Dire Traits: Euphemia Sage Chronicles, #5

By Rosy Fenwicke

In the idyllic village of Coldsham, nestled within the enchanting English Cotswolds, a veil of tranquility cloaks a web of simmering tensions.

Abigail and Natalie, Euphemia's covetous distant cousins, plan to greedily exploit The Foundation without any inclination to reciprocate. Meanwhile, the proprietor of the village pub finds himself and his daughter the unwilling victims of a mysterious drug runner. The enigmatic disappearance of Scottie further adds to the disquiet, leaving Euphemia yearning for her former life at Sage Consulting, alongside Kenneth, Petal, and her cherished existence in New Zealand.

Someone is determined to kill Euphemia who only survives numerous attempts on her life due to the incompetence of the killer. Will Coldsham's tranquil facade crumble, or will Euphemia manage to thwart the sinister plot against her?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Rosy Fenwicke
• Release date: Dec 8, 2023
• ISBN: 9781991194251

Rosy Fenwicke

Rosy Fenwicke is an author and doctor who lives in Martinborough New Zealand. 'IN PRACTICE, The lives of NZ Women Doctors in the 21st Century' was published by Random House in 2004. 'Hot Flush: Book One in the Euphemia Sage Chronicles' was published in 2017 and 'Death Actually' was published in 2018. 'Super Secret: Book Two in the Euphemia Sage Chronicles' will be published in ealry 2019. Rosy has three adult children and two dogs. She enjoys gardening, walking and reading. 

Book preview

PROLOGUE

Marvin sauntered into the stables and parked his ample behind in the middle of the walkway. Hooking one leg around the back of his neck, he lowered his head and started to lick his bottom. Slowly and carefully, his tongue tugged at the ginger fur as he extracted the maximum pleasure from his daily cleaning ritual.

Being deaf and blind in one eye meant he didn’t notice the bullet, which flew so close it parted the fur on his back. If the next bullet was any lower, he’d be onto his ninth life.

‘Marvin,’ hissed Jane from behind the shelter of a partition. ‘Here, puss, puss, puss.’

‘Forget the cat,’ said Euphemia. ‘We have to get out of here. Can you make a noise or create a distraction.’

‘With what?’

‘I don’t know. Find something.’

Jane looked around, spotted a hoof pick hanging on a nail and reached up to get it. A bullet missed her fingers by an inch, sending splintered wood and the pick spinning into the next stall. ‘Ouch,’ she said. If she was expecting sympathy it didn’t arrive. ‘Don’t worry about me. I’ll be fine.’

‘I’m not worried about you. I’m worried about us. Hurry.’

Another bullet hitting the wall above their heads sent Jane scrabbling around in the hay for a bucket. ‘Ready?’ she asked.

‘Ready,’ said Euphemia.

With an almighty heave Jane hurled the bucket high in the air. It arced over the top of the stall and landed with a clatter beside the cat. Marvin sprang to his feet and, with a flash of ginger fur and a yowling screech, he was gone.

Euphemia seizing the opportunity of the distraction provided by his exit leaped onto the partition. From a low squat, she jumped the width of the next stall to the next partition and then the one after that, zigzagging her way to the back of the stables, ducking and weaving like Keanu Reeves in The Matrix, as bullets zinged past her.

As she leaned against the back wall, she couldn’t decide if the shooter was a useless shot or, was it that she made a difficult target?

They must have asked themselves the same question because they switched the weapon from single shot to automatic fire, and let rip. Walls, doors, windows, overhead fittings shattered into a million tiny fragments, stone chips flashed off cobbles, eardrums were assaulted by a cacophony of noise as the shooter emptied an entire clip into the building.

‘Now what?’ yelled Jane during the pause in firing.

‘You tell me,’ Euphemia yelled back.

Another round of automatic fire ripped through the wall beside Jane’s head. ‘We’re going to die,’ she wailed.

‘No we’re not. Stay down. I’ve got an idea.’

‘I am down. Want to hear my idea? Use your powers.’

