ARCHANGEL HAWTHORNE (A Thriller) Read online

  ARCHANGEL

  HAWTHORNE

  _________________

  A novel by D. M. Mitchell

  ARCHANGEL HAWTHORNE

  Copyright © D. M. Mitchell 2014

  The right of Daniel M. Mitchell to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved.

  This book is a work of fiction. Characters, names, organisations, businesses, places and events are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Agamemnon Independent Publishing

  By D. M. Mitchell

  Novels:

  Max

  Silent

  Mouse

  Blackdown

  After the Fall

  The Soul Fixer

  Flinder’s Field

  Latimer’s Demon

  The Domino Boys

  The King of Terrors

  Armageddon Heights

  Archangel Hawthorne

  The House of the Wicked

  The Woman from the Blue Lias

  Pressure Cooker

  The First D. M. Mitchell Thriller Omnibus

  The Second D. M. Mitchell Thriller Omnibus

  The D.M. Mitchell Supernatural Double Bill

  Short Stories:

  Rabbits

  Mulligan’s Map

  The Pen of Manderby Pincher

  Visit the official D. M. Mitchell website at www.dm-mitchell.com for more information on books and author biographies

  You can also join D. M. Mitchell on Facebook, and on Twitter at D M Mitchell @dmtheauthor for details of his latest releases and free book offers

  CHAPTERS

  1: The Places Where People Aren’t

  2: That’s Life

  3: Everything’s Just Dandy

  4: Three Days Earlier

  5: Burning Bright

  6: Settle the Nerves

  7: Turbulent Wake

  8: Wrong Road

  9: Absolution

  10: All Very Odd

  11: Wild Animal

  12: Poison

  13: Molasses

  14: Desperation

  15: Even the Odds

  16: Fireflies

  17: When You’ve Gotta Go

  1

  The Places Where People Aren’t

  ‘I just don’t get it, that’s all,’ she called, pausing in her stride and squinting up at him through the gloom of the overhanging trees.

  He sighed, folding his map in a manner that he hoped would demonstrate his mounting frustration. ‘So you keep telling me. There’s simply nothing to get.’

  ‘Don’t get all pouty-faced on me, Josh Garner,’ she chided lightly. ‘I can see what your mother meant now. I’ll bet that sullen little frown hasn’t changed since you were a small child.’

  He narrowed his eyes, knowing she was teasing him; knowing he’d rise to it as he always did, and she’d laugh sweetly at him and he’d feel foolish. Well, not this time.

  ‘Don’t believe everything my mother tells you. She still sees me as a snotty-nosed ten-year-old. I fear I shall never be anything else in her eyes.’

  Trudy Garner, the wedding ring on her finger still feeling terribly new and conspicuous as she reached up to move a stray lock of mousey hair from her face and caught sight of the band of gold again, glinting in the dull light, walked up to her husband. The ring was a reminder, as if she needed reminding, that they were on honeymoon. The wedding, but three days distant, felt like an exquisite dream already, as if it had happened to someone else, not her.

  ‘So is that why you choose to do this sort of thing, to escape your mother?’ she said.

  He rolled his pale-green eyes, rather dramatically, she thought.

  ‘This sort of thing?’ he replied, his head cocked slightly.

  The weak sunlight was trying to penetrate the thick wire-like canopy above, filtering down through mud-brown leaves clinging desperately onto branches. It bathed his face in an unearthly glow, she thought, emphasised his good looks. He was younger than her by six months – until he caught her up in three months time she was twenty-two and he a mere twenty-one. She knew it irritated him, lagging behind her in age like that, even by six months. She could never understand why. But men were queer folk in that way, enmeshed in centuries of unspoken masculine values that dictated a man should always be older, taller, wealthier and more intelligent than his wife. It was the rule no one in his family had ever challenged, let alone transgressed. But times were changing – this was 1962, in heaven’s name, and the old order of things was gradually being dismantled. Women were starting to assert themselves, and some men still lived in fear of that. His family had not been keen on the idea of their precious jewel-of-a-son dating this young upstart, let alone marry her. A young woman at university studying law, looking to carve out a career for herself that didn’t involve typing, cooking or teaching, came as a shock to the ultra-conservative parents of her husband-to-be.

