110
By the time you reach the rank of DI, you’ve usually suffered a few professional wounds. And if you are a woman, you’ve certainly set some personal rules along the way. From leaving early at end-of-case parties to never marrying another copper, you’ve laid down the markers. Megan has broken both of those little beauties. But there is one guideline she always follows.
Look at the bigger picture. Don’t make knee-jerk decisions. Stand back and weigh everything up. Big. Small. Important. Mundane. Take every factor into consideration.
Which is why she doesn’t beat down her boss’s door and ask for an arrest warrant and a tactical firearm unit to take in Dave Smithsen. Instead, she talks it through with Jimmy and tries to make sense of it all. ‘I saw Gideon Chase this morning. He looked like he had been roughed up. Said he’d been threatened at gunpoint by two men. A builder called Smithsen and the man who broke into his father’s house last week.’
Jimmy’s surprised. ‘I thought you said Chase hadn’t seen the burglar?’
‘I did. It turns out he had.’
‘So why did he lie about it?’
‘Long story. Says he felt he had a personal duty to find out what his father was mixed up in.’
‘So where did he get threatened and why?’
She shakes her head. ‘I don’t know all the details. I didn’t have the chance to ask him. Smithsen was there with him at the house, fixing the fire damage.’
Jimmy adds it all up. ‘So this builder and his burglar mate threaten Chase and then a few hours later he comes round to his house to fix it up? Sounds strange.’
‘You’re right. It is strange. But it got me wondering whether the suicide of Nathaniel Chase isn’t somehow connected to the ransom demand for the kidnapped American girl.’
Jimmy’s eyes widen. ‘Why? How on earth can you connect the two?’
‘Cast your mind back to when you saw Jake Timberland’s body in the barn. You said you had a gut feeling that the crime scene had been staged. Can you remember what you put that down to?’
‘Sure. Location, location, location.’
‘That’s right. Well, location is the factor that’s been bugging me. Both cases share the same focal point. Stonehenge. It’s where Lock and Timberland were probably heading for a romantic sunrise before the kidnap and murder. And it’s the place Nathaniel Chase wrote books about and where he wanted his ashes scattered. Come to think of it, it’s also where his son claims he was cured of hereditary cancer when he was a child and where he believes a prehistoric cult makes human sacrifices so they can benefit from its powers.’
Jimmy screws up his face. ‘You don’t really go for all that mumbo-jumbo, do you?’
‘Just playing devil’s advocate for a minute. Why not? People have been digging up the bones of thousands of human sacrifices for centuries. The practice has been recorded in the Bible and dozens of other historic documents.’
‘I get the history, but even if such a cult still existed, why would it want to sacrifice an American politician’s daughter and the son of an English Lord? And how do you explain the ransom demand?’
Jimmy’s logic pulls her up short. The cult is a stupid idea but one she’s not yet ready to completely write off. ‘Cults pick victims for a whole range of reasons. Just like rapists and murderers, they have their own secret criteria. It could be sexual, racial, gender-oriented. Maybe it fits or offends their belief systems. Perhaps Caitlyn fitted one of those categories.’
‘And Timberland?’
‘It could be that he didn’t fit the criteria, that’s why he got killed. He was just defending Caitlyn. Being gallant.’
Jimmy shows his ace card again: ‘And the ransom?’
She taps her fingers on the desk. Her nails sound like a hungry woodpecker. ‘Forget the ransom for a minute. I’m not done with the locational aspect.’
Jimmy thinks that argument is just as flawed. ‘Stonehenge. Okay. So how could a cult carry out a ritualistic killing there? The place is slap bang in the middle of two busy roads. Always crawling with tourists. Twenty-four-hour security.’
Megan’s eyes light up. ‘What if the security team at Stonehenge is involved?’
Jimmy thinks for a second. It would certainly change things. ‘Sean Grabb worked security there. I heard he’s been missing since the abduction and murder.’
‘You sure?’
‘Overheard it in the canteen. And remember this guy has previous for burglary and assault.’
Megan looks energised. ‘So if Grabb and others working security were part of the cult, they could fix access to the site at any time they wanted.’
‘It’s possible. I’ll check with English Heritage and the security company they use. See what Grabb’s attendance record is like. Could be that he pulls sickies all the time and often goes missing. Or maybe this is the only day he’s had off for years.’
Megan is only half-listening. ‘Good. Good idea. Give it a shot.’
Jimmy has implanted another idea in her head. One more unorthodox than any she’s considered in her career. One that could solve the case. Or get her sacked.
111
Cuffed and hooded in the back of Draco’s van, Gideon tries to work out the route they are taking back to the Sanctuary. He’s sure from the turn out of his gate that they’re heading west from Tollard Royal along the B3081 past the King John Inn.
He wriggles into a seated position behind the driver’s wall at the front of the van and navigates according to which direction he gets thrown. A jerk to the left tells him Draco has turned right and is driving north. Gideon tries to judge the passing minutes and comes to the conclusion that they’ve reached Shaftesbury and are now headed in the direction of Gillingham and Warminster.
The last part of the journey is the quietest. Few cars can be heard. From the reduced speed and increasingly bumpy ride, it seems they’ve gone off road. Gideon is thrown around for several minutes before the vehicle stops and its back doors clunk open.
Three, maybe four men pull him out and manhandle him over hard ground. They walk him into a chilly, enclosed space where footsteps create echoes. Some kind of door is being unlocked in front of him. There’s a lot of noise now. Sounds of people grunting. Things shifting. Something heavy sliding.
‘Quickly,’ someone shouts.
A hand goes around the back of his head, pushes him down, urges him forward. Makes sure he doesn’t crack his head on something. He hears rumbling, grunting again behind him. No one says anything for maybe a minute. His mind goes into overdrive. The silence around him feels toxic.
Finally Draco speaks. ‘You’re going down some steps. Watch you don’t fall.’ There’s sarcasm in his voice.
Gideon hears the slap and echo of footsteps in front and behind as he descends. The steps are solid. Thick stone in a large space, nothing to soak up the sound. Exactly twenty of them.
The descent stops and two sets of hands grab his arms and walk him briskly for almost thirty seconds.
‘More steps,’ comes the sarcastic voice.
Another twenty.
He recognises the smell of being deep underground. He knows the odours of the earth — peat, chalk, running damp, sandstone, flint, wet iron, rich moulds. They all zing like sharp perfume notes to his trained archaeological senses.
Guiding hands halt him. The hood is plucked from his broiled face. Torchlight. He is deep inside the Sanctuary. A part he has never seen. Those around him are robed and hooded. That’s what the delay must have been for, before they started the downward climb.
‘Get him stripped and prepared,’ says Draco, his voice tough now, as hard as the stone. Gideon tries not to think about what’s happening to him. He concentrates instead on forming a mental picture of where he is. A large underground space in open fields at the end of an hour-long drive. He guesses he’s thirty miles from Tollard Royal. Thirty miles probably north, perhaps a little west.