Murder Path (Fallen Angels Book 3) (6 page)

Chapter 7

‘The most important thing to remember is, you are a God, but so is he.  That is how he thinks, that is how he acts.  That is what I taught him.  Watch for the signs.  Watch for the things I have taught you.  How are you feeling?’

Gentle jazz softly oozed from hidden speakers in the opulent, contemporary bar of the ‘Jing’s Club’, an exclusive establishment in the centre of Edinburgh frequented by politicians, wealthy business people, aristocracy and the rich and famous.  Hushed conversations were politely taking place at the lines of tables either side of a floor lit walkway leading up to an empty cocktail bar, the clientele enjoying fine dining and expensive wine.

Eve was adorned in a red, figure hugging Bruce Oldfield evening dress, which was split from the hip down one side, her long slender exposed leg drawing admiring glances from the male occupants of the tables as she sashayed down the walkway.  Even more ogling stares were directed toward her exposed cleavage from the plunging neckline at the front of the dress, which stopped just above her navel.  Her hair was long, blonde and curled, falling seductively over her bare shoulders as she walked.  Around the milk white skin of her naked neck she wore a platinum chain with a single large teardrop diamond at the end of it.  Matching teardrops hung from her ears.  Six inch scarlet Jimmy Choo high heel shoes tapped an indelible beat, announcing her arrival at the cocktail bar, where she shimmied her way onto a stool.

‘Feelings are overrated.  It’s not what I am feeling that is important, it is what I want.  What I want comes from instinct.  Instinct you have taught me to control.  I am wet, I want him inside me and then I want to feast on his pain.’ Eve whispered nonchalantly before flashing the barman who approached her an enigmatic smile, which radiated all the way up to her sparking emerald eyes.

‘A Godfather please, made with a Dalmore Single Malt, the older the better: even better if you have a Trinitas?’  Eve asked, leaning into the bar slightly, allowing her full breasts to heave against the thin silk of her dress.

‘An excellent choice madam, containing spirits dating back to 1868.   There have only been three bottles of that particular type ever released to market, so it is rare and very expensive.’ the barman, an older man with a coiffured moustache, relayed factually, a dubious look flashing over his slightly embarrassed face, whose eyes were constantly looking down at her cleavage.

‘I don’t want a history lesson on it, I want to drink it.  Just like you want to drink in my breasts.  The questions is, do you have any?’ Eve answered, a tinge of irritation entering her sultry voice.

The barman turned red and flustered, looking anywhere but at her.  ‘My apologies Madam.  That was totally unprofessional of me.  Yes, we do have it.  Unfortunately, we can only serve it to platinum members of the club.’ 

‘Good god man, I only want a bloody drink.  My dinner partner will be arriving soon, a family member of one of the clubs founders.  His status is beyond platinum.  Do you really want to be the barman that left his dinner date without a drink?’  Eve raised her voice in frustration, people on the immediate tables turning to listen in on the conversation.

A man dining alone on a table to her left stood up and approached the bar.  He was a short man with a stocky, well-muscled frame and a face battered ugly from too many rowdy rugby scrums.  He wore a Harris Tweed suit and brown leather brogues, the suit impeccably cut, the brogues spotless and shining. 

‘Horncliffe, is there a problem here?’ he asked curiously, with a terseness to his tone, noting the barman’s embarrassment.

‘Nothing I can’t deal with Mr Ettrick, sir.  I apologise for disrupting your dinner.’ Horncliffe fawned obsequiously, immediately turning his attention away from Eve.

Eve stood furiously and angrily kicked her stool back, causing it to topple and screech on the floor.  She stamped her right foot, lifting it high into the air to get momentum, before crashing it down onto the floor:  before crashing it down onto Ettrick’s polished brogue, the six inch stiletto heel ramming straight into the dorsal of his foot, squashing the major tendon.

‘First you ogle my breasts, then refuse to serve me a drink: and now you totally blank me just because a man comes to the bar and asks you a question!  What fucking century are we living in here?  Yes, I am a woman, but I do not expect to be treated like a second class citizen.  Get me your Manager, now!’  Eve demanded, not even acknowledging that she had stomped Ettrick’s foot.

