Ash (59 page)

She nodded slowly.

‘Then what are we waiting for?’

‘Suppose Sir Victor isn’t receiving the delegates? Suppose he’s in his office?’ said Delphine.

‘Tell you what, we’ll ask the old boy sitting by the stairway if he knows where Haelstrom and Derriman are. If either is still in the office, we’ll forget it.’

He kissed her forehead, and then her lips as a kind of reassurance, and she returned the kiss fully. His senses heightened, it felt as though he were melting into her and he was reluctant to pull away.

Finally, he did so, leaving them both breathless.

Without another word, he led her by the hand through the empty outer office and into the lobby. As she turned to close the door behind them, Ash noticed someone in a smart dark blue overcoat entering through the castle’s main doors. The man closed the big door and came marching across the lobby, well-shined shoes clacking against the hard marble floor. He was towing a small, wheeled suitcase behind him. One of the tiny wheels squealed noisily in the silence of the long, almost empty lobby.

The slicked-back black hair, grey at the temples, the expensive silk tie and stiff-collared white shirt. The smug look on his clean-shaven, puffed-out face.

‘Oh, no,’ Ash groaned. ‘That’s all I need.’

Simon Maseby waved energetically at Ash, a gesture the investigator declined to return.

‘Be with you in a moment,’ Maseby called out as he reached the reception desk. ‘Same old room, I take it, Gerrard?’ His voice sounded hollow in the long hallway.

‘Yes, sir, the usual one. Aired and ready for you to move straight in.’

‘I assume the others have already checked in?’

‘Seven so far, sir. The rest will be arriving shortly.’

‘Jolly good. And Sir Victor, Mr Derriman – where will I find them? In the office?’

The sallow-faced receptionist gave a polite shake of his head. ‘Oh no, sir. They’ll be in the reception room with the other new arrivals at the moment.’

‘And Lord Edgar?’

‘In his suite, preparing for the conference, sir. Dinner will be first on the agenda, after the welcome cocktails.’

‘Hmn, looks like I need to catch up,’ Maseby said briskly.

‘There’s no rush, Mr Maseby, sir. Cocktail hour always overruns.’

‘Indeed it does,’ replied Maseby, giving Gerrard a knowing wink. He then turned his attention in the direction of Ash and Delphine, who were waiting near the centre of the lobby.

He marched straight towards them, one hand already outstretched for Ash to shake, which the investigator reluctantly did, noting the soft clammy feel of the other man’s grip; when he’d first met the dapper consultant, his handshake had been dry and firm. Perhaps he had uncomfortable thoughts on his mind this evening. Maseby immediately turned to Delphine.

‘Dr Wyatt. It’s a pleasure to meet again. I doubt there’s any psychologist as pretty as you in the whole of the kingdom.’

She smiled limply at his patronizing remark, but before she could say anything, he’d turned back to Ash, his manner abruptly altered.

‘I hear you’re not helping much with these alleged hauntings,’ he said, a frown barely furrowing his smooth forehead. Ash wondered if he used Botox.

‘That’s not quite true,’ Ash answered calmly, determined not to let Maseby get under his skin. ‘I’ve established that the hauntings are real. I’ve advised Sir Victor that he should evacuate the castle.’

‘Come, come, that’s a bit over the top, isn’t it?’ the consultant sneered.

Ash shrugged casually, and was pleased to see a spark of annoyance in the other man’s sharp little eyes.

‘Then I think you should come up and give me a verbal report while I change for cocktails and dinner.’

‘Can’t do it.’

‘I’m sorry?’ Maseby bridled. ‘What d’you mean, you can’t? I insist.’

‘You can insist all you like, but right now I’m too busy. Maybe later?’ he added, fairly sure that everybody would be ‘too busy’ later that night, though he wasn’t planning to be among them.

‘Well . . . well, if that’s the best you can do, so be it,’ Maseby blustered. ‘But you can be sure I shall be reporting your attitude to your superiors.’

‘So be it,’ Ash said firmly, throwing Maseby’s own words back at him.

The smartly dressed consultant turned sharply away from Ash and Delphine and quickly strode to the curved staircase. He mounted the steps two at a time, not acknowledging the old guard’s salute as he passed by.

