Holy Island Trilogy 03 - The Final Countdown (10 page)

‘Aunt May.’ Ella hurried across the room and gave Aunt May a hug. ‘How are you?’

‘Fine, dear.’ Aunt May sat back down, crossed her legs and put her hands over her knees. ‘So what news from the hotel this morning, Ella?’

‘Well.’ Ella sat down facing Aunt May, while Coral sat in the seat next to her. ‘The meeting last night went exactly as we thought it would. The arrogant bastards still think they have the right to control the rest of the world. Also, they are going to poison the water in London, in time for the Olympics and that’s just for starters.’

‘No change there, then,’ Coral stated. ‘They’ve been poisoning everyone since forever with their drugs.’

‘Any against what they’re planning?’ Aunt May asked.

‘Actually, there were a few objections, and the usual amount of rows, but they were all overruled.’

‘It’s what we bloody well expected. Any thing else that seemed out of focus?’

‘Yes, there’s a locked room on the top floor.’

Aunt May raised her eyebrows. She looked from one to the other. ‘Hmm, so you said on the phone. I think Mike Yorke might just be in that bloody room. Our far-seers can’t bloody well find him, perhaps they have their own seers masking the place…Any way you can safely get a key, Ella?’

‘I can get my hands on the master key.’

‘OK, what we need now is a plan of action.’ Again she looked first at Coral, then at Ella.

Before anyone could say anything else, the door opened and Shelly walked in. At first she didn’t notice Aunt May, who studied her with a slight frown on her face.

‘Hi, Shelly.’ Coral said. ‘How yer feeling?’

Shelly shrugged. ‘ A bit better…I guess.’

‘Well, here’s Aunt May.’ Coral pointed her finger over Shelly’s shoulder.

Shelly turned and gave Aunt May a weak smile. Aunt May stood up and held out her arms. ‘Come and sit with me, child. I’ve heard all about your ordeal.’

Wrapping the pink dressing gown tightly around her body, Shelly shuffled over to Aunt May. For a brief moment, she let the older woman hold her. Then, breaking contact before she burst into tears, she sat down on the seat next to Aunt May, who was now staring at a newspaper on the edge of the table that Coral had been unknowingly blocking from her view.

‘What’s that?’ she asked.

All three girls looked in the direction that Aunt May had been staring at, before she walked over and picked the newspaper up.

The headlines read, FOURTH MISSING TEENAGER IN THREE DAYS.

They all looked at each other, the same thoughts running through their heads.  Under the headlines were pictures of the four girls - all with long black hair.

‘No,’ Ella gasped. ’He’s here…Well, that’s all we fucking well need, isn’t it, that twat in the equation.’

Shelly looked at them. ‘Didn’t you know?’ Ella and Coral swung their heads to Aunt May in puzzlement.

Finishing the article, Aunt May looked up. ‘I guessed as much. We placed him in the area.’

‘You knew he was here and didn’t say?’ Coral's stare changed to one of disbelief.

‘It wasn’t definite, and I was going to tell you girls as soon as we knew for certain, but there hasn’t been much chance. And we couldn’t risk word getting out that we suspected where the bloody evil rat was. We followed him to Bradford, but sadly the two girls who were shadowing him were found out. And nothing's been heard from them since.’

She was silent for a moment, and Ella and Coral held their breath. Shelly, who had listened quietly, put in, ‘He got them, didn’t he.’

Aunt May nodded.

‘Were they scourged?’

Aunt May sighed. ‘Yes, Shelly, they were.’

‘Oh, God.’

‘Scourged, what’s scourged?’ Ella asked.

Coral shook her head. ‘Trust me. You don’t want to know.’

Ella folded her arms across her chest. ‘Oh, I do so want to know.’

‘My best friend Alicia was scourged,’ Shelly said. Her voice was filled with sadness as, taking a deep breath, she went on, ‘A scourging consists of thirty-nine lashes with a wooden handled whip roughly eighteen inches long, with nine leather thongs about six to seven feet long. At the end of each thong is a piece of lead shot, and attached to the lead shot are pieces of sheep or cattle bone. The lasher snaps his wrist a certain way, which causes the weight of the lead shot to dig into the flesh. The sheep bones dig in under the surface and pull small shards of skeletal muscle out of the body.’