  What’s more, she had opinions on things other than Axminster carpets or boiling potatoes – Josh’s mother’s eyes went as glazed as a dead cat’s when she first started talking politics, and finally came round to the fact that she was, hard to take in, a through-and-through Labour voter. Trudy swore the old woman’s face drained of colour at the thought of her son courting (they still used that charming, but archaic form, to describe their dating to others) such a radically different woman. They trod politely and carefully in her presence, almost as if the young woman came from another planet and were still working out how to communicate with her, and she found herself reciprocating. Her relationship with them had settled, during her year-long engagement to Josh, into a silent ballet of elaborate and carefully choreographed movements designed not to offend each other.

  At times, Trudy caught Josh’s mother’s expression – a mixture of the stunned and sorrowful – in her husband’s young features. She saw it now, albeit briefly, as he casually shrugged away what she’d just said.

  ‘I do not come out to places like this to escape my mother,’ he said firmly. He reopened his map as a way of telling her that particular thread of the conversation was over.

  ‘I just don’t get it, though,’ she went on, linking her arm through his, an action that silently told him it wasn’t meant to offend. ‘And I’d like to understand everything there is to understand about my new husband.’

  ‘You know me already,’ he said, head bent to the map.

  She shook her head. ‘No one ever knows anyone fully.’

  ‘Well, you know enough. Can we get started now?’

  ‘Why do you have an almost passionate desire to be miles from anywhere, out in the wilds, in the middle of nowhere, at the ends of the earth, at the back-of-beyond?’

  He smirked. ‘You do realise that’s simply saying the same thing just in different ways.’

  ‘And you do know, that confident, almost haughty way you have of speaking like that is an elaborate front you originally put up to impress worried parents and gullible friends?’

  He frowned. ‘It is not! And I’m not being haughty!’ he said haughtily.

  She gave a chime of a chuckle. ‘You do put on airs and graces, like it’s some kind of barrier to hide behind. But I know you better than that, Josh. I know you’re trying to escape something.’ She opened her arms out theatrically, looked around her at the tunnel of denuded trees, the rugged track that rose steeply to an opening about fifty yards away. ‘Look at us, in deepest darkest Wales, in the middle of the Brecon Beacons, having trudged for four hours and seen hardly a single house, with
only wet and bedraggled sheep for company. And, judging from your worried expression when you look at that map, quite lost.’

  He breathed noisily down his nose. ‘We are not lost. I am never lost.’ He took out a small compass from his pocket and tapped the map with it. With these two, I am never, ever lost. Don’t insult me like that.’

  ‘Ooh! Tetchy today, aren’t we, Mr Garner? Touch a raw nerve, did I?’

  ‘There are no raw nerves to touch,’ he responded.

  ‘Of course there aren’t. A man does not have such things. Man is big hunter, with map and compass,’ she said, her voice deepening, ‘looking after woman and killing wild animals and making fire!’ She beat her chest.

  ‘Are you mocking me?’ he asked, raising his brow.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘That’s very naughty of you, Mrs Garner,’ he said. ‘I insist you stop that immediately.’

  ‘Or what, you’ll spank me?’ Her eyes lit up with a mischievous gleam.

  ‘That is very naughty of you,’ he said. ‘I might just do that.’

  ‘I might just let you if you tell me what you’re escaping.’

  ‘Christ, Trudy,’ he said – the nearest he ever came to profanity – ‘I’m not escaping anything. I just love being alone. Can’t a man just like being out in the country?’

  ‘There’s being in the country, and there’s being in the country,’ she said.