Placid Pat couldn’t have cared less: his mind was on other things.

The ex-Reverend Father Patrick O’Connor had been in a sour but reflective mood all day. All the comings and goings: watching a collection of guards being briefed on their mission to clear the woodland of wildcats; the return of the two foolish young people as well as the so-called ghost hunter and the lovely psychologist; the hurrying and scurrying of maids, servants, waiters and cleaners, preparing for tonight’s jamboree.

But
Jaysus
, that fat, black despot hiding from an African country he’d brought to its knees, hundreds and thousands starved to death or killed horribly by his own militia, a clutch of war criminals and the so-called businessmen, cheaters and liars, even
God damn them
, rapists! All living in luxury in this haunted grand abode. Oh yes, he knew it was haunted, always had been since he’d arrived more than thirty years ago, but this time haunted
fiercely
, the Divil finding his own spinning their lives out in undeserved luxury for an impossibly high fee. But in the end, the Divil will out. It was a true saying, all right.

On the doorstep earlier, he’d wondered about the yellow sky, a
dirty
yellow sky smeared with sin but now turned to the deep blue that came with nightfall. The moon had become sallow as the hours drew onwards, as if that same yellowness of sky had been drawn into it. And even the smell of the old castle had changed, for a strange acrid pungency wafted through the halls and passageways.

All day he’d brooded, thinking back to when he was a priest, where the flock of his parish in the little town came to him with their problems and to confess their sins. Honest, God-fearing people who laid aside feuds and differences for that blessed morning, the men always wearing their finest suits, the kids with their faces and necks scrubbed clean, women in their nicest frocks, their Sunday best, hardy folk who paid true homage to their maker. Sure an’ all, the men might get drunk and rowdy on a weekend night, but when Sunday came along, they still attended service despite groggy heads and lumps and bruises marking their Saturday night’s entertainment.

The counselling he gave to humble, husband-beaten wives during the week, explaining to them divorce was a grave sin in the eyes of the Church. But since then he’d had plenty of time to think. Why should women be treated so? Had Christ ever said that leaving a cruel husband was wrong? Were the eyes of the Church the same as the eyes of God?

And then there were the lasses, so happy and filled with life. How many had come to him fallen from grace, pregnant by a lad who’d said he loved them? Was it right that they should not cross the Irish Sea to find an abortionist? Who was he to judge, a sinner himself? A
murderous
sinner. A
grievous
sinner.

And as the long day had slowly passed, as the very air in the castle became ever more tainted with evil, his thoughts turned again to the grievous sin that was being continuously committed by another man of the cloth, one of his own faith: Archbishop Carsely.

He could not exactly know what corruption the deluded man imposed on poor Sister Thimble every day, but it showed in her eyes, the darkness around them evidence of the torture she was undergoing constantly. Pat was sure that sexual depravity was involved. Yet there was no sign of remorse on that pompous cleric, even though his sin was evident in the good sister’s expression. It couldn’t go on. He would not allow it to go on.

He felt the weight of the gun beneath his zipped-up gilet, and his plan gathered pace. His frustration in his brethren’s failings had increased recently, and it had crossed his mind that other forces might be working on his subconscious, teasing him with lascivious thoughts of what Archbishop Carsely and the nun were up to. They had been growing worse, and now Placid Pat felt broken and confused. But, above all, he was filled with self-righteous fury.

Something had to be done
, the artful voices in his head told him.
The false bishop was shaming all Catholics, including himself, who was paying penance for his own sins in this strange purgatory
. Carsely’s debauchery demonstrated that there was no contrition in the prelate’s heart.

The man must accept his punishment now, on this very day. And it would be administered by the Reverend Father Patrick O’Connell.

His fingers reached to touch the weapon concealed in its shoulder holster.

Delphine slid her key card into the reader on the main office door and waited for the faint buzzing that would inform her of the lock’s release.

The door opened and she pushed through, Ash following close behind. While Delphine was still scanning the room, Ash placed an ear against Haelstrom’s door and listened for several moments. By the time she joined him, he was convinced the room beyond was empty. He relaxed and tried the brass doorknob. It wouldn’t budge.

‘What now?’ Delphine whispered anxiously.

