Murder in the Dark Read online

  Contents

  Cover

  A Selection of Recent Titles by Simon R. Green

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Prologue

  Chapter One: The Hole in the Hill

  Chapter Two: Something in the Dark

  Chapter Three: Something’s Watching

  Chapter Four: Some People Have a Beast in Them and Vice Versa

  Chapter Five: Conversation on a Beach that Isn’t a Beach

  Chapter Six: All Kinds of Mercy

  A Selection of Recent Titles by Simon R. Green

  The Ishmael Jones Mysteries

  THE DARK SIDE OF THE ROAD *

  DEAD MAN WALKING *

  VERY IMPORTANT CORPSES *

  DEATH SHALL COME *

  INTO THE THINNEST OF AIR *

  MURDER IN THE DARK *

  The Secret History Series

  PROPERTY OF A LADY FAIRE

  FROM A DROOD TO A KILL

  DR DOA

  MOONBREAKER

  The Nightside Series

  JUST ANOTHER JUDGEMENT DAY

  THE GOOD, THE BAD, AND THE UNCANNY

  A HARD DAY’S KNIGHT

  THE BRIDE WORE BLACK LEATHER

  * available from Severn House

  MURDER IN THE DARK

  Simon R. Green

  This ebook is copyright material and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed or publicly performed or used in any way except as specifically permitted in writing by the publishers, as allowed under the terms and conditions under which it was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law. Any unauthorised distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the author’s and publisher’s rights and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly.

  First published in Great Britain and the USA 2018 by

  SEVERN HOUSE PUBLISHERS LTD of

  Eardley House, 4 Uxbridge Street, London W8 7SY

  This eBook edition first published in 2018 by Severn House Digital

  an imprint of Severn House Publishers Limited

  Trade paperback edition first published

  in Great Britain and the USA 2018 by

  SEVERN HOUSE PUBLISHERS LTD

  Copyright © 2018 by Simon R. Green.

  The right of Simon R. Green to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs & Patents Act 1988.

  British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

  A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library.

  ISBN-13: 978-0-7278-8823-5 (cased)

  ISBN-13: 978-1-84751-948-1 (trade paper)

  ISBN-13: 978-1-4483-0158-4 (e-book)

  Except where actual historical events and characters are being described for the storyline of this novel, all situations in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to living persons is purely coincidental.

  This ebook produced by

  Palimpsest Book Production Limited,

  Falkirk, Stirlingshire, Scotland

  Prologue

  Call me Ishmael. Ishmael Jones.

  In 1963 an alien ship crashed to Earth, and the sole survivor was made human by transformation machines. I have walked this world ever since, remembering nothing of my previous existence. To help me hide from today’s surveillance-heavy society, I work for the mysterious Organization, investigating cases of the weird and unusual.

  There are all kinds of stories concerning people who disappear mysteriously, never to be seen again. Sometimes the accusing finger points to fairy rings or bad places; others prefer to lay the blame on mythical beings or alien abductions. Strange out of the way locations where people encounter terrible holes in the structure of the world are the only thing these stories have in common. Are these mysterious holes traps for the unwary, or doors to other realities? Either way, who or what is waiting on the other side?

  Some parts of the world are older than others. The south-west of England is so old it qualifies as ancient, which is probably why its history is so heavily packed with monsters and mysteries. Back in the sixth century, it was the last Celtic territory to fall to the invading Saxons. Before that, the Romans built roads, aqueducts and cities, trying to hold back the unknown with the solid sanity of civilization. Go back even further and you can find great circles of standing stones like Avebury and Stonehenge, and Neolithic burial sites where they weighed down their dead with heavy rocks to keep them from walking.

  The past is England’s dreaming, and not all of it sleeps soundly. There are all kinds of things left over from when the world was a different place. In my time as a field agent for the Organization I’ve dealt with any number of strange and unnatural threats, walking steadfastly into trouble and danger to put down the kind of things no one else can. History isn’t always over. Not when it can wait with remorseless patience for one more chance to get its claws into you.

  ONE

  The Hole in the Hill

  I hate being sent out on missions without a proper briefing. But when the Colonel calls me in the early hours of the morning using the phone number no one else even knows exists and says ‘Go now!’, then I get up and go. Because that’s part of the agreement I entered into when the Organization first agreed to take me under its wing: that they would send me into harm’s way on a regular basis and I would never say no, because it was always going to be something that needed doing.

  Which was how, on a pleasant summer’s afternoon, I came to be speeding through the wilds of Somerset with my partner, Penny Belcourt. People like me aren’t supposed to have partners, for any number of really good reasons; but since there are no people like me, I feel free to make the rules up as I go along.

  Penny was at the wheel, because no one is allowed to drive any of her precious vintage cars but her. So I just settled down in the passenger seat and enjoyed the ride and the countryside. The pastel-blue sky was slowly losing its colour as the afternoon darkened into evening, but the fields on either side of the narrow road were almost luminously green. Grass that really enjoyed being grass. Here and there sheep clustered together for company, and the occasional rabbit stuck its head up for a good look round. No people, no farm machinery, nothing to disturb the pleasant languor of a country afternoon.

