards the firelight. ‘And shut that racket down! I don’t care if it’s the Home Secretary himself. It’ll bollocks up everything!’ He lowered the phone as he emerged fully into the firelight. He’d been prepared for something shocking, though perhaps not quite as shocking as this, even after everything that had happened.
The corpse of a young man lay face-down several yards to his right, divots of flesh and muscle blown out of his back, exposing a mess of broken bones and shredded organs; but worse than this, perhaps thirty yards away, Claire was balanced on a tilted stool with an orange cord around her neck, pulled taut against the oak branch above. Her ragged, ritualistic costume only added to the immense horror of the scene.
Four figures stood alongside her, apparently awaiting him. Three were females, including the tall girl he’d just confronted, who was still wielding her two-handed mallet, and the blondie, Jasmine Sinclair, who carried yet another sawn-off shotgun. The fourth, of course, was Dr Enwright.
‘I told you he was alone,’ the tall girl said. She’d ripped away her scarf to reveal unusual elongated features. ‘He’s not armed either.’
‘It’s over, Enwright,’ Heck said. ‘You surely realise that?’ He tried not to glance at Claire, though it was clear that she held her rigid posture out of sheer terror. Even from this distance, he could see that she hardly dared blink her eyes against the sweat streaming into them.
‘Nice to see you again, sergeant,’ Enwright said, with another of those catlike smiles.
‘I may be alone now,’ Heck advised him, ‘but others are en route as we speak.’
Enwright shrugged. ‘Arrest and capture were always part of this deal.’
‘You can stop pretending. If you’re not frightened, all that proves is how insane you really are. But I can see it in your face … you know the game’s up and you’re frightened to death.’ Actually Heck could see no such thing. Enwright was still smiling; there wasn’t so much as a dimple on his brow. But he was undoubtedly a deep pool. There could be a lot going on underneath. ‘It may have been part of the deal that these kids would get captured, but I’d like to bet you’ve prepared yourself a bolt hole. Just out of interest, what brainwashing techniques did you use on them?’
‘Drastic measures like brainwashing aren’t necessary if the goal you strive for is a worthy one,’ Enwright said. ‘Upright people, particularly young upright people – whose sense of morality is unsullied by cynicism and self-interest, make great activists. You wouldn’t understand that, sergeant.’
‘Oh, I understand perfectly. You made them into killers. On purpose.’
‘A means to an end …’
‘The end in itself!’ Heck switched his attention to the girls. ‘You’ve been conned … you understand that, don’t you?’
Their faces remained blank, but Jasmine raised the shotgun to her shoulder, aiming it directly at him.
Heck persisted. ‘This masquerade of murder he’s launched is nothing more than a hate campaign against a world that failed to indulge him.’
Enwright chuckled – he sounded genuinely amused. ‘Let me guess, sergeant … the police made you take a degree in psychology? Well done, but there’s no need to show off.’
‘He doesn’t care that British culture is vacuous. He enjoys that … because it means that deep down, people aren’t happy. And this little war you’ve started is designed to make sure they’ll never be happy again. But even that isn’t his real purpose …’
‘Enough of this playing for time,’ Enwright interrupted, stepping up to Claire’s stool. ‘We intend to celebrate Royal Oak Day in grand fashion, even if we are twenty-six days early. You’ll be privileged enough to witness it, sergeant. But try to interfere, and Jasmine will blow your head off …’
‘Don’t take my word for it, girls,’ Heck said, raising his phone into the air and thumbing its loudspeaker button. ‘Listen to the man himself.’
Jasmine’s attention remained locked on him, even though the other two had turned to deal with their prisoner – and then they heard the voice.
It was tinny and distorted, but unmistakably it was Dr Enwright’s, and it echoed across the meadow from Heck’s mobile.
‘Arnold Wisby … his facial injuries have rendered him a ludicrous clown.’
Susan and Heather’s heads jerked around. Enwright himself looked briefly fascinated, as if he was witness to something that simply couldn’t be happening. Only Jasmine remained unaffected, gazing at Heck along the shotgun’s upper barrel.