Dipping his hand into a pocket on the inside of his jacket, he produced a small, buttoned-down leather wallet.

‘Tools of the trade,’ he told her. ‘Sometimes necessary.’

He opened out the wallet pocket to display both sides arranged with a selection of thin metal sticks. Ash knelt and placed the lockpicker’s tool-case on the floor, each instrument kept in a separate holder. He slid one out that was slightly thicker and stronger-looking than most of the others. Its end was angled at about forty-five degrees, its shaft a little wider for easier handling.

‘We call this the wrench,’ he explained to her in soft tones. ‘And this,’ he showed her another, thinner metal stick, with a curved end coming to a point, ‘is the pick.’

He held both instruments up to the door lock. ‘Looks like a pin-and-tumbler lock, so it shouldn’t be too difficult,’ he said, sliding the wrench into the key opening. This was followed by the pick, which he pushed further into the keyhole, using the lever wrench to support it as he twisted. ‘There are five pins inside which I need to push up till they click – you’ll hardly hear the sound, but I’ll feel the release of pressure. I’ll do two at a time, leaving the one at this end for last.’

It took but a few seconds before he twisted both appliances and a small but audible click told them the door was open.

Ash hesitated, still holding the wrench and pick in place. He looked up at Delphine. ‘You don’t think this door has an alarm, do you?’

She froze, having no answer, and he grinned as he gently turned the knob and pushed the door wide open.

‘Okay, so I checked it for a contact strip when I was in here earlier,’ he said, still grinning. She frowned back at him chidingly. Cautiously, they entered, and although they both knew the room would be empty they breathed a sigh of relief when it proved to be so.

‘You’d make a good burglar,’ Delphine commented as she looked about her.

Ash pointed beyond Haelstrom’s broad desk at the slim grey cabinets that lined the wall. ‘Right. This is where the fun starts.’

They walked around the desk, the investigator sweeping his eyes across its surface in the vague hope of finding the keys to the filing cabinet, but seeing only the usual office clutter. He tried the cabinet drawers anyway, but they remained firmly shut.

‘You don’t think Haelstrom could have left his keys in a desk drawer, do you?’

‘I doubt it,’ replied Delphine going back to the desk. She pulled at each of its drawers but none would budge. ‘Can you pick the locks? On these filing cabinets, I mean.’

‘No. I don’t have the patience. But they don’t look too tough to me.’

Ash went to the cluttered desk and picked up a metal ruler, smacking it lightly against the palm of one hand.

‘I’m hoping this’ll do the trick.’

Still tapping the ruler against his open palm, he inspected the curious, custom-made units. He reached inside his jacket for the notebook in which he’d written down the numbers from the graveyard.

‘Which cabinet to start with?’ he wondered aloud. He showed Delphine the sets of numbers in his notebook. ‘Can you find any connection to them?’

She studied the numbers, then looked at the cabinets again. She looked between the two twice more, before finally saying, ‘You’ve made a mistake in what you’ve written down. Look, where at the start of the figures you’ve written an 8, it should have been a B. See there, on that cabinet there’s a B just above the handle.’

Ash forced the tough steel ruler through the thin space between the narrow drawer and the frame of the cabinet. It took some effort, and for a moment it seemed the plan wasn’t going to work. Then, its lock suddenly breaking as he and Delphine used the ruler as a lever, the drawer flew out several inches. Triumphant, they paused to inspect its contents before pulling it out as far as it would come.

Row upon row of stamped memory sticks lay inside like dominoes, their markings plainly visible. There were still several empty spaces, obviously waiting to be filled by fresh arrivals.

Ash consulted his notebook and removed a stick bearing a matching number. ‘Okay, let’s plug this one into the computer and see what comes up on the screen.’

Delphine took the flash drive from him and went over to the computer, putting on her glasses as she did so. Meanwhile, Ash browsed through the other sticks in the cabinets, checking codes against those he’d hastily scribbled into his notebook, then turned to look over Delphine’s shoulder. When she tried to access the file, a box appeared requesting a password for access.

She twisted to look up at Ash. ‘I was afraid of that.’

‘Me too. I suppose it would be too simple for Haelstrom to use his own name? He’s self-important enough.’