Warlord

TWENTY-SIX

I REALLY THINK I AM GOING to be sick, Alex," Congreve said. It was later on the night of their unpleasant but highly intriguing meeting with the bomber McMahon. "And if you think I'm joking, you're about to see highly visible proof to the contrary."

His friend Hawke was at the helm of the ridiculously small and wildly pitching fishing boat. Sheer insanity. A night crossing to Mutton Island in a vessel less than twenty feet in length. Barmy, of course, but then Alex Hawke never gave a damn about weather when it came to boats. Sheeting rain, massive rollers, howling wind. Ideal for night crossing to some godforsaken island, was his view.

Surely this could have waited until morning?

Hawke. Just the name was a clue. The man was possessed of a keen sense of every small thing about him, above it all, often seeing what others didn't, missed opportunity and lurking death. He owned an icy courage that bordered on the bizarre, especially at moments like this. Hawke often reminded Ambrose of Winston Churchill, during the war, going out for his morning battlefield stroll, nonchalantly smoking his signature cigar in no-man's-land, blissfully ignoring the German bullets whistling by his head.

Both men mortal, to be sure, but they didn't act like they were. Not at all.

"Just don't get any on my shoes!" Hawke said loudly. You had to shout to be heard over the keening sounds of wind and wave. Remaining on your feet was no small feat, Congreve thought miserably, no pun intended.

Hawke eyed his friend. In the dim overhead light of the tiny wheelhouse, Congreve's normally cherubic pink face looked the ugly, varicolored shades of a nasty bruise. He was seasick all right, but he'd be on solid ground soon. Hawke imagined his old friend could likely manage three solo circumnavigations of the earth without ever acquiring his sea legs.

Ambrose said, "Don't be crude. Makes no sense to come out on a night like this, Alex. In this disgusting vessel. Every inch smells of fish guts and worse."

"It's a fishing boat."

"Well. Don't they, at bare minimum, these fishing blokes, at least hose them down every other decade or so?"

"Not usually. No need, really. The stench is part of the charm. Hold on, brave landsman, here comes a fairly sizable roller. Hard a'lee, me lads!"

They plowed through the huge wave just before it crested, black and white water roaring over the bow, smashing the wheelhouse, the whole damn boat awash. A miracle the window glass didn't blow out and slash them both to ribbons. Congreve spit seawater out of his mouth and shouted into Hawke's ear.

"Can't you slow down? Or just pull over?"

"Constable, you cannot just 'pull over' in a boat."

"Oh, for God's sake, you know what I mean. Just stop the damn thing until this storm blows over."

"That is called 'heaving to.' It would be much worse to do so, I assure you. Instead of slamming through these waves, we'd be getting slammed by them."

"And we're not now? Why on earth couldn't we have waited till morning, then?" Congreve asked, staggering on the heaving deck, trying to keep his feet under him and the contents of his stomach out of sight where they properly belonged.

"Going to get much worse around midnight. This is just the leading edge of the low pressure front. You'll be seeing Force 8 gales out here tomorrow."

"How much farther to the damned island?"

"Island of the damned, from what I've read."

"Alex, please. You are not amusing."

"Mutton Island is just now coming up on our port bow, actually. Wait for the next lightning strike and you'll see the cliffs off to our left. I've checked the map and found a protected spot to beach the boat. Luckily, it's in the lee of this wind."

"Thank God."

"No, thank me. God had absolutely nothing to do with it. Experience has taught me he really doesn't care for me much. Has it in for me, actually."

Ambrose was wise enough to remain silent.

Finally, Hawke said, "I've been thinking about something McMahon said. Odd."

"Yes?"

"He said Smith had an accent. To be precise, he said he 'spoke like a bloody toff, just like you.' Meaning me, of course."

"An Englishman. Good Lord, that went right by me. More drunken raving, I was probably thinking."

"Yes. But what if it wasn't?"

"Smith, an Englishman? I suppose he could be sympathetic to the Irish Cause, there's no shortage of those about."

TWENTY MINUTES LATER, HAWKE HAD run the boat's bow high up on to the shale beach and secured a line to a formation of rock that seemed to have survived for aeons. Ambrose immediately scrambled ashore, never so happy to plant his feet on solid ground in his life. Once Hawke was satisfied the boat was properly secured, he joined Congreve at the top of a rocky ridge.

"Let me have a look at the map," Hawke said, snapping on his yellow rubber-coated flashlight. It cast a wispy white beam on the rocks and grassy banks beyond. Both men were wearing black macintoshes and old-fashioned sou'westers on their heads. Still, the cold wind and icy rain were cause for misery.

Congreve pulled the map from inside his foul-weather gear.

"All right," Hawke said, pointing, "here is the Norman watchtower. There are a cluster of old stone cottages just west of the tower. The ruins include an old church and an oratory."

"Not to mention a graveyard," Congreve said, studying the map.

