Speaker 1: Hello, listeners, How are you well? I hope as I am,
so here we are. This is episode two of season seven,
which originally at Patreon. Was the first episode in a
kind of a spin off from the main Underwood and
Flinch storyline, and it was called Still of the Night,
and the idea was that it would follow Damo and
Rose and Coleridge and other people left over from Underwood
Flinch Underground as their adventure in the UK continued. It
ran for four episodes, and then I stopped it because
I realized that the two stories, the Underwood Flinch story
and this one Still of the Night were not going
to run as concurrently as I had hoped that they might.
This one Still of the Night would have started giving
away big spoilers to the plot of the main Underwood
and Flinch story, you see, because this one would have
got farther ahead, while the underwooden Flinch story would still
be lagging behind. So yeah, like I say, I had
to stop it, and so I did. But I didn't
delete the episodes from Patreon. I left them there. And
as time went on and I came to abandon the
idea of novels in favor of simply podcast seasons. I
realized consciously what I had always understood unconsciously, that the
Still of the Night chapters that were podcast in the
era of the seventh season of Underwooden Flinch were simply
that episodes of season seven. Now, if you ever sign
up at Patreon, you will now see season seven clearly
identified in the feed. But when you listen to the
audio of the episodes, when you listen to the intros
and so on, you'll hear me refer to the podcasts
by their original book titles like Legion, like Still of
the Night and ultimately The Devil of Claverton, which is
what season seven is a book ultimately manifested into, you know,
because it's a work in progress, and you make up
the titles and you change the titles as you go along,
if you see what I mean. So, yeah, there we are.
I hope that's clear. So where do we begin this
one time spin off novel? Now, second episode of season seven,
I'll tell you it's on the tarmac of the airstrip
that Underwood and Flinch just left behind, where the dacardly
Charles Coleridge still has some scores to settle in the
Underwood and Flinch saga written and performed for podcast by
Mike Bennett, Season.
Speaker 2: Seven, The Devil of Claverton, Episode two.
Speaker 1: This podcast is intended for an adult audience. Listener discretion
is advised. Goodbye and good riddance, Collridge muttered as the
Gulf Stream private jet carrying Lord Underwood, David Flinch and
Claire Redmond roared up into the gray skies over London tossa.
Sir Coleridge turned to the mercenary sergeant standing a few
feet away. Did you hear him that? Lord Underwood spoke
to me like I was the shit on his shoe? No,
Sir Coleridge shook his head. Bloody aristocracy, who needs a name?
Come on, let's get back. I'm fucking knackerd. He got
back into the rear seat of the suv and the
driver closed the door after him. Then he took out
his phone and quickly typed a message to someone in
his contacts listed as Harry Richards. The real Harry Richards
was someone he used to hang around with in secondary school,
but the listed contact was not him. Coleridge had just
used the name as an alias in case the phone
was ever stolen. The real recipient was Vilaine the three
guests underway. All good, He sent the message, put his
phone back in his pocket, then sat back and closed
his eyes. God, he was tired. It had been a
long and dreadful night, but finally it was over. True.
In eliminating Miguel, they had only taken care of one
of the two killers responsible for the London vampire murders,
but the Spaniard would be the perfect serial killer fall
guy for both of them. This was the Master's plan,
and as always he had been rng. But when Coleridge
had first been told that as a part of that plan,
Redmond was to be pitted against Miguel, he had been
very uncomfortable with the idea, not just because she was
his goddaughter, but because she was police and murdered police
cases weren't something you could just put on a show
of investigating for a respectable amount of time and then
file away among the unsolved. They had to be solved
quickly and in ironclad fashion. However, despite Coleridge's please and
protestations on Claire's behalf, the Master's mind had been made up. Fortunately,
Claire had won the day against Miguel, and although the
strategy had cost the life of Anna Mackay, it would
be easy to ascribe her death to Miguel, just as
they could ascribe Miguel's demise to Redmond. As for Redmond's
now apparent disappearance, he had been working out a cover
story for that too. What had happened at her flat
had been a deeply traumatic event for Inspector Redmond, and
he had placed her on leave effective immediately. The OCU
could fabricate the record of a post incident interview with
her and her consequent statement, and that would be enough
for now, but long term that depended on how she
conducted herself with the Master. Typically there were three scenarios
in a situation like this. Either she would come back
deeply fascinated and able to corroborate everything and anything they
wanted her to, or she'd come back dead, in which
case her suicide could be put down to the trauma
of what had happened at her flat, or she'd come
back as a vampire. Of the three outcomes, his preference
was that she return fascinated. That way, she could just
go back to her old duties and they could all
just move.
Speaker 3: On, move on.
Speaker 1: Mocking his glibly optimistic assessment, sure, move on like there
wasn't a pile of dead mercenaries in a ventilation shaft
back at Aldwich to account for, not to mention five
dead police, including Guy Valentine and the civilian transport worker
at Hoban. Could they heap all of this on Miguel No,
they were going to need to get creative. The merks
weren't his problem. Valaines people could handle that, but the
others were. The sooner they found the elusive second London
vampire suspect, the better. There was no way the second
neophyte could have been responsible for the shootings at Hoban,
but he would be the ideal fall guy for them
as far as the media was concerned. They just had
to ensure that he wasn't alive to tell his side
of the story. As for the real killers, they were
almost certainly tied to Underwood. Somehow, the OCU would find
out who they were, the Master would decide what should
be done when they did. He felt the vehicle turning
out onto the road back to London and opened his
eyes to check his watch. It was almost six a m.