‘Little wonder he has no self-esteem. He’s been mocked wherever he’s gone. It won’t be difficult affecting a significant degree of control. A child traumatised by isolation is always so eager to please …’
There was a burst of static, a scrambled dirge of electronic disruption. Eric Fisher had said that his editing skills weren’t high-end.
Enwright now seemed to have regained his composure. He stepped forward, pausing, only to throw at Heck a look of such loathing that fleetingly, he seemed animalistic. ‘Just shoot him, Jasmine. This meddling fool has had his chance …’
‘Jasmine is a naturally beautiful child,’ his electronic twin added. The pretty schoolgirl’s icy gaze was still fixed on Heck, but suddenly she wasn’t seeing him.
‘One would never have expected to find her an outcast …’
‘These are my private files, compiled in my capacity as school counsellor,’ Enwright said hurriedly.
‘But her emotions are in ribbons. Raped repeatedly by her stepfather, she embraced her new life at boarding school as an escape … only to find difficulty associating with others. Her looks and femininity have become millstones around her neck. Abused women often seek to reduce their attractiveness, hacking off their hair, disdaining beauty products …’
‘If you won’t do it, I will,’ Enwright said, reaching for the gun – only for Jasmine to lurch away from him. Her attention was still riveted on Heck, but she was listening intently.
‘Jasmine closes herself off. Refuses to participate in any form of social life. But she is a human being, with human needs … it will be easier to target her through Gareth, the most handsome boy in the school. Of course, he won’t lay a finger on her until she is ready … his is to be a caring role, not a sexual one. But the sex will come, and that will have a purpose too …’
There was another burst of static. Heck watched the muzzle of the shotgun tautly. Jasmine’s expression was impossible to read, but Enwright’s face gleamed with sweat.
‘Those with a yearning to be wanted, a desperation to belong … one must include them, give them a sense of worth. Only then can one break their individuality …’
‘Are you hearing this?’ Heck shouted.
‘Desensitising children to suffering is never easy, but these particular specimens …’
‘Did you hear that?’
‘… will be easier than most, because all they have ever known is suffering. Heather Greer is clearly a lesbian, though she doesn’t yet suspect, or if she does she is in denial – a form of self-loathing enforced on her by her distant, archly-conservative family.’
‘That’s not true!’ Heather blurted, unsure who she was supposed to be addressing.
‘She doesn’t understand why she isn’t attracted to boys and subsequently is hostile to the endless game of tease and titillation. Likewise, Susan Cavanagh … an ugly, ungainly girl, nicknamed “Craptits” by her classmates. She reviles the culture of the female sexual icon, the glamour models, the Z-list celebrities with enhanced assets and the soulless society in which they are idolised …’
Susan stood stock-still, face frozen.
‘I made these recordings in my role as carer,’ Enwright insisted.
‘Some carer,’ Heck retorted.
But now Jasmine’s finger tightened on the trigger again; her face wore a grimace of rage. ‘This,’ she stammered, ‘this is some sort of trick …’
‘That’s it,’ Enwright agreed. ‘It’s a trick.’
‘Really?’ Heck wondered. ‘They go all the way back through your time at St Bardolph’s.’
‘How easy to persuade such creatures that Britain, a land they have no investment in, is a spiritual desert where sin is rewarded and merit ignored. Religion will be a problem. “Thou shalt not kill”, says the Bible …’
Heck advanced towards the blonde-haired girl. ‘Why don’t you give me the gun, eh?’
‘Back off!’ she snarled.
‘But it has been circumnavigated before. Christians have launched homicidal attacks upon non-Christians. The same goes for Jews and Muslims. This happened because they regarded their targets as evil. Or as innocents who must perish in a greater cause …’
‘Shoot him!’ Enwright urged her. ‘This man has come here to destroy us.’
‘It’s all about the cause. Any cause.’
‘Any cause, Jasmine?’ Heck said. ‘What does that mean exactly?’
