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EVER FEEL LIKE people are talking about you?
So, word had gotten around Hayefield quicker than a stick-attack from Raquel. The maids were all giving me the “pained” smile as if I’d lost my other arm; the house staff were making sure I caught them looking me up and down in disgust; Frank’s exact words were “oh, you fell for it then,” and do you remember the boy who threw firecrackers? He had just laughed, shaken his head, and run off. Yeah, I’d been dressed down by a ten-year-old.
On the up side, my security team gazed at me in awe and Mick had offered to share a whiskey or two with me in celebration. Clearly I’d won some kind of competition for them. As you might be thinking, I was absolutely thrilled by all this attention, and not at all ready to throw my stress ball at the next wise-cracker.
You’ll be really surprised by this but trying to have any kind of professional contact with Sophie felt like I was under the microscope . . . so after a morning of looks, sniggers, and scrutiny, I put Mick in charge and took the nightshift. Can you blame me?
But it was past two in the morning now on an eerily quiet and misty night. I had routed myself to my electric 4x4 but Jimmy was on the black marble staircase and needed a break.
I pulled up next to the arched gateway and dashed down the wind tunnel into the courtyard. The mist clogged up the orange glowing footlights so I could only make them out when I nearly stumped my toe on them. I wasn’t even going to glance at the walkway. Even beyond the mist, it was dark, creepy, and even though Sophie had made mist feel a lot better, that only worked with her glued to me.
Imagine the gossip?
I didn’t dare post anyone on duties in the grounds alone because we’d had a guest from the conference centre disappear the night before. Didn’t matter that the onsite accommodation or centre had no record of him. I’d remembered him because he asked me if I’d been a police officer within two seconds of meeting me and told me he’d published an article on police brutality. How was I going to forget him? I’d wanted to take a sword to the idiot myself.
Thinking of swords. I needed to hurry up and cross the creepy courtyard. I hurried to the service entrance and ducked inside, shutting out the mist.
“Jimmy?” I yanked the black iron ring to fasten the door and turned.
Shit.
I sprinted up the hallway. Jimmy was being strangled . . . by the wall? His neck was bleeding, eyes bulging.
“Jimmy!”
He dropped to the floor. I yanked the wire from him.
“What the fuck?” I stared at the wall. Just a wall. “Breathe. Just breathe.” I grabbed my radio. “Sophie, are you around?”
“She has retired for the evening,” Edwina said into the radio like I was after Sophie for her body. “Is it urgent?”
“Yeah, Jimmy nearly got throttled in the hallway . . . Sophie is good with first aid.”
Edwina scurried out of her office, then “oh dear’d” and tutted her way over. Her bedroom was through her office and up a set of windy steps which seemed to mean she was on duty constantly. “Frank is in charge of medical training.”
“Frank?” I spat at her as Jimmy’s gasping calmed. “What use is he?”
I pulled my phone from my belt. Wood had sent Sophie’s phone back—begrudgingly after I’d complained—by courier yesterday. I dialled her number—yes, I was sleeping with the woman and stole her number—and stared at the wall again. How did a wall strangle someone?
“Yes, Morgan.” Sophie didn’t sound asleep but playful. “How may I assist you?”
She knew what she was doing with that tone. Ugh.
“Someone . . . or . . . I don’t really know . . . but Jimmy got throttled by the wall. He’s breathing but I could use your help.” I took off my jacket, rolled it up, and placed it under Jimmy’s head.
“I’m on my way. Is his airway open?” Sophie said, a flurry of activity in the background.
Jimmy gripped his throat. “Open. Thanks . . . to . . . Morgan.”
“Try not to use your vocal chords,” Sophie stated, clear and calm but the usual aloofness wasn’t there.
“Wall . . . attacked . . . just standing . . .” Jimmy coughed and gasped for air.
“Edwina, find some cough medicine with codeine if you will.” Sophie’s tone was still calm and more friendly than usual. “There should be some in Frank’s office in the medicine cupboard.”
“Yes, ma’am,” Edwina said, confusion in her eyes. She turned and scurried off.
I stared at the wall again. There were no holes for the wires to have jutted out from, no light fittings, not even a portrait or suit of armour. I cocked my head, then looked at the rest of the hallway. Lights were placed about eight to ten feet apart all the way along. Suits of armour were every ten feet punctuated with pictures or mounted shields, swords, tapestries. Yet here was a two foot section with nothing on it.
Jimmy coughed and I smiled down at him. “Concentrate on breathing slowly, Edwina and Sophie will help.”
There wasn’t a whole lot I could do. I know you’re expecting me to become a surgeon here but people always thought that police officers were like a three in one emergency service. We did rudimentary training, what to do when someone was throttled didn’t really get covered or if it had, I’d drifted off. I could bandage around a piece of glass or perform CPR if that makes you feel better?
