The Rain-Soaked Bride (18 page)

He could get no sense of the size or shape of what it was that was attacking him. It just felt like a pressure, a weight, beating at him as he tried to bring his arms up to defend himself.

‘Toby?’ he heard Fratfield shout.

‘Just run!’ Toby replied. Whatever this thing was, he had no doubt there was little Fratfield could do about it. At least if there was only one of them, the other man might be able to break for freedom while it was concentrating on Toby.

‘Yeah right,’ he heard Fratfield say, much closer now. ‘I can’t even see it? Where is it?’

Right on top of me you silly bastard, Toby thought as the thing bore down once more and slowly suffocated him.

e) Who knows?

Toby awoke. In itself this was not entirely expected and he took a couple of seconds to appreciate the fact.

He suffered no illusion that he had found himself in the afterlife – as open-minded as he now was, he was quite sure Heaven wasn’t a place of splitting headaches and bruised palms. It also helped that, after a few moments of confusion, he recognised exactly where he was. It had been just over a year since he had last been here but he would never forget this cold, marble floor. It helped that the last time he’d seen it was in similar circumstances, lifting himself up from it after a considerable trauma. He looked up and noted the oil-paintings of classical composers, the bookshelves filled with sheet music and the empty plinth where, once upon a time, had stood a …

He was suddenly aware of the sound of someone creeping up on him. Just a soft brush of shoe on tile. No, he thought, not this time.

He turned, just avoiding the bust of Beethoven that, until recently had been sat on that empty plinth, as it was brought crashing down towards his head. It collided off his shoulder, exploding on the floor in a shower of fragments of porcelain sculpted to look like curly hair.

Toby spun round, his shoulder throbbing with the blow but its owner blessedly more conscious than the last time this scene had played out.

He put up his hands, his attacker barrelling into him with a cry of frustration. Yoosuf, Toby thought, intelligence asset, collector of sheet music and the man who had been instrumental in his career ending up on the rocks. Well, no, perhaps that was a little unfair, it was Toby’s mishandling of him that had done that. Still, braining him with a statue of a dead composer meant Toby still bore a bit of a grudge.

They rolled on the floor, Toby getting the upper hand, only to find the man he was wrestling was not Yoosuf after all. He wore Yoosuf’s clothes but the face that peered out at him from a nest of brightly coloured scarves was the scrawny, salt and pepper bearded, face of his father.

‘What are you doing?’ his father asked. ‘You silly bugger, you could have done me a mischief.’

At which point Toby gave up on the evidence of his senses altogether.

‘Right,’ he said, getting to his feet. ‘The car’s attacked, I’m knocked out cold and now I seem to be at the mercy of a psychoanalyst’s wet dream.’

‘What are you talking about?’ his father asked, getting up and brushing himself down. ‘You never make any sense. Head in the clouds, that’s your problem. You’re a dreamer.’

‘That sounds about right,’ Toby admitted, looking around. The room was exactly as he remembered it. The shelves and paintings, the scattered china, the short run of steps leading up to the exit and the street outside.

‘Pay attention to me when I’m talking to you,’ his father said. ‘God know where we went wrong with you.’ The old man sighed. ‘We tried our best but you were always a disappointment. When your poor mother died the last thing she said was—’

‘Oh shut up,’ said Toby punching the old man as hard as he could in the face.

His father’s head cracked like the bust of Beethoven, the remains of which they were crushing into powder beneath their feet. Half of it fell away to reveal a hollow shell of oyster pink.

‘Now look what you’ve done,’ his father said, the voice echoing around that empty skull so it sounded like an old gramophone record played through a trumpet. ‘Could you make more of a mess?’

‘Probably,’ Toby admitted, picking up a large binder of sheet music from one of the shelves and bringing it down on the remains of his father’s head.

The body toppled to the floor and Toby ran up the steps towards the front door, pulled it open and found himself looking out on a warehouse in Shad Thames.

This was familiar too … Of course, it was where he had first met what remained of Russian spy Olag Krishnin. His first case for Section 37. It had also been where August Shining had been …

A gunshot rang out and he saw the old man fall backwards, two bullet wounds to the chest. He hit the dusty ground of the warehouse, its insubstantial boards quivering and creaking.

