The Rain-Soaked Bride (25 page)

‘He is lucky to have your love,’ the nobleman said, ‘but let’s see how lucky he really is.’

The nobleman made plans for their marriage. A lavish affair that would take place right there in the ruins of Kōsaka’s village. He invited his wealthy and powerful friends from all over the province. He promised a celebration the like of which had never been seen before. He ordered dancers, musicians, performing animals and actors. The entertainment would last for days.

And if the rains came, as they always did at this time of the year? Then they would be safe within their tents, though the same would not be said of Takeda in the dry riverbed. ‘Perhaps he will be lucky,’ the nobleman said to Kōsaka. ‘Perhaps.’

The rains did not come the next day, though many guests did. The tents were erected, the music began to play and crowds of people gathered on the plains, beneath the creeping dark clouds of autumn.

The rains did not come the day after that. Though a troupe of actors did, who performed a new play written in honour of the nobleman and his wife-to-be. It was a story of young love, of beautiful poetry and happy endings. It was, as all plays must be, a pretty little lie.

In the dry riverbed, Takeda pulled at the ropes that bound his wrists. But his body was weak from the cold and the lack of food or drink. The rope cut into his wrists but the heavy wooden spikes that the soldiers had hammered into the dry earth held fast. Takeda could not escape.

On the third day, the rains came. They fell from a sky that had promised for so long, their water hitting the dry earth and rolling off it. The earth is like a man who is dying of thirst. It gets so dry it cannot drink easily.

The riverbed began to fill and Takeda shouted curses at the nobleman and his soldiers as the water rushed over him, getting higher and higher.

Kosaka’s tears were almost as heavy as the rain itself as she heard the cries of the man she loved coming up from the dry riverbed. She fought to go to his aid but the nobleman’s soldiers held her tightly.

‘But the young man should certainly see the happy occasion,’ the nobleman told her.

He ordered everyone to stand at the side of the dry riverbed, with himself and Kosaka close to the bank so that they could see Takeda as the waters rose around him.

Kosaka promised the nobleman that he would die for what he had done to Takeda and her. She swore it as an oath.

The nobleman simply laughed. ‘He was not lucky, my dear,’ he told her, ‘that is all. Unlike you. For now the rest of your life will be a dream of pleasure. You will have everything you ever wanted.’

And, as the waters rose over Takeda and he breathed his last, Kosaka sobbed and her tears were such that even the rains could not match them.

They washed away the tents and the dancers. They drowned the actors and the performing animals. They swept every single guest across the plains, lost in a sea of saltwater, an ocean of Kōsaka’s misery.

The nobleman tried to fight for his life, desperately swimming up through the tears but Kosaka would not let him.

‘A husband and wife should stay together for ever,’ she told him. ‘You married a woman of faith and honour. Aren’t you lucky?’

And she clung around his neck, dragging him down and down into the water where, finally, he drowned.

‘Charming,’ said August, closing the attachment and returning to the original email.

Brilliant, eh? A load of old nonsense of course. I don’t think they even had marriage ceremonies back then. They had a much simpler system, if you shagged a woman three times the family considered you her husband and that was that! (I’ve had SO many husbands!).

Still, like all these things I bet there’s a little bit of truth in it. Whatever actually happened to Kosaka (where do you find squibbly ‘o’s to put in emails? Never mind …) she seems to be the curse spirit you’re after.

She’s like a patron saint of ill-fortune. A bad-luck spirit. Like I said to Tim/Gary, she’s the very epitome of curse spirits, because she does nothing
herself
but if you see her then your luck changes. It becomes the sort of miserable luck that will likely be the death of you. Brilliant eh?

As far as I can tell, she conforms to the standard rules: once the curse has been passed to its victim, the only escape is to pass it back. There’s no time limit (don’t imagine she needs one, you ain’t going to last long once she’s on your back) and the person who casts the curse has to be present.

So, no help whatsoever really but at least you got a cool creepy story out of it.

Try not to die of anything, I’m doing a pub theatre run of my Phase IV adaptation after Christmas. It’s going to be full length this time and I plan on training up REAL ANTS!!! So you and Tim/Gary need to be there or I’ll put a curse on you myself.