There was no point in going to Falconbridge now, best
to just go home and get some sleep. He wasn't hungry.
The hack journalist Ronnie Bishop had more than satisfied him
in that account, so there was no need to disturb Katya.
Rather than for a snuggle, he closed his eyes to
consider that prospect. He tried to summon images of her
in bed, soft, warm and sleepy, welcoming him as he
climbed in naked behind her, the conquering hero home from
the war, his enemies vanquished, and his manhood something that
had been all but depleted before his becoming a vampire,
throbbing with vitality between his legs. But his annoyance, he
found he couldn't get Ronnie Bishop out of his head.
His corpse prematurely abandoned before Coleridge had had time to
fully dress the scene of his suicide, thanks to Underwood
and Flinches interrupting him. What if they had messed it up,
tampered with the body, left fingerprints at the scene, Jesus,
even bloody fingerprints, and the doors ship the doors to
the building and to Bishop's flat. He put a hand
to his closed eyes, pressing them till they hurt. He'd
been so distracted by subsequent events that he'd completely forgotten
how Underwood had forced his way in through the front
door of the building, and unless he'd had a key
to the flat, or Ronnie had risen from the dead
to let him in, he would have done the same
to that door too. Coleridge muttered a curse beneath his breath.
The flat door might remain unnoticed by other residents, but
the front door of the building would be discovered by
the first person who left for work, which meant it
could have already happened, which in turn meant the police
could already have been called. They could even be there now.
He took out his phone and called Rhonda Maddox. Maddox
was the only detective inspector remaining on the existing Falconbridge team.
He'd been intending to have her take over the hunt
for the second still at large London vampire suspect later
that morning, but now he needed her and young d C.
Timothy Cuff over at Bishop's immediately. The phone rang briefly
before the half conscious Maddox came on the line. Coleridge
explained the situation and outlined what she needed to do.
Then he hung up and looked out.
Speaker 3: Of the window.
Speaker 1: It'd be okay, he assured himself. Whatever the situation there,
Maddox would handle it. Worst case scenario, if a civilian
had seen something they shouldn't have, Maddox would just take
their name and Collridge would go round to fascinate them
and erase the problematic memories. He would do the same
to any police officers who may have been called and
likewise seen too much. Maddox and Cuff would take over
the scene, make it an official Falconbridge case, and the
consequent brief investigation would confirm as suicide. And what could
be more credible, God knows. Bishop had had nothing to
live for At the best of times, Coleridge smiled. Killing
the journalist had been a pleasure. For years. The little
cock croach had been a pain in Coleridge's backside, and
not just his, but the collective backsides of the entire
Detective Division. He was always there at the scene of
a crime, dictation machines thrust out before him and asking questions,
the answers to which they all knew he'd be taking
poetic license with when he wrote up the story. Take,
for example, the case they just closed. It had been
Bishop that had taken their official line of neck wounds
in relation to the victims, and contrived the notion that
they the police were calling the killer the vampire absolute rubbish,
according to a source within the force on condition of anonymity. Indeed,
the source for Bishop was, as was usual in countless
other cases, simply himself, working with what little information he
had and making something more substantial out of it, something sensational,
something he could sell to the Red Tops. And sell
it he had, and the result had been that Verlaine
had got to hear about it before he Coleridge had
had a chance to report the killings to the Master personally,
something he usually did only when the OCU had the
case in question locked down, and preferably with the perpetrator
either dead or very soon to be so. Not that
this sort of thing was an everyday occurrence. No vampire
of Verlaine's kindred vampires sired by him or those they
in turn sired, either in London or anywhere else, would
ever do something as stupid and reckless as this. Only
the ferals would do such a thing, those who either
lived outside civilized society and so were unaware of diurnal
and sanguevita, or neophytes like Micguel and the Flinchwoman, amateurs, blunderers,
ignorant of the rules that all vampires knew, like they
did their own names. Rule number one being don't kill anyone,
and rule number two, if you must kill someone, don't
leave a fucking body. Colerad shook his head in contempt
at the thought of feruls bloody savages. When the victims
of the London vampire had first been discovered, he and
everyone else at the OCU had been convinced it was
the work of a couple of ferrals from one of
the East European countries that had joined the EU a
few years back. They just come swaming over here from
bloody Transylvania or wherever, like they owned the place, no
immigration restrictions or anything like that, coming over here taking
out jobs. Well usually not that they didn't tend to
work or sign on, but anyway, coming over here, feeding
on our people, killing them. There had been at least
one murder committed in the UK by an East European vampire,
probably since the EU expansion in two thousand and four.
The crime had been expertly concealed by the OCU, and
the vampire suspect euthanized with the minimum of fuss, so
it was hardly surprising that the department's finger of suspicion
should have pointed in that direction. However, Verlaine, who had
people whose job it was to monitor the world's media
for any sign of vampiric activity, had seen the news
online and felt very differently. He had ordered Coleridge to
have a tale put on Ronnie Bishop, the author of
the Vampire Story, suspicious that he really may have had
a confidential source in the Metropolitan Police. Coleridge had tried
to convince him that Bishop was nothing more than a
eyeing to bit hack, and that they needed all their
detectives out hunting for migrant ferrls, but Verlaine had been adamant,
and Coleridge, servant that he was, had obeyed his command.
