Opera

PRAISE FOR PLAGUE

If it’s excitement and mystery you’re after, try the bang up to date and very topical Plague. / Time and Leisure magazine.

Few fictional scandals involving Parliament would surprise anyone these days, but Plague offers a humdinger. / Literary Review

This is a tense parliamentary thriller with the sour tang of authenticity.Annemarie Neary, author of The Orphans

Plague had me hooked. It is gritty and gripping, carefully blending mystery and intrigue, power, scandal, money, sex and corruption. / The Yorkshire Times

Loved the tension in the story which gripped me right to the end. Very accurate description of Westminster, especially how easy it is to get lost!

Lord Collins of Highbury.

Plague is good fun, with some lovely insights into how the historic buildings and some of the people in the Palace of Westminster work.

Mike Naworynsky, former Deputy Serjeant at Arms, Palace of Westminster.

PRAISE FOR ORACLE

Tensions, murder, skilled plotting… a terrific read.

Elizabeth Buchan, author of Two Women in Rome

Cassie Fortune is as fearless and shrewdly observant as any classic adventure hero. Will the Furies catch up with her in this very modern political thriller set amid the ruins of ancient Greece? / V B Grey, author of Tell Me How It Ends

One of my must-read books of 2021 so far. Highly recommended.

Jacky Gramosi Collins aka Dr Noir

The plot twists and turns like the switchbacks on the mountain trails of Parnassus. Anderson peppers her tale with clues, some more obvious than others. Which to follow and which to ignore is the game she sets the reader. Grab a copy and find out.

The Clapham Society

A must-read for anybody who enjoys complex, exciting thrillers which are both highly topical and yet offer intriguing historical comparisons.

Karen Cole, blogger and broadcaster

OPERA

Julie Anderson

Truth lives on in the midst of deception.

Friedrich Schiller On the Aesthetic Education of Man (1795)

PROLOGUE

The sky was powder blue. Wisps of high cloud floated far beyond the bars of the tiny window. It was a bright spring day, chilly at this time in the morning. The stifling heat would come later.

She drew the coarse blanket up to her chin, curling even tighter beneath it on the thin mattress. She was usually first awake − that came of being brought up on a Devon farm. She liked to watch the little patch of sky, as it grew lighter. Around her she heard the measured breathing of her sleeping cellmates.

Jitendra made a mewling sound. She was dreaming again. When she’d first arrived Jiti’s nightmares had awoken them night after night and it hadn’t taken long to discover that the young woman had been raped during the protests. Their guards had provided water and cloth when the women entreated them; Jiti needed to feel clean. Washing would destroy any DNA evidence, of course. Although no one was going to test for DNA in Jiti’s case anyway; who was going to bother for a lower caste Hindu? A packet of paracetamol had been produced in return for one of Amma Ghar’s many rings.

Amma Ghar had taken Jiti under her motherly, but diminishing, wing and the young woman had calmed down, the nightmares easing. It was clear Amma Ghar was missing her family, though perhaps she missed her family compound even more. She’d been out shopping when the trouble started. She didn’t say what her sons did for a living, none of the women could get that information out of her, but all surmised some wealth. That her sons hadn’t come to secure their Amma’s release suggested that they may have lost it or fled. Or died. A lot of people had perished in the fires, it was said.

Amma Ghar had no one to agitate for her, Jiti followed the ‘wrong’ religion and was easily disposed of, Maham was a randi, a local prostitute well used to random incarceration and abuse. Others in the seven-metre square cell were similarly insignificant and faceless. Perhaps she, perhaps they all, were lucky to be alive. At least she, unlike Jiti, had some hope.

Would today be the day? She longed to see Roger again.

They’d begun as professional partners with a job to do, but the risks and underlying danger of their daily life had made them more than that. If news of their imprisonment got out there would be diplomats urging their release while more people worked behind the scenes. Unlike the other unfortunate women in the cell, she wasn’t completely friendless. The political situation might not yet be stable but, if all else failed, there was still the escape route.

Not knowing what was happening was the most unsettling. About the school, the priests, their fellow teachers at St Xavier’s. Tension had been running high recently. When didn’t it? Roger had received the warning that St Xavier’s would be a specific target, but there was little he could do − that either of them could do − other than try to ensure that the pupils and staff were as vigilant as they could be. When the attack came it was utterly shocking. Whooping, feral-faced men descended, carrying flaming brands visible through the clouds of rising dust as people inside the compound began to run for the exits, children screaming. She shivered with remembered fear.