Footsteps moved towards Jane’s hiding place. Her hands clasped over her head, she lay face down in the straw and froze. The footsteps stopped. A click of metal on metal, the rustle of clothing, and the tearing of Velcro, then fumbling and more clicking. A fresh clip locked into place. A memory of baby Justine running towards her father, with her little chubby arms open, played randomly in Jane’s mind, followed by her mother telling her she had married a wonderful man. She wanted to tell her mother she was wrong, Justin wasn’t wonderful. He was a two-timing snake who tried to kill her for her jewels, the same jewels she had on now. More footsteps jolted her back to the present and the pile of horse dung an inch from her nose.

The shooter moved tentatively towards Euphemia at the back of the stables.

More gunfire, this time shorter than before but still, the noise was horrendous.

Jane waited. And waited. What was happening? Why wasn’t Euphemia doing something? Why hadn’t she charged down the shooter, ripped the weapon from their hands and tied them up? Had her powers deserted them in this hour of need? Had she been shot? Was she lying in a pool of blood as life ebbed from her body? That meant she was next. As the only witness to Euphemia’s murder apart from Marvin, and he didn’t count, the shooter was obligated to come back to finish her off. And, if Euphemia was not going to save her - she would have to save herself.

Sliding through the hay towards the door, she poked her head around the corner. The shooter stayed focused on the back of the stables as Jane eased herself up and onto her knees. Crouching behind the shattered partition, she got to her feet, straightening one inch at a time until she could get a better look at who was trying to kill them.

It struck her, that the shooter’s woollen balaclava must be very itchy. Was it Perry? Could be. They were tall enough. With the kit draped over their body, it was hard to tell if it was a man or woman. There were so many options nowadays. She’d learned them all during her HR training at Sage Consulting, and knew it was better not to commit until pronouns had been exchanged.

Without a pronoun she could only guess which, of all the people who hated Euphemia so much, they were prepared to kill her. Whoever, it was odd to be in a life and death situation in the middle of the Cotswolds, twelve thousand miles from home. Euphemia had been so boring at school. Back then they only spoke when Jane needed help with her homework. Notwithstanding, she kept their conversations to a bare minimum in case one of her real friends saw them talking and blanked her.

How ironic that it was, Euphemia who had then proved herself to be a loyal and good friend, when Jane had not always been nice in return. Justin hadn’t liked her. He said women like Euphemia were too bright for their own good. That was it. It was her husband who stopped her being a better friend to Euphemia. When she thought back, there were so many things which had been his fault.

Maybe the killer was one of the drug dealers? Or had one of the cousins have turned nasty? Jane knew family fights could get awfully vicious. It couldn’t be Scottie. Or could it? He had disappeared and no one knew why. Or had Alison’s father tracked them down? Worse, had Grant? He was super-dangerous but Jane was sure she would recognise him because he was huge as well as scary. And he didn’t have a neck, or not enough of one to separate his head from his body. Could she be the target? Was Peregrine so angry he wanted to shoot her dead in a crime of passion? Was it Kevin? Or Dan? Or … ?

Another round of gunfire hitting the wall ahead ended her speculation. What mattered was that him/her/they/them had dressed to kill; the bulky bullet-proof vest worn over combat fatigues and the rifle, the most obvious giveaways. The desert boots and clips of ammunition tucked into every available pocket, also fairly obvious. The weapon carried in the crook of an arm looked professional; like the one gangsters use to wipe out rival gangsters in movies.

The shooter stopped mid-footstep and looked up, cocking their head to one side, listening.

Jane looked up. Water gushed and rumbled in the pipes over their heads. It’s now or never, she thought, and took a deep breath. With her hands high in the air, Jane stepped into the middle of the walkway.

‘I invoke the Geneva Convention. I surrender. To you. You are required, by international law, to take me prisoner.’ She articulated each word carefully, so there was no mistaking her intention.

The shooter spun around, tripped, regained their feet, a finger slipped, and more bullets soared into the roof space, pinging off pipes and tearing holes in the roof. Pencil-like shafts of sunlight descended through the perforations.

‘I am surrendering to you according to the rules of warfare as per the 1864 Geneva Convention. You can’t kill me if I surrender, and that’s what I am doing.’

A snarl erupted from behind the balaclava. Green eyes narrowed. The shooter shuddered from head to toe, as if shaking off an annoying insect.

