Colony: Lake I, by DarkBeta
(I modestly admit i have no rights to Modesty, whether comic, book or movie. Nevertheless i'm taking her and her friends out to play . . . a long, long way from home. For those unfamiliar with her; Modesty and Willie retired from one side of the law and began (as a sort of hobby) helping out the other. They save people, a lot. And Willie has precognitive ears. This first chapter is a boring list of names and relations. If you can slog thru it, i think the next one will be better. [kowtows abjectly])
[Sussex, England, Fall of 1978]
The dinner at Benildon was a retirement party, of sorts. The obscure department to which Sir Gerald Tarrant gave so many decades had not yet notified him of the redundancy of his services, but he and Fraser had seen too many changes of government to ignore the handwriting on the wall.
Tarrant had outlived his supporters. A new generation of politicians saw the rules he'd evaded, and not the miracles he'd brought off.
The department would plan some commemoration, of course. Lunch with the minister, and a token of appreciation. (Probably a watch, and certainly sterling silver.) On his last day there would be congratulations and perhaps even tears from the staff, and Tarrant would accept their good wishes with his usual courtliness.
Here, he laughed with Janet Gillam over a comic moment from a generally horrific period. The awkward Dr. Pennyfeather stumbled against the coffee table and upset everyone's cocktails. Under the guise of bringing in new drinks, Willie Garvin dragged Fraser into the cottage's small kitchen.
"Modesty and I been talking. We can get 'old of leverage for Tarrant."
"Don't trouble yourselves," Fraser said wearily. "He told me to keep out of it. He said, when the agents he sent out to get themselves killed began to look like school children, it was time for another hand at the reins."
Willie let a breath out.
"Reckon 'e knows best, but it seems a waste."
"It's a bloody balls-up," Fraser agreed. "They'll never find anyone to take his place. Never."
He carried a tray of drinks back into the sitting room. Lady Janet Gillam's gentle brogue recounted her misadventure with a new manure spreader. Setting down the other tray, Willie shook his head at Modesty. The darkly elegant woman shrugged slightly.
From old habit Fraser faded toward the edge of the gathering to watch the spread of information. Tarrant was distracted, but Maude Tiller saw the interchange and scowled. Brooks watched dourly, and Danny Chavasse raised an eyebrow. Over by the wall 'Orace looked sidelong at Willie without interrupting the argument over Indian cricket that Bluey had goaded him into.
As one of Tarrant's operatives, Maude knew the situation. She'd been almost as eager as Fraser to keep Tarrant in control. Chavasse wasn't as well known a quantity. He'd been Modesty's employee, but left the Network some while before she disbanded it. Yet she felt concern enough to go after him years later, once she and Willie discovered he was being held in a peculiar captivity.
Lynn Brooks took a drink from Willie's tray and gulped it, ignoring her father's frown. Behind Chief Inspector Brooks Sergeant Sutton stared at the ceiling, having decided some while before to see nothing at all.
"About time!" Stephen Collier announced, reaching for a couple of the glasses. "We are all of us parched, withered, panting for refreshment, while you and that lout Garvin loiter in the pantry, tippling on the good brandy. You should leave such vital affairs to the estimable Weng. Where has your faithful factotum bestowed himself, Modesty?"
"The glass is in front of you, dear, six inches from the edge of the table." he added.
His wife Dinah reached for her drink unerringly.
"Thank you, Willie," Modesty said, accepting a glass. "I meant for Weng to join us. However he informs me that the caterer was overconfident when she said everything was prepared. I believe he's reorganizing the table settings."
Collier groaned.
"You know what that means, don't you? Fish forks and caviar spoons, a paraphenalia more than adequate for the good doctor here to commit thoracic surgery."
"Hush up, love. I have it on good authority that nice people don't discuss surgery right before dinner," Dinah told him.
