Saving Tara Goodwin (Mystery Book 1) (38 page)

‘Shall we go then?’

Tara felt a curious mixture of emotions as they walked together side by side up the slightly curving road, and as they entered through heavy wooden doors of the pub, her happiness swelled to see all the people laughing and jostling in the crowded bar.

In the solitude of her life, she had often daydreamed how it might have been to go to a village pub with her father, but just for this moment she let that dream be still, and slipping her arm through Ted’s, looked up to him with a tiny smile and moist eyes.

Feeling her slip her arm through his, he looked down and saw the beguiling innocence of her smile, his chest filling with those strange emotions of wanting to care and protect, and he wished with all his heart that Maggie could be with them, but that could never be.

Lucinda resented having outstanding targets, she thought it rude to keep people waiting, and to delay their deaths did nothing to enhance their lives, and now there were too many.

But how on earth could anyone blame her? This untidy list was none of her doing ... and if the blame should lay anywhere, it should lay at Angela’s door, but at least the girl could be attended to, so she should have no reason to complain.

Martha shuddered when she saw the soft brimmed hat and horn-rimmed glasses, and backing away across the kitchen, clutched her blood stained hand to her bosom, but the soiled cloth sent spreading stains of crimson all across the new, pure white pinny.

‘Martha. What on earth have you done to your hand?’

She trembled, ‘It was cut, ma’am, by the butcher’s knife.’

‘The butcher’s knife? For god’s sake, woman, if you can’t use the kitchen implements after all these years I might have to look for another housekeeper. I don’t know, I really don’t, you’re becoming a liability to yourself and everyone else.’

‘Yes ma’am.’

‘My god. Well you’d better get yourself off to the hospital with your idiot brother, and it’s a bloody miracle I’m still sane with you two cretins in the house.’

Slipping into thought, she checked the brown bag, and satisfied, walked down the crazy paving path to the Morris Minor.

She knew her most important priority was to familiarise herself with the Willis address, and although she knew the garage well enough, she wasn’t familiar with The Mumbles, and ignorance of terrain could spell disaster.

Driving to Malmesbury, she allowed enough time to slip into her new character.

Dorothy Clemson who’d just visited Thornley Manor had now been put away to sleep and Deborah Clarkson had been woken, a spinster and retired headmistress who was slightly forgetful, wrote articles on animal welfare and liked to be constantly busy.

Christiana ran up the lane towards Malmesbury, and coming to a five-barred gate, looked across the meadow and saw another hedgerow that seemed to form a separation between the countryside and the outskirts of the sprawling country town.

Hurrying across, she pushed through the hedge and found she was standing in a drainage ditch that ran beside a lane leading up towards the centre of Malmesbury, and with a sigh, realised she had arrived on the southern edge of town, and from memory, that’s just where Ted Willis lived.

Stopping for a moment to think, she was just about to make her way up the lane when she remembered sending Dmitri that Valkerie note, and became excited when she realised he might already be on his way to Ted’s garage.

The lane was deserted when she stepped out, and relaxing a little, walked up and came to a leafy junction that seemed familiar, and further up the lane saw ancient rustic cottages set back in leafy gardens, the sign in the overgrown bushes, reading, The Mumbles.

Taking a moment to check the area, all she saw was a few old men tending their gardens and a group of children further up the lane madly chasing a football.

So it looked safe enough.

37

Malmesbury garage had been closed when Lucinda arrived, but carrying on down she’d come to the lane she’d been looking for, The Mumbles.

Looking around, she’d seen people going home after work and others wandering up to the local pub, and cruising the Morris down the curving lane, had driven past a group of children madly playing football.

Parking opposite the pub, she’d sat and watched the scene as people came and went.

The pensioners, the noisy teenagers all jostling each other, and the ladies darts team laughing saucily while they eyed the men, and then a father wearing his smart white shirt and carefully pressed trousers had smiled proudly as he held the door open for his pretty blonde daughter.

Looking away down the lane, she’d realised there were no house numbers in The Mumbles and these ancient thatched cottages only had names on the gates.

She cursed, knowing she would have to check all of them to find Hawthorn Cottage.

Releasing the handbrake, she was about to drive on when she suddenly gripped the steering wheel and stared transfixed through the windscreen.

She could hardly believe it, but there she was, her blonde hair tumbling to her stride, and while her tight yellow leggings filled every crease, her bulging red T shirt wobbled and bounced as she walked quickly up the lane towards her.

Watching in amazement, she saw Christiana check all the names on the gates, but then stopped and checked one name again, and looking back down the lane, pushed open the creaking gate and hurried up the garden path.

Lucinda stared in disbelief.

She’d hoped to find her target, Tara Goodwin here, but instead she’d found the bitch, Christiana.

Watching through cold eyes she saw her knock on the front door, but there was no answer and she slumped down to sit huddled in the porch.

