The Dark Side of the Road

Twelve

The storm blew itself out by morning.

By the times Jeeves’ people arrived, well after breakfast, the wind had stopped blowing and the snow had stopped falling, and there wasn’t a trace of fog anywhere on the crisp clear morning air. I heard the security people coming long before they arrived, stomping and trudging and cursing their way up the snow-packed drive because they couldn’t get their transportation any further. So Penny and I were already there, sensibly dressed for the cold, waiting for them at the front door. A dozen men and women, in matching anonymous quasi-military outfits. A competent enough bunch. They didn’t seem all that happy to see me and Penny, or to learn the emergency was over and everyone but us was dead, including the killer, and that Jeeves and Leilah were among the fallen.

The team leader didn’t even want to tell us who they worked for. I was used to that. You meet a lot of people who don’t officially exist, in my line of work. The team leader was all set to launch into serious interrogation mode, and I was getting ready to tell him where to stick it and provide a physical demonstration if necessary, when another figure came striding confidently up the drive to join us. The team leader took one look at him and immediately hurried off to be busy somewhere else.

The new arrival was a sharp-faced sort, in his mid-thirties, with a military moustache, wearing a smart tweed suit and rugged hiking boots, and I knew who he was immediately. Who he had to be. He took charge with calm efficiency, sending the security people into the house to start the clean up. They brushed past Penny and me as though we weren’t there, loudly conferring with each other as to how many body bags they’d need and whose job it would be to go back to the van for them.

The newcomer looked steadily at me and Penny. ‘Hello, Ishmael. And Miss Belcourt. I am the Colonel.’

‘Funny,’ I said. ‘You don’t look like the Colonel.’

‘I am the new Colonel. The King is dead, long live the King, and all that. There is always a Colonel to represent the Organization.’

‘I suppose you’ll do,’ I said.

The Colonel raised an eyebrow, briefly. ‘My predecessor wrote in his files that you were frequently insubordinate. Apparently, he admired that in you. I do not.’

‘Tough,’ I said.

I met his gaze, and the Colonel went into the house to take charge of the clean up. I let him. I didn’t see any reason to get involved. By the end of the day, every disturbing piece of evidence would have been sanitized or destroyed, all the bodies would have disappeared, and a cover story would be set firmly in place. No one in the everyday world would ever have to know what really happened here.

‘How will they explain all the deaths?’ said Penny, after I’d run through the procedure for her.

‘Food poisoning, probably,’ I said. ‘That’s always a good one. The bodies will be cremated, all the proper doctor’s certificates will be placed on file, and the local media will be encouraged to bury the story. Is that acceptable to you?’

‘I suppose so,’ said Penny. ‘Though no matter how well they clean up, I’ll never feel the same about this house again. For me, this will always be the place where too many people died. And there really was a monster hiding in the dark, just like I believed when I was a little girl.’

‘Let’s go for a walk,’ I said. ‘Leave them to it.’

It was still bruisingly cold, but nowhere near as bad as before. Just another winter’s day, with a bright shining sun in a clear pale-blue sky. Snow-covered grounds stretched away before us, rising and falling like a frozen white sea. Penny and I strode along together, arm in arm.

‘People can always surprise you,’ said Penny, after a while. ‘All these years, I only ever thought of Alex as Daddy’s faintly creepy business partner. I don’t think we ever said a pleasant word to each other. But when the time came he stood up to Sylvia, to protect me. I think it genuinely never even occurred to him not to.’

‘We are what we do when it matters,’ I said. ‘And when it mattered, Alex was a good man. Brave and true.’

‘That makes it worse, somehow,’ said Penny. ‘I’ll never be able to tell him how much that meant to me. Same with Daddy and Mummy. All the things I meant to say to them and never did, because I always thought there’d be more time. Until suddenly, there wasn’t. And poor Roger, and poor old Diana …’ She stopped and looked around her. ‘I suppose … this is all mine, now. The house, the grounds, everything. Except you seem to have burned down most of the everything.’

She had a point. The terraced row of Victorian cottages were now just burnt-out ruins, parts of them still steaming and smouldering. Last night’s raging winds had also picked up the flames and carried them out into the trees and hedges and topiary shapes, leaving them just black twisted shapes.

‘How typical,’ said Penny, ‘that Belcourt Manor should end up in the hands of the one member of the family who really didn’t want it.’

‘No one says you have to keep it,’ I said. ‘Sell it all, and be free of it at last.’

‘I’d like that,’ said Penny. ‘But then: where do I go? I can’t go back to my old job, my old life. Not knowing what I know now, about how much bigger the world really is.’

‘I have been thinking about that,’ I said. ‘And it has occurred to me that just possibly I have been on my own for too long. I could use a partner.’

‘I was hoping you’d say that!’ said Penny, smiling brightly. ‘I thought we worked well, together. But I have to ask, Ishmael, if aliens are real, and vampires are real … what else is real? What else is out there? Just how big is the world, really?’

‘Come with me,’ I said. ‘And find out.’

‘Love to,’ said Penny.

We walked on, together.

‘You really don’t remember what you used to be, before you were human?’ said Penny.

‘I have … dreams, sometimes,’ I said carefully. ‘Flashes, images; none of it ever seems to make much sense.’

‘So … Have you ever wondered what you would do, if your people ever come back for you?’ said Penny, looking earnestly into my face. ‘I mean, would you want to go back with them? Be … something else? You’ve been here for so long …’

‘Penny,’ I said. ‘This is my world, now. I may not have been born human, but I have learned to be human. Everything I need is right here on this planet.’

‘Everything?’ said Penny, snuggling in close.

‘Yes,’ I said.

‘Did you ever work out why James called you down here?’ said Penny, after a while. ‘I mean, why he wanted you here in particular?’

‘I think so,’ I said. ‘Ironically, you supplied the final piece of the puzzle, when you told me Diana was already pregnant when she married Walter. Who almost certainly wasn’t the father. Am I right in believing Diana and Walter were married in 1970?’

‘Yes,’ said Penny. ‘Why?’

‘One year after my affair with Diana, in Paris,’ I said.

Penny stopped dead and looked at me, eyes wide. ‘But … Dear God! I never made the connection! You mean …’

‘Yes,’ I said. ‘I think the old Colonel, James, was my son. It would explain why he wanted me here, to protect his family.’

‘You think he knew?’ said Penny.

‘It would explain why he went out of his way to track me down and offer me the protection of the Organization,’ I said. ‘I doubt I’ll ever know for sure. It’s not the kind of thing he would have put in his official files. I always thought of him as a father figure, and all along he probably thought of me in much the same way. I wish … we could have talked about it.’

‘Hold it,’ said Penny. ‘Does this mean … we’re related?’

‘Not in any way that matters,’ I said.

‘Good!’ said Penny. ‘The last thing our relationship needs is more complications.’

‘So, we’re in a relationship, now?’ I said.

‘You’d better believe it,’ said Penny.

‘What is this thing called love, earth woman?’ I said solemnly.

‘Don’t you know?’ said Penny.

‘Yes,’ I said. ‘I know.’

‘Hey!’ said Penny. ‘I just realized! It’s Christmas Day! Merry Christmas, Ishmael!’

‘And a merry Christmas to you, Penny. Peace and good will to all men, including those who aren’t actually all men.’

‘One last question,’ said Penny. ‘I have to ask; why Ishmael?’

‘Why not?’ I said.