The Sacred Sword
‘Sixty-nine,’ Ben said. ‘Actually, it’s playing up a bit. Think a valve needs seeing to.’
‘Good grief, it’s the same age as I am. Even more ancient than the old Lotus.’
‘You still have that!’ Ben had fond memories of the many times the two of them had gone speeding round the Oxfordshire country pubs in Simeon’s 1972 Lotus Elan, in their quest to sample every real ale known to mankind. Back in those days, even at Oxford, it had seemed extremely exotic for a student to own a car, especially a bright red 2+2 sports that had been the envy of even the wealthier young gentlemen and given Simeon quite a dashing reputation among the girls.
‘I’d never sell her,’ Simeon said. ‘It’s till death us do part, I’m afraid.’
Michaela appeared in the open doorway, gripping onto the collar of a shaggy black-and-white mongrel that was scrabbling to get out and greet the visitor. Ben looked at the mutt and could see how he’d got his name.
‘Any chance you boys could tear yourselves away from your old bangers?’ Michaela said. ‘You’re letting the cold in.’
‘She drives a Mazda,’ Simeon whispered to Ben with a conspiratorial wink.
‘Is that all the luggage you have, Ben?’ Michaela said. ‘You certainly travel light.’
The inside of the vicarage was comfortable and warm, with the lived-in, ever-so-slightly frayed patina of a period house that had seen very little modernising. A log fire was crackling in the hearth, and a colourfully decorated Christmas tree stood in one corner opposite a baby grand piano covered in framed photos. Ben stopped to look at one that showed a tousle-haired and somewhat wild-looking young man of about twenty, posing on a beach somewhere hot and palmy. He was wearing a wetsuit and grinning from ear to ear as if completely in his element, clutching a surfboard under his arm.
‘This must be Jude?’ Ben said.
‘That’s our boy,’ Simeon replied. ‘The good looks come from his mother’s side.’
‘He seems to like the water.’
‘You can say that again. He’s studying marine biology at Portsmouth University. You can’t keep him out of the sea. In fact, he’s just spent two weeks cage diving with great white sharks in New Zealand. Completely mad, but he won’t be stopped once he’s set on something.’ Simeon sighed. ‘At least he still has all his arms and legs, as far as I know. That’s the main thing. Let me get you a drink, Ben. Single malt, no ice?’
‘You remembered,’ Ben said.
As Simeon busied himself fetching glasses and a bottle from a cabinet at the far end of the room, Michaela emerged from the kitchen carrying a tray of mince pies. Setting the tray down on a table, she smiled at Ben and shot a sideways glance at her husband. ‘I’m so pleased you’re here,’ she whispered. ‘It’ll cheer him up no end. He’s been very down and upset the last few days.’
Simeon was too busy pottering about pouring drinks and putting on a CD of Gregorian chants to hear what she was saying. Lowering her voice further, Michaela added, ‘We recently had the most awful news about one of his colleagues … well, more of a close acquaintance, in the south of France.’
Ben winced sympathetically. ‘Illness?’
‘Suicide.’ Michaela only mouthed the unmentionable word, drawing a straight finger like a knife across her throat for emphasis.
Now Ben understood why Simeon looked so uncharacteristically gaunt. Before he could muster a reply, the vicar was returning from the drinks cabinet holding two generously filled whisky glasses. He pressed one into Ben’s hand and clinked his own against it.
‘Here’s to old friends,’ said Simeon Arundel. ‘Welcome to our home, Ben.’
Chapter Five
The snow was spiralling down out of the night sky and lying thickly on the private road that led to Wesley Holland’s sprawling country residence, the Whitworth Mansion, two miles from the shores of Lake Ontario. Anyone who followed the sixty-seven-year-old billionaire philanthropist’s exploits in the media might have been surprised to see him driving alone in a seven-year-old Chrysler, but the fact was that despite his almost uncountable wealth, Wesley Holland was a man of relatively modest tastes. Even in his youth, when he’d inherited his gigantic fortune from his father, he’d had relatively little truck with the conventional trappings of wealth; just as he had little to do with the modern world, of which he disapproved more with each passing year.
