Saving Alexander (31 page)

This was something Sage hadn’t considered. He sighed. “We’ll deal with it like we always do. Let’s not anticipate the worst before there is one.”

The next day the newspapers were full of Eric’s suicide. He’d been found in his marble bathtub, his wrists cut, the razor he’d used to do it lying by the side of the bath. There’d been no suicide note from what the newspapers were reporting. The investigation with the police was “ongoing.”

Alex seemed to breathe easier every day that went by without anything leading back to Eric’s obsession, but Sage could see he was still tense. He tried to cheer him up by making plans for Christmas Day just over a week away. They planned on having a quiet Christmas celebration at Sage’s house with Miles and Lanie, Annie and her family, Dan and Cully if he could make it. Alex had never had a family Christmas before and Sage was determined to make it special.

Chapter 29

It was seven p.m. and DS Doyle sat in his office at Chelmsford Police Station with a cup of tea and a muffin, sighing contentedly. He’d finally closed the case of the teenage burglar terrorising the neighbourhood and he thought he deserved a treat after finishing signing off the reports his constables had prepared. He took a great bite out of his muffin and a slurp of tea. His eyes lit on a folder on his desk.
Midsomer Mayhem
. He frowned. This was the one case that was eluding him, the one he hadn’t managed to close yet. Idly, he opened the folder and flipped through the contents.

This had been a real rum case. Actors and authors, best-selling books, villains abounding, cults, some psycho making life imitate art…it sounded like a novel all on its bloody own!

He grinned as he took another bite of his muffin
.

Perhaps he should suggest that to Alex. It’d be another best seller, he was sure.

He browsed through the newspaper clippings, casting his eyes over them again, and a freshly cut clipping caught his eye. He stopped chewing, swallowed and picked it up to examine it more closely. It was an article on the Prophet of Bohemia, Rudy Kohler. The article covered his childhood and his subsequent rise to power in one of the most nihilistic cults Reginald Doyle had ever been exposed to. There was a picture of a smiling Rudy with his arm around a short, dark-haired woman. The caption read “Rudy Kohler and his mother Sarah at the recent BNP Gathering in London.”

The name Sarah tickled his curiosity. Reg peered at the picture as a chill of recognition dribbled down his spine. The woman in the picture might be years younger and a lot less weighty with a different hair colour, but he’d been trained to see the people beneath the mask, the characteristics that made people look the way they did. The jawline was the same, the same wide-spaced eyes and the slightly flattened nose. This was Sarah Brose.

He opened his drawer, taking out his magnifying glass to look at the picture more closely. He nodded in satisfaction. It was definitely her. A small piece of the puzzle fell into place. There
was
a connection between Alexander Montgomery and this woman, one that definitely led back to the past. He needed to warn the couple about this development and go out to interview the woman again. He picked up his phone.

* * *

Sage was currently sitting at a charity function next to a blonde woman with eye-catching cleavage and a predatory look that said she wanted to devour him, very slowly, using her teeth. More than once her knee had touched his under the table. It was just a matter of time before her hands starting going places he really didn’t want them to go. He wondered just how polite he needed to be in staying before he could leave. He also wondered in exasperation whether he should tell the woman next to him that he didn’t swing her way. He was about to take the plunge when his mobile rang. He felt relieved and excused himself politely. The blonde woman looked very disappointed.

“Christopher Sage.”

“It’s Reg Doyle, Sage.”

“Hello, Reg. I really need to thank you. You’ve just saved my bacon from a fate worse than death.”

“Good to hear it, but we have another problem. I was looking over the case file for all these bizarre happenings and I realised who Sarah Brose is. She’s Rudy Kohler’s mother. There’s a picture of her clear as day in a fresh newspaper clipping my team found.”

Sage grew cold. “Are you sure? Christ, I don’t believe it. I knew I didn’t like that woman. Do you think she’s the one who’s been doing all these things? God, Alex is by himself at the studio. I think Sarah is there too; it was to be her last night on the job tonight. I’m going to swing by there now and check Alex is all right.”

“You should wait until I can get a unit there. I’ll call the Met and get them to dispatch one. I’m coming down too. I want to be on this one.”

