Shepherd's Cross (26 page)

3.30pm:
Sergeant Jennings guided the Land Rover along the driveway of Fellside Hall,
searching for a suitable spot to park up without being seen. He could tell by
the multitude of tyre tracks criss-crossing through the snow that Blackmoor’s Range
Rover had been busy. Ice crunched under the wheels of the Land Rover; falling
snow had been replaced by freezing temperatures that had hardened the tracks
and made the ground underneath slippery and uneven. Icicles hung from branches
like jagged fangs, their tips glistening in the fading light, sharp enough to
pierce the toughest skin. Cara sat quietly, imagining the rows of icicles on
either side of them to be the jaws of a sleeping dragon who mustn’t be allowed
to wake.

The Land Rover rounded the final bend
that would lead them past the lake to the Hall beyond. They would soon be
visible to anybody who happened to be keeping an eye out for visitors. ‘Over
there,’ said Jennings, pointing to a small copse of fir trees that stood
approximately fifteen yards to the left of the track. He turned the steering
wheel anti-clockwise and carefully navigated the Land Rover through the deep,
untouched snow; edging slowly forwards to avoid spinning the wheels and
grounding the chassis. He reached the trees twenty seconds later and killed the
engine. Outside, the light was fading – at best, they had an hour before they’d
be engulfed in complete darkness.

‘Okay,’ said Jennings, looking over his
shoulder to Cara and Ben. ‘From here on in, we’re on foot. We need to do
everything we can to reach the Hall without being spotted. With a bit of luck,
we’ll be able to sneak around the side and stake the place out. That old wreck
is bound to have a few gaps that we can climb through.’

‘Why can’t we just knock on the front
door and arrest them?’ asked Ben, unaware of his naivety.

‘Arrest them for what exactly? Without a
search warrant, the only way we’re going to find out whether or not they’ve
taken your daughter is to get inside without them seeing us.’

‘What if they
do
see us, Sarge?’
asked Cara. ‘What do we do then?’

‘Good question,’ he answered, unclasping
his truncheon and tapping it suggestively onto the dashboard. ‘I guess we’ll
have to cross that bridge when we come to it. In the meantime, let’s
concentrate our efforts on keeping out of sight and searching for evidence that
Chloe’s in there.’ Cara and Ben nodded. ‘I’m not supposed leave these in the
car,’ he said, removing the keys from the ignition and sliding them under the
overhead sun visor, ‘but if for whatever reason something does happen to one of
us and we need to make a run for it, you know where the keys are. Okay, let’s
go. And Ben?’ he asked, pausing before opening the door.

‘Yes?’

‘I can’t pretend to understand how you
must be feeling right now, but I’m going to remind you that I’m in charge here,
okay? I can’t have you acting all gung-ho when we get down there…you’re to stay
with me or Cara at all times, do you hear?’

‘Understood.’

‘Good. Because if you don’t, there’s a
high probability you’ll scupper our chances of finding her. And I don’t want
that to happen any more than you do.’

‘What about the others?’ asked Cara. ‘Bronwyn,
Frank and Ted. You don’t think they’ve got anything to do with this, do you?’

‘Hold your horses, Cara. We don’t even
know for sure that Blackmoor and King have anything to do with it. This is just
a hunch I’m acting on here; there’s not a shred of firm evidence linking them
to it. And no; as it happens I don’t think the others have anything to do with
it, but just to be on the safe side, we need to assume that they might. Nothing
would surprise me after the couple of days I’ve just had. Anyway, enough chin-wagging.
Let’s go.’

They left the Land Rover hidden behind
the trees and began walking the three hundred yards or so towards Fellside
Hall. An unmanaged scattering of bushes and trees that skirted around the left
of the lake in front of the Hall provided them with far better cover than if
they’d taken the more direct route along the driveway. The lack of a path meant
that the going was heavy – all three of them slipped on at least one occasion,
with Cara in particular finding it difficult to remain upright – but with every
step they drew nearer to the Hall, which stood forebodingly before them like a
derelict prison, ready to trap them within its walls.

