CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Deborah Chowdhury set her refilled glass of Burgundy down on her desk and switched on her computer.
In the half hour since Tudor had left her flat, something had been going round and round in her mind, and she knew she would not sleep until she had checked it out.
She punched the keyboard, accessing the database of cctv footage in the city.
Her status as a DI with the Met gave her all the clearance she needed, even from home.
She put in the day and time she wanted to look at and the specific location: the street cameras for the Begovich restaurant.
There were two cameras that covered the Jagoda.
The one from the end of the slightly curved street showed the parking space in front of it.
The one on the opposite side of the road gave an excellent view of the restaurant front.
Deborah began to click through the hour Tudor had told her he was there, waiting to see his car pull up.
Nothing. She clearly remembered him telling her he had parked directly opposite the front door.
She fast forwarded and rewound twice. Nothing.
Frowning, she took another swig of wine.
Maybe he had misremembered his exactly parking spot.
She scrolled through the footage from the second camera.
Still nothing. Could he have got the date wrong?
She knew him well enough to know that couldn’t be the case.
‘So where is your precious Audi?’ she asked the darkening emptiness of her flat.
She tried again. Frame by frame. He definitely had not parked on the far side of the road from the restaurant.
She repeated the exercise looking at the front of the Jagoda, one frame at a time.
There was a black Range Rover parked a little off centre, but it didn’t move.
No other cars came or went. Which in itself was strange.
This was, after all, a fairly busy street in the middle of the day.
More and more the only explanation was that the footage had been tampered with or changed.
Which was pretty near impossible. This wasn’t film from a private security camera.
This system belonged to the Metropolitan Police.
Which meant, if it had been fixed, a police officer had to have fixed it.
She peered harder at the slightly pixelated film, frame by frame again, looking for signs of a jump or glitch that might suggest a clip had been cut and rejoined.
Nothing seemed out of the ordinary. What she did notice, though were some unusual symbols, carved into the frame above the door.
They seemed oddly familiar. She zoomed in.
There was something about them that rang a faint and distant bell.
She reached across her desk and picked up the copy of the file on the Aurora killings.
Flicking through it, she came to some of the crime scene photographs.
The graphic images of the victims stirred her half digested pasta so that she had to close her eyes for a moment.
She had never become accustomed to the gore either of her career choices subjected her to.
When she felt steadier she searched on until she found what she was looking for.
One of the photos showed the weird little shrine that had been in the apartment where the second killing had taken place.
There were wooden carvings, and a framed print.
Both had curiously shaped patterns. And those patterns were the same as the ones on the door of the restaurant.
She moved the mouse and took a screenshot of the frame before clicking on print.
Her printer reluctantly came to life and spat out two copies.
She went back to staring at the screen, trying to make sense of that door, those symbols, and the lack of Tudor’s car, or indeed Tudor himself, anywhere in the footage.
She was taking another gulp of wine when what she saw made her gasp.
She spat Burgundy over her keyboard, spluttering.
Cursing, she grabbed a tissue and mopped wine up as she fought to ignore the prickling sensation she was experiencing all over her scalp.
She took a breath and looked again at the frozen frame.
At first glance it just showed the restaurant front, with the Range Rover slightly off to the left.
Closer inspection, however, revealed a figure standing in the window, looking out.
A woman. Dark. Striking. Staring. And it was the stare that had made Deborah choke on her wine.
Even through the fuzzy quality of the cctv cameras, those eyes were remarkable, and their gaze felt as if it locked on to the observer.
To her. Holding her. If asked, DI Chowdhury would have said she considered herself a spiritual person, and wasn’t coy about it.
Her mother had been a lapsed Church of England Anglican, but her father’s Hinduism had been what shaped her growing up, and what sustained her still.
In that moment, had someone pressed her to describe what those eyes made her feel, she would have said it was as if evil had washed over her. Pure. Powerful. Terrifying.
She shivered, then, cross with herself for being so fanciful, putting it down to too much wine, too much work, and the tension of seeing Tudor again.
She got up from her chair and switched off the computer, her heart rate returning to normal as the screen went black and the tower powered down.
As she left the room she started humming her dad’s favourite song in an attempt to shake off the mood that had gripped her, heading for the bathroom and a hot shower.
Which meant that she didn’t hear the slight click that came from the computer.
Nor did she see the tiny green light flashing, or the brief message that appeared on the screen: camera on.
Gloucester, 1086
It had taken four days’ riding to reach the outskirts of the city.
Rhiannon was thankful that this year the king had decided to break with tradition.
Customarily, the crown resided at Winchester for Easter, visiting Kingsholm Palace only at Christmas.
For reasons the monarch did not see fit to share with far flung outlaws, he had changed his plans and would be celebrating the festival at the old Saxon stronghold.
Rhiannon had travelled light, favouring speed over comfort.
Mamgi had questioned the wisdom of this, but she had been resolved to go at once.
Part of her was aware she was trying to run away from her grief, even though she knew that was impossible.
Another part of her feared she might lose her courage if she spent too long considering her chosen course of action.
The reason for her haste that she gave to Mamgi and the villagers, however, was that she did not want word of de Chapelle's killing to reach the king before she did.
The story had to be presented from their viewpoint.
If she was known as some wild Welsh murderess before she so much as spoke a single word, all would be for nothing.
Preparations for the journey had, therefore, been completed with great urgency.
She and Rufus had descended to the village, pausing at the periphery only long enough to reassure themselves the place was still unoccupied.
They hurried to the great house and found their way inside with little difficulty.
This was not, after all, their first visit.
On this occasion, they had a highly specific mission.
Rhiannon had led the way, even though Rufus knew it as well as she did, to the top right corner of the solar, and the old wooden chest that sat beneath a pile of sheepskins.
It was here that her mother had stored dresses she no longer wore, but that she had kept for when Rhiannon was wed.
Rufus helped drag the chest from its hiding place.
One advantage of having a populace terrified of its new rulers was that few dared try to steal from them.
While the contents of the great house at Cwmdu should in all conscience belong to Rhiannon, they were in fact the property of the crown, and more recently, gifted to the new Lord of Brycheiniog.
Rhiannon reasoned that as he himself was now dead, the moment was right to reclaim what was rightfully hers.
The hidden gowns were a fair place to begin.
There was a dress of red velvet, cut to follow a woman’s form, with gold braid at the neck and cuffs.
There was also a dress of pale green linen, which draped more freely, but was nonetheless flattering for that.
She and Rufus repacked the gowns into shoulder bags, along with a floor length cloak of dark green wool.
She had not thought it useful, but he had sensibly pointed out that Tudor’s wolfskin cape would hardly be suitable attire for a woman at the royal court.
On their return to the mountain settlement, Mair and Mamgi had set about cleaning and repairing the gowns.