Of course, it had turned out that verlaine suspicions of
a police league had been as off as Coleridge's suspicions
of a Transylvanian feral culprit. But it was thanks to
the tale they had put on Bishop that they had
got the break that led to the apprehension of the
suspects at Hoburn Station. Tragically, it was also thanks to
that that Guy, Valentine Whitmore, Sloane, two London Transport Police
officers and a civilian had been murdered at Hoburn. Coleridge
hadn't known Whitmore and Sloane very well, but Guy had
been different. He had been one of a handful of
police officers who were on permanent assignment at Falconbridge, and
he had overseen all o CU investigations for the last
two years. And the worst thing of all, Guy had
been due to fly out to Verlaine to be reborn
into the Kindred in just a few months time. Had
Coleridge sired him himself, and he'd been given permission to
do so long ago, Guy might have stood a better
chance against the bastards that murdered him, but Guy had
wanted to wait until his vacation so that he could
meet the Master and receive the dark Gift from him Personally,
Coleridge found he couldn't think about the murder scene. It
was too fresh, too vivid. He remembered he had ducked
out of it to contact Vlaane just after giving Redmond
his gun in case she needed to defend herself in
the event of a late night visit from Lydia. He'd
needed fresh air, so he'd gone outside to make the call.
The tube station was still open to the public, with
nighttime crowds flowing in and out through the doors. Police
cars and ambulances were parked outside, and journalists loitered in
the hope of further announcements as to what had taken place.
Some of them clocked him as he came out, glad
as he was in his white bunny suit, but he
was shielded from their questions and cameras by a trio
of uniformed officers that held them at bay. While waiting
for his call to connect, Coleridge had absently glanced through
traffic to the brightly lit windows of a pub on
the opposite side of the street. There he had seen
Ronnie Bishop getting to his feet, abandoning a half drunk
pint and grabbing up his coat. Collridge had turned away,
not wanting to catch his eye at the other end
of the call. The phone was ringing. He waited. Then
he heard Bishop call to him from where the journalists
still lingered in the hope that he'd speak to them
when he'd finished his call. DCS Coleridge. Coleridge ignored him,
listening to the phone ringing on the other side of
the world. But Bishop would not be ignored get a
comment on what's been gone on down in the station.
When Coleridge didn't respond, he added, I'll come on, Charlie here,
I've got a few pictures I reckon you might be
interested in. Took him at m blokes chasing each other
in here earlier on. I've got a feeling one of
them might be your suspect pictures. Coleridge hung up the phone.
One of those blokes could be Whitmore, the other almost
certainly the still unknown second suspect in the London vampire murders.
He couldn't afford to have those pictures on the front
page of tomorrow's papers. He turned to see Bishop smiling
at him. Coleridge patted the shoulder of the officer blocking
Bishop and told him to let him through. He then
pulled him to one side, out of earshot of the
other journalists. What pictures show me, easy, Charlie. Bishop pulled
himself free of Coleridge's grip. Don't get upset, mate, What
is you're talking about? His evidence? Bishop, there's a killer
on the loose in this city and people lives may
depend on those photos. Yeah, yeah, I know, and of
course you can have copies. I just want a little
something in return, that's all. Coleridge, knowing the other reporters
would be watching their exchange, resisted the urge to grab
Bishop by his lapels and slam him up against the wall. Look, Ronnie,
don't be a prick. I've had a very bad day
and you're not making it any better, So please just
hand over the camera, will you hand it over? You're
having a turkish anger. Those pics A partner, my exclusive mate.
You can have copies, of course, but that's all and
only if you give me a little something to add
to that exclusive, namely the word on what's been occurring
down below. As he spoke, he drew out his dictaphone,
he breast record and held it up to Coleridge's face.
It's a shooting, right am? Many dead? Any coppies? A
bright light suddenly fell upon them. Collridge turned to squint
into the mounted light of a TV camera. Microphones bobbed
all around it, including one overhead on a hand held boom,
one of the long ones with a furry wind resistant
cover that Coleridge always thought of as he yetes cock.
He turned back to Bishop, his lips drawn in a
tight line. There was no way he could intimidate or
fascinate him into handing anything over here, and he still
had to call Verlaine with an effort. He summoned a
more reasonable demeanor and said evenly, look, I've nothing to
say at present, mister Bishop, not to you. He turned
to face the microphones nor any of you, but someone
will be out shortly to make a statement. Thank you.
He then made his way back into the station and
had a station worker lead him to a private room
where he could make the call straightway. He had told
Verlaine about the attack on Valentine and his men. Unsurprisingly,
the Master had been furious. Coleridge had then had to
backtrack over events leading up to the attack and after it,
including how he had deprogrammed Claire Redmond from Lydia's fascination
before inducting her, albeit temporarily, into the OCU. He then learned,
to his surprise and stifled fury, that Verlaine had already
known about Lydia and her fascination of Claire. He said
that Lydia herself had told him about it the previous night,
when she had made contact with him from the Dorchester Hotel. Well,
you could have fucking told me, was what Coleridge had thought,
but not said. Verlaine had gone on to say how
Celeste and Claude had then bundled Lydia up and sent
her after him via private jet. Collridge had asked, as
deferentially as he could, considering his bottled vexation, why Verlaine
hadn't communicated this to him earlier? What Jesus Charles, the
woman has just told me how a friend of mine
who I thought had been dead for the last fifty
years hadn't in fact been dead, But now fucking was.
