The Dungeon & Christmas With the Executioner Page 7

  His thoughts kept returning to the man in the dungeon. He was intrigued. Lewis's medical records were full of gaps. The gunshot injury report showed that the bullet had hit the skull at an angle. Early reports suggested the boy's coma might allow his brain the time and resources to heal from the life-threatening injury. After that, the hospital reports became a lie, noting that Tom Lewis had never regained consciousness. His name was added to that of his parents on their gravestone in the cemetery.

  Winter turned away from the lake and ran into his woods. A brief negotiation with the owner of the neighbouring property had secured the signing over of the land, so Winter had four acres of mature trees to himself. The negotiation had been brief because the neighbour had tried to up the price three times, before a meeting in a cafe with one of Winter's crew where he was shown a series of photographs that would have led to an abrupt end to his political career. A tawdry device, but effective. Winter had been privately impressed by the man's sexual appetite and stamina. Not surprised, though. When you dug around in anyone's life, you always came up with leverage. Except with Tom Lewis, it seemed.

  What interested Winter was the gap in Lewis's history. He must have left hospital secretly, around the time his 'death' was announced. He had been thirteen years old. There were specialist facilities that looked after children recovering from serious injury or illness. Winter had no doubt that Tom would have been sent to the best the taxpayer could afford. The police must have thought they had a golden goose. A witness who could point at Robert Winter and testify that he had ordered the murders of the Lewis family, personally soaking Mrs Lewis in petrol. When the boy had broken free that night, and he had sent Marty after him, Winter had made sure Irene Lewis heard the shot from Tom's bedroom before he lit the match and burned her alive.

  If the initial medical reports were accurate, Tom Lewis's injuries, even if they didn't kill him, would be life-changing. In a case like his, that might mean round-the-clock care for the rest of his life. Even the most optimistic prognosis suggested the damage to his brain was severe enough to cause lifelong communication problems and learning difficulties.

  All of which tallied nicely with the shuffling, humming cretin in the dungeon. But if that was Tom Lewis, where was Bedlam Boy?

  Chapter Twelve

  Winter spent the rest of the day with the tasks and reading he'd planned. The caterers arrived mid afternoon, unloading boxes under the unsmiling supervision of the two gatehouse guards. As Penny transferred the contents to the ovens in the kitchen, the smell of roasting meat, potatoes, and parsnips drifted through the house.

  By the time Winter and his guests sat down to eat, it was late afternoon, and the light was draining out of a leaden sky.

  At dinner, Penny told an off-colour joke that had the guys roaring around the dinner table. It involved a nun, a broken-down car, and a physically impossible manoeuvre with a spanner. They were drinking a very expensive Australian Shiraz. Most of them usually drank wine from a box they'd picked up at Calais, but it was only once a year, so what the hell. Strickland was drinking beer, slowly. They were probably in the safest place in London, but old habits were old habits for a reason.

  Penny was the sole female present. Rhoda hadn't missed a Christmas dinner for the last nineteen years, but only because she understood the message her absence would send. Winter thought of that last phone call from Paris, Rhoda babbling about demons and ghosts.

  Winter made his decision as he watched them eat, drink, and laugh. It often happened this way. Something he'd been considering, weighing up variables, crystallised when he relaxed. The next year would be his last in the business. Quit while you're ahead. That was the cliché. Winter was ahead and always had been. Richer than most CEOs, and more consistently successful, although he would never feature in the Sunday Times rich list.

  He sipped the wine, letting the flavours reveal themselves as they rolled across his tongue.

  Christopher took a buzzing phone out of his pocket. Since he was on duty, Winter allowed it.

  Christopher stood up as he listened. "What? He's what? Yes. Will do."

  "Is our guest all right?" said Winter.

  "Yes, sir. Still in the dark, sir. But David said you need to hear him."

  "Is he talking?" Winter folded his napkin, dropping it on his chair. Strickland caught his eye and stood up too.