Ettrick didn’t flinch, he simply looked down at his shoe, then let his gaze linger over her slender leg, her slim waist, her smooth, animated arms, lingering a lot longer over her arms, before he placed a hand firmly on the bar between Eve and Horncliffe.

‘You are definitely a woman, a very beautiful woman and I can assure you that it is not the policy of this club to discriminate against anyone.  For me, the more beautiful women we have here, the better.  Horncliffe, I think the lady wanted a Godfather, with a Trinitas Dalmore.  Make that two, and put them on my account.’  Ettrick ordered, then stooped over and picked Eve’s stool up, placing it behind her, admiring her behind as he rose again, proffering her to sit and offering to push the stool in if she accepted.

Eve stood glaring between the barman and Ettrick for a few seconds, fury still evident on the red blotches of her long neck.  Eventually she sat, allowing Ettrick to perform his gentlemanly duties.

‘Douglas Ettrick.’ he introduced.  ‘I apologise for Horncliffe’s behaviour.  Believe me, his discrimination isn’t sexual, it’s purely a class thing with him.  If you were a Lady, Dame or Princess, he wouldn’t have asked twice.  By the way, my toes are fine, in case you were wondering.  And you are?’  Ettrick asked, his piercing eyes not leaving Eve’s face.

‘Lady Harriet Farquhar, Princess of Persia.’  Eve replied sarcastically.  ‘Is it a prerequisite of this club to be a stuck up tosser.  By the way, I wasn’t wondering about your toes, your foot shouldn’t have been under my shoe and you certainly look like a man who can take a bit of pain.  Don’t apologise for that twat’s behaviour either.  Not serving me might have been down to class.  Ogling me was definitely sexual.’

‘There might have been a bit of class in there as well.  You might look and dress like class, but you talk like a penny a poke prostitute.’  Ettrick countered.

In a flash, Eve’s hand shot from her side in a wide arc, her torso turning in time with it as she let rip a flat palmed slap right across Ettrick’s left cheek, surprising him and making his head jolt under the impact.  Murmured conversations rose in intensity, a few people sitting near the back of the club standing to get a better view of proceedings at the bar.

‘I talk how I want to talk, I dress how I want to dress, and I take umbrage at what the hell I want: right now, I want to take umbrage with you and your bigoted assumptions.  I hope that hurt, but somehow, I don’t even think it touched the sides.’ Eve retorted, her features still full of fury, her tone apoplectic.

Ettrick raised a hand to his cheek and started to rub the red rash that was starting to appear, shaking his head gently as a wry smirk formed on his lips, his gaze still not leaving Eve’s eyes.  He took a step back and raised himself onto another bar stool just behind him. 

Horncliffe quietly deposited two Godfathers on the bar, directly in the middle of Eve and Ettrick, then quickly turned away, busying himself with anything that meant he didn’t have to get involved in their conversation.

Eve turned her body from the bar and faced front on to Ettrick, her long left leg fully exposed and her breasts, heaving under the adrenaline of her fury, full and firm with erect nipples straining against the thin silk material of her dress.

‘I apologise.’  Ettrick said in a low voice, not an ounce of contriteness in his tone, rather a guttural, earthy rasp, brooding with tension.  ‘However, I think the power rather excited you.  Your pupils are dilated and your cheeks are flushed.  Your nipples are aroused and I can see that you have your thighs clasped tightly together: a sure sign that your clitoris is tingling.  I didn’t say you were a prostitute, only that your blaspheming made you sound like one.  I didn’t say that I thought it was a bad thing either, in fact, as far as I am concerned, quite the opposite.  I was just pointing out why Horncliffe may not be treating you like the lady you deserve to be treated like.  If it helps, no, it didn’t touch the sides, but it certainly stirred my loins and peaked my interest enough to want to take you back to my room and see if you could touch the sides.' Ettrick finished, his gaze not leaving Eve’s eyes once as he reached and picked up one of the Godfathers and held it out in front of him, glass tilted towards her.