There was a further fizzing of static, and then the voice assumed the air and confidence of a commandant: ‘We must remind the world that things were better in the past, that there was a golden age of faith … when community mattered, when people lived simple, healthy lives, enjoying innocent pleasures. Merrie England! The greatest threat to a restoration of which lies with our new heretics, the thoughtless godless who believe in nothing but their own pleasure …’ It relapsed into a sly, fluting chuckle. ‘What babble! Merrie England … what tosh!’
Heck watched the girls’ reactions. Jasmine included, they listened incredulously.
‘A faith of all faiths. Where the enemies are the party-goers … you couldn’t make it up. But there is a serious side … this will be the greatest experiment in history. The Stanford Prison debacle will have nothing on this. That zealous belief can be drawn from the incoherent ramblings of a hack horror writer …’ More static intruded, more devious chuckles. ‘But they are ripe for it. They nod when I tell them we must make examples. No one wants to kill, I assure them, yet some, I can tell already, will kill more easily than others … the world despises them. Why not strike back?’
‘We were an experiment?’ Jasmine said, turning slowly to face her leader.
‘The outcome is the same, Miss Sinclair,’ he replied. ‘Together, we’ve struck mighty blows against a morally bankrupt world.’
‘We were an experiment?!’
‘Not even a real one,’ Heck said, venturing forward. ‘Just his crazy control fantasy. You surely see now that he’s stark staring mad!’
‘You shut up!’ she screeched, her emotions breaking as she whirled back around, training the shotgun on Heck’s midriff – and not noticing Enwright spin and hurl a heavy punch at her jaw.
Jasmine crumpled to the floor, and as she did, Enwright snatched the shotgun from her grasp, twirling to face Heck, who, at only twenty yards’ distance, was well within range.
‘Callow youth,’ Enwright sighed. ‘They promise so much and deliver so little.’
He took casual aim but, like Jasmine, never saw the blow coming from behind.
It was delivered with a two-handed mallet, and it struck him squarely between the shoulder-blades. The impact was gut-thumping, and Enwright turned grey in the cheek as he slumped forward to his knees, dropping the shotgun. Heck dived towards it. Susan, her face streaked with tears, stood over her fallen mentor, still hefting the mallet.
‘You sodding, lying bastard!’ she screamed down at him, only for Heather to snatch her by the collar, screaming equal obscenities.
Heck grabbed up the shotgun and rolled over, only to see the twosome struggling.
‘Didn’t you hear what he said?’ Susan wailed, but Heather thrust her backwards, and she blundered against Claire. There was a splintering crunch. A stool leg collapsed, and Claire was left swinging between heaven and earth, face contorted.
‘It’s that copper who’s lying!’ Heather raved, drawing a blade from inside her coat, raising it high, and charging at Heck. ‘He’s the real liar!’
Heck, who was still on the floor, took aim. He only had one shot left; he would hit his assailant easily – but instead, he elevated the barrel and fired over Heather’s head.
The orange cord was cleanly severed. Claire dropped.
Heather seemed to sense this. She shrieked like a banshee as she ran the last few yards, intent on hacking and slashing her enemy to death.
The shotgun was out of shells, but it was heavy, and Heather was less than three yards away when Heck threw it horizontally into her gut. It struck with a thumping impact, doubling the girl over. She fell to the ground, gagging. Heck stamped on her hand, the knife came loose and he kicked it away.
‘You … you bastard,’ she whimpered, in a combination of pain and frustration.
Heck glanced up, and saw that Susan was halfway towards the farm gate when the headlights of a vehicle blazed over her. She tottered to a standstill as the police carrier that had passed them earlier came wallowing to a halt on the other side.
Meanwhile, Claire lay motionless, the orange silk tight around her throat.
Heck lurched towards her, grabbed her in his arms and quickly worked the material loose. A horrific purple welt was visible underneath. She was alabaster white, and didn’t even stir in his grasp. He called her name, slapped her cheeks, and then felt something warm against his face – his head sagged down with relief – her breath.