  Christopher joined them at the door. "Not talking, sir, no. He's singing."

  Winter led the two men upstairs into his office, signalling them to join him on his side of the desk. The monitor was dark. He turned up the volume and unplugged the headphones. A male voice blared out of the speakers.

  It's when next I have murdered, the Man-In-The-Moon to powder

  His staff I'll break, his dog I'll bake, they'll howl no demon louder

  Christopher's whisper broke the silence. "What the hell?"

  Neither Strickland nor Winter displayed any outward reaction, but Winter noticed a tiny contraction of the muscles around the assassin's lips as his teeth clenched.

  Singing in the dungeon was a first. A raucous rendition in a clear, strong baritone on Christmas Day made the experience positively surreal. The singer was locked inside a soundproof room with concrete walls and a steel door. Yet they heard a joyous confidence in his voice, and each line rang out like a personal challenge. The man should be broken, not celebrating.

  "Interesting," said Winter. He had hoped a spell in the dark might produce results, but this was more dramatic than he had anticipated. Then the voice plunged into a chorus, and Winter pretended not to feel the chill that raised goosebumps on his arms, and made the skin on his back prickle with cold sweat.

  Still I sing bonnie boys, bonnie mad boys,

  Bedlam boys are bonnie

  For they all go bare and they live by the air,

  And they want no drink nor money.

  "David. Turn the lights on."

  The three men in Winter's study waited. The second monitor showed David leaving his post. They saw his hand move, flicking the switch on the wall. The screen remained black.

  "David. My monitor may be faulty. Check yours."

  On-screen, David returned to his desk, tapped the keyboard, and checked the connections at the back of the screen.

  "Monitor's fine, sir. But the lights aren't working."

  The dungeon was twelve feet high from floor to ceiling. High enough for the most gymnastic occupant to fail to reach the cameras, speaker, or mics. Or the fluorescent lights. The plastic waste bucket was the only implement available. Even the most accurate throw would be unlikely to cause damage.

  "Christopher. Get back down there. Take torches. Subdue the prisoner and restrain him."

  "Yes, sir."

  Winter stopped him at the door.

  "Take Scott with you."

  Winter offered Strickland a seat, and they watched the screens. The singing continued unabated.

  My staff has murdered giants, my bag a long knife carries

  For to cut mince pies from children's thighs, with which to feed the fairies

  Neither man spoke as, two minutes later, Christopher entered the anteroom, followed by Scott - a short, broad man with a wine stain birthmark covering the left side of his face.

  Scott had worked for Winter for six years. In other circumstances, Winter conceded, Scott might have become a pillar of the community, given his intelligence and self-discipline. A police commissioner perhaps, or an army general. He might have learned to control the rage that troubled him. Winter taught him to channel it. And a fine weapon he had turned out to be, treating violence as a vocation.

  If Tom Lewis gave them any trouble, Scott would be more than a match for him. Not that Winter thought the sobbing idiot in the dungeon could really be a threat. Alzheimer patients sometimes recited long poems, or sang word-perfect songs from their childhood. This was probably something similar.

  David took the taser from a drawer, and Scott stood four feet back from the door, holding a torch
as Christopher pushed it open.

  The moment the door opened, the singing stopped. The monitor remained dark. Winter had been expecting a grainy view of a few square feet as light from the anteroom spilled into the dungeon. It wasn't just the lights, then. Lewis had disabled the cameras. But he'd left the mics on. And he'd done it all in the dark.

  They all heard the next sound. The men on the monitor looked at each other. In the office, Strickland and Winter stared at the screen.

  In the dungeon, someone was laughing.

  David handed Scott the taser. The younger man took it in his right hand, switching the torch to his left.

  "Turn around and stand against the far wall." The laughter stopped.

  He couldn't illuminate the whole room without stepping inside, but Scott angled the beam up to the ceiling.

  "Lights look okay," he called. "Maybe it's a power outage."