What of the others: their contacts? The Colonel, the dear Colonel. His position must be untenable now, or close to it. They would have to get him out as soon as they were able. There was already a way, a plan.

The clang of the compound gate sounded. The guards were on changeover, the prison functionaries arriving for that day’s duties. It would be slopping out time soon. Amma Ghar was stirring, gently breaking wind; close confinement with others meant a total lack of privacy.

Her eyes were prickling with new tears at the enforced indignity when she heard footsteps in the corridor outside their cell. It was too early for what they called breakfast, though the amount of food supplied was barely enough to break any fast. There was a jangling of keys and the door opened to reveal the guard whom the women referred to as Ratface.

Maham sighed and clambered to her feet, brushing dust from her shalwar. Sometimes the departing shift wanted some ‘r&r’ before returning home to their wives and families. The others would look after two-year-old Sahil in his mother’s absence.

‘Not you!’ Ratface said. ‘You!’

Her heart leapt into her mouth as he pointed in her direction. Suddenly alert, she scrambled to her feet, backing against the cold stone blocks of the wall. The other women started to argue and bluster. Amma Ghar heaved herself upright, gesticulating. Even Jiti raised a plaintive cry.

‘Silence! Eat your food!’ he ordered, as a kitchen worker placed a metal tray of food on the floor. ‘She’s coming with me now. Come, come.’ His raised hand beckoned her towards him.

‘I’ll be alright,’ she said in English to Amma Ghar, who had learned the rudiments of the language sitting alongside her grandchildren. The guard didn’t understand it. ‘I’m not afraid. Really. Even if they say they will kill me, shoot me, I’m not afraid. When the man from the Embassy comes, tell him about me: the woman who wasn’t afraid to die.’

Using English would remind the rat-faced man that she was a foreign citizen. It was dangerous, but worth it, she wagered, because it would also remind him that there would be people looking for her, that she couldn’t be harmed without retribution. However long it took to arrive.

‘Come now,’ he reiterated. ‘You’ll see your husband.’

Perhaps this was it, God willing? Were they getting out? As each new day dawned she hoped it would be the day and today... maybe it was.

MONDAY

◊ ONE

Cassandra Fortune tensed as first one foot then the other skidded on the icy slope. Heavy frost lay on the narrow lane shadowed by the high hedges on either side. The slanting rays of the low sun never reached it. It was cold. Lovely, but cold.

Hauling her satchel and handbag higher on her shoulder Cassie began to climb the hill once more. A rising, whining note from the valley behind her meant that a train was pulling away from the station. Further up she could see the tiled roof of Rosewood, Angela’s cottage. It was the first building on the left, its garden surrounded by grassy fields with woodland close by, the skeletons of the trees forming the horizon on Senlac Hill. Beyond the cottage a small, more modern development of bungalows had colonised the upper reaches of the lane, which turned to the right and ran back towards the main road. One of the gardens held a plastic snowman.

Of all the places to retire to, her former boss had chosen the village of Battle. It was so aptly named it made her smile. Angela had always been combative, in the thick of things, a finger in every pie; she had been the head of Government Communications Headquarters, an integral part of the United Kingdom’s intelligence services.

It had been high summer the last time Cassie had been here and the hedges had been bedecked with a froth of cow parsley and Queen Anne’s lace, the air warm, mazy and insect filled. The occasion had been Angela’s retirement party, a celebration tinged with sadness.

Within a year Cassie had been forced out of the agency and shunted sideways into a procurement post in Whitehall. There she had collapsed in on herself and become someone else altogether, until, to her astonishment, she’d been plucked from that backwater to monitor a murder investigation. The Plague Pit Murders, they’d been dubbed, which had involved corruption in parliament, the City and across the upper reaches of society. Its mastermind, financier Lawrence Delahaye, had escaped, but not before being exposed. This success meant that she’d caught the eye of the Prime Minister and Cassie’s career was back on track.

Yet the past still tugged at her, as did the slowly growing realisation that she’d been kicked out of GCHQ for no real reason. She’d called Angela to try to understand what had happened. If anyone could help her, Angela could. Today’s visit was to help her establish the truth of the matter.