I was preoccupied. Okay, I was going to call you
this morning, but I was just a tad distracted. He
went on to explain more how Lydia herself had killed
this friend of his, the vampire who had indirectly and
through Lydia's guile infected her. Verlaine's upset had been so
great it had almost spoiled his night out at a
Maroon five concert he had gone on to later in
the evening in Honolulu. Coleridge held his anger in check
and explained how he had just armed Claire Redmond, in
expectation of a visit from the very same Lydia. Velaine
had asked if this newest temporary recruit to the OCU
could be converted to their cause. Coleridge had explained that
she couldn't. She was Harry Redman's daughter. The name had
meant nothing to Velaine, so he had had to remind
him of the circumstances of harry His death some thirty
years ago. Velaine, uninterested in the details, had cut him
off and said that if she couldn't be turned, she
was to be fascinated, her memory wiped, and then returned
to her regular duties. He was more interested in the
killings of the OCU men at Hoburn, who were the
suspects Whitmore had chased into the station. Collridge had explained
that that information had died with Valentine, Whitmore and Sloane,
and since there were no CCTV records, they didn't even
have any imagery of the men. But then he had
remembered the conversation he had just had with Bishop how
the man claimed to have photos. Elaine wanted to know
why Coleridge didn't now have those photos, and Coleridge had
had to explain the circumstances of his encounter with Bishop
and how he had been on camera at the time.
Vlaine said he was to get the pictures and find
out everything Bishop knew immediately. Doing so took precedence over
everything else. Collridge had said he would get it done,
but and here he had added a personal request. Would
it be possible for him to affect a permanent removal
of Bishop? The man was a nuisance, a regular and
persistent thorn in his side. He would see to the
removal personally. Verlaine already knew that Bishop was responsible for
the London vampire moniker, and so had agreed on condition
that it looked like suicide. Coleridge would need to fascinate
Bishop into taking his own life. After the call, Coleridge
had removed his bunny suits and had been on his
way to return it to the Soko staging area when
his phone rang. It was Verlaine again. In the back
of the suv, Coleridge opened his eyes. He didn't want
to think about the next part. He saw. They were
on the motorway back to London. It was raining again,
and the car's windscreen wipers were sloshing back and forth
in a hypnotic fashion, tired as he was. After a
few moments, his eyelids drooped and he was once again
answering the call to Elaine. Yes, Master, Charles, Look, I've
been talking with Cloak, and I think we've come up
with a way to bring this case to a close,
at least in the public eye. But I need you
to do something. You're not gonna, Like Coleridge had tensed,
my feelings aren't relevant, Master, whatever is best for you
and the cause always comes first. Exactly, Charles, exactly, And
that's why you're my right hand guy over there. You're
a can do person and I like that. So you
said your Inspector Redmond is going to be expecting a
visit from Lydia tonight, right, Yes, sir, Okay, Well, here's
what's gonna happen. Lydia is not coming obviously. She's down
below right now and she isn't going anywhere but that
numb nuts buddy. Her is Miguel, the guy behind the
girl and the dumpster. Well, he is gonna call on
her and he's gonna try to kill her. What. Oh,
don't worry, she's got a gun, right and one of
your people is guarding her. Yes, Anna Makay. But okay,
so that's perfect. Mackay can let Miguel in. But shut up, Charles,
I'm talking. Miguel comes round to Redmond as soon as
she's asleep. MacKaye lets him in, and then Miguel can
attack Redmond. Maybe he kills her, maybe he doesn't. But
if she's as smart as you say she is, he won't. Right,
she'll kill him instead. Alternatively, if he survives, not a problem,
Mackay can just blow his head off once he's finished
with Redmond. Either way, the plan works out. A voila.
The London vampire is no more nailed by Scotland Yard
in the act of murdering or trying the murder, depending
on who wins the cop that was investigating him. It's perfect.
But Master Redmond, so she's my goddaughter. Please why put
her through that? Why not just eliminate this Miguel character
the moment he arrives at her flat. I don't understand
why Claire needs to be put in harm's way, Because Charles,
I want it to be believable. I want her to
fight for her life. I want scratches bruises. I want blood,
and if she wins out, I want her to be
able to give a damn good account of it. That
and I want to see what she's made of. If
she's got the stuff, well maybe we can use her
after all. But Sir, I told you she can't be turned.
She doesn't have to be turned to be useful. Charles.
We need good people, and if she's got what we need,
she can be one of them. You mean you want
me to fascinate her, make her work for us. I
don't know. All I know is you've lost people and
you need new ones if you're going to catch this
remaining rogue vampire of yours. So let's see how things
pan out and we'll deal with it. On the other side.
You contact Mackay and those guys you've got watching the
house and tell them what to expect, and I'll have
Lydia call Miguel. He'll be around sometime before dawn. But Charles,
he added, with a grave tone entering his voice, mark me, well,
oh man, don't even think about warning her. If you do,
I'll know and there will be consequences. No, Master, never,
I would never go against your wishes. I swear on
hearing that, Elaine's tone brightened again. Yeah, I know, I know.
I don't doubt you in the slidest Charles. Okay, so
you get onto your people now and let him know
what's happening, and be sure to tell Makay that she's
not too intervene. Let the fight play out naturally. If
Redmond wins, Mackay can just act like Miguel fascinated her,
like she had no power over what she was doing.
And if Miguel wins, well, bang bang standard vampire termination.
Got it, aye. Coleridge's throat was dry. He had to
swallow before finishing. Yes, Master, I've got it. Great. Let
me know what it's done, and may the best man win.
