ancient woodland to spite the elements trying to protect it. Toby Jug may have kept his email address and phone numbers secret, but it wasn’t because he was a technophobe. He knew how to start rumours on the Internet without recourse to social media. Online news providers were the best. They could investigate, report and publish without leaving the comfort of their backroom parlours and were always hungry for a good story.
The billionaire’s hubris was soon common knowledge. Once a scandal had gone viral, power and influence counted for nothing. The development of the mansion was halted and investigation into why it had been allowed begun. Christian Dribblet Jnr knew who was responsible. Unfortunately it did not occur to Toby that someone used to getting his own way would not be philosophical about being crossed.
When he heard that the woodland elementals had been placated, Toby genuinely felt comfortable for the first time in his life. Previously he had always looked - metaphorically - over his shoulder for religious disapproval and contempt of scientists. Now his crypt took on a warm, companionable feel as though a friendly breeze was filling every nook and cranny of the ancient stone pillars and niches. What would have been the ideal bedroom for a vampire became as friendly as a hotel lounge. And, inexplicably, he no longer felt alone. The entity which had haunted his peripheral vision bloomed into a warm green glow that enveloped his every move like a fleecy blanket. Toby could explain most mysterious things, but not this new sense of security. He no longer worked by candlelight, but took long walks in the moonlight, embraced by Nature's midnight perfumes.
Somebody else, less friendly than the woodland elementals, was also aware of his change of habit.
One night, Toby Jug did not return to his crypt until early morning.
He could not remember where he had been.
‘Looks like the work of a hired hit man to me.’
‘Reckon you're right, Sir.’
‘Search him for ID.’
‘Before forensic see him?’
‘He was shot through the head. Maybe traces of the killer's DNA on his clothes, but I doubt it.’
‘Hold on Sir,’ said a uniformed constable. ‘I know him. He's a local writer. Does books about ghosts and stuff. Uses the name of Toby Jug.’
‘You kidding?’
‘From the title by another writer, Dennis Wheatley, “The Haunting of Toby Jugg.”’
Toby went to his armchair and would have sat down, but he had the peculiar feeling that it wasn't really there. The flame of the candle he had left burning when he went out hours before should have been guttering, but now glowed brightly with a green radiance that shone through the stone walls and into the overgrown cemetery above.
Toby Jug drifted into a luminous dimension of leaves, vines and tendrils where stems laden with buds speared into the starlit night from a mattress of moss and burst into huge, ghostly flowers. The moss was velvet to the touch and the electric blue petals tingled his fingertips. He instinctively knew that this was his true home, not the sparsely furnished rooms of his judgemental parents or busy, polluted streets he walked miles to avoid.
At last the willowy green entity that had been with him all his life materialised.
‘Welcome to our world, Toby Jug.’
‘Your world?’
‘The one you just gave your life to defend.’
‘Gave my life?’
‘Of course. This is where you have always belonged. You are now one of us, a protector of Nature's realm.’
The Hammer of God
As far as his neighbours were concerned, Cecil was just a studious old man who passed his time designing coats of arms. The heraldist had committed no crime worse than attributing the bar sinister to a descendant who was adamant that he came from a legitimate line.
And yet some late night caller put a bullet through his brain.
No one in the other apartments heard anyone enter, fire the gun, or leave. Cecil was found there by the cleaner, sitting peacefully in his armchair, spectacles on his nose, crest of a noble house on his lap, and small circular hole in his forehead.
Vera, a close friend of his had died the same way three years previously, only she had been living in Spain in her timeshare villa. Spanish and UK police could find no motive or clues either. DC Paul Fallon suspected that there was some connection between the two. As the victims were both over 70, it was probably historical. Finding the crucial link - if it existed - would be time-consuming.
DI Riesen was strangely diffident about the murders. ‘Only the last shooting falls under our jurisdiction. You can get the file on the other one and plough through it if you want. Doubt you'll find anything, though.’
DI Peter Riesen looked like a preacher, sounded as though he was giving a sermon when arresting a suspect and filled criminals with the fear of God when interviewing them.