  And so many trees, everywhere I looked. Tall and heavy, with wide-spreading branches weighed down with summer leaves. People forget that most of England used to be one big primordial forest; until their ancestors cut most of it down because it got in the way. I like trees. When you’ve been around as long as I have and seen so many things and people disappear, you like to think there are some things that might outlast you.

  There was a time when I preferred cities to the countryside. In my early days it was a lot easier to hide in the hustle and bustle of a city as just another face in the crowd; whereas a man on his own, a stranger, would always stand out in the small towns and villages. But these days, the ever present surveillance cameras lining the city streets make it a lot harder to pass unnoticed. I’m actually better off in the countryside, where I only have to worry about people seeing me, not cameras.

  I glanced across at Penny. She was scowling at the winding road ahead, clearly still not at all happy about being sent out on a case without at least some idea of what we were getting ourselves into. When I turned up at her London flat at what was still far too early in the morning for civilized people, rousted her out of bed, stuck a mug of black coffee in her hand and told her we were needed, her first reaction was that the Colonel was taking advantage of me.

  It’s true, he does; but to be fair, I take advantage of him, too. It’s that kind of relationship.

  ‘Why didn’t the Colone
l show up in person to brief you?’ said Penny. ‘He never misses a chance to lecture you about things you don’t know, so he can lord it over you.’

  ‘Not always,’ I said. ‘Not when it’s really urgent.’

  ‘It can’t be that important,’ said Penny. ‘At least, no one’s died yet. So we can be sure it’s not a murder mystery, for once.’

  ‘That’s what you said last time,’ I said.

  She took her eyes off the road for a dangerously long moment, to give me what could only be described as a threateningly cool glare. ‘I thought we’d agreed none of that was my fault.’

  ‘Of course,’ I said. ‘Not your fault in any way, shape or form. Could have happened to anyone.’

  She smiled, and turned her attention back to the road. ‘You know, you learn faster than a lot of my old boyfriends.’

  I thought about that. It seemed there were certain implications there … But in the end I just nodded. It seemed safest.

  ‘So,’ said Penny. ‘All you got this time was a phone call out of the blue and the bare essentials?’

  ‘Apparently we’ll be told all we need to know when we get there,’ I said. ‘So feel free to take your foot off the accelerator now and again. I would prefer to arrive with all my various pieces still attached to each other.’

  ‘You’re the one who made such a fuss about the mission being terribly pressing.’ Penny slowed the car by a few miles an hour, to show willing. ‘It’s just … there’s something about this whole situation that grates on my nerves. Like my subconscious is waving a really big warning flag. It’s not like the Colonel to drop you in the deep end without at least some idea of where the sharks are.’

  ‘No,’ I said. ‘It isn’t. Except when it’s urgent.’

  I smiled across at Penny. I always like looking at her. A striking young woman with a pretty face, strong bone structure, and a mass of night-black hair piled up on top of her head. Dark flashing eyes and a dazzling smile, a trim figure, a stylish look, and enough nervous energy to intimidate anyone who can’t keep up with her. She was currently wearing a smart navy-blue business suit, and looked almost frighteningly professional and efficient. Because I’d told her we would be working with scientists; and she was determined not to appear out of her depth. I was wearing my usual dark blazer and slacks, for much the same reason. And because I’ve never understood the fashion thing.

  Penny and I walk side by side into the most dangerous parts of the world on a regular basis, and it’s a matter of pride to both of us that we never blink first. We uncover secrets, solve mysteries, and do our best to protect people from things that shouldn’t exist but unfortunately do. I see things from the outside, and she understands the complexities of the human heart. We work well together; because nothing can hide from both of us.

  I looked at myself in the rear-view mirror. I always feel a faint hint of surprise when I see my reflection, as though what I’m seeing isn’t what I expected. Tall, dark, and handsome enough if you’re not too choosy; a pleasantly anonymous look that allows me to move through the world without being noticed. Because I can’t afford to be noticed. I can’t have people asking questions, because I don’t have any answers. I’ve spent most of my life investigating mysteries, but I’ve never even come close to understanding the most important one of all: who or, perhaps more properly, what I really am. Perhaps because when you get right down to it, I don’t want to know.

  ‘I think I’ve been patient long enough,’ said Penny. ‘It’s time to tell me what you do know. What are we doing way out here, miles from anywhere?’

  ‘We’re to provide security for an archaeological dig on Brassknocker Hill, just outside the city of Bath,’ I said. ‘It seems this particular team of shovellers and trowel experts were busy digging up some farmer’s field in search of an old Roman villa when they stumbled across something far more interesting. A hole in the side of the hill with unnatural properties.’

  ‘How can a hole be unnatural?’ said Penny.

  ‘That’s the point, isn’t it?’ I said cheerfully. ‘If it was just an ordinary hole in the ground, the Organization wouldn’t be sending us in. The only other piece of information I possess is that one of the archaeologists fell into this hole and apparently disappeared.’

  ‘As in missing, presumed dead?’ said Penny.

  ‘Apparently,’ I said. ‘Not a trace of him to be found anywhere.’

