EIGHT
A Good Judge of Character
“First things first,” said Penny. “How are we going to get out of these tunnels? We’ve twisted and turned so much I haven’t a clue where I am inside the Lodge. Never mind how far we’ve come from the entrance.”
“We’re not actually inside the Lodge anymore,” I said. “We’re underneath it. There’s no way you could fit all these tunnels and rooms inside the infrastructure of the house, hollow walls or not. When we climbed down that stone chimney, it took us down past the house and into a maze of connecting passageways carved out underneath.”
“I wonder which came first,” said Penny, “the maze or the Lodge. Did someone create the tunnels first, for some reason, and then build a house over them to conceal them? Or did they start with the Lodge and excavate the cellars later, when they had a need for them?”
“Why are you looking to me for an answer?” I said. “I read the same family history you did, and there was nothing in there about any of this.”
“I was just wondering!” said Penny.
“Right now,” I said, “All we have to do is find another chimney to take us back up. Wherever it comes out, there’s bound to be an exit nearby.”
“You have to love his optimism,” Penny said to Doyle. “It’s either that or scream a lot and tear your hair out.”
“It’s like we’re in the dark subconscious of the house,” said Doyle. “Where all the really bad thoughts take place.”
“You can overthink these things,” I said. “Follow me.”
I was sure I remembered passing a chimney earlier, and it didn’t take me long to find it again. Just a ragged hole in the stone ceiling that became a dark and narrow shaft with more of the steel hoops hammered into the wall to serve as a ladder. I had to boost Penny and Doyle up into the chimney, then jump up after them.
There were no electric lights anywhere in the chimney. The stone channel was claustrophobically tight, growing steadily darker the higher we climbed. The air was close and foul, and so thick with dust we were all coughing harshly. The steel hoops jerked unsteadily under my hands and rocked under my feet as though they might tear themselves out of the old stone at any moment. I put my faith in a rapid ascent and urged the others on with loud encouragement and harsh words.
We soon left the tunnel’s light behind, and the dark of the chimney closed in around us. Trapped, confined, and almost suffocating on the rotten air, with no bearings left except up and down and no idea how far we’d climbed or how much further there was to go. At least there was a gleam of light at the top of the chimney, giving us something to head for.
Doyle suddenly panicked and froze in place. I hit his shoes with my head as I came up after him, and he almost screamed.
“I can’t do this!” he said shrilly. “The rungs are coming loose, I can feel it. If I keep climbing, I’ll fall. I know it! We have to go back down!”
“We can’t,” I said. “Our only way out is to go up.”
“Come on, Doctor Doyle,” Penny called down. “It can’t be much further.”
“I’m not moving!” said Doyle. “It’s not safe!”
I looked up, but I could barely make him out. Just a darker patch in the general gloom. There was no way past him.
“You can do it,” I said. “And you’re going to start right now, because if you don’t . . . I’m right beneath you and I will do something to your undercarriage that will make Penny’s kick feel like a fond memory. So move!”
Doyle started climbing again. I stuck close behind him, making lots of noise as I climbed the steel rungs, so he knew how close I was.
Not long after, I heard Penny cry out happily as she reached the top of the shaft. She hauled herself up and out. Doyle climbed out after her, and I hurried up after them. They helped pull me out, into a dimly lit stone tunnel. The relatively clear air was a relief after the foul atmosphere of the chimney, and we all took some time to cough and hack until our throats were clear again. Doyle looked at me reproachfully.
“There was no need for threats like that.”
“Yes, there was,” I said. “You’ll thank me later.”
“I really doubt it,” said Doyle.
A concealed door in the wall opposite was easy enough to spot now I knew what I was looking for. I forced it open, and we stumbled out into the warm and comforting light of the entrance hall. We all breathed deeply, glad of some fresh air and a chance to shake the oppression of the tunnels out of our heads. It felt good to be out in a wide open space again.
We’d emerged halfway between the stairs and the security centre. There was no one else about. It was all very still and very quiet. As though someone was watching us, and waiting to see what we would do.