Huh chau chau Charlie Volane hung up. A phone bleaped,
and a slight vibration pulsed against his thigh. It wasn't
a tone, he knew. Then he remembered he had a
bishop's phone in his pocket. He took it out and
flipped it open. It was a text message from someone
called Ed Coates Son. Coleridge opened it and read what
happened to the story? Ronnie message me if still fresh,
Coleridge reasoned, the word son at the end of Coates's
name must indicate the newspaper he worked for. No reply
for you, mate, he murmured. He closed the text message, then,
out of curiosity, checked the phone's photo file. There were
no recent pictures and nothing that appeared to be relevant
to the London vampire case. He'd still hand it over
to the falcon Bridge forensics team, along with Bishop's other electronics,
the thought of which awakened his annoyance at how things
there had unfolded. He'd wanted more time, not just to
interrogate Bishop, but to savor his passing, to prolong it
and take his time while feeding on him it. Especially
hoped to release the wretch from his fascination right at
the end, when he was too weak to cry for help,
and see his face as he realized what had happened
and who had done it to him. But those simple
pleasures had been denied him by Underwood and Flinch. It
had all started out so well. He'd gone to Bishop's
apartment once he'd arranged things with Mackay and the noxious
Miguel for his mission to Redmond's place. He'd buzzed the
intercom with a latex gloved finger and announced himself. Told
Bishop he needed the pictures and was ready to give
him his exclusive scoop in exchange for them. Bishop had
no reason to fear him, after all, wasn't he a policeman.
He'd gone up and the moment Bishop had opened the door,
he'd fascinated him. First he got him to hand over
the camera and his phone, and then, on learning Bishop
had also transferred the photos to his laptop, he'd had
him hand over that too. He left him standing like
a zombie in his living room as he went looking
for a suitably sharp object to facilitate his suicide. As
he rummaged among the drawers in the bathroom, he'd enjoyed
a little preamble to mock and insult his old BET's
noir before getting to the serious questions. Who were the
men you photographed running into Hobin? Only one I know
for sure was Dave, replied Ronnie listlessly. Who's Dave like
I met this evening? He's hunting the London vampire. No
bladed raisers, only an electric shaver, so disappointing, Coleridge went
through to the kitchen. Is he indeed? And which of
the men was Dave? The one being chased, or one
of the chasers. How many of them were there?
Speaker 3: Four?
Speaker 1: Dave was one of the chasers, and you have no
idea who any of the others were rummaging in the
knife drawer, testing the blades against his latex clad thumb.
Not the last two, but the bloke they were chasing.
Dave called him Damo. Damo Yeah. So Dave was hunting
the London vampire, and he went chasing after a guy
called Damo Yeah, a short bladed knife so sharp it
nearly sliced through the latex. He closed the drawer and
took the knife with him back to the living room.
So he'd thought this Damo must have been the one
who'd caught the train out of there, leaving Dave, Whitmore
and the other man to have their little taser shoot out.
Did Dave appear to know either of the other men
in the chase, Not that I noticed. He seemed unaware
of them. He didn't know he was being chased, it
seemed to me. Coleridge told Ronnie to sit down. Ronnie obeyed,
sitting at the desk he'd recently been working at. You
say you met Dave this evening? This was at the
pub opposite Hoban. He knew this courtesy of Whitmore and
Sloane calling it in. Yeah, and you've never seen him
before that, nah? So how come you met him? Did
he just approach you in the pub or was it prearranged?
Speaker 3: Pre arranged?
Speaker 1: He phoned me a bit before he arrived.
Speaker 3: And what was he?
Speaker 1: Another journalist? A private dick? He didn't say, just wanted
to know what I knew about London, vampire. Didn't you ask?
Why was you curious? Or was your meeting of a
transactional nature? He didn't pay me nothing, No, but he
brought me a pint and a packet of cheese and onion.
Coleridge laughed, Oh, hey, big spender, you're getting cheap in
your old age, Ronnie. He said he was working with
a high ranking police officer, someone not on the case,
but with knowledge of it. Interesting Did he say who
that was? Nah? But you can ask him yourself. He'll
be here in a minute. Coleridge, who had been absently
fingering the knife while they were talking, froze, what he's
coming here? What the why don't you fucking tell me?
He didn't fucking ask as he said this Coleridge could
have sworn he'd seen a flicker of amusement in Bishop's eyes. Impossible,
but he'd had to fight resist at urge to take
the knife and stab him repeatedly with it. He jumped
up from his chair and ran to peek around the
edge of the curtains. The street outside was deserted. Then
he'd realized that this could actually be a godsend. He
was about to get Dave delivered right to his door.
He turned back to Bishop. Is he coming alone? Don't know?
Maybe I thought I heard someone whispering in the background
when he called shit. Coleridge looked again around the edge
of the curtain. One person he could fascinate, but two
together carried a risk of disturbing the neighbors. That meant
he had to leave. Ronnie sat on his seat, facing
him across the table, his expression blank. Coleridge had planned
to run him a hot bath and have him do
himself in there, but there was no time for that now.
He went over and handed Ronnie the knife. Take this
and cut open your left wrist, deep cuts, now, no tickling.
Ronnie took the knife. Coleridge stepped back to avoid any
arterial spray. Then without a moment's hesitation, Ronnie obeyed. Blood
irrupted from the wound, spurting into Ronnie's face and across
the wall behind him. His mouth opened as if he
wanted to say something, but all that came out was
a low moan. Coleridge waited till the force of the
blood flow began to lessen, then went over to stand
directly behind him, a spot where so far the spreading
pool of blood on the carpet hadn't reached. Instructed Bishop
to raise his bleeding arm. He did so, and Coleridge
took it and brought the wound to his mouth. He
drank the pulsing flow, still strong enough that had rapidly
filled his mouth between swallows. Then, when he felt it
beginning to weaken, he let the arm fall to Ronnie's side.