Yet every man has his weaknesses, and Wesley Holland’s weakness for over five decades, despite his pacifist tendencies and abhorrence of cruelty, had been his all-consuming passion for antique instruments of war, weaponry and armour. If it hadn’t been for the vast, unique collection his riches had allowed him to accumulate, he’d have had no need whatsoever for such an enormous house. He sometimes thought he’d be perfectly content living in a one-bedroom apartment. It was just him, after all, apart from the live-in staff and Moses, his old tortoiseshell cat.
Wesley parked the car in front of the mansion and stepped out to be greeted by two of his staff. His longtime personal assistant, Coleman Nash, sheltered him from the falling snow with an umbrella while the other, Hubert Clemm, who had served as Wesley’s butler for over twenty-five years, began unloading the luggage from the back of the Chrysler. Moses had had the good sense to stay indoors.
‘Careful with that one, Hubert,’ Wesley said, watching closely as Clemm unloaded the custom-made black fibreglass case from the car. Theoretically, it was indestructible, but he worried nonetheless. Anyone would, considering what was inside. The oblong box, just under four feet long and secured with steel locks, looked for all the world like the kind of case a serious classical guitarist would use to protect a cherished instrument in transit.
Except that Wesley Holland had never picked up a guitar in his life.
‘Did you have a good trip, Mr Holland?’ Coleman asked, leading his employer towards the house.
‘Thank you, Coleman. Actually, it could have gone better.’ Wesley was still feeling quite downcast from this latest encounter with yet another bunch of so-called experts unable to get their cynical, closed little minds around the incredible truth that was right there in front of them. This time it had been the history eggheads at the University of Buffalo. Wesley sometimes feared he was beginning to run out of options – though nothing could completely extinguish the excitement of knowing what he’d found. It was the genuine article and he shouldn’t give a damn what the academics thought. They’d wake up one day. He really believed that.
‘How have things been here?’ he asked Coleman. The billionaire trusted his assistant completely. Coleman watched over the mansion and grounds like a pit bull and even kept a monstrous .700 Nitro Express double-barrelled rifle in his room, ‘just in case’. Wesley had often chided him about ‘that damned elephant gun’.
‘Uneventful,’ Coleman told him as they walked into the hallway. Suits of medieval armour flanked the stairs. Originals, not reproductions – the same went for the displays of ancient weaponry that glittered against the panelling. ‘I’ve left the mail on your desk as usual,’ Coleman went on. ‘The curator of the Wallace Collection in London called three times while you were away.’
‘Was it about the Cromwell pieces?’
‘He didn’t say. I told him you’d contact him when you got back.’
‘I’ll do that. Oh, Hubert, you can take all the bags upstairs except the black case. Leave that one in the salon. I’ll put it away myself.’
‘Yes, Mr Holland.’
‘By the way,’ Coleman said, ‘Abigail prepared your favourite veal escalopes for dinner tonight.’
‘With cream?’ Wesley felt his mouth water. He’d been through innumerable cooks before he’d found Abigail. The woman was a gem. Nothing would cheer him up like a fine meal. He needed it. Quite aside from the disappointment in Buffalo, the revelations about Fabrice Lalique were still hanging over him like a pall. Wesley had been as shocked as anyone to learn of the priest’s paedophilia.
He left the black case with its precious cargo on the rug in the salon where Hubert had laid it carefully down, and trotted upstairs to his study, nimble and light on his feet for a man of his vintage. The study walls were lined with rich green velvet and displayed just a fractional part of his gleaming collection of ancient weaponry. He pointed a remote control at the sound system and the room filled with his favourite Soler sonata for harpsichord. The desk on which Coleman had neatly piled the mail had once belonged to General Robert E. Lee. There was no trace of a computer in the study, or, for that matter, anywhere in the house. The telephone was the only concession Wesley Holland allowed to be made to modern telecommunications technology under his roof, despite Coleman’s constant bitching about the disadvantages of having no internet connection or email access. As far as Wesley was concerned, if you wanted to write to someone, it ought to be the proper way: by hand, on paper, mailed in an envelope. He sealed his own handwritten letters with red wax. Okay, so he was a dinosaur. The dinosaurs had ruled the earth far longer than mankind ever would.
He spent a few minutes browsing through his mail – nothing especially interesting or pressing there – then looked at his watch. London would still be fast asleep at this time. Brian Cameron at the Wallace Collection had almost certainly been calling about the English Civil War-period armour pieces that the museum had been begging for months to have on loan. Holland wasn’t sure he could bring himself to part with them. His collections were his passion. He might phone the Englishman back in the morning, or he might let him stew a while before he made his decision.