“I knew there had to be a door somewhere around here,” I said. “So Martin could get to it easily from the centre.”
“I want to see Martin,” said Doyle. “I have things to say to him.”
“I’m sure you do,” I said. “But not yet. First, I need you to go upstairs and fetch MacKay. He’s having a nice lie-down in my room, right at the end of the corridor. You’ll need this to open the door.”
I fumbled in my pocket for MacKay’s master key and handed it to Doyle. He looked dubiously at the plastic key card.
“You’re sending me off on my own?”
“There’s no one left in the house to threaten you,” I said. “You’ll be fine.”
“What do we need MacKay for?”
“Getting in to see Martin won’t be easy,” I said. “He’s bound to have sealed himself inside the centre and disabled all the usual measures that would let us override the locks from outside. Hopefully MacKay will know how to get around that. So, off you go and wake him up. He might be sleeping a bit deeply, so don’t be afraid to give him a good shake. Though you might want to step back quickly afterwards.”
Doyle nodded stiffly, started towards the stairs, and then stopped abruptly.
“I think . . . you’d better come and take a look at this.”
Something in his voice had me moving immediately, with Penny right there beside me. We joined Doyle at the foot of the stairs, and I saw immediately what had stopped him. The two severed heads were gone. Nothing left but bloody stains on the bottom step to show where Redd and Hayley’s heads had rested. I quickly looked around the entrance hall, but there was no sign of them anywhere.
“He’s taken them,” said Doyle. “Why would he do that?”
“He’s still playing tricks, “I said. “Trying to scare us. He doesn’t know what we know about him now.”
“You’re sure this is all down to Martin?” Penny said quietly. “There couldn’t be . . . something else going on in the Lodge?”
“You saw the chamber down below,” I said. “And what was in it. That’s horror enough for any house. Doctor Doyle, go upstairs and wake MacKay. Penny and I will deal with this.”
“Don’t kill Martin until I get back,” said Doyle. “I want to be there when he dies. I need to see it happen.”
He set off up the stairs, not looking back. I watched until he was almost at the top and well out of earshot before I turned to Penny.
“He’s changed.”
“He’s been through a lot,” said Penny. “Do we really need MacKay?”
“Maybe,” I said. “But I don’t think Doyle is in the right frame of mind to confront Martin. He might just kill him out of hand. Which is understandable, but not necessarily in everyone’s best interests. By the time Doyle’s got MacKay up on his feet and taking an interest again and got him back down here, hopefully the good doctor will have calmed down a little.”
“Would you be calm if Martin had killed me?” said Penny.
“No,” I said. “But I wouldn’t kill him. Not while there were still things I needed from him. I’ve learned self-control the hard way.”
“Would Martin’s death really be such a bad thing?” said Penny. “After everything he’s done? After what we saw in that room?”
“We need information from him,” I said patiently. “In particular, whatever Parker might have shared with him concerning traitors inside the Organization. I’d hate to think all those secrets were lost. And anyway, we’re in the spy game, Penny, not the assassination game.”
“You’ve killed people,” said Penny. Not accusing, just making a point.
“It’s not good to kill people just because we think they need killing,” I said. “That’s a hard road to start down. It leads to men like Parker. It’s easy to find reasons to kill people, but the more often you do it the easier it becomes to find reasons to let you do what you want to do. It should never be easy to kill people.”
“This is experience talking, isn’t it?” said Penny.
“I’ve had a lot of experience,” I said.
As we approached the security centre, I wasn’t surprised to see the heavy steel door was closed. No welcome for us this time. I knocked on the door politely, but it stayed shut. I looked it over carefully.
“He must know we’re out here,” said Penny.
“He always knows where we are,” I said. “The cameras never shut down. He just said they did.”
“But he doesn’t know what just happened down in the tunnels?”
“I don’t see how,” I said. “He didn’t install the surveillance equipment in the Lodge, just made use of it. And since no one up here knew about the tunnels down there . . .”
“Someone must have put the lights in,” said Penny.
“Good point,” I said. I raised my voice and addressed the door. “Martin! Let us in, please. We need to talk.”