The line of trees they were walking
behind began to thin out, signifying they were almost there. From their
position behind a large Rhododendron bush, they were afforded a clear view of
their target; but there was at least a twenty yard gap between them and the
Hall. They would need to make a run for it and hope that nobody was standing
guard. ‘Right,’ said Jennings, pointing towards a low wall that stretched
parallel to one side of the Hall. ‘If we can get behind that wall, we should be
able to get a decent view without being seen. We’ll then have more of an idea
about how best we can get inside. On the count of three, run as fast as you
can. One…two…three!’

They sprang from behind the bush and
sprinted across to the wall, diving in unison behind it; Cara doing all she
could to stifle a shriek as Ben clumsily landed his full weight onto her ankle.
‘Careful!’ she hissed, her hand automatically reaching out to the pain.

‘Sorry,’ he said, half-smiling at her. ‘It
was an accident…honestly.’

‘I should bloody well hope so too!’

‘Hey, you two,’ whispered Jennings. ‘Now’s
not the time for a lover’s tiff.’

‘Do you think we were seen?’ Cara asked,
changing the subject.

‘I don’t know…I don’t think so.’

‘Look,’ said Ben, pointing to a warped
board that was hanging loosely from a ground floor window in front of them. ‘That
seems as good a place as any to get inside? What do you reckon?’

Jennings scanned the full length of the
building, checking to see if there were any more suitable options. ‘Looks good
to me,’ he said. ‘Come on.’ He led the way across the short distance from the
wall to the window. ‘Help me with this, would you?’ They grabbed the end of the
board that was hanging down and twisted it back and forth, until the nails that
attached it to the rotting window frame eventually gave way and it came
crashing to the ground, narrowly avoiding Ben’s toes as he pulled his foot away
in the nick of time. They peered through the gaping hole that had once been a
window. Inside was a small, empty room, which in times gone by had perhaps
served as a study or card room. Fortunately, the only door that led into or out
from the room was closed, allowing for a degree of privacy as one-by-one they
hauled themselves over the window ledge and into the clutches of the Hall.

The first thing to hit them was the
smell; a musty, dank odour that filled the room like a running tap fills a
bath. A mouse scurried into a gap between a skirting board and the floor,
sending a shiver down Cara’s spine as she instinctively backed away. The
corners of the ceiling were thick with cobwebs carrying the mutilated bodies of
a thousand dead flies, strands of broken web floating in the air like the tentacles
of a jellyfish.

For a short while, the three of them
stood silently, not wanting to move in case they caused a floorboard to creak.
Approaching the Hall from the outside had not felt overly precarious – the open
air and path back to the Land Rover had given them a certain amount of security
– but now that they were inside, that sense of security had all but
disappeared. This wasn’t a pretend game of cops and robbers, but a real-life
covert investigation into the kidnapping, and possibly worse, of a six-year-old
child.

Jennings walked slowly towards the door
and placed his ear against it, listening for any sound coming from the hallway
on the other side. He glanced back at Cara and Ben and shook his head before
moving carefully back over to them. ‘I can’t hear anything,’ he whispered. ‘We’re
going to have to get closer.’

‘Maybe we should split up?’ asked Cara. ‘We’ve
less chance of making a noise if we’re by ourselves.’

‘Maybe so, but it’s too dangerous. We’ll
be more capable of looking after ourselves if we stick together.’ He waved his
arm, beckoning them towards the door. As he was about to open it, he turned to
them and whispered: ‘From now on, nobody says anything unless it’s urgent,
understood? We’ll use signals instead.’ As if to demonstrate their
understanding, both Cara and Ben nodded their reply. ‘Good,’ he whispered. ‘One
more thing – whatever happens, don’t panic. We need to keep our wits about us.’
Lecture over, he placed his hand around the handle and pulled the door slowly
towards himself, expecting it to creak on its rusty hinges. Surprisingly, it
opened without a sound.