  Winter pressed the intercom. "Check the cameras."

  Scott took another step forward, the taser held ready. He listened, and let the beam of light play around the room, then back to the ceiling and into the corner not obscured by the open door.

  Winter was glad Strickland was here to see this. After years of mentoring, discipline, and preparation, training in multiple fighting techniques and mastering weapons, Scott was, in Winter's view, almost a match for Strickland himself. Winter allowed himself a small smile. The next few minutes would be a brutal demonstration of Scott's abilities. It was a privilege to be able to witness it.

  Scott took another step.

  "It's been… hang on, it can't be." His squat, broad frame filled the lower two-thirds of the doorway. He was looking up. "It looks like it's been shot out."

  The interval that followed was the longest half-second Winter had ever experienced. The soundproof dungeon was four walls, a drain, and a bucket. There was one door. No other way in or out. To get through it without a registered thumbprint or an eight-digit code would take so much plastic explosive that the whole house would come down on top of it.

  What Scott had just told them couldn't possibly be true, and everyone knew it.

  Which made what happened next equally impossible.

  Scott's body jerked backwards as if pulled by an invisible bungee rope. Blood and gobbets of flesh hit Christopher, still standing by the door. The mics picked up the sound perfectly. Automatic gunfire.

  Scott hit the floor. Or, rather, his corpse did, with bullets in the torso, neck, and head. He died with a surprisingly peaceful expression on his face considering the circumstances.

  A flywheel of sparks lit up the doorway. David, reaching for a shotgun from the rack on the wall, was driven face first into the stock of the weapon as a line of bullets traced a route up his back.

  Christopher, frozen in place, remembered he was holding open a reinforced steel door. He tried to close it, but a hand emerged from the darkness and pushed back, sending him skidding away.

  Winter didn't dream, so he'd never had a nightmare. If he ever did, he suspected, the figure who walked out into the anteroom would have a starring role.

  Next to him, Strickland found his voice.

  "Who the fuck is that?"

  Chapter Thirteen

  When the lights turned off, Tom shuffled to the centre of the dungeon. He sat on the sawdust, more tired than ever. When his head sagged against his chest, he forced it up. He had to find Bedlam Boy.

  In the past, he caught glimpses of the Boy. A figure watching from a night-black window, a movement in the shadow of a building as someone turned to watch him. There was no mistaking the call. When Tom looked into those shadows, or up at the darkened window, a sense of rightness, of pieces sliding into place, descended. Like a child's puzzle, plastic squares sliding around a grid to make a picture. Except Tom didn't need to move the pieces into place now. He just had to show up. His stomach clenched with excitement. The Boy was close.

  This was the strongest call, the clearest sense of his presence he'd ever experienced. It came on fast and strong. Bedlam Boy filled the room, expanding into every dark corner, intoxicated with freedom and power. Tom peeled away from himself, sinking into a beautiful nothingness with no bad men, no pain, no loud music. He slept. The Boy would take care of everything.

  Tom's memories of the past few days rose like smoke into wind, dissolving, thinning, disappearing. He followed, rising and expanding, senses fading. Touch, taste, smell, all gone. Only the silent dark.

  Bedlam Boy stood up in the dungeon. Such darkness. Thick, inky, impenetrable. He stretched out his arms as if giving, or receiving, a blessing; tears brimming, then falling. Years of preparation to find the Forger and the Traitor. Now for the two remaining names on his list: the Executioner and Winter. So well protected, both of them. So experienced, wary, intelligent, and brutal. After Paris, they traced Tom in weeks, not months. Dangerous men, not to be underestimated.

  But the Boy was more dangerous. And they had underestimated him, badly. They were about to find out how badly.

  He couldn't see the walls in the dark, but he didn't need to. He knew the dimensions and layout of the room intimately. Not just because of Tom's time in captivity. The Boy's knowledge went deeper. Deeper than anyone's, including Winter.