“You honestly think that’s going to work?” said Penny.
“I have to try,” I said. “I really don’t want this to end in violence. There’s been too much already.”
“You can get reasonable at the strangest times, Ishmael,” said Penny. “What about MacKay’s master key? Would that get us in?”
“I doubt it,” I said. “That’s one of the first things Martin would have protected himself against. Which is why I gave the key to Doyle.”
“So what do we do?” said Penny. “Wait for Doyle to bring MacKay down, and hope he’s got some ideas?”
“I’ve done enough waiting,” I said. “Stand back. I’m going to smash the lock’s keypad and see if I can do something inventive with the wiring . . .”
“That won’t work!” said Martin’s voice. It seemed to come from somewhere overhead, rather than the other side of the door. “I’ve isolated the door from the lock mechanisms. I’m the only one who can open it now. You can’t get in, and I’m not coming out. I don’t trust any of you. I’m staying right here, where I’m safe. How safe do you feel?”
And from behind us came the sound of heavy footsteps, approaching slowly and steadily across the entrance hall. When I turned to look, there was no one there. The hall was completely empty. The footsteps were slow and menacing, and coming straight for us. Penny glared about her.
“This is really starting to get on my nerves!”
“It’s just Martin,” I said.
“I know!” said Penny. “But are you sure, Ishmael? It does sound very convincing . . .”
“Sound is all it is,” I said. “I’m not feeling any vibrations through the wooden floor, none of the physical side effects that should accompany impacts that heavy.”
I concentrated, listening carefully. Penny stood beside me, her hands clenched into fists. I turned my head back and forth, searching for the source of the sounds. Until finally my gaze fell on a vase of flowers standing on a side table. I strode over to it, pulled the flowers out of the vase and threw them aside, then smashed the vase to reveal the tiny speaker hidden inside. I held it up to show Penny and then closed my hand around it. And just like that, the footsteps now sounded muffled. I crushed the tech in my hand, and the sounds cut off. I opened my hand and let the tiny fragments fall away.
“Son of a bitch!” said Penny.
More footsteps started up, from another part of the hall. And then more, coming down the stairs. More and more footsteps, advancing on us from all sides at once until it sounded like an invisible army was tramping through the hall. And then they all stopped at the same moment, replaced by mocking laughter from Martin.
“Fooled you . . .”
“Not really,” I said.
I marched back to the security centre and considered the closed door. Penny looked at me expectantly.
“Could you smash it in?”
“Almost certainly not,” I said. “It’s too big and too heavy. If you drove a truck straight at it, you’d probably just write off the truck. This kind of door was designed to keep things out, to protect the sensitive information stored inside. Some heavy-duty explosives might do the job . . .”
“Have you got any?” said Penny.
“No,” I said. “I’m not that sort of spy.”
“So how are we going to get in?” said Penny.
“Easy,” I said. “I’ll talk Martin into opening the door for us.”
Penny raised an elegant eyebrow. “You really think you can get him to do that?”
“Of course,” I said. “I am an excellent judge of character.”
“Best of luck,” said Penny. “Maybe I should go see if there’s a crowbar in the kitchen.”
I raised my voice again. “Martin? You need to open this door.”
“Pretty sure I don’t,” said Martin.
“But you do,” I said. “Because I know something you don’t. Something you need to know.”
“I really doubt that,” said Martin. “From in here, I see all and hear all.”
“Then you know we found the sliding panel on the upper floor,” I said. “And you know we went inside. But you don’t know where we went or what we saw, and what we found.”
“What makes you think I care?” said Martin.
“Because you’re the murderer, Martin,” I said. “I know how you killed your victims, using the hidden tunnels to get around unnoticed. I’ve been inside the room where you dumped the bodies. I even know why you did it. And I’ve worked out the one thing you’ve forgotten. Which will mean all your hard work has been be for nothing. Can you really risk not knowing that?”
There was a long pause.
“All right,” said Martin. “Let’s talk about this.”
The door swung slowly open.
“You’re damn good!” said Penny.
I gave her my best “Told you so!” look, and we went inside.