He saw the pool of blood on the floor was
now almost at his shoes, and hopped back clear of it.
As he had expected, his saliva had caused the cut
on Bishop's wrist to begin to heal. He told Bishop
to use his other hand to pull the wrist back weakly.
He complied, and the wound opened afresh. Satisfied that the
man was now beyond saving, Coleridge set about making his exit.
He went to the sofa where he'd put the laptop
and camera. That was when the intercom buzzed. He froze listening.
He looked at Bishop. He was dead. He hurried to
the window, lifted the edge of the curtain a fraction,
and peeked outside. The front door was below and to
the left of the window, but he could see the
very back of a man and a woman. They were
talking to a third person closer to the door and
out of sight. Coleridge turned his ear to the window
and listened. Even with his heightened sense of hearing, he
couldn't take out exactly what they were saying, but he
caught the terms of a dress between two male voices.
One of them was called, he had thought at the time, Finch,
and the other, strangely Milord. The intercom buzzed again. Still
looking down at them, Coleridge murmured, go on, he's not answering.
Fuck off. The intercom buzzed a third time. Jesus give
it up, would you. Then the man at the back
of the group, whom Coleridge had later learned was Underwood,
suddenly looked up at the window. Coleridge stepped back. Had
they seen him? He waited, listening intensely for a few moments.
There was nothing. Then came the sound of a distant crack,
like that of wood splitting. It had to be the
door to the building. They must have forced it. He
chanced another peek around the curtain and saw they had gone.
There was no sign of them on the path between
the building and the street that sealed it. They were
in and on their way up. He had to get out,
and there was only one possible way. He put Ronny's
camera and phone in his pocket, opened the window, and
climbed up onto the sill. Could he do this? He
knew he had the ability to make such a jump,
but never before had he attempted anything close to it.
He clutched the laptop to his chest, focused his attention
on a spot on the lawn, and jumped. The air
rushed around him, increasingly loud in his ears, till his
feet slammed down on to the soft, mossy turf. He
had expected to collapse into a heap, but to his surprise,
he landed as sure footedly as if he jumped off
nothing higher than a table. There was no pain. Nothing
sprained or broken, so without looking back, he ran to
the path and out onto the street, not stopping to
check behind him till he was some twenty meters from
the building and screened by the foliage of the trees
that lined the pavement's edge. He listened. The night was
silent but for a passing car on a neighboring street.
He hunkered down so his line of sight fell beneath
the overhanging foliage, and he could see Ronnie's window. A
frame of inner light glowed thinly around the edges of
the heavy curtains. He waited, and after a short time
a sliver of brightness opened in a vertical slash as
the curtains were parted at the center. He couldn't see
who was looking out, but he was content to know
that if they were still inside, he had escaped undetected.
He turned and walked quickly back to his car, parked
a further thirty meters down and on the opposite side
of the street. Once inside, he put the laptop on
the passenger seat. He waited, watching the building. After perhaps
a minute, and with one eye still on the front door,
he fished Ronnie's camera from his pocket and access the
pictures taken. He recognized the street outside Hobun Station. The
picture was taken from the opposite side of the street,
probably from outside the pub. For a moment, he couldn't
make out who the subject of the shot was. His
back was to the camera as he ran into the
station entrance. He zoomed in and recognized him as Whitmore.
He tracked right across the picture to another man running
a short distance behind him. His face was unclear, blurred
by movement, but he wore a Polo Neck sweater. He
clicked back to the next picture, and in a shot
taken moments before, saw another man, his face also unclear,
closing on the station door. This man wore what looked
like a gray suit jacket. In this picture, Whitmore was
further down the street, clearly giving chase, but Polo Neck
wasn't in shot. He clicked back to a third picture.
In this one, another new character was running for the
station door. Again, his face was a blur, and not
far behind him was gray jacket. Other pictures followed, some
clearer than others, but with the various subjects further down
the street, no matter the forensic people would be able
to get plenty from these. Then he'd heard a sound
from the direction of Bishop's building. He looked up to
see the three visitors leaving by the front door. He
slid down low in his seat. They were the woman
and man he'd seen from Bishop's window, and a third man.
He reasoned this must be Finch. Interestingly, he wore a
suit jacket in the darkness. Even with his nocturnal vision,
Coleridge couldn't see what color it was, but it looked gray.
Could this Finch be gray jacket from the photos he'd
just been looking at. He had the same physical build
and hair length. It could just be a coincidence, but
Coleridge hadn't thought so. He watched as the man in
the black suit went over to the lawn and bent
to check something as if he'd seen coin glinting in
the moonlight. Finch came over. They spoke for a few moments,
then went to join the woman at their car and
got in. Coleridge sat up when the engine fired. He
waited for them to pull out and get half way
down the road before he turned on his own engine,
and when they drove out of sight around a bend
in the road, he turned on his headlights and went
in pursuit. He followed them to Surrey Street. There he
watched as they called at the last house at the
top of the street before the old Aldwitch tube station.
When no one came to the door, they went down
to the basement flat. They didn't return, so Coleridge phoned
for Lane. Before he could tell him what had happened,
the Master was asking him about how things had gone
with Redmond and Miguel. Coleridge had forgotten all about them,
Distracted as he was by everything that had been happening.
He apologized, but quickly moved on to explain what had
happened at Bishop's Flat, and how one of the men
in the photographs he'd retrieved bore a resemblance to one
of the trio that had interrupted him there. He even
had a name, Finch. Finch, queried Verlaine. Yes, could that
have been Flinch? Yes, very possibly, then it must be David.