‘And are you a man that generally gets what he wants?’  Eve asked, her own voice now low, lavished in a sultry whisper.  She reached over and took the second Godfather in one hand, running the tip of her perfectly manicured forefinger around the rim of the glass.

‘Possibly not as often as you get what you want, judging by that dress, those diamonds, the passion in your eyes and the fifteen hundred pound cocktail that you wanted: which is now in your hand.’  Ettrick replied, with a teasing lilt entering his still brooding rasp.

‘Are you suggesting that I played for this drink?’  Eve countered, her finger not breaking its sultry circling, her eyes enlivened with the challenge in Ettrick’s words.

‘I don’t see a date arriving, do you?’

‘He’s not due for another ten minutes.  I like to arrive early and get to know my environment.  I like to take control on a date, rather than be controlled.’ Eve tantalised.

‘I guess I have ten minutes to persuade you to come back to my room then.’

‘If it takes you ten minutes Douglas, I won’t be coming back to your room.  You have one more sentence to persuade me.’ 

Ettrick’s grin widened and he started nodding sagely, not breaking contact with her, totally engrossed in the challenge.  ‘In that case, I think you should pay for the drinks Lady Harriet Farquhar, Princess of Persia.’

Eve’s emerald eyes didn’t leave his for one moment as her finger stopped circling around the glass and she lifted her Godfather up to his, clinking the glasses together.

‘Let’s see how hard I have to slap you then, before I do touch the sides.  As lovely a name as Lady Harriet Farquhar, Princess of Persia is, I would prefer you to call me by my real name.’

‘That wouldn’t be a problem, if you told me what it is?’

‘Call me Evangeline.’  Eve pronounced, her lips pouting gently towards him as she alluringly rolled the words.  ‘Call me Madame Evangeline.’

Chapter 8

A setting sun hung low over the ululating verdant folds of the Cheviot Hills, casting concealing shadows which rolled over the contours, enigmatically obscuring the evening splendour of the craggy outcrops.  The sky was tinged a washed out pink, which edged the low lying dappled stratocumulus cloud cover caressing the top of the hills.  Rolling fields of yellow rape, golden wheat and pasture green stretched out from the peaks in a patchwork of tranquillity.  The A697 road wound its way through the fields, mainly bereft of traffic, save for a single silver people carrier leisurely traversing the spectacular scenery.

Saul was driving, occasionally taking in the views in between focusing on the winding road, but primarily deep in conversation with Rebecca who was sitting in the passenger seat.  Jacob was strapped into a child seat in the back, fast asleep.

‘We know it can’t be Eve.  I think we can safely say, given she committed suicide on National TV, that she is out of the picture.  That leaves Adam, or the ‘man who makes murderers’ as our prime suspects.  Do you remember seeing Connor McFetrich in your time at the clubs?  Can you recall him being with anyone regularly?’  Saul asked, after relaying the events that took place at Adam’s flat to Rebecca.

‘Yes, I think I do.’  Rebecca mused, deep in thought for a moment. ‘You mentioned he was with a short, stout man.  I saw them together a few times at different clubs.  He was a businessman: what was he called? Eve did tell me his name.  I think he also knew Gordon Ennis.  Yes, he did.  He was the politician coming off the fields at the foot of King Arthur’s seat with Ennis the night Eve and I were there.  God, what is his name.  Parrick, Patrick….Ettrick: the short man was called Ettrick, Douglas Ettrick.’

‘And he knew Ennis as well?’  Saul pondered, sitting in silence for a moment.  ‘That’s too much of a coincidence.  Is this murderer man the link between them? Did he turn them into killers?  Is Douglas Ettrick also a killer?  Ennis, Mcfetrich and Ettrick.  All into BDSM, two of them killers.  I think we need to delve back into that world to investigate further.  It’s the one place where we might find answers.  But I doubt if anyone will be going to clubs in Edinburgh after ‘Sodom and Gomorrah’ was raided.  How would you feel about going back into that world?’  Saul asked, looking over to Rebecca with a slightly embarrassed expression on his face.