Martin was sitting on his swivel chair, his keyboard on his lap, surrounded by brightly glowing monitor screens, all of them working perfectly. He had a gun in his hand, trained on Penny and me. We came to a halt a respectful distance short of him. Martin smiled and aimed the gun squarely at Penny.
“I saw how quick you were, Ishmael, when you jumped MacKay and took his gun. Very impressive. I’m still not sure how you did that. But while you’d undoubtedly be ready to risk your own life to take this gun away from me, like the good little secret agent you are . . . I don’t think you’re as ready to risk Penny’s life. Because if you even look like making a move I don’t like, I will shoot her.”
“You little shit!” said Penny. “What did you do with the heads?”
“Oh, they’re around somewhere,” said Martin, still smiling. “Now hush. Grown-ups talking.”
“Stand very still, Penny,” I said. “Don’t move an inch from where you are.”
“Not a problem,” she said.
“Now, Penny,” said Martin. “I know you’ve got MacKay’s gun. I saw you stick it in the back of your belt. So take it out, slowly and carefully, and drop it on the floor.”
Penny reached back behind her, took out the gun, and let it fall. I flinched, just a little. Guns can go off when you drop them, but it seemed Penny had taken the time to engage the safety.
“Very good,” said Martin. “Now kick it out of reach.”
Penny did so, not taking her eyes off Martin or his gun for a moment.
“Where did you get your gun, Martin?” I said.
“I took it off Redd’s body,” Martin said casually. “I already had the gun that I’d taken off Baxter, but I decided I preferred this one. It’s bigger. Now let’s talk about what you know, or think you know, Mister Big-Time Secret Agent. Starting with how was I able to kill Parker without his cell ever being opened.”
“That was one of the first things I worked out,” I said steadily. “You opened Parker’s cell from here, then fixed the computer records afterwards to make it look as if the cell had never been unlocked.”
“Very good!” said Martin. “Haven’t I been a clever boy?”
“Then all you had to do was check your screens to make sure the way was clear and you could go down to talk to Parker. You knew he wouldn’t be alarmed because, using your speakers, you had told him you were on your way.”
“You are good,” said Martin. “But is this the information you thought I needed to know? Because I really don’t . . . In fact, I’ll feel a lot safer when both of you are dead. So stand very still, please. I’d hate to miss you and hit something important.”
“Are you sure you want to do this?” Penny said quickly. “With help on the way? They could be here any time now.”
“But there aren’t going to be any reinforcements, are there?” I said to Martin. “Because no emergency call ever went out.”
“Very good again!” said Martin. “The call for help and support is supposed to go out automatically, but I had no trouble countermanding it. And then amending the records to make it look like it had gone out, and been received and acknowledged. Not that anyone ever checked. Because everyone trusts the techie. Everyone believes everything he tells them. If he says the computers have done something or the systems have gone down, they just accept it. Because he understands these things and they don’t. They never really think about what the man behind the curtain might really be up to.
“I’ll contact Headquarters once you’re all dead. And when the reinforcements finally get here they’ll find me securely locked in the security centre, with computer records to confirm I never left and that all of the cameras have been down for some time. I’ll be ever so upset when they tell me everyone else has been murdered, by some mysterious opposition agent who got in and out through the unguarded lounge window.”
While he was still talking, smiling, and showing off, I aimed carefully and lashed out with my elbow to exactly where Penny was standing. Driving my elbow into her side, under her ribs, so as not to damage her. She fell over backwards, and I jumped Martin. He pulled the trigger a moment after I moved, but it was already too late. The bullet shot through the air where Penny had been standing, but she was already sprawling on the floor. Martin tried to turn the gun on me, but I just snatched it out of his hand, stepped back, and turned it on him.
Martin stared at me in shock, then his mouth went all wobbly, like a child who’s just had a treat taken away from him. I kept the gun trained on him as I heard Penny scramble back on to her feet behind me.
“Are you all right, Penny?”
“Yes,” she said, just a bit breathlessly. “You might have given me a little warning, darling.”
“That might have given the game away,” I said.
