CHAPTER 20.
A moment after Hunter had walked in, John was distracted by the ringing of the phone.
“Hello, Black Boar,” he answered.
“Hello John, its Charlotte
“Not bad, are you okay?”
“Quite well. Have heard about Victoria York
“Shall have to,” John said, knowing that it would be uncomfortable, and hoping for a cloudy day.
“Good man. I shall be going too. Molly will not be attending. I know the area, so I could give you a lift if you like.”
“Thank you.”
“Right, I’ll be round for you at noon, and I’ll drive us all back that night and we’ll meet up with Molly at her place.”
“Thank you, Charlotte
“Good bye.”
“The thing about Lloyd,” Lloyd said, sipping his strawberry juice,” is that he is dead.”
“Dead?” Hunter could not hide his surprise. “Entirely dead?”
“Quite thoroughly dead.”
“And how do you know this?”
Lloyd leaned forward to quietly further the conspiracy.
“Because my men and I killed him a few days ago.”
“Really? Can you prove this?”
“Were the police to be involved, I would have to deny everything...”
“The police will not be involved, I serve a higher power.”
“Good egg. There are two ways in which this could be proved to you. The police have not yet found the bodies of Lloyd and his accomplice. You could wait until they do and read the newspaper, or you could pop round to Flat Five of the Queen’s Street Penthouses and see what my men and I have left of him.”
“Thank you for that information, sir, I shall investigate further,” he wanted to question the man further, but something told him that it would be best not to. Being an optimistic man, he reasoned that he had probably met a fellow ‘Soldier of God’, and that it would unprofessional to intervene.
Hunter stood to leave, and Lloyd looked up longingly at him.
“There will be a reward for any information which aids me in my enquiry.”
“Not at all, I wouldn’t dream of it. Good luck, sir.”
Lloyd smiled with smug satisfaction as Hunter walked out of the pub. He finished his drink, then decided that he deserved a fine cigar, another drink, and a bit of Wagner on the jukebox. There was only one small phone call to be made, and then all would be well.
Hunter could not wait. He walked the town’s streets for over an hour until he found Queen’s Street. The building appeared to be empty.
He took a lock picking set from his pocket and quickly opened the door. He went into the hall, up the stairs and soon found the door to Room 5.
The smell hit him as soon as he had picked the door open. The foul, yet sweet smell of decaying corpses. He saw the first body on the floor, with much of its head missing, but that was nothing compared to the mutilated body on the floor of the lounge. From what was left of it, it looked every inch the vampire, from its deathly pale skin to its evening suit.
He began to search the rooms for further evidence.
After a few minutes, when he had deduced that a lady had also stayed in the penthouse, he was started by the storm of many boots trampling the floor. He drew his hammer from his belt and turned to the door.
“Drop your weapon! Don’t move,” the leading member of the police SWAT Team shouted.
A dozen men in uniforms, with black helmets and assault rifles faced Hunter.
“By God, what is going on?” Hunter demanded.
“Drop your weapon!”
“What the blazes!”
“Drop you weapon and raise your hands, or we will open fire! You are under arrest for multiple murder!”
When Lloyd got home, he found that Anne was already asleep in his bed. She looked so peacefully and beautiful that he did not wish to wake her.
He cooked himself some diner, and read for a while before joining her in bed.
When he woke the next evening she was gone. Thinking that she may have risen early to cook breakfast, he rolled over to slept for a while longer.
When she did not wake him, and was not in the room the second time he woke, he got out of bed, dressed, and went down to the kitchen. She was not there so he looked around the house.
He could not find her. What he did eventually find was a note pinned to the front door which read;
“Dear Lloyd.
I am sorry. I must leave you. You have been so kind to me, but I cannot live like this.
By the time you read this, I shall be close to France
Perhaps I shall visit you one day.
Hope that you understand, I thank you, and I shall miss you,
Love from Anne. Xx”
Lloyd was not happy, but at least she had not robbed him.
He made himself a cup of tea, sat down and lit a cigar. It could be worse, he decided, far worse. Anne had been pretty, and nice, and fun, but she was odd. Decidedly odd. And French… far too French. And this was the best thing for her.
Vampyres and humans rarely made good couples. Humans could rarely appreciate the violence, and their lack of a few centuries of life experience made them seem immature.
He ate a little breakfast, dressed and set off to the pub, where he met John.
“Evening Harvey
“Evening. How goes it?”
“Fairly jolly. Anne has gone home, don’t you know?”
John did not look surprised.
“How do you do?” Lloyd continued.
“Managing. Going to Victoria
“Dash. Day time?”
“Aye.”
“’The garish light of day’, what?”
“Quite. Did things run smoothly last night?”
“Very. Tomato juice please. Oh, yes, that reminds me. Next time those two Gothic types come in, buy them both a drink on me, and tell them to let me know if I can ever do them a favour.”
“As you wish. I’ll call that seven pounds.”
“Jolly good.”
Lloyd took his drink, put some Wagner on the jukebox, and took a seat.
Anne sat in a crowded compartment on a cross channel train. The journey had taken longer than she had hoped, and she was tired. There was only the darkness of the tunnel outside, and it felt strange to know what she was miles below the sea, and even stranger to know that she was going home.
She looked at her clock and realised that Lloyd would be awake and know that she was gone. She would miss him, but she did not think that he would miss her for very long.
Despite all that, she felt good. She felt free.