Lots of love!

XXCXX

Shining closed the email and thought for a moment. Cassandra was right, she hadn’t told him anything that helped. It wasn’t the weapon that mattered, it was the person holding it.

‘You have finished?’ Tamar asked him.

Shining closed the netbook and nodded. ‘Things are getting more and more dangerous,’ he said.

‘That usually means they are nearly over.’

‘Yes,’ Shining agreed. ‘It does.’

‘Do you need me?’

‘For now I’d rather you stayed here. You’re my little wild card. My backup. But be ready, I have a feeling that today …’ His voice faded away. ‘Backup,’ he repeated.

‘You are not making sense.’

‘Because it doesn’t,’ he closed his eyes, thinking hard, ‘or does it? It would explain …’ He opened his eyes again. ‘Did you bring that spare phone?’

She dug inside a small holdall and held it out to him. ‘It is program with my number, nothing else.’

‘Good, and I will only call you. No texts or emails. If anything like that comes through …’

‘Don’t open it.’

‘Exactly. I need to get back.’ He got to his feet.

‘Before you go …’ She looked awkward. ‘Is Toby …?’

‘He’s fine.’ Shining smiled.

The words ‘for now’ popped into his head but he chose not to say them out loud.

a) Lufford Hall, Alcester, Warwickshire

Toby got dressed and grabbed some breakfast. He was rather hoping he would bump into Chun-hee in the dining room, where he could make their conversation seem casual. He knew the Korean was keen on keeping his true occupation secret, and the last thing Toby wanted to do was make that difficult for him by making a big deal of seeking him out. Working his way through the heated salvers of food, he noticed April enter and decided he could at least get some idea of what the morning’s schedule would be.

‘Morning,’ he said as she scowled at him.

‘The one thing I really don’t miss about working for a living,’ she told him, ‘is the mornings. When you get to my age you don’t use alarm clocks any more, you simply wait for brittle life to resurrect you for one more day. They’re disgusting.’

‘Alarm clocks?’

‘Devices designed to interfere with a natural function. They are the contraceptives of sleep.’

‘Right. Bacon?’

‘And with that, the morning just seems that little bit better.’ She grabbed a plate and held it out to him so he could fill it. ‘Where’s my brother?’

‘Walking to Alcester.’

‘Walking? At this time of day? Why didn’t he drive, the idiot?’

‘Our car was blown up, remember?’

‘So it was. Silly bugger would probably have done it anyway, he doesn’t realise your legs are just things to look at while you’re sitting down.’

‘Have you seen Chun-hee this morning?’

‘No, but we’re supposed to start at nine-thirty so he’ll be around somewhere. Why?’

‘Secret,’ Toby whispered with a grin.

‘Oh, shut up, silly boy, what are you talking about?’ He whispered in her ear. ‘Oh!’ she said, grabbing a sausage with her fingers and biting the end off it. ‘Well, that makes things a little clearer.’

‘But Shining promised he wouldn’t blow his cover.’

‘Of course he did, he’s nice like that. Well, hang around, he’ll appear soon.’

But he didn’t. Tae-Young, Jae-sung, Clive King and Lemuel Spang had all gathered in the conference room and Chun-hee’s absence was being noted as the clock clicked past the half hour.

‘I’ll go and see if I can find him,’ suggested Toby, happy for the excuse but only too aware that the man’s absence, given recent circumstances, did not bode well.

He walked up to the West Wing, having got directions to the man’s room and knocked on his door. Silence.

Toby sighed. He had little doubt that he would find nothing good on the other side of the door.

He tried the handle. Locked. Which, annoyingly meant that he either had to find someone who had access to the key, probably Rowlands, or break it down. He knew which route would be the most professional.

He lined himself up with the door and kicked just below the handle. There was a crunch of wood around the lock. He kicked once more and the door opened.

Toby went inside, aware that his time was short as the noise would probably bring others running. He squatted and touched the carpet. It was dry. Chun-hee was sat in an armchair by the window, his eyes staring out into the room, unblinking, dead.

Toby checked for a pulse, through thoroughness rather than expectation. There was none.