‘The Geneva Convention states you are obliged to take me prisoner.’

‘Enough. Go. Away.’

‘I am your prisoner. I surrender. Officially.’

The shooter sighed and shook their head, half-heartedly waving the weapon in Jane’s general direction. ‘Go on, shoo, go away. Surrender to someone else. I’m busy.’

From the back of the stables, Euphemia yelled, ‘Take cover.’

The shooter swung around, pointed the weapon in the direction of Euphemia’s voice, and pulled the trigger. Nothing happened. No blast of gunfire just louder rumbling in the pipes overhead.

The shooter turned the weapon upside down and gave it a good shake. If the problem had been a loose screw, this tactic could have worked. But it didn’t work and the manoeuvre meant they didn’t see Euphemia step out from behind the horse tank. It meant they didn’t see her aiming the fire-hose.

Water hit them in the chest with enough force to send them cartwheeling head over heels back through the main stable door. As Euphemia walked the length of the stables, she kept her eyes fixed on her target, the hose trained on the shooter pinning them, now disarmed, against the arena fence.

When she reached their bedraggled soaked body splayed helpless on the ground, she turned off the hose.

‘Shall I do the honours?’ asked Jane.

‘Be my guest.’

Jane bent over and dragged the waterlogged balaclava off the shooter’s head.

‘You!’ said Jane.

‘You?’ said Euphemia.

CHAPTER 1

‘Don’t worry, it’ll turn up,’ Jane said. ‘They’re better at tracking lost suitcases now. Ten years ago, if your bag went missing, that was it. Gone. You’d never see it again. Justin lost so much luggage, when he went away, the insurance company gave him a personal tracking device. Do you know? He never lost another bag. He said the criminals had a way of knowing there was a tag inside and stopped targeting him.’

‘Here it is,’ said Euphemia hoisting her bag off the carousel.

Jane poked her head around the side of the luggage piled high on her trolley. ‘You brought one bag? That’s all you’ve got?’

‘It’s a big bag.’

‘My make-up case is bigger than that.’

‘I’ve got everything I need. Come on, Scottie is waiting.’

Euphemia walked through the doors into Terminal 2 of Heathrow Airport and scanned the faces in the crowd. Scottie Levosky had been Barbara’s PA and knew more about the RS Foundation than anyone on the planet. She would be lost without his guidance. He had come to England three months earlier to oversee the establishment of the Foundation at The Manor, ready for her arrival.

It had been a colossal effort to move the Foundation's archive and research facilities from Mauritius to Coldsham in the Cotswolds. She received an email before her flight saying the transition had been completed, but there were still matters she would need to attend to. Placements needed signoffs, and new staff needed final approval. It had taken Scottie all this time to get to this stage. No doubt he would be exhausted. The last thing he needed was to be kept waiting after getting up at this ungodly hour to collect them from the airport.

‘Your Scottie better be here,’ said Jane. ‘My feet are so swollen; I can feel the seams on my shoes popping. I won’t be able to walk far. If he’s parked a long way away, could we hire one of those golf carts that ferry people around terminals?’

‘And look like old ladies? Definitely not.’

‘Puleese. I’m sooooo tired. Where is heeeee?’

‘Yoo roo, Mrs. S. Over here.’ A young man waved from behind a throng of schoolboys. Cricket fans, they held up hastily made signs welcoming their team home from India.

"Next time!"said one sign in shaky blue lettering.

"Nearly!" said another.

"Fourth out of Four Ain’t Bad," said another.

Roars and cheers erupted when the boys spotted the first team members walking through the doors. Merged into a single creature, they charged towards Jane and her trolley, spinning them around like flotsam on the surface of a whirlpool. Unsuccessfully, she tried to beat them off with her handbag. ‘Bloody yobs, get out of the way.’ She thumped one who yelped and dropped his sign. Her wheels quickly trampled the "Beaten but not Forgotten" slogan.

‘Help,’ she yelled, now on her third spin.

Euphemia handed her bag to Scottie, elbowed her way through the mob, and grabbed the handle of the trolley midway through its fourth rotation. Two pimply youths sitting atop Jane’s suitcases nearly fell off when it jerked to a sudden stop. Unable to meet her glare, they climbed down and slunk off to join their mates. Several boys ditched drink cans in rubbish bins, others straightened their shirts and pulled up their trousers. All were quiet. A few muttered apologies and they shuffled off to help their friends.