‘I’m gonna be sick.’ Ella held her hand over her mouth. ‘I knew we were dealing with sick bastards. The families are bad enough…But this, this bastard renegade? Well…he’s something else.’ She ran for the toilet.

The three women watched her go. Aunt May sighed. ‘The Leader's antics have mostly been kept quiet. We are up against so much.  The fool thinks he’s living in the thirteenth century. Although the rest of the families have very little to do with him, and probably want him dead themselves, they would certainly protect him against us. It’s the way they do things.’

‘So what do we do now? Ella asked, coming back into the room with a determined look on her face. ‘Seeing as there will definitely be more than four girls and boys missing. These,’ she waved at the newspaper, ‘are only the ones who get reported as missing.’ She looked at Coral. ‘Didn’t you see the article when you got the paper?’

‘No, sorry.’

‘So what now?’ Ella asked Aunt May.

‘Now we have that talk, and I bring you both up to date.’

Shelly looked at Aunt May and frowned.

‘Sorry. I meant you, too, Shelly. We honestly do need you.’

‘I’ll put the kettle on.’ Ella stood up.

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

Grim-faced, the Leader paced about his new domain. Overnight the finishing touches had been put in place, and the large house had been transformed into a complete copy of the monastery near Holy Island. Out in the sheds, a group of young people picked up off the streets over the last few days with the promise of free drugs, free love, and anything else they wanted, were waking up to find themselves truly in hell.

Suddenly the Leader turned to face his two personal guards. He eyed the new one, a replacement for his regular Chinese guard who had died less than twenty-four hours ago.

His doctors had shaken their heads, and told him they could find no reason for the guard's sudden death. It was just one of those things. Sometimes even the super-fit can suffer a heart attack and die. Sometimes it isn’t even a heart attack at all. Sometimes the body just shuts down, for no apparent reason.

Whatever, he thought, one guard is as good as another. Plenty of peasants to replace them.

Throwing back his head, he laughed, a wild maniacal sound that could be heard throughout the building, striking fear into the hearts of the confused teenagers just starting their first day of slavery.

‘You,’ he said to the new guard a moment later. ‘Far too much face hair. Get rid of it right now.’

‘Yes, my Leader.’ He turned and left the room at once, heading for the stairs.

It meant nothing to the Leader that the dead guard had served him faithfully for over ten years. He was just a peasant, and therefore as expendable as all and any of them. More like a pet dog, really. And as such, totally expendable.

He turned to the other guard. ‘When will production begin?’ he demanded.

‘Within the hour, my Leader,’ the old guard replied.

‘Good…Pick me one out and bring her now.’ He turned and headed for his bedroom.

‘Yes, my Leader.’ He muttered under his breath, ‘I know just the one you’ll want.’

The new guard walked out of the room and into the corridor, ducking into the first doorway on his right. Quickly he closed the door behind him then, after giving the room the once over, he took his mobile out of his pocket. ‘Hi, its me,’ he said, when the call was picked up from the other end. ‘The layout is exactly the same as the last monastery, right down to the finest detail.’

He listened for a moment, then with a sharp nod, said, ‘OK.’ Slipping his phone into his pocket, he slowly opened the door and looked up and down the corridor, checking that it was empty before slipping out and heading for his room.

In his bathroom, he stared into his mirror. To shave his beard off would be risky. Even though it had been a few years since he’d been a prisoner in France, the Leader might still recognize him. He ran his fingers through his thick black hair. Only one thing to do.

Picking his razor up, he started with his beard. Fifteen minutes later, he touched his bare scalp.

‘Smooth as a baby’s bum,’ he muttered. ‘It’ll have to do, I can hardly recognize myself.’

A few minutes later he was back downstairs, taking his place by the window and gaining a nod of approval from the other guard.

LONDON

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

Smiler stared down at his plate. Rita had done him proud. There was everything you could wish for on a full English breakfast, except for the tomatoes. Smiler hated tomatoes. Only trouble was, even though it looked scrumptious, he felt sick to his stomach.

However, he would have to try his best to eat it, seeing as Rita had gone to so much trouble. Cutting into the pork sausage, he stabbed a piece with his fork and raised it slowly to his mouth, remembering the many times he’d raked through hotel dustbins just to find a piece of sausage like this.