"Nice people? Nice people? Nice people? Our current company isn't likely to let a little grue interfere with their enjoyment of a bloody rare steak or pasta marinara. Tell them what you were telling me, Giles, about the appendix case on the cargo ship in a hurricane."
Giles Pennyfeather had been staring at one of the white-washed walls. With a start he pulled himself back from his contemplation.
"Oh, that? It isn't very interesting. I'd spent a couple hours bending over every teaspoon on board to use as clamps, so it didn't matter that I kept dropping them. Aside from the nuisance of fishing them out of the incision. The only problem was the chief steward passing out on top of the steak knives I used for scalpels. Gave himself a sucking chest wound, and I had to resterilize the lot."
"Enough! I take it back. Too close an acquaintance with life that's real and earnest is definitely not conducive to the appetite required for tonight's groaning board. Halt at once. In fact, reverse. What was the topic of conversation previous to this one?"
Pennyfeather grinned, unoffended. Janet snorted.
"Manure, as I recall."
"A topic altogether more suitable for the present mixed company."
"You're looking prim, Fraser," Tarrant said, sotto voce. "What do you find amusing?"
"Merely indexing the, er, past and present interpersonal relations."
"I see what you mean. Modesty has slept with four of the men, and Dinah and Maude with two of them. Willie's bedded three of the women, and Danny two . . . . It does begin to sound rather Bloomsbury."
"Not, er, quite the same, sir," Fraser pointed out.
"Not unless there were serious gaps in our files," Tarrant chuckled.
"Actually, I think Weng is insulted," Modesty admitted, on the other side of the room. "I don't entertain enough to show off his organizational talents. He hoped for a longer guest list."
She wore a long Chinese style tunic over slim leggings. Curled on the chaise-longe, she looked entirely decorative. Stephen gestured with the hand holding his glass.
"I can see how providing for a dozen guests on short notice might be too paltry a challenge for a self-respecting seneschal."
Lynn flirted with Willie, who wandered out of range. Lady Janet distracted Lynn's father with a comment about rural crime. Maude brought George Sutton a second drink and he began to relax. Fraser couldn't resist one last try.
"Sir, are you sure you won't reconsider?"
"Diminishing returns, Jack. Trying to hang on means more and more time given to defending my position, and less and less to the work that needs doing. The game's not worth the candle."
Tarrant put a hand on Fraser's shoulder though, wordless acknowledgement of the other man's support. The gesture was out of character. He dropped his hand quickly. Both men looked up at the sound of breaking glass.
"That sodding doctor," Fraser muttered.
In fact the shards on the oak plank floor were the remains of Dinah's glass. The hand from which it had fallen stayed in mid-air, still cupped to hold its curve.
"Cold," she said. "Burning cold."
Stephen was behind her chair in a moment, his hands on her shoulders.
"You got a flash of something?"
"Alone, and . . . and empty. Something watching us. Planning. But cold, not . . . not really interested. It tastes like lightning."
"Princess," Willie said sharply.
He was rubbing his ear. Modesty reached into the drawer of a sidetable as she spoke.
"Ears?"
"Prickling something fierce."
"Mr. Fraser, if you don't mind?"
Fraser caught the pistol she tossed to him and checked its load. Modesty held a second, lighter weapon.
"The hall has the best shielding, and the most avenues of escape. I'm not leaving you out, Maude. There's another cache in the wardrobe," She raised her voice. "Weng? Trouble."
Dr. Pennyfeather put down his drink and stepped around the table to Lady Janet. He winced a little as the sharp corner scraped his shin.
"Let me give you a hand, ducks."
He helped Janet to her feet. Tarrant followed Modesty into the hall.
"Any guesses as to the target?"
"Not at my end. Could be Brooks, or you."
"I daresay I'm a poorer subject now for a kidnapping or assassination, than I have been for decades. The timing would be abysmally bad. And anyone who lacks information of my approaching retirement should not be aware of my dinner plans."