Looking around, he saw Krishnin. The gun was in Krishnin’s hand, still smoking. The last time Toby had been in this situation he had been astral travelling, his body insubstantial. Not so this time. He wrestled the gun from Krishnin, turned it towards the man and fired.

Whatever this was, whatever imaginary world or mind-scape he had tumbled into, he really didn’t have the time or inclination to play its games.

Krishnin’s head exploded much as his father’s had done, this time, a thick, black liquid poured over the little that remained of it, a jagged cup made from the man’s lower lip and chin.

Toby gave one last, sad glance towards Krishnin and then ran towards the opposite side of the warehouse where a wide-open hatch led to the outside world.

Toby jumped through it, not altogether caring where it might lead him.

He fell through the brightness of sunshine, a world of light that contained no distinguishable shapes. For a moment there was utter peace.

Then he hit the ground, back in the black emptiness he and Fratfield had found themselves in after the car had been attacked. He rolled along what felt like grass, coming to rest at Tamar’s feet.

‘You keep away,’ she said, folding her arms and giving him a look that, a day ago, had chilled him.

‘Shan’t,’ he replied, kissing the illusion on its sneering lips and running on into the dark.

‘Fratfield?’ he shouted, looking around – pointlessly, he knew but he couldn’t help it – for the thing that had attacked him earlier.

There was a groaning noise a short way ahead and he saw the SIS officer lying on the ground. No doubt he was imagining similar nightmarish images.

He grabbed him and, with a struggle, got the man into a fireman’s lift.

He stumbled on, Fratfield draped over his shoulder. Ahead the darkness seemed to fade, the black turning to grey.

Behind him there was a loud crashing sound. The car, he decided, breathing its last.

He could now make out the road in front of him. If he could just get there ahead of whatever thing this was that swooped around them in the shadows, he sensed they would be safe. Back in the real world, back on firm ground.

He sensed, rather than heard, that something was gaining on him. Perhaps it was just fear, paranoia, but he was certain that the presence was chasing after him, desperate to catch them both before they left its domain.

It was so hard to run with Fratfield on his shoulder. If he dropped him there was no doubt he could make it out, one last sprint and he would have the sky above him once more, the tarmac of the road beneath his feet. But he wouldn’t leave the man behind. He wouldn’t add to his memory of regrets.

He kept his eyes ahead. Pushing on, even as he was sure the presence that pursued them was almost touching.

Just a few steps more.

He could feel a chill on his neck, something reaching out.

Then a cold wind, and a late-winter afternoon sky, beginning to grow dim.

He shuffled to the verge, carefully dropped Fratfield onto the grass and turned back to see the car, only a few feet away. It looked like it had been in a major collision, smashed on both sides with the roof compressed almost flat.

Fratfield groaned, his hands going to his face as he came around. ‘What happened?’ he asked.

‘What do you remember?’

Fratfield sat up and stared at the smashed car. ‘I remember running from that while something tried to kill us. I remember thinking that you could keep your Section 37. You still can. I like an enemy that, when all else fails, I can shoot in the head.’

‘No more transfer for you, then?’ Toby smiled. He had thought for one moment that Fratfield was going to say that he remembered none of it. That Toby would have been left trying to explain something the SIS officer was unlikely to believe.

‘No,’ Fratfield replied. Toby helped him to his feet.

‘How did I get out?’

‘By almost dislocating my shoulder,’ Toby told him.

‘You carried me? Thanks.’ Fratfield seemed slightly uncomfortable at the thought.

‘It’s fine, I won’t remind you how I saved your life every day. Just once a week or so.’

‘That’s good. Because, unlike whatever that thing was, you
can
be shot in the head.’

‘Such gratitude. Come on, we’ve got a short walk ahead of us.’

As they walked up the road towards Lufford Hall, Toby looked around them, trying to catch sign of anyone else out here. If what they had experienced was some kind of curse then Cassandra’s advice was lodged in his memory. The person who was doing the casting had to be nearby. Of course, quantifying ‘nearby’ would have been useful. Did that mean in the same postcode or stood next to you? Toby couldn’t see anyone, especially not in this fading light. There were countless places someone could have been hiding, what was the use?

f) Lufford Hall, Alcester, Warwickshire

It took them about twenty minutes to reach the main gate of the Hall. The security guard on duty was the same man who had let them out earlier. He gave them a distinctly suspicious look as they approached.