But why was she here, and why had the Mumbles become the centre of the universe.

Were all these people working together? Christiana, Willis, Goodwin and Lewis?

It was beginning to look like a conspiracy, and maybe a conspiracy organised by Angela and controlled from Hawthorn Cottage in The Mumbles.

She remembered Angela threatening to send her back to the sanatorium if she carried on with her girlie games. So was this her way of finding out?

Thinking back, she remembered bumping into Christiana in Cheltenham and their love affair had soon begun, and then Lewis had arrived, saying he was from the Section, but she knew now he was really a Cardinal man.

Then Angela had insisted they meet in Bath, and that must have been arranged to give Christiana the opportunity to slip into the priest hole.

But if she’d only wanted to find evidence of her playmates, why had she stolen her diary and copied the one-time pad?

It was a puzzle, but never mind, it was all beginning to make sense now.

Angela had given her the Goodwin target, and she must have known that sooner or later she would pull all the strands together and end up here.

But why would Angela want her to come here to The Mumbles?

Unless it was meant to be a trap.

Well if that was her clever game she’d get rid of the whole frigging nest of them, and Angela couldn’t prove a damn thing without evidence, and when they were all gone she’d be safe again, and that bitch, Christiana, would be the first viper to go.

Snapping her bag open, she took out the can of Mace and drove down to the cottage, and stopping, her eyes turned icy cold when she read the name on the gate. Hawthorn Cottage.

Reaching back she unlocked the rear door, and taking the large motoring atlas, slipped the mace into her pocket and pulled herself gently up and out of the car, her shoulders hunched just like the withered old lady she was, and with the soft brimmed hat pulled low, tottered round to the path and looked left and right as she turned the map this way and that.

Christiana sat slumped in the porch and watched as the old lady checked her map, and although she seemed lost, she wished she would drive on before Ted came back.

Lucinda glanced up from under the wide brim of the hat and saw Christiana watching her intently from the porch, and playing the confused and mumbling old lady, turned the map in all directions before dropping it upside down on the pavement.

Christiana sighed. This old lady would soon attract attention, and then everyone would see and remember the woman in red and yellow, so she walked quickly down to her.

‘Can I help?’

Lucinda winced as she bent down, and holding her hip, scrabbled up the atlas, and when she replied, it was the soft endearing voice of a much loved grandmother.

‘Oh, thank you my dear, you see I’m looking for Easton Grey, but I simply can’t find it.’

Peering over the map, Christiana pointed, ‘Well it isn’t far, it’s just there. See ..?’

Lucinda turned the map the wrong way round, ‘Where did you say?’

Taking the map, she straightened out the pages and leant towards her to point.

‘It’s just there, by my fingertip.’

Lucinda adjusted the horn-rimmed glasses, and taking the mace out of her pocket, brought the can slowly around the edge of the atlas, and turning away, sprayed directly into Christiana’s face.

The effect of the mace had been almost instantaneous, a choking, gasping, blinding, burning moment of hell, unable to move, breathe, see or think, a death without dying.

Catching her, Lucinda pulled the rear door open and tumbled her inside, and as she fell over the seat and onto the floor, Lucinda slammed and locked the door.

‘Well, well, my pretty blonde bitch. Now guess where you’re going.’

Felicity had waited all day for Dmitri to come home, and through each minute of every long hour she’d thought of that thin envelope the postman had so casually delivered.

The envelope that carried no scent but had obviously been addressed by a feminine hand, and though it seemed empty, it carried her future nonetheless in the form of just one word.

Valkerie.

She’d thought back through her years as a case officer for British Intelligence, and it didn’t need a spook or a ghost to figure out that a one word code told a never ending story, and known only to the sender and its target.

Dmitri had finally come home from the library, and following her challenging gaze, saw the envelope standing beside the clock on the mantel piece, and putting it into his pocket, went to the bathroom, but when he returned, she saw that the envelope had disappeared.

Standing angry and defiant in the bedroom, she watched as he filled his backpack with casual clothes and the few items most dear to him.

‘You’re going to that bloody woman, aren’t you?’

He closed the flap and clipped the buckles, ‘I tell you, I visit old friend, only two days.’

She sneered, ‘Yes, and your friend just happens to have big red tits, doesn’t she?’

‘Licity, believe how you like it. I go now.’

‘Alright, but if you don’t come back, I’ll make you pay’

He slung the pack over his shoulder, his dark eyes smouldering.

‘I tell you, friend from Budapest has trouble in London. I help is all. Only two days’

She glared at him, ‘Two days then. But remember, I’ve got your papers and passport, and if you don’t come back, I’ll report you to my friends in the firm. Understand?’

He smiled, but his eyes were cold, ‘…Da, and is good you love me, Licity.’

Standing with clenched fists, she listened as he clumped down the stairs, and when the panes of glass rattled in the slammed door, she knew he wouldn’t return.