Her former boss had been peremptory, summoning Cassie to the cottage for a meeting first thing on Monday morning. Cassie was particularly busy and about to host a visit by the Greek Minister of Finance, a delicate diplomatic task. Yet she did as Angela insisted. Angela Kayser didn’t have whims, she had reasons, even if she didn’t share them. So Cassie came, as instructed.

Higher up the hill the frost had melted and she quickly drew level with the rose bushes which gave the cottage its name. The tall, wrought iron gate stood open. She closed it behind her and walked up the path to the porch. With a slight sense of unease, she saw that the oak front door was slightly ajar.

Why?

Cassie pushed at the door and peered into the hall. Angela wouldn’t just leave the door open; it was out of character. On the wall the alarm panel was unlit, the alarm unactivated, Angela hadn’t gone out.

Something’s wrong here.

Stepping as carefully as when climbing the icy hill, Cassie entered the cottage. The high-ceilinged, wood-panelled hall was as she remembered, a porcelain plate for keys sat on the slim side cabinet beside a stand for umbrellas in the corner. Doors to right and left, to the parlour and formal dining room, were closed, but the living room door further along on the left was open wide. The floorboards beneath the patterned carpet runner creaked as she passed the foot of the stairs.

Bloody hell!

Overturned furniture, broken china, books and Christmas cards littered the floor. The cushions of the large sofa had been slashed; feathery motes floated in moving air. Cassie crossed to the French doors and pulled them closed, taking care to use the frame rather than the handles, even though she still wore her gloves.

She turned her back to the garden and slowly swept her gaze around the room, trying to absorb everything before her.

The draws of a bureau lay upturned on the Persian carpet, their contents scattered. Pale oblongs on the walls identified places where pictures had been taken down and cast aside. Someone looking for a wall safe perhaps.

Rosewood’s Grade Two listed, a professional burglar wouldn’t expect a wall safe.

Someone was looking for something.

She took out her phone and began to take photographs, panning around the room, clicking again and again. The flat screen TV and the music unit were still in place it was impossible to tell if any other electronic devices were missing. The display cabinet for Angela’s Chinese porcelain was undisturbed, its contents still on their stands; only a specialist would know just how valuable those pieces were.

Cassie shivered as cold air blew on the back of her neck; the French doors had reopened. A quick glance at the mechanism showed that it was broken. On the outside of the door frame Cassie noticed the marks of a lever or jemmy. Was this the intruder’s way in?

Where the hell’s Angela?

This chaos seemed very recent and had happened within the hour because the temperature in the living room wasn’t cold enough for the French doors to have been open for long. Why weren’t the police here? As former head of GCHQ, Angela Kayser would have been in the sights of the country’s enemies and the local police station would have Rosewood on its radar. Hadn’t Angela reported this? The chill that Cassie felt run down her spine had nothing to do with the air temperature. Where was her former boss?

Above her head a floorboard creaked.

Angela.

Another creak, then another. Someone was walking across the room above with a tread considerably heavier than Angela’s.

She dragged off her right glove with her teeth and pressed the emergency key on her phone for nine-nine-nine. In hushed tones she gave her name, location and asked for the police. She waited.

There was another creaking footstep, this time on the stairs.

They’re coming down!

Cassie muted her phone and pushed it into her pocket. Her eyes swept around the room seeking a weapon, but the only suitable thing she could see was an antique poker sitting in the grate.

That’ll have to do.

She let her bags slide quietly to the floor and grasped the poker in both hands. It was heavy. It would do damage. She stepped lightly between the broken pieces of furniture towards the living room door, flitting across the open space of the doorway. As she flattened herself against the wall she could hear the footsteps descending, one tread at a time.

The floorboard at the foot of the stairs creaked.

She hefted the poker in her hands and shifted her weight from foot to foot, bracing herself for the blow. The French doors blew ajar once more. Maybe the sensible thing to have done was to make a run for the lane and safety. But then she wouldn’t have been able to identify the intruder.

Too late now.

The footsteps approached the living room door. Cassie held her breath. She felt her heart thumping as she raised the poker above her head.

◊ TWO

There was a loud clang as the poker dropped to the floor and she exhaled in a great gust.

The uniformed police constable spun round, crouching, baton raised. Clean shaven and young, with a pink face atop a lanky frame, he too heaved a sigh, looking as relieved as Cassie felt. He straightened up.

‘Who are you and what are you doing here?’ he demanded.

