Scott Mariani 3 Book Bundle

Scott Mariani 3 Book Bundle Scott Mariani In The Alchemist’s Secret, ex SAS member Ben Hope is recruited to locate an ancient manuscript which could save a dying child. It turns out to be the deadliest quest of his life.Ben Hope is running for his life in The Mozart Conspiracy. Enlisted by the beautiful Leigh Llewellyn – opera star and Ben’s first love – to investigate her brother’s mysterious death, Ben finds himself caught up in a centuries-old puzzle.The Doomsday Prophecy sees Ben Hope in a risky mission searching for a missing biblical archaeologist. What is the ancient secret she uncovered? And just who is willing to do anything to protect it? SCOTT MARIANI Scott Mariani 3 Book Bundle Contents Title Page (#u51f4b4ec-7b4e-5c64-93f6-0449e0c1d4a7) The Alchemist’s Secret (#ulink_73b14b89-f4b1-5b71-bd38-127845b4f785) The Mozart Conspiracy (#litres_trial_promo) The Doomsday Prophecy (#litres_trial_promo) About the Author (#litres_trial_promo) Read on for an exclusive extract of the new Ben Hope thriller The Armada Legacy (#litres_trial_promo) Copyright (#litres_trial_promo) About the Publisher (#litres_trial_promo) The Alchemist’s Secret (#ufd816bce-f076-5992-aa07-a23b2fba2641) SCOTT MARIANI The Alchemist’s Secret Dedication (#ulink_337e3fd4-5c96-5cf3-9485-efe08c6b5e6a) To Marco, Miriam and Luca Epigraph (#ulink_02cc875d-5bea-560a-aba1-7251ac0d02c9) ‘Seek, my Brother, without becoming discouraged;the task is hard, I know, but to conquer withoutdanger is to triumph without glory.’ The Alchemist Fulcanelli Contents Title Page (#u41d0a781-ac20-5ec0-a12f-9a41bed5afd6) Dedication (#ulink_b9f3b92f-50ec-5a26-b1be-f1da0c533136) Epigraph (#ulink_f49b3193-ff36-5d63-be2b-29bb28a48bf2) Chapter 1 (#ulink_73ba41ae-73ce-5b26-b1f1-f855b2a7d334) Chapter 2 (#ulink_d5367f22-3756-5eba-bf0a-614c3e1bdab6) Chapter 3 (#ulink_75d7d082-d873-547a-9b59-44abf8c34161) Chapter 4 (#ulink_e1bc8e5a-dc8f-5bbc-a8df-9f18e855cd85) Chapter 5 (#ulink_80c23e40-1459-51de-8afb-08406a25d0c1) Chapter 6 (#ulink_8972f924-a8b1-5291-92e5-bb3e60464e10) Chapter 7 (#ulink_490b40f5-dccc-5a83-8050-347c573feff9) Chapter 8 (#ulink_842d550b-8d3c-5526-882b-00b87a16b275) Chapter 9 (#ulink_5af25790-7b44-574f-904a-f566bf9406a0) Chapter 10 (#ulink_132113d4-e2ae-5d7d-9216-46b9e21b5f26) Chapter 11 (#ulink_5c03dfd0-3f03-50f8-8f1c-5053abc143ea) Chapter 12 (#ulink_84ac5835-666c-542e-8c57-681515c804f4) Chapter 13 (#ulink_8f615acf-ab09-5673-994b-9954bbf31276) Chapter 14 (#ulink_acc52e1b-6b31-5177-ab8e-67fbae17294f) Chapter 15 (#ulink_e6377c66-4ca3-5786-bebb-122adced6cd3) Chapter 16 (#ulink_17e14f56-67e8-52da-969c-c581caa5421c) Chapter 17 (#ulink_4e3ee49a-7bda-5f8b-a1a9-f300d433b521) Chapter 18 (#ulink_209bebe0-77cd-5dc4-b379-0733150627dc) Chapter 19 (#ulink_792ea438-8d29-5b62-83c9-173cd69f1389) Chapter 20 (#ulink_3a4e11b6-ea57-5785-a97b-880fdf73fb65) Chapter 21 (#ulink_5f002dbb-9e55-52a5-8cc3-5c0d9ced53df) Chapter 22 (#ulink_903df169-2816-5203-bf4d-d40220dfd646) Chapter 23 (#ulink_83d0ecf0-c482-577d-91fd-aec7588ed34c) Chapter 24 (#ulink_2dbc43da-459f-5f78-a9a5-4580a35ea2d2) Chapter 25 (#ulink_e70c4997-5746-507f-9844-b53a9fee9010) Chapter 26 (#ulink_81577a79-1076-5944-887e-5457dbb0e31d) Chapter 27 (#ulink_5bde06c5-ab66-52d6-b388-c4164eb8fcd2) Chapter 28 (#ulink_ec7d0630-1117-5526-a8b5-d3c2be6542bb) Chapter 29 (#ulink_bb552558-b1ce-5ef0-9306-43a3fac3abed) Chapter 30 (#ulink_478154a8-8c9e-5160-91be-ba986e4babee) Chapter 31 (#ulink_1a81e83b-7732-5d83-8047-84c085788b96) Chapter 32 (#ulink_28a1fdc1-14da-57ab-be66-9f93c5f2a28f) Chapter 33 (#ulink_101af598-359f-5862-8a42-307527788d84) Chapter 34 (#ulink_1d531d36-ec79-5b7d-ab1c-3e63c5071a69) Chapter 35 (#ulink_4a2acb55-42c2-574c-bf8d-7515f4803104) Chapter 36 (#ulink_4c337ec4-792e-59b7-a61e-c3c55222c18a) Chapter 37 (#ulink_9b69005d-9fbf-58b9-85c0-de16ad02fa0c) Chapter 38 (#ulink_26a9d58f-eaf6-5bcf-98de-1e05a0bd4e94) Chapter 39 (#ulink_224e8823-4907-583f-a53b-1b9b450a86c4) Chapter 40 (#ulink_0901705c-f761-55c5-af65-08e32de70d0f) Chapter 41 (#ulink_d1ff4c5a-49d2-5ea0-a0d4-755de069938f) Chapter 42 (#ulink_89abd2c3-f805-5e87-a1a4-d91322e46fb6) Chapter 43 (#ulink_8186da59-dc5f-59d4-b59e-f32d7351dd10) Chapter 44 (#ulink_20ce8272-e0a2-55b7-abd8-b765c077f3f1) Chapter 45 (#ulink_aa9ea99b-a171-59af-984c-2351507a05d3) Chapter 46 (#ulink_d6c9a1a0-f548-5260-b270-163c6e31afbd) Chapter 47 (#ulink_7492c103-b49f-55f7-8c67-e306f82805e6) Chapter 48 (#ulink_65be5b03-6752-5cbd-ad33-d64f23e50c3e) Chapter 49 (#litres_trial_promo) Chapter 50 (#litres_trial_promo) Chapter 51 (#litres_trial_promo) Chapter 52 (#litres_trial_promo) Chapter 53 (#litres_trial_promo) Chapter 54 (#litres_trial_promo) Chapter 55 (#litres_trial_promo) Chapter 56 (#litres_trial_promo) Chapter 57 (#litres_trial_promo) Chapter 58 (#litres_trial_promo) Chapter 59 (#litres_trial_promo) Chapter 60 (#litres_trial_promo) Chapter 61 (#litres_trial_promo) Chapter 62 (#litres_trial_promo) Chapter 63 (#litres_trial_promo) Chapter 64 (#litres_trial_promo) Chapter 65 (#litres_trial_promo) Chapter 66 (#litres_trial_promo) Acknowledgements (#litres_trial_promo) Author’s Note (#litres_trial_promo) 1 (#ua7bb5faa-e4df-5b0b-b7c4-d61e9f24228d) France, October 2001 Father Pascal Cambriel pulled his hat down tight and his coat collar up around his neck to protect against the lashing rain. The storm had ripped open the door to his hen-house and the birds were running amok in a panic. The sixty-four-year-old priest herded them back in with his stick, counting them as they went. What a night! A flash of lightning illuminated the yard about him and the whole of the ancient stone village. Behind the wall of his cottage garden lay the tenth-century church of Saint-Jean with its simple cemetery, the crumbling headstones and ivy. The roofs of the houses and the rugged landscape beyond were brightly lit by the lightning flash that split the sky, then plunged back into darkness as the crash of the thunder followed a second later. Streaming with rainwater, Father Pascal pushed home the bolt of the hen-house door, locking the squawking birds safely in. Another bright flash, and something else caught the priest’s eye as he turned to dash back to the cottage. He stopped dead with a gasp. Visible for just an instant, a tall, thin, ragged figure stood watching him from across the low wall. Then it was gone. Father Pascal rubbed his eyes with his wet hands. Had he imagined it? The lightning flashed again, and in the instant of flickering white light he saw the strange man running away across the edge of the village and into the woods. The priest’s natural instinct after all these years as pastor to his community was to try immediately to help any soul in need. ‘Wait!’ he shouted over the wind. He ran out of his gate, limping slightly on his bad leg, and up the narrow lane between the houses, towards where the man had disappeared into the shadows of the trees. Father Pascal soon found the stranger collapsed face down among the brambles and leaves at the edge of the woods. He was shaking violently and clutching at his skinny sides. In the wet darkness the priest could see that the man’s clothes were hanging in tatters. ‘Lord,’ he groaned in sympathy, instinctively taking off his coat to wrap around the stranger. ‘My friend, are you all right? What’s the matter? Please, let me help you.’ The stranger was talking to himself in a low voice, a garbled mutter mixed with sobbing, his shoulders heaving. Father Pascal laid the coat across the man’s back, feeling his own shirt instantly soaked with the pouring rain. ‘We must go inside,’ he said in a soft voice. ‘I have a fire, food and a bed. I will call Doctor Bachelard. Are you able to walk?’ He tried gently to turn the man over, to take his hands and help him up. And recoiled at what he saw in the next lightning flash. The man’s tattered shirt soaked in blood. The long, deep gashes that had been cut into his emaciated body. Cuts on cuts. Wounds that had healed and been slashed open again. Pascal stared, hardly believing what he was seeing. These weren’t random slashes, but patterns, shapes, symbols, crusted in blood. ‘Who did this to you, my son?’ The priest studied the stranger’s face. It was wizened, gaunt almost to the point of ghoulishness. How far had he wandered in this state? In a cracked voice the man muttered something: ‘Omnis qui bibit hanc aquam…’ Father Pascal realized with amazement that the man was speaking to him in Latin. ‘Water?’ he asked. ‘You want some water?’ The man went on mumbling, staring at him with wild eyes, clawing at his sleeve. ‘…si fidem addit, salvus erit.’ Pascal frowned. Something about faith, salvation? He’s talking nonsense, he thought. The poor soul was deranged. Then the lightning flashed again, almost directly overhead, and as the thunder roared an instant later he saw with a start that the man’s bloody fingers were wrapped tightly around the hilt of a knife. It was a knife like no other he’d ever seen, a cruciform dagger with an ornate gold hilt set with glittering jewels. The long, slim blade was dripping with blood. It was then that the priest understood what the stranger had done to himself. He’d carved these wounds into his own flesh. ‘What have you done?’ Father Pascal’s mind swam with horror. The stranger watched him, rising to his knees, his bloody mud-streaked face suddenly lit up by another flash of lightning. His eyes were empty, lost, as though his mind was in some other place. He fingered the ornate weapon. For a few moments Pascal Cambriel was quite convinced that this man was going to kill him. So here it was at last. Death. What would it bring? Some kind of continued existence, he was sure about that, even though its exact nature was unclear to him. He’d often wondered how he would face death when the time came. He’d hoped that his deep religious faith would prepare him to meet whatever end God intended for him with serenity and composure. Now, though, the prospect of that cold steel sinking into his flesh turned his legs to water. In that moment, when there was no longer any doubt in his mind that he was going to die, he thought about how he’d be remembered. Had he been a good man? Had his been a worthy life? Lord, give me strength. The madman stared in rapt fascination at the dagger in his hand, and back at the helpless priest, and he began to laugh–a low gurgling cackle that rose up to a hysterical shriek. ‘Igne natura renovatur integra!’ He screamed the words over and over again, and Pascal Cambriel watched in terror as he started feverishly slicing the blade into his own neck. 2 (#ua7bb5faa-e4df-5b0b-b7c4-d61e9f24228d) Somewhere near Cadiz, Southern Spain September 2007 Ben Hope dropped from the wall and landed silently on his feet inside the courtyard. He stood crouched for a moment in the dark. All he could hear was the rasping chirp of crickets, the call of some night bird disturbed by his approach through the woods, and the controlled beat of his heart. He peeled back the tight black sleeve of his combat jacket. 4.34 am. He did a last press-check of the 9mm Browning, making sure there was a round in the chamber and that the pistol was ready for action. He quietly clicked the safety on and holstered it. Took the black ski mask from his pocket and pulled it over his head. The semi-derelict house was in darkness. Following the plan given to him by his informant, Ben skirted the wall, half-expecting a sudden blaze of security lights that never came. He reached the rear entrance. Everything was as he’d been told. The lock on the door put up little resistance, and after a few seconds he crept inside. He followed a darkened corridor, went through a room and then another, the thin light-beam from his pistol-mounted compact LED torch picking out mouldy walls and rotten floorboards, heaps of garbage on the floor. He came to the door that was shut from the outside with a padlock and hasp. When he shone his light on the lock he saw it was an amateur job. The hasp was only screwed to the worm-eaten wood. In under a minute, working in silence, he had the lock off the door and went inside, slowly and cautiously so as not to alarm the sleeping boy. The eleven-year-old Juli?n Sanchez stirred and groaned as Ben crouched down by the side of the makeshift bunk. ‘Tranquilo, soy un amigo’, he whispered in the boy’s ear. He flashed the Browning’s light in Juli?n’s eyes. Virtually no pupil reflex–he’d been drugged. The room stank of damp and filth. A rat, which had been up on the little table at the foot of the bed eating the remains of a frugal meal in a tin dish, jumped down and scampered away across the floor. Ben gently turned the boy over on the filthy sheets. His hands were tied with a plastic cable tie that had bitten into his flesh. Juli?n groaned again as Ben carefully slipped a slim knife through the cable ties and cut his arms free. The boy’s left hand was bound with a rag, encrusted with filth and dried blood. Ben hoped that it was just the one finger that had been removed. He had seen a lot worse. The ransom demand had been for two million Euros in used notes. As a token of their sincerity the kidnappers had sent a severed finger in the mail. One foolish move, such as calling the police, had said the voice on the phone, and the next parcel would contain more bits. Maybe another finger, maybe his balls. Maybe his head. Emilio and Maria Sanchez had taken the threats the right way–seriously. Raising the two million wasn’t an issue for the wealthy Malaga couple, but they knew perfectly well that paying the ransom would in no way guarantee that their boy wasn’t coming home in a bodybag. The terms of their kidnap insurance stipulated that the negotiations must at all times go through official channels. That meant police involvement–and it would be signing Juli?n’s death warrant to bring the cops in on this. They’d needed to find a viable alternative to even the odds in favour of Juli?n’s safe return. That was where Ben Hope entered the equation, if you knew the right number to call. Ben rolled the groggy child out of the bunk and hefted his limp body over his left shoulder. A dog had started barking from somewhere behind the house. He heard stirrings, a door opening somewhere. Holding the silenced Browning out ahead of him as a torch, he carried Juli?n back through the shadowy corridors. Three men, his informant had told him. One was passed out drunk most of the time but he’d have to watch out for the other two. Ben believed the informant, as he usually believed a man with a gun to his head. A door opened ahead of him and a voice shouted in the darkness. Ben’s light settled on the figure of a man, unshaven, his body rippling with fat, dressed in shorts and a ragged T-shirt. His face was contorted with the bright beam shining in his eyes. In his hands was a sawn-off shotgun, the fat twin muzzles slung down low and pointing at Ben’s stomach. The Browning instantly coughed twice through its long sound suppressor and the thin LED beam followed the arc of the man’s body as it slumped dead to the floor. The man lay still with two neat holes in the centre of the T-shirt, blood already spreading out beneath him. Without thinking about it, Ben did what he’d been trained to do in these circumstances, stand over the body and finish the job with a precautionary head shot. The second man, alerted by the sound, came running down a flight of stairs, a bobbing torch in front of him. Ben fired at the light. There was a short scream and the man crashed headlong down the stairs before he’d had a chance to fire his revolver. The gun slid along the floor. Ben strode over to him and made sure he wasn’t getting up again. Then he paused for thirty seconds, waiting for a sound. The third man never appeared. He hadn’t woken up. He wasn’t going to. With Juli?n unconscious over his shoulder, Ben walked through the house to a sordid kitchen. His pistol-light flashed on a running cockroach, followed its scuttling path across the room and settled on an old cooker that was connected to a tall steel gas bottle. He gently rested Juli?n in a chair. Kneeling down in the darkness beside the cooker he cut the rubber pipe from the back of the appliance with his knife, and used an old beer crate to jam the end of the pipe against the side of the cold cylinder. He opened the wheel-valve on top of the cylinder a quarter-turn, flipped his lighter and the trickle of hissing gas ignited in a small yellow flame. Then he opened the valve full on. The flickering flame became a roaring jet of fierce blue fire that licked and curled aggressively up the side of the cylinder, blackening the steel. Three muted rounds from the Browning and the twisted padlock fell from the front gates. Ben was counting the seconds as he carried the boy away from the house towards the trees. They were on the edge of the woods by the time the house went up. The sudden flash and a massive unfolding orange fireball lit up the trees and Ben’s face as he turned to see the kidnappers’ hideout blown to pieces. Flaming bits of wreckage dropped all around. A thick column of blood-red incandescent smoke rose up into the starry sky. The car was hidden just the other side of the trees. ‘You’re going home,’ he told Juli?n. 3 (#ua7bb5faa-e4df-5b0b-b7c4-d61e9f24228d) The western Irish coast, four days later Ben woke up with a start. For a few moments he lay there, disorientated and confused as reality slowly pieced itself together. Next to him, on the bedside table, his phone was shrilling. He reached out his arm for the handset. Clumsy from his long sleep, his groping hand knocked over the empty glass and the whisky bottle that stood by the phone. The glass smashed across the wooden floor. The bottle hit the boards with a heavy clunk and rolled away into a heap of discarded clothes. He cursed, sitting up in the rumpled bed. His head was throbbing and his throat was dry. The taste of stale whisky was still in his mouth. He picked up the phone. ‘Hello?’ he said, or tried to say. His hoarse croak gave way to a fit of coughing. He closed his eyes, and felt that unpleasantly familiar feeling of being sucked spinning backwards down a long, dark tunnel, making his head feel light and his stomach queasy. ‘I’m sorry,’ said the voice on the other end of the line. A man’s voice, clipped English accent. ‘Have I got the right number? I’m looking for a Mr. Benjamin Hope.’ The voice had a note of disapproval that irked Ben immediately despite his fuzzy head. He coughed again, wiped his face with the back of his hand and tried to unglue his eyes. ‘Benedict,’ he muttered, then cleared his throat and spoke more clearly. ‘That’s Benedict Hope. Speaking…What time do you call this?’ he added irritably. The voice sounded even more displeased, as though its impression of Ben had just been confirmed. ‘Well, ten-thirty actually.’ Ben sank his head into his hand. He looked at his watch. Sunlight was shining through the gap in the curtains. He began to focus. ‘OK. Sorry. I had a busy night.’ ‘Evidently.’ ‘Can I help you?’ Ben said sharply. ‘Mr. Hope, my name is Alexander Villiers. I’m calling on behalf of my employer Mr. Sebastian Fairfax. I’ve been instructed to tell you that Mr. Fairfax would like to retain your services.’ A pause. ‘Apparently you’re one of the very best private detectives.’ ‘Then you’ve been misinformed. I’m not a detective. I find lost people.’ The voice went on. ‘Mr. Fairfax would like to see you. Can we arrange an appointment? Naturally, we’ll collect you and pay you for your trouble.’ Ben sat up straight against the oak headboard and reached for his Gauloises and Zippo. He trapped the pack between his knees and plucked a cigarette out. He thumbed the wheel of the lighter and lit up. ‘Sorry, I’m not available. I’ve just finished an assignment and I’m taking a break.’ ‘I understand,’ said Villiers. ‘I’m also instructed to inform you that Mr. Fairfax is willing to offer a generous fee.’ ‘It’s not the money.’ ‘Then perhaps I should tell you that this is a matter of life or death. We’ve been told you may be our only chance. Won’t you at least come and meet Mr. Fairfax? When you hear what he has to say, you may change your mind.’ Ben hesitated. ‘Thank you for agreeing,’ said Villiers after a pause. ‘Please expect to be picked up in the next few hours. Goodbye.’ ‘Hold on. Where?’ ‘We know where you are, Mr. Hope.’ Ben went for his daily run along the deserted beach, with just the water and a few circling, screeching seabirds for company. The whispering ocean was calm, and the sun was cooler now that autumn was on its way. After his mile or so up and down the smooth sand, his hangover just a faint echo, he picked a path down to the rocky cove that was his favourite part of the beach. Nobody ever came here except him. He was a man who liked solitude, even though his job was seeking to reunite people with those they’d lost. This was where he liked to come sometimes when he wasn’t away working. It was a place where he could forget everything, where the world and all its troubles could slip out of his mind for a few precious moments. Even the house was out of sight, hidden behind the steep bank of clay and boulders and tufty grass. He cared little for the six-bedroomed house–it was far too large for just him and Winnie, his elderly housekeeper–and he had only bought it because it came complete with this quarter mile stretch of private beach, his sanctuary. He sat on the same big, flat, barnacled rock as he always did, and idly flung a handful of pebbles one by one into the sea as the tide lapped and hissed at the shingle around him. With his blue eyes narrowed against the sun he watched the curving drop of a stone against the sky, and the little white splash it made as it disappeared into the roll of an incoming wave. Nice going, Hope, he thought to himself. It took that stone a thousand years to reach the shore, and now you’ve thrown it back. He lit another cigarette and gazed out to sea, the gentle salt breeze stirring his blond hair. After a while he reluctantly got up, jumped down off his rock and made his way back up towards the house. He found Winnie pottering about in the huge kitchen, making him some lunch. ‘I’m going to be leaving in a couple of hours, Win. Don’t fix me anything special.’ Winnie turned and looked at him. ‘But you only got back yesterday. Where are you off to this time?’ ‘I’ve no idea.’ ‘How long will you be away?’ ‘I don’t know that either.’ ‘Well you’d better eat something,’ she said firmly. ‘Running about all the time, never in one place long enough to draw a breath.’ She sighed and shook her head. Winnie had been a faithful and stalwart companion to the Hope family for many years. For a long time now, Ben had been the only one left. After his father had died, he’d sold the family home and moved out here to the west coast of Ireland. Winnie had followed. More than just a housekeeper, she felt like a mother to him–an anxious, often exasperated, but always patient and devoted mother. She abandoned the cooked lunch she’d started making for him and quickly prepared a pile of ham sandwiches. Ben sat at the kitchen table and munched a couple of them, far away in his thoughts. Winnie left him and carried on her other chores around the house. There wasn’t much for her to do. Ben was hardly ever there, and when he did come home she would barely notice his presence. He never talked about his work, but she knew enough about it to know that it was dangerous. That worried her. She worried about the drinking, too, and the cases of whisky that arrived a little too regularly by van. She’d never spoken of it openly to him, but she fretted that, one way or another, he was going to put himself in an early grave. Only the good Lord knew which one would get him first, whisky or a bullet. Her greatest fear was, she didn’t think it mattered to him either way. If he could just find something to care for, she thought. Someone to care for. He kept his private life a closely guarded secret, but she knew that the few times a woman had tried to get close to him, to make him love her, he’d cut her off and let her drift away. He’d never brought anyone back to the house, and many phone calls had gone unanswered. They always stopped phoning in the end. He was afraid to love anyone. It was as though he’d killed that part of himself, hollowed himself out emotionally, made himself empty inside. She could still remember him as a youngster full of bright optimism and dreams, with something to believe in, something to give him strength that didn’t come out of a bottle. That had been a long, long time ago. Before it happened. She sighed at the memory of those terrible times. Had they ever really ended? She was the only person, other than Ben himself, who understood what it was that secretly drove him. Knew the pain that was in his heart. 4 (#ua7bb5faa-e4df-5b0b-b7c4-d61e9f24228d) The private jet carried him over the Irish Sea and southwards towards the Sussex coast. It touched down at an airfield, where they were met by a sleek black Bentley Arnage limousine. Ben was ushered into the back of the car by the same anonymous men in grey suits who’d collected him from his home that afternoon and sat with him on the plane, grim-faced and taciturn. The two men climbed into a black Jaguar Sovereign that sat on the tarmac with its engine purring, waiting for the Bentley to move off. Settling into the plush cream leather interior of the Bentley, Ben ignored the on-board cocktail cabinet, took out his battered steel hip-flask and swallowed down a mouthful of whisky. As he slipped the flask back in his pocket, he noticed that the eyes of the uniformed driver had been watching him in the mirror. They drove for about forty minutes. The Jaguar followed all the way. Ben watched the road-signs and took note of the route, orientating himself. After a few miles of dual carriageway the Bentley headed cross-country, speeding at a smooth whisper through empty country roads. A village flashed past. Eventually the car turned off a quiet country lane and drew up at an archway in a high stone wall. The Jag pulled up behind. Automatic gates, black and gilt, swung open to let the cars through. The Bentley rolled down a winding private road, past a terrace of estate cottages. Ben turned to watch as some fine-looking horses galloped by in a white-fenced paddock. When he looked back at the rear window, the Jaguar had vanished. The road continued, with neat formal gardens on either side. Down an alley of stately cypress trees the house appeared before them, a Georgian mansion fronted by a sweep of stone steps and classical columns. Ben wondered what his prospective client did for a living. The house looked as though it must be worth at least seven or eight million. This would probably turn out to be another K&R job, as was the case with the vast majority of his wealthier clients. Kidnap and ransom had become one of the world’s fastest expanding businesses these days. In some countries, the K&R industry had even overtaken heroin. The Bentley passed a large ornamental fountain and drew up at the foot of the steps. Ben didn’t wait for the driver to open the door for him. A man came down the steps to greet him. ‘I’m Alexander Villiers, Mr. Fairfax’s PA. We spoke on the phone.’ Ben only nodded, and studied Villiers. He looked to be in his mid-forties or thereabouts. His hair was slick and greying at the temples. He was wearing a crisp navy blazer and a tie with what looked like a college or public school emblem. ‘So glad you came,’ Villiers said. ‘Mr. Fairfax is waiting for you upstairs.’ Ben was led through a large marble-floored entrance hall that was wide enough to accommodate a medium-sized aircraft, and up a wide curving staircase to a wood-panelled corridor lined with paintings and glass display cabinets. Villiers guided him wordlessly down the long corridor and stopped at a doorway. He knocked, and a resonant voice inside called ‘Come in’. Villiers showed Ben into a study. Sunlight streamed brightly in through a leaded bow window that was flanked by heavy velvet drapes. The smell of leather and furniture polish hung in the air. The man sitting at the broad desk stood up as Ben entered the study. He was tall and slender in a dark suit, a mane of white hair swept back from his high forehead. Ben put his age at around seventy-five, though he looked fit and upright. ‘Mr. Hope, sir,’ said Villiers, and departed, closing the heavy doors behind him. The tall man approached Ben from behind the desk, extending his hand. His grey eyes were quick and penetrating. ‘Mr. Hope, I am Sebastian Fairfax,’ he said warmly. ‘Thank you so much for having agreed to come all this way, and at such short notice.’ They shook hands. ‘Please, take a seat,’ said Fairfax. ‘May I offer you a drink?’ He approached a cabinet to his left, and took up a cut-crystal decanter. Ben reached into his jacket pocket and brought out his old flask, unscrewing the top. ‘I see you’ve brought your own,’ said Fairfax. ‘A resourceful man.’ Ben drank, aware that Fairfax was watching him keenly. He knew what the old man was thinking. ‘It doesn’t affect my work,’ he said, screwing the top back on. ‘I’m sure,’ said Fairfax. He sat down behind the desk. ‘Now, shall we get straight to business?’ ‘That would be fine.’ Fairfax leaned back in his chair, pursing his lips. ‘You’re a man who finds people.’ ‘I try,’ Ben replied. Fairfax pursed his lips and continued. ‘I have someone I want you to find. It’s an assignment for a specialist. Your background is highly impressive.’ ‘Go on.’ ‘I’m looking for a man by the name of Fulcanelli. It’s an extremely important matter and I need a professional of your talents to locate him.’ ‘Fulcanelli. Does he have a first name?’ Ben asked. ‘Fulcanelli is a pseudonym. Nobody knows his true identity.’ ‘That’s a help. So I take it that this man isn’t an especially close friend of yours, a missing family member or anything like that?’ Ben smiled coldly. ‘My clients normally know the people they want me to find.’ ‘That’s correct, he isn’t.’ ‘So, what’s the connection? What do you want him for? Has he stolen something from you? That’s a matter for the police, not me.’ ‘No, nothing like that,’ said Fairfax with a dismissive gesture. ‘I have no ill will towards Fulcanelli. On the contrary, he means a great deal to me.’ ‘OK. Can you tell me when this person was last seen, and where?’ ‘Fulcanelli was last sighted in Paris, as far as I’ve been able to trace,’ Fairfax said. ‘As to when he was last seen…’ He paused. ‘It was some time ago.’ ‘That always makes things harder. What are we talking about, more than, say, two years?’ ‘A little longer than that.’ ‘Five? Ten?’ ‘Mr. Hope, the last known sighting of Fulcanelli was in 1926.’ Ben stared at him. He did a quick calculation. ‘That was more than eighty years ago. Are we talking about some child abduction case?’ ‘He wasn’t an infant,’ stated Fairfax with a calm smile. ‘Fulcanelli was a man of some eighty years at the time of his sudden disappearance.’ Ben narrowed his eyes. ‘Is this some kind of joke? I’ve come a long way, and frankly-‘ ‘I assure you I’m perfectly serious,’ replied Fairfax. ‘I’m not a humorous man. I repeat, I would like you to find Fulcanelli for me.’ ‘I look for people who are living,’ Ben said. ‘I’m not interested in searching for departed spirits. If you want that, you need to call the parapsychology institute and they could send one of their ghostbusters out to you.’ Fairfax smiled. ‘I appreciate your scepticism. However, there is reason to believe that Fulcanelli is alive. But perhaps we need to narrow the focus here. My main interest isn’t so much the man himself, but certain knowledge of which he is, or was, in possession. Information of a crucially important nature, which I and my agents have so far failed to locate.’ ‘Information of what sort?’ Ben asked. ‘The information is contained within a document, a precious manuscript to be precise. I want you to locate and bring me back the Fulcanelli manuscript.’ Ben pursed his lips. ‘Has there been some misunderstanding here? Your man Villiers told me this was a matter of life and death.’ ‘It is,’ Fairfax replied. ‘I don’t follow you. What information are we talking about?’ Fairfax smiled sadly. ‘I’ll explain. Mr. Hope, I have a granddaughter. Her name is Ruth.’ Ben hoped his reaction to the name didn’t show. ‘Ruth is nine years old, Mr. Hope,’ Fairfax continued, ‘and I fear she will never see her tenth birthday. She suffers from a rare type of cancer. Her mother, my daughter, despairs of her recovery. So do the top private medical experts, who, despite all the funds I have at my disposal, have been unable to reverse the course of this terrible illness.’ Fairfax reached out a slender hand. On his desk facing him was a photograph in a gold frame. He turned it around to show Ben. The photograph showed a little blonde girl, all smiles and happiness, sitting astride a pony. ‘Needless to say,’ Fairfax went on, ‘this picture was taken some time ago, before the disease was detected. She doesn’t look like that any more. They’ve sent her home to die.’ ‘I’m sorry to hear that,’ Ben said. ‘But I don’t understand what this has to do with–’ ‘With the Fulcanelli manuscript? It has everything to do with it. I believe that the Fulcanelli manuscript holds vital information, ancient knowledge that could save the life of my beloved Ruth. Could bring her back to us and restore her to what she was in that picture.’ ‘Ancient knowledge? What kind of ancient knowledge?’ Fairfax gave a grim smile. ‘Mr. Hope, Fulcanelli was–and still is, as I believe–an alchemist.’ There was a heavy silence. Fairfax studied Ben’s face intently. Ben looked down at his hands for a few moments. He sighed. ‘What are you saying, that this manuscript will show you how to make some kind of…some kind of life-saving potion?’ ‘An alchemical elixir,’ Fairfax said. ‘Fulcanelli knew its secret.’ ‘Look, Mr. Fairfax. I understand how painful your situation is,’ Ben said, measuring his words. ‘I can sympathize with you. It’s easy to want to believe that some secret remedy could work miracles. But a man of your intellect…don’t you think perhaps you’re deluding yourself? I mean, alchemy?. Wouldn’t it be better to look for more expert medical advice? Perhaps some new form of treatment, some modern technology…’ Fairfax shook his head. ‘I’ve told you, everything that can be done, according to modern science, has been done. I’ve looked at every possibility. Believe me, I’ve researched this subject in extreme depth and am not taking the matter lightly…there is more in the book of science than present-day experts would have us believe.’ He paused. ‘Mr. Hope, I’m a proud man. I have been extraordinarily successful in my life and I wield a very considerable amount of influence. Yet you see me here as a sad old grandfather. I would get down on my knees to beg you to help me–to help Ruth–if I thought that could persuade you. You may think my quest is a folly, but for the love of God and the sake of that dear sweet child, won’t you indulge an old man and accept my offer? What have you got to lose? We’re the ones who stand to lose a great deal, if our Ruth doesn’t survive.’ Ben hesitated. ‘I know you have no family or children of your own, Mr. Hope,’ Fairfax went on. ‘Perhaps only a father, or a grandfather, can really understand what it means to see one’s dear offspring suffer or die. No parent should have to endure that torture.’ He looked Ben in the eye with an unwavering gaze. ‘Find the Fulcanelli manuscript, Mr. Hope. I believe you can. I’ll pay you a fee of one million pounds sterling, one quarter of that sum in advance, and the balance on safe delivery of the manuscript.’ He opened a drawer of the desk, took out a slip of paper and slid it across the polished wood surface. Ben picked it up. The cheque was for ?250,000 and made out in his name. ‘It only requires my signature,’ Fairfax said quietly. ‘And the money’s yours.’ Ben stood up, still holding the cheque. Fairfax watched him intently as he walked to the window and looked out across the sweeping estate at the gently swaying trees. He was quiet for a minute, and then he breathed out audibly through his nose and turned slowly to Fairfax. ‘This isn’t what I do. I locate missing people.’ ‘I’m asking you to save the life of a child. Does it matter how that’s accomplished?’ ‘You’re asking me to go on a wild goose chase that you believe can save her.’ He tossed the cheque back across Fairfax’s desk. ‘But I don’t see how it can. I’m sorry, Mr. Fairfax. Thanks for your offer, but I’m not interested. Now, I’d like your driver to take me back to the airfield.’ 5 (#ua7bb5faa-e4df-5b0b-b7c4-d61e9f24228d) In a large open field full of wild flowers and gently swaying lush grass, a teenage boy and a little girl were running, laughing, hand in hand. Their blond hair was golden in the sunshine. The boy let go of the little girl’s hand and dropped to his knees to pick a flower. Giggling, she ran on ahead, looking back at him with her nose crinkled in mischief and freckled cheeks rosy. The boy held out the flower to her, and suddenly she was standing far away. Beside her was a gateway, leading to a high-walled maze. ‘Ruth!’ he called to her. ‘Come back!’ The little girl cupped her hands around her mouth, shouted ‘Come and find me!’ and disappeared, grinning, through the gate. The boy ran after her, but something was wrong. The distance between him and the maze kept stretching further and further. He shouted ‘Don’t go, Ruth, don’t leave me behind!’ He ran and ran, but now the ground under his feet wasn’t grass any more but sand, deep soft sand into which he sank and stumbled. Then a tall man in flowing white robes was blocking his way. The boy’s head only reached as high as the man’s waist, and he felt small and powerless. He got around the man and made it to the entrance of the maze just in time to see Ruth flitting away into the distance. She wasn’t laughing any more, but crying out in fear as she vanished around a corner. Their eyes met a last time. Then she was gone. Now there were other tall men in white robes, with black beards. They crowded round him and towered over him, blocking his way and his sight, jabbering at him in a language he couldn’t understand, eyes round and white in mahogany faces that loomed close up to him, grinning with gaps in their teeth. And then they grabbed hold of his arms and shoulders with powerful hands and held him back and he was shouting and yelling and struggling but there were more and more of them and he was pinned and couldn’t move… He gripped the glass tightly in his hand and felt the burn of the whisky against his tongue. In the distance, beyond the heaving dark grey waves that crashed against the rocks of the bay, the arc of the horizon was slowly lightening to red with the dawn. He turned away from the window as he heard the door open behind him. ‘Morning, Win,’ he said, managing a smile. ‘What are you doing up so early?’ She looked at him with concern, her eye flickering to the glass in his hand and the empty bottle on the table behind him. ‘Thought I heard voices. Everything all right, Ben?’ ‘I couldn’t get back to sleep.’ ‘Bad dreams again?’ she asked knowingly. He nodded. Winnie sighed. Picked up the worn old photograph that he’d been looking at earlier and had left lying on the table next to the whisky bottle. ‘Wasn’t she beautiful?’ the old lady whispered, shaking her head and biting her lip. ‘I miss her so badly, Winnie. After all these years.’ ‘You think I don’t know that?’ she replied, looking up at him. ‘I miss them all.’ She laid the picture down carefully on the table. He raised the glass again, and drained it quickly. Winnie frowned. ‘Ben, this drinking–’ ‘Don’t lecture me, Win.’ ‘I’ve never said a word to you before,’ she replied firmly. ‘But you’re just getting worse. What’s wrong, Ben? Since you came back from seeing that man you’ve been acting restless, not eating. You’ve hardly slept the last three nights. I’m worried about you. Look at you–you’re pale. And I know you only opened that bottle last night.’ He smiled a little, leaned across and kissed her forehead. ‘I’m sorry if I snapped. I don’t mean to worry you, Win. I know I’m hard to live with.’ ‘What did he want from you, anyway?’ ‘Fairfax?’ Ben turned towards the window and looked back out to sea, watching as the rising sun touched the undersides of the clouds with gold. ‘He wanted me…he wanted me to save Ruth,’ he said, and wished that his glass weren’t empty. He waited until just before nine, then he picked up the phone. ‘You’re reconsidering my offer?’ Fairfax said. ‘You haven’t found anyone else?’ ‘No.’ ‘In that case, I’ll take the job.’ 6 (#ua7bb5faa-e4df-5b0b-b7c4-d61e9f24228d) Oxford Ben arrived early for his rendezvous at the Oxford Union Society. Like many old students of the university he was a life member of the venerable institution that nestles off the Cornmarket and has served for centuries as a meeting-place, debating hall and members-only club. As he’d done in his student days, he avoided the grand entrance and went in the back way, down a narrow alley next to Cornmarket’s McDonald’s restaurant. He flashed his tatty old membership card at the desk and walked through the hallowed corridors for the first time in nearly twenty years. It seemed strange to be back here. He’d never thought he would set foot in this place again, or even in this city again, with all the dark memories it held for him–memories of a life once planned, and of the life that fortune had made for him instead. Professor Rose hadn’t yet arrived as Ben entered the Union’s old library. Nothing had changed. He gazed around him at the dark wood panelling, reading tables and high galleries of leather-bound books. Up above, the frescoed ceiling with its small rose windows and priceless Arthurian legend murals dominated the magnificent room. ‘Benedict!’ called a voice from behind him. He turned to see Jonathan Rose, stouter, greyer and balder but instantly recognizable as the history don he’d known so long ago, striding happily across the burnished floorboards to shake his hand. ‘How are you, Professor? It’s been a long time.’ They settled in a pair of the library’s worn leather armchairs, and exchanged small-talk for a few minutes. Little had changed for the professor–Oxford academic life went on much as it had always done. ‘I was a little surprised to hear from you after all these years, Benedict. To what do I owe this pleasure?’ Ben explained his purpose in asking to meet him. ‘And then I remembered that I knew one of the country’s top ancient history scholars.’ ‘Just don’t call me an ancient historian, as most of my students do.’ Rose smiled. ‘So, you’re interested in alchemy, are you?’ He raised his eyebrows and peered at Ben over his glasses. ‘Didn’t think that sort of stuff was your cup of tea. You haven’t become one of those New Age types, I hope?’ Ben laughed. ‘I’m a writer these days. I’m just doing some research.’ ‘Writer? Good, good. What did you say this fellow’s name was–Fracasini?’ ‘Fulcanelli.’ Rose shook his head. ‘Can’t say I’ve ever heard of him. I’m not really the man to help you there. Bit of a far out subject for most of us fuddy-duddy academics–even in this post-Harry Potter age.’ Ben felt a pang of disappointment. He hadn’t entertained high hopes that Jon Rose would have much to offer him on Fulcanelli, let alone on a Fulcanelli manuscript, but with so little to go on it was a shame to lose any potential source of dependable information. ‘Is there anything you can tell me generally about alchemy?’ he asked. ‘As I say, it’s not my field,’ Rose replied. ‘Like most people, I’d be inclined to dismiss it all as complete hocus pocus.’ He smiled. ‘Though it has to be said that few esoteric cults have endured so well over the centuries. All the way from ancient Egypt and China, right through the Dark Ages and medieval times and onwards into the Renaissance–it’s a sub-current that keeps resurfacing all throughout history.’ The professor stretched back in the worn leather chair as he spoke, adopting the tutor pose that was second nature to him. ‘Though heaven knows what they were up to, or thought they were up to–turning lead into gold, creating magical potions, elixirs of life, and all the rest of it.’ ‘I take it you don’t believe in the possibility of an alchemical elixir that could cure the sick?’ Rose frowned, noticing Ben’s deadpan expression and wondering where he was going with this. ‘I think that if they’d developed a magic remedy for plague, pox, cholera, typhus, and all the other diseases that have ravaged us through history, we’d have known about it.’ He shrugged. ‘The problem is it’s all so speculative. Nobody really knows what the alchemists might have discovered. Alchemy’s famous for its inscrutability–all that cloak-and-dagger stuff, secret brotherhoods, riddles and codes and supposed hidden knowledge. Personally I don’t think there was much substance to any of it.’ ‘Why all the obscurity?’ Ben asked, thinking of the reading he’d been doing over the last couple of days, running Internet searches on terms like ‘ancient knowledge’ and ‘secrets of alchemy’ and wading through one esoteric website after another. He’d turned up a wide variety of alchemical writings, ranging from the present day back to the fourteenth century. They all shared the same baffling and grandiose language, the same dark air of secrecy. He hadn’t been able to decide how much of it was genuine and how much was just esoteric posturing for the benefit of the credulous devotees they’d been attracting over the centuries. ‘If I wanted to be cynical I’d say it was because they didn’t actually have anything worth revealing,’ Rose grinned. ‘But you’ve also got to remember that alchemists had powerful enemies, and perhaps some of their obsession with secrecy was a way of protecting themselves.’ ‘Against what?’ ‘Well, at one end of the scale there were the sharks and speculators who preyed on them,’ Rose said. ‘Once in a while some hapless alchemist who’d bragged too loudly about gold-making would be kidnapped and made to tell how it was done. When they failed to come up with the goods, which of course they probably always did, they’d end up hanging from a tree.’ The professor paused. ‘But their real enemy was the Church, especially in Europe, where they were forever burning them as heretics and witches. Look what the Catholic Inquisition did to the Cathars in medieval France, on the direct orders of Pope Innocent III. They called the liquidation of an entire people God’s work. Nowadays we call it genocide.’ ‘I’ve heard of the Cathars,’ Ben said. ‘Can you tell me more?’ Rose took off his glasses and polished them with the end of his tie. ‘It’s a terrible story,’ he said. ‘They were a fairly widespread medieval religious movement that mainly occupied the part of southern France now known as the Languedoc. They took their name from the Greek word Catharos, meaning “pure”. Their religious beliefs were a little radical in that they regarded God as a kind of cosmic principle of love. They didn’t attribute much importance to Christ, and may not even have believed he existed. Their idea was that, even if he had existed, he certainly couldn’t have been the son of God. They believed that all matter was fundamentally crude and corrupt, including human beings. For them, religious worship was all about spiritualizing, perfecting and transforming that base matter to attain union with the Divine.’ Ben smiled. ‘I can see how those views might have upset the orthodoxy a little.’ ‘Absolutely,’ Rose said. ‘The Cathars had essentially created a free state that the Church couldn’t control. Worse, they were openly preaching ideas that could seriously undermine its credibility and authority.’ ‘Were the Cathars alchemists?’ Ben asked. ‘The part about transforming base matter sounds very like the ideas of alchemy.’ ‘I don’t think anyone knows that for certain,’ Rose said. ‘As a historian, I wouldn’t stick my neck out on that one. But you’re quite right. The alchemical concept of purifying base matter into something more perfect and incorruptible is certainly well in tune with Cathar beliefs. We’ll never know for sure, because the Cathars never lived long enough to tell the tale.’ ‘What happened to them?’ ‘In a nutshell, mass extermination,’ Rose said. ‘When Pope Innocent III came to power in 1198, the alleged heresies of the Cathars gave him a magnificent excuse to extend and reinforce the Church’s powers. Ten years later he put together a formidable army of knights, the biggest ever seen in Europe at that time. These were hardened soldiers, many of who had seen service fighting in the Holy Land. Under the command of former crusader Simon de Monfort, who was also the Duke of Leicester, this huge military force invaded the Languedoc and one by one they massacred every fortress, town and village with even the remotest Cathar connection. De Monfort became known as the “glaive de l’eglise”.’ ‘The sword of the Church,’ Ben translated. Rose nodded. ‘And he meant business. Reports at the time spoke of a hundred thousand men, women and children slaughtered at B?ziers alone. Over the next few years the Pope’s army swept over the entire region, destroying everything in its path and burning alive anyone who didn’t die under the sword. At Lavaur in 1211 they threw four hundred Cathar heretics on the pyre.’ ‘Nice,’ Ben said. ‘It was a vile affair,’ Rose continued. ‘And it was during this time that the Catholic Church formed its Inquisition, a new wing of Church officialdom to lend greater authority to the atrocities performed by the army. They oversaw duties of interrogation, torture and execution. They were answerable only to the Pope personally. Their power was absolute. At one point in 1242, the Inquisitors were acting so bloodthirstily that a detachment of disgusted knights broke away from their station and slaughtered a whole bunch of them at a place called Avignonet. Of course, the rebel knights were quickly suppressed. Then, finally in 1243, after the Cathar resistance had held out much longer than anyone had anticipated, the Pope decided it was time to finish them off once and for all. Eight thousand knights laid siege to the last Cathar stronghold, the mountaintop castle of Monts?gur, firing enormous rocks at its ramparts from their catapults for ten solid months until the Cathars were finally betrayed and forced to surrender. Two hundred of the poor souls were brought down the mountain and roasted alive by the Inquisitors. And that was more or less the end of them. The end of one of the most scandalous holocausts of all time.’ ‘I can see alchemical heresy might have been a risky thing to get into,’ Ben said. ‘Still is, in some ways,’ Rose replied playfully. Ben was taken aback. ‘What?’ The professor threw his head back and laughed. ‘I don’t mean they’re still executing heretics in the public square. I was thinking of the danger for people like myself, academics or scientists. The reason nobody wants to touch this subject with a bargepole is the reputation you’d get for being a crank. Every so often someone takes a bite of the forbidden apple and their head rolls. Some poor sod got the sack for just that reason, a while ago.’ ‘What happened?’ ‘It was at a Parisian university. American biology lecturer got into hot water over some unauthorized research…’ ‘On alchemy?’ ‘Something of that sort. Wrote some articles in the press that rubbed a few people up the wrong way.’ ‘Who was this American?’ Ben asked. ‘I’m trying to remember the name,’ Rose said. A Dr.…Dr. Roper, no, Ryder, that’s it. There was a big furore about it in the academic world. It even got mentioned in the French Medieval Society bulletin. Apparently Ryder went to a university tribunal for unfair dismissal. Didn’t do any good, though. As I said, once they brand you a crank it’s a real witch-hunt.’ ‘Dr. Ryder in Paris,’ Ben repeated, noting it down. ‘There’s a whole article about it in a back issue of Scientific American that was lying about in the college common room. When I’m back there later I’ll look it out for you and give you a call. There might be a contact number for Ryder.’ ‘Thanks, I might well check that out.’ ‘Oh…’ Rose suddenly remembered. ‘Just a thought. If you do find yourself in Paris, another person you might want to contact is a chap called Maurice Loriot. He’s a big book publisher, fascinated by all sorts of esoteric subjects, publishes a lot of that sort of stuff. He’s a good friend of mine. This is his card…if you meet him, tell him I said hello.’ Ben took the card. ‘I will. And do let me know that Dr. Ryder’s number, if you can find it. I’d really like to meet him.’ They parted with a warm handshake. ‘Good luck with your research, Benedict,’ said Professor Rose. ‘Try not to leave it another twenty years next time.’ Far away, two voices were speaking on the phone. ‘His name is Hope,’ one of them repeated. ‘Benedict Hope.’ The man’s voice was English and spoke in a hurried, furtive whisper, slightly damped as though he were cupping his hand around the receiver to prevent others from hearing. ‘Do not be concerned,’ said the second voice. The Italian sounded confident and unruffled. ‘We will deal with him as we dealt with the others.’ ‘That’s the problem,’ the first voice hissed. ‘This one isn’t like the others. I think he may cause trouble for us.’ A pause. ‘Keep me informed. We will take care of it.’ 7 (#ua7bb5faa-e4df-5b0b-b7c4-d61e9f24228d) Rome, Italy The big man flipped through the old copy of Scientific American until he reached the bookmarked page. The article he was looking for was called Medieval Quantum Science. Its author was Dr. Roberta Ryder, an American biologist working out of Paris. He’d read it before, but because of the reports he’d been receiving over the last few days, he was reading it again in a whole new light. When he’d first seen Ryder’s article he’d been pleased at the way the magazine editors had attacked her work. They’d torn her to pieces, devoting an entire editorial to debunking and ridiculing everything she’d said. They’d even made a fool of her on the front page. Making such a public example of her had been an undisguised hatchet job, but what else could you do with a once-respected, award-winning young scientist who suddenly started making wild and unsubstantiated claims about such a thing as alchemy? The scientific establishment would not, could not tolerate a radical of this sort who demanded that alchemical research should be taken seriously and given proper funding, asserting that its popular reputation as quackery was undeserved, possibly even a conspiracy, and that it would one day revolutionize physics and biology. He’d followed her career since then, and been pleased at the way it had plummeted. Ryder had been thoroughly discredited. The science world had turned its back on her, virtually had her excommunicated. She’d even lost her university job. When he’d heard this news at the time, he’d been delighted. But now he wasn’t so happy. In fact, he was furious, and anxious. This damn woman wouldn’t go away. She’d shown an unexpected toughness and determination in the face of adversity. Despite the universal derision of her peers, despite almost running out of money, she continued to persist in her private research. Now the reports from his source were telling him she’d had a breakthrough. Not a major one, necessarily–but big enough for him to worry about it. Clever, this Ryder woman. Dangerously clever. On a shoestring budget she was getting better results than his whole well-equipped, highly-paid team. She couldn’t be allowed to go on like this. What if she discovered too much? She’d have to be stopped. 8 (#ua7bb5faa-e4df-5b0b-b7c4-d61e9f24228d) Paris If the choice of items a person went to the trouble of keeping in a heavily guarded bank vault said something about their priorities, then Ben Hope was a man with a very simple view of life. His safe deposit box at the Banque Nationale de Paris was virtually identical to the ones he kept in London, Milan, Madrid, Berlin and Prague. They all contained only two things. The first thing they contained varied only in its currency from country to country. The amount was always the same, enough to keep him moving freely for indeterminate periods of time. Hotels, transport, information were his biggest expenses. Hard to say how long this job was going to keep him in France. As the security guards stood outside the private viewing-room he loaded about half of the neat stacks of Euro banknotes into his old canvas army bag. The second thing Ben kept locked away in the heart of those half dozen major European banks never varied at all. He took out the top tier of the box with the remainder of the cash, set it down on the table and reached into the bottom of the box for the pistol. The Browning Hi-Power GP35 9mm semiautomatic was an old model, mostly superseded nowadays by plasticky new generations of SIG, HK and Glock combat pistols. But it had a long proven record, it was utterly reliable, it was simple and rugged with enough power and penetration to stop any assailant. It carried thirteen rounds plus one in the breech, enough to bring just about any sticky situation to a quick halt. Ben had known the weapon for nearly half his life, and it suited him like an old glove. The question was, should he leave it in the bank or should he take it with him? There were pros and cons. The pros were, if there was one thing you could predict in his job, it was that it was totally unpredictable. The Browning represented peace of mind, and that was worth a lot. The cons were, there was always going to be some risk in carrying an unregistered firearm around. The concealed weapon meant you had to be extra careful in everything you did. It only took an overzealous cop to decide to search your things, and if you were careless enough to let them find the gun it could land you in a heap of trouble. An eagle-eyed citizen happening to spot the Di Santis hip holster under your jacket could go hysterical and turn you into an instant fugitive. On top of all that, it was almost certain that he’d never need it on this job, which looked as though it was going to turn out a complete wild goose chase. But hell, it was worth the risk. He put the pistol, the long tubular sound suppressor, the spare magazines, ammunition boxes and holster into his bag along with the money and called the guards in to take the deposit box back to the vault. He left the bank and walked through the Paris streets. This was a city he’d spent a lot of time in. He felt at home in France and he spoke the language with only a slight trace of an accent. He took the M?tro back to his apartment. The place had been a gift from a rich client whose child he’d rescued. Although it was well located in the centre of Paris, it was tucked away unseen down an alley and hidden among a cluster of crumbling old buildings. The only way in was through the underground parking lot beneath it, up a dingy stairway and through a heavy steel security door. He thought of the hidden apartment as a safehouse. Inside, it was comfortable but Spartan–a utilitarian kitchenette, a simple bedroom, a living room with an armchair, a desk, a TV and his laptop. That was all Ben needed for his doorway to Europe. The cathedral of Notre Dame loomed above the Parisian skyline under the late afternoon sun. As Ben approached the towering building, a tour guide was addressing a group of camera-toting Americans. ‘Founded in eleven sixty-three and taking a hundred and seventy years to build, this splendid jewel in stone came close to being destroyed during the French Revolution, later to be restored to its former glory in the mid-nineteenth century…’ Ben entered through the west front. It was many years since he’d last set foot in a church, or even taken any notice of one. It was a weird feeling to be back. He wasn’t sure he liked it much. But even he had to admit to the spectacular grandeur of the place. Ahead of him the central nave climbed dizzyingly to its vaulted ceiling. The arches and pillars of the cathedral were bathed in the rays of the setting sun that filtered through the magnificent stained-glass rose window in the west fa?ade of the building. He spent a long time walking up and down, his footsteps echoing off the stone tiles, gazing this way and that at the many statues and carvings. Under his arm was a secondhand copy of a book by the man he was supposed to be looking for–the elusive master alchemist Fulcanelli. The book was a translation of The Mysteries of the Cathedrals, written in 1922. When Ben had come across it in the Occult section of an old Paris bookshop he’d been excited, hoping to find something of value. The most useful leads he could have wished for were a photo of the man, some kind of personal information such as an indication of his real name or family details, and any sort of mention of a manuscript. But there was none of these things. The book was all about the hidden alchemical symbols and cryptograms that Fulcanelli claimed were carved into the d?cor of the same cathedral walls that Ben now found himself staring at. The Porch of Judgement was a great Gothic archway covered in intricate stone carvings. Beneath rows of saints were a series of sculpted images depicting different figures and symbols. According to Fulcanelli’s book, these sculptures were supposed to have some hidden meaning–a secret code that only the enlightened could read. But Ben was damned if he could figure any of it out. I’m obviously not enlightened, he thought. As if I needed Fulcanelli to tell me that. In the centre of the massive portal, at the feet of a statue of Christ, was a circular image showing a woman seated on a throne. She was clutching two books, one open and the other closed. Fulcanelli claimed that these were symbols of open and hidden knowledge. Ben ran his eye along the other figures on the Porch of Judgement. A woman holding a caduceus, the ancient healing symbol of a snake wrapped around a staff. A salamander. A knight with a sword and a shield bearing a lion. A circular emblem with a raven on it. All, apparently, conveying some veiled message. On the north portal, the ‘Portal of the Virgin’, Fulcanelli’s book guided him to a sculpted sarcophagus on the middle cornice that depicted an episode in the life of Christ. The decorations along the side of the sarcophagus were described in the book as being the alchemical symbols for gold, mercury, lead, and other substances. But were they really? To Ben, they just looked like flower motifs. Where was the evidence that the medieval sculptors had been consciously inserting esoteric messages into their work? He could appreciate the beauty and the artistry of these sculptures. But did they have anything to teach him? Could they possibly be of any use to help a dying child? The problem with this kind of symbology, he reflected, was that just about any given image could be interpreted pretty much as the interpreter wanted it. A raven might just be a raven, but someone looking for a hidden significance could easily find it, even if it was never intended