Vlaine sounded more like he were a musing aloud than
replying to Coleridge. David Lydia's brother. Their family name is Flinch.
They were the guardians of a vampire, the friend I
mentioned earlier, the late Lord Daniel Underwood. Coleridge looked again
at the house where he had seen Finch and his
friends disappear. I'm sorry, Master, did you say lord? Yeah,
not that he was an actual lord. He just assumed
the title himself to win friends and influence people. Why
because the other man at Bishop's Finch, i mean Flinch,
was calling him Mi Lord. For a moment, the line
was silent. Then Velaine said, what there were two men
at Bishop's flat, Flinch and another guy, and Flinch was
addressing him as Mi lord, as in my Lord Jesus
fucking Christ. Verlaine whispered, then urgently, what did he look like?
Describe him? Well, he's about five eleven six foot, short,
dark hair. Some women might say he was good looking,
but I wouldn't know. He's wearing a black suit. Looks
like a funeral director Underwood, Master, it has to be
Jesus Coleridge. This is fantastic. Lydia said he was dead,
that he died on a rooftop at sunrise. He was
taking her with him to incinerate her along with himself.
Speaker 3: Then he laughed.
Speaker 1: And to think I actually believed her, not that she
was lying to me. He's way too smart for that,
but she believes it, and I guess, oh who cares?
None of that matters anymore. So where are they now?
Please don't tell me you let him get away? No, Master,
I followed them after they left bishops Do an address
in the strand, a house next to the old old
Witch underground station. I'm there now, and they're there now, Yes, sir,
in a basement flat hah, the Lane laughed. Of course
they're in the basement. Where else would they go? All right, Charles,
I want you to bring him in under no circumstances.
Must any harm come to any of them. Restrain him
if necessary, and it probably will be necessary, because I
can't imagine him coming quietly unless I was there to
greet him. Of course, damn. I should have come over
as soon as lady has showed up, not have her
flown out here. But fuck it. We'll just have to
manage as best we can. Okay, you're gonna need to
call in backup once it arrives. Go in, just knock, okay,
no breaking down doors. We don't want to scare the horses.
Just call on a place like the Avon lady and
I don't know, have me on the phone and just
hand me over to him when he opens the door.
No better yet, use the computer tablet I gave you
that way he could see me. He'll come then, probably, yes,
But master about the backup. As I've said before, we're
very low on people at Falconbridge, and even more so
now that we've lost Valentine and the others. I don't
know how many I can muster. I've got a couple
of men outside Redmonds that I can call in, but
apart from that, there's no one on call. Okay, don't
sweat it. I'll send a retrieval team, the full works,
including a chopper. So what was the name of the
station again? Oldwitch on Surrey Street? How do you spell that?
Coleridge spelled out the name and explained the station was
now disused, though still connected to the main tube network. Okay,
so I'll send two teams. Want to meet you outside
and another to hit the station from the subway tunnels.
It could be this place they've just entered as one
of Underwood's old homes, in which case he could well
have access to the station from inside. Is there an
access point the Selbury retrieval team can use? What's the
previous station. God, let me think, Coleridge delved into his memory.
It had been a long time since he'd been to Oldowitch,
but it quickly came back to him. The next station
along was Hoburn, another now disused platform. They were both
on a branching line from off the main Piccadilly line,
so that'd be their best bet. I'll have one of
my people called Transport for London to allow access. Good
do it. As soon as you get off this call,
I will, and then I'll call Mackay and see how
things have gone with Redmond. Perfect. Let me know about
that right after you hear Okay, and again, Charles, whatever
you guys do, don't harm Underwood or flinch. Your backup
teams will have the same orders. Got it. At that point,
the driver's voice cut into his reverie. We're here, sir.
Coleridge opened his eyes. They were idling in the road
outside his house, a three bedroom semi detached in Harrow
on the Hill. Even though it was now daylight, he
noticed the whole light was on. Katia must have left
it that way for him. She would have been expecting
him home much sooner than this. He thanked the driver
and got out going over all, this again had reminded
him of the woman that had been with Underwood and
Flinch at Bishop's Place. She had gone into the house
on Surrey Street, but he hadn't seen her come out.
He made a mental note to check with Cellium security
to see if the retrieval team had brought her out
after he had left. If they had, he wanted to
speak to her. And if they hadn't, he sighed and
shook his head it could wait. As he fished his
keys from his pocket, he recognized a tune that had
started in his head. It was Belinda Carlyle's leave a
light on for me. He hummed along badly as he
went inside and closed the front door. He was exhausted,
but the thought of Katia, sleepy and warm in her
little room had at least one part of him wide awake.
He pushed all thoughts of the woman that had been
with Underwood and Flinch and the guy who had been
at the front of the hoburn Chase Daimo from his mind.
If Flinch knew who Deimo was, the Master would get
it out of in one way or another, and hopefully
allowing for the possibility of pop concerts and parties with
Lord Bloody Underwood. He'd relay it back to him once
he did. In the meantime, he'd assemble a new team
to deal with all these stragglers when he got down
to Falconbridge later that day. But right now he was
ready for bed. He smiled as he hung his coat
on the banister and loosened his tie, then, mumbling sheelessly
along with his fragmentary recall of Belinda Carlyle's chorus, he
went upstairs, adding to his song, greeting Gadie Darling, Daddy's
home and so listeners.
Speaker 2: The ocu's investigation into the second London vampire continues. Who
is the mysterious Demoh, they don't know yet, But one
thing they do know is whoever he is, he's a.