Looking around the room, there was no sign of a struggle. Indeed, there was no sign of foul play whatsoever. This didn’t mean much, Toby knew, though he was all but sure it would be used to argue that Chun-hee had not been another victim of the assassin.

‘What’s going on?’ Rowlands had appeared in the doorway.

‘He didn’t appear for the morning session so I agreed to come and find him,’ Toby explained. ‘I just did.’

Rowlands looked at the door. ‘Did you really need to kick the door in?’

‘I was worried for his safety.’

Rowlands mirrored Toby’s actions, checking for a pulse. ‘Too late for all that,’ he said. ‘He’s been dead some time, I’d say. Heart attack, probably.’

‘A bold diagnosis considering all you’ve done is check his pulse.’

Rowlands stared at him. ‘Unlike you, I believe in preparation. I familiarised myself with his file, as I did with everyone else who was attending.’

I bet it didn’t tell you everything about him
, Toby thought.

‘He had a history of heart complications,’ Rowlands continued, gesturing towards the door. ‘Perhaps you would like to call an ambulance? If you’re wanting to be of use?’

‘Shouldn’t we check the room?’

‘Obviously. But as there’s two of us, don’t you think someone should call an ambulance as well?’

‘Fine.’ Toby didn’t really see what else he could do. He could hardly insist on being there while Rowlands checked the room – if, indeed, he intended doing any such thing – not, at least, without making his suspicions embarrassingly clear.

He descended to the entrance hall, put through an emergency call on the landline and then returned upstairs as quickly as he could.

Rowlands was pulling the broken door closed.

‘Finished already?’ Toby asked.

‘What do you expect?’ Rowlands replied. ‘I gave the place a quick once-over but there’s no evidence of foul play. I imagine last night just got the better of him.’

‘So much so he had a heart attack later while sitting quietly in his room?’

‘Look,’ Rowlands squared up to him, ‘what is your problem? Ever since you got here, you and the old man have been obstructive and threatening.’

Toby tried to think of a way of saying ‘you started it’ that didn’t make him sound like a petulant schoolboy. ‘We would have been only too happy to work alongside you,’ he said, ‘but you made it clear from the moment we arrived that we were unwanted.’

‘You were unnecessary. And forced on me at the last minute, I barely had time to read up on you before you walked in the door! Running an operation like this takes preparation, it’s not how I like things done.’

‘No, the way you like things done is—’ A thought suddenly popped into Toby’s head. ‘You didn’t know we were coming.’

‘If I had, I’d certainly have complained in no uncertain terms.’

‘And that’s the main problem you have with us?’

‘I dislike your section and everything it stands for. It’s a waste of resources, a dumping ground for the ineffectual.’

Toby nodded. ‘We’ll see about that.’

He turned and walked away. Arguing further with Rowlands was hardly helpful. Besides, he needed to think. He needed to try and get things straight in his head.

b) Lufford Hall, Alcester, Warwickshire

As Shining walked up the driveway, he found Toby sat by the decorative fountain, looking up at the Hall. It was a calm and pleasant place to sit, though the helicopter still embedding itself in the lawn was unlikely to be an addition the garden designers would have approved of. Perhaps, if the staff had still been in residence, they could have strung hanging baskets from the rotor blades.

‘They kick you out?’ the older man asked.

‘Rowlands would love to, given half a chance. But no, I was doing the same as you. Thinking.’

Shining sat down next to him. ‘Yes, I’ve been doing plenty of that. What have you come up with?’

‘Rowlands isn’t the assassin.’

‘No,’ Shining agreed, ‘I don’t think he is. What’s made you come to that conclusion?’

‘He didn’t know we were coming. He could be lying, I know that, it’s hardly conclusive but … I believe him. He was surprised to see us.’

‘And that rules him out because?’

‘Because of what I saw in the motorway services. The curse spirit. We were expected.’

‘Yes, we were.’

‘But the smoke turned green when it touched him.’

‘Faintly, yes. But having been exposed to some form of magic makes him the culprit no more than we are. At some point, he has experienced something that was more our remit than his. Something, I would suggest, that helped foster this attitude he has of dismissing the subject entirely.’