  When his outstretched fingers touched the plastered concrete, Bedlam Boy walked sideways to his right until he reached the corner. He slid his hands up until level with his face, rapped his knuckles on the wall. He had remembered the location perfectly.

  Four-and-a-half years earlier, Tom Lewis worked for a building crew constantly in demand with the best London architects. It was a small company, and Werner, the boss, oversaw every project. He had a reputation for being one of the fairest bosses in the business and only employed the very best construction crews. Tom had already gained a reputation as the strongest hod carrier in the city, and the Elstree job was his fourth for Werner.

  It took three weeks to dig foundations and another fortnight to assemble a steel superstructure. During that time, Bedlam Boy broke into offices, checked blueprints, withdrew a significant amount of money from his reserves, and made many illegal purchases.

  The soundproof room, situated next to the underground parking garage, was the first to be finished. Werner never speculated about its use, but some labourers said the owner was a music producer. When Werner's crew moved on to the next floor, Bedlam Boy waited until after midnight, and came back.

  Security on the site meant a few lights with motion sensors, and a retired policeman in a hut. There would be nothing much to steal until the house was furnished and the so-called producer moved in with his platinum records and priceless guitars. The Boy knew the real owner. Winter's twelve-month search for an architect drew his attention. It was why Tom Lewis worked as a hoddie.

  The security guard proved embarrassingly easy to overcome. The Boy tossed a brick into some undergrowth. When the guard came out to check, he sneaked in and spiked his drink with gammahydroxybutrate. In tiny doses, GHB makes people relaxed, euphoric, and horny. Larger doses, when—for instance—administered in the coffee of obese security guards, makes them fall asleep within ten minutes, and start snoring in fifteen. After twenty minutes, the only response to a shove on the shoulder was a bubbly fart and the whispered word, "clipboard."

  With the security lights off, and five hours before dawn, the Boy worked hard and fast. He used a pickaxe to smash through the newly finished concrete wall, hollowing out a compartment big enough to contain the items he had brought. Once everything was inside, he closed the hole with a wooden board and covered it with concrete from an airtight bag, mixed with calcium chloride to speed up the drying process.

  When the hidden compartment was flush with the rest of the wall, Bedlam Boy played the beam of a powerful torch over it. He couldn't see any evidence of his own work. He took the gear back to the stolen car. He turned the security lights back on before he left, dumped the rubble into a skip in Borehamwood nine minutes later, and replaced the gear in the Soho storage unit before
breakfast.

  Revenge was a long game. Four years after breaking into the site where Tom Lewis carried bricks by day, building the foundation of Robert Winter's house, he was back. They brought him here. Just as Bedlam Boy planned.

  The Boy grinned into the darkness. Then he brought his enormous fists up and behind his head, bringing them forward to smash into the concrete wall which—in this precise area, and no other—was a finger-width thick. The board beneath splintered and sagged. The Boy felt his way around the area until he found the weakest point. He pushed his fingers inside and pulled on the thin wood, plaster and concrete, grabbing handfuls of it to expose the compartment.

  He took the handgun first. He doubted they listened in on him constantly. If they did, the tearing open of the hollow section of wall would bring the guards, and he needed to be ready.

  No one came. He walked forward, bare feet exploring the floor. When the guards—David and Christopher—tied him up, the back legs of the chair fitted into two indentations. It stopped him moving while they beat him. The Boy could picture the layout perfectly from that spot. When he found the indentations, the Boy knelt, eyes closed, seeing what Tom had seen.

  When ready, he raised the gun and squeezed off four shots: left-hand corner speaker, camera, right-hand corner speaker, camera. Shooting out the lights would be easy, but a man with no shoes didn't need a room full of broken glass. He kept his breathing slow and steady, lifted the gun and fired three more times. Each row of fluorescent tubes were powered by insulated, plastic-wrapped cables on the ceiling, less than an inch in diameter. Three bullets, three severed cables.