One thing that wouldn’t wait was veal escalopes in cream sauce.
Wesley shut the study and made his way back downstairs. His stomach rumbled in anticipation of his late dinner as he crossed the marble-floored hallway towards the kitchen. He liked to eat his meals at the simple table there, rather than have Hubert go to the trouble of preparing the vaulted dining hall. As Wesley polished off the delicious meal, feeding tiny titbits to Moses under the table, Abigail would be pottering about the kitchen making his dessert. He enjoyed her company: more than he could have said for any of his four wives, each one more grasping and mercenary than her predecessor. Wesley had been fifty-seven when he’d divorced the last of them and sworn that was an end to it.
The kitchen door seemed to be jammed by some obstruction. ‘Abi?’ No reply. Wesley pushed harder and it opened a few inches. He could smell burning from inside. ‘Abi?’ he repeated.
At Wesley’s last medical check-up, his doctor had told him he had the heart of a forty-five-year-old. But it gave a terrifying leap and almost stopped beating permanently at the sight in the kitchen. He cried out in horror.
Moses the cat was lapping nonchalantly at a thick blood trail that gleamed under the lights. It led from near the cooking range to the door, where Abigail had managed to drag herself before she died. She’d been shot twice in the chest with a large-calibre weapon. She was still clutching the spatula that she’d been using to stir the cream sauce, now simmered to a black mess on the stove, the extractor fans sucking away the smoke.
‘Coleman!’ Wesley shouted in panic. ‘Coleman!’ He darted back across the hallway and into the main salon.
Hubert Clemm’s body lay twisted in the middle of the vast Persian rug with his arms outflung and his face turned towards the door. There was a large bullet hole in his forehead, a spray of blood up the upholstery of the couch behind him.
‘Coleman!’ Wesley screamed.
He heard a sound behind him and whipped round. Before he could react, he was being propelled backwards into the salon and the muzzles of two silenced pistols were looming large in his face. He fell heavily into an armchair and stared helplessly up at the pair of gunmen standing over him. One of them was tall, well over six feet. The long brown coat he wore was made of heavy, full-grained tan leather, like horsehide. The other was wearing a quilted jacket. Both had on black ski masks that hid their faces.
Robbers. Wesley’s heart pounded horribly. He could see Hubert’s corpse out of the corner of his eye, and it was more than he could bear. ‘I keep over a million dollars in cash in a safe upstairs,’ he gasped. ‘And jewels. I’ll open it for you myself. Take what you want and go. Please, just go.’
The masked men exchanged glances. The prospect of making off with a million-plus in cash was appealing, but their orders had been strict and precise. ‘The sword,’ the big one in the leather coat said tersely. ‘Let’s have it.’ He talked with an English accent. A Londoner, maybe.
Wesley balked. His brain churned faster than it had ever churned before. ‘I don’t know what sword you mean!’ he protested. But he did know, very well. If he and his associates were right about it – and almost three years of tireless efforts had persuaded him beyond a doubt that they were – it was a treasure of incalculable value. What he couldn’t understand was how these men could possibly be aware of its very existence. Virtually nobody was, outside of the group. Who could have given away the sworn secret? Hillel Zada? Surely not him. He didn’t know enough.
The worst thing for Wesley was that the sword was so nearby. He tried desperately hard not to let his eyes flick across to the black fibreglass container, just a few yards away across the room. ‘That’s it there,’ he said, instead pointing through the open door at the giant two-handed Landsknecht weapon that dominated the display in the hallway. From tip to pommel it stood taller than a tall man, and it was almost four centuries old.
Much too big. Much too new. Totally wrong. A wild bluff, based on the fact that these thugs could hardly be expert enough to know one sword from another. ‘Take it,’ he said. ‘It’s worth a fortune.’ That part was quite true.
The gunmen gave the monster blade a cursory over-the-shoulder glance. The one in the brown leather coat shook his head. ‘Don’t fuck with us.’ The one in the quilted jacket pressed his gun muzzle hard into Wesley’s cheekbone. ‘You’d better start talking, old man.’ Another Brit. Who were these men?