Willie shrugged into a webbed vest and touched the black bone handle of one of its knives.
"Could be revenge."
"An hasty hatred, that can't wait the few months until I'm officially unprotected. Possible, of course. If I've brought trouble to you, my dear, I am most sorry."
He reached to take off a hat he wasn't wearing, and ended up brushing his hair back instead. Modesty gave him a wry smile.
"It's just as likely the other way around, isn't it? We'll worry about that later."
Willie passed out guns from a hidden arsenal. The Chief Inspector accepted one matter-of-factly.
"A good weapon. Should I mention permits?"
"Ask me no questions . . . ." Willie sing-songed.
". . . and you won't hear any lies, Brookie," Modesty said. "You and the sergeant go back with Willie. Bluey, you and 'Orace keep an eye on the noncombatants."
"Stinks out there. Really strange," 'Orace said uneasily.
Modesty's nod acknowledged the information, as she finished their assignments.
"Jack and Maude and I will take the front."
Fraser already stood against the wall in the lea of the heavy wardrobe, watching the front door with a hunter's attention. Gently Tarrant ushered Lynn, Danny, Giles, Janet and the Colliers back to where a bend in the passage gave them a modicum of shelter. Weng met them there, with a sleek gun in one hand and a pan of savory tarts in the other, wearing an incongruous dark green apron over his white jacket.
"On Chef Weng's cooking show this evening, equipping your kitchen with all the necessary modern appliances," Stephen muttered. "Don't worry, Dinah. Not much gets past Modesty and Willie, and they have forewarning, and plenty of back-up."
"I know, honey. I know."
But Dinah still shivered.
Light flared blindingly. Where there had been a door, there wasn't. Collier saw Modesty -- Modesty! -- float still and helpless, heard Willie howl as if at an amputation, watched Fraser and Maude and Weng and all the rest caught into glowing coccoons.
One did not research the paranormal without encountering the concept of UFOs. Stephen didn't try to fight or argue, only held his wife and repeated, "Don't be afraid. I'll find you. Don't be afraid."
"Damn. I was locum at surgery next week."
That was Pennyfeather. Somehow he'd kept hold of his worn black bag.
"Daddy?" Lynn cried. "I'm sorry!"
"In the name of Her Majesty's government, I protest this intrusion," Tarrant said dryly.
When Stephen was divided from Dinah, as he floated like the others in a coccoon of light, he could hear the horses screaming in their stalls. He wept for their brute terror as well as for his own.
The disappearance of Chief Inspector Brooks, with his sergeant and daughter, stayed in the headlines for several weeks. Fifteen years later a fictionalized television special purported to solve the crime by accusing an old enemy, since dead, who couldn't protest the calumny.
Lady Janet was missed by her neighbors. The vicar gave a memorial sermon. Letters to the Times mourned the fate of a crippled widow in language so emotional that Lady Janet would have much resented it.
The abduction of Sir Gerald Tarrant rated a short paragraph on the back pages. His two agents were not mentioned at all. Hatches were battened and houses cleaned, as the experts waited to discover which inimical party would reveal access to three decades of official secrets. Long after new crises displaced the old, the mystery was pondered over late-night brandies.
"He didn't break," they decided.
An opportunistic crook took credit for clearing Blaise and Garvin out of the way, with Weng and Chavasse as lagniappe. He didn't last long in the company where such fame put him.
The following summer a number of ladies of a certain age decided that cruises were no longer entertaining, since that dear Mr. Chavasse had found other employment.
Stephen Collier's publisher raised the alarm when he didn't hear from the writer for several months. After so long a delay, the authorities never did establish where and when he and his wife had dropped from sight.
Bluey's people didn't think about him much. 'Orace's tribe chanted for his death. Dr. Pennyfeather's acquaintance assumed he had jaunted off to the other side of the world again, and was saving lives in muddy huts and tumbledown sheds. Nobody presumed to mourn for him.