"Off we go, then!" Hawke said cheerily and marched off in the direction of the tower with the air of a man leading a troop of young sea scouts on an exciting expedition. He soon disappeared through a veil of rain and Ambrose, his stomach at last becalmed, thumbed on his own flashlight, following the wavering beam of the torch up ahead. The ground was quite rocky and you had to mind your step. He had bought a pair of knee-high Wellies for this trip and was damn glad he'd done so.

It took twenty minutes over rough ground for the two men to locate the ruins of the ancient settlement. The rain had slacked off considerably and visibility was much enhanced. They examined the crumbling tower and the hieroglyphs on the strange obelisk in the middle of the graveyard. They worked in silence, each looking for any hint or trace of human habitation or activity.

Congreve, who had begun his career at Scotland Yard walking the streets of London before quickly rising to the rank of detective inspector, had long ago hewn to Locard's Principle, the foundation of all forensic science laid down by Edmund Locard, a man known as the "Sherlock Holmes of France." Since Congreve was a fanatic Sherlockian, this doubly endeared the Frenchman to him.

Monsieur Locard's principle simply stated that "every contact leaves a trace." Even though the last contact this Mr. Smith may have had with Mutton Island was perhaps thirty years prior, there was the possibility of concrete evidence of his presence to be found here. And Ambrose Congreve meant to find it.

He pointed his finger and said, "That building there, at the far edge of the graveyard, seems to be the only one remaining with a fairly intact roof. And thus suitable for habitation. I suggest we start our search for evidence there, Alex."

The white stone building had no windows. There was only a single wooden door, narrow and low. People were much smaller when this structure had been built centuries earlier. Bad diets. Hawke went through first to save Ambrose the embarrassment of being seen to squeeze his rather substantial girth through the narrow opening.

Both men played their lights around the four walls and the floor. The dirt ground was covered with small white pebbles as had been some of the pathways throughout the cemetery. In the center of the room, directly beneath a dripping crack in the roof, stood a large, slablike stone table. It looked more like an altar than a place to eat, and Ambrose, looking around, decided that is exactly what it had been. This had been a Pagan house of worship.

Thunder was still rumbling overhead and periodic flashes of lightning turned the inside of the tiny church a blinding white every few minutes. There was a continuous drip-drip-drip of rain spattering on the stone altar from a ceiling crack above.

"Look over here, old stick," Hawke said, his light shining on bits of rotten wood and pieces of decayed fabric cast randomly into a corner.

Congreve leaned down to inspect it. He had donned a pair of surgical gloves and was using a pair of tweezers to lift the fabric and poke at the thin strips of wood.

"A cot," he said, standing up with a rusty metal hinge in his hand. "Bedding. Someone slept here for a time. And ate meals. There are some very rusty cans of Heinz beans over there. Of course, it could have been anyone at all. Campers, birders, and the like."

"But it could just as well have been our friend Smith, Ambrose. This debris is at least three or four decades old. If this sanctuary really was a haven for campers or naturalists, there would be far more evidence of recent presence. There is none."

"I wholly agree. All we need now is evidence of a crime."

"Right. I'll get the Yard to analyze what's here. DNA from the bedding perhaps. Prints from the cans."

Hawke went on to say, "I think Smith could have lured his victims out to this island and murdered them in this very room. Remote, isolated, uninhabited. Perfect, in fact. And a graveyard conveniently located just outside his front door."

Congreve was now inspecting the surface of the stone slab carefully with his flashlight and a magnifying glass. It was remarkably clean, he thought. Dusty maybe, but with very little accumulation of the dirt one would expect. Almost as if it had been scrubbed clean at some point.

"Alex, there are faint markings on this stone. No pattern. Random slash marks, some quite deep that could well have been made by a knife-hold on-what's this?" Stepping forward, the toe of his boot had stubbed on something hard beneath the small stones.

He bent to his knees and swept away some of the tiny white pebbles beneath the slab. There was nothing but the hard-packed earthen floor. But upon closer inspection he found what he'd accidentally hit with his foot. There was a half circle of rusted iron protruding from the soil.

"Alex, could you step over here for a second? I think I've literally stumbled upon something under the altar. I need you to put a light on it while I do some digging."

Hawke held the light while Congreve used a small spade to carefully dig the soil away. He quickly uncovered an intact iron ring about four inches in diameter.

"A catacomb below, do you suppose?" Ambrose said with excitement, and he began to spade away the damp black dirt surrounding the iron ring. He struck wood about three inches down.

"Or a coffin?" Hawke asked.

Suddenly both men whipped their heads around at the sound of a low, ugly growl coming from the doorway.

A black dog, lean and muscular, was peering inside. A feral dog by the looks of him, fangs bared, milk white tusks that could crush through a man's wrist or calf bone like so much soft clay. The animal stood staring at the two men with a total absence of fear. Alex did not like the stiffened front legs or the ridge of raised hair along the animal's spine, both signals of an attack. Nor did he like the look in the animal's black eyes. It was raw hunger. Stringy loops of saliva hung from the long lower jaw full of teeth.

The animal started slowly moving toward them through the doorway, languid, unafraid.