Uprising

Brier nodded. ‘Every last drop of it.’

Joel was still staring at the pieces of the girl’s body as Brier got to his feet and went off with Carter to confer with some of the others. Just then, his phone started to vibrate in his pocket. He fished it out and saw that the call was from Dan Cleland.

‘And for my next miracle,’ Cleland said.

‘You got the results already?’

‘Just in. Specially for my favourite CID officer.’

Joel tensed. Dan was one of those guys who liked to string things out for effect. ‘Well?’

‘The arresting officer was right about the pills. Not top stuff, but definitely ecstasy.’

‘And the blood test, Dan?’

‘Goodness, we are in a tizzy today.’

‘If you were standing here looking at a dead girl’s head in a bag, so would you be.’

‘All right, all right. Well, if your man’s dealing, he doesn’t use from his own stash. Blood test was clean.’

‘What about alcohol?’

‘Zilch. Soberer than a Sons of Temperance convention.’

‘You’re sure about that? Quite certain?’

‘When have I ever been wrong?’

‘Never. Thanks, Dan.’

‘You owe me now, Solomon.’

‘Right.’ Joel ended the call and was about to flip the phone shut. Then he stopped. Glanced around him. Brier was deep in conversation with his colleagues and Carter was getting belligerent with someone on the police radio. Nobody was watching him.

He quickly turned on the camera function on his phone, crouched down in the grass and took two snaps of the victim. One of her face, the glassy eyes staring right into the lens.

And the other of the spider tattoo on what was left of her neck.

Chapter Eighteen (#ulink_ee8adbfe-0a3e-58ca-93e7-318688072a0b)

Villa Oriana, forty miles from Florence

1.50 p.m. local time

The butler in the crisp white jacket emerged into the sun carrying the tray with the chilled lemon vodka, prepared exactly the way his employer liked it. He climbed the steps to the balustraded terrace and set the drink down on the marble-topped table at the man’s side.

Jeremy Lonsdale ignored him, didn’t even glance at the drink until the butler had disappeared back inside the villa. Only then, he reached for the glass and winced as the iced vodka burned away the aftertaste of the lobster he’d eaten for lunch.

He closed his eyes, leaned back in his chair and felt the sun on his face. Soaking into him, its glow burning orange through his closed eyelids. Even in early November, it was still easily warm enough to have breakfast and lunch outside. That was one of the things Lonsdale loved most about his Tuscan bachelor hideaway. The gloom and drizzle of that piteous little island called Britain depressed him. He had no affection for the place and certainly no allegiance. He was just one of the ones lucky enough to ride the wave and enrich themselves before the remains of the dying empire imploded into the Third World country it was waiting to become. Whenever he could, he’d jump on his private jet and come out here to soak up the sun. There’d come a day when he wouldn’t return. That had always been his plan.

Lonsdale had been a multi-millionaire for twenty-seven years, which at forty-nine was well over half his life. He could have retired a long time ago, if it hadn’t been for his love of his political career. He was passionate about that whole world of lies and deceit. He loved the way he looked in the public eye when he took up some worthless cause to champion the innocent victims of…whatever. He loved the flash of the cameras and the simper of the media as he kissed babies in Manchester or Liverpool, while the arms companies that earned him millions a year in investments were churning out products to kill other people’s babies in some faraway country nobody gave a shit about, as long as they were kept sated with their television and sport and beer and infantile gadgets. It was all a big game. To win, you just needed the right attitude.

And he’d always thought he was the master of the game, until that day in February. That day had changed everything.

Lonsdale had snatched a week out of his schedule to take a skiing holiday in Lichtenstein. On the third night, as he lounged in the bar of his luxury hotel with a martini cocktail and some nameless floozy at his elbow, he’d spotted the tall figure across the crowded room. Men of wealth and taste were ten a penny in Lonsdale’s world, but this one was different. A man so effortlessly self-possessed, radiating an air of such supreme indifference that he made Lonsdale feel like a schoolboy. He seemed to draw the most beautiful women to him with mesmeric, almost uncanny ease and then dismissed them as though they were nothing. Here was a man who understood power, lived and breathed it. Was he a prince? Unable to recall his face from the society pages, Lonsdale had been desperate to talk to him, but the chance had escaped him when some paunchy dullard of an oil billionaire had appeared to pin him down in gratingly boring conversation. By the time he’d been able to wriggle away from the guy, the fascinating man had disappeared along with his female entourage.

All the next day on the ski slopes, Lonsdale had looked out for him – but no sign, nor the next night.