“I’d bloody well hope you’ll pick the bitch up and lock her away. If she’s this psycho’s mother, the apple didn’t fall very far from the tree. Alex could be in danger so I need to get over there. I’ll call you from the studio when I get there.”

He ignored Reg Doyle’s protests to wait for backup and disconnected the call. He made his way out of the Dorchester Hotel toward the taxi rank.

Chapter 30

Alex sat in his office in the studio working on his new novel. He’d found he got a lot of writing done late at night in the office when everyone had gone home. He liked the discipline of sitting at his desk with his laptop and no distractions—which meant Sage.

He grinned. When Alex tried to write anywhere else other than the office, Sage was extremely distracting as he wandered around in low-slung sweats with his chest bare. It was definitely not conducive to Alex’s creative mental health. Sage was at a promotional charity dinner somewhere in the city. The studio was quiet but he’d promised Sage that he’d lock all the doors and make sure he was safe inside. He thought vaguely that Sarah was still in the building too somewhere, doing her last bit of cleaning until she left for the night. Alex was engrossed in the contents of his laptop when he heard a noise at the inner door.

Startled, he looked up into the smiling face of Sarah Brose. “Sarah.” Alex smiled, closing the laptop. “Isn’t it a bit late to be still here, cleaning?”

The woman moved into the office. “I forgot to clean something in the restroom. I came back to do it and saw the light on. I wanted to see you were all right.” She stared at Alex intensely.

Alex felt a little uncomfortable. “You should be getting home. You’re going above and beyond the call of duty being here at this time.”

The woman’s stare was making him feel very uneasy. He felt the slow trickle of cold sliding down his spine. Alex reached for his mobile sitting on top of the desk, drawing it toward him slowly. He had no idea why he felt so threatened—
and
by an older woman for God’s sake.
“I’m quite busy and I need to get back to work. Is there anything else I can help you with?”

Sarah moved over to the window and stood looking out. “I’ve tried to look after you, Alexander. He would have wanted me to. I recognised you in that TV talk show you did when you published your books. I knew I had to take care of you for him. He always wanted you to be the best you could be.”

Alex felt himself falling into a dark hole at these words. His head spun and he gripped the tabletop tightly. He’d heard words like those before—from Rudy. Rudy had said them when he was beating Alex, when he was ramming into him, when he’d taken his sabre and cut four deep lines into his back. He’d repeated it over and over again, his own personal mantra.

Sarah carried on, her voice sounding far away. “I tried to help you. I wanted you to be famous, to have your books made into best sellers so you’d be wealthy. We’re going to need money, you and I. So I orchestrated a few incidents to get you some publicity.” She turned to Alex, with a joyful expression. “And it worked, didn’t it! Look at you now. Your book sales are going crazy. You’re going to be a very wealthy man. Now you can share it with me. Rudy would have wanted that too.”

She came over, standing next to Alex, putting a large, meaty hand on his shoulder. “I forgave you when you yielded to temptation with that man. He shouldn’t have taken advantage of you that way and soiled you. You belong to Rudy.”

She turned to Alex, her face thunderous. “I heard the two of you rutting away in here like a couple of animals. I heard everything.” She waved at the corner of the room where the air-conditioning unit was fastened to the wall. “I had a video camera installed in there. I saw you both, fucking each other. He should have known better. You— you’re used to men telling you what to do so I couldn’t blame you. It’s in your nature. I sent you those newspaper clippings so you’d remember your place—remember who you really are.”

Horrified at the thought he and Sage had been filmed making love, Alex finally found his voice. When he spoke his voice was husky. “Who
are
you? What’s your connection with Rudy?” He stood up, his hands flattened on the desk to support himself.

Sarah frowned, looking at him as if he were simple. “I’m his mother. Isn’t it obvious?” Alex’s world swum around him as if was falling into a plughole, spiralling deeper down into craziness.

It took a while for Alex to connect the woman in front of him—sixty-ish, grey haired and overweight—with the one he’d seen on a few occasions at the compound. The few times he’d seen Rudy’s mother there, she’d been black haired and thinner. She’d also worn large black glasses, looking like a school mistress. He’d been close to her twice, both times introduced as Rudy’s “pet.” She’d had an inch-long scar on her jaw from what Rudy had called a “misunderstanding.” Up close now he could see the scar was still there. But now he knew who she was, he could see the resemblance to the woman he’d fleetingly met.

