Tedd and Todd's secret (21 page)

"I've got an open mind these days, but this is over the top."

"It's just like I said. When they move, the clock chimes out of tune, and two of its faces stop working."

Aidan remembered Lance talking about something similar, and Wilfred had said the clock had gone haywire five years before.

"Let's suppose that's true," Aidan conjectured. "What's the next step? Investigate the clock?"

"I've already done that. I spoke to two maintenance men this morning. They've got no idea what's wrong with the clock. They just keep rewinding it."

"And your conclusion?"

"I haven't got any idea. But there's an interesting angle." She paused, watching Aidan scratch his head. "After they've killed someone, they start living in the victim's house."

"And their wives go along with that?"

"Most probably not, but they still do it. And if there are other family members they abandon their previous homes happily."

Aidan said nothing as strange theories worked their way through his head. He needed answers and the best way of getting them was to go direct to the source. But thinking of his line of questioning with Earl Black touched a nerve. What was he going to ask him? Do you teletransport? Do you know your twin who died with three arrows in his heart? Why are you trying to kill the White family? And the coup de grâce, what's wrong with Big Ben?

It was pure madness. Something to go crazy laughing about. But they were the questions, one way or another. And they were going to be asked because his desire to unravel the whole damn thing was overwhelming. The question about what his wife's death had to do with all of this was raging through his mind like a hurricane. It was driving him on like nothing had ever done before.

"It's time to get some answers," he said, standing up. "We've got to corner one of these clowns and drag the truth out of him one way or another."

"Wait a minute. Have you taken in everything that I've told you?" she insisted on repeating. "When they kill, they move in to the victim's house."

He studied her expression and then got the idea.

"William Black! If your theory's right, then the killer's living there now."

"Exactly."

"Let's find out then. And if his surname's White, then he'd better start praying."

"Well, bless my soul," Lance Norwood said, coming through the door. His coat was wet around the shoulders, and his hair was all over the place. "I hope I haven't interrupted anything important."

"Lance! Put it on hold, dumbbell."

"There, there. I'm not as stupid as I look. Am I, Carol?"

"Nothing's happened here, Lance. Absolutely nothing."

Lance poured himself a coffee and stared at them.

"Seriously? That's even worse. You're over age. What are you waiting for?"

"How did you get in?" Aidan asked him bluntly.

"The door was open."

"OK. It's time to get a move on. We're off to William Black's…"

"That's not necessary. I heard what you were talking about on my way in," Lance said, sipping the coffee. "I know who the new owner of that house is. His name's Peter White. The only problem is that he's already dead. If you want to see him, you've only got to go down to the mortuary. I'm sure old Fletcher's digging though his guts now. And William Black's widow was right. He was a dead ringer for William, except for the colour of his eyes and hair."

"I'm impressed to say the least," Aidan said. "How did you find all this out?"

"It wasn't hard. After you left us last night I got a taxi for Carol then received a call that there'd been a murder round the corner from where I was. I called you, but you'd signed off for the day." He paused. "Seems a metal boomerang chopped Peter White's head off, the same boomerang that destroyed the lamp post before it crashed into our car."

"It must've been that bloke I was chasing. The one that that idiot Blair stopped me getting to," Aidan said.

"That's what I thought. But he looked different from the other boys in black."

"Yeah. But he's one of them, sure enough," Aidan said, firmly, avoiding telling them what Wilfred had told him about there being four male models and a woman. "Let's find out," Carol said. "I'll bet the new owner of William Black's old house is the boomerang man."

CHAPTER 14

James White didn't feel even a glimmer of excitement. Four aces! He'd heard about poker players being dealt a hand like that. It should have been eating him up inside. Adrenalin should have been running every which way in his body, the pile of money in the middle of the table adding fuel to the fire.

But all he felt was extreme boredom. He looked at the four aces in his hand again, and when he was convinced that he was dead emotionally he put the cards back on the table, face down.

"You're pathetic," James White accused his playing partner. "Irritating, absolutely despicable. I curse the day we met each other."

Dylan Blair frowned with an expression of uncertainty and his permanent smile receded, but he managed to keep his dissatisfaction in check.

"What's upsetting you, James?" he said sincerely. "Is it that you're winning? And you'll keep on winning, although you're going to lose this hand. So why all the hostility, then?"

They'd been playing poker for two hours. Dylan had organized the game out of boredom, and also because he wanted to learn to play like a professional. And tonight, with nothing else on his plate, he figured was as good a time as any to learn. There were four at the table, James and him and two other well-dressed gamblers. One of them had been a finalist in a prestigious international tournament and the other was a croupier at the casino where Dylan had started the run of luck that had led to him building his fortune. The croupier and Dylan had been good friends ever since that night more than three years before, when Dylan had been asked to leave when it looked like he was going to break the casino.

"Exactly, that's the problem," James observed, airily. "You're taking all the fun out of this game."

"What's the point of winning?" Dylan asked. "You should be happy. Not the opposite."

