From financial records, Vicky learns that Gwyn has been purchasing sizeable amounts of property and land in Cadbury in Somerset. All the acquisitions are close to the ruins of an ancient Iron Age fort, a place widely reputed to have been the site of Camelot.
Further digging into CEI reveals a span of subsidiaries, including one called ‘CEIDP’, which is run solely by Jennifer Gwyn. At first the researcher believes it’s purely a shell company, but then finds it also has extensive property, land and rights, including ‘water access, research and usage’ at Dozmary Pool in Cornwall. Back in the fifties, the area was declared a site of special scientific interest and access became limited. CEIDP records show it funded extensive research into fish projects and explorations of the pool’s Stone Age history.
Out of curiosity, Vicky searches for legends associated with Dozmary. She finds two. The first is that of Jan Tregeagle, a local lawyer/magistrate who gained money and power by making a pact with the Devil. Inevitably, the Prince of Darkness took his soul and cast his body to the bottom of the lake, from which it came back to haunt villagers.
The second legend is more interesting. Dozmary Pool is claimed to be the home of the Lady of the Lake, the place where King Arthur rowed out and received Excalibur. It’s also the spot where the knight Bedivere returned the sword, after the battle of Camlann where Arthur lay dying.
Head spinning with history and legends, she takes a break and heads to the canteen for lunch. She’s also hoping a certain young man called James Watkins will happen to be there.
A little older than her and built like a linebacker, he’s new to the bureau and drives a desk in IT. Yesterday, they ate side by side and she got goose bumps and hot flushes all at the same time.
She orders tuna salad and takes an eternity eating it, hoping with every mouthful that he might show.
He doesn’t.
After another soda, she’s still sat alone. Dejectedly, she packs her tray in the rack by the door and returns to her work.
Her mood brightens as she searches the background of Lady Gwyn. Boy, does the woman know how to look good. Vicky savours the shots of her in sumptuous ball gowns at charity dinners, sparkling cocktail dresses at VIP parties and even in waterproofs and life vest on a racing yacht.
Her ladyship seems quite the fashionista. A celebrity in her own right. Daughter of Leo Degrance, a rich and influential business tycoon, she went to all the right public schools, became part of the British Equestrian Team, a medal-winning horsewoman and patron of almost a dozen charities.
For fun, Vicky Googles the name Jennifer and is amused to find that it has Cornish and Welsh connections — Jenny the Fair, Gwenhwyfar and Guinevere.
She does the same with the name Owain and, given that’s another roll of the dice in the game of coincidences that she’s playing, expects it to come up as Arthur or King.
It doesn’t.
But in Welsh, the name Owain does mean Young Warrior, which is rewarding enough for her to continue tapping in his name and trawling the net.
Her perseverance is rewarded with a couple of news reports and legal articles that disclose that the British Knight is highly litigious and has taken legal action against innumerable companies and individuals who in his mind have threatened his privacy.
Top of the list is a notoriously eccentric Welsh historian called Rhys Mallory, who had written an unauthorized biography about him. Gwyn also obtained a series of injunctions to prevent Mallory from ‘…in any way conveying any information about the Gwyn family that is not already in the public domain to any individual, group of individuals or data distribution system that can be privately or publicly read, seen, heard or in the instance of braille, felt.’
While Vicky is no detective, she’s smart enough to realize the historian has some sensitive story to tell that the ambassador really doesn’t want anyone to hear. She finds contact details and adds them to the summary paper that she types up and sends to Mitzi and Bronty.
Job done, she decides her hard work is worth a small bar of peppermint cream chocolate. She’s just about to claim her prize when her desk phone rings. ‘Cantrell.’
‘Vicky?’ The voice is the linebacker’s.
Her heart misses a beat. ‘Hello.’
‘Hi, it’s James. How you doing?’
She thinks of his easy smile and soft brown eyes and instantly makes herself nervous. ‘I’m… I’m… good.’
‘Listen, I’m sorry I missed lunch. I’m out in the field, helping rig a computer surveillance system. How are you fixed for dinner tonight?’
‘Dinner?’ She really hadn’t been expecting this. ‘You mean as in dinner date dinner, or just dinner as in food?’ She can’t believe she said all that. ‘Oh God, I sound stupid now, don’t I?’
‘No, you don’t. Yes, I mean dinner as in dinner date dinner.’
‘Then yes. I like you very much — I mean, I’d like to very much.’
He laughs. ‘That’s good, because I like you very much too. Say eight?’
91
Behind the privacy of the limo’s tinted windows, Zachra Korshidi removes the niqab from her face. She straightens her hair and stares at the driver and the man she’s sat in the back with. ‘Who are you? Police? CIA?’
‘Neither,’ replies Gareth Madoc. ‘Though I can get both here within minutes if you’d prefer to talk to them?’
‘No.’ Her voice is sharp with tension. She’s taken enormous risks getting into the vehicle. Her father has friends everywhere in the neighbourhood. ‘Who, then?’
‘Let’s say I work for a philanthropically minded organization that would like to help you.’
She looks at him cynically. ‘Why?’
‘Because in stopping young women like you becoming suicide bombers it saves American lives.’
Now she feels so ashamed that she can’t look at him. ‘You said you could help me.’
‘Yes.’
‘Does that mean if I wanted to get far away from here and never be found, you could do that?’
‘If you cooperate with me, I can fix for you to live anywhere you like, with a new identity, a little money, maybe a job and somewhere to live.’
She stares at the black robe on her lap and knows all it stands for. But what the man with the English accent wants is for her to betray her family and everything they stand for.
Gareth dips inside the jacket of his blue suit and pulls out a pack of small photographs. ‘You need to see these. They’re not pleasant, but you should look.’
Hesitantly, she takes them from him. The first picture is a wide shot of a big, round dumpster on thick, black roller wheels. It’s at the back of a fried-chicken joint and the kitchen door is open, a fryer and long grill are visible. The second is of a pile of semi-tied, semi-ripped black garbage bags dumped in the yard. In the third, the bags are being opened by uniformed cops. The fourth shows the contents. Severed limbs. Hands. Feet. Arms.
Zachra’s heart makes the connection before she sees the fifth.
Javid’s head.
The face of her lover stares up at her. His skull has been severed from his body and his eyes are milky-white and pitted with flies. The hair she once loved to hold as she kissed him is matted in blood and food slops.
It takes almost a minute for her to get her breath back. For her to survive a hurricane of emotions. Finally, she finds her voice. And the words that she knows will change her life. ‘I can help you. There are things that I know.’
92
Kirstin Collins runs nail-bitten fingers through her spiky hair and stares at the painting in front of her.