23

 

“Freddie?” Jason put a hand on her back. What did she see to make her react like that? He glanced into the box and turned away, fighting the nausea that filled him. Oh, Lord, let his death have been swift.

“Who is it?” Freddie’s face was pale as she straightened up.

“I don’t know.”

“Is it Rafferty?”

“It could be. Without a head it’s going to take a pathologist to identify him.” Jason took another minute to collect himself, and then picked up the camera. He took several photos, noting that the arms and legs lay next to the torso. “Maybe this is how they dispose of people who cross them.”

Freddie took a deep breath, keeping her eyes averted. “Death by dismemberment? Sounds like something out of a horror movie. Where do you suppose the head is?”

Jason shrugged, heaving the lid back onto the makeshift coffin. “I don’t know.”

“As long as it’s not on a spike somewhere.” She turned, looking for the tunnels they saw earlier. “I thought it was here, but maybe not.” She sighed and leaned against a pile of crates.

“What was here?”

“The other door.”

“It is. The crates you’re leaning on are in front of it. Want to give me a hand moving them?” Jason moved over to her.

“What happened to your macho “I can do it” stance?”

“I’m giving women’s lib a chance to help. You have a problem with that?”

“Not at all. We’re moving them one at a time, I hope. Don’t think even the two of us could shift the whole pile at once. At least, not silently.”

Even so, they shifted the boxes carefully.

He pulled open the door and shone the flashlight into the darkness.

“It’s a tunnel.”

“I see your amazing powers of observation are back, double-oh-Ef.” He teased her lightly. “Are you feeling better, now?”

“A little.” Freddie gave him a weak smile. “Let’s go.”

Water dripped from the ceiling and their footsteps echoed as they headed down the tunnel. Jason slid his hand into Freddie’s. I can’t hear the sea, so we can’t be under it yet. She doesn’t look too good. Is it just finding the body or something else?

“Are you all right? We can go back to Debs’s place if you want. Come back in the morning.”

“Yeah, I’m all right, and no, I don’t want to go back. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve seen dead bodies before, but that was just...” She broke off and paused. “That was just brutal.”

“Yeah, it was.”

A plink of dripping water was the only sound other than their echoing footsteps and sporadic conversation.

“Jason, do you think they’d do that to us?”

“I don’t know. Honestly, there would be far easier ways of doing it.”

“I guess.” She took a deep breath and wrinkled her nose. “Flash the light to the left. There’s something there.” A large wooden door, set back a little and smelling strongly of creosote, showed up in the beam of the flashlight. Freddie reached out a hand and tried it, not surprised when she found it locked. She dropped the pack to the floor and rummaged through it, pulling out a small tool kit.

“And there I was thinking that I was the Boy Scout.”

“I didn’t learn this in the Girl Guides. More like in spy school.” Freddie jiggled the lock, smiling as the door swung open. “Ta da!”

Jason shone the flashlight into the darkness. “Another passage. We need to be careful we don’t get lost. I don’t suppose you have any chalk or string in...?” He broke off grinning as Freddie produced a ball of string from her bag. “Are you sure you’re not a Girl Guide?”

“I’m quite sure. I never wanted to be one. I just like being prepared for anything. I also have water, chocolate, an umbrella, my phone, and my inhaler.”

“An umbrella? Is it raining?” He teased her gently.

She rolled her eyes, pulled the flashlight from her pocket, and shouldered the pack again. “And this from the bloke who took a phone to dinner in case we broke down on the way from the bedrooms to the dining room.”

“I’m not going to live that one down, am I?”

“Nope, not for a while. Anyway, when the ceiling leaks, you’ll thank me for the foresight in bringing the umbrella.”

“The ceiling better not leak.” He shone the flashlight upwards. “How far do you reckon this island is from the mainland?”

Freddie stepped into the new tunnel. “A mile or so in a straight line maybe. It could be more, it depends. The tunnels don’t look manmade.”

“Are you an expert on mines?” Jason tripped over the wooden door frame and landed on his hands and knees in an undignified heap.

“The mine is almost certainly manmade, but these tunnels? No way. The walls are too smooth. My guess is the sea carved them out over several years. Besides there are no support beams...”

Her voice faded and he looked around, shining the light. There was no sign of her.

“Freddie? Hey, where have you gone?”

He headed down the tunnel. She’d be the death of him with her constant running off. Had she always been this exasperating? Or was it purely the way she worked? Rounding a slight bend he could hear the sea and it was colder. He started running, his feet sliding on the damp rocks.

“Freddie!”

“Here.” The answering call was no more than a few feet ahead.

He found her standing at the mouth of a cave. He stood for a minute, catching his breath. “Why did you wander off?”