Finally, on the last evening of the holiday, Lonsdale caught sight of the man again. And this time, nothing was going to stop him from going up and introducing himself.

The man’s name was Gabriel Stone. They’d talked until late in the night and, when Stone had invited Lonsdale to be his guest at his mountain home in Romania, Lonsdale had been straight on the phone the next morning to advise his staff in London that he’d been struck down by a virus and wouldn’t be back in the country for another week.

Two days later, Stone’s helicopter had flown in to land at his home, with Jeremy Lonsdale on board, flanked by the two burly bodyguards his host had provided for his security. Snowy mountains stretched as far as the eye could see. The chopper banked over the towers and ramparts of the old castle, and Lonsdale had been blown away by the power and majesty of the place.

For the rest of the day, he’d been attended to by a tall, bald and cadaverously gaunt man who introduced himself as Seymour Finch, personal assistant to Mr Stone. Lonsdale found Finch’s presence uncomfortable. There was something strange and unsettling about him.

It was only after dark that Lonsdale’s host appeared, apologising that his business affairs tended to occupy his entire day. The two men had dined together in the great hall, drunk fine cognac and smoked cigars. Stone had been not only a charming and affable host, but a man of culture and intellect. Lonsdale had never met anyone able to quote so extensively from classical literature, the Bible, the Greek philosophers. He knew history as though he’d virtually lived it.

That night, Lonsdale had been woken in his luxurious bedroom by the sound of strange music. He climbed out of bed, opened his door. The music seemed to be drifting up from somewhere below. He pulled on a satin robe and followed the sound, treading quietly through the castle’s cold, dark halls and passageways. The music was like none he’d ever heard before and it seemed to lure him, as though it had some hypnotic quality that whispered in his mind.

He came to the door of what looked like a wine cellar. It creaked open to reveal steps leading down. At the bottom of the steps, another door lay half open. The music was coming from inside.

Lonsdale couldn’t help himself. He had to see what was in there. Peeking through the gap, instead of a cellar he saw a decadently opulent room richly decorated with tapestries and exotic rugs and gold-threaded cushions scattered across the floor. On a huge bed was the naked figure of Gabriel Stone, his physique lithe and muscular and perfect, surrounded by three beautiful women who were making love to him.

As Lonsdale watched from the shadows, a hand had touched his shoulder and he’d nearly screamed in terror. He’d turned to see a woman even more beautiful than the ones on Stone’s bed. She smiled and put her finger to her lips. Beckoned him away from the door. ‘Come,’ she whispered. The look in her dark eyes meant just one thing.

Lonsdale had followed her back through the passageways. She was bewitching. Her raven hair was tangled and wild like a gypsy’s, and when she glanced back at him with that smile, her lips were red and glistening. The way she moved drove him wild. Every nerve in his body tingled with lust for her as she led him back to his room. Inside, she shut the door with a smile. He was almost panting by now.

‘W-who are you?’ he stammered.

‘I’m Lillith. Gabriel’s sister.’ She walked him to the bed and shrugged the gown from her shoulders. She was naked under it.

Lonsdale tore at his robe. ‘You’re beaut—’

‘Shh. Quiet.’ Then she kissed him, and pulled him down onto the bed.

It had been a memorable night.

When Lonsdale had awoken next morning, Lillith was gone. He’d searched the castle obsessively for her. Returning to the room below, he’d found the door heavily padlocked. He’d spent the whole day thinking about her. She was like a drug, and he wanted more.

Lillith had come back to him for the next two nights. Two more nights of wild, dizzy passion. She was incredible. She did things to him that he’d never imagined possible.

Then, on the third night, just when he thought he was completely spent, Lillith opened up a whole new world for him. The candlelight gleamed on her skin as she knelt there on the bed – and flickered across the blade of the dagger she’d drawn from under the pillow. He’d watched, speechless with excitement, as she held its sharp tip to her chest and slashed herself. A rivulet of blood tricked down her breast. Her lips had opened a little wider, and Lonsdale had seen the white fangs, long and curved. She’d cupped her hands behind his head and pulled him in closer. ‘Drink me!’ She threw back her head and gasped in anticipation as he lowered his face to her breast and put out his tongue to lick up the flowing blood. Every nerve in his body had been aflame.

In that moment of enthralling wonder, Gabriel Stone had walked into the room, interrupting them. He’d shouted harshly at Lillith, and she’d retreated in fear, covering herself up with a sheet.

Then Stone had turned to Lonsdale. ‘You’re not so afraid of us, are you, Jeremy? That’s interesting.’