Neil White - Beyond Evil

‘We need to get closer,’ Charlie whispered, and pointed towards the hedgerow at the top of the field. ‘We’ll go along there. It will get us nearer to the cottage.’

The hedgerow was twenty yards away, but it provided some shelter from the moonlight, so that Charlie thought they could get closer without being seen.

He ducked back into the shelter of the trees and crunched his way to where the hedgerow joined the wood. Ted was behind him, making his way more slowly, carefully.

Charlie stopped to let him catch up.

‘They won’t harm Donia,’ Ted said, looking towards the stone circle. ‘Not yet anyway.’

‘What do you mean by that?’

‘Think about it. They’ve got her because you’ve got something they want. If they kill her, they won’t get it.’

‘And just in case you’ve forgotten, they don’t seem too humane,’ Charlie hissed. ‘So let’s not pretend there’s going to be any kind of amicable handover.’

‘So what are we going to do?’

‘We’re going to find out what’s going on, and then call it in.’

‘The police will think it’s some kind of prank,’ Ted said. ‘Anarchist nut-jobs in the woods, and my name won’t help it too much.’

‘The police already know about Donia. They just don’t have a location.’ Charlie stepped out of the shadows of the trees and into the darkness of the hedgerow. He looked along and tried to work out the landscape.

There was a ditch that ran in front of the hedgerow, and as he jumped into it, he knew that it wasn’t waterlogged. They would be able to go along its length until they were just a short dash from the house. It would at least give them a chance to see what was going on so they could report it.

They moved slowly, hunched down, trying not to make a noise. It was hard to work out what was going on. There were around six young women standing around the central stone, and three or four men. They were struggling with something, but Charlie couldn’t make out what it was.

They got to the far side of the ditch, where it met the wall that ran up from the house. There was some shouting, an increase in activity. They tried to keep low in the ditch, just to watch. He could see an outline of someone through a window at the side of the cottage. He thought he recognised the frizz of her hair. Donia.

Charlie gripped Ted’s arm when he saw, and was about to say something, when he heard something that made his stomach pitch and cold shivers ripple up and down his skin.

A long, shrill scream came from the group and echoed around the valley.

Chapter Fifty-Four

Horne looked to Murch.

‘So go on, I’m listening,’ Sheldon repeated. ‘Why now?’

Murch and Horne exchanged glances, until Murch held out his hands in a gesture to continue.

Horne sighed. ‘Amelia called us,’ he said. ‘It was last week. She said she was worried about Abbott, but she wouldn’t tell us why. She just said we had to get him out. She seemed agitated. No, more than that. She seemed scared.’

Sheldon remembered what Charlie had said, that the calls had been made after she had spoken to Billy Privett.

‘You had no idea at all about why she was worried?’

‘No. There was something wrong, we knew that, but if Abbott had contacted her, she would have told us, because he would have contacted her in order that she could pass it on. Or he could have called us directly. We could have gone up there and pulled him out, and we were talking about doing that.’

‘How?’

‘Just go up there and arrest him. Produce a fake warrant, for non-payment of fines or something.’

‘So why didn’t you?’

Horne looked at Murch, who was silent, with his arms folded.

‘Because we weren’t sure,’ Horne said. ‘We thought that perhaps Abbott was biding his time, so as not to attract attention.’

‘But Amelia’s call came last week. What has changed? Why this week?’

Horne started to look more nervous. He rubbed his thumb on the palm of his other hand, as if he was trying to rub some dirt away.

Sheldon stepped closer. ‘No more bullshit,’ he said, his voice quieter. ‘I want the full story. This is cop-to-cop, so it stays confidential, but I want to know.’

The two men exchanged shrugs and raised eyebrows, and then Horne relented.

‘Amelia called us again, the morning it was discovered that it was Billy Privett who had died. She told us that Billy had called her the day before, said that he was going to keep out of the way for a while, that he was going to that hotel. On the way into work, she saw the police cars there. When she tried to call him, she got no reply. So she called us. She was angry now, and more scared. Someone had tried to break into her office. So we went to see her.’

Sheldon thought back to what he had been told, that the two men in suits had been seen coming out of Amelia’s office, and they had gone looking for Charlie in his home.

‘You found Amelia’s body, didn’t you?’ Sheldon said.

They both nodded.

‘And then you broke into Charlie Barker’s home.’

They nodded again.

‘We were worried for him as well,’ Horne said. ‘We tried his phone, but it was switched off, and so we kicked in his door to find him. Except that when we got in there, we saw him running away.’

‘He thought you were after him,’ Sheldon said. ‘He didn’t know who you were.’ When neither Horne nor Murch said anything, he continued, ‘What did Amelia tell you at her office?’

‘Not enough,’ Horne said. ‘She said she had specific instructions from Billy. She was to disclose what Billy had told her, but everyone had to find out at the same time.’

‘Why?’

‘Maximum effect, I suppose. She said there wasn’t too much of a rush, because Billy was dead.’

‘Except she hadn’t planned on herself being in danger,’ Sheldon said. ‘Amelia had prepared copies for the local police, and the BBC, the local paper, and to Ted Kenyon. Billy knew he was in danger. He feared for his life. Billy’s instructions were to send this out if he was killed, so that the truth wouldn’t stay silenced. Billy was scared, that’s all. That’s why he stayed quiet.’

‘So why hasn’t anyone received them? They must have been sent yesterday?’

Sheldon gave a rueful smile. ‘Her secretary didn’t realise the importance, because Amelia hadn’t told her what they were, and so she just didn’t get round to sending them. Mason’s group pinched the discs.’ Then something occurred to him. ‘You don’t seem surprised.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Your involvement with Amelia was to get John Abbott into the group. That had no connection with Billy Privett.’

‘We didn’t know at first, but then when Amelia called us after Billy was killed, we started to wonder about it. When Amelia was killed, well, it became more than a guess.’

‘So why didn’t you tell me?’ Sheldon snapped. ‘I was in charge of the Billy Privett investigation then. You should have come to me.’

Horne started to say something, and then he stopped and looked at the floor.

Sheldon stepped closer. ‘It was time to cover your arse, wasn’t it?’ he said, glowering. ‘You’d lost your undercover man, and so you thought that if Henry’s group had killed Billy Privett, then perhaps Abbott had taken part. How close am I?’

Horne nodded but didn’t look up. ‘Too close.’

‘So you let them stay free because you were protecting your department?’ Sheldon said, incredulous. ‘They killed Amelia the next day. If you had passed this on, we could have locked them up straight away. Amelia would have been alive.’

‘I know,’ Horne said, all the resolve gone in his voice.