“Sorry. I thought you were right behind me.”

“Well I wasn’t. Please, slow down. This isn’t a walk in the park.” Jason looked out over the sea and beach. In the short time they’d been underground the moon had disappeared and the stars were gone. Dark storm clouds piled up in the sky and lightning flickered on the horizon. Angry waves threw themselves up the beach, and the wind tossed the trees back and forth.

Freddie nodded across the cove. “There’s the boat. I didn’t notice these caves before.”

“Nor did I. It would have saved time if we had. Come on, we should go.”

Freddie set off again. This time Jason made sure she stayed where he could see her.

“Did you hear what I said, Jace?”

“No, you wandered off as you were speaking.”

“These tunnels were made by the sea.”

“Yeah, I heard that bit. There are no support beams.”

“Which means the sea must come up a long way. Remember Mr. Hooker said the mine flooded a few months ago, and the crypt was damp, which the vicar claimed was due to flooding?”

“Yeah.”

“I reckon the water comes in via this tunnel. This is a new door, maybe a flood defense of some kind. I think that at high tide, the water always reaches as far as the undercrypt. Add a spring or storm tide to that, or a full moon, and the whole lot could go.”

“It’s thundering now.” Jason’s gut twinged in concern.

“A thunder storm doesn’t mean a storm surge every time. At worst we might get wet feet. Even so, we have a few hours until high tide.”

They headed down what he hoped was the main tunnel.

“Can I ask you something, Freddie?”

“Go for it.”

“Are you happy doing this line of work?”

“Most of the time. Though some days, like today, I wish I did something a lot safer that paid a lot more. What about you?”

“Sometimes I think about flying again, but right now I’m happy here.”

“Well, if we’re right about the boss, we’re both going to need a new career in the morning.” She reached up and kissed his cheek. “But right now, we have a tunnel to follow, a mystery to solve, and bad guys to chase.”

“That we do.” Jason took her hand again.

Voices came from ahead of them, around a slight bend.

Jason flattened himself against the wall and put a finger over his lips.

Freddie nodded, copying his movements exactly as a phone rang up ahead.

An all-too-familiar voice answered it. “Hello...Great. That’s the last thing we need. How long have we got?”

“Steele.” Jason mouthed silently at Freddie.

“No. Get it to high ground, now. We can’t afford to lose another shipment.” He paused. “Fine. I’ll tell Jones.” He raised his voice. “Flynn and Bryant didn’t leave. Hooker just found their boat. It’s empty.”

Another voice spoke. “I told you it was a mistake to let her anywhere near the Rafferty case.”

Freddie’s face mirrored Jason’s feeling of shock as she grabbed his arm and mouthed, “Archie.”

Moving to Leeds with his wife must have been a cover story. What a perfect cover it had turned out to be. How many more were there? Were he and Freddie the only honest ones there? What about Freddie’s PA? Could she be trusted?

Edwin’s irate voice echoed. “I didn’t assign it to her. I buried it.”

“Then you should have let me deal with the widow when she first turned up at the agency and not given her the chance to speak to Freddie. And if you’d burned that file and destroyed the box like I’d suggested, none of this would have happened.”

“I hoped she’d obey orders and leave the case alone, once I realized she was working it. Or fail for the first time in her career.”

“Come on, boss. This is Freddie we’re talking about. Since when does she fail, or do as she’s told? Pairing her with Bryant would have been a good move, had it worked.”

“I told Bryant to shadow her, that her loyalty had been called into question. It would appear that Ms. Flynn is obviously a lot more persuasive and forgiving than I gave her credit for.”

“It might be a good thing.” Archie sounded hopeful. “She could be bought.”

“No way. I’m not going to risk it. She knows too much. We kill two birds with one stone. She obviously has Bryant wrapped around her little finger and convinced him to see things her way.”

Edwin’s mocking reply froze the blood in Jason’s veins as much as the chilling sound of the safety mechanism sliding to one side and the bullet being loaded into the gun chamber.

“I thought Bryant was like a son to you. You were going to train him to take over after you retired.”

“He knows too much. He won’t keep quiet, his morals won’t let him. We’ll mourn them, of course, but the company will survive their loss. Hooker has holed their boat. She’ll sink in an hour or so. They’re trapped here.”

Steele cut in. “They’ll keep. Right now we have a bigger problem. Hooker says there’s a storm surge building. We need to get everything to high ground.”

“Then let’s do it.”

Jason turned to Freddie. They needed to get out fast. He pointed back the way they came, indicating that he’d follow her. She nodded and set off. He followed, but hadn’t taken more than five steps before something hard and sharp pressed into his back.

“Don’t move. Put your hands up or I shoot.”