“I have the cough mixture,” Edwina said, brandishing the bottle like I’d know what to do with it. I knew it was a painkiller of some sort.
Sophie dashed down the stairs, hair bouncing around her. She only had a white vest on. Her jeans were misbuttoned. “Have you had any medication in the past four hours?” she said, reaching us and kneeling beside Jimmy. “Your insulin?”
Jimmy shook his head. “Due . . .”
Sophie nodded. “It will help with the spasms in your throat. You have no arrythmias, if I remember?”
Remember? I didn’t know Jimmy was a diabetic, how did she?
Jimmy shook his head.
She helped him up and Edwina handed a plastic cupful over. I turned back to the wall. Walls didn’t strangle people. As they fussed over Jimmy, I felt over it.
“Morgan, I do not wish you to investigate the panelling. I need you to watch Jimmy.” Sophie’s voice held an odd tone like I was about to stumble on something she had been trying to hide.
I pushed the raised part of panelling downward. The panel slid back like it was on wheels. “Walls don’t throttle people.” I pulled my torch from my belt and headed down the narrow corridor. There were even suits of armour along it. These ones still had swords and spears attached.
“Morgan, I do not want you going down there,” Sophie muttered after me but Jimmy started coughing and the door slid shut behind me.
Now, I know you’re thinking, “Morgan, it’s a misty night, it’s creepy, and you’re wandering down narrow passageways alone,” and I’m grateful for your concern but I have a confession for you . . . I had gone out and purchased a baton and a stab vest—the baton was one of those old police force issues with a grip jutting out the side—and I had my hunk of metal for a left hand so I felt like an officer for the first time since the attack on Wood.
The hallway took a ninety degree left turn and I slowed. I drew my baton and switched the torch to my left hand. I sneaked up to the corner and peeked around it.
Ah ha, that’s where the walkway started. I headed down it at speed and tried not to look out at the courtyard. Looked even creepier in the mist.
The walkway led up to a stone wall but there was a small wooden slatted door to the right. I pulled my radio off my belt and turned it down but depressed the button. “All staff, keep an eye out for runners. Especially to the north of the manor.”
A chorus of “yes, ma’ams” fired back at me and I reached for the door, baton clamped between arm and side.
“Morgan, please stay where you are. I do not want you to proceed.” Sophie was trying not to growl, I could hear it.
“Ma’am, I am your head of security. It’s my job to pursue intruders.” I tried not to snap back. What did she hire me for otherwise? To mutter to the surroundings?
“Morgan, stay where you are,” and there was the growly tone.
I turned my radio down further and headed through the door. Icy cold swirled around me in the gloomy ruin of a place. I was in some kind of large corridor which had wooden plaques lining it interjected with stone plaques but all decorated with red poppies.
Must be the old barracks. To the right the corridor stretched off only to reach a wall of rubble. Above the stone ceiling had fallen through in places with something flapping high above. To the left was more caved in structure with wooden joists cracked and twisted at all angles. The rubble covered a staircase. In front, through an archway where the doors clunked to the side was a huge hall which could have been where the soldiers had eaten or maybe slept, I wasn’t sure, a lot of the double height space had crumpled in. Mist seeped through it and it echoed with some creepy fluttering sound like birds or something flapping around high above.
My torch beam was shaking. Icy cold against my clammy body, goose pimples rippling up and down me in waves, my stomach so tight I felt sick, my throat so constricted, breathing was a push.
I don’t know about you but I was kicking myself for being brave right now. But I moved forward though, not back, thinking I’d give it a sweep and run back to Sophie and lights.
I got three quarters of the way and something moved through the door to my right.
“Fuck.” My heart smashed into an adrenaline frenzied rhythm. I spun and shone my torch at the door.
I ripped the door open then stopped. Piece of curtain or tapestry or something continued to flap in some draft. I grabbed hold of it. Guess I could turn back now.
My gut tightened.
I turned, shoved the baton up, and dived to my left.
A sword sliced through the baton, my sleeve, and grazed a chunk off my forearm. There went my weapon.
I booted the intruder in the knee. They grunted. I rolled behind rubble.
Clang.
Sparks flew off the stone. Huge sword. Big, big, sharp sword.
“We’ve called the police. You have nowhere to go.” Yes, I know, it wasn’t my finest threat but they had a sword.
Clang.
It cut through the top of the rubble.
Doubted my stab vest was going to help much.
“Sophie!” I yelled like the pathetic excuse for security I was. I grabbed my radio and depressed the button. “Sophie, I have them cornered in the barracks.”
Yes, cornered. It was better than saying “Sorry, please save me, again.”
“I told you to stop,” Sophie roared back at me so loud it was almost like she was close. “I will deal with them.”
Clatter.
Footsteps faded away, fast.
I peeked my head up.
The sword was on the floor and the intruder was running through a door at the far side of the hallway.
Sophie burst through the door with a snarl. She picked up the sword and sprinted after them. I’d never seen her run before. She ran like a tiger too. Shit.