He sighed heavily, and Rita, in full war paint, looked up from her own plate at him. Looking back at her, Smiler thought that was something else that was taking a bit of getting used to. Sometimes Rita was Robert, who said to call him Rob, and he’d only met Rob recently and somehow still kept calling him Robert, though he’d known Rita for a few years.

‘What’s wrong, chuck?’

Smiler shook his head. ‘It’s Mike. He’s in a really bad way and I can’t help him, it’s as if he’s shrouded. All I can see when I try is swirling clouds of grey…I can’t even see his face any more.’

‘No idea at all where he might be?’

Smiler shook his head. ‘I’ve tried. I keep getting the feeling of metal scraping against metal, it's doing my head in. I think... well, I’m almost certain that he’s a prisoner somewhere.’

‘Me too.’ Rita sighed. ‘Although I’m pretty sure I know the region, something about the odd flash I’m getting, but I can’t quite put my finger on it.’

‘So what now?’

‘Well, Aunt May arrived in Norwich a few hours ago, so I’m expecting a phone call shortly.’

Almost before Rita stopped speaking, the mobile rang. Grinning, she winked at Smiler and fished around in the pocket of her pink velour tracksuit. Smiler had nearly died when she walked in with it on, and just barley stopped short of asking if they’d been suddenly transported back to the eighties.

They had talked for a long time when they arrived back home last night. Smiler had eventually gone to bed in the early dawn, feeling slightly better in himself, and actually feeling quite sad for his mother - something he had thought he never would, in a million years. He had despised her for as long as he could remember, and the older he got, the worse he felt about her. But as Rita had explained to him, his mother had after all been as much a victim of the families as anyone had. Her whole life had been stolen by them, used and abused from an early age. If she hadn’t managed to escape to protect her unborn baby from them, then God only knew where he himself would be now. The way she had died had been tragic. And over the years, there had been countless girls like his mother. His hands clenched into fists. They have to pay!

He gritted his teeth as he clenched his fists under the table. One way or another they fucking well will.

‘OK, good news,’ Rita said, as she closed her mobile and slipped it back into her pocket.

Smiler looked expectantly at her.

‘You’ll be pleased to hear that they think they have found out where Mike is.’

Smiler brightened right up. ‘Where?’

Rita sighed and pulled a face. ‘Well, he’s only gone and got himself locked up in one of the families' biggest strongholds.’

‘Ha! What do you expect? It's Mike Yorke we’re talking about here, he does nothing by halves.’ Smiler got his cigarettes out. ‘So what now?’ he asked, after lighting one up.

‘Now we carry on with what we do best, Smiler. But first we have to meet someone.’ Rita waved the cloud of smoke away. ‘Please, Smiler, outside for the fags.’

‘Sorry…Who?’

‘What?’ Rita was momentarily distracted.

‘Who we gonna meet?’

‘I’ll tell you in a mo. He’ll be here shortly anyhow. Then we’ll set off in an hour or so, let the rush hour traffic get out of the way, should have eased off by then.’

‘OK, but aren’t you going to--’

‘Get rid of the pink?’ Rita laughed. ‘Yes, right now, chuck.’

Smiler walked outside to finish his cigarette, wishing Mike was here now to do his usual borrowing act.

NORTHUMBERLAND

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

Sergeant Angela Rafferty put the phone down in her office and gave a self-satisfied smile. She had just been informed by the hospital that Detective Cox was fighting for his life, and had less than a twenty percent chance of pulling through. Even if he did, there was no guarantee that he would ever recover completely.

‘Not good odds,’ she muttered. ‘For him, anyway.’ Again she gave a small self-satisfied smile, knowing that the people she reported to would be happy.

Moving over to the small round mirror she’d recently hung on her office wall, and taking a bright red lipstick out of her handbag, she used it and smiled at her reflection. Turning sideways, she admired her navy slacks and red shirt. Picking up her navy cardigan, she slipped it over her shoulders, dropped the lipstick back into her handbag and snapped it shut.

Anyhow, that’s him rid of, and he’ll be easily finished off if nature doesn’t do it. Why on earth didn't the idiot sent to do the job use a direct shot through the brain in the first place? She shook her head. Fool. He should have lost his hand, not just his stupid thumb. Doubt if he’ll be used by the families anymore.

She shrugged and muttered, ‘He’s probably at the bottom of the sea by now, sharing a deep watery grave with others of his kind. Cock up, and that’s it. Unloved. Unwanted. Family law.’