‘John,’ Rebecca started, noticing the awkwardness in his features, ‘there’s no need to feel uncomfortable talking about sex with me.  I have no problems going back into that world, in fact, I’ve got a tingling just thinking about it.  You, on the other hand, will need to ditch your prudishness pretty sharpish if you intend to go there.  I can help you with that.’ she finished, teasing, running a hand along the inside of his thigh, all the way up to his groin.

Saul jumped, causing the car to swerve slightly as Rebecca squeezed his crotch, a flush of red flicking into his cheeks as he steadied it again.  ‘I think you probably can, and I would welcome the opportunity to research with you.  However, not driving down the A697 and definitely not with Jacob in the car.  So, deliberately changing the subject entirely, how did your research go?’

‘Spoil sport.’  Rebecca taunted playfully, before continuing in a more sombre tone.  ‘Sorry again about digging too deep and getting caught.’

‘No need to be sorry.  There was always the chance they would be monitoring, that’s why I set you up to use the Wi-Fi from the apartment opposite.  Hopefully digging that deep has found something useful?’ Saul asked, his features suddenly becoming sullen as they approached a side road off to the right.

‘I think I may have found a roundabout link between the Seymour family and Fallen Angels.  An American puritan minister from the 17
th
Century called Cotton Mather.  Have you heard of him?’ Rebecca asked, noting Saul stare out over the fields to the right, distracted from the conversation. ‘Are you alright John?’ she queried, stroking fingers down his arm with affectionate concern.

Saul quickly looked back at the road ahead, then turned and smiled sadly at Rebecca.  ‘What’s left of Featherstone Hall is just over those fields.  The place Sarah died less than three weeks ago.  Such a fucking pointless waste of life.  I still can’t get my head around this Fallen Angels ethos about death.  It just being a door to the next life, when you have done everything you want to with this one.  I don’t think Sarah had done everything she wanted.  Nor Michael, come to that.  Do you think they truly understand the impact those deaths have had on us?  Do you think they even care?’

‘I think perhaps that’s the point John.  If you believe, as they do, that there is a door into another life after this one, then why would you even shed a single tear over someone dying?  I think perhaps that is what they are trying to teach us.’

‘I get that, I just still don’t get why.  What is so special about us, that the people we loved were expendable?  You don’t need to answer that, it’s just me being me, and questioning.  Sorry, you mentioned a name.  Cotton Mather.  American puritan minister.  Wasn’t he involved in the Salem Witch Trials in some way?’ Saul asked as they approached Wooler, the sun setting just above the Cheviots.

‘Amongst a whole host of other things, yes.  He also had an absolute conviction that fossilized leg and teeth bones found in 1705, near New York, were the remains of Nephilim, the offspring of Fallen Angels and humans.’  Rebecca answered with a tinge of excitement.

‘Okay.’  Saul answered, a thoughtful look on his face. ‘How does that link to the Seymour family?’

‘From the limited amount of public information that is out there about the Seymour family, and believe me, there isn’t much, they are descendants of Cotton Mather, coming back to England and settling in Northumberland in the 1870’s.’

‘Tenuous, but certainly something to explore further.’  Saul commented, still ruminating on the information.

‘I get that, but at least it is something.  The other key thing for me is the religious angle.  Cotton Mather was devoutly religious, to the point of fervour, to the point of instigating witch trials for anyone who didn’t uphold the puritan belief.  But we can only really infer a connection from that.’  Rebecca agreed, still buoyed even under Saul’s pragmatic appraisal of the research.

‘Did you find out anything about Henry Seymour’s sister who lived in Italy, or about the clinic we both had fertility treatment at?’ Saul queried, scanning the sign posts and side roads off the A697 as they came out of Wooler.