Toby’s face was smeared with mud and Fratfield’s suit was torn.

‘Could I see your passes?’ he asked.

‘Piss off,’ said Fratfield, ‘and get someone to sort out the wreck of my car that’s parked about a mile down the road. If you’re that bothered about my paperwork, you might want to take a look in the pocket of my coat. It’s on the back seat. You’ll have to climb in through the window, I suspect. It’s all in there.’

The security guard looked as if he intended to argue but clearly changed his mind and waved at the guardhouse to let them through.

They walked up the drive towards the Hall. On the gravel forecourt they found April Shining, smoking a cigarette and staring at them as if she were a disapproving mother.

‘And where do you think you’ve been?’ she asked. ‘You’ve had this place in chaos.’

Fratfield and Toby looked at one another. ‘Which of us are you talking to?’ Toby asked.

‘You, you daft sod, we thought you were dead. Well, for all of five minutes anyway. What’s that on your face? Have you been playing silly buggers in the garden?’

‘Not quite. Our car was attacked.’

‘So was August’s. You know, the one you were supposed to be in. And when I say “attacked”, I mean blown to kingdom come with someone in it.’

Toby took a moment to process this. ‘Who?’

‘Poor Ranesh, my boss for all of five minutes.’

Fratfield was already moving around the side of the house, wanting to see the wreckage.

‘There’s nothing to see,’ April told him. ‘Once we could actually get the fire out, what was left was moved into the stable block.’ She returned her attention to Toby. ‘We thought Ranesh was you until I noticed the glasses melted onto his face.’

‘You think it was meant to be?’

‘Seems likely, don’t you think?’

‘But what was he doing in our car?’

‘How am I supposed to know?’ She sighed, then grabbed him in a big hug. ‘I’m glad you’re not dead. Stupid boy. Now if you’ll excuse me, as the last remaining member of the diplomatic service, it’s my job to go and try and convince our Korean friends not to leave.’

a) Lufford Hall, Alcester, Warwickshire

Tae-young was sat in her room, wishing she could dispel the smell of burning flesh from her nostrils.

There was a knock on the door. It took Tae-young a moment to respond, to pull herself back from the mental image of a man turning crisp in artificially stoked flames.

‘Come,’ she said, lapsing into Korean. She didn’t have the concentration to talk in English.

April entered, came over to the window where Tae-young was sitting and settled down into the armchair facing her.

‘You are hoping to convince me to stay,’ said Tae-young.

‘I’m sure I probably don’t have to,’ April replied. ‘Let’s be honest, both the UK and South Korea need these plans to be successful.’

‘But can they be in the current circumstances? Don’t misunderstand me. You know enough about my country to know that its history is no stranger to violence. We are no strangers to assassination.’ She continued to gaze out of the window. ‘My mother was there when Park Chung-hee was shot,’ she continued, ‘when his own chief of security put a bullet in his head and his chest.’

‘Kim Jae-kyu, director of the KCIA.’

April chose not to mention that, during the time Kim had been head of the Korean Central Intelligence Agency, she in turn had been working with SIS and had, for a time, been tasked with monitoring the growing dissent over Park’s rule amongst Kim and others.

Park’s reign had become a dictatorship and both the UK and their American allies had been very enthusiastic about the idea of the man being replaced by someone they could be seen to have more fruitful relations with. Of course, people had talked about the acts of repression committed under Park’s regime, and his threats to increase his domination over the populace. They had talked in terms of morality. Ultimately, though, governments were not overly concerned with such intangible concepts. They just wanted to monitor the troublemakers and ensure the flow of money remained constant.

Park had been shot during a private dinner party, the conversation and increased threats of retaliation against political dissenters allegedly driving Kim to take his leave, fetch a gun and then return with murder on his mind. The argument as to whether it had been a political act, a murder bred of jealousy (Kim’s career was on a downward turn thanks to the influence of Park’s chief bodyguard) or even an act of espionage instigated by the CIA, was still ongoing over thirty years. Well, thought April, ongoing amongst those who didn’t know as much as she did.