Parking the Morris in the garage behind the barn, Lucinda snatched the rear door open, and grabbing Christiana by the hair, pulled her out, and standing with her feet squarely apart, smacked her hard across the face.

‘Wake up, you bitch.’

Christiana fell backwards, and grabbing her hair, Lucinda pulled her to the kitchen.

‘Come on, it’s time to say sorry, and guess what, your friend Arthur is waiting for you.’

Arthur looked up in amazement as Christiana was pushed inside to sprawl over the table.

‘Yes, Arthur, I found her, no thanks to you.’

Turning, she saw Martha dressed in her finest, ‘And where do you think you’re going?’

‘Well we were going to the hospital, ma’am.’

Lucinda scowled, ‘Not yet, you’re not. You’re taking this cow up to my bedroom, then strip her and tie her on the bed, you can use the cuffs and ropes in my wardrobe.’

She glared to Arthur, ‘You can have half an hour with her, then go and call off your useless friends and get yourselves to hospital.’

Nodding, he walked over to Christiana, lifted her T shirt up over her breasts, and smiling, grabbed her by the wrist and dragged her blindly away to the stairs.

Sighing to the raw shooting pain in her head, Lucinda took a bottle of wine from the rack, and snatching up Christiana’s tobacco tin, walked through to the lounge to undress.

Tossing the hated clothes into a heap on the sofa, she walked out through the French doors to settle herself on the deep cushions of the swing seat, the wine relaxing her, the warm summer air soothing her naked body, and with the smoking of the cannabis, the tensions within her began to ease, but she suddenly jumped when a high pitched scream reverberated through the big old house.

Sitting up, another, heart wrenching, withering scream floated out into the still air, and storming off the swing seat, she threw the cushions away across the lawn.

‘If those two lunatics have killed her, there’ll be big trouble.’

Checking his watch, Dmitri walked quickly away from the house, and pushing on into town, eased his way through the late shoppers, and as he passed by the bank, wondered how long it would be before Licity discovered he’d emptied their joint account.

He shrugged his shoulders, so why should he feel guilty, he’d only taken money but she had tried to steal his life, and anyway, it was too late to change things, Christiana was waiting for him and nothing else mattered.

Smiling, he tried to visualise their new lives together, but as he rounded the corner he saw the last passengers boarding the bus to Bath, and running down the street, jumped on board as the door hissed closed behind him.

Paying the fare, he settled back, but the driver said the bus terminated at Bath.

What that meant? Bus not go his Malmesbury?

Never mind, worry later, at least he was on his way and free of Licity at last.

Relaxing back in the seat, he watched the countryside slip past his window, and thinking of Christiana, remembered her saying she would leave the madhouse of Sheverill’s Farm and he to meet her at old friend’s house at Hawthorn Cottage, The Mumbles, Malmesbury.

Smiling to his darkening reflection in the window, he remembered that years ago when he’d checked on Christiana, he’d found she was one of the most resourceful foreign operatives ever known to the Komityet Gosudarstvyennoi Byezopasnosti. The KGB.

The pitiful sobs were already fading away as Lucinda stormed into the house, and rushing up the stairs, thundered angrily down the long gloomy corridor, but when she slammed the bedroom door open, everything was just as she’d instructed.

Christiana was laying naked on the bed, her wrists and ankles chained and roped to the posts, and Arthur was panting on top of her.

Frowning, she walked over, and leaning forward, shouted into her face.

‘He’s only screwing you, you stupid bitch, so what’s all the bloody screaming for?’

Martha coughed nervously, and swinging round, Lucinda saw the pliers in her hand, and then the blood as it dripped from the red toenail held tight in its jaws.

Lucinda froze, her eyes staring, her beautiful face becoming contorted with rage.

‘I said I didn’t want her marked yet, you stupid old faggot.’

‘Sorry ma’am, but Arthur wanted her noisy.’

‘Well bollocks to Arthur, I wanted her pretty and all in one piece for the films, but just look at her now, you old witch, so how many nails have you ripped off?’

‘Only two, ma’am, there’s plenty left for later, and I haven’t touched her teeth.’

‘But that’s not the point, is it, she’s spoilt now, and you’ve taken one of the big ones, you selfish cow, you know they’re my favourites.’

Martha gently laid the bloodied toenail down onto the bed, ‘I’m very sorry, ma’am.’

‘I should damned well think so. And you, Arthur, finish and get off her.’

Samantha heard the shrill bleeping of the alarm, and hurrying through to the study, cancelled the security alert, and looking at the screen, saw the link to the Minotaur had been privately accessed, and tapping in the Bunker’s password, checked the Minotaur entry and was surprised to see that DC had requested,
'All information - Frank Lewis'.

Pursing her lips, she wondered if Angela should be told about this, or maybe just wait and see if anything developed, and she was still mulling over the possibilities when Frank appeared in the doorway, ‘I heard the alarm. So is everything okay?’