  ‘So we’re talking about a really deep hole,’ said Penny. ‘Some kind of cave-in, perhaps?’

  ‘Perhaps,’ I said, just to be polite. ‘I think the key word here is “unnatural”. It’s not a word the Organization tends to use lightly. Perhaps the hole ate him.’

  ‘Oh, ick!’ said Penny.

  ‘The surviving archaeologists have been removed from the site and replaced with a Government-sponsored scientific team.’

  ‘Hold it! The Organization can call on official scientific teams for help?’ said Penny. ‘How long has that been going on?’

  ‘Beats the hell out of me,’ I said. ‘The Colonel only tells me what he thinks I need to know, and I don’t always believe all of that. The Organization seems determined to remain the greatest mystery of all.’

  ‘Even to those who work for it?’ said Penny.

  I had to smile. ‘Perhaps especially to those who work for it.’

  Penny sniffed loudly, and put the car through an expert but unnecessary racing gear change as she swept round a tight corner. The Romans might have liked their roads straight, but country roads have always favoured the winding way and the sharp unexpected turn. Preferably with something unnerving on the other side. Penny shot me a quick look.

  ‘Not for the first time, it occurs to me that you should have asked a lot more questions before you agreed to join the Organization.’

  ‘It wasn’t like I had much of a choice,’ I said. ‘They found me when I thought no one could. And I’d run out of secret groups willing and able to run the necessary interference between me and the security systems that watch the world every minute of every day. For your own good, of course. It’s become a lot harder for people like me to stay under the radar.’

  ‘There are no people like you …’ said Penny, automatically. ‘Anyway, what do you know about these scientists looking into the hole?’

  ‘They’re lead by a Professor Sharon Bellman.’

  ‘Professor of what, exactly? Archaeology, history, sudden strange holes that eat people?’

  ‘Almost certainly one of those,’ I said. ‘We’ll just have to ask when we meet her. She’s supposed to fill us in on exactly what’s been happening. Hopefully including what’s so damned urgent about a hole.’

  ‘What happened to the archaeologists who got replaced?’ said Penny.

  ‘The Colonel didn’t say, but they’ve probably been bribed with Government funding and pressured into keeping quiet.’

  ‘If this hole is so dangerous,’ said Penny, ‘why don’t they just hire a concrete mixer and fill it in?’

  ‘No doubt Professor Bellman will tell us,’ I said. ‘But if the solution was that simple, they wouldn’t need us, would they?’

  ‘It still doesn’t sound like a murder mystery,’ said Penny. ‘We already know who did it. The hole.’

  ‘But we don’t know how or why,’ I said. ‘Or whether there could be someone behind this poor unfortunate’s disappearance into a hungry hole.’

  ‘He probably just tripped and fell in,’ said Penny. ‘What do you want to bet that drinking was involved?’

  ‘Are we nearly there yet?’

  ‘Don’t start.’ She glanced at the satnav, which was sulking in silence on the dashboard because where we were heading wasn’t on any official map. ‘We just passed Claverton, so we need to start looking for a sharp right turn into Brassknocker Hill.’ She broke off, frowning. ‘I’m sure I know that name from somewhere.’

  ‘There have been a number of intriguing stories about the Beast of Brassknocker,’ I said.

  ‘Yes!
’ said Penny. ‘I remember! I saw a documentary about it on BBC Two. Some vicious and almost certainly apocryphal creature roams the area, eating the livestock and putting the wind up the locals.’

  ‘There’s rather more to it than that,’ I said. ‘There have been any number of sightings and encounters, going back centuries. Disturbing tales of something large and powerful that tears apart the local wildlife, leaving the body parts scattered across the fields. It’s also been known to carry off the occasional traveller careless enough to be caught out after dark. Sometimes a hat or a shoe is left behind, but never even a drop of blood. Vicious claw marks have been found, gouged into the doors of farmers’ cottages overnight, where something has tried to get in.

  ‘The Beast comes and goes. Sometimes it’s not seen for centuries, but it always come back. A thing of silent horror, that haunts the night on Brassknocker Hill for reasons of its own. The last modern sighting was in 1979.’

  ‘What is this Beast supposed to look like?’ said Penny.

  ‘Nobody knows,’ I said. ‘The few reported sightings are pretty basic. Big and strong, all teeth and claws. The usual.’

  ‘How could something like that move around unnoticed?’

  ‘A normal beast couldn’t,’ I said. ‘Which suggests its origins are probably otherworldly. Unless it’s all just a legend.’

  Penny shot me a thoughtful look. ‘And you just happen to have all this information on the tip of your tongue.’

  ‘I had time to do a little research before we left,’ I said. ‘I love internet cafés.’

  ‘You think the Beast might be connected with this unnatural hole?’

  ‘I don’t know. It’s possible.’

  ‘Did you bring a gun?’ said Penny. ‘I could use a new rug for my front room.’

  ‘I’m an investigator of the unknown, not a big-game hunter.’

  ‘You’ve never been fond of guns, have you?’ said Penny.

  ‘I can use one if I have to,’ I said. ‘I just prefer not to, mostly.’