"Because there's no pleasure in taking money off an amateur like you. You've lost a fortune in the last couple of hours and haven't won a single hand. There's no fun in that."

"What's the beef? I should be spitting chips, not you. Why don't you just cool it, James? We were having a good time before you started whingeing."

"Things were bad enough before," James went on. "I was bored out of my brain and now you've ruined one of the few things that amuses me."

"Let's take a break," Dylan said, dropping his hand on the table and moving his chair closer to James's while the other two went to the bathroom. No one was too concerned about leaving the hand unplayed. "You're looking at everything the wrong way round, my friend. I've got money, so you've got money too. Our health's fine. We can do whatever we want. All we have to add to that is to have a little fun."

"The punch you got in the face has affected your brain," James said, leaning back to study the bruising around Dylan's eye. "You should take a look at yourself. You look awful. And you haven't even told us who gave you the black eye."

"Forget my eye. We're talking about your lack of faith."

"Nice way of expressing yourself," James complimented him, looking around the room. "You haven't forgotten our special situation, have you? Yours is a bit better than mine, but not by much. And I reckon you'll botch it. I'll do my part well enough, always supposing that one of the Blacks doesn't get to me first."

"Maybe I'll botch it. But that doesn't concern me. What's important is the attitude. All of this is going to take a long time. I want to enjoy myself now," Dylan informed him, watching James White continue to look around the room. "Do you mind telling me what you're looking for? You're making me nervous."

"The drink," James answered. "I can't see the bottle."

"We finished it a while back. I warned you about having the game here. If we'd played at my house we would've had scantily clad waitresses serving us anything we wanted," Dylan Blair grumbled, thinking about how he'd tried to get out of coming to White's flat. But the short man was stubborn. He wouldn't budge, and they'd found themselves as guests in the atrocious mess that was James White's living room.

James lived on the sixth floor of an attractive block of flats. There was nothing luxurious about the flats but they were comfortable. The problem wasn't the flat but James White himself. He'd turned it into a pigsty in little more than a day. Dylan Blair knew his friend had no intention of settling down anywhere, and as a consequence, didn't look after any place he lived in, but the mess around Dylan now was too much. As soon as the millionaire had come in through the door, he'd made a mental note to come back a week later. If James was capable of getting it to look like this in one day what would it be like after seven? The only thing mildly acceptable about the whole deplorable place was the three porno movies on the table next to the television.

"You don't seem that stupid," James said. "Your house is out of my area. I can't travel that far and you know it. Why don't you buy a house near here?"

"Because you will move again and constant moving bores me."

"Whatever you say," James said. "Life stinks. I don't even know where I'm going to be tomorrow, let alone making a decision about the future."

"At least, you're conscious of your own truth. The rest don't even know who they are. Doesn't that make you happy? It makes you special."

"My friend," James White said, with a look of pity on his face, "you couldn't have said anything more stupid. We're absolutely incapable of controlling our own destiny. Our fate is determined by a strange individual sitting in a wheelchair. Do you think that should make me happy? At least, the rest live in a bubble, and that gives them some sort of hope. They think they can find some direction to their lives, living in the dark the way they do. I can only sit and wait."

"You're too negative," Dylan admonished him. "I don't propose to listen to your self-destructive rubbish anymore. You've got to pick the baton up. Enjoy life. Look at me."

"Nothing works. It's not that I haven't tried. You're like you are because you know that one day you'll be in one of those wheelchairs. What I don't get is that despite the great risk you're running, you don't seem worried. How do you manage that?"

"That's my secret," Dylan whispered. "But I'll tell you because you're a good bloke. It's very simple, really. In the first place, there's no point in worrying before you have to. My safety is guaranteed for almost forty years. And in the second place, the risk is only theoretical. We can't be sure what will happen."

"That is without any doubt the most ridiculous… most stupid reasoning I've ever heard. How can someone who knows what you know think like that?"

"By applying logic. Seeing is believing."

"I refuse to argue this with you," James informed him. "Your way of thinking is beyond me."

"You're not going to put your little white suit on, are you?"

"That's out of my hands, my friend."

"That's good, because I'm going to lift your spirits whether you like it or not," Dylan promised him.

"I doubt it. But try if you want."

"OK. But first, I'm going to win this hand," Dylan said, throwing the rest of his money on the table. "I'll see your bet."

"As you wish," James said, turning his cards over. "Four aces, loser."

"Impressive. But it's a pity, though," the millionaire said, turning his cards over one after the other until James White was astonished to see another set of four aces looking up at him.

Dylan Blair looked smug.

"You were right. I feel better," James said. "At last, you've learnt how to set a trap."

Lance Norwood's eyebrows arched to breaking point and his eyes shone in amazement. He couldn't believe what he was looking at. He was in a state of complete shock. And after what seemed an eternity he finally exclaimed, "You must've stolen it."

"No," Aidan Zack replied calmly.

"You've swapped something for it then."