  ‘I thought you were up for this.’

  ‘I am, and I’m loving it. It’s a lovely honeymoon.’

  He winced. It was all he could afford. A fortnight in Wales, a boots-and-backpack holiday. He promised something more exotic one day, when he’d been promoted at work and his prospects much improved. He felt awkward when she insisted they’d have plenty of money as soon as she started working, and together they’d be able to afford anything they wanted. But as for a honeymoon, she said, all she required was to be alone with him, anywhere.

  His parents were looking to him, their only child, to deliver them their first grandchild some nine months or so down the line. His father came straight out and said it, in front of Trudy too: ‘Don’t let the side down, eh?’ he’d winked as they set out for Wales in the car they borrowed from him. Josh remembered smiling awkwardly, hardly daring to tell them that grandchildren would be off the cards for some time yet as Trudy was not about to give up studying, like they hoped, and, in Trudy’s words, ‘Pop out a baby for them to coo over and then pass back to me to have its nappy changed.’

  Josh Garner recognised, regrettably, he still had a lot of his father in him, not feeling entirely comfortable with the prospect of his young wife being able to earn more than him in a few years time, if all went according to plan. But he loved her madly, would give her anything she asked for, and if that meant upsetting the old guard then so be it.

  And yes, he also recognised his desire to get out into the wilds, away from everyone, but had never really considered why until Trudy pointed it out. The thing was he didn’t have an answer for it. He wasn’t even certain there had to be one. It was inbuilt in him, as far as he was concerned, like having the colour eyes he had, like having his blonde hair and ever-so-slightly crooked front teeth that made him self conscious when he smiled. A part of him he couldn’t explain, and, quite frankly, had no need to explain.

  But his new wife Trudy was the kind of woman who asked a lot of questions and needed a lot of answers, the very opposite to him as it happens. They say that, don’t they, he thought? That opposites attract. It’s why he loved her – her wonderfully proportioned body and significant breasts aside – she was everything he wasn’t. She was extrovert, confident, garrulous, sociable – everyone loved Trudy. Well, everyone except his parents. They looked at her like she was a beautiful leopard – gorgeous and fascinating to behold, but dangerous with it and not a thing you’d want to approach without protection.

  She could wrap people round her little finger, he’d tell her, and she’d looked shocked he’d even imply such a thing, as if it would never enter her mind to be so manipulative. Okay, so maybe it took a long while knowing or living with someone to finally see the darker sides to them, but Trudy didn’t appear to have a bad bone in her body. He guessed people like himself – someone who really could be manipulative in getting his way, who didn’t mind playing all the office games he needed to play in order to climb through the greasy hierarchical ranks to reach the top, needed someone like Trudy to give him all the good things he didn’t have.

  So what was he escaping really? Why choose the remoter parts of the country to hike? Why would he drop everything at a moment’s notice to head off to the Antarctic, or the wilds of Canada, if he only had the choice, money and the time, none of which was in abundance in his cloistered little life working as a city accountant? Was he escaping this dreary confinement? Or was he escaping himself, as Trudy often inferred? She’d pointed out how determined he was, how he had a cold streak within him where his working ambitions were concerned. He told her it was for them, so they could have money, a new house in the suburbs, a car, maybe even a television and telephone – all of the things she said she wasn’t particularly interested in. Maybe he was behaving so meanly towards others because, in truth, he lacked confidence, needed to shore it up by climbing to the top. He came to places like this to escape himself.

  He snorted. It was the sort of crass explanation that the new wave of longhaired love-in, free-sex hippy-type sociologists and psychologists would give, he guessed.

  ‘Slow down!’

  Her light demand caused him to snap out of his reverie. He stopped and turned, not realising he’d moved ahead of her.

  ‘Sorry, I was just wanting to make progress,’ he said.

  ‘Progress?’ she answered. ‘Don’t forget to take pleasure in all this as you make progress. It is supposed to be pleasurable. Sometimes you seem so obsessed.’