The uncharacteristic reluctance of DC Fallon’s superior to admit interest in the murders triggered the young man’s instinct to delve, and not just into Cecil and Vera’s cases. Sometimes the detective constable wished he didn’t have the instincts of a ferret, prying into matters best left well alone, especially after he discovered that DI Riesen had secretly remained an ordained priest when entering the police force. Now he had the problem of deciding whether he should let anyone know. The rest of the station believed the austere detective inspector to be a closet gay because he had no wife or romantic attachment, not because he had taken a vow of celibacy. Given the huge man’s Spartan lodgings and rigorous self-discipline, nothing could have been more unlikely. But the explanation was as good as any other in their unpredictable world.
Perhaps DC Fallon should have left his DI safely confined to that unlikely category, but could hold his tongue no longer. He had to confront his superior.
‘It wasn't that difficult to discover. Couldn't it cause problems if anyone else found out?’
DI Riesen looked at DC Fallon with the patient expression of forbearance he reserved for infants and unbelievers. ‘It's a long story.’
Paul Fallon admired his taciturn superior. Anyone who could declare he was a teetotal Dominican at the height of an office celebration and not raise so much as a titter of derision deserved respect. The thought of causing this paragon problems didn't cross the young man’s mind, but the curiosity was burning. ‘Something you can tell me?’
‘I just heard one confession too many.’ Peter Riesen’s tone suggested the matter be dropped, but the question could not be rolled back.
‘That bad, was it?’
‘It was pivotal in my decision to join the police force.’
It was obvious that Paul Fallon wasn’t going to learn any more. He only knew that he wouldn't have been able to sit listening to the unspeakable behaviour others got up to without being able to arrest them.
So he tried to forget the enigma that was his superior and concentrate on Vera and Cecil's murders.
Then there was a third death; Oberon Jones, a close friend of Cecil's. Same method - a bullet through the brain.
There was nothing recent to connect the elderly victims to Vera, so DC Fallon spent hours riffling through their past histories before anything in common came to light. The tenuous connection was confirmed by an article in a 60s alternative magazine archived by the British Library. The title had been published in Cornwall where two victims lived for a short time. Although this cult had been active in the West Country for several years, there was no record of its members committing any crime. 40-year-old correspondence retained by Oberon Jones confirmed that he had also belonged to it. Though why anyone would want to kill any of them for joining one of the more unusual groups in the throes of hippiedom so long ago was a mystery.
As DC Fallon reported his findings, DI Riesen wore that inscrutable expression which suggested that he regretted authorising his assistant’s British Library reader's pass. He had chosen DC Fallon because of his deceptively innocuous personality, only to discover it concealed an embryo Sherlock Holmes. This young man was incorrigible when pursuing tenuo
us threads. It was only a matter of time before he discovered the far more profound secret his superior was concealing. DI Riesen was well aware that Paul Fallon, still in his twenties, regarded him as an old man in his late 50s, though not old enough to have been around in the 60s.
‘You’ve heard of these weirdoes before, haven't you?’ DC Fallon's eyes had that gleam of a squirrel finding an acorn.
DI Riesen had to answer. ‘Many, many strange, devilish cults came to the attention of the ecclesiastical grapevine. Not all of them were dangerous and just paddled in the shallows of the River Styx.’
‘But you've got special knowledge, haven't you?’ His superior's silence could only mean one thing. ‘Oh my God! It’s the seal of the confessional, isn't it?’
Faced with either agreeing or tossing the young man into the café's refuse container in the dark alley at the rear, DI Riesen raised his mug of coffee. ‘Drink up, we've got another crime scene to process.’
Oberon Jones had been a fit 72-year-old with an apparently active sex life. DC Fallon offered to interview the prostitutes listed in his maroon notebook but, much to his disappointment, DI Riesen told him to search the victim's flat thoroughly and bag anything interesting after forensics had finished. The DC could only wonder what the women would confess to the detective with the priestly bearing. They would probably detect his vow of celibacy from twenty paces.
DC Fallon dutifully