She looked at Alex in pity. “You only saw me a couple of times when I came to visit. He liked to keep you to himself, he loved you so much. He didn’t want me there too often; he was worried that I might be followed and the police would make trouble for him.” She smiled. “I can see you’re confused. But this is the start of something, Alexander. You and me. We’re going to go away together and honour Rudy’s memory and rekindle Bohemia again. Think of it! We can do so much with your money. We can start a new faith, a new beginning.”

She scowled. “That bastard you were screwing got rid of me. So I won’t be able to keep an eye on you anymore. So we need to leave together tonight. I came to fetch you.”

“I’m not going anyway with you. You’re insane.” Alex stared at the woman.

Sarah stepped closer to Alex. “That actor corrupted you, made you think you’re something you’re not.” She laughed and her face twisted in glee. “But he’ll get what’s coming to him.”

“What do you mean?” Bile welled up in Alex’s throat at the thought something might happen to Sage.

“I’ve got a couple of people who’ll take care of him once we’re gone. Show him a good time.” Her face was sadistic, filled with sheer glee.

At her words, Alex caught his breath, his fear for Sage overwhelming.

“You should thank me, Alex. I heard about your trouble with that man, that Eric Rossi, so I took care of him for you. I couldn’t have him think he could defile you like that and get away with it. I had to make an example of him for the members. So they could see I had the power to give them instructions. They rather enjoyed that little assignment.” She smiled flatly.

“You killed Eric?” Alex’s voice was disbelieving. Here was yet another person who’d suffered because of him. Despite his final hatred of the man, he hadn’t deserved that ending. Acid rose in his mouth and he swallowed it back down, feeling it scorch his throat.

Sarah regarded him with a little contempt and sighed heavily. “The man was a pig and deserved everything he got. There are still plenty of Bohemia believers out there ready to do as I ask, you know. I
am
Rudy’s mother after all. I needed to start growing my influence, making them aware of who I am. They loved my plan to generate money out of your books. They said it was sheer genius.”

Alex wiped a cold hand over his mouth. “
That
man was a pig? What about your son, your precious Rudy? Didn’t what he did to me make him a pig too?”

For a large woman, Sarah moved swiftly. She crossed the room, slapping Alex hard across the face. Alex’s head whipped to one side and Sarah hit him again. Alex tasted blood. He wanted to smack her back but he didn’t want to hit a woman, no matter how bitter and twisted she was.

“Don’t you dare say that about my son!” Sarah hissed venomously. “Rudy was a true warrior, a man among men. He could do what he wanted and not be accountable. Men should have been glad to have been chosen by him. He really had feelings for you. You were his favourite.”

Alex’s temper flared and he curled his hands as he faced the mad woman. “I used to think that too. But now I know Rudy was a mad animal, sadistic, cruel and manipulative. He deserved to be put down like a dog after what he did to me and the others.”

“Alex.”

Alex heard his name said from the door and turned to see Sage standing there, his face white. Sage looked at Sarah standing in the room and his jaw clenched. Alex could see the pulse in his throat throbbing. “Alex, come over here. Come to me.”

Sage moved forward into the room, reaching a hand out to him. Alex moved toward him in relief. Sarah snarled, her hand reaching into her jacket pocket, pulling out a pistol. She held it up, brandishing it at Sage.

“Alex. Move one step more toward that scum and I’ll shoot him in the head. I’m a very good shot, I promise you.”

Alex stopped moving, staring in fear at the gun pointed at Sage’s head.

Sage’s face was unwavering. “Don’t listen to her. She won’t shoot me. Just move out of the office. The police are on their way and they won’t be too long; then they can take this psychopathic bitch to the loony bin where she belongs.”

“I can’t take that chance.” Alex’s voice was a whisper. “I’m not losing you.”

“Alex, please. Just get out of here. I’ll be fine.” Sage’s voice was soft and Alex saw his eyes trying to steady him, give him confidence.