‘How do you do that?’ asked Jane.

‘I wish I knew,’ said Euphemia. ‘Look, there’s Scottie. Jane, meet Scottie, Scottie meet Jane.

Each looked at the other, surprised.

‘You didn’t tell me you were bringing someone,’ said Scottie.

‘You’re not how I pictured you,’ said Jane.

‘I only found out Jane was coming when she sat beside me on the plane,’ said Euphemia. ‘It’s not a problem, is it? There’s plenty of room at The Manor and Jane can be helpful when she sets her mind to it.’

‘I am always helpful. I am also exhausted. My feet are swollen. My legs are swollen. Every part of me aches, my eyeballs are scratchy, and I need to lie down. This is the worst case of jetlag ever. Can we go now?’

Scottie smiled. ‘Of course. Let me.’ He took the trolley and pushed. It didn’t move. ‘It’s heavier than it looks,’ he said and tried again.

‘Let me,’ said Euphemia. She slung her bag on top of the pile and followed Jane and him out of the airport.

‘I’m curious. How did you picture me?’ Scottie asked.

‘Glasses, geek, pens in the pocket. And old. Definitely old. That’s how Euphemia made you sound.’

‘I did not.’

‘You said he was the tech guy who kept the Foundation together. That he’d worked for Barbara for years and you didn’t know what you would do without him because he knew so much. You didn’t once say he’s a punk.’

‘I’m not a punk.’

‘The kilt, the Barbie pink sporran, the mohawk, the piercings? You’re a punk. I should know. Justin was a punk when we first met.’

‘He wasn’t,’ said Euphemia.

‘It started as a dare, but he enjoyed the attention so much he kept it up. Until he met Mummy. She gave him an ultimatum: ditch the clothes, or find another place to live after we got married.’

‘He’s obviously a man with taste. We should meet,’ said Scottie, stopping in front of a machine to pay for parking. ‘This way.’ He collected the ticket and lead them past rows of parked cars.

‘He’s dead.’

‘I’m so sorry,’ said Scottie.

‘I’m not,’ said Jane. ‘I’m sorry he died the way he did. No one deserves that. But he tried to kill me and steal my jewels, Mummy’s jewels.’

‘Oh,’ said Scottie. ‘You’re that Jane.’

‘What does that mean? Forget it, I don’t care. How much further is it? You’ll have to carry me. My feet are too puffy to take another step.’

‘This is us,’ said Scottie, stopping and taking a key out of his sporran. The lights of a dark green Land Rover Defender, its windows tinted black, winked red beside them. He opened a rear door. ‘You hop in. Mrs. S and I will take care of the bags.’

CHAPTER 2

‘Does she always snore like that?’ asked Scottie as he maneuvered the Defender onto the motorway. It was six o'clock in the morning and most of the traffic was heading in the opposite direction towards London. In the back seat, already fast asleep, Jane’s head lolled against the window, her mouth open, a thin stream of dribble running down her chin.

‘Only when she’s asleep,’ said Euphemia. The car was warm despite the early hour, and she leaned forward and turned up the air conditioning.

‘I didn’t hear you. What did you say?’ asked Scottie.

Euphemia waited for a gap in the snoring. ‘She doesn’t think she has a problem.’

‘Well she does,’ said Scottie. ‘I’ll put her in the gatehouse at the end of the drive. It’s away from the lab and the main house, so she can’t disturb anyone. Or see things she shouldn’t.’

‘You don’t need to worry. Jane knows about my powers but in a vague Jane way. She’s not interested in the details unless they affect her and her life.’

‘Siri,’ said Scottie. ‘Text Amanda to prepare the gatehouse for one.’ He turned to Euphemia. ‘Amanda is the butler/housekeeper. She came with the house. I’ve done a deep screen, and she checks out. Her father was the butler before her and so on, going back centuries. Born and brought up in the village, her loyalty is to The Manor and whoever lives there. Discretion is part of her DNA, but of course, we’ve taken the usual precautions.’