Speaker 3: Pharaoh, and like all pharaohs, he is still of the night.
Speaker 1: And so there we are, my friends, Underwood and Flinch,
Season seven, episode two, and I hope you enjoyed it.
Now I have a bit of news for you. Do
you remember when I did those ads for the Underwood
and Flinch merch store. Yes, well, anyway, they're all redundant
now because my merch store is no more reason being
I changed the setting in some of the items, and
one of them, my most popular sales item, the design
with the original artwork of the Rolls Royce Heart could
not be republished. Why because some company somewhere claimed the
copyright violation. What I thought, how can that be? This
is an original painting. I was completely stumped until I
read down into the small print of the copyright infringement
claim and realized it was the Rolls Royce itself that
was the offending article. You know, you have the front radiator,
the silver Lady. It was all completely front and center
of the design. So copyright violation apparently, I mean, for
God's sake, But you know, there you go. You cannot
fight city Hall in this sort of thing. So I
didn't bother. And since nothing else was selling, I mean,
that wasn't selling particularly well either. I mean it was frankly,
there was a period of time when merch cell but
it just dried up. So yeah, I was making no
money in the merch revenue, not just because nobody was
buying it, but because my prices frankly weren't high enough.
See when you buy stuff, my stuff, anyone stuff from
a merch store or a print on demand bookstore. The
company has their base price, you know, the costs of
their fabric, paper, printing, shipping, and so on. And on
top of that, the platform takes its service fee for
hosting the store and processing your payments. My profit margin
comes from the price that I had on top of
their base costs. But their base costs are not cheap.
And with merchant books, I tried to keep my margin
super low, like razor thin, because I don't want to
be seen to be ripping people off, you know, I
don't want you thinking, oh, wow, Mike's such a greedy
so and so. So I try and keep it as
low as I can. I'm talking like about a dollar
on a T shirt, you know, and a few bucks
on a book. What made the problem worse was the
platform's based costs were constantly creeping up, you know, the
way costs always do. And this gradually whittled away at
my already non existent profit margin until I got to
the stage where I had to sell a number of
items just to make any profit at all. So, you know,
when the Rolls Royce design was blocked, it caused me
to take a good, long, hard look at all of
this and you asked myself, do I want to raise
the price on you just so I can make a
couple of pennies here and there, or do I want
to just can it? And it was an easy choice.
I canned it, and so that's it. No more merched.
Or if you've already got some Hunderwood and Flinch merch,
then congratulations, my friend, you have a collector's item, which
is nice. So yeah. In other news, I've just finished
the second version of my television pilot for Underwooden Flinch
and I've submitted it to the producer and he got
back to me last night and he said he really
likes it, so we're looking good for that. I think
it's better and so does he actually than the first one.
The original had too much in it, you know, because
I wanted to make it so exciting and so compelling
that people would feel they really had to watch the
next episode, and I did that by trying to ram
too much in like the whole of the Resurrection. So
it went from Meet David Flinch in England to end
of Resurrection, which is mad because that's like about fourteen
episodes right there of the podcast, all crammed into one
hour long pilot, and it was whilst there was a
lot going on in there, there was very little room
for characterization. So you had these people run on around
doing lots of things and saying lots of things, but
you didn't really know who they were. And that's the
thing that bothered me, and so that's why I rewrote it,
and the new version addresses that and it's much better
for it. So now it only goes up to the
point where David lands in Spain. We meet David, we
learn more about him, We meet and learn more about Lydia,
we meet and learn more about Keith and Michelle, we
meet and learn a little bit about John, and also
the business with the Russians and the drug dealer Mark Coleman.
I've expanded on that. I've changed Night Crossing that's in
there too, And what's good about it is what's good
about like you know, writing a pilot. Now, after eight
seasons of Underwood and Flinch, you know here in the Patreon,
I know so much more about the universe than I
did originally when I first wrote the first book, indeed,
the first chapters of the first book, and so now
I'm able to incorporate things into this pilot, like the
existence of the Malleus, you know, vampire hunters and stuff
like that. You know, more like Daventry and West, the lawyers.
You know, they are mentioned and their actions are visible
in the story. So yeah, it's it's it's better. It's better,
and I really like it, and so DOA's the producer.
So we're going to talk soon later this week, actually tomorrow,
And yeah, I can't imagine much happening with it, at
least in America, because you know, the time it takes
to sort of schedule a meeting or a pitch will
take us right into Thanksgiving, and Thanksgiving is when everything
basically shuts in Hollywood and kind of stays shut until January.
So I don't imagine we'll be doing a lot with
it this year, at least not in America. Possibly in
the UK, where we don't have Thanksgiving and so the
industry stays open until Christmas. At least I think it does.
I mean, I'm not sort of privy to the goings
on of the TV industry in the UK, but that's
my guess, because you know, I mean, like every single
workplace I've ever been in does not observe the calendar
of American public holidays. But you know, maybe the TV
industry is different. I do not know. I do not know.
I doubt it though, all right, so shut up, Mike,
time to go. Thank you for listening to the podcast.
I do hope you enjoyed it, and if you did,
then please tell somebody about it. I know it's hard
to convince people to listen to podcasts in this day
and age, because they either don't listen to them or
they're too busy listening to whatever it is that they
listen to. But you know, if you can get someone
to listen to it, that would be fantastic because it's
kind of the only way I get sort of promoted
or seen these days. So yeah, that would be much appreciated.
All right, So from me for now, then, ladies and gentlemen,
until the moon rises again over Underwood and Flinch, take
care and farewell.