Penny hunted around until she found the gun she’d dropped, and then she moved in beside me and aimed it at Martin. He sat slumped in his chair, scowling sullenly.
“You’re not human!” he said to me. “Nothing human could move that fast. What are you?”
“A trained field agent for the Organization,” I said.
Martin smiled suddenly. “So was Parker, and it didn’t save him. Not from someone who really wanted him dead.”
“He trusted you,” I said. “I won’t make that mistake. How did you find out about the secret tunnels, when even MacKay didn’t know about them?”
“I spent a lot of time in the library here,” said Martin, “because there wasn’t much else to do. I found this other history of Ringstone Lodge, which did mention the tunnels and the hidden entrances. I took the book, so no one else would find out, and used it to open the sliding panel on the top floor. And then I went exploring. Just for the fun of it. Of course, later on tunnels and hidden entrances made life so much easier for me.”
“When you started murdering people!” said Penny. “Are you sure we can’t just shoot him, Ishmael?”
“Do you want to?”
“Yes. I really do.”
“That’s why we can’t,” I said.
“Well said, Mr. Jones,” said MacKay.
He marched in through the open door, with Doyle right behind him. I’d heard the two of them approaching across the entrance hall for some time, but I needed to give all my attention to Martin. I risked a quick glance back. MacKay had an ugly bruise on his jaw, but he wasn’t interested in me. He was staring at Martin as if he’d never seen him before. Doyle stood beside him, his gaze a very cold thing. There was only just enough room in the confined space for the two of them to crowd in beside Penny and me, so we could all glare at Martin. He snarled back at us, not looking even a little bit cowed or guilty.
“You lied to me, Mr. Martin,” said MacKay. “Over and over, you lied to me. You even persuaded me Mr. Jones had to be the murderer. Why? Why did you do all this?”
Martin refused to answer, so I answered for him.
“Because Frank Parker was his father,” I said. “When I first talked with Parker in his cell, he told me he left the country because he was forced to choose between his job and a woman he’d got pregnant. That was why he left the Organization—because they’d made him choose. But then he got old and decided he wanted to come home. To be with the family he’d never had, the only thing in his life he regretted. And when Martin told me he never knew his father, it seemed a bit of a coincidence. Even then.”
“You’re so clever,” said Martin. “But you don’t understand everything. I knew that the infamous Frank Parker was my father. Mother told me when she started getting ill. She’d never approved of my being in this business, but would never say why. Once I knew the truth, it all became clear. I never made any attempt to contact Parker . . . He’d left us, and as long as he was gone and couldn’t hurt my mother any more I didn’t care. But when I was told he was coming here it was like a sign. A chance at last to make him pay for what he did. To her, and to me.”
“But why, man?” said MacKay. “Why did you want to murder your own father?”
“Because he went away and left us,” said Martin. “I had to grow up without a father, and my mother had to work herself to death to support us. All so he could run around the world playing secret agent!”
“He came back for you,” I said.
“Too little, too late,” said Martin. “My mother died still waiting for him to come back to her.”
“Did it never occur to you,” I said, “that he left in order to protect you? No one knew your names, he made sure of that. If he had stayed, word could have got out and his enemies might have come after you, in order to get to him.”
“I did think that, for a while,” said Martin. “I made myself believe it, because cold comfort is better than none. But once I had access to the computers here, I was able to get into his files. And that’s when I found out what a cold self-centred bastard Frank Parker had always been. Oh, he tried to convince me otherwise when we talked in his cell, but I knew better. I stabbed him in the heart while he was still lying to me. He looked so surprised . . .”
“He gave up so much, risked so much, to come home,” said MacKay, “and you killed him.”
Martin looked at me craftily. “He did tell me things down in the cell. The names of all the traitors inside the Organization, and many other important things. Because he wanted to impress me. I’ve got the whole conversation recorded, and protected by my very best encryptions. If the Organization wants what’s on that recording, they’re going to have to make a deal with me. I want money and freedom from all charges . . . And a whole bunch of other things I’ll come up with later. My father’s information is going to buy me the kind of life I should have had. You can all look as disapproving as you want! You can’t touch me, any of you.”