‘Drop your weapons and turn around slowly,’ said a calm, steady voice from the doorway, and Wesley’s heart soared.
Coleman Nash had the massive twin bores of the elephant gun trained steadily on the robbers.
The two men froze. The pressure of the pistol muzzle against Wesley’s cheekbone slackened. Coleman had them cold.
Except for one problem. Coleman had never pointed a gun at a living being before, still less pulled the trigger. These men did it for a living. Amateurs hesitated. Professionals never did.
It all happened too fast for Wesley to follow. The report of the first pistol was a muffled ‘dooophh’, followed almost instantly by another, simultaneously with the brain-numbing explosion of the elephant gun as it blasted a moon crater out of the far wall.
Coleman’s legs wobbled and then buckled and he went down on his knees. Blood on his lips.
Wesley yelled. Another pistol shot. Then another.
Wesley saw the bullets strike and knew there was nothing he could do to help poor Coleman. He jumped up from the armchair, grabbed the black fibreglass case and bolted like a rabbit for the side exit. The big man in the leather coat turned to stop him, but dived for cover behind the couch as the stricken Coleman let loose with the second barrel. The .700 Nitro Express blew a great ragged hole through the backrest of a hundred-thousand-dollar antique couch.
In the next moment, Coleman was cut down by a volley of bullets. He died before the rifle had dropped from his hands.
By then, Wesley had made it out of the exit and was sprinting in a grief-stricken panic down the passage, carrying his precious case. He heard the door burst open behind him and the footsteps pounding as the gunmen gave chase. The terror pressed him on faster. He hammered up a flight of steps, down another passage, and reached the door.
The panic room had been built several years earlier, in case of just such a contingency. Wesley had let Coleman take care of the arrangements, then signed the cheque and promptly forgotten all about it. Which made it all the more miraculous that the password for the voice-recognition vault door should come back to him now.
‘Barbarossa!’
The six forged steel deadlocks opened with a clunk. Wesley rushed inside and the armoured door shut behind him, locking itself automatically.
Safe. More importantly, the sword was too. Wesley leaned against the wall and breathed hard, able to hear the muffled voices of his pursuers cursing on the other side. For the first time in his life, he thanked God for modern technology. If he’d had to fumble for a key, they’d have got him. Would they have killed him outright, or tortured him until they’d found the sword in its case?
Wesley staggered numbly over to the control console and peered at the bank of monitors showing digital hi-definition images of every part of the house. He could see the two bodies on the main living room floor: Coleman’s near the entrance, Hubert’s on the rug. Abigail’s in the kitchen. The blood looked garishly bright.
Wesley tasted bile in his mouth at the sight and turned away, following the gunmen’s progress from screen to screen as they dashed furiously from one room to the next. They must have known that the clock was ticking now, but clearly believed they still had a chance of locating their quarry somewhere within the Whitworth Mansion.
They wouldn’t hang around too long, if they had any sense. Wesley picked up the phone and dialled 911. He spoke urgently but clearly to the police operator, and was assured that officers were on their way. Then, swallowing back his grief, he moved on to the even more important call he had to make.
*
Halfway across the world, Simeon Arundel picked up on the second ring that dragged him up out of a deep sleep.
‘Simeon?’ said the familiar voice.
‘Wesley, it’s three o’clock in the morning here,’ Simeon muttered, rubbing his face. It had been a late night, and his head was a little fuzzy from all the whisky they’d drunk. Their visitor’s capacity for alcohol seemed to be undiminished with the years. Michaela was fast asleep, the curve under the blanket rising and falling gently in the bed next to him.
‘Listen to me,’ the American’s voice hissed in his ear. ‘Something’s happened.’
Struggling to clear his head and afraid of waking Michaela, Simeon sat up and swung his legs out of the bed. ‘Hold on, Wesley.’ In the darkness of the bedroom he padded over to the ensuite bathroom, closed himself quietly inside and turned on the light. ‘All right. What’s happened?’
‘They’re after the sword.’
‘What? Who?’
‘The armed men who broke into my house tonight. Or whoever paid them to come here to steal it.’
Simeon sat down heavily on the edge of the bath, his mind swimming with horror. ‘Oh, Lord. Are you all right?’