‘I came in through the front door. It was open. Was it open when you arrived?’

‘Who are you and why are you here? Answer the question, please.’ The young policeman was frowning and belligerent.

He’s nervous.

‘My name is Cassandra Fortune. I’m a civil servant and I used to work with Angela, Dr Kayser, the owner of this cottage. She was expecting me this morning.’ She walked over to her bags to fish out her government pass to show him.

Why doesn’t he recognise Angela’s name? Surely her address is flagged on the police computer.

‘Hasn’t someone reported this?’ Her right hand swept through the air, encompassing the devastation.

‘Yes.’ He hesitated and took her pass. ‘You’re from…,’ his eyes widened as he looked up at her. ‘I − I’m not local. I’m based at Hastings, Bohemia Road station, but was driving in to work this morning when I was diverted here.’

That explains it. Fresh out of training college by the look of you.

‘I didn’t see a police vehicle.’

‘I’m parked up on the main road, this lane’s too narrow to park in.’

‘What shall I call you… constable?’

‘Johns, you can call me PC Johns. I’ve radioed it in. There was a call, from a neighbour who’d heard a noise, crashing and banging and didn’t know what was going on. Battle Police Station’s only staffed on Wednesdays and the PC who usually deals with calls is on annual leave.’

‘When was the call made?’

‘About half an hour ago. The door was open when I arrived. There’s been a spate of burglaries in the area, breaking and entering. Everyone’s on the look-out.’

She would ask for the exact time later. PC Johns might not know and he already seemed a little out of his depth. He hadn’t handed back her pass, which he kept glancing at. Perhaps he didn’t understand the very high security clearance it carried, though it was clear where she worked. He didn’t know how to treat her or what to do with her.

‘I’ve worked alongside the police before,’ Cassie said. ‘I’m familiar with the process. Should we check where the homeowner is? Angela, Dr Kayser, should have been at home given that she was expecting me to arrive just before eleven.’

‘If she’d gone out would she have tried to call you to tell you?’

Cassie took out her phone and saw three ‘Missed call’ icons. It didn’t surprise her − the signal on the train from London had been intermittent. None of the calls had a number attached, but Angela had a secure phone which meant that her number wouldn’t be revealed anyway. It could have been her, phoning to say she had to nip out for a few minutes. Perhaps PC Johns was right?

But if she had gone out, why was the front door open? Angela wasn’t the absent-minded type.

‘I’ve checked the rest of the house, there’s no one upstairs,’ PC Johns said, handing back her pass. ‘And the rooms at the front are empty. I was going to look out the back.’

‘Good idea. But it looks like a crime has been committed here. What about…?’

‘I’ll secure the scene. The scene of crime officers will be here soon.’

Straight from the manual.

Cassie walked through to the kitchen. Where was Angela? Had she really gone out? All her instincts told her that her friend was still here, she wouldn’t leave knowing she, Cassie, was coming. She opened the back door, it wasn’t locked.

‘Outside then.’ PC Johns was back, baton in hand. ‘I’ll go first.’

‘There’s a summerhouse in the woods,’ Cassie said. ‘I suggest we look there.’

They crossed the narrow terrace and followed a stone path lined with grey lavender towards the wall at the foot of the garden. The constable’s radio crackled into life.

‘Stay there,’ he ordered and strode onto the lawn to respond in private, clouds of breath streaming behind him, hanging then dissipating into the air.

The sun was higher in the sky now and she could see birds swooping above the grassland down the hill. Any footprints on the path in that morning’s frost had melted away in the sunshine and the only discernible prints on the lawn belonged to PC Johns’ size twelve boots. Once in the woods a trail would be impossible to find for anyone but an experienced scene of crime officer.

‘They’re sending a Detective Chief Inspector from Bexhill,’ PC Johns told her once he’d finished his call. ‘Your friend isn’t a medical doctor then? Important, is she?’

At Government Communications Headquarters Angela Kayser had headed one of the most sophisticated listening and intelligence organisations in the world. Born out of Signals Intelligence in the First World War and probably most famous for the listening, code and cipher operation at Bletchley Park during World War Two, GCHQ had subsequently transformed into a government intelligence agency for the cyber age, listening and gathering information from around the globe. In today’s world of fakery and weaponised disinformation the ability to acquire, interpret and understand true knowledge gave great power. If Angela was missing, a Detective Chief Inspector was one of the lower ranks to be involved in the hunt to find her.