I stared after her. Did I go check on her or run for safety away from her. If the intruder was terrified with just a snarl, what chance did I have? “Move.”
I hurried along the route she’d taken only to find her by an exterior door.
She barred my exit. “You do not go near the moors.”
I frowned up at her. “That’s where this leads?”
“Through ruins, yes. You would be even more foolish to try and navigate them.” She fixed me with a glare, sword at her side, white hair around her, and her white vest top soaked in sweat. “I told you to stop.”
“And I really wish I’d listened.” I held up my hands then felt the warm trickle of blood on my right forearm.
Sophie gripped it. “This sword is razor sharp. It can hack through an entire waist to chop a grown man in half.” She growled it at me and held up the blade. “Arthur De Breton the Second terrified grown men on battlefields with this. Do you have any idea how fortunate you just were?”
I was getting the idea.
“How did . . . they . . . get hold of it?” I snapped back, more so because I was close to tears and my forearm was stinging. It was a scratch, like the kind you got when you fell as a kid but they always stung more.
“I do not know.” She closed the door and wedged some splintered wood from a rafter into the long ancient rusted mechanism that slid into a section of the wall. “Either way, they can face the mist and the ruins.”
She took my left hand and dragged me down the corridor, the huge sword in her other hand, back to my torch.
“I don’t understand why you fixed the walkway which leads to a ruin.” I was trying to make myself feel better.
“I intended to fix this part entirely. Money became an issue.” She shrugged then scowled at me. “And I am incensed by your madness.”
I kissed her. I threw myself into it because she was starting to growl at me and because she’d rescued me, again. “I’m sorry. I love you. If you tell me not to chase anyone again, I’ll do better at listening.”
Sophie dragged me along and into the walkway, then out next to the black marble stairs, then to a room beside her office which she only let go of me to unlock.
“Sophie?” Edwina came out of one of the rooms behind us. “Why do you have that sword?”
“Intruder tried to attack me with it,” I mumbled, knowing that Edwina would probably assume the worst about seeing Sophie with a weapon. “Sophie scared them off.”
“You’re bleeding,” Edwina said and went to hurry over but Sophie swiped her hand through the air. “She needs no attention.”
I raised my eyebrows.
She dragged me into the room and re-sheathed the sword and placed it back on the empty holder. There were hundreds of swords, crossbows, spears, and, yeah, axes.
I swallowed.
Sophie took the torch from me and slid it back into my belt, dragged me out of the room, locked it, dragged me past Edwina who looked ready to call in the police and to the stairs.
“I’m okay,” I mumbled to Edwina. I didn’t know if I was but Sophie hadn’t let the intruder slice me and put down the sword so that had to be promising.
Sophie dragged me up the stairs and by the seventh flight, I had a good idea where I was going.
“Just a question, but are you mad at me?” Her hand had grown firmer around mine.
“Yes.” She turned and snarled it to my face. She shoved me to the wall of the corridor to the stone steps. “You could have been killed.”
I nodded. “I wasn’t expecting someone to attack with a huge sword.”
Sophie bore down on me. “That aside. The structure is unstable and yet you traipse through it with no consideration.”
Edwina had hurried up the stairs with her phone in her hand. “Sophie, please calm down. Morgan was doing her job.”
“Calm?” Sophie’s roar echoed off the stone work. “I will not calm. Someone tried to kill Jimmy; someone just dared take a sword to Morgan and you dare to tell me to calm?”
I was sure I could hear it through the threatening tone but she sounded panicked. I studied her. “I’m sorry I scared you.”
She snapped her gaze to mine. “Why would I fear for your safety? Someone attacked my staff, my property.”
I kissed her.
She shoved me back, now she was shocked by the glint in her eyes.
“I’m sorry I scared you and you had to be worried about Jimmy,” I said more firmly because Edwina needed to think I wasn’t shaking harder than I had been with the sword coming at me. “I’m glad you saved me, yet again.”
I kissed her again.
“Thank you.” I kissed her a third time. “I love you.” And again. “I’m sorry I didn’t listen.” And again . . . she was starting to kiss back. “I’m glad you are angry because you care so much.” And again . . . She gripped my face. “I sort of need you to be mean and strong right now because I’m close to tears.”
And I was. Fight and flight junk was making way to the realisation that I’d been attacked with a sharp object, again.
Her eyes bored into mine. Then she yanked me to her and wrapped her arms around me.
I clung onto her and looked at Edwina who stared like she didn’t know if she was impressed or wanted to throttle me herself. “I’m okay,” I mouthed again and slid my arms over Sophie’s shoulders.
Edwina nodded, once, and hurried off down the stairs.
“I could do with the full, scary, drag me to your lair, please.” I pulled back, feeling my throat clog with the tears.
Sophie hoisted me up into her arms and her eyes hardened. “Very well.”