Years ago, when she had run away from home to live with The Count, she had thought that she was free. When John and Lloyd had killed Germaine and she had become Lloyd’s lover, she had thought that she was free. But she realised then, as she flew alone through that dark tunnel, that she was truly free for the first time in her life. She felt the train rising upwards. In a few minutes she was out of the tunnel. Through the windows, she could see the night sky above her. The dark land outside the carriage was France-
When the train finally stopped, she leapt out of her seat and pushed past the crowd at the door. She jumped down onto the cold concrete platform and looked around her. There was a woman stood a dozen yards away who looked familiar, but so much older than she had remembered.
Anne’s mother stared at her in disbelief for a moment, then waved frantically and rushed over. They embraced awkwardly, the gazed at each other.
“Anne!” her mother exclaimed. “Oh, Anne, where have you been?”
“Out.”
“What have you been doing?”
“Nothing.”
Her mother embraced her again, and kissed her on both cheeks. She took her by the hand and led her out of the station. There would be plenty of time for questions later.
Detective Inspector Clark was puzzled, and that made him angry.
After an anonymous call from a phone box, a SWAT Team had arrested a man at the scene of a double murder. The problem was that the murders had clearly been perpetrated several days earlier. The arrested man, a James Hunter, was unwilling to offer any explanation as to why he was at the scene of the crime, but insisted that the crime had been carried out by a different, unnamed man, who happened to look a bit like him. James Hunter had been founded armed, but with a hammer rather than the pistol which had been used in the crime. The tip off had stated that Hunter was returning to the crime scene, to gloat and possibly to rob it. The valuables in the penthouse supported this possibility. Hunter claimed that he was innocent, but refused to explain his actions at all, and blamed all on the unnamed look alike.
The Detective Inspector finished his coffee, got his coat and set off home. Tomorrow there would be further questioning, and- he hoped- further answers.
By the time Lloyd had finished his drink, the Black Boar had become crowded. He decided that go some where quieter, but wanted to speak with John further.
He went to the bar, waited until John had finished serving a few Emo girls, and caught his eye.
“Harvey , I say Harvey
“Tomato juice?”
“No thank you. Wondered if you would care to pop round tomorrow? Midnight, have a bit of diner, a few cigars, games of poker maybe…”
“Am busy this week. After the funeral, a day or two after, I would be honoured to join you.”
“Jolly good. Shall be just like old times, what. Ta ta.”
Two days later, Lloyd woke and founds his weekly newspapers posted through the door. The Times told him that the Conservative Party was doing something stupid again, but it was the local newspaper which caught his eye.
The headline read ‘SOUTHERNER ARESTED FOR LOCAL MURDERS’. The article stated;
‘Police have arrested a man on suspicion of the murders of two men in our town last week
The man, believed to have been an assassin from London
Detective Inspector Clark told us, “I am shocked by the brutality of this crime, but glad that we caught this madman before he could do any more harm. If international criminals think that they can use our town as a battle ground, they will have to think again.’
The man is being held in custody, and will stand trial next week.’
Lloyd rubbed his hands together in satisfaction.
After breakfast, he rolled up the newspaper, put it under his arm and strolled down to the Black Boar.
It was a quite night in the pub. Molly worked behind the bar whilst John did some paper work in the back room.
She looked up from cleaning a glass when Lloyd strolled in with smug satisfaction written all over his face.
“What ho Molly!” Lloyd greeted her.
“Alright?” she replied.
“Jolly good, thank you.”
“You seem in a good mood tonight, what have you done?”
“Be a good wench and fetch Harvey
Molly reluctantly put down the glass and summoned John. Lloyd spread the newspaper out on the bar.
“Evening Lloyd,” John said.
“Good evening old boy. Have a look at this…”
John and Molly read the front page of the newspaper.
“What have you been up to, Lloyd?” John asked.
“Keeping us both out of trouble.”
“I don’t want to know anything about this,” Molly said, and went back to her work.
James Hunter did his thirtieth press-up, then caught his breath and did thirty sit-ups.
After that he knelt on the concrete floor of his cell and prayed to his God.
Then he lay down on his hard, narrow bed. He knew that he would be okay, eventually. He was a soldier of God, and his God loved all good men and women. He would be delivered. Eventually.
She had been out with her friends the night before, stayed up very late, and drunk a great deal. With all the speed and dexterity of a horror movie zombie, she reached out for a glass of water on her bed side table. She drank it down in one, quenching the desert in her throat, then went back to sleep.
Almost an hour later, she woke again. After looking at the clock and remembering that she had nothing to do all morning, she rolled over and tied to get back to sleep.
She could not. Her mind was active, even though her body was not. Her head did not hurt. She had the type of hang over which comes from a lot of practice, and drinking a bit of water and nothing too silly. She felt tired and disconnected, as though her brain was wrapped in cotton wool, but she could still think in an intense yet sporadic manner. She remembered saying something unkind to Sam when she had happened to meet him at the bar. She remembered giver her phone number to a man who she would almost certainly never want to see again.
It is unfair, she thought, how at the time everything seems great, but the next morning you only remember the bad bits.
Then she thought about John, and felt sorry for him. She had tricked him into writing to her as part of some bizarre experiment to amuse herself, they had become something like friends, and now he was upset and she was ignoring him.
She dragged herself out of bed, made some coffee and toast, then turned on her computer. She reread his message and then replied.
“Dear John
I’m sorry to hear about your loss. Hope you are okay.
Please write to me again after the funeral, it is always interesting to hear from you.
I’m okay. Been quite busy with university. Had a good night last night, I think.
Take care,
The rest of the week passed uneventfully, until the day of Victoria