‘I’m safe. The cops are on their way as we speak.’ Wesley’s voice quavered with emotion. ‘They shot Coleman, Simeon.’ A sorrowful pause. ‘He’s dead.’
‘Dead!?’
‘So are Hubert and Abigail.’
Simeon’s heart began to beat even faster. He could feel it thudding violently at the base of his throat. He suddenly felt as if he might need to lurch the two steps across to the toilet and throw up.
Then the suspicions Fabrice had expressed to him just before his death had been true. Someone really was taking an unhealthy interest in the research they’d all tried so hard to keep secret. Someone really was after them.
Someone who was prepared to murder to get what they wanted.
Simeon swallowed back the urge to gag. ‘Is it safe?’
‘It’s right here next to me,’ Wesley said, patting the case.
‘Didn’t I tell you, Wesley? Didn’t I tell you something strange was happening – that I was sure I’d been followed – about the man I saw in the church a couple of weeks ago?’ Simeon visualised the scene clearly in his mind as he spoke. The stranger had materialised as if out of the blue while he’d been helping put up the Christmas decorations at one of his churches in a rural part of Oxfordshire. When Simeon had gone to welcome him, the man had slipped away as suddenly as he’d appeared. ‘And didn’t I tell you that Fabrice would never have killed himself like that? Or done those appalling things?’
They’d been through this over and over, ever since receiving the news of their colleague’s death and his shocking circular email. ‘I don’t know whether Fabrice did those things or not,’ Wesley said impatiently. ‘Or why he’d have confessed to them if he hadn’t. And I don’t know if he threw himself off that damn bridge or not. Neither do you. All we can be sure of is that you and I are both in danger and it has to do with this sword. That’s the reality we’re facing right now.’
‘Who are these people? How do they know about us?’
‘Did you talk to anybody? Anybody at all? They even seem to know what it looks like.’
‘Nobody,’ Simeon blurted. ‘I swear.’
‘You’re absolutely positive about that?’
‘Wesley, I would never …’
‘Good. Keep it that way. Listen, I can’t stay on this line. The cops will be here any minute. When I’ve dealt with them I’m going to call my lawyer and arrange some private security for you and your family over there, okay?’
‘There’s no need for that. I’ll be making my own arrangements.’
‘Can you get armed bodyguards in England?’
‘I don’t think so, not unless you’re the Prime Minister or something. But I have an old friend with a lot of experience of that kind of thing.’
‘He’d better know his business,’ Wesley said. ‘This is serious.’
‘What about you?’
‘Me? I’m going to Martha’s. Got to get the sword somewhere safe. It’s more important than any of us. You said that yourself, remember?’
Simeon nodded. He was still reeling. ‘Yes. Yes, it is.’
‘I’ll call you from the road. You watch your back, hear me?’
Chapter Six
Sometime before sunrise, Ben flipped himself out of the comfortable bed in the Arundels’ guest annexe, stretched and warmed his muscles and dropped down to the floor to knock out fifty press-ups without a break. He followed those up with fifty sit-ups, and was about to go straight into another set of press-ups when he heard the unmistakable throaty engine note of the Lotus from outside. He rubbed condensation off the window pane and peered out to see Simeon’s taillights exiting the vicarage gates. It seemed the vicar was off to an early start this morning.
The thoughts that had been swirling around Ben’s mind before he’d finally drifted off to sleep the night before were still lingering. The life that Simeon and Michaela had created for themselves here in this serene heart of rural England had made a strong impression on him, and he couldn’t stop thinking about how a life like that might have been possible for him, once, too. There’d been a time, many years ago, when he couldn’t have imagined his future any other way.
As he’d done so often in the past, Ben tried to imagine himself in the role of a clergyman. The ivy-clad vicarage, the dog collar, the whole works. Ben Hope, pastor and shepherd of the weak, beacon of virtue and temperance.
The fantasy had always been there, but it was a self-image he’d never found it easy to believe in with all his heart. If he was a Christian himself, he was an extremely lapsed one – and it had been that way for much too long. Compared to the blazing supernova of Simeon’s faith, Ben’s was a guttering candle. He seldom prayed with anything approaching conviction, even more seldom picked up a Bible. The old leather-bound King James Version he’d hung onto for years had ended up being tossed out of the window of a moving car on a road in rural Montana; it had been a long time before Ben had come round to regretting his rash action.