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was no sign of
Keen's unmistakeable red Capri, for one thing. And for another there was no
sign of Keen.
Clarke scratched his head, scuffed the grass where Keen's car should be
parked. The wet grass gave up a broken branch, and... no, it wasn't a branch.
Clarke stooped, picked up the snapped crossbow bolt in fingers that were
suddenly tingling. Something was very, very wrong here!
He looked up, staring at Harkley House standing there like a squat sentient
creature in the night. Its eyes were closed now, but what was hiding behind
the lowered lids of its dark windows?
All of Clarke's senses were operating at maximum efficiency: his ears picked
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up the rustle of a mouse, his eyes glared to penetrate the darkness, he could
taste, almost feel the evil in the night air, and something stank. Literally.
The stink of a slaughterhouse.
Clarke took out a pencil-slim torch and flashed it on the grass which was red
and wet and sticky! The cuffs of his trousers were stained a dark crimson with
blood. Someone (God, let it not be Peter Keen!) had spilled pints of the stuff
right here. Clarke's legs trembled and he felt faint, but he forced himself to
follow a track, a bloody swath, to a spot behind the hedgerow, hidden from the
road. And there it was much worse. Did one man have that much blood?
Clarke wanted to be sick, but that would incapacitate him and right now he
dare not be incapacitated. But the grass... it was strewn with clots of blood,
shreds of skin and gobbets of... of meat! Human flesh! And under the narrow
beam of his torch there was something else, something which might just be -
God, a kidney!
Clarke ran - or rather floated, fought, swam, drifted, as in a dream or
nightmare back to his car, drove like a madman back to Paignton, hurled
himself into INTESP's suite of rooms. He was in shock, remembered nothing of
the drive, nothing at all except what he'd seen, which had seared itself onto
his mind. He fell into a chair and lolled there, gasping, trembling: his
mouth, face, all of his limbs, even his mind, trembling.
Guy Roberts had come half-awake when Clarke rushed in. He saw him, the state
of his trousers, the dead white slackness of his face, and was fully alert in
an instant. He dragged Clarke to his feet and slapped him twice, ringing blows
that brought the colour back to Clarke's cheeks -
and blood to his previously blank eyes. Clarke drew himself up and glared; he
growled and showed his gritted teeth, went for Roberts like a madman.
Trevor Jordan and Simon Gower dragged him off Roberts, held him tight and at
last be broke down. Sobbing like a child, finally he told the whole story. The
only thing he didn't tell was the one which must be perfectly obvious: why it
had affected him so very badly.
'Obvious, yes,' said Roberts to the others, cradling Clarke's head and rocking
him like a child.
'You know what Darcy's talent is, don't you? That's right: he has this thing
that looks after him.
What? He could walk through a minefield and come out unscathed! So you see,
Darcy's blaming himself for what happened. He had the shits tonight and
couldn't go on duty. But it wasn't anything he ate that queered his guts it
was his damned talent! Or else it would be Darcy himself minced out there and
not Peter Keen.'
Tuesday, 6.00 A.M.: Alex Kyle was shaken rudely awake by Carl Quint.
Krakovitch was with Quint, both of them hollow-eyed through travel and lack of
sleep. They had stayed overnight at the Dunarea, where they'd checked in just
before 1.00 A.M. They had had maybe four hours'
sleep; Krakovitch had been roused by night staff to answer a call from England
on behalf of his
English guests; Quint, knowing by means of his talent that something was in
the air, had been awake anyway.
'I've had the call transferred to my room,' said Krakovitch to Kyle, who was
still gathering his senses. 'It is someone called Roberts. He is wishing to
speak to you. Most important.'
Kyle shook himself awake, glanced at Quint.
'Something's up,' Quint said. 'I've suspected it for a couple of hours. I
tossed and turned, sleep all broken up but too tired to respond properly.'
All three in pyjamas, they went quickly to Krakovitch's room. On the way the
Russian inquired, 'How do they know where you are, your people? It is them,
yes? I mean, we had not planned to be here tonight.'
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