‘You could say that,’ Cassie murmured.

‘Alright, lead on then.’ The PC pointed in the direction of the woods.

The gate in the wall at the foot of the garden was unlocked and they passed through it into the woodland that belonged to Rosewood Cottage. Winter sun reflected from slender, white trunks of birch or shone on the dusty ivy entwined around alder or beech. The frosted remains of autumn’s leaves were crunched underfoot as they walked along a woodland path. It was quiet in the wood and colder. From the valley she heard the rhythmic rattle of a passing train.

On the evening of the retirement party it had been a magical place, a carpet of small flowers lit by Chinese lanterns, with musicians playing in the summerhouse. Cassie paused as the hexagonal, green-painted building came into sight through the trees. A pair of crows rose, cawing, blue-black and massive. Cassie’s disquiet grew.

‘PC Johns.’ Her voice was little more than a whisper. ‘We should be careful, we don’t know who might still be here.’ He nodded, lengthening his stride to take the lead, but she put her hand on his arm to stop him. She didn’t want the young man blundering into an unknown situation. ‘I know the way.’

He looked as if he might argue then gave a curt bob of the head.

Disregarding her own anxiety Cassie quickened her pace. She saw the summerhouse more clearly; its double doors were open.

Someone’s been here recently.

She lost sight of the building as the path wove among the trees. The breeze brought an odour wafting towards them, a distinctive, half-remembered scent. She sniffed, drawing a gulp in through her mouth and nostrils and tasted the metallic odour at the back of her throat.

Blood.

Cassie broke into a run, hurtling along the path. With a shout PC Johns loped after her. The wooden building came into full view and she sprinted even faster. She almost over-balanced as she arrived at the steps up to the wooden summerhouse doors and came to an abrupt halt.

A bright red, oozing pool covered much of the floor inside, dripping through the wooden floorboards to the earth beneath. A viscous black-red mass was already congealing at its edge in front of her. At its far side a woman’s headless body lay on its back, her feet towards them, the soles of her shoes still clean of the blood which had soaked the underside of her clothes.

Angela.

Cassie put her arm across the open door to prevent the constable going inside but couldn’t block his view.

It wasn’t a pleasant sight.

Sightless blue-grey eyes stared towards the doors from the severed head, lying on its bloodied side about three feet to the right of the body. Cassie remembered those eyes as full of intelligence and humour. Her instinct was to close them, but she couldn’t. It would contaminate the murder scene. The most she could do until forensics got here was to look, to see and memorise.

Hanks of wayward hair had escaped from the bun at the back of Angela’s head, to fall across her mouth and chin, the ends dipped in blood. Cassie remembered the woman’s neatness, always tidy, understated and elegant in a quiet way, at home as well as at work. It seemed unfair that she looked so disordered in death.

Another part of Cassie’s brain asked if it could also indicate that she’d been hurrying, possibly running, from the cottage, dishevelled and distracted. Perhaps escaping from the intruder she’d disturbed? From PC Johns’ burglar?

No. That didn’t add up. The average burglar would make a getaway when discovered, not fight, nor chase a fleeing homeowner. And why did Angela come here? Why not the lane − it was closer and would have been safer, there were neighbours close by and at least one of them was at home, as the nine-nine-nine call showed.

Stop! Too many questions.

She turned to PC Johns.

◊ THREE

The constable lurched back from the door and, hands on his knees, regurgitated what must have been his breakfast.

‘Urgh... I’m sorry... sorry.’ He wiped the back of his hand across his mouth.

‘Don’t apologise, it’s a perfectly natural reaction,’ she assured him, feeling her own gorge rise. ‘But keep alert. Whoever did this might still be around.’

It’ll give him something to concentrate on.

PC Johns took a deep breath, stood up straight and took up a guard stance to scan the wood. He tapped the baton against the palm of his other hand. Laughter rose with the nausea in Cassie’s throat.

Get a grip!

She steeled herself to step up and look into the summerhouse again.

Study it properly, learn what there is to be learned. Angela would have.

Her body temperature dropped.

The building was bare of furniture in winter though an elaborate brass chandelier still hung from the apex of its ceiling. Its windows were lined by low wooden bench seats integral to the structure. The lid of the third seat around on the right was raised, lying back against the sill of the window above it.

The murder weapon