“Wrong,” said Doyle. Something in his voice made us all turn to look at him. His smile was grim, and his eyes were fierce. “You forget who I am, and why I’m here. I will get the information out of you one way or another, Mr. Martin. I am, after all, a professional interrogator and very highly motivated . . .”
For the first time, Martin seemed shaken. He looked at all of us, and found no comfort there.
“You’d let him do it, wouldn’t you?” he said. “You’d let him torture me!”
“Murderers don’t get to take the moral high ground,” I said.
MacKay shook his head slowly. When he spoke, he sounded heartbroken. “It never even occurred to me that you might be the killer. How could you, boy? Not just your own father, but all the others . . .”
“They were in the way,” said Martin. “And once I started, there was no going back. Don’t look at me like that, MacKay . . . How could I do it, after everything you’d done for me? Is that what you were going to say? Because you were like a father to me? Well, now you know how I feel about fathers.”
“All these deaths,” said Penny. “Just because one little shit had Daddy issues . . .”
Martin sat up straight in his chair and fixed us all with a hard, confident smile. “You really should have been paying more attention, people. You should have taken my keyboard away as well as my gun. Because in my hands a keyboard can be even more dangerous. All the time we’ve been talking I’ve been quietly entering commands, and now I have complete control over the Lodge’s self-destruct system. I’ve also installed a dead man’s switch. If I take my hands from the keyboard, the command goes out and the whole place goes up. Unless you let me walk out of here, I’ll take you all with me.”
Penny looked to MacKay. “Does the Lodge have a self-destruct system?”
“Unfortunately, yes,” said MacKay. “To ensure that important information and people cannot fall into enemy hands. And it is controlled from here. Mr. Martin should not be able to access the self-destruct system, but then he has been able to do a great many things I did not believe him capable of. If he has got past the safeguards and activated the device, he holds all our lives in his hands.”
“You could just let me walk out of here,” said Martin, “and make my deal with the Organization from a safer location. You don’t have to die.”
Penny looked at Doyle. “You’re the shrink. Would he do it?”
“Well . . .” said Doyle.
“No,” I said.
I lunged forward, punched Martin out, and snatched the keyboard from his hands. I broke it in two, just to be on the safe side, and threw the pieces away. Then I looked at the others, staring wide-eyed at me, and smiled.
“I was keeping an eye on him all the time we were in here. I never saw him enter any commands. And he took both his hands off the keyboard more than once without being aware of it. Besides, he wasn’t the type to commit suicide. He wanted to live too much.”
“That’s it?” said Doyle. “You risked all our lives on a guess?”
“I’m an excellent judge of character,” I said. “Mostly.”
Doyle and MacKay moved purposefully towards the unconscious Martin, sitting slumped in his chair. I led Penny out of the security centre.
“Why did it have to be him?” said Penny, after a while. “I liked him.”
“Being likeable is a great disguise,” I said. “You’d be amazed what you can get away with if you can just make people like you.”
“At least it’s over now,” said Penny. She looked at me. “It is all over now, isn’t it?”
“I think so,” I said. “MacKay will throw Martin into one of the basement cells, and Doyle will start the process of softening him up. While he’s doing that, MacKay will regain control of the computers, reverse the lockdown, and contact Headquarters. Tell them everything that’s happened.”
“The people at the top aren’t going to be too happy that Frank Parker is dead,” said Penny.
“No. But at least we have Martin’s recording of what he said—naming the traitors inside the Organization”
“Assuming there is a recording,” said Penny. “He might have been lying. He did a lot of that.”
“I had noticed,” I said. “Let’s hope for the best. After so much blood and horror, I’d like to think something good could come out of this mess.”
“At least we saved some people, this time,” said Penny. “Not like Belcourt Manor. Tell me, what was it you knew that Martin had forgotten?”
“Oh, that,” I said. “I was lying. I knew he wouldn’t be able to stand the idea that he’d forgotten something, that I knew something he didn’t. In the end, it helped that Martin was a very bad judge of character.”