Chapter Eleven
The butler had brought in an uncorked bottle of wine, but Randall had ignored it, saying they’d be better off sticking to water, considering what they’d be doing later. It wouldn’t do them any good to be half cut from alcohol. Jackson had agreed.
“So, the deal with the butler?” Jackson pushed his plate aside and planted his elbows on the table. He laced his fingers and waited for Randall’s response.
“Accident.” He tapped beside his eye. “Protecting me.”
“Ah, right. So he’s always been protective, has he?”
“Just a bit.” Randall smiled a tad. “He’s been with me for a long time. Came with the house. Thinks he needs to take care of everything in it, even though he’s thin and looks like he couldn’t fight off a kid.”
Randall rose then pushed his chair beneath the table. Jackson stood. He moved to collect the plates.
“The butler will do that.” Randall nodded at the table.
“Right.”
“Come on. I want to show you something.” Randall moved to the door.
He led Jackson out of the dining room and upstairs, along the left-hand side of the veranda then through the third door into another hallway lined with doors. They walked down it, and right at the end was an ancient narrow staircase, bare stone walls either side. Frowning, because this hadn’t been on the plans of the house he’d studied, Jackson trailed Randall upwards until they reached another door. Steel, which looked out of place in such a grand home.
Randall took a plastic card from his pocket and slid it down the middle of a black box on the jamb. The loud click of bolts drawing across echoed in the small space and gave Jackson a momentary chill. It smelled funny up here—of years gone by, dust, and mould.
Randall pushed the door open to reveal a large circular room.
Jackson stepped inside. Going by what he could see, it was situated at the back of the house.
Windows, much like those in the control room of a lighthouse, allowed a bird’s-eye view of the outside surroundings. Although the day had almost switched to night out there, Jackson could see well enough. If anyone came across those lawns they’d be spotted.
Opposite, below two of the windows, a bank of electronic paraphernalia with knobs, sliders, and lights drew his eye. It reminded him of music recording gear. It didn’t fit here, was surreal and odd, and he frowned again, wondering what the hell tied this to Randall. Was the man some kind of performing artist?
Computer monitors—some square, black eyes of deadness, others alive and bright with streams of data rising from bottom to top—gave him pause. There was more to this man than he’d realised. More than Sid would have told him if he’d pushed for background information. All Jackson had thought was that this bloke had inherited this mansion, rattled around in it, wasting his days and playing about in life. First impressions had definitely been wrong on this occasion.
“What the hell is this room?” Jackson turned.
Randall closed the door and pressed a code into another keypad. “This is where I work. Where I come when I want to do a final check of the grounds at night. You’ll note you can see in every direction.”
“This doesn’t do you any fucking good.” Jackson lifted his hands then slapped them onto his outer thighs. “This room. It shows you sod all unless someone’s on the grounds—someone you can see out of the windows. By the time you’ve made it downstairs, they could have got into the house and be waiting.”
Randall jabbed another button. The sound of metal scraping metal clunked, much as it had when Randall had released the door locks.
“But they can’t get in here.” Randall smiled. “This could be classed as my panic room.”
Jackson nodded. “You used it before for that purpose?”
“Yes. The last time someone came, I was in here for… I was in here.”
“The butler didn’t make it up here in time then. What’s his name anyway?”
“Colin. I told him we had to come up here because I’d been alerted to someone being on the grounds. He said he could deal with it, and I believed him. He had a gun, after all. Had been in the army. I didn’t want him to deal with it, wanted him to come up here with me so I could…sort things…but there was stuff I still needed to test in here, and it reminded me I couldn’t afford to be killed.”
What the hell do you do? Why couldn’t you afford to be killed?
“What happened?” Jackson stared at a computer that bleeped an erratic, high-pitched alarm.
Randall frowned and walked over to it. He leant forward, pressed his hands to the desk, and studied the monitor, then pushed a button on the keyboard. A green image came up, similar to viewing something through night-vision goggles. A shape, dark and swiftly moving, was heading from the distance and into the foreground.
“Oh, some man stabbed Colin in the eye.” Randall bit his bottom lip until it blanched white.
“And?” Jackson flicked his gaze from the screen to Randall then back again.
The shape had become the outline of a deer.
“And Colin killed him.” Randall stared briefly at the ceiling as though offering up a prayer, then touched another button on the keyboard.
The deer buckled and fell to the ground.
He looked at Jackson. “That was a deer, and it was just inside the perimeter of my property. It worked. It bloody worked!” Randall raised his hands to his head and gripped his hair. He laughed a bit nutterishly