to be there. It was all too easy to project subjective meanings, beliefs, or wishful thinking onto a centuries-old stone carving whose creator was no longer around to say otherwise. Such was the stuff of conspiracy theories and cults surrounding ‘hidden knowledge’. Too many people were desperate for alternative versions of history, as though the real facts of times gone by were insufficiently satisfying or entertaining. Perhaps it was to compensate for the drab truth of human existence, to inject a bit of intrigue into their own dull and unstimulating lives. Whole subcultures grew up around these myths, rewriting the past like a movie script. It seemed to him, from his research into alchemy, that this was just another alternative subculture chasing its tail in search of kicks. He was getting itchy feet. Not for the first time, he regretted having taken this job. If it hadn’t been for the two hundred and fifty grand of Fairfax’s money sitting in his bank account, he’d have sworn that someone was playing a joke on him. What he should do was to walk out of here right now, take the first plane to England and give the old fool back his money. No, he’s not an old fool. He’s a desperate man witha dying grandkid. Ruth. Ben knew the reason he was standing here. He sat on a pew and gathered his thoughts for a few minutes among the scattered figures who’d come to pray. He opened Fulcanelli’s book again, took a deep breath and ran back in his mind what he’d managed to glean from it so far. The introduction to The Mysteries of the Cathedrals was a later addition to Fulcanelli’s text, written by one of his followers. It described how, in 1926, Fulcanelli had entrusted his Parisian apprentice with certain material–nobody seemed to know what exactly-and then promptly disappeared into thin air. Since then, according to the writer, many people had tried to find the master alchemist–including, apparently, an international intelligence agency. Yeah, right. It was the same with most of the stuff he’d uncovered in his web searches. There were several other versions of the Fulcanelli tale, depending on which far-out website you visited. Some said Fulcanelli had never existed at all. Some said he was a composite figure drawn together out of a number of different people, a front for a secret society or brotherhood dedicated to exploring the occult. Others claimed that he was a real person after all. According to one source, the alchemist had been sighted in New York decades after his mysterious disappearance, when he must have been well over a hundred years old. Ben didn’t buy any of it. None of the claims was substantiated. If there were no known photos of the alchemist, how could any reported sightings be trusted? It was all a mess of confusion. There was only one thing that all these sources of so-called information had in common, and it was that he couldn’t find a single mention anywhere of a Fulcanelli manuscript. He didn’t spot anything very illuminating during his tour of Notre Dame. But one thing he did spot, not long after he came in, was the man following him. The guy wasn’t doing an especially good job of it. He was too furtive, too careful to stay out of Ben’s way. One minute he was standing in a distant corner glancing over his shoulder, the next he was in the pews trying to hide his plump form behind a prayer book. If he’d smiled and asked Ben for directions he’d have been less conspicuous. Ben’s eyes were on the cathedral d?cor, his body language was relaxed and his demeanour was that of Joe Tourist. But from the moment he’d seen him, he was studying his follower closely. Who was he? What was this about? In such cases, Ben was a big believer in honesty and direct action. If he wanted to find out why someone was following him, he’d just ask them straight out who they were and what they wanted. The two things he needed to do first were to get the man into a quiet spot, and to cut off any chance he had of escaping. Then Ben could squeeze him like an orange. How politely he dealt with the situation depended entirely on the guy’s reaction to being cornered and challenged. An amateur like this might well just fold right away with only the gentlest pressure. Ben moved to the inner corner of the cathedral, near the altar. A spiralling staircase led upwards to the towers, and he started climbing it. Just before he moved out of sight, he saw his man’s body language shift nervously. Ben carried unhurriedly on up the stairs until he arrived at the second gallery. He came out onto a narrow stone walkway that emerged outside into the sunlight, high over the Parisian rooftops. He was surrounded by nightmarish gargoyles, stone demons and goblins put there by the medieval stonemasons to ward off evil spirits. The walkway connected the two high towers of the cathedral, right over the huge rose window in its fa?ade. Only a stone latticework barrier, less than waist high, stood between him and a 200-foot drop to the ground below. Ben moved out of sight and waited for his follower to appear. The man reached the parapet after a minute or two, looking around for him. Ben waited until he was far from the doorway to the stairs, and then he stepped out from behind a grinning devil statue. ‘Hey, there,’ he said, bearing down on him. The man looked panicky, his eyes darting this way and that. Ben pressed him into a corner, using his body to cut off his line of escape. ‘What’s your business following me?’ Ben had seen lots of men reacting under stress, and he knew they all reacted differently. Some folded, some ran, some resisted. This guy’s reaction was instant lethal violence. Ben saw the twitch in his right hand a fraction of a second before it snaked into his jacket and came out with the knife. It was a military-style weapon with a black double-edged blade–a cheap copy of the Fairbairn-Sykes fighting knife that Ben knew from the past. He dodged the stab, grabbed the man’s knife wrist and smashed the arm down over his knee. The blade clattered onto the walkway. Ben kept hold of the wrist, bending it into a lock that he knew from experience was extremely painful. ‘Why are you following me?’ he repeated quietly. ‘I don’t really want to hurt you.’ He wasn’t prepared for what happened next. There is no way out of a good wristlock. Unless the person deliberately lets their wrist be broken. No sane person will do that, but this man did. He twisted against Ben’s grip. At first, Ben thought he was just trying to get away, and he tightened his hold. But then he felt the bones give in the man’s wrist. With no resistance from the limp hand, he suddenly had no purchase on the man’s arm. His follower wriggled away from him, his eyes bulging, sweat beading on his brow, whimpering in agony as his hand dangled like a dishrag out of his sleeve. And before Ben could stop him, he turned, ran for the edge and hurled himself over the low barrier into space. While the man was still tumbling in mid air, Ben was already heading quickly down the spiralling stone steps. By the time the body had cartwheeled down to a grisly stop on the spikes of the iron railing right next to a party of tourists, Ben was well on his way back into the dark corner of the cathedral. As the first tourists started screaming and people rushed outside to see what had happened, Ben slipped unnoticed through the building and merged with the babbling, pointing crowd. He was far away before the first gendarme arrived on the scene. 9 (#ulink_02cc875d-5bea-560a-aba1-7251ac0d02c9) Luc Simon was running late. He’d changed into his smart suit at police headquarters, dashing to the car still tying his tie as his officers wondered where the inspector was dashing off to all dressed up. He checked his watch as he skidded through the Paris traffic. He’d booked the table at Guy Savoy for eight. It was 8.33 when he got there. A waiter ushered him across the room. The restaurant was full of diners and a buzz of conversation. Soft jazz played in the background. He could see H?l?ne sitting at the table for two in the corner, her glossy black hair obscuring her face as she flipped tensely through a magazine. He asked the waiter to bring champagne right away, and went to join her. ‘Let me guess,’ she sighed as he sat down opposite her at the small round table, ‘you couldn’t get away.’ ‘I got here as fast as I could. Something came up.’ ‘As usual. Even on your wedding anniversary, work comes first, doesn’t it?’ ‘Well, this is the thing. Homicidal maniacs don’t generally have a lot of respect for people’s personal schedules,’ he muttered, feeling that familiar barrier of tension rising up fast between them. That was pretty usual, too. ‘Ah, here’s the champagne,’ he said, trying his best to smile. They sat in silence while the waiter popped the cork, poured out their champagne and placed the bottle in the silver ice bucket. Luc waited until he was gone. ‘Well…happy anniversary.’ He clinked his glass against hers. She was silent, watching him. This wasn’t going too well. ‘Here.’ He fumbled in his pocket and took out a small packet. He placed it on the table. ‘I got you something. Go on, open it.’ H?l?ne hesitated before unwrapping the gift with her long, slender fingers. She flipped open the jewellery box and looked inside. ‘An Omega Constellation?’ ‘I know you always wanted one,’ he said, watching her face for a response. She stuffed the watch back in its box and tossed it into the middle of the table. ‘It’s very nice. But it’s not for me.’ ‘What do you mean? Of course it’s for you.’ She shook her head sadly. ‘Give it to the next woman.’ His face darkened. ‘What are you talking about, H?l?ne?’ She looked down at her hands, avoiding his eye. ‘I want out of the marriage, Luc. I’ve had enough.’ He paused for a long time. Their champagne stood untouched, losing its fizz. ‘I know things have been crazy lately,’ he said, trying to keep his voice steady. ‘But it will get better, H?l?ne, I promise.’ ‘It’s been four years, Luc. It’s not going to happen.’ ‘But…I love you. Doesn’t that count for anything?’ ‘I met someone else.’ ‘You certainly picked a great time to let me know about this.’ ‘I’m sorry. I’ve been trying. But I never see you. We had to have an appointment just so we could sit and talk like this.’ He felt his face go into a spasm. ‘So you met someone. Nice. Who is the fucker?’ She didn’t reply. ‘I–asked–you–who–the–fucker–is,’ he exploded, banging his fist violently against the table at every word. His glass toppled, rolled, and smashed on the floor. The restaurant went quiet for a few seconds as everyone turned to stare. ‘That’s right, make a scene.’ A waiter approached, looking sheepish. Simon turned to glare at him. ‘Monsieur, I must ask you to respect–’ ‘Get away from this table,’ Simon said quietly through clenched teeth. ‘Or I will put you through that fucking window.’ The waiter backed off quickly, and went to have a word with the frowning manager. ‘See? Always the same. Your response.’ ‘So perhaps you’d like to tell me who you’ve been screwing while I’m out there up to my chin in blood and shit.’ He knew that talking like this was only making it worse for both of them. Calm, stay calm. ‘You don’t know him. You only know cops, crooks, murderers and dead people.’ ‘It’s my job, H?l?ne.’ A tear rolled down her face and he watched it trace out the perfect contour of her cheek. ‘Yes, that’s your job, and that’s your life.’ She sniffed. ‘It’s all you ever think about.’ ‘You knew what I did when we met. I’m a cop, I do what cops do. What’s changed?’ He fought to control his voice as he felt his temper rise again. ‘I’ve changed. I thought I could get used to it. I thought I could live with the waiting and the worrying that one day my husband’s coming home in a coffin. But I can’t, Luc. I can’t breathe, I need to feel alive again.’ ‘He makes you feel alive again?’ ‘He doesn’t make me feel like I’m dying inside,’ H?l?ne burst out. She mopped her eyes. ‘I only want a normal life.’ He reached out and took her hands. ‘What if I gave it up? If I was just an ordinary guy…I’ll hand in my notice, get a job doing something else.’ ‘Doing what?’ He paused, realizing that he couldn’t think of a single thing in the world that he could be doing instead of police work. ‘I don’t know,’ he conceded. She shook her head, and snatched her hands away from his. ‘You were born to be a cop, Luc. You’d hate anything else. And you’d hate me, for making you leave the thing you love most.’ He was silent for a few moments, thinking. He knew, deep down, that what she was saying was true. He’d neglected her, and now he was paying for it. ‘Then what if I just took some time off, say a month? We could go away somewhere together–wherever you like, how about Vienna? You always talked about going to Vienna. What do you think? You know, the opera, take a ride on a gondola, all that stuff.’ ‘Gondolas are Venice,’ she said dryly. ‘Then we’ll go to Venice as well.’ ‘I think we’re a little past that, Luc. Even if I said yes, then what? After a month it would all start up again, same as before.’ ‘Can you give me a chance?’ he asked quietly. ‘I’ll try to change. I know I have the strength to change.’ ‘It’s too late,’ she sobbed, looking down into her glass. ‘I’m not coming home with you tonight, Luc.’ 10 (#ulink_02cc875d-5bea-560a-aba1-7251ac0d02c9) The place wasn’t quite what Ben had expected to find. To him, the term ‘laboratory’ conjured up images of a modern, spacious, purpose-built and fully equipped facility. His surprise had mounted as he followed the directions the guy on the phone had given him and arrived at the old apartment building in central Paris. There was no lift, and the winding staircase with its tatty wrought-iron banister rail carried him up three creaking floors to a narrow landing with a door on either side. He could smell the musty, ammonia smell of damp. As he climbed the stairs, he kept thinking about the incident at Notre Dame. It haunted him. He’d been cautious on the way here, stopping frequently, looking in shop windows, taking note of people around him. If there was a tail on him now, he couldn’t spot it. He checked the apartment number and rang the buzzer. After a few moments a thin young man with curly dark hair and a sallow complexion opened the door and showed him into what turned out to be just a pokey little flat. He knocked at the door marked LAB, paused a beat and went inside. The lab was no more than a converted bedroom. Work surfaces sagged under the weight of at least a dozen computers. Piles of books and folders everywhere threatened to tip over. At one end was a sink unit and an array of battered scientific equipment, test tubes on a rack, a microscope. There was barely space for the desk, at which sat a young woman in her early thirties, wearing a white labcoat. Her dark red hair was tied up in a bun, giving her an air of seriousness. She was attractive enough to wear no makeup, and her only adornment was a pair of simple pearl earrings. She looked up and smiled as Ben came in. ‘Excuse me. I’m looking for Dr. Ryder?’ he said in French. ‘You found her,’ she answered in English. Her accent was American. She stood up. ‘Please, call me Roberta.’ They shook hands. She watched him for a reaction, waiting for the inevitable raised eyebrow and mock-surprise ‘oh–a woman!’ or ‘my, scientists are becoming prettier these days’ kind of comment that virtually every man she met came out with, to her great annoyance. It had almost become her standard test for gauging men she met. It was just the same infuriating knee-jerk response she got when she told guys about her black belt in Shotokan karate: ‘oh, I’d better watch my step‘. Assholes. But as she invited Ben to sit down, she didn’t notice a flicker of anything cross his face. Interesting. He wasn’t the typical sort of Englishman she’d come to know–no pink jowls, beer belly, awful taste in clothes or combed-over bald patch here. The man opposite her was tallish, something under six feet, with an easy grace in jeans and a light jacket over a black polo-neck that hung on a slender but muscular frame. He was maybe five, six years older than she was. He had the deep tan of someone who’d been spending time in a hot country, and his thick blond hair was bleached by the sun. He was the kind of man she could go for. But there was a hardness in the set of his jaw, and something in those blue eyes that was cold and detached. ‘Thanks for agreeing to see me,’ he said. ‘My assistant Michel said you were from the Sunday Times’ ‘That’s right. I’m working on a feature for our magazine supplement.’ ‘Uh-huh? And how can I help you, Mr. Hope?’ ‘Ben.’ ‘OK, what can I do for you, Ben? Oh, by the way, this is Michel Zardi, my friend and helper.’ She waved a hand at Michel, who had come into the lab to look for a file. ‘Listen, I was just going to make a coffee,’ she said. ‘Want one?’ ‘Coffee would be good,’ Ben said. ‘Black, no sugar. I need to make a quick call. Do you mind?’ ‘Sure, go right ahead,’ she said. She turned to Michel. ‘You want a coffee?’ she asked him. Her French was perfect. ‘Non, merci. I’m going out in a minute to get some fish for Lutin.’ She laughed. ‘That damn cat of yours eats better than I do.’ Michel grinned and left the room. Roberta made the coffee while Ben took out his phone. He called the number for Loriot, the book publisher Rose had mentioned. No reply. Ben left him a message and his number. ‘Your French is pretty good for an English journalist,’ she said. ‘I’ve travelled around. Yours is pretty good too. How long have you lived here?’ ‘Nearly six years now.’ She sipped the hot coffee. ‘So let’s get down to business, Ben. You want to talk to me about alchemy? How did you hear about me?’ ‘Professor Jon Rose at Oxford University put me on to you. He’d heard about your work and thought you might be able to help me. Naturally,’ he lied, ‘you’ll be fully credited for any information used in the article.’ ‘You can leave my name out of it.’ She laughed grimly. ‘Probably best not to mention me at all. I’m officially the untouchable of the scientific world these days. But if I can help you, I will. What d’you want to know?’ He leaned forward in his seat. ‘I’m looking to find out more about the work of alchemists such as…Fulcanelli, for instance,’ he said, sounding deliberately casual. ‘Who they were, what they did, what they might have discovered, that kind of thing.’ ‘Right. Fulcanelli.’ She paused, looking at him levelly. ‘How much do you know about alchemy, Ben?’ ‘Very little,’ he said truthfully. She nodded. ‘OK. Well, first off, let me get one thing straight. Alchemy is not just about turning base metals into gold, all right?’ ‘You mind if I take notes here?’ He drew a small notepad from his pocket. ‘Go ahead. I mean, in theory it’s not impossible to create gold. The difference between one chemical element and another is only a question of manipulating tiny energy particles. Strip off an electron here, add one on there, and you can theoretically change any molecule into any other. But for me, that’s not what alchemy is really about. I see the base metals into gold thing as more of a metaphor.’ ‘A metaphor for what?’ ‘You think about it, Ben. Gold is the most stable and incorruptible metal. It never corrodes, never tarnishes. Objects of pure gold stay perfect for thousands of years. Compare that to something like iron, which rusts away to nothing in no time. Now, imagine if you could find a technology that could stabilize corruptible matter, prevent deterioration?’ ‘Of what?’ ‘Of anything, in principle. Everything in our universe is fundamentally made of the same stuff. I think that what the alchemists were ultimately looking for was a universal element within nature that could be extracted, or harnessed, and used to maintain or restore perfection to matter–any kind of matter, not just metals.’ ‘I get you,’ he said, making a note in his pad. ‘OK? Now, if you could find a technology like that, and get it to work, its potential would be boundless. It would be like the atomic bomb in reverse–using nature’s energy to create instead of destroy. For me personally, as a biologist, I’m interested in the potential effects on living organisms, especially humans. What if we could slow down the deterioration of living tissues, perhaps even restore healthy functioning to diseased ones?’ He didn’t have to think about it for long. ‘You’d have the ultimate medical technology.’ She nodded. ‘You certainly would. It would be incredible.’ ‘You really think they were on the right track? I mean, is it possible they could have created something like that?’ She smiled. ‘I know what you’re thinking. It’s true, most alchemists probably were nutty, shot-away old guys with a lot of crazy ideas about magic–maybe some even thought of it as witchcraft, just like the Internet or even a telephone would seem like the dark arts to someone teleported here from a couple of centuries ago. But there were also alchemists who were serious scientists.’ ‘Examples?’ ‘Isaac Newton? The father of classical physics was also a closet alchemist–some of his major discoveries, that scientists still use today, might have been based on his alchemical research.’ ‘I didn’t know that.’ ‘Absolutely. And another guy heavily involved in alchemy you might have heard of was Leonardo da Vinci.’ ‘The artist?’ Also the brilliant engineer, designer and inventor,’ she replied. And then there was the mathematician Giordano Bruno–that is, until the Catholic Inquisition burned him at the stake in 1600.’ She grimaced. ‘Those were the kind of alchemists I’m interested in, the ones who were laying the foundation for a whole new modern science that’s going to change everything. That’s what I believe, and that’s basically what my work is about.’ She paused. ‘Tell you what, instead of me just talking at you, why don’t I show you something? How d’you feel about bugs?’ ‘Bugs?’ ‘Insects. Some people are freaked out by them.’ ‘No, I’m OK.’ Roberta opened a double door leading to what must originally have been a walk-in cupboard or wardrobe. It had been adapted, with fitted wooden shelving, to hold glass tanks. Not full of fish. Full of flies. Thousands of them. Black, hairy swarms massing on the surface of the glass. ‘Jesus,’ he muttered, recoiling. ‘Pretty gross, huh?’ Roberta said cheerfully. ‘Welcome to my experiment.’ The two tanks were labelled A and B. ‘Tank B is the control group,’ she explained. ‘Meaning that those flies are just ordinary flies, well cared for but untreated. Tank A are the experimental flies.’ ‘OK…so what happens to those?’ he asked warily. ‘They get treated with a formula.’ ‘And what is the formula?’ ‘I don’t have a name for it. I invented it–or copied it, I ought to say, from old alchemical writings. It’s really just water that’s been through some special processes.’ ‘What kind of processes?’ She smiled slyly. ‘Special ones.’ ‘And what happens to the flies that are treated with it?’ ‘Ah, now that’s the interesting part. The lifespan of a normal adult housefly, well fed, is six weeks. That’s more or less how long my B flies are living. But the flies in tank A, which receive tiny amounts of the formula in their food, are consistently living thirty to thirty-five per cent longer, around eight weeks.’ Ben narrowed his eyes. ‘You’re sure about that?’ She nodded. ‘We’re into our third generation, and the results are holding.’ ‘This is just a recent breakthrough, then?’ ‘Yeah, we’re really at the first stage. I still don’t know why it’s working, how to explain the effect. I know I can get better results, and I will…And when I do, it’s going to fire a chilli pepper up the asses of the scientific community.’ He was about to reply when his phone rang. ‘Shit. Sorry about this.’ He’d forgotten to turn it off for the interview. He took the phone out of his pocket. ‘Well? Aren’t you going to answer it?’ she asked, raising one eyebrow. He pressed REPLY and said, ‘Hello?’ ‘Loriot here. I received your message.’ ‘Thanks for calling back, Monsieur Loriot,’ Ben said, glancing apologetically at Roberta and raising a finger as if to say ‘this’ll just take a minute’. She shrugged and took a sip of her coffee, then snatched a piece of paper from her desk and started reading it. ‘I would be interested in meeting you. Would you like to come out to my home this evening for a drink and a talk? ‘That would be great. Where do you live, Monsieur Loriot?’ Roberta threw down the sheet, sighed and exaggeratedly checked her watch. ‘My home is the Villa Margaux, near the village of Brignancourt, on the other side of Pontoise. It is not far from Paris’ Ben noted down the details. ‘Brignancourt,’ he repeated quickly, trying to get the conversation over without being impolite to Loriot. The man might be an important contact. But if you’re going to play the journalist, at least try to do it with a bit of professional fucking style, he thought, irritated with himself. ‘I will send my car to pick you up’, said Loriot. ‘OK,’ Ben said, writing on his pad. ‘Eight forty-five tonight…Yes…Looking forward to that…Well, thanks again for calling back…Goodbye.’ He switched off the phone and dropped it back in his pocket. ‘Sorry about that,’ he said to Roberta. ‘It’s off now.’ ‘Oh, don’t worry about it.’ She let him hear the edge of sarcasm in her voice. ‘Not like I have a job to go to, is it?’ He cleared his throat. ‘Anyway, this formula of yours…’ ‘Yup?’ ‘Have you tried it out on other species? What about humans?’ She shook her head. ‘Not yet. That’d really be something, wouldn’t it? If the results matched the fly experiment, the life expectancy of a healthy human could increase from, say, eighty years to about a hundred and eight years. And I think we could do even better.’ ‘If one of your flies was sick or dying, would this thing have the power to cure whatever was wrong with it, keep it alive?’ he asked tentatively. ‘You mean, does it have medicinal properties?’ she replied. She clicked her tongue and sighed. ‘I wish I could say yes. We’ve tried giving it to dying flies in group B to see what would happen, but they still died. So far it only seems to work preventatively.’ She shrugged. ‘But who knows? We’re only getting started here. With time, we might be able to develop something that won’t just extend life in healthy specimens, but will cure illnesses in sick ones, maybe even stop one from dying indefinitely. If we could replicate that effect in humans, ultimately…’ ‘Sounds like you might have discovered some kind of elixir of life?’ ‘Well, let’s not pop the cork just yet,’ she said with a chuckle. ‘But I think I’m onto something, yeah. Problem is lack of funding. To really get it out there and verified you’d have to launch some serious clinical trials. Those can take years.’ ‘Why can’t you get funding from medical companies?’ She laughed. ‘Boy, you are really na?ve. This is alchemy we’re talking about. Witchcraft, voodoo, hokum. Why do you think I’m running this operation out of a spare bedroom? Nobody takes me seriously since I wrote about this stuff.’ ‘I heard you’d had some trouble over it.’ ‘Trouble?’ She snorted. ‘Yeah, you might say that. First I was plastered all over the cover of Scientific American– some wiseguy editor put a witch’s hat on me and a sign round my neck saying “Unscientific American”. Next thing, those assholes at the university gave me the boot, left me hanging out to dry. Hasn’t exactly helped my career. They even fired poor old Michel from his lab-tech post. Said he was wasting university time and money on my hocus-pocus project. He’s the only one who’s stood by me through all this. I pay him what I can, but it’s been tough for both of us.’ She sighed and shook her head. ‘Bastards. But I’ll show them.’ ‘Have you got any of your formula here?’ he asked. ‘I’d be keen to see it.’ ‘No, I haven’t,’ she said firmly. ‘I ran out, need to make some more up.’ He watched her eyes for signs of a lie. Hard to tell. He paused for a moment. ‘So, do you think there’s any chance you might let me have a copy of your research notes?’ he asked, hoping the request didn’t come over as too bold. He toyed with the idea of offering her money for them, but that would have made her instantly suspicious of him. She wagged her finger. ‘Ha ha. No way, pal. Anyway, you think I’d be dumb enough to write down the formula?’ She tapped her head. ‘It’s all in here. This is my baby, and nobody’s getting their hands on it.’ He grinned ruefully. ‘OK, forget I mentioned it.’ There were a few seconds of silence between them. Roberta looked at him expectantly, then placed her hands flat on her knees as though to signal the end of the interview. ‘Anything else I can help you with, Ben?’ ‘I won’t take up any more of your time,’ he said, worrying that he’d blown it by asking to see her notes. ‘But if you get any major breakthroughs, will you give me a call?’ He handed her a card. She took it, and smiled. ‘If you want, but don’t get too excited. It’s a slow process. Call me again in, say, three years’ time.’ ‘It’s a date,’ he said. 11 (#ulink_02cc875d-5bea-560a-aba1-7251ac0d02c9) Roberta Ryder suddenly looked much less the austere scientist, with her wavy dark red hair let down past her shoulders and the labcoat switched for a denim jacket. ‘Michel, I’m going out. You can take the rest of the day off, OK?’ She got her sports holdall from the bedroom, grabbed her car keys and headed off for her weekly session at the martial arts centre across town in Montparnasse. As she drove she was thinking about her interview with the journalist Ben Hope. She always had to come over like the ballsy, tough, defiant maverick scientist who was going to show ‘em all one day…it was the image she clung to. Nobody knew about the fragile reality of her situation. They didn’t know about the fears she had, the worries that kept her awake at night. The day she’d been fired from the university, she could so easily have packed a bag and jumped on the next flight home to the States. But she hadn’t. She’d stayed to tough it out. Now she was wondering at the wisdom of that decision. Had all the sacrifices she’d made been worth it? Was she just chasing rainbows, kidding herself that the stand she’d taken was ever going to make a difference? Soon her money would be all gone, and she’d have to try to find some supplementary income from somewhere–maybe private science tuition for schoolkids. Even that might not even bring in enough to scrape by on, pay Michel’s meagre wages and fund her research. The next two or three months would tell whether she could go on, or whether she’d have to give it all up. She got back to her apartment at around 5.30. Her legs felt heavy as she climbed the spiralling, echoing stairs to the third floor. It had been a tiring session that day, and she was hot from the rush-hour traffic. When she reached her landing and took out her keys, she found the door unlocked. Had Michel come back for something? He was the only other person with a key, apart from the concierge. But it wasn’t like him to leave the door open. She went inside, peering into the lab room through the slightly-open door. ‘Michel? You there?’ There was no reply, no sign of him. She went into the lab. ‘Oh, Jesus’ It had been turned over. Files spilled all over the floor, drawers up-ended, everything gone through. But that wasn’t what she was standing gaping at. It was the big man in the black hood who was rushing towards her. A gloved hand shot out towards her throat. Without thinking about it, she blocked the move by throwing her hands up and outwards to deflect his arms aside. The surprised attacker hesitated for half a second, long enough for her to follow up her move with a low stamping kick to his knee. If it had landed it would have ended the fight there and then. But he skipped backwards just in time and her foot only grazed his shin. He moved back with a grunt of pain, stumbled and fell heavily. She turned and ran. But he threw out a big arm and tripped her, sending her sprawling to the ground. Her head whacked the wall and she saw stars. By the time she was on her feet he was just two metres away with a knife in his hand. He came at her, lifting the knife high to stab down at her. This was something Roberta knew a little about. A trained knife fighter keeps the weapon close to his body and stabs outwards, using the rotation of his back muscles to deliver lethal force to the blow. Very little can be done to block the move or take the knife off them. But the downwards stab, holding the knife in an underhand grip, was a different matter. Theoretically, she knew she could block this. Theoretically. At the karate club they’d only ever practised this move with a soft rubber blade, and then never at full speed. The very real blade flashed down hard and fast. Roberta was faster. She caught his wrist and levered it down sideways while with her other hand she wrenched his elbow the other way with all her strength. At the same time she launched herself into him with a hard knee to the groin. The move worked. She felt a terrible cracking as his arm broke. Heard his scream in her ear. His face contorted in agony behind the mask. The knife fell, and his twisting body fell on top of it. He hit the floor, landed writhing on his belly, and screamed again. She stood poised over him, staring in horror, as he contorted and rolled onto his back. The knife was buried deep in his solar plexus. He’d landed on it, driven the blade in with his own weight and momentum. He clawed desperately at the handle, trying to pull it out. After a few seconds his movements slowed, the convulsions slackened, and then he lay still. Blood spread slowly outwards in a slick stream across the tiles. She screwed her eyes shut, knees quaking violently. Maybe when she opened them, there wouldn’t be a dead guy lying there in a pool of blood. But no, there he was all right, staring up at her glassily, mouth half open like a fish on a slab. Every nerve in her body was screaming at her to run, but she fought the impulse away. Slowly, her heart in her mouth, she crouched down next to the body. She reached out a trembling hand and slipped it into the front of the dead man’s black jacket. Inside she found a small diary, half-soaked in blood. She turned the dripping pages, shuddering in revulsion at the blood on her fingers and looking for a name, a number, a clue. The diary was almost completely blank. Then on the last page she found two addresses, scribbled in pencil. One was hers. The other was Michel’s. Had they got to him? She dug out her phone, feverishly scrolled down her address book entries as far as ‘M.Z’, and hit the dial button. ‘Come on, come on,’ she muttered, waiting. No reply, just his answering machine. She wondered whether she should call the police. No time for that now, she decided–it would take an age to get through the receptionists and she had to get over to his place right away. She stepped over the corpse and opened the front door a crack. All clear. She locked the door behind her and bounded down the stairs. The car screeched to a halt at a crazy angle outside Michel’s apartment building, and she ran to the doorway. She buzzed the button next to his name on the intercom panel several times, kicking her heels, tension mounting. After two or three minutes a laughing couple came out of the building and she slipped inside. She found herself in a dark, stone corridor leading to the stairway, past the concierge’s door and into the central courtyard. Michel’s apartment was on the ground floor. She thumped on his door. No response. She ran back through the foyer and into the courtyard. Michel’s bathroom window was slightly open. She scrambled up to the window ledge. It was a tight squeeze, but she was slim enough to wriggle through. Once into the apartment, she crept furtively from room to room. There was no sign of life. But a near-empty cup of coffee on the table, next to the remains of a meal, was still warm to the touch and the laptop on his desk was running. He must have just gone out, she thought. And if that was the case, it had to mean he was all right. She felt relief unstiffen her muscles. Maybe he wouldn’t be long. The phone suddenly rang, making her jump. After two rings the answering machine came on automatic ally. Michel’s familiar mumbled recording came over the speaker, followed by a beep, and then the caller left their message. She listened to the deep, gravelly French voice. ‘This is Saul. Your report has been received. The plan has been carried out. BH will be taken care of tonight.’ What was going on here? What report? What had Michel been sending, and to whom? Was this guy, her friend and assistant, someone she trusted–mixed up in this too? The plan has been carried out. She shivered. Did that mean what she thought it meant? She walked over to the desk and flipped up the lid of Michel’s computer. The machine was on standby, and whirred quickly into life. She double-clicked on the email icon on the desktop. Her head swam as she scrolled down through the SENT ITEMS list. It didn’t take her long to discover the whole column of sent messages marked REPORT. They were numbered in consecutive order and dated from a few months ago to the present. Running down the list she saw that they’d been sent at regular intervals of about two weeks. She clicked on a recent one, number 14. It flashed up on the screen and she scanned through it. Her heart picked up a beat. She sat on his desk chair and read it again, more slowly, hardly believing what she was seeing. It was a report on her latest scientific findings, her breakthrough with the lifespans of the group A flies. It was all there, down to the last tiny detail. Her heart beat faster. She opened the most recently sent post. It was dated that day, sent just an hour or so ago. It had an attachment with it. She read the accompanying message first: Today, 20 September, meeting with English journalist Ben Hope. Shaking her head in bewilderment, she clicked on the paper-clip logo in the corner of the message. As the attachment opened up she saw that it contained a series of JPEG files, digital photos. She clicked on each one in turn, and her frown deepened with every click. They were shots of her and Ben Hope in her lab. They’d been taken just that morning, and there was only one person who could have done it. Michel, using his phone while he’d been pretending to fetch a file. BH will be taken care of tonight, the phone message had said. And now she knew who BH was. She stiffened and looked up from the screen. She’d heard something. Someone was approaching the front door. She recognized the familiar tune that Michel often used to whistle to himself at the lab. Keys jangled at the lock, and the door creaked open. Footsteps came down the hall. Roberta dived behind a couch and crouched there, hardly daring to breathe. Michel came into the room. He was carrying a shopping bag, and as he whistled his little tune he started unloading groceries. He reached out and played back his phone message. Roberta peeked over the top of the couch and watched his face as he listened to Saul’s voice. There was no emotion, just a nod. Her mind was racing, dizzy at the thought that this was the same Michel she knew. She ought to challenge him, have it out with him right here. But it was becoming clear that she didn’t know him as well as she thought. What if he had a weapon? Maybe confrontation wasn’t a good idea. He deleted the phone message. ‘Christ, it’s warm in here,’ he muttered to himself. He opened a window across the other side of the room. Then he grabbed a chocolate bar and a bottle of beer from the grocery bag, flopped down in a chair and switched on the TV with the remote. He sat chortling at a cartoon and sipping his beer. This was her chance. She ducked back down and started crawling out from behind the couch, keeping low. She was going to crawl right across the room and make it out through that open window while he was distracted by the television. She was half out from behind the couch when he shouted, ‘Hey! What are you doing there?’ He rose from his chair. She didn’t dare to look up. Shit, I’m caught. ‘You come down from there, now,’ he was saying in a gentler voice. She looked up, startled and confused. He was across the other side of the room, by the desk. ‘Come on, my baby, you shouldn’t do that.’ A fluffy white cat had jumped up on the desk and was licking out the plate that he’d left sitting there from his earlier meal. He picked it up in his arms, stroking it lovingly. It meowed in protest and wriggled free of his grip, jumped down on the floor and ran out of the room. He ran after it, nursing a scratched finger. ‘Lutin! Come back!’ He disappeared out of sight and Roberta heard him shouting at the cat. ‘Lutin–come out from under there, you little turd!’ Seeing her chance, she leapt to her feet and dashed up the short passageway to the front door, silently turned the latch and slipped out. 12 (#ulink_d65d9a1b-8e48-523f-904d-d376e31c9928) When Michel Zardi had first been contacted a few months earlier by the man he knew only as ‘Saul’, he’d no idea who was approaching him, or what they really wanted. He only knew he was being asked to observe Roberta Ryder’s work and send back reports on the progress of her research. Michel wasn’t an idiot. He’d been with her project from the start, and he had a pretty good idea of its potential value if she could convince anyone to take it seriously. Now it looked like someone was, although it wasn’t the kind of attention that Roberta would have wanted. Michel was smart enough not to ask too many questions. What they wanted him to do was simple enough, and the money was good. Good enough to make him start thinking that maybe he didn’t want to spend the rest of his life bumming around as a low-paid lab tech, especially now that Roberta had been forced to relocate her operation to her own apartment. The project wasn’t going anywhere, they both knew that. He also knew her well enough to know that she’d never accept the reality. Her stubborn pride was what kept her going, but it was also going to drag them both down. For a long time, Michel had toyed with the idea of leaving and getting better work elsewhere. Just when he’d been on the brink of telling her it was over for him, Saul had turned up out of nowhere. Suddenly, everything had looked different. The promise of a more stable and interesting future working for Saul and his people, whoever they were, meant that he had prospects. And it had helped to harden his attitude towards the American scientist he’d once thought of as his friend. Every couple of weeks or so he’d send in his report, and at the end of each month the cash-stuffed envelope would appear in his mailbox. Life was good. It was a pyramid of power, broad at the bottom, small at the top. At the bottom, it was made up of lots of ignorant, insignificant men like Michel Zardi–little men whose loyalty could be bought cheaply. The top of the pyramid was occupied by just one man and a select group of his close associates. They were the only ones who knew the true nature, purpose and identity of the organization that so carefully kept its activities hidden from prying eyes. The two men at the top of this pyramid were now sitting together in a room talking. It was no ordinary room, situated in the domed tower at the centre of an elegant Renaissance villa outside Rome. The big authoritative man standing by the window was called Massimiliano Usberti. Fabrizio Severini was his private secretary and the only man Usberti trusted completely and spoke openly with. ‘In five years we will have evolved into a far more powerful force than we are now, my friend,’ Usberti was saying. Severini sipped wine from a crystal glass. ‘We are already powerful,’ he said with a note of caution in his voice. ‘How do you hope to conceal our activities from those around us, if we should grow even more in size and strength?’ ‘By the time my plans are in place,’ Usberti said, ‘we will no longer need to worry about concealment. This position we find ourselves in, the need to preserve secrecy, is only a temporary phase in our development.’ Fabrizio Severini was the closest man alive to Massimiliano Usberti. Now both in their late fifties, they had known one another for many years. When they had first met as young men, Massimiliano had been just another priest, though an exceptionally driven one and with the backing of the great wealth of his noble family to achieve his ambitions. But even Severini didn’t fully know what Usberti’s ultimate objective was, the end goal of these plans he so often alluded to. He didn’t push too hard or inquire too openly. Their relationship as friends had evolved over the years as Usberti had grown in power, self-confidence and–he didn’t like to use the word, but it was the only one to use-fanaticism. Severini knew that his friend, or indeed his master as he’d slowly become, was a highly ruthless man who would stop at nothing. He feared him, and he knew that Usberti secretly enjoyed the fact that he did. Usberti came away from the window and rejoined his secretary under the grand dome. On the ornate seventeenth-century gilt wood table sat a laptop computer displaying a slideshow. The photos were of a woman and a man talking. One of them was a familiar face. Dr. Roberta Ryder. The soon-to-be late Dr. Roberta Ryder. The man in the photos was someone Usberti had hoped never to see. He already knew all about the Englishman from one of his informers, who’d told him that a professional investigator was going to be sniffing around. The informer had warned him that Benedict Hope had a specialist background and that he was a man of certain talents. This seemed to be confirmed when the hired assassin sent after him had failed to return or report back. Nobody had heard from him, and then one of his sources in Paris had called to say it had been on the news that a man had flung himself off the parapet of Notre Dame Cathedral. Their man. Usberti hadn’t expected Hope to get this far. But it didn’t worry him. He wouldn’t get much further. ‘Archbishop…’ Severini began, wringing his hands nervously. ‘Yes, my friend?’ ‘Will God forgive us for what we do?’ Usberti looked sharply up at him. ‘Of course He will. We do it to protect His house.’ When Severini was gone, the archbishop went over to the antique gold-bound Bible on his desk. And I saw Heaven opened, and behold a white horse; and he that sat upon him was called Faithful and True, and in righteousness he doth judge and make war. And he was clothed with a vesture dipped in blood: and his name is called the Word of God. And the armies which were in Heaven followed him. And he hath a sharp sword, that with it he should smite the nations: and he should rule them with a rod of iron: and he treadeth the winepress of the fierceness and wrath of Almighty God. Usberti shut the book. He gazed into space for a moment, a grim, set expression on his face. Then, nodding solemnly to himself, he picked up the phone. 13 (#ulink_5e6b6e39-1499-54ed-a472-3bb309e5b5f4) Paris Roberta made it back to the 2CV, glancing over her shoulder and half expecting Michel Zardi to come tearing out of the doorway of the building after her. Her hands were shaking so badly she could barely get the key in the lock. As she drove back to her apartment she dialled 17 and was put through to police emergency. ‘I want to report an attempted murder. There’s a body in my flat.’ She gave her details in a breathless rush as she sped back through the traffic, driving with one hand. An ambulance and two police cars were arriving just as she pulled up outside her building ten minutes later. The uniformed agents were headed by a brisk plainclothes inspector in his mid-thirties. He had thick dark hair brushed back from his brow, and his eyes were an unusually vivid green. ‘I’m Inspector Luc Simon,’ he said, staring at her intently. ‘You reported the incident?’ ‘Yes.’ ‘So you are…Roberta Ryder? US citizen. Have you identification?’ ‘Now? OK.’ She fished in her bag and took out her passport and work visa. Simon ran his eyes over them and handed them back. ‘You have the title Dr. A medical doctor?’ ‘Biologist.’ ‘I see. Show us to the crime scene.’ They climbed the winding stairs to Roberta’s apartment, radios crackling in the stairway. Simon led the way, moving fast, his jaw hard. She trotted along behind him, followed by the half-dozen uniformed cops and a paramedic team headed by a police doctor carrying a case. She explained the situation to Simon, watching his intense green eyes. ‘And then he fell, and came down on the knife,’ she said, gesticulating. ‘He was a big, heavy guy, must have landed really hard.’ ‘We’ll take a full statement from you presently. Who’s up there now?’ ‘Nobody, just him.’ ‘Him?’ ‘It, then,’ she said with a note of impatience. ‘The body.’ ‘You left the body unattended?’ he said, raising his eyebrows. ‘Where have you been?’ ‘To visit a friend,’ she said, wincing to herself at the way it sounded. ‘Really…OK, we’ll talk about that later,’ said Simon impatiently. ‘Let’s see the body first.’ They arrived at her door, and she opened it. ‘Do you mind if I wait outside?’ she asked. ‘Where’s the body?’ ‘He’s right there inside the door, in the hallway.’ The officers and medics went inside, Simon leading the way. A cop stayed outside on the landing with Roberta. She slumped against the wall and closed her eyes. After a couple of seconds Simon stepped back out onto the landing with a severe yet weary expression. Are you sure this is your apartment?’ he asked. ‘Yeah. Why?’ Are you on any medication? Do you suffer from memory loss, epilepsy or any other mental disorder? Do you do drugs, alcohol?’ ‘What are you talking about? Of course not.’ ‘Explain this to me, then.’ Simon grabbed her by the arm and thrust her firmly into the doorway, pointing and looking at her expectantly. Roberta gaped. The detective was pointing at her hall floor. Empty. Clean. The body was gone. ‘You have an explanation?’ ‘Maybe he crawled away,’ she muttered. What, and cleaned up the blood trail after himself? She rubbed her eyes, head spinning. Simon turned to stare hard at her. ‘Wasting police time is a serious offence. I could arrest you right now, you realize that?’ ‘But I tell you there was a body! I didn’t imagine it, it was right there!’ ‘Hmm.’ Simon turned to one of his men. ‘Go get me a coffee,’ he commanded. He faced Roberta with a sardonic look. ‘So where’s it gone to? The bathroom? Maybe we’ll find it sitting on the toilet reading Le Monde?’ ‘I wish I knew,’ she replied helplessly. ‘But he was there…I didn’t imagine it.’ ‘Search the place,’ Simon ordered his officers. ‘Talk to the neighbours, find out if they heard anything.’ The men went off to comb through the apartment, one or two of them casting irritable glances at Roberta. Simon turned to her again. ‘You say he was a big, powerful man? That he attacked you with a knife?’ ‘Yes.’ ‘But you’re not injured?’ She tutted with annoyance. ‘No.’ ‘How do you expect me to believe that a woman of your size–about one metre sixty-five?–could kill a large armed attacker with her bare hands, and not have a mark on her?’ ‘Hold on–I never said I killed him. He fell on the knife.’ ‘What was he doing here?’ ‘What does a criminal normally do inside somebody’s apartment? He was burgling the place. Turned my lab upside down.’ ‘Your lab?’ ‘Sure, the whole place has been ransacked. See for yourself.’ She pointed to the lab door, and he pushed it open. Peering in past his shoulder she saw with a shock that the room had been tidied up–everything neatly in its proper place, files neatly ordered, drawers shut. Was she going crazy? ‘Tidy burglar,’ Simon commented. ‘Wish they were all like that.’ One of the agents looked in the door. ‘Sir, the neighbours across the landing were in all afternoon. They say they heard nothing.’ ‘Huh,’ Simon snorted. He looked around the lab, snatched up a piece of paper from her desk. ‘What’s this? The Biological Science of Alchemy?’ His eyes flashed up from the page and bored into her. ‘I told you, I-I’m a scientist,’ she stammered. ‘Alchemy is a science now? You can turn lead into gold?’ ‘Give me a break.’ ‘Maybe you’ve invented a way of making things…disappear?’ he said with an expansive gesture. He tossed the paper down on the desk and strode purposefully across the room. ‘And what’s in here?’ Before she could stop him he’d opened the doors to the fly tanks. ‘Putain! This is disgusting.’ ‘It’s part of my research.’ ‘This is a serious health and safety matter, madame. These things carry disease.’ The police doctor was standing behind Roberta in the doorway, nodding in agreement and rolling his eyes. The other officers were returning from their search of the small apartment, shaking their heads. She could feel hostile looks coming at her from all directions. ‘Your coffee, sir.’ Ah, thank Christ.’ Simon grabbed the paper cup and took a deep gulp. Coffee was the only thing that took away these stress headaches. He needed to rest more. He hadn’t slept at all last night. ‘I know this looks weird,’ Roberta protested. She was gesticulating too much, on the defensive. She didn’t like the way her voice was going high. ‘But I’m telling you–’ ‘Are you married? Have you a boyfriend?’ Simon asked sharply. ‘No–I did have a boyfriend–but not any more…but what does that have to do with anything?’ ‘You’re emotionally upset that he has left you,’ suggested Simon. ‘Perhaps the stress…’ That’s ironic, he was thinking, remembering last night’s performance with H?l?ne. ‘Oh, so you think I’m having a nervous breakdown? The little woman can’t cope without a man?’ He shrugged. ‘What the hell are these questions? Who’s your superior officer?’ ‘You should be careful, madame. Remember you’ve committed a serious offence.’ ‘Please, listen to me. I think they’re planning to kill somebody else. An English guy.’ ‘Oh really? Who’s planning this?’ ‘I don’t know who. The same people who tried to kill me.’ ‘Then I’d suggest that our English friend is in no great danger.’ Simon regarded her with an obvious look of contempt. And do we know who this Englishman is? Perhaps the friend you went to have tea with while the imaginary corpse was lying in your apartment?’ ‘My god,’ she exclaimed helplessly, almost laughing with frustration. ‘Tell me you’re not really this dumb.’ ‘Dr. Ryder, if you don’t shut up right now I’ll take you in. I’ll have you locked up while I wrap this place in police tape and have forensics go through it with a fine-tooth comb.’ He threw down the empty cup and moved towards her. His face was reddening. She backed away. ‘You’ll be examined by the police surgeon,’ he went on. ‘Every inch of you. Not to mention a full psychological appraisal by the psychiatrist. I’ll have Interpol go through your bank account. I’ll take your fucking life apart shred by shred…is that what you want?’ Roberta had her back to the wall. His nose was almost touching hers, his green eyes blazing. ‘Because that’s what’ll happen to you!’ The agents were all staring at Simon. The doctor came up behind him and laid a hand softly on his shoulder, breaking the tension. Simon backed off. ‘Do it!’ she yelled back at him. ‘Take me away! I’ve got evidence–I know who’s involved in it.’ He glowered at her. ‘So you can be the star in your own movie? You’d love that, wouldn’t you? But I’m not going to give you that satisfaction. I’ve seen enough here. Disappearing bodies–tanks full of flies–alchemy–murder plots. Sorry, Doctor Ryder, the police service doesn’t cater for attention-seeking weirdos.’ He pointed a warning finger. ‘Consider yourself under caution. Do not do this again. Understood?’ He motioned to the others and led the way out. They brushed past her, leaving her alone in the hallway. She stood there paralysed for a moment with shock and surprise, staring at the back of the hall door and listening to the echoing tramp of footsteps from outside as the policemen headed back down the stairs. She couldn’t believe it. Now what was she going to do? BH will be taken care of tonight. Ben Hope. However he was involved with all this, she had to warn him right away. She hardly knew the guy, but if the cops weren’t going to take this situation seriously, it was up to her to alert him to whatever the hell was going on. She’d tossed the business card he’d given her into the waste-paper basket, with no intention of ever calling him–thank Christ, she thought now, that she hadn’t put it through the shredder. She up-ended the bin, spilling crumpled papers, orange peel and a crushed fizzy drink can onto the lab floor. The card was lying underneath, stained with spots of Coke. She grabbed her phone and stabbed the keys, pressed it to her ear and waited for the ringing tone. A voice answered. ‘Hello? Ben?’ she began urgently. But then she realized what she was hearing. ‘Welcome to the Orange answer phone. I’m sorry, but the person you have called is not available…’ 14 (#ulink_49c318ee-7b7a-5081-9bd6-9e5893a21650) The Opera Quarter, central Paris The rendezvous point Ben had chosen for that night’s meeting was the Madeleine church on the edge of the Opera quarter. It was his habit never to make contact or be picked up too near a place he was staying in. He hadn’t liked the way that Fairfax’s people knew his location in Ireland and sent for him at home. He left the apartment at 8.20 and walked briskly to the Richelieu Drouot M?tro station. It was only two stops to his destination on the jerking, rumbling train. He threaded through the crowds that filled the underground tunnels and emerged back onto the street at the Place de la Madeleine. At the foot of the towering church, he lit a cigarette and leaned against one of the Corinthian columns, watching the traffic go by. He didn’t have to wait long. At the appointed time, a large Mercedes limousine veered out of the traffic and glided to a halt at the kerbside. The uniformed driver climbed out. ‘Monsieur ‘Ope?’ Ben nodded. The chauffeur opened the rear door for him and he got in. He watched Paris go by. It was getting dark as they left the outskirts of the city and the long, silent limo made its way outward along increasingly narrow, unlit country lanes. Bushes and trees, the occasional darkened building, and a little roadside bar flashed by in the headlights. His driver was short on conversation, and Ben lapsed into thought. Loriot was obviously a highly successful publisher, judging by the mode of transport that had been sent out to collect him. It didn’t seem likely that the success of his business depended much, if at all, on publishing titles with an esoteric or alchemical theme–a search of the Editions Loriot website had flagged up only a handful of them, and nothing that seemed related to what he was looking for. In any case it was hardly a very commercial sector of the book market. But Rose had said Loriot was a real enthusiast. It was probably just a hobby thing for him, perhaps a personal interest in the subject that he’d brought into the business as a sideline, to cater for like-minded alchemy buffs. Maybe he’d be able to point him in the right direction. A wealthy collector might even have rare books, or papers or manuscripts of his own, that could be of interest. Perhaps even…no, that was hoping for too much. He’d just have to wait and see where tonight’s meeting took him. He glanced at the luminous dial of his watch. They should be there soon. His thoughts meandered. He felt the Mercedes slow. Had they arrived? He looked out past the driver at the dark road. They weren’t in any village, and there didn’t seem to be any houses nearby. He saw a large road sign lit up in the headlamps. DANGER LEVEL CROSSING The wooden barriers were raised upwards, allowing the car to pass underneath. The limo eased slowly onto the tracks and halted. The driver reached down to press a button on the console next to him and there was a clunk as the central locking was activated. A whirring sound, and a thick glass partition rose up, screening him off from the driver. ‘Hey,’ he called, rapping on the glass. His voice sounded hollow in the soundproof compartment. ‘What’s going on?’ The driver ignored him. He tried the door, knowing in advance it was going to be locked. ‘Why’ve we stopped? Hey, I’m talking to you.’ Without a glance at him or a word in reply, the driver turned off the ignition and the headlights darkened. He swung open the heavy door and the car’s internal light came on. Ben noticed that the partition between them was steel reinforced, crisscrossed internally with a grid of stiff wire. The driver calmly got out of the car. He slammed the door shut and the interior of the car went dark. A bobbing beam of pale torchlight appeared as the man searched ahead of him, walking away up the empty road. The torch beam was sweeping from side to side as though looking for something up ahead. The trembling pool of light settled on a black Audi parked at the roadside, some fifty yards away beyond the level crossing. Its taillights came on and a door was thrown open as the limo driver neared it. He got in. Ben hammered on the glass partition, then on the tinted window. The Audi’s taillights were all he could see in the dark. After a minute or so the car pulled away and disappeared up the road. He groped about in the back of the Mercedes for a way out. He tried the doors again, knowing it was pointless and fighting a rising tide of anxiety. There would be a way out. There was always a way out of everything. He’d been in worse situations than this. He heard a sound from outside, the ring of a bell. It was followed by a series of mechanical noises, and the wooden barriers came down. Even though he was blind in the darkness, he could visualize the scene all too clearly. The Mercedes was sitting astride the tracks, caught between the barriers, and now there was a train coming. ‘All taken care of, Godard?’ asked Berger, the fat guy behind the wheel, glancing over his shoulder as the limo driver climbed into the back of the Audi. Godard took off his chauffeur’s cap. ‘No problem.’ He grinned. Berger started the car. ‘Let’s go for that beer.’ ‘Shouldn’t we hang about for a while?’ asked the third man, glancing nervously at his watch. He looked uneasily at the shadow of the Mercedes fifty yards behind them. ‘Nah–what the fuck for?’ Berger chortled as he put the Audi into gear and drove off, accelerating hard up the road. ‘Train’ll be here in a couple more minutes. The Brit motherfucker’s not going anywhere’. Ben’s eyes were fully adjusted to the dark by now. Through the side window of the Mercedes, the horizon was a plunging black V of starry sky flanked by the blacker steep embankments on either side that rose up from the track. As he watched, a dull glow between the embankments grew steadily brighter. It became two distinct lights, still a long way off but swelling alarmingly in size as the train got nearer. Through the roar in his head he could faintly make out the sound of steel wheels on tracks. He thumped harder on the window. Keep your cool. He unholstered his Browning and used it like a hammer, whacking the butt hard several times against the window. The glass wouldn’t give. He flipped the gun round in his hand, shielded his face with his free arm and fired a shot at the inside of the glass. The growing rumble of the train disappeared in a high-pitched whine as his ears sang from the gunshot. The pane distorted into a wild spider’s web of cracks but didn’t give. Bulletproof glass. He lowered the gun. Not much point trying to take out the door locks. It would take a lot more than a dozen rounds of a flimsy 9mm to chew through the solid steel. He hesitated, then started banging again. The distant lights were getting bigger and brighter, flooding the valley between the embankments with a haloed white glow. There was a crash and he recoiled from the window. Another crunching impact and the crumpled pane bulged in towards him. A voice from outside, muffled but familiar. ‘You in there? Ben?’ It was a woman’s voice, American. Roberta Ryder’s voice! Roberta took another swing at the window with the tyre-iron from her Citro?n’s emergency kit. The reinforced glass was smashed in but it wouldn’t give. The train was fast approaching. She yelled through the cracked window, ‘Ben, hold on tight. There’s going to be an impact!’ The howl of the train was getting louder. He barely heard the door of the Citro?n slam and the sound of its whiny little engine. The 2CV lurched forward, smashing through the barriers and hurling its feeble weight against the heavy metal of the Mercedes’ rear end. Roberta’s windscreen was shattered by the wooden pole. Metal screeched against metal. She grabbed the gearstick and crunched brutally into reverse, dumping the clutch and skidding backwards for another hit. The limo had been shunted forwards a metre, its locked wheels making trenches in the dirt. She rammed the Mercedes a second time, and managed to get the nose of the big, heavy car under the opposite barrier. But it wasn’t enough. Ben was crouched tightly down in the back of the limo. Another impact sent him sprawling. The Mercedes was shunted across the second track, the remaining barrier clattering across its roof. The train was almost on them, 250 metres and closing fast. Roberta floored the accelerator viciously one more time. Last chance. The badly buckled 2CV crunched squarely into the back of the Mercedes and she whooped with relief as the limo was knocked clear of the railway lines. The driver had seen the cars on the tracks. In the wall of noise that was descending on Roberta she could hear the scream of brakes. But nothing could stop it in time. For one terrifying moment the 2CV was locked to the Mercedes and sitting right in the train’s path, torn bodywork meshed together, her wheels spinning in reverse. Then the wreckage disentangled and the car bounced backwards off the tracks to safety just a second before the train howled past with a great slap of wind. Its massive length hurtled by for ten seconds, then it was gone into the night and its little red lights receded away to nothing. They sat silently for a moment in their separate cars, and waited for their hearts and breathing to settle. Ben tucked the Browning back into its holster and clipped it into place. Roberta climbed out of the 2CV, looked at it and gave an involuntary groan. Her headlights were smashed to hell, dangling from their stalks amongst the twisted ruin of the car’s bonnet and front wings. She stepped over the tracks to the limo, knees shaky. ‘Ben? Talk to me!’ ‘Can you get me out?’ said his muffled voice from inside. She tried the Mercedes’ driver door. ‘Duh– smart thinking, Ryder,’ she muttered to herself. ‘Open the whole time.’ At least the keys weren’t in the ignition. That would have been really stupid. She climbed inside and thumped on the glass partition dividing her from Ben. His face appeared dimly on the other side. She looked around. There must be a button for the glass panel. If she could lower it, he could scramble out that way. She found what looked like the button and pressed it. No reaction. Probably needed the ignition on. Shit. She found another button and pressed that, and with a satisfying clunk the rear central locking mechanism opened. He tumbled out, groaning and rubbing his aching body. He shut his jacket, keeping the holster carefully covered up. ‘Jesus, that was close,’ she breathed. ‘You all right?’ ‘I’ll live.’ He pointed at the ruined 2CV. ‘Will it still go?’ ‘Thank you Roberta’, she said in a mock-sarcastic tone. ‘How lucky you turned up. Thank you for saving my ass’ He made no reply. She threw him a look, then gazed back at the wreck of her car. ‘I really liked that car, you know. They don’t make them any more.’ ‘I’ll get you another,’ he said, limping towards it. ‘Damn right you’ll get me another,’ she went on. ‘And I think you owe me an explanation as well.’ After a few twists of the key the 2CV engine coughed into life, making a terminal-sounding clanking noise. Roberta turned the car round, its wheels grinding against the buckled wings, and drove away. As they gained speed, the rubbing of tyres on metal rose to a tortured howl, and the wind whistled around them through the broken windscreen. The engine was overheating badly and acrid smoke began to pour from under the mangled bonnet. ‘I can’t go far in this,’ she shouted over the blast of wind, peering out of the shattered glass into the darkness. ‘Just get it down the road some way,’ he shouted back. ‘I think I saw a bar back there.’ 15 (#ulink_42529365-f273-59c1-aa0e-d31205c925f1) The Citro?n managed to see them as far as the quiet roadside bar before it finally expired from a pierced radiator. Roberta gave it a last sad look as they left it in a shadowy corner of the car park and walked in, past a couple of motorcycles and a few cars and under the flickering red glow of the neon sign over the doorway. The bar-room was mostly empty. A couple of longhaired bikers were playing pool and laughing raucously in the back, drinking beer straight from the bottle. They said little as they took a corner table away from the hard-rock blare of the jukebox. Ben went over to the bar and came back a minute later with a bottle of cheap red wine and two glasses. He poured a glass out for each of them and slid hers across the stained tabletop. She took a gulp and closed her eyes. ‘Boy, what a day. So what’s your story?’ He shrugged. ‘I was just waiting for a train.’ ‘You nearly caught one, too.’ ‘I noticed. Thanks for stepping in.’ ‘Don’t thank me. Just tell me what’s happening and why we’ve suddenly become so popular.’ ‘We?’ ‘Yeah, we’, she said hotly, stabbing the table with her finger. ‘Since I first had the pleasure of meeting you earlier today, I’ve had intruders trying to kill me, friends turning out to be enemies, dead men disappearing from my apartment and asshole cops who think I’m a whacko.’ He listened carefully and with growing apprehension as she told him all that had happened during the last few hours. ‘And to cap it all,’ she finished, ‘I almost get mashed by a train rescuing your ass.’ She paused. ‘I take it you didn’t get my message,’ she added indignantly. ‘What message?’ ‘Maybe you should keep your phone switched on.’ He gave a sour laugh as he remembered he’d turned it off during their interview earlier on. He pulled the mobile out of his pocket and activated it. ‘Message,’ he groaned as the little envelope logo flashed up on his screen. ‘Nice going, Sherlock,’ she said. ‘Then it’s just as well that when you didn’t call back, I decided to come and warn you in person. Though I’m beginning to wonder why I bothered.’ He frowned. ‘How did you know where to find me?’ ‘Remember? I was there when you got the call from–’ ‘Loriot.’ ‘Whatever. Charming friends you have. Anyway, I remembered you mentioned you were going to Brignancourt tonight, figured I might catch up with you there if I wasn’t too late.’ She looked at him hard. ‘So are you going to tell me what’s going on, Ben? Do Sunday Times journalists always live such exciting lives?’ ‘Sounds like you had a more exciting day than me.’ ‘Cut the bullshit. You have something to do with all this, don’t you?’ He was silent. ‘Well? Don’t you? Come on. Am I supposed to think it’s all a coincidence that you turn up asking questions about my work, and we’re being photographed, and someone tries to kill us both on the same day? I don’t buy this journalist thing. Who are you, really?’ He refilled both their glasses. His cigarette was finished. He tossed the stub out of the window. Reached for his Zippo and lit another. She coughed when the smoke drifted across the table towards her. ‘Do you have to do that?’ ‘Yes.’ ‘It’s banned.’ ‘Like I give a shit,’ he said. ‘So are you going to tell me the truth–or do I just call the cops?’ ‘You think they’ll believe you this time?’ The train driver’s heart was still in his mouth as he drove on down the line. By the time his lights had picked out the two cars in his path, it would have been too late to do anything about it. He breathed deeply. Jesus. He’d never had anything more than a deer on the line before. He didn’t like to think what might have happened if the cars hadn’t got out of the way in time. What kind of idiot would drive under the level-crossing barrier with a train coming? Kids, probably, messing about with stolen cars. The driver let out a long sigh as his heart rate eased back down to normal, and then he reached for his radio handset. ‘Oh, fuck.’ ‘Told you we should’ve hung around.’ The three men sat in the Audi overlooking the railway line where they’d left the Mercedes earlier on. Naudon shot his colleagues a caustic glare and settled back in his seat. While Berger and Godard had been sitting giggling in the bar, he’d been listening to the radio. If there’d been a train crash it would’ve been mentioned. Nothing–so he’d kept going on about it to the others until they eventually relented, just to shut him up. And he’d been right. No wreckage, no derailed train, no dead Englishman. The empty Merc was sitting a few metres from the track, and it certainly didn’t look like a car that had been hit by a fast-moving train. Worse, it wasn’t alone. Its dark bodywork reflected the spinning blue lights of two police patrol cars parked either side of it. ‘This is fucking bad,’ Berger breathed, gripping the wheel. ‘Thought you said the cops never came out this way,’ said Godard. ‘That was the whole fucking point of this spot, wasn’t it?’ ‘Told you,’ Naudon repeated from the back. ‘How did–’ ‘Well, boys, the boss isn’t going to be pleased.’ ‘Better call him.’ ‘I’m not doing it. You do it.’ The police officers combed the scene, torch beams darting this way and that like searchlights while radios popped and fizzled in the background. ‘Eh, Jean-Paul,’ said one, holding up a cracked Citro?n grille badge he’d found lying in the dirt. ‘Bits of headlamp glass all over the place here,’ he added. ‘Train driver mentioned a Citro?n 2CV,’ replied another. ‘Where’d it go?’ ‘Not far, that’s for sure. Coolant everywhere.’ Two more officers were casting pools of torchlight around the inside of the limo. One of them spotted a small shiny object lying in the rear footwell. He took a ballpoint pen out of his pocket and used it to pick up the empty cartridge case. ‘Hello, what’s this? Nine-mil shell case.’ He sniffed at it, getting the scent of cordite. ‘Recently fired.’ ‘Bag that.’ Another cop had found something, a business card lying on the seat. squinted at it in the glow of his Maglite. ‘Some foreign name.’ ‘What d’you reckon happened here?’ ‘Who knows?’ Twenty minutes later the police tow-truck arrived. By the swirl of blue and orange lights the battered Mercedes was hitched up and taken away, a police car in front and another bringing up the rear. The railway tracks were left in silent darkness. 16 (#ulink_ef198b9f-125b-5c3c-844b-71299010398c) Rome The two men who had come for Giuseppe Ferraro at his home that night and driven him out of the city now escorted him up the grand stairway to the dome of the Renaissance villa. They had barely said a word to him all the way. They hadn’t needed to–Ferraro knew what this was about, and why the archbishop had sent for him. His knees were a little weak as he was shown into the dome and the door shut behind him. The enormous room was unlit apart from the starlight and moonbeams that streamed in through the many windows around its circumference. Massimiliano Usberti was standing at a desk at the far end. He slowly turned to face Ferraro. ‘Archbishop, I can explain.’ Ferraro had been working on his story ever since the call had come through from Paris earlier that evening. He’d been expecting that Usberti would summon him to the villa–just not this soon. He began blurting out his excuses. He’d hired idiots who had let him down. It wasn’t his fault that the Englishman had got away. He was sorry, so sorry, and it wouldn’t happen again. Usberti walked towards him across the room. He raised his hand in a gesture that silenced Ferraro’s frantic stream of apologies and excuses. ‘Giuseppe, Giuseppe–you do not need to explain,’ he said with a smile, putting his arm around the younger man’s shoulders. ‘We are all human. We all make mistakes. God forgives.’ Ferraro was amazed. This wasn’t the reception he’d expected. The archbishop led him over to a moonlit window. ‘What a glorious night,’ he murmured. ‘Do you not think so, my friend?’ ‘…Yes, Archbishop, it is beautiful.’ ‘Does it not make one feel so happy to be alive?’ ‘It does, Archbishop.’ ‘It is a privilege to live on God’s earth.’ They stood looking out of the window at the inky-black night sky. The stars were out in their millions, the moon was crystal-sharp and the Milky Way galaxy arched glittering and pearly over the Roman hills. After a few minutes, Ferraro asked, ‘Archbishop, may I have your permission to leave now?’ Usberti patted him on the shoulder. ‘Of course. But before you go, I would like to introduce you to a good friend of mine.’ ‘I am honoured, Archbishop.’ ‘I called you here so that you could meet him. His name is Franco Bozza.’ Ferraro almost collapsed with shock at the words. ‘Bozza! The Inquisitor?’ Suddenly his heart was thudding at the base of his throat, his mouth was dry and he felt sick. ‘I see you have heard of my friend before,’ Usberti said. ‘He is going to take care of you now.’ ‘What? But Archbishop, I…’ Ferraro fell on his knees. ‘I implore you…’ ‘He awaits you downstairs,’ Usberti replied, pressing a buzzer on his desk. As Ferraro was dragged away screaming by the two men who had brought him, the archbishop crossed himself and muttered a prayer in Latin for the man’s soul. ‘In nomine patris et filii et spiritus sancti, ego te absolve…‘ 17 (#ulink_f7bff7ec-64c5-5004-b890-01289c9fe074) ‘So where to now?’ asked Roberta as the taxi arrived to pick them up from the bar. ‘Well, you’re going home for a start,’ Ben replied. ‘Are you kidding? I’m not going back there.’ ‘What’s your assistant’s address?’ ‘What do you want that for?’ she asked, getting into the car. ‘I want to ask him a few questions.’ ‘And you think I’m not coming along too? I have a few questions I’d like to ask that son of a bitch.’ ‘You should stay out of this,’ he said to her. He took out his wallet. ‘What are you doing?’ she asked as he counted out banknotes. He held out the money, offering it to her. ‘There’s enough here for you to check in at a decent hotel tonight and fly back to the States in the morning. Take it’ She looked down at the notes, then shook her head and pushed them away. ‘Listen, pal, I’m just as involved in this as you are. I want to find out what the hell’s going on. And don’t get any ideas about giving me the slip.’ Before he could reply she slid forward across the car seat and told the taxi driver an address in the tenth arrondissement of Paris. The driver muttered something under his breath and drove off. As they arrived at Michel’s place, they found the street illuminated with blue flashing lights. An ambulance and a number of police cars were parked outside the apartment building, and crowds were milling about the entrance. Ben asked the taxi driver to wait, and he and Roberta pushed through the crowd. People from nearby bars had gathered in groups on the pavement, watching, pointing, covering their mouths in shock. A team of paramedics were pushing a stretcher on a trolley from the entrance to Michel’s building. They weren’t in a hurry. The body on the stretcher was draped from head to foot in a white sheet. Where the sheet lay over the figure’s face, a huge bloody stain seeped through the cloth. They loaded the stretcher into the back of the ambulance and shut the doors. ‘What happened here?’ Ben asked a gendarme. ‘Suicide,’ the cop replied tersely. ‘A neighbour heard the shot.’ ‘Was it a young guy called Michel Zardi?’ Roberta asked. Somehow she just knew. ‘You knew him?’ said the policeman unemotionally. ‘Go through, mademoiselle. The chief might want to speak to you.’ Roberta headed towards the entrance. Ben took her wrist. ‘Let’s get away from here,’ he warned. ‘There’s nothing you can do.’ She tore her arm out of his grasp. ‘I want to know,’ she retorted, and she pressed on ahead of him, through the police tape and in the door. He followed, cursing. A crowd of police blocked his way. ‘What a mess,’ one officer was saying to another. ‘Even the guy’s own mother wouldn’t recognize him. Blew his whole face right off.’ Amongst the uniformed officers, a small fat lieutenant in plain clothes was giving orders. He glared at Roberta as she approached him. ‘You from the press? Piss off, nothing to see here.’ Are you the officer in charge?’ she demanded. ‘I’m Dr. Roberta Ryder, Michel is my–’ She checked herself. ‘Was my employee. It was his body they just took out of here, wasn’t it?’ ‘We were just passing by,’ Ben cut in, catching up with her. In English he muttered in her ear, ‘Let’s keep this short and simple, OK?’ And your name, monsieur?’ the plain-clothes policeman asked, swivelling his dour gaze towards him. Ben hesitated. If he gave a false name, Roberta’s reaction would give him away. ‘His name’s Ben Hope,’ she filled in for him, and he winced inwardly. ‘Listen,’ she went on in a loud, adamant voice, looking the lieutenant in the eye. ‘Michel didn’t kill himself. He’s been murdered.’ ‘Madame sees murders everywhere,’ someone said behind them, and they turned. Roberta’s heart sank as she recognized the man coming into the room. It was the young police inspector from earlier that day. ‘Inspecteur Luc Simon,’ he said, striding towards them. He fixed Roberta with his green eyes. ‘I’ve warned you about this already. Stop wasting our time. This is a simple suicide. We found a note…What are you doing here, anyway?’ ‘What note?’ she asked suspiciously. Simon held up a small clear plastic bag. Inside, curled against the cellophane, was a small sheet of notepaper with a few lines of handwriting on it. Simon gazed at it. ‘He says it wasn’t worth it any longer. Stress, depression, debts, the usual problems. We see this all the time.’ ‘Eh oui,’ said the lieutenant, with a philosophical shake of the head. ‘La vie, c’est de la merde.’ ‘Shut up, Rigault,’ Simon growled at him. ‘Madame, I asked you a question. What are you doing here? That’s twice today, when I get called out on a false alarm homicide, you turn up.’ ‘Let me see that bullshit note,’ she snapped. ‘He never wrote that.’ ‘I’m sorry,’ Ben said to Simon, jerking Roberta’s arm and cutting in before she said too much. ‘My fianc?e’s upset. We’re leaving now.’ He pulled her aside, leaving the inspector standing there staring keenly at them as assistants scuttled around him. ‘Your fianc?e?’ she hissed at him. ‘What’s that supposed to mean? And let go of my arm, you’re hurting.’ ‘Shut up. You don’t want to spend the next ten hours being grilled by the police, and neither do I.’ ‘It’s not suicide,’ she insisted. ‘I know,’ he nodded. ‘Now listen to me. We’ve only got a few seconds. Is anything in here different, moved, changed in any way?’ ‘Someone’s been through the place.’ She motioned towards his desk and tried not to look at the huge vertical splatter of blood on the wall and ceiling. The desk was empty, Michel’s computer gone. ‘Rigault, get these people out of here! Come on, let’s move!’ Simon was shouting from across the room, pointing at them. ‘We’ve seen enough,’ Ben said. ‘Time to go.’ He led her towards the door, but Simon intercepted them. ‘I hope you’re not thinking of leaving town, Dr. Ryder? I might want to talk to you again.’ As they left the apartment, Simon watched them with a frown. Rigault gave him a knowing look and tapped his head with his finger. ‘Crazy Americans. They see too many of their Hollywood movies.’ Simon nodded pensively. ‘Maybe.’ 18 (#ulink_f3b9ff9f-1c24-5161-a71f-07b7c0bbc8bd) Montpellier, South of France ‘Marc, pass me the screwdriver. Marc…Marc? Where are you, you dozy little shit?’ The electrician got down from his ladder, leaving loose wires hanging, glaring around him. ‘That little sod’ll never learn anything.’ Where had he disappeared off to now? The kid was a liability. He wished he’d never given him a job. Natalie, his sister-in-law, doted on her son, couldn’t see that he was just a loser like his father. ‘Uncle Richard, look at this.’ The apprentice’s excited voice echoed up the narrow concrete corridor. The older man put down his tools, wiped his hands on his overalls and followed the sound. At the end of the shadowy corridor was a dark alcove. A steel door was hanging open. Stone steps led down into a black space. Richard peered down. ‘What the hell are you doing in there?’ ‘You’ve got to see this,’ the kid’s voice echoed from inside. ‘It’s weird.’ Richard sighed and clumped down the steps. He found himself in a huge, empty cellar. Stone columns held up the floor above. ‘So it’s a bloody cellar. Come on out, you’re not supposed to be in here. Stop wasting time.’ ‘Yeah, but look.’ Marc shone his torch and Richard saw steel bars glinting in the darkness. Cages. Rings bolted to the wall. Metal tables. ‘Come on, beat it out of here.’ ‘So what is it?’ ‘I dunno. Kennels for dogs–who gives a shit?’ ‘Nobody keeps dogs in a cellar…’ Marc’s nostrils twitched at the smell of strong disinfectant. He shone his torch around and saw where the smell was coming from, a concrete sluice cut into the floor leading to a wide drain cover. ‘Move it, kid,’ Richard grumbled. ‘I’m going to be late for the next job–you’re holding me up.’ ‘Wait a minute,’ Marc said. He stepped over to the glinting thing he’d seen in the shadows and picked it up off the floor. He studied it in the palm of his hand, wondering what it meant. Richard strode over to the lad, grabbed him by the arm and pulled him towards the steps. ‘Look,’ he warned. ‘I’ve been in this job since before you were born. One thing I’ve learned, if you want to stay in work you mind your own business and keep your mouth shut. OK?’ ‘OK,’ the boy mumbled. ‘But–’ ‘No buts. Now come and help me with this bloody light.’ 19 (#ulink_45b3e7a9-6174-50a4-bf76-04041a02a6b7) Paris For the last four years, Ben had worked alone. He relished the freedom it gave him, the ability to sleep where he wanted, to move as fast and as far and as light as possible, to slip in and out of places alone and inconspicuous. Most important of all, working alone meant that he was responsible for himself and himself only. But now he was lumbered with this woman, and he was breaking all his own rules. He took a convoluted route back to the safehouse. Roberta’s puzzled expression deepened as he led her down the cobbled alleyway, through the underground parking lot, and up the back stairway to the armoured door of his hidden apartment. ‘You live here?’ ‘Home sweet home.’ He locked the door behind them and punched in the code for the alarm system. He flipped on the lights and she gazed around the apartment. ‘What is this, minimalist neo-Spartan?’ ‘You want a coffee? Bite to eat?’ ‘Coffee’s good.’ Ben went into the kitchenette and lit the gas ring under his little percolator. After a few minutes it bubbled up and he served the coffee with hot milk out of a saucepan. He opened a tin of cassoulet, heated it up and dumped the steaming sausage-and-ham stew onto a couple of plates. He still had half a dozen bottles of red table wine. He grabbed one and pulled the cork. ‘You should eat something,’ he said as she ignored her plate. ‘I’m not hungry.’ ‘OK.’ He finished his own plate, then pulled hers across the table and wolfed down the last of the stew with gulps of wine. As he ate, he could see she was shaking, her head in her hands. He got up and put a blanket around her shoulders. She sat in silence for a few minutes. ‘I can’t stop thinking about Michel,’ she whispered. ‘He wasn’t your friend,’ he reminded her. ‘Yeah, I know, but still…’ She sobbed, wiped her eyes and smiled weakly. ‘Pretty stupid.’ ‘No, not stupid. You have compassion.’ ‘You say that as though it were a rare thing.’ ‘It is a rare thing.’ ‘Do you have any?’ ‘No.’ He poured the last of the wine into his glass. ‘I don’t.’ He looked at his watch. ‘It’s late. I’ve got work to do in the morning.’ He drained his glass, jumped up from his chair, and grabbed a pile of blankets and an armchair cushion. He chucked them on the floor. ‘What’re you doing?’ ‘Making up a bed for you.’ ‘Call that a bed?’ ‘Well, you could have had the Ritz if you’d wanted. I did offer, remember?’ He saw her look. ‘It’s only a one-bedroom flat,’ he added. ‘So you make your guests sleep on the floor?’ ‘If it’s any consolation, you’re the first guest I’ve had up here. Now, can I have your bag, please?’ ‘What?’ ‘Give me your bag,’ he repeated. He snatched it from her and began rifling through it. ‘What the hell are you doing?’ She tried to grab it back from him. He pushed her away. ‘I’ll have this,’ he said, pocketing her phone. ‘The rest you can keep.’ ‘Why are you taking my phone off me?’ ‘Why do you think? I don’t want you making any calls from here behind my back.’ ‘Boy, you really have a big problem with trust.’ Roberta couldn’t sleep well that night, couldn’t shut out the memory of the day’s events. What had started out like any other day had turned her whole world upside-down. Maybe she was crazy, hanging on here when she could have taken the money and been on a plane home first thing in the morning. And what about this Ben Hope? Here she was, locked in a hidden apartment with a guy she’d only met that day and barely knew. Who was he? He was attractive, and he had that winning smile. But there was that coldness, too, the way he could look at her with those pale blue eyes and she couldn’t tell what he was thinking. There was another thought that wouldn’t go away. It was the knowledge that someone was interested in her research. Very interested indeed. Interested enough to kill for it. That meant several things. It meant that someone was threatened by what she’d been discovering. Which meant it had real value. She was on the right track, and even if it was a dangerous position she was in, she couldn’t help feeling a tingle of excitement. She had to know more. She broke off from her thoughts and lifted her head off the cushion, tensed and listening. A voice. She struggled to get her bearings in the dark, unfamiliar room. After a few seconds she orientated herself and it dawned on her that the sound was coming from behind the bedroom door. It was Ben’s voice. She couldn’t make out what he was saying. His voice grew louder, protesting against something. Was he on the phone? She got up from her makeshift bed and crept to his door in the dim moonlight. She pressed her ear softly to the door, careful not to make a noise, and listened. He wasn’t talking in there, he was moaning– and his voice sounded pained, tortured. He muttered something she didn’t catch, and then he called out more loudly. She was about to open the door when she realized he was dreaming. No, not a dream. A nightmare. ‘Ruth! Don’t go! No! No! Don’t leave me!’ His cries diminished back into a low moan, and then as she stood there in the dark she listened to him for a long time sobbing like a child. 20 (#ulink_36abbc1a-d0f7-55ea-9f18-5e8ea1d777d4) Ever since his impoverished childhood in rural Sardinia, Franco Bozza had enjoyed giving pain. His first victims had been insects and worms, and as a young boy he’d spent many contented hours developing increasingly elaborate ways of slowly dissecting them and watching them writhe and die. Before the age of eight, Franco had progressed to practising his skills on small birds and mammals. Some fledglings in a nest suffered first. Later, local dogs started to disappear. As Franco progressed through his teens he grew into a master torturer and an expert in inflicting agony. He loved it. It was the thing that made him feel most alive. By the time he’d left school at the age of thirteen he’d become almost equally fascinated with Catholicism. He was entranced by the crueller images of Christian tradition–the crown of thorns, the bleeding stigmata of Christ, the way the nails had been hammered through the hands and feet into the cross. Franco polished the basic literacy skills he’d learned in school just so he could read about the deliciously gruesome history of the Church. One day he came across an old book that described the persecution of heretics by the medieval Inquisition. He read how, after the conquest of a Cathar stronghold in the year 1210, the commander of the Church forces had ordered that a hundred Cathar heretics have their ears, noses and lips cut off, their eyes gouged out, and be paraded before the ramparts of other heretic castles as an example. The boy was deeply inspired by such macabre genius, and he would lie awake at night wishing he could somehow have taken part in it. Franco fell in love with religious art, and would walk miles to the nearest town to visit the library and drool over historic prints showing grisly images of religious oppression. His favourite painting was The Hay Wagon by Hieronymus Bosch in the 1480s, showing horrible tortures at the hands of demons, bodies pierced by spears and blades, and–most exciting of all–a nude woman. It wasn’t her nudity in itself that provoked such choking feelings of lust in him. Her arms were tied behind her back, and all that covered her nakedness was a black toad clapped to her genitals. She was a witch. She would be burnt. This was what generated such intense, almost frantic, excitement in him. Franco learned about the historical backdrop to Bosch’s painting, the furious misogyny of the Catholic Church during the fifteenth century when Pope Innocent VIII had issued his Witch Bull, the document that gave the Vatican’s seal of approval to the torture and burning of women suspected, however vaguely, of being in league with the Devil. Franco went on from there to discover the book known as the Malleus Malificarum, the ‘Witches’ Hammer’, the official Inquisition manual of torture and sadism for those who served God by drenching themselves in heretic blood. It instilled in young Franco the same violent horror of female sexuality that had permeated medieval Christian faith. A woman who indulged in sex, who enjoyed it, didn’t just lie there, must be the Devil’s bride. Which meant she had to die. In a horrible way. That was the part he liked best. Franco became an expert on the entire bloody past of the Catholic Inquisition and the Church that had spawned it. While others admired the beautiful artwork by Botticelli and Michelangelo in the Vatican’s Sistine Chapel for its own sake, Franco revelled in the fact that while these works of art were being commissioned by the Church, a quarter million women across Europe were being put to the stake with the Pope’s blessing. The more he learned, the more he came to appreciate that to subscribe to the Catholic faith and its legacy was, tacitly or otherwise, to espouse centuries of systematic and unrestrained mass murder, war, oppression, torture and corruption. He’d found his spiritual calling, and he rejoiced in it. Eventually, in 1977, it came time for Franco to marry his intended, the daughter of the local gunsmith. He reluctantly agreed to the marriage to Maria, to please his parents. On his wedding night, he discovered that he was completely impotent. At the time, this caused him no concern. He’d never cared that he was still a virgin, because he already knew that the only thing that could excite him was when he had his knife and could inflict pain. That was what drew him and made him feel powerful. Female flesh had no allure for him. But as weeks turned into months and he continued to show no interest in her sexually, Maria started taunting him. One night she pushed him too far. ‘I’m going out to find a real man with balls,’ she screamed at him. ‘And then everyone will know that my husband is nothing but a useless castrato.’ Franco was already powerful and muscular at the age of twenty. Enraged, he grabbed her by the hair and dragged her up to the bedroom where he threw her brutally down on the bed, knocked her semiconscious and took a knife to her flesh. That had been the night that Franco had made a life-changing discovery, that a woman’s body could excite him after all. He didn’t touch her–only the steel touched her. He left Maria tied to the bed, mutilated and permanently disfigured. He fled the village in the middle of the night. Maria’s father and brothers came after him, vowing revenge. Franco had never ventured more than a few miles from his village before, and he was soon lost, penniless and hungry in the verdant Sardinian countryside. It was outside a bar near Cagliari, begging for food, that Maria’s elder brother Salvatore found him one night. Salvatore crept up on the unsuspecting Franco from behind and slashed his throat with his knife. A weaker man would have collapsed and died, let himself be butchered. Franco was half starved and drenched in the blood that spurted from the gash in his neck. But the pain and the smell of the blood gave him new strength, raw energy. He stayed on his feet like a wounded animal. Instead of running, he attacked. If Salvatore had brought a gun that night, it would have been different. But Franco took the knife from him, overpowered him and cut his liver out. Slowly. It was the first time he’d killed a man, but it wouldn’t be the last. He robbed Salvatore’s body of money, and fled to the coast where he took the ferry to the Italian mainland. His cut throat healed, but he would speak in a strangled whisper for the rest of his life. With the ensuing vendetta against him, Franco Bozza was exiled from Sardinia. He travelled around southern Italy, bumming from job to job. But his lust for inflicting pain was never far away, and before the age of twenty-four his talents were being put to good use by Mafia hoods who employed him to press information out of their captured enemies. Franco Bozza was a natural, and his fearsome reputation soon spread through the criminal underworld as an exceptionally callous and cold-hearted torturer. When it came to prolonging life and maximizing agony, he was the undisputed maestro. When Bozza–or the Inquisitor, as he now styled himself–wasn’t performing his art on some hapless criminal he’d stalk the streets at night and prey on prostitutes, luring them to their death with his whispering voice. Their pitiful remains began to appear in dingy hotel rooms all over southern Italy. Rumours spread of a ‘monster’, a maniac who feasted on pain and death the way a vampire feasted on blood. But the Inquisitor always covered his tracks. His police record was as virginal as his sexuality. One day in 1997 Franco Bozza got an unexpected phone call–not from the usual underworld kingpin or Mafia boss, but from a Vatican bishop. It was through the shadows of the underworld that Massimiliano Usberti had heard of this Inquisitor. The man’s notorious religious zeal, his absolute devotion to God and his unflinching will to punish the wicked, were just the qualities Usberti wanted for his new organization. When Bozza heard what his role was to be, he seized the opportunity right away. It was perfect for him. The organization was called Gladius Domini. The Sword of God. Franco Bozza had just become its blade. 21 (#ulink_3e6529c8-2f4c-5310-8e66-74a17dcbe1ef) Paris ‘Hello–put me through to Monsieur Loriot, please?’ ‘He is away on business at the moment, sir,’ replied the secretary. ‘He won’t be back until December.’ ‘But I got a call from him just yesterday.’ ‘I’m afraid that isn’t possible,’ the secretary said testily. ‘He’s been in America for a month.’ ‘Sorry to bother you,’ Ben said. ‘Obviously I’ve been misinformed. Could you tell me if Monsieur Loriot is still living at the Villa Margaux in Brignancourt?’ ‘Brignancourt? No, Monsieur Loriot lives here in Paris. I think you must have the wrong number. Good day.’ The line went dead. It was clear now. Loriot hadn’t called him at all-the train hit had been someone else’s idea. Just as he’d thought. It was too improbable. He sat and smoked, thinking about it. The evidence pointed in a new direction. He’d called Loriot’s office from Roberta’s place. Michel Zardi had been in the room with him, listened in, taken his number. He’d gone straight out through the door soon afterwards–to buy fish for his cat. Yeah, and to pass the number on to his cronies, too. So they’d called him back pretending to be Loriot. It was a risk–what if the real Loriot had called back too? Maybe they’d checked first that he was out of town. It wasn’t a perfect plan, but it had been good enough. Ben had let himself get picked up like an apple off a tree, and only Roberta’s chance intervention had saved him from being smeared over a hundred metres of railway line. Without her, they’d still be spooning him out of the cracks in the sleepers. Was he slipping? This couldn’t happen again. It also meant that the same people who were after Roberta Ryder were after him too. They meant business, and that, like it or not, drew Ben and her together. He’d been awake since dawn and had been pondering all morning what to do with her. The day before, he’d been thinking that he’d have to ditch her, pay her off, force her to return to the States. But maybe he’d been wrong. She might be able to help him. She wanted to find out what was going on, and so did he. And he sensed that for the moment she wanted to stick by him, partly out of fear, partly out of fierce curiosity. But that wouldn’t last if he went on keeping her in the dark, freezing her out, not trusting her. He sat on his bed and thought about it until he heard her moving about in the next room. He stood up and pushed open the door. She was stretching and yawning, the rumpled bedclothes heaped up on the floor at her feet. Her hair was tousled. ‘I’m making coffee, and then I’m getting out of here,’ he said. ‘The door’s open. You’re free to go.’ She looked at him, said nothing. ‘Time to decide,’ he said. ‘Are you staying or leaving?’ ‘If I stay, I have to stay with you.’ He nodded. ‘We have a lot of figuring out to do. And we need to do this my way.’ Are we trusting one another now?’ ‘I suppose we are,’ he said. ‘I’m staying.’ He walked along the row of used cars, casting his eye over each one in turn. Something quick and practical. Not too ostentatious, not too distinctive. ‘What about this one?’ he asked, pointing. The mechanic wiped his hands on his overall, leaving parallel oil smears down the blue cloth. ‘She is one year old, perfect condition. How you paying?’ Ben patted his pocket. ‘Cash all right?’ Ten minutes later Ben was gunning the silver Peugeot 206 Sport along Avenue de Gravelle towards the main Paris ring-road. ‘Well, for a journalist you sure seem to throw a lot of money around, Ben,’ Roberta said next to him. ‘OK, time for the truth. I’m not a journalist,’ he confessed, slowing down for the heavy traffic on the approach to the P?riph?rique. ‘Ha. Knew it.’ She clapped her hands. ‘Am I allowed to know what you do do, Mr. Benedict Hope? That your real name, by the way?’ ‘It’s my real name.’ ‘It’s a nice name.’ ‘Too nice for a guy like me?’ She smiled. ‘I didn’t say that.’ ‘As for what I do,’ he said, ‘I suppose you could say I’m a seeker.’ He filtered through the traffic, waited for a gap, and the acceleration of the sporty little car pressed them back in their seats as its fruity engine note rose to a pleasing pitch. ‘A seeker of what? Trouble?’ ‘Well, yes, sometimes I’m a seeker of trouble,’ he said, allowing a dry smile. ‘But I wasn’t expecting as much trouble this time.’ ‘So what are you seeking? And why come to me?’ ‘You really want to know?’ ‘I really want to know.’ ‘I’m trying to find the alchemist Fulcanelli.’ She arched an eyebrow. ‘Riiight… Uh-huh. Go on.’ ‘Well, what I’m really looking for is a manuscript he was supposed to have had, or written–I don’t know much about it.’ ‘The Fulcanelli manuscript–that old myth.’ ‘You’ve heard of it?’ ‘Sure, I’ve heard of it. But you hear a lot of things in this business.’ ‘You don’t think it exists.’ She shrugged. ‘Who knows? It’s like the holy grail of alchemy. Some say it does, some say it doesn’t, nobody knows what it is or what’s in it, or even if it really exists. What do you want with it, anyway? You don’t seem to me like the sort who goes for all this stuff.’ ‘What sort’s that?’ She snorted. ‘You know what one of the biggest problems with alchemy is? The people who are drawn to it. I never met one yet who wasn’t some kind of fruitcake.’ ‘That’s the first compliment you’ve paid me.’ ‘Don’t take it to heart. Anyway, you didn’t answer the question.’ He paused. ‘It’s not for me. I’m working for a client.’ ‘And this client believes the manuscript can help with some kind of illness, right? That’s why you were so interested in my research. You’re looking for some kind of medicinal cure for someone. The client’s sick?’ ‘Let’s just say he’s pretty desperate for it.’ ‘Boy, he must be.’ ‘I was wondering if your fly elixir could be of any use to him.’ ‘I’ve told you. It’s not ready yet. And I wouldn’t even try it on a human being. It would be totally unethical. Not to mention practising medicine without a licence. I’m in enough shit as it is, apparently.’ He shrugged. ‘So, Ben, are you going to tell me where we’re going in this fancy new toy of yours?’ ‘Does the name Jacques Cl?ment mean anything to you?’ he asked. She nodded. ‘He was Fulcanelli’s apprentice back in the twenties.’ She shot him a questioning look. ‘Why?’ ‘The story goes, Fulcanelli passed on certain documents to Cl?ment before he disappeared,’ he filled in. She was waiting for more, so he went on. ‘Anyhow, that was back in 1926. Cl?ment’s dead now, died a long time ago. But I want to know more about whatever it was that Fulcanelli gave him.’ ‘How can you find out?’ ‘One of the first things I did when I got to Paris three days ago was to check out any surviving family. I thought they might be able to help.’ ‘And?’ ‘I traced his son, Andr?. Rich banker, retired. He wasn’t very forthcoming. As a matter of fact, as soon as I mentioned Fulcanelli he and his wife basically told me to piss off ‘That’s what happens when you mention alchemy to anyone,’ she said. ‘Join the club.’ ‘Anyway, I didn’t think I’d hear from them again,’ he went on. ‘But this morning, while you were sleeping, I had a call.’ ‘From them?’ ‘From their son, Pierre. We had an interesting talk. It turns out there were two brothers, Andr? and Gaston. Andr? was the successful one, and Gaston was the black sheep of the family. Gaston wanted to carry on his father’s work, which Andr? hated, saw it as witchcraft.’ ‘That figures.’ And they basically disowned Gaston. Family embarrassment. They won’t have anything to do with him any longer.’ ‘Gaston’s still alive?’ ‘Apparently so. He lives a few kilometres away, on an old farm.’ She settled back in her seat. ‘And that’s where we’re headed?’ ‘Don’t get too excited. He’s probably some kind of oddball…what did you call them?’ ‘Fruitcakes. Technical term.’ ‘I’ll make a note of it.’ ‘So you think Gaston Cl?ment might still have those papers, or whatever it was that Fulcanelli passed on to his father?’ ‘It’s worth a try.’ Anyway, I’m sure this is all very interesting,’ she said. ‘But I thought we were trying to find out what the fuck’s going on and why someone’s trying to kill us?’ He shot her a glance. ‘I haven’t finished yet. There’s one other thing Pierre Cl?ment told me this morning. I wasn’t the last person to make contact with his father asking questions about Fulcanelli. He said that three men turned up there a couple of days ago asking the same questions, and asking about me too. Somehow all this is connected–you, me, Michel, the people after us, and the manuscript.’ ‘But how?’ She shook her head in confusion. ‘I don’t know how.’ The question was, he thought to himself, had the three men found out about Gaston Cl?ment? He could be walking into another trap. In another hour or so they’d reached the derelict farm where Pierre Cl?ment had said his uncle lived. They pulled up in a wooded layby a few hundred metres up the road. ‘This is the place,’ Ben said, checking the rough map he’d written from the directions. Grey clouds overhead were threatening rain as they walked towards the farm. Without letting her see, he quietly popped open the press-stud on his holster’s retaining strap and kept his hand hovering near his chest as they reached the cobbled yard. There were deserted, decaying farm buildings on both sides. A tall, dilapidated wooden barn sat behind a wrecked cowshed. Broken windows were nailed over with planks. A slow curl of smoke was rising from a blackened metal chimney. Ben looked around him cautiously, ready for trouble. There was nobody else about. The barn seemed empty. Inside, the air was thick and smoky and laden with an unpleasant reek of dirt and strange smouldering substances. The building was one big room, dimly lit by milky rays of sunlight that shone through the cracks in the planking and the few dusty window-panes. Twittering birds were flying in and out of a hole high up in the gable end. At one side of the barn a raised platform on rough wooden poles supported a ragged armchair, a table with an old TV and a bed heaped with dirty blankets. At the other side was a huge sooty furnace whose black iron door hung open a few inches, exuding a stream of dark smoke and a pungent smell. The furnace was surrounded by makeshift tables covered in books, papers, metal and glass containers connected with rubber or Perspex tubing. Strange liquids simmered over Bunsen burners running from gas bottles and gave off foul vapours. Piled up in every shadowy corner were heaps of junk, old crates, broken containers, rows of empty bottles. ‘What a shit-pit,’ Roberta breathed. ‘At least it’s not full of flies.’ ‘Ha ha.’ She smirked at him. ‘Jerk,’ she added under her breath. Ben went over to one of the tables, where something had caught his eye. It was a faded old manuscript weighted down at the corners by pieces of quartz crystal. He picked it up and it sprang into a roll, throwing up a cloud of dust particles that caught the ray of light from the boarded window nearby. He brought the manuscript into the path of the sunbeam, gently unfurling it to read the spidery script. If the herb ch-sheng can make one live longerSurely this elixir is worth taking into one’s body?Gold by its nature cannot decay or perishAnd is of all things the most precious.If the alchemist creates this elixirThe duration of his life will become everlastingHairs that were white now all return to blackTeeth that had fallen will regrowThe old dotard is once more a lusty youthThe crone is once more a maidenHe whose form has changed escapes the perils of life. ‘Found something?’ she asked, peering over his shoulder. ‘I don’t know. Could be interesting, maybe.’ ‘Let me see?’ She ran her eyes down the scroll. Ben searched the table for more like it, but all he could find among the heaped rolls and dog-eared piles of dirty paper were abstruse diagrams, charts and lists of symbols. He sighed. ‘Do you understand any of this stuff?’ ‘Um, Ben?’ He blew some dust off an old book. ‘What?’ he mumbled, only half-listening to her. She nudged him. ‘We’ve got company.’ 22 (#ulink_b9539cd2-da92-50b4-9fbb-0f6138e04c3d) Ben’s hand flew to his gun. But when he turned and saw the man approaching them, he let his arm drop to his side. The old man’s eyes flashed wildly behind long, straggly grey hair that hung down to merge with his bush of a beard. He hobbled rapidly towards them with a stick, boots dragging on the concrete floor. ‘Put that down!’ he shouted harshly, waving a bony finger at Roberta. ‘Don’t touch that!’ She gingerly replaced the scroll on the table, where it sprang back into a tight curl. The old man grabbed it, clutching it furiously to his chest. He was wearing an ancient, filthy greatcoat that hung from him in tatters. His breathing was laboured, wheezing. ‘Who are you?’ he demanded, baring blackened teeth. ‘What are you doing in my home?’ Roberta stared at him. He looked as though he’d spent the last thirty years or so living rough under the bridges of Paris. Jesus, she thought. These are the guys I’m trying to convince the world to take seriously? ‘We’re looking for Monsieur Gaston Cl?ment,’ Ben said. ‘I’m sorry, the door was open.’ ‘Who are you?’ the old man repeated. ‘Police? Leave me alone. Fuck off.’ He retreated towards the shadows, clutching the rolled-up paper to him and waving his stick at them. ‘We’re not the police. We’d just like to ask you a few questions.’ ‘I’m Gaston Cl?ment, what do you want from me?’ the old man wheezed. Suddenly his knees seemed to give way under him, and he stumbled, dropping the scroll and his walking-stick. Ben picked him up and helped him to a chair. He knelt beside the old alchemist as he hacked and coughed into a handkerchief. ‘My name’s Benedict Hope, and I’m looking for something. A manuscript written by Fulcanelli…listen, should I call a doctor for you? You don’t look well.’ Cl?ment ended his coughing fit and sat panting for a minute, wiping his mouth. His hands were bony and arthritic, blue veins bulging through translucent pale skin. ‘I’m all right,’ he croaked. Slowly his grey head turned to look at Ben. ‘You said Fulcanelli?’ ‘He was your father’s teacher, isn’t that right?’ ‘Yes, he gave great wisdom to my father,’ Cl?ment murmured. He sat back, as though thinking. For a minute he broke off into a rambling mutter, seeming confused and far away. Ben picked up the fallen stick and propped it up by the old man’s chair. He unfurled the scroll that had dropped to the floor. ‘I don’t suppose…’ Cl?ment seemed to come back to life when he saw the scroll in Ben’s hands. A skinny arm shot out and snatched it away. ‘Give that back to me.’ ‘What is that?’ ‘What do you care? It is The Secret of Everlasting Life. Chinese, second century. It is priceless.’ Cl?ment’s old eyes focused more clearly on Ben. He staggered to his feet, pointing a trembling finger. ‘What do you want from me?’ he quavered. ‘More fucking foreigners coming to steal!’ He grabbed his stick. ‘No, monsieur, we aren’t thieves,’ Ben assured him. ‘We just want information.’ Cl?ment spat. ‘Information? Information– that’s what that salaud Klaus Rheinfeld said to me.’ He slammed the stick on the table, making papers fly. ‘That filthy thieving little Kraut!’ He turned to them. ‘Now you get out of here,’ he shouted at them, spit frothing from the corners of his mouth. He reached out to a rack of equipment and grabbed a test-tube filled with a steaming green liquid, waving it at them threateningly. But then his knees went again and he stumbled and fell. The test-tube smashed on the floor and the green liquid spattered everywhere. They got old Cl?ment back on his feet and helped him up the steps of the raised platform where he had his living-quarters. He sat down on the edge of the bed, looking frail and sick. Roberta brought him a drink of water. After a while he calmed down and seemed more willing to speak to them. ‘You can trust me,’ Ben told him earnestly. ‘I don’t want to steal from you. I’ll pay you money if you help me. Agreed?’ Cl?ment nodded, sipping his water. ‘Good. Now, listen carefully. Fulcanelli gave your father, Jacques Cl?ment, certain documents before his disappearance in 1926. I need to know whether your father might have had possession of some kind of alchemical manuscript given to him by his teacher.’ The old man shook his head. ‘My father had many papers. He destroyed a lot of them before he died.’ His face twisted in anger. ‘Of the ones he left behind, most were stolen from me.’ ‘By the man Rheinfeld you mentioned?’ Ben asked. ‘Who was he?’ Cl?ment’s wrinkled cheeks flushed red. ‘Klaus Rheinfeld,’ he said in a voice full of hatred. ‘My assist ant. He came here to learn the secrets of alchemy. One day he arrives, that miserable scrawny shit, with nothing but the stinking shirt on his back. I helped him, taught him, fed him!’ The alchemist’s rage was making him breathless. ‘I trusted him. But he betrayed me. I have not seen him for ten years.’ ‘You’re saying that Klaus Rheinfeld stole your father’s important documents?’ ‘And the gold cross too.’ ‘A gold cross?’ ‘Yes, very old and beautiful. Discovered by Fulcanelli, many years ago.’ Cl?ment broke off, coughing and spluttering. ‘It was the key to great knowledge. Fulcanelli passed the cross to my father just before he disappeared.’ ‘Why did Fulcanelli disappear?’ Ben asked. Cl?ment shot Ben a dark look. ‘Like me, he was betrayed.’ ‘Who betrayed him?’ ‘Someone he trusted.’ Cl?ment’s shrivelled lips twisted into a mysterious smile. He reached under his bed and, clutching it with reverential care, brought out an old book. Bound in scuffed blue leather, it looked as though mice had been nibbling at it for decades. ‘It is all in here.’ ‘What’s that?’ Ben asked, peering at the book. ‘My father’s master tells his story in these pages,’ Cl?ment replied. ‘This was his private Journal, the only thing Rheinfeld did not steal from me.’ Ben and Roberta exchanged glances. ‘Can I see it?’ he asked Cl?ment. The alchemist tentatively opened the cover for Ben to see, holding it close to him. Ben caught a glimpse of old-fashioned handwriting. ‘This was definitely Fulcanelli’s own writings?’ ‘Of course,’ the old man muttered, and showed him the signature on the inner cover. ‘Monsieur, I would like to buy this book from you.’ Cl?ment snorted. ‘Not for sale.’ Ben thought for a few moments. ‘What about Klaus Rheinfeld?’ he asked. ‘Do you know where he is now?’ The old man clenched his fist. ‘Burning in hell where he belongs, I hope.’ ‘You mean he’s dead?’ But Cl?ment was off in one of his muttering fits again. ‘Is he dead?’ Ben repeated. The alchemist’s eyes were far away. Ben waved his hand in front of them. ‘I don’t think you’re going to get much more out of him, Ben,’ Roberta said. Ben nodded. He put a hand on the old man’s shoulder and softly shook him to his senses. ‘Monsieur Cl?ment, listen carefully and remember this. You have to leave here for a while.’ The old man’s eyes slid back into focus. ‘Why?’ he croaked. ‘Because there are some men who might come here. Not nice men, you don’t want to meet them, you understand? They’ve been asking questions at your brother’s house and they may know where to find you. I’m afraid they might want to hurt you. So I want you to take this.’ Ben took out a thick wad of banknotes. Cl?ment’s eyes opened wide when he saw how much there was. ‘What is that for?’ he quavered. ‘It’s to pay for you to leave here for a while,’ Ben told him. ‘Get yourself some new clothes, go to a doctor if you need one. Take a train as far away as possible and rent yourself a place somewhere for a month or two.’ He reached back into his pocket and showed Cl?ment another bundle of notes. ‘And I’ll give you this too, if you’ll agree to sell me that book.’ 23 (#ulink_e34ba26e-76e7-585c-9b8f-ed721f99d3b0) ‘Interesting reading?’ ‘Pretty interesting,’ he replied absently, looking up from his desk. Roberta was sitting gazing out of the window, sipping on a coffee and looking bored. He returned to the Journal, carefully turning the age-yellowed pages and scanning through some of the entries composed in the alchemist’s smooth and elegant hand. ‘Worth thirty grand?’ Ben didn’t reply. Maybe it was worth what he’d paid Cl?ment, and maybe not. Many of the pages seemed to be missing, others damaged and unreadable. He’d been hoping the Journal might contain some clues about the fabled elixir, maybe even a recipe of some kind. As he leafed through it he realized that that was probably a na?ve expectation. It seemed to be a diary like any other, a day-to-day account of the man’s life. His eye settled on a lengthy entry and he began to read. February 9 , 1924 The climb up the mountain was long and perilous. I am getting far too old for this kind of thing.Many times I nearly fell to my death as I found myself inching my way numbly up near-vertical rock and the falling snow grew into a blizzard. Eventually, I dragged myself up onto the summit of the mountain and rested my weary body for a few moments, wheezing, muscles trembling from the exertion. I wiped the snow from my eyes and looked up to see the ruined castle in front of me. The passing of the centuries has not been kind to what was once the proud stronghold of Amauri de L?vis. Wars and plagues have come and gone, warrior-dynasties have flourished and died out, the land has been passed from one ruler to another. It is over five centuries since the castle, by then already ancient and battered, was besieged, bombarded and finally wrecked in the course of some long-forgotten clan feud. Its strong round towers are mostly reduced to rubble, the battle-scarred walls covered with moss and lichen. At one time fire must have devastated the inside of the castle and collapsed the roof. Time, wind, rain, sun have done the rest. Much of the ruin is overgrown with gorse and brambles, and I had to cut a way through the Gothic archway of the main entrance. The wooden gates have rotted away to nothing and only their blackened iron hinges remain, hanging by rusty rivets from the crumbling stone arch. As I entered the gate, the deathly silence of a graveyard hung over the empty grey shell. I despaired of ever finding what I had come for. I wandered inside the snowy courtyard and looked around me at the remnants of the walls and ramparts. At the bottom of a winding, descending stairway I found the entrance to an old storeroom, where I sheltered from the wind and lit a small fire to warm myself by. The blizzard trapped me inside the castle ruin for two days. The meagre rations of bread and cheese I had brought were sufficient to sustain me, and I had a blanket and a small saucepan for melting snow to drink. I spent my time exploring the ruin, fervently hoping that what my researches had revealed to me would prove true. I knew that my prize, if it existed, would be found not above ground in what remained of the ramparts or the towers, but somewhere down below in the network of tunnels and chambers carved out in the rock beneath the castle. Many of the tunnels have collapsed over time, but others remain intact. At the lower levels I discovered dank dungeons, the bones of their miserable inhabitants long since reduced to dust. Wandering through the dripping black passageways and winding staircases by the light of my oil lamp, I searched and I prayed. After many hours of cruel disappointment I crawled through a half-collapsed tunnel deep underground and found myself in a square chamber. I raised my lantern, recognizing the vaulted ceiling and crumbled coats-of-arms fromthe decayed old woodcut I had found back in Paris. At this moment I knew that my quest was fulfilled, and my heart leapt with joy. I circled the chamber until I came to the spot. I scraped aside thick cobwebs and blew away clouds of dust, and the time-smoothed markings in the stone block appeared before me. As I had known they would, the markings directed me to a particular flagstone in the floor. I dug the damp earth away from its edges until I was able to get my fingers underneath, then with great effort I heaved it upright. When I saw the stone hollow it had concealed and realized what I had found, after a lifetime of searching, I sank to my knees with silent tears of relief and exultation. My heart was pounding fearfully as I dragged the weighty object out of the hole and scraped away the dirt and the decayed remnants of its sheepskin wrapping. The steel casket is well preserved. There was a hiss of escaping air as I prised the box open with my knife. I reached inside with trembling fingers, and by the flickering glow of my lantern I drank in the sight of my incredible find. Nobody in almost seven hundred years has laid eyes on these precious things. What joy! I believe the artefacts to be the work of my ancestors, the Cathars. They are a work of great mastery, which has been hidden from ages and from generations. Together they may hold the key to the Secret of Secrets and the goal of all our work. It is a miracle so great that I fear to contemplate its power… Ben flipped on a few pages, eager to find more. 3 November, 1924 It is as I suspected. The ancient scroll has proved much harder to decipher than I had first anticipated. Many months I have laboured over the translation of its archaic languages, its deviously encrypted messages, its numerous deliberate deceptions. But today Cl?ment and I have at last been rewarded for our long toil. The substances were melted in a crucible over the furnace after being reduced to their salts and undergoing special preparations and distillation. There was a startling hiss and streams of vapour filled the laboratory. Cl?ment and I were amazed by the scent of fresh earth and sweet-smelling flowers. The water turned a golden colour. To this we added a quantity of mercury and the solution was left to cool. When we opened the crucible… The rest of the page was eaten away by damp and mice. ‘Shit,’ Ben breathed. Maybe there was nothing useful in this thing after all. He read on, staring closely at the faded writing. In some places it was barely visible through the damp stains. December 8 , 1924 How does one test an Elixir of Life? We haveprepared the mixture according to my ancestors detailed instructions. Cl?ment, that lovable fellow, was afraid to take it. I have now consumed approximately thirty drachms of the sweet-tasting liquid. I observe no adverse effect. Only time will tell of its life-preserving powers… Time will tell, all right, Ben thought. Frustrated, he skipped a few pages and found himself looking at an entry from May 1926 that was undamaged and intact. This morning I returned to Rue Lepic from my daily stroll to be greeted by the most putrid stench emanating from my laboratory. Even as I hastened down the stairway to the cellar I knew what had happened, and much as I expected, when I threw open the laboratory door I discovered my young apprentice Nicholas Daquin standing surrounded by clouds of smoke and the wreckage of a foolish experiment. I doused the flames, and coughing from the smoke I turned to him. ‘I have warned you about this sort of thing, Nicholas,’ I said. ‘I’m sorry,’ Nicholas replied with that defiant look of his. ‘But master, I almost succeeded.’ ‘Experiments can be dangerous, Nicholas. You lost control of the elements. Balancing the elements requires a very fine touch.’ He looked at me. ‘But you told me I had a good feel for this, master.’ And so you do,’ I replied. ‘But intuition alone is not enough. Your talent is raw, my friend. You must learn to curb your youthful impulsiveness.’ ‘It all takes so long to learn. I want to know more. I want to know everything.’ My twenty-year-old novice is at times wilful and arrogant, but that he has a great talent I cannot deny. I have never before come across a young student so eager. ‘You cannot expect me to condense into a few lessons three thousand years of philosophy and the efforts of my whole lifetime,’ I told Nicholas patiently. ‘The mightiest secrets of nature are things that you must learn slowly, step by step. This is the way of alchemy.’ ‘But master, I’m so full of questions,’ Nicholas protested, fixing me with his dark, intense eyes. ‘You know so much. I hate the feeling of being so ignorant.’ I nodded. ‘You will learn. But you must learn to control your headstrong nature, young Nicholas. It is unwise to try to run when one has not yet learned to walk. You should confine yourself to theoretical studies for the moment.’ The youth sat down heavily on a chair, looking agitated. ‘I’m tired of reading books, master. Learning the theory of our work is all very well, but I need something practical, something I can see and touch. I have to believe there’s a purpose to what we’re doing.’ I told him I understood. As I watched him, I worried that too much theoretical learning might, in the end, put off this extremely gifted student. I am all too well aware myself how arid and fruitless a life of study feels without the reward of a real breakthrough, a tangible prize. I thought of my own prize. Perhaps if I could share a little of that incredible knowledge with Nicholas, it would surely satisfy his burning curiosity? ‘All right,’ I said after a long pause. ‘I will let you see more, something that is not in your books.’ The youth jumped to his feet, his eyes flashing with excitement. ‘When, master? Now?’ ‘No, not now,’ I replied. ‘Do not be so impatient, my young apprentice. Soon, very soon.’ Here I raised a warning finger. ‘But remember this, Nicholas. No student of your age will ever have been taken so far or so quickly into alchemical knowledge. It is a heavy responsibility for you, and you must be ready to accept it. Once I have shared the greatest secrets with you, they must never be divulged to anybody. Not to anybody, do you understand? I will swear you to this oath.’ In his proud manner he raised his chin. ‘I’ll take the oath right now,’ he declared. ‘Reflect upon it, Nicholas. Do not rush into this. It is a door which, once opened, cannot be shut.’ As we spoke, Jacques Cl?ment had come in and started quietly clearing up the mess from the explosion. When Nicholas had gone, Cl?ment approached me with a look of apprehension.‘Forgive me, master,’ he said hesitantly. ‘As you know I have never questioned your decisions…’ ‘What are you thinking, Jacques?’ Jacques spoke cautiously. ‘I know you have great esteem for young Nicholas. He is bright, and keen, of that there is no doubt. But this impetuous nature of his…he yearns for knowledge the way a greedy man lusts for wealth. There is too much fire in him.’ ‘He is young, that’s all,’ I replied. ‘We were young ourselves once. What are you trying to say, Jacques? Speak freely, my old friend.’ He hesitated. ‘Are you quite sure, master, that young Nicholas is ready for this knowledge? It is a great step for him. Can he handle it?’ ‘I believe so,’ I replied. ‘I trust him.’ Ben closed the Journal and reflected for a moment. It was clear that whatever this great knowledge was, Fulcanelli had learned it from the artefacts he’d recovered from the castle, and which were now, apparently, in the hands of Klaus Rheinfeld. At last, he had a proper lead. Beside him at the desk, the laptop was humming quietly. Ben reached over to it and started clicking the keys. There was the familiar grinding screech of the internet connection, and the homepage for the Google search engine popped up. He entered the name klaus rheinfeld into the search box and hit GO. ‘What are you looking for?’ Roberta asked, pulling out a chair next to him. The websearch results screen popped up, surprising him with 271 matches for the term ‘klaus rheinfeld’. ‘Christ,’ he murmured. He started scrolling down the long list. ‘Well, this looks promising.’ Klaus Rheinfeld directs ‘Outcast’, starring Brad Pitt and Reese Witherspoon…. ‘A gripping suspense thriller…Rheinfeld is the new Quentin Tarantino,’ she read out. Ben grunted and scrolled down further. Almost everything on the list was featuring reviews of the new movie Outcast or interviews with its director, a thirty-two-year-old Californian. Then there was Klaus Rheinfeld Exports, a wine merchant. ‘And here’s Klaus Rheinfeld the horse whisperer,’ she pointed out. Several pages into the search results they came to a regional news item. It was taken from a small newspaper in Limoux, a town in the Languedoc region of southern France. The headline read LE FOU DE SAINT-JEAN ‘The madman of Saint-Jean,’ he translated. ‘It’s dated October 2001…OK, listen to this…’ An injured man was discovered wandering semi-naked in the forest outside the village of Saint-Jean, Languedoc. According to Father Pascal Cambriel, the local village priest who found the man, he was babbling in a strange language and appeared to be suffering from severe dementia. The man, identified from his papers as Klaus Rheinfeld, a former resident of Paris, is believed to have inflicted serious knife wounds on himself. An ambulance worker told our reporter: ‘I have never seen anything like it. There were strange markings, triangles and crosses and things, all over him. It was sickening. How could someone do that to themselves? Rumours have suggested that these bizarre wounds are linked to Satanic rituals, though this was rigorously denied by local authorities. Rheinfeld was treated at the Hospital of the Sainte Vierge… ‘Doesn’t say where they took him after that. Damn. He could be anywhere.’ ‘He’s alive, though,’ she pointed out. ‘Or was alive six years ago. If it’s even the same Klaus Rheinfeld.’ ‘I bet you anything it’s the same guy,’ she said. ‘Satanic markings? Read alchemical markings.’ ‘Why was he all cut up?’ he wondered. She shrugged. ‘Maybe he was just crazy.’ ‘OK…so we’ve got one crazy German covered in knife wounds, who may or may not be carrying import ant secrets connected to Fulcanelli, and who could be anywhere in the world. That narrows things down nicely.’ He sighed, cleared the screen and started a fresh search. ‘While we’re online we might as well check this out.’ He typed in the name of Michel Zardi’s email server, waited for the site to load up and entered the account name. He just needed the webmail password to access the messages, and he knew that most people use some word from their private life. ‘What do you know about Michel’s personal life? Girlfriend, anything like that?’ ‘Not much–no steady girlfriend that I know of.’ ‘Mother’s name?’ ‘Um…hold on…I think her name is Claire.’ He typed the name in the password box. Claire incorrect password ‘Favourite football team?’ ‘Not a clue. I don’t think he was the sporty type.’ ‘Make of car, bike?’ ‘Used the M?tro.’ ‘Pets?’ ‘A cat.’ ‘That’s right. The fish,’ he said. ‘That asshole with his fish…how could I forget? Anyway, the cat’s name was Lutin. That’s L–U–T–I–N.’ lutin ‘Bingo.’ Michel’s messages scrolled down on the screen. They were mostly spam, selling Viagra pills and penis extensions. Nothing from any of his mysterious contacts. Roberta leaned forward and clicked on SENT ITEMS. All the messages containing Michel’s reports to ‘Saul’ flashed up in a long column in order of date sent. ‘Look at them all,’ she said, running the cursor up the list. ‘Here’s the last one, with the attachment I told you about.’ She clicked on the paper-clip logo again and showed him the JPEG photo files. He glanced through them before closing the box and clicking on COMPOSE NEW MESSAGE. A blank window flashed up. ‘What’re you doing?’ ‘Resurrecting our friend Michel Zardi.’ He addressed the new message to Saul, like the others. Her eyes widened in alarm as he typed. Guess who this is? That’s right, you got the wrong guy. You bastards killed my friend. Now, you want the Ryder woman, I have her. Follow my instructions and I’ll give her to you. ‘Not exactly Shakespeare, but it’ll do the job.’ ‘What the hell are you writing?’ She jumped to her feet, staring at him in horror. He took her wrist. She struggled against his grip. He slackened it, and guided her gently back into her seat. ‘You want to find out who these people are, don’t you?’ She sat down again, but he could see the mistrust in her eyes. He sighed and tossed a bunch of keys onto the desk. ‘There. Like I told you, you’re free to go any time you want. But you agreed to do this my way, remember?’ She didn’t say anything. ‘Trust me,’ he said quietly. She sighed. ‘OK, I trust you.’ He turned back to the screen and finished writing his message. ‘Bombs away,’ he said as he hit SEND. 24 (#ulink_8c1889aa-983f-5d62-871d-078a1c5f80ed) Gaston Cl?ment had been too slow to take Ben’s advice. Counting his newfound wealth, he poured himself a glass of cheap wine and drank to the strange foreign visitor. When three other visitors found him he was dozing in his tattered armchair, the half-empty bottle by his side. Godard, Berger and Naudon dragged the pleading Cl?ment down off his platform and threw him bodily to the concrete floor. He was seized and held down in a chair. A heavy fist slammed into his face and broke his nose. Blood poured from his nostrils, soaking his grey beard. ‘Who gave you this money?’ roared a voice in his ear. ‘Speak!’ The cold steel of a pistol pressed against his temple. ‘Who was here? What was his name?’ Cl?ment racked his brain but couldn’t remember, and so they beat him harder. They hit him again and again until his eyes were swollen shut and blood and vomit were all over the floor around him, his beard and hair slick with red. ‘Il est Anglais!’ he let out in a garbled, bubbling scream, remembering. ‘What’d he say?’ ‘The Englishman was here.’ Cl?ment’s face was down hard to the cold floor with a heavy boot across his neck that threatened to break it. He groaned, and then passed out. ‘Go easy, boys,’ said Berger, looking down at the pitiful unconscious form on the floor. ‘We’re to deliver him alive.’ As the Audi sped away through the derelict farm with Cl?ment stuffed in the trunk, flames were already appearing at the barn windows and black smoke billowed into the sky. Monique Banel was walking through the Parc Monceau with her five-year-old daughter Sophie. Monceau was a pleasant little park, with a peaceful atmosphere where the birds sang in the trees, swans paddled in the picturesque miniature lake and Monique liked to unwind for a few minutes after she finished her part-time secretarial work and went to pick Sophie up from her kindergarten. Monique said a cheerfully polite ‘Bonjour, monsieur to the elegant old gent who was often sitting on the same bench around this time reading his paper. The little girl, as always, was full of attention for all the sights and sounds of the park, her bright eyes sparkling with joy. As they walked down one of the paths that wound between the park’s lawns, Sophie exclaimed in delight, ‘Maman! Look! A little dog’s coming to see us!’ Her mother smiled. ‘Yes, isn’t he pretty?’ The dog was a small neat spaniel, a King Charles Cavalier, white with brown patches and wearing a little red collar. Monique looked about. His owner must be somewhere nearby. Many Parisians brought their dogs here for a walk in the afternoon. ‘Can I play with him, Maman?’ Sophie was ecstatic as the little spaniel trotted up towards them. ‘Hello, doggie,’ the child called out to it. ‘What’s your name? Maman, what’s that in his mouth?’ The little dog reached them and dropped the object it had been carrying on the ground at Sophie’s feet. It looked up at her expectantly, tail wagging. Before her mother could stop her, the child had bent down and picked up the thing and was examining it curiously. She turned to Monique with a frown, holding the object up to show her. Monique Banel screamed. Her little girl was clutching part of a severed, mutilated human hand. 25 (#ulink_e291640d-3aa8-55c0-bdac-c0963b5a0bb8) Montpellier, France The electrician’s apprentice couldn’t get the cellar out of his mind. He kept thinking about the strange things he’d seen. What went on there? It wasn’t a storage place. They definitely didn’t keep dogs there. There were bars, like the bars of cages, and rings on the walls. He thought about what he’d been reading in his book about castles in olden days. The modern, glass-fronted building was no castle–but that cellar looked like some kind of weird dungeon to him. He’d finished work at 6.30 and now he was free till Monday. Thank Christ. Uncle Richard was a nice enough guy–most of the time anyway–but the job was boring. Uncle Richard was boring. Marc wanted a more exciting life. His mother was always telling him he had an overactive imagination. It was all very well wanting to be a writer, but imagination was never going to bring in any money. A good trade–like an electrician–that was the way to go. He didn’t want to end up like his father, did he? Always broke, a gambler, a lowlife who was in and out of prison all the time, who’d run out on his family because he couldn’t bear any responsibility? To be like Uncle Richard–settled, respectable, with a new car every couple of years, a mortgage, membership at the local golf club, a devoted wife and two kids–that was the life his mother had in mind for him, and nothing less would do. But Marc wasn’t so sure he wanted to end up like either of the brothers. He had his own ideas. If he couldn’t be a writer, maybe he could be a detective. He was fascinated by mysteries, and he was pretty sure he’d found one. He kept going back to the drawer in his bedside table, where he’d hidden the thing he’d found in the cellar. He hadn’t told anyone about it. It looked like it might be gold. Did that make him a thief, like his father? No, he’d found it, it was his. But what did it mean? What was that place? He finished his evening meal, dutifully loaded his plate and cutlery in the dishwasher and headed for the door, grabbing his crash helmet and moped keys off the stand in the hallway. He threw a torch into a bag, slung it over his shoulder, then as an afterthought dropped a small bar of Poulain chocolate in there as well. ‘Marc, where are you going?’ his mother called after him. ‘Out.’ ‘Out where?’ ‘Just out.’ ‘Well, don’t be late.’ The place was pretty much within easy moped range, about fifteen kilometres away. After a few false starts and wrong turns, Marc found himself at the walled gateway to the building as night was beginning to fall. The tall black iron-barred gates were shut. Peering between them he could see the lit-up building in the distance among the dark, whispering trees. He killed the whirring moped engine and found a place across the other side of the road where he could tuck the lightweight bike away under some bushes. The stone perimeter wall ran in a wide curve away from the roadside. He scrambled up an earth bank and followed its line, tramping through long grass, until he came to an old oak tree whose branches overhung the top of the wall. He slung his bag over his shoulder, shinned up the trunk and edged out along one of the thicker branches until he could get one foot on the top of the wall, then the other. He dangled his legs down the other side and dropped lightly into the bushes inside the grounds of the centre. For a while he stood around under some trees, munching on his bar of chocolate and watching the building. The windows on the ground floor were lit up. He finished his chocolate, wiped his mouth and sneaked across the lawns, keeping to the shadowy bits. He reached the building. The ground-floor windows were too high to see in. A flight of steps led up to what looked like the front door, on the first floor. If he went halfway up them, he’d be able to see through those lit windows. Just as he was starting up the steps, headlights appeared at the top of the drive. The iron gates whirred automatically open and two big black cars came purring down towards the building. They swept past him and turned a corner. Marc went after them, keeping in the shadows. He saw the cars go down a ramp, their engine noise suddenly amplified in an underground space. He crept around the corner, watching. He could hear doors slamming, and voices echoing. He tiptoed furtively down the ramp until, crouching low, he could see the men getting out of the cars and walking towards a lift. But something was wrong. One of the men didn’t seem to want to go with the others. In fact he seemed very unwilling indeed. He was being dragged by the arms, yelling and shouting in fear. To Marc’s horror, another man took out a gun. He thought he was going to shoot the frightened man, but instead he hit him over the head with it. Marc saw blood splatter on the concrete. The man was half unconscious now, not protesting any more as his captors dragged him along and his feet trailed on the ground. Marc had seen enough. He turned and ran. Straight into the grasping hands of the tall man in black. 26 (#ulink_f7bb2e3d-5839-55a1-b852-cf11b3e0aad3) Central Paris Flann O’Brien’s pub is an oasis of Irish music and Guinness just around the corner from the Louvre museum, not far from the Seine. At 11.27 that night, following the specific instructions they’d received from an email from the unexpectedly alive and kicking Michel Zardi, four men entered the pub. Glancing around them, they approached the bar, which was thronging with people. The pub was filled with raucous laughter, clinking glasses and the sound of fiddles and banjos. The leader of the four men was stocky and muscular with a bald head, wearing a black leather jacket. He leaned across the bar and spoke to the large, bearded barman. The barman nodded, reached under the bar and took out a mobile phone. He handed it to the bald man, who signalled to his friends and led them back outside into the street. At exactly 11.30 the phone rang. The bald man answered. ‘Don’t speak’, said the voice on the other end. ‘Listen to what I say, and follow my instructions exactly to the letter. I’m watching you’. The bald man looked up and down the street. ‘Don’t look for me,’ the voice in his ear said. ‘Just listen. One false move and the deal’s off. You lose the American and you’ll be punished’. ‘OK, I’m listening,’ the bald man replied. ‘Use this phone to call a cab,’ Ben said on the other end as he sat behind the wheel of the Peugeot 206 half a mile away across Paris. ‘Go alone, repeat, go alone or the woman runs. When you’re in the taxi, dial “Zardi” and I’ll tell you where to go.’ The bald man sat in the Mercedes cab as his African taxi driver drove him along the quayside by the river Seine. Away from the brightly illuminated pleasure-boats and the parties of drinkers and tourists, the taxi turned off and took a route down a dark narrow road that led to the shadowy bank of the river. The bald man stepped out, still clutching the mobile phone. The taxi pulled away. The bald man’s footsteps echoed under the dark overhead bridge as he neared the rendezvous point he’d been given. He glanced around him. ‘Ben, I’ve got a bad feeling about this,’ she whispered in the darkness. ‘You sure this was such a good idea?’ The moonlit river Seine rippled and gurgled beside them. Down below street level, the rumble of the city seemed muted and far away. In the distance, Notre Dame cathedral towered, gold-lit, over the water. He checked his watch. ‘Relax.’ A door slammed on the street above them, a car pulling away, footsteps. She turned to see a figure approaching. ‘Ben, there’s…’ ‘Now listen,’ he said softly in her ear. ‘Just trust me here. It’ll be all right.’ He took her arm and led her out from under the shadows of the bridge as the bald man approached. A twisted smile appeared on the man’s face. ‘Zardi?’ he asked, his voice echoing under the stone arch. ‘C’est moi,’ said Ben. ‘Vous avez l’argent?’ ‘The money’s in here,’ the bald man replied in French. He held up a briefcase. ‘Set it down on the ground,’ Ben commanded. The bald man gently laid the case down. He looked away from Ben for a second. Ben let go of Roberta’s arm and moved towards him fast. He grabbed the man by the wrist, twisted him round and then the cold steel of the Browning’s silencer was pressing against the man’s crinkly neck. ‘Down on your knees.’ Roberta stared in horror at the pistol in Ben’s hand. She wanted to run, but her legs wouldn’t move and she stood there frozen, unable to take her eyes off Ben as he shoved the gun against the back of the man’s head and began to frisk him. Ben’s gaze flicked momentarily to the expression on her face and he knew what she was thinking. He gave her a look that said just let me deal with this. The bald man had come ready. There was a Glock 19 in his leather jacket. Ben kicked it across the ground and it slipped over the edge of the riverbank with a soft splash. ‘You’ll die for this, Zardi,’ the bald man muttered. ‘Are you Saul?’ Ben asked. The bald man wasn’t talking. Ben brought the butt and trigger guard of the pistol down on his head. ‘Are–you–Saul?’ he repeated deliberately. The man whimpered and a trickle of blood ran down his shiny scalp. Roberta looked away. ‘No,’ the bald man said. ‘I’m not Saul.’ ‘Then who is Saul, and where can I find him?’ The man paused, and Ben hit him again. He fell to the ground and rolled over, staring up with frightened eyes. But not too frightened. Ben could see that this guy was used to a little punishment. ‘OK, you’re no use to me.’ He thumbed off the safety and aimed the gun in his face. It must have been the look in Ben’s eye that persuaded the man that this was no bluff. ‘I don’t know who he is!’ he protested, in the truthful way of a man with everything to lose. ‘I just get orders over the phone!’ Ben lowered the pistol and took his finger out of the trigger guard. Clicked the safety back on. ‘Who calls who? You call him? What’s his number?’ The bald man knew the number well. He muttered it out. Ben watched him, weighing up what to do with him. The man’s jacket was hanging open and under it he was wearing an open shirt with a gold chain nestling in his hairy chest. Ben saw something else and keeping the gun on his face he reached down and ripped the shirt open. By the dim light of the moon and the street above, reflected by the gently rippling water, he could see the tattoo. It was a sword, of medieval type with a straight blade and flat crossguard, shaped to look like a crucifix. Wrapped around the blade was a banner with the words GLADIUS DOMINI. ‘What’s that?’ Ben asked, motioning with the gun. The bald man glanced down at his chest. ‘Nothing.’ ‘Gladius Domini. Sword of God,’ Ben murmured to himself. He stepped on the bald man’s testicles, and he let out a scream. ‘For Christ’s sake…’ Roberta pleaded. ‘I think you want to tell me,’ Ben said to him quietly, ignoring her and keeping pressure on. ‘OK, OK, take your foot off,’ the bald man panted, sweat streaming down his contorted face. Ben took his foot away, the gun still pointed unwaveringly at his forehead. The man breathed a sigh of relief and lay back on the stone ground. ‘I’m a soldier of Gladius Domini,’ he muttered. ‘What is Gladius Domini?’ ‘An organization. I work for them…I don’t know…’ His voice trailed off. He stared blankly. There was a vagueness, an empty look in his eyes that made Ben think back to the cathedral suicide. Someone was getting inside the heads of these guys. ‘Soldier of God, are you?’ Ben said. ‘And when you kill innocent people, you do it for Him?’ He raised the pistol and stepped back. Slipped his finger through the trigger guard. ‘Now you’re going to meet Him personally.’ Roberta ran out of the shadows towards them. ‘What are you doing! Don’t kill him! Let him go-please–you have to let him go!’ Ben saw the pleading earnestness in her eyes. He took his finger off the trigger and lowered the gun. It was against all his instincts. ‘Go,’ he said to the bald man. The man gathered himself up slowly, clutching his groin in agony. His shirt was wet with blood and sweat glistened on his face in the moonlight. He staggered to his feet. Roberta stared at Ben. Her face was tight. She shoved him angrily. He didn’t react. She thumped his chest. ‘Who the fuck are you?’ He saw the bright red dot pass across her forehead a third of a second before he grabbed her collar and wrenched her violently to one side. Then, all at once, the laser-sighted rifle across the river was tearing chunks of masonry out of the wall. Three-shot burst, fully automatic fire. One of the shots went straight through the bald man’s head. His skull burst apart, spraying blood across Roberta. His falling body crashed against hers and took her down with him as it crumpled to the ground. Her legs kicked from under the corpse as she screamed in panic. Ben had already seen the glint of the rifleman’s scope lens fifty metres away and he was returning fire. The Browning flashed and kicked in his hand. The sniper let out a stifled cry, tumbled from his perch and splashed into the river. His AR-18 assault weapon clattered to the ground. Two more men were running up the riverbank towards them. Pistols in their hands. A bullet went past Ben’s ear and another sang off the wall next to him. He raised the pistol. Calm. Focus centre of target. The trigger breaks without conscious thought. Two double-taps in rapid succession, bringing both men down in just over a second. Their bodies slumped to the ground and lay still, black shapes in the moonlight. Ben hauled the dead man off Roberta and kicked the body to one side. Half of the bald crown was missing. Her clothes and hair were soaked in blood. ‘Are you hurt?’ he asked urgently. She staggered to her feet. Her face was pale, and the next thing she was spewing her guts out against the wall. Ben heard police sirens in the distance, several of them, their high-pitched wails rising and falling in and out of phase with each other, approaching fast. ‘Come on.’ She wasn’t responding. There was no time to reason with her. He put his arm around her waist and half-carried her along the quayside to the flight of steps leading up to the street. At the top of the steps she seemed to regain her senses. She struggled in his grip and tore away from him. He yelled her name. But she was running frantically the opposite way, straight towards the sound of the sirens. Any moment now the police would be on top of them. ‘Get away from me!’ she screamed at him. He chased her, tried to take her arm, reasoning with her. ‘Don’t touch me!’ She staggered away from him. Flashing blue lights were appearing at the end of the street among the scattered traffic. Ben had no choice. He had to let her go. At least she’d be safe in police hands, and within the hour he’d be out of the city and far away. With a last glance at her, he turned and started running back towards the Peugeot. Roberta was staggering dazed up the middle of the road. A couple of cars honked, swerving to avoid her. Ben watched from a distance as the police car skidded to a halt beside her. Three cops got out, took one look at the shocked, bloody state of her and connected her right away with the reported shooting. More sirens were shrieking in the distance–three, maybe four more cars racing to the scene. They were putting her into the back of the police car when the black Mitsubishi pulled up next to them. Ben was a hundred metres away when he saw the Mitsubishi’s doors fly open and the two men with sawn-off pump shotguns step out. They blasted the cops before either of them had a chance to draw a pistol. Roberta was crawling out of the back as they walked round the side of the police car, racking the slides on their shotguns. The Peugeot slammed into the nearest one, sending him flying in a broken heap. Ben fired a shot through the open window at the other, who ducked for cover behind the police car and then ran for it. Ben threw open the door, hauled Roberta in and skidded off over the bridge and away, just in time to screech around the nearest bend down a sidestreet before the wailing fleet of police arrived on the scene. 27 (#ulink_87a17854-4b84-5e95-aa0c-d3ca71cade0e) Two hours earlier During the Nazi occupation of Paris the sprawling honeycomb of austere rooms and dark corridors had been used as a Gestapo prison and interrogation centre. Nowadays the enormous basement beneath the police HQ housed, among other things, the forensic lab and morgue. It was as though the place couldn’t shake off its gruesome heritage. Luc Simon was standing with the forensic pathologist, the tall thin white-haired Georges Rudel, in a stark neon-lit examination room. On the slab in front of them, a corpse lay covered in a white sheet. Only the feet were visible, protruding from underneath, pallid and cold. A label dangled from one toe. Simon wasn’t a squeamish man but he fought the urge to look away as Rudel casually peeled back the sheet far enough to uncover the corpse’s head, neck and chest. They’d cleaned Michel up since the last time Simon had seen him, but he still wasn’t a pretty sight. The bullet had entered under the chin, carved its wound channel up behind the face, taking most of it away before exiting through the top of the head. Just one eye remained, sitting in its socket like a hard-boiled egg with a pupil that seemed to stare right at them. ‘What’ve you got for me?’ Simon asked Rudel. The pathologist pointed at the mess of Michel’s face. ‘Damage here is all consistent with the bullet found in the ceiling,’ he said, speaking mechanically as though dictating a report. ‘Entry wound here. Weapon was held against the upper chest with the muzzle in loose contact with the lower jaw. Edges of the entry wound are burned from combustion gases and blacked with soot. The weapon was a Smith and Wesson revolver, three inch barrel, .44 Remington Magnum. The powerful calibre accounts for the amount of bone and tissue damage.’ Simon tapped his foot impatiently. He hoped that this was leading somewhere. ‘Typically that calibre uses much slower-burning powder than you get with semi-auto rounds like the nine millimetre,’ Rudel went on matter-of-factly ‘That means you get a lot of unburnt residue, especially with a short barrel. Doesn’t burn so clean.’ He pointed. ‘You can see it all here, embedded in the skin. Also here down the neck.’ Simon nodded. ‘OK, so what are you telling me?’ Rudel turned to look at him with bleary eyes. ‘The victim’s prints are on the stocks and the trigger of the weapon. So we know he fired the shot without gloves.’ ‘He was found still clutching the gun. No gloves. We know that. Are you going to cut to the chase before one of us dies?’ Rudel ignored the sarcasm. ‘Well, this is what I find perplexing. With all this mess of unburnt powder I’d expect to find a lot of it on the gun hand, as well as the normal chemical discharge that blows back when the weapon is fired. But this man’s hands are clean.’ ‘You’re sure about this?’ ‘Quite sure–it’s a simple swab test for residue.’ Rudel reached down and lifted a pale lifeless arm out from under the sheet. ‘See for yourself.’ ‘You’re saying he didn’t fire the shot.’ Rudel shrugged, and let the dead hand flop back down by the corpse’s side. ‘Only thing on this man’s hands, apart from the usual sweat and grease, are some traces of oily fish. Pilchard, to be precise.’ It struck Simon as absurd, and he laughed. ‘You ran a test for pilchard?’ Rudel looked at him coldly. ‘No, there was a half-opened tin of it on his kitchen table, next to a cat’s feeding dish. Now, all I’m saying is, who would blow their brains out in the middle of feeding their cat?’ The boy was jerked semi-conscious as they dragged him off the hard bunk. He heard voices around him, the clang of metal doors and the jangling of keys. Sounds echoed in the empty space. A swirl of lights blinded him through his confusion. A sudden lancing pain in his arm made him wince. It might have been minutes later, or it might have been hours–everything was hazy, unreal. He was vaguely aware of not being able to move, arms pinned behind him. The white light was burning into his head, making him blink and twist his head away as he sat tied in the chair. He wasn’t alone. Two men were in the cellar with him, watching him. ‘Shall I dispose of him?’ said one voice. ‘No, keep him alive for the moment. He may be useful to us.’ 28 (#ulink_e1b415af-52bd-55a9-95ee-106f5d33565d) The warm water trickled over her head and tinkled against the side of the bath where she was bent over. The foam running into the plughole was tinged with red as he carefully washed the blood out of her hair. ‘Ouch.’ ‘Sorry. You’ve got dried bits stuck in here.’ ‘I don’t want to know, Ben.’ He hung the shower head up on its wall hook and squeezed more shampoo into his hand, lathering it into her hair. Her nerves were steadier now–the nausea had left her and her hands weren’t shaking any more. She relaxed against his touch, thinking how tender and gentle it was. She could feel the warmth of his body pressing up behind her as he rinsed the foam away from her hair and neck. ‘I think it’s all gone now.’ ‘Thanks,’ she murmured, wrapping a towel around her head. He gave her a spare shirt to wear, and then left her alone to clean the rest of herself up. While she showered, he quickly field-stripped, cleaned and reassembled his Browning. As he went through these fluid, automatic motions, as deeply instilled in him as tying a shoelace or brushing his teeth, his mind was far away. She emerged from the bathroom, wearing his oversize shirt knotted at the waist, her long dark red hair still damp and gleaming. He poured her a glass of wine. ‘You OK?’ ‘Yeah, I’m OK.’ ‘Roberta…I haven’t been totally straight with you. There are some things you should know.’ ‘This is about the gun?’ He nodded. ‘And other things.’ She sat looking down at the floor and sipped her wine as he told her everything. He told her about Fairfax, about his quest, about the dying little girl. ‘And that’s basically all there is. Now you know everything.’ He watched her for a reaction. She was quiet for a while, her face still and thoughtful. ‘So, is that what you do, Ben? Save kids?’ she asked softly. He looked at his watch. ‘It’s late. You need to get some sleep.’ That night he let her use the bed while he slept on the floor in the other room. She was woken at dawn by the sound of him moving about. She came sleepily out of the bedroom to see him packing up his green canvas bag. ‘What’s happening?’ ‘I’m leaving Paris.’ ‘You’re leaving? What about me?’ ‘After last night, do you still want to come along with me?’ ‘Yes, I do. Where are we going?’ ‘South,’ he said, slipping Fulcanelli’s Journal carefully into the bag and wishing he had more time to read it. Then he opened a drawer of his desk and took out the passport he kept in there. He’d had it made for him in London, and it was indistinguishable from the real thing. The picture on it was his, but the name was Paul Harris. He slid it in the inside pocket of his jacket. ‘But Ben, there’s just one thing,’ she remembered. ‘I have to go back to my place first.’ He shook his head. ‘Sorry No chance.’ ‘I have to.’ ‘What for? If you need clothes and things, that’s all right–we’ll go and buy you whatever you want.’ ‘No, it’s something else. These people who are after us–if they get into my apartment again they could find my address book. Everything’s in that book, all my friends and family in the States. What if they did something to my family to try to get to me?’ When Luc Simon returned to his office, he found the whole police station in an uproar as news came in about the quayside shooting. Violent crime was a normal thing in Paris, part of life. But when there was a bloodbath like this, with two cops gunned down and five more bodies littering the banks of the Seine, guns and spent cartridges everywhere, the police force was coming out en masse. Simon found a brown envelope on his desk. The report inside was from handwriting analysis. The writing on the Zardi suicide note was a mismatch with other samples of his handwriting found in his apartment, shopping lists, memos and a half-written letter to his mother. It was pretty close, but it was definitely a forgery. And fake suicide notes pointed in one direction only. Especially when you already knew the victim wasn’t the shooter. If it was a murder case after all, he’d really dropped the ball. He hadn’t paid enough attention to the Ryder woman. Too much on his mind, maybe, with his and H?l?ne’s relationship problems hanging over him on top of everything else. Trying to refloat a sunken marriage while trying to stop the whole of Paris from killing each other–the two just weren’t compatible. But no excuses. The fact was, he’d fucked up. Roberta Ryder wasn’t just some crank. She was involved in something. What it was, and how she was connected, he’d have to find out. But it was all questions, no answers. Who was the guy she’d turned up with on the night of Zardi’s death? Something odd about the way they were acting together. It had been as though the man was trying to stop her saying too much. Hadn’t he said she was his fianc?e? They didn’t look that close. And hadn’t Roberta Ryder told him, just hours earlier, that she was single? The guy was important, somehow. What was his name? If Simon remembered rightly, he hadn’t seemed too keen to give it and hadn’t looked too pleased when Ryder gave it for him. He opened up the file on his desk. Ben Hope, that was it. British, despite his near-perfect French. He’d need to check him out. Then search the Ryder woman’s apartment. He could easily get a warrant now. Simon ran into his colleague Detective Bonnard and they walked down the busy corridor together. Bonnard looked serious, grey and haggard. ‘Just got the latest on this multiple homicide and cop-killing,’ he said. ‘Fill me in.’ ‘We’ve got a witness. Motorist reported two people running from the scene of the incident, just around the time it was happening. Male and female Caucasian. Woman young, we think red hair, maybe early thirties. Male possibly a little older, taller, fair-haired. Looked as if the woman was struggling, trying to get away. Witness says she was covered in blood.’ ‘A blond man and a red-haired woman?’ Simon repeated. ‘Was the woman injured?’ ‘Doesn’t look like it. We think she’s the same woman our officers picked up just before they were killed. She left some blood traces on the back seat of the car, but it belonged to one of the bodies we found under the bridge, guy with his brains blown out by a rifle bullet. Pretty pictures all over the wall.’ ‘So where did she go?’ Bonnard made a helpless gesture. ‘No idea. Looks like she just vanished. Either she got away on her own or someone took her away pretty damn quick before our boys got to the scene.’ ‘Great. What else do we have?’ Bonnard shook his head. ‘It’s a mess. We recovered the rifle. Military weapon, untraceable and not a print on it anywhere. Same with the pistols we found. A couple of the victims we know–stints for armed robbery and so on. Usual suspects, won’t be missed. But we haven’t much of a clue what the hell this is about. Drug-related, maybe.’ ‘I don’t think so,’ Simon said. ‘One thing we do know is that we’re missing at least one shooter. Nine-mil slugs were found in three of the bodies. Looks like they all came from the same gun, which the forensic guys tells us from the rifling pattern is a Browning type pistol. It’s the only gun we haven’t recovered.’ ‘Right,’ Simon said, nodding, thinking hard. ‘There is one more thing,’ Bonnard went on. ‘Based on what we can figure out, the mystery nine-mil shooter isn’t your typical low-life crim. Whoever it is can hit high-speed one-inch groups on moving targets at twenty-five metres in the dark. Can you do that? I sure as hell can’t do that…We’re dealing with a serious pro.’ 29 (#ulink_743849bb-7934-5937-9172-ec5842b3b8c5) ‘You’re sure it’s on the bedside table?’ Ben was saying as he parked the dented Peugeot a discreet distance from Roberta’s building. She was wearing the baseball cap he’d bought her at a market earlier that morning, her hair tucked into it. With that and the shades she was unrecognizable. ‘Bedside table, little red book,’ she repeated. ‘You wait here,’ he said. ‘Key’s in the ignition. Any sign of trouble, get out of here. Drive slowly, don’t rush. Call me first chance you get, and I’ll meet you.’ She nodded. He got out of the car and put on the sunglasses. She watched with trepidation as he walked briskly up the street and disappeared into the doorway of her building. Luc Simon had had enough of hanging around Roberta Ryder’s place. He’d been here half an hour now, waiting with his two agents for the forensic team to arrive. His impatient rage was giving him another one of his killer headaches. As usual, the forensic guys were keeping him hanging around waiting. Undisciplined bunch of bastards–he’d give them hell when they got here. He thought about sending one of his uniforms out to get coffee. Fuck it. He’d do it himself–Christ knew what kind of shit they’d bring back. There was a bar across the street, Le Chien Bleu; stupid name but the coffee might not be too bad. He thundered down the spiralling flights of stairs, trotted through the cool hallway and out into the sunshine, deep in thought. He was too preoccupied to notice the tall blond man in sunglasses and a black jacket coming the other way. The man didn’t slacken his stride but recognized the police inspector immediately, and knew there’d be other cops waiting upstairs. ‘That was quick,’ the two officers thought when they heard the doorbell of Ryder’s apartment. They opened the door, expecting Simon. If they were lucky, he’d have brought them a coffee and a bite to eat–though that was almost certainly wishing for too much considering that the chief was in an even fouler mood than usual. But the man at the door was a tall blond stranger. He didn’t seem surprised to find two policemen in the apartment. He leaned casually against the doorway, smiling at them. ‘Hi,’ he said, taking off his sunglasses. ‘Wondered if you could help me…’ Simon returned to Ryder’s apartment, sipping his paper cup of scalding espresso. Thank Christ, it was taking the headache away already. He hurried back up the stairs to the third floor, banged on the door and waited to be let in. After three minutes, he thumped harder and yelled through the door. What the hell were they doing in there? Another minute passed, and it was clear that something was wrong. ‘Police,’ he said to the neighbour, flashing his ID. The little old man craned his head on a shrivelled, tortoise-like neck and peered bemusedly at the ID, then up at Simon, then at the cup of coffee in Simon’s hand. ‘Police,’ Simon repeated more loudly. ‘I need to use your apartment.’ The old man opened the door wider, stepping aside. Simon pushed past him. ‘Hold this, please,’ he said, handing the old man his empty cup. ‘Where’s your balcony?’ ‘This way.’ The neighbour shuffled through the apartment ahead of him, down a little corridor lined with watercolour paintings, then into a neat salon with an upright piano and mock-antique armchairs. The television was blaring. Simon saw what he was looking for, the tall double windows leading out onto the narrow balcony. There was a gap of only about a metre and a half between the old man’s balcony and Ryder’s. Keeping his eyes resolutely off the three-storey drop to the yard below, he climbed over the iron railing and jumped across from one balcony to the other. Ryder’s balcony window was unlocked. He drew his service sidearm and thumbed back the hammer as he paced silently into the apartment. He could hear a muffled thumping coming from somewhere. It seemed to be coming from Ryder’s makeshift laboratory. With the cocked .38 revolver pointed in front of him he moved stealthily towards the sound. Inside the lab, he heard it again. It was coming from behind those doors where Ryder kept her revolting flies. Thump, thump. Simon pulled open the doors, and the first thing he saw was the black, hairy insects swarming over the glass, their disturbed buzzing muted behind the thick walls of their tanks. Something moved against his leg. He looked down. Crammed into the space beneath the tanks were his two officers, bound and gagged with tape, struggling. Their automatics were lying side by side on the desk, unloaded and stripped, their barrels missing. The police squad found them later, one inside each of the fly tanks. Ben tossed the little red book onto her lap. ‘First chance you get,’ he said, getting into the car, ‘you destroy that, understood?’ She nodded. ‘S-Sure.’ As the Peugeot speeded up and disappeared down the street, a man slouching in a doorway turned and watched it go. The man wasn’t a cop, but he’d been watching the Ryder place since the night before. He nodded to himself and took up his phone. When someone answered after a couple of rings he said, ‘A silver 206 coupe with a dented front wing just took off down Rue de Rome heading south. Man and a woman. You can pick them up at Boulevard des Batignolles but you’d better move fast.’ 30 (#ulink_6c093cd3-5dd5-551c-b3a4-b98807ea3c27) Six months earlier, near Monts?gur, southern France Anna Manzini was unhappy at having put herself in such a situation. Who would have thought that the author of two acclaimed books on medieval history and a respected lecturer at the University of Florence would have behaved in such an impulsive and idiotically romantic fashion? To give up a well-paid professional position to go off and rent a villa-a very expensive villa, at that–in the south of France to begin a whole new fiction-writing career from scratch wasn’t the kind of measured and logical behaviour that Anna was known for amongst her former colleagues and students. Worse, she’d deliberately chosen a secluded house, deep in the rugged mountains and valleys of the Languedoc, in the hope that the solitude would fire her imagination. It hadn’t. She’d been there for over two months, and had hardly written more than a sentence. To begin with she’d kept herself to herself, not seeing anyone. But more recently she’d started welcoming the attentions of local intellectuals and academics who’d discovered that the author of the books The Crusade that History Forgot and God’s Heretics: Discovering the Real Cathars was now living just a few kilometres away in the countryside. After months of boredom and loneliness she’d been relieved at the chance to befriend the vivacious Ang?lique Montel, a local artist. Ang?lique had introduced her to an interesting new circle of people, and Anna had eventually decided to have a dinner party at the villa. While she waited for her guests, she remembered what Ang?lique had been saying on the phone two days before. ‘You know what I think, Anna? You have writer’s block because you need a man. So for your dinner party I’m bringing along a good friend of mine. He’s Dr. Edouard Legrand. He’s brilliant, rich, and single.’ ‘If he’s so wonderful,’ Anna said smiling, ‘then why are you so keen to pass him onto me?’ ‘Oh, you wicked girl, he’s my cousin.’ Ang?lique giggled. ‘He’s been divorced only a short while, and he’s lost without a woman. He’s six years older than you, forty-eight, but has the physique of an athlete. Tall, black hair, sexy, sophisticated…’ ‘Bring him along,’ she’d said to Ang?lique. ‘I look forward to meeting him.’ But the last thing I need in my life right now is a man, she thought to herself. There were eight for dinner. Ang?lique had strategically managed to ensure that Dr. Legrand was seated beside Anna at the top of the table. She’d been right–he was very charming and handsome in a well-tailored suit, hair greying at the temples. The conversation had dwelt for a while on a modern art exhibition that many of the guests had attended in Nice. Now they were all keen to know more about Anna’s new book project. ‘Please, I don’t want to talk about it,’ said Anna. ‘It’s so depressing. I have writer’s block. I just don’t seem to be able to do it. Maybe it’s because I’m writing a book of fiction for the first time, a novel.’ The guests were surprised and intrigued. ‘A novel? What about?’ Anna sighed. ‘It’s a mystery story about the Cathars. The trouble is that I have such difficulty imagining my characters.’ ‘Ah, but I have the right man here to help you,’ Ang?lique said, seeing her opportunity. ‘Dr. Legrand is a famous psychiatrist and can help anyone with any kind of mental problem.’ Legrand laughed. ‘Anna hasn’t got a mental problem. Many of the most talented people have sometimes suffered from temporary loss of inspiration. Even Rachmaninov, the great composer, found his creativity blocked and had to be hypnotized in order to create his greatest works.’ ‘Thank you, Dr. Legrand,’ Anna said, smiling. ‘But your analogy does me far too much credit. I’m no Rachmaninov.’ ‘Please, call me Edouard. But I’m sure you are very talented.’ He paused. ‘However, if it’s interesting characters you’re looking for, with a taste of the mysterious and the gothic, there I may be able to help you.’ ‘Dr. Legrand is director of the Institut Legrand,’ said Madame Chabrol, a music teacher from Cannes. ‘The Institut Legrand?’ asked Anna. ‘A psychiatric hospital,’ Ang?lique filled in. ‘Just a small private establishment,’ Legrand said. ‘Not far from here, outside Limoux.’ ‘Edouard, are you referring to that strange man you once told me about?’ Ang?lique asked. He nodded. ‘One of our most curious and fascinating patients. He’s been with us for about five years now. His name is Rheinfeld, Klaus Rheinfeld.’ ‘His name sounds like Renfield, from the Dracula story,’ Anna commented. ‘That’s quite apt, although I haven’t yet observed him eating flies,’ Legrand replied, and everyone laughed. ‘But certainly he’s an interesting case. He’s a religious maniac. He was found not far from here, in a village, by a priest. He self-mutilates–his body’s covered in scars. He raves about demons and angels, convinced he’s in Hell–or sometimes in Heaven. He continually recites Latin phrases, and is obsessed with meaningless series of numbers and letters. He scrawls them all over the walls of his ce-…his room.’ ‘Why do you allow him to have a pen, Dr. Legrand?’ asked Madame Chabrol. ‘Could that not be dangerous?’ ‘We don’t, any longer,’ he said. ‘He writes them in his own blood, urine and faeces.’ Everyone around the table looked shocked and disgusted, except Anna. ‘He sounds terribly unhappy,’ she said. Legrand nodded. ‘Yes, I believe he probably is,’ he agreed. ‘But why would anyone want to…mutilate themselves, Edouard?’ asked Ang?lique, wrinkling her nose. ‘Such an awful thing to do.’ ‘Rheinfeld displays stereotypic behaviour,’ Legrand replied. ‘That is to say, he suffers from what we call an obsessive-compulsive disorder. It can be triggered by chronic stress and frustration. In his case, we think that the mental disorder was caused by his years of fruitless searching for something.’ ‘What was he searching for?’ Anna asked. Legrand shrugged. ‘We don’t really know for sure. He seems to believe he was on some form of quest for buried treasure, lost secrets, that sort of thing. It’s a common mania among the mentally ill.’ He smiled. ‘We’ve had a number of other intrepid treasure hunters in our care over the years. As well as our share of Jesus Christs, Napoleon Buonapartes and Adolf Hitlers. I’m afraid they’re often not very imaginative in their choice of delusions.’ ‘A lost treasure,’ Anna said, half to herself. ‘And you say he was found not far from here…’ Her voice trailed off in reflection. ‘Can nothing be done to help him, Edouard?’ asked Ang?lique. Legrand shook his head. ‘We’ve tried. When he first came to us, he received psychoanalysis and occupational therapy. For the first few months he appeared to respond to treatment. He was given a notebook to record his dreams. But then we discovered that he was filling its pages with insane babble. Over a period of time, his mental state deteriorated and he began to self-mutilate again. We had to take away his writing implements and increase his medication. Since then, I’m afraid to say, he’s descended deeper and deeper into what I can only describe as madness.’ ‘What a terrible pity,’ Anna breathed. Legrand turned to her with a charming smile. ‘In any case you would be more than welcome to have a tour of our little establishment, Anna. And if it could help you gain inspiration for your book, I could arrange for you to meet Rheinfeld in person–under supervision of course. Nobody ever comes to see him. You never know, it might do him good to have a visitor.’ 31 (#ulink_15d7fee6-38fd-5226-9547-50d3f2253857) Paris The pieces of the puzzle were virtually flying together for Luc Simon. The description that the two seriously embarrassed officers had given of the man who’d bundled them into Roberta Ryder’s cupboard exactly matched Ben Hope. Then had come the report about the Mercedes limo involved in the recent railway incident. The car itself was hot as hell. No registered owner. False plates. Numbers filed off both engine and chassis. Its internal locking system had been altered like a kidnap car. It looked as though it had been used for that kind of purpose too, as someone had obviously been trying to shoot their way out of it with a 9mm handgun. Whoever that someone was, judging by the analysis report on the spent 9mm case found in the back, they were the same person as the mystery shooter from the scene of the riverside killings. And who was he? It had seemed impossible to find out. But then the cops at the scene of the railway incident had found a business card inside the Mercedes. The name on the card was Benedict Hope. There was more. In the parking lot of a nearby bar-restaurant they’d found the Citro?n 2CV that had been mixed up in the railway incident. The missing grille badge, traces of paint from the Mercedes, even the dirt on the wheels, all matched the railway scene. The 2CV was registered to Dr. Roberta Ryder. And it got even better. When the forensic team had gone through Ryder’s apartment with a fine-tooth comb, they’d found something. Right in the spot where she’d claimed her attacker had been lying dead, a speck of blood that whoever had cleaned the place up had missed. Simon bullied forensics into the fastest DNA test they’d ever done, comparing it against samples from Ryder’s hairbrush and other personal effects. The blood wasn’t hers. It did, however, match DNA samples from a grisly find that had turned up in the Parc Monceau. A severed human hand. The hand’s previous owner had been one Gustave LePou, a criminal with a long history of sex offences, aggravated rape, assault with a deadly weapon, burglary and two suspected murders to his credit. It looked as though Ryder had been telling him the truth after all. But why had LePou been in her apartment? Was it just burglary? No chance. Something bigger was going on. Someone must have hired LePou to kill her, or to steal something from her–or maybe both. Simon felt like kicking himself that he hadn’t taken her seriously at the time. More questions. Who had covered up the traces of LePou’s death, removed his corpse from Ryder’s apartment, chopped it up and tried, rather unsuccessfully, to dispose of it? What was the connection with Zardi, the laboratory assistant, and had the same people killed him? Where did Ben Hope fit in–was he the Englishman who Roberta Ryder had told him was in danger? If the railway incident had been meant to kill Hope, when Simon had seen him later that evening he looked pretty cool for someone who’d just narrowly escaped a horrific death. Where were Hope and Ryder now? Was Hope predator or prey? The thing was a complete enigma. Simon was sitting in his cramped office drinking a coffee with Rigault when the expected fax came through from England. He tore it out of the machine. ‘Benedict Hope,’ he muttered as he read. ‘Thirty-seven years of age. Oxford educated. Parents deceased. No criminal record, not a parking-ticket. Squeaky clean, the bastard.’ He slurped his coffee. He passed the sheet to Rigault as the fax started churning out a second page. It spat the paper into his hand and he read it, his eyes darting along the lines. Across the top of the sheet was the British Ministry of Defence letterhead. There was a lot of text below. Official stamps and confidentiality warnings in large bold print everywhere. The second page was more of the same. So was the third. He whistled. ‘What’s that?’ Rigault asked, looking up. Simon showed him. ‘Hope’s military record.’ Rigault read it and his eyebrows rose. ‘Fuck me,’ he breathed. ‘This is serious stuff.’ He looked up at Simon. ‘He’s our mystery shooter, no doubt about it.’ ‘What’s he doing? What’s going on?’ ‘I don’t know,’ Simon said, ‘but I’m going to bring him in and find out. I’m putting out an alert on him right now.’ He picked up the phone. Rigault shook his head and tapped the fax printout with his fingers. ‘You’re going to need half the French police force to catch this fucker.’ 32 (#ulink_6f5bfef1-1728-5230-a79f-e45ba34b66bd) The drive southwards down the autoroute from Paris was long and hot. At Nevers the motorway was interrupted for a while and they took the Nationale road as far as Clermont-Ferrand, then drove back onto Autoroute 75 heading towards Le Puy Ben’s destination was still a long way south, down in the Languedoc region where he could pick up the trail of Klaus Rheinfeld and, he hoped, make some progress on his search. With only Fulcanelli’s half-read Journal for guidance, he still had no clear idea of what he was even looking for. All he could do was follow the thin clues as best he could and hope that things got a bit more promising along the way. Roberta was asleep next to him, her head rolling on her shoulder. She’d been sleeping for the last hour or so, which was about the same length of time he’d known for sure that they were being followed. The blue BMW that he was now watching with half an eye in the rearview mirror, keeping pace with them through the traffic, had been on their tail since sometime after Paris. The pursuing car had first caught his attention at a refuelling stop when the Peugeot had been ahead in the line. The four men in the BMW had been acting jittery. He could tell they didn’t want to lose sight of him. They headed back onto the road, and Ben tested them. Whenever he overtook a slower vehicle in front of him, the BMW would follow. When he slowed right down to a pace guaranteed to annoy other motorists, the BMW followed suit, ignoring the blaring horns of the indignant drivers until Ben accelerated and it accelerated with him. There was no doubt about it. ‘Why’re you driving so erratically?’ Roberta complained sleepily from beside him. ‘Just my erratic personality, I guess,’ he replied. ‘Actually, I hate to tell you this, but we’ve got a friend. The blue BMW,’ he added as she twisted round in her seat, suddenly wide awake. ‘You think it’s them again?’ He nodded. ‘Either that, or they want to ask directions.’ ‘Can we get out of it?’ He shrugged. ‘Depends how sticky they are. If we can’t shake them off, they’re going to follow us until we get to a quiet road and then they’re going to try something.’ ‘Try what? Don’t answer that. See if you can shake them.’ ‘OK. Hang on tight.’ He dropped down two gears and accelerated hard. The Peugeot surged forwards, weaving as he turned hard to overtake a truck. A horn sounded from behind. The roar of the engine filled the car. Ben glanced in the mirror and saw the BMW giving chase, dipping in and out between lanes. ‘If that’s the way you want it,’ he breathed, and pushed the accelerator down harder. Up ahead, a lorry was pulling out of its lane. The Peugeot darted into the gap and overtook it on the wrong side. The lorry gave a furious wobble as it shrank fast in his mirror, its airhorns blasting angrily. ‘Are you suicidal?’ she yelled over the engine noise. ‘Only when I’m sober.’ ‘Are you sober?’ She made a face. ‘Don’t answer that either.’ A clear stretch ahead. Ben floored the throttle, pushing the speedo needle past the 160 km/h mark. Roberta clutched the sides of her seat. The BMW emerged through the confusion of traffic they’d left in their wake, powering after them. Ben wove the 206 at high speed in and out of the honking traffic. It was far more agile than the heavy BMW, and by the time they reached a turn-off their pursuers were lagging 100 metres behind. The Peugeot tore along a winding country road. Ben took two random junctions, left and then right. But what the BMW lacked in agility it gained in speed and with an obviously determined driver it was tough to shake off. A sign flashed up for a village, and Ben skidded into the turning. They were on a long straight. The bigger car edged up on them. His eye was on the dial and he was going as fast as he dared. Behind them, one of the passengers of the BMW stuck an arm out of the window and squeezed off several shots from a pistol. The Peugeot’s rear window shattered. They entered the village and sped through the main square, skidding to avoid a fountain and panicking some drinkers at a bistro terrace who roared and shook their fists only to dive for cover a second time as the BMW came roaring through and sent tables and chairs spinning across the pavement. A junction flashed up and Ben skidded left with a screech of tyres. A truck swerved and narrowly missed them, crashing into a parked Fiat. The Fiat rolled into the path of the BMW as it veered around the bend in pursuit. The BMW hit the loose car a clanging blow from the side and spun it across the road into a wall. The BMW, with a crumpled wing and buckled bonnet, composed itself and came on again, picking up speed. They were out of the village, blasting down a twisting road with trees zipping by on either side. A gap in the trees appeared on the right. Ben twisted the wheel and the Peugeot veered off the road, hitting the farm track with its tyres spinning on the loose surface. He controlled the skid and the car straightened up, then a severe rut hammered the suspension hard into its stops and their stomachs were in their mouths. The BMW was doggedly hanging on behind. Dirt flew in their wake. Roberta twisted round again to see the BMW’s crumpled nose disappear in a cloud of dust as it plunged through the rut. The Peugeot raced into a sharp bend. Suddenly a tractor filled the road. Skidding wildly on the loose surface Ben managed to aim the car through a flimsy farm gate. It splintered like balsawood and the Peugeot crashed on through into the field. It went bucking across the ridged surface