He poked his head into a long, narrow
hallway and checked left and then right, looking and listening for signs of
life. Two candles had been fixed to the wall at either end, providing a pitiful
amount of light. Jennings strained his eyes in an effort to get his bearings:
from the position of the candles, he estimated that the small room they were
standing in was somewhere near the middle of the hallway. To his left, it
stretched almost twenty yards to a dead end, which was marked by a tall,
boarded-up window. There were three doors in that direction, one on the
opposite wall to Jennings, and two on his own side. To his right, the hallway
again ran for twenty or so yards, but this time there was no dead end; instead
there was a sharp turn to the left, beyond which Jennings was unable to see. He
could only make out one door in that direction, which suggested that the room
behind it was likely to be considerably larger than those to his left. He
weighed up his options, realising that choosing the correct way to go would be
more down to good luck than good management. It was his curiosity as to where
the turning at the end led to that eventually proved to be the decisive factor.
Having made up his mind, he stepped out into the hallway and turned right,
signalling with his hand for the others to follow him.

Staying close to the wall, they crept
slowly down the hallway until they reached the next doorway. It was Cara who
went first this time, placing her ear to the door and listening for the sound
of people talking behind it. Silence. She opened the door and looked inside. As
Jennings had guessed, the room was big, but it was empty. Cara closed it gently
and continued down the hallway. When they reached the turning at the end, she
peeked around the corner, and then nodded to Jennings; letting him know that
they were moving in the right direction. She could tell this by the amount of
candles lighting the way, which were far greater in number than the two token
examples in the hallway they were about to leave. Ahead of her, she could see a
pair of wooden doors, larger and more elegant in style than the others. A voice
inside her head told her there was something important behind those doors; something
that she needed to see.

Step by step, they edged their way
forwards, ready to disappear back into the shadows should the need arise.
Cara’s heart was in her mouth:  she knew that if she were to stop for a second
and think about what she was doing – the reckless situation she was putting
herself in - she would very likely turn around and head for the hills. It was
only the apparent confidence of her superior officer that was preventing her
from doing just that; he had never let her down in the past and she couldn’t
abandon him now. Despite her fear, she owed it to him to remain strong in the
face of danger; especially if he was right and it transpired that Blackmoor and
King were responsible for Chloe’s disappearance. She glanced across at Ben,
checking for signs that he had his emotions under control, but she needn’t have
worried; the expression on his face told her that he was completely focused on
the job in hand.
Just worry about yourself
, she thought, realising that
out of the three of them, she was the one who was most at risk of losing
control of the situation.

They arrived at the double doors and
stood at either side of them. Jennings took the initiative, signalling for Cara
and Ben to stay where they were. He cupped his hand around his right ear and
put his head to the door. This time he was not greeted by silence, but the
sound of voices. He closed his eyes, focusing all his efforts on trying to hear
what they were saying.

The first voice he heard was that of Benedict
Blackmoor: ‘One more hour, until at last our destiny will be fulfilled and He will
be with us once again. My friends, you have no idea how fortunate you are to
have been chosen as witnesses to this historic event.’

‘Tell me, Professor Blackmoor. What can
we expect when He comes? Should we be afraid?’

Wilson?
Jennings
said to himself, consciously having to restrain himself from shouting out.

‘Do not expect anything,’ Blackmoor said.
‘For even I cannot be entirely sure as to how He will react. However, I do not
believe we should fear Him. After all, it is we who will have released Him from
years of imprisonment, is it not? He will almost certainly look kindly upon
those who have sought to bring Him back into this world, just as he will show
no mercy to those who have denied Him for so long.’

‘Benedict,’ spoke the heavy voice of Reuben
King. ‘We should robe ourselves and prepare for the ceremony. Shall I take the
witnesses to the Round Room?’