‘What does she know?’

‘Only that three, now four, private women will arrive over the next forty-eight hours to discuss recent world events and their implications for the future.’

‘It makes us sound like a mini-Davos.’

‘That was my intention. If she feels slightly intimidated, she’ll keep away and ensure the staff keep their distance too.’

‘What have you told her about the lab? It’s in a separate building but only a short distance from the Manor. Or that’s what I understood from the plans.’

‘It’s in the old farm administration building, so separate from The Manor but close enough. They gutted it during the renovations that turned The Manor into a hotel five years ago and that meant we had a clean slate to work with.’

Scottie indicated, then eased the SUV into the left lane of the M25 and the exit to take them onto the M40. ‘The farm itself is leased to a neighbor on condition they leave a five-mile buffer between The Manor and any farming operations. Apart from haymaking, which keeps the grass under control, and they’ll be finishing that in a few days. Another local maintains the fences and water troughs but that’s it apart from the local hunt, which won’t bother us because the season doesn’t start until October.’

‘Isn’t fox hunting banned?’

‘Fox hunting with dogs is technically banned, but there are ways around it.’

‘Don’t tell me. Not now anyway.’ Out the window she saw brown fields fenced by hedgerows and in the distance, church spires poked above the treetops. Mud-ringed ponds at the bottom of hills were empty or shallow puddles, the hot summer taking its toll on the English countryside.

In the back, Jane shifted in her seat, her head tipping forwards onto her chest. The snoring stopped, but only until she coughed, cleared her throat, wiped her nose with the back of her hand, and then it started again.

‘What are people saying about the lab?’

‘I can’t hide the scientists. They live in the village, two have their families with them and their kids go to the village school. They’re part of village life, so we call it the lab and leave it at that.’

‘If people ask what we’re researching?’

‘The answer is membrane physiology. It’s specific so that puts people off going deeper, but it’s not as scary as genetics. Most people don’t know enough to ask the right questions and once they realize that they lose interest. I’ve also spun it to explain the banks of computers and cooling systems we’ve installed. Rather than experimenting on animals, we use computer simulations. VAPS is very pleased with us.’

‘VAPS?’

‘Village Animal Protection Society. Everyone in Coldsham is a member.’

‘Everyone? How many people live in the village?’

‘It varies. During the week, two hundred and fifty in the village and surrounding farms, but then you add in the weekenders who tootle down from London every Friday, and it bumps up to three hundred and fifty.’

‘Scottie Lekovsky, you’ve been here two months and you’re already a Brit. Tootle?’

He blushed as he fingered one of his ear piercings. ‘Yeah, well, it’s a cool word.’

‘How long will our tootle take then?’

He laughed. ‘Our tootle will take another two hours and it won’t offend me if you want to nap.’

‘As if,’ she jerked her head towards the back seat. ‘I’ll sleep tonight after I’ve met everyone and had a look around.’

‘Aren’t you exhausted? I was, and it takes longer to fly from Wellington than Sydney.’

‘Ahh but I have superpowers! I reset my pituitary to produce my normal amount of melatonin for the time of day. I’m fine.’

‘The first Mrs. S never got the hang of it. She either produced too much or too little. That’s why she avoided long-haul flights.’

‘Did she ever go to the Mauritius Lab?’

‘Once, eleven years ago. I wasn’t working for her then.’

‘I thought you were.’

‘I was her first employee. She hired me when I answered an ad she put up on the university noticeboard seven years ago looking for someone to digitize an archive. We got on and the rest is history.’

‘When did you discover the family secret?’

Scottie fingered the same ear piercing while he considered his answer. ‘Working on the archives, I found drawings of a woman being drowned.’

‘Were they set out like a comic strip?’ she asked.

He nodded. ‘Except really, really, old.’

These must have been the same as the drawings on the reel Euphemia found in the chest in her attic. They had depicted Rachel, her ancestor, stripped naked and trussed up like a chicken, being hurled into a pond by villagers seemingly on the instructions of a preacher. Everyone thought she had drowned and was leaving when a man on horseback galloped into the village. Distraught, he dragged her from the water, and miraculously she was still alive. Heavily pregnant, she later gave birth to twin daughters, the