‘I couldn’t find a public record with any information about a sister.  There was nothing at all either on Jessica Seymour being his daughter.  The only information I found were newspaper articles about her marriage to Henry and subsequent charity work together.  As for the fertility clinic, it is still there and still very popular.  I couldn’t find anything that directly linked it with the Seymour family, but then you called, and I stopped searching.  We should be there soon, shouldn’t we?’ Rebecca asked, looking at the road signs as well.

‘A mile or so on now.’  Saul answered, his features still contemplative as he scanned the road.  ‘The only person that seemed to know more about the Seymour family was Gordon Ennis.  He knew about the sister, about the brother and about the family ‘curse’, caused by inbreeding, so he thought.  Henry specifically funded the ‘Fielding Institute’ to research it.  Ennis also said, with Henry’s death, the last of the known Seymour bloodline ended.  We need to get hold of the information Ennis had on the family.’ Saul finished, his attention now fully focused on the straight road ahead: on the solitary figure standing in the middle of the straight road ahead, next to a road sign pointing left, towards Chillingham.

Rebecca noticed Saul’s gaze, seeing a glint of anger scream from his eyes and watched as his hands gripped the steering wheel until they were knuckle white.  There was a sudden roar and lurch of the people carrier as he dropped two gears and floored the accelerator, the speedometer shooting up to sixty miles an hour.  Rebecca stared down the road and saw the man in the road as well: the man who was the doppelganger of Saul.

‘John, what are you doing, slow down!’ Rebecca demanded with a firm yet concerned tone, her anxious gaze darting between Adam in the road, getting closer, and Saul in the seat, becoming visibly more furious.

‘Time to take control Rebecca.  If he’s not bothered about dying, then let’s just kill him.  One less person for us to worry about.  One less person to play us.’  Saul snarled, the speedo now hitting seventy, Adam now only eight hundred metres away, standing resolute, staring at the oncoming vehicle.

‘One less person to fucking question, one less person to help us figure out what the hell is going on John.  Think!  You’ve got our son in the car.  Do you really want to risk his life to avenge Sarah and Michael?  Stop being a fucking alpha male and think John, fucking think!’  Rebecca screamed, trying to wrestle the wheel now, not budging Saul’s fixed, frenetic hands.

The people carrier was four hundred metres away now, and hitting eighty miles an hour.  Adam was staring directly at Saul, his body language relaxed.

‘I can stop the pain in a second.  All the pain you were put through, all the pain I’ve been put through: stopped in a second! Stopped at its source.’ Saul snarled.

‘That’s just fucking life John, get used to it.  It won’t bring any of them back.  Not Sarah, not Michael, not Jessica.  It won’t get us any closer to finding out why.  And most importantly it won’t stop Jacob’s pain, every time he has a fit.  But Adam managed to stop him having fits and managed to stop the pain.’  Rebecca screamed, still scrabbling ineffectually at his arms.

Two hundred metres, ninety miles an hour: Adam still not even blinking as he stared at Saul.

Saul slammed a foot down on the brakes, the wheels locking instantly, a plume of ravaged rubber billowing out into the air behind the car as it swerved from side to side.  Saul battled with the wheel, wavering left to right, his whole body pushed back into the driver’s seat, rigid.  His glare was still filled with fury, his eyes not leaving the unmoving figure of Adam quickly approaching.

Fifty metres away and the car is still doing forty miles an hour.

‘He’s not moving John.  Drive around him!’  Rebecca shouted, her own body tense and forced back into the passenger seat. 

‘I’m stopping, but I’m not swerving.  If he doesn’t move, then that’s his choice.  It’s down to chance then, just the way he likes it.’  Saul simmered as he reached down and forcibly pulled the handbrake on, anticipating the slight skid and steering into it, keeping the vehicle straight, heading directly at Adam.

Twenty metres, twenty miles an hour.

Adam raised his arms from the side of his body and crossed them over his chest calmly, his head tilting slightly as he smiled toward Saul, a sardonic lilt to the curve of the lips.

Saul glared back, his hands held firm on the steering wheel, holding the line straight, feeling the speed ebb from the vehicle, watching the distance between himself and Adam decrease, enraged by the humour in the whites of his eyes.

Zero metres, zero miles an hour.