  ‘I’m not obsessed,’ he said. ‘Do you know how important it is to keep these ancient byways open to the public?’

  ‘I know – we’re losing a lot of them to farmers and landowners closing them off.’

  ‘Sometimes permanently, and once they’re gone, they’re gone. It’s difficult to get them reinstated. By walking these routes we’re keeping them open to the public for generations, as they have been for hundreds, sometimes thousands of years. And I aim to do my bit,’ he said resolutely.

  They’d emerged from the tunnel of trees and were faced with another steep climb up a massive hill carpeted in wind-shivered, sheep-shorn grass; a hill that reached high into the grey autumnal sky, low clouds mustering at its peak. A mournful wind sighed through the dry leaves behind them, causing them to rustle.

  ‘Is that classed as a hill or a mountain?’ she asked, distracted by the sight.

  He studied the contours on his map. ‘At this height, it’s a hill,’ he replied.

  ‘Looks like a mountain to me,’ she said, shaking her head.

  ‘Are you feeling tired, is that it?’ he said. ‘We can find somewhere to rest up and make a cup of tea.’

  ‘No, I’m fine,’ she said. ‘And I do understand about ancient tracks and things. It’s just that I don’t know where we are, and I have this thing about not knowing exactly where I am. Also, we parked your father’s car in front of some farmer’s gate miles down there somewhere.’ She pointed back in the direction they’d come. ‘He might get angry if he can’t get access to his field.’

  ‘That gate hadn’t been used in ages, Trudy, you could see that.’

  ‘All the same…’

  ‘You worry too much,’ he said, smiling. ‘Look, we’re not lost, we’re here…’ He showed her the map, stabbing at it with a finger.

  ‘But where is here? There’s not a house for miles, no roads, no signposts.’

  He grinned. ‘Exactly as I like it.’

  ‘Doesn’t it frighten you, just a little, to be out somewhere so remote like this?’

  ‘Frighten me? Gosh, no!’ he said. ‘Quite the opposite. Bear
with me; I want to show you something not many people get to see.’

  ‘You are smutty, Mr Garner!’ she said, stifling a laugh.

  ‘It’s not me with the dirty mind, Trudy,’ he said, though relishing the banter and all it implied. ‘See this circle here?’ he said, his fingernail touching the map. ‘That’s an ancient stone circle. Because of its remoteness, hardly anyone comes up here except the odd-farmer and sheep. I thought it would be – well, I thought it would be kind of romantic to show you it. There’s a legend surrounding it, that the rocks are the tears of a god who wept for his beloved wife after she died tragically. They fell to earth, hit the ground and turned to stone, monuments to his undying love for her.’ He looked down at the mud. ‘I guess I’m trying to say that I love you, too, and if anything ever happened to you…’

  She smiled warmly and grasped his cold fingers in hers. ‘Nothing will happen to me. And I’m impressed: that is so romantic a thought, for you, who professes not to have a single romantic bone in his body. Yes, let’s go and see the stone circle. Is it far away?’

  ‘Less than half a mile, according to the map. Then we can have a brew and head on back down to the inn before the weather closes in.’ He looked skywards. ‘Those clouds don’t look at all friendly. But I suppose you can’t avoid rain in Wales…’ He studied the map, and then his compass. ‘We head due north,’ he pointed with a blade of a hand.

  ‘Due north it is,’ she said, saluting. ‘Where’d you learn to be Davey Crocket, King of the Wild Frontier?’ she asked as they began the trek up the hill, the steepness telling on their already tired calves.

  He laughed. ‘Are you mocking me yet again?’

  ‘No, I’m just interested, that’s all. You seem to know all about survival and that kind of thing. I mean, an accountant from the city who knows how to live in hostile environments, is able to live off the land, well he’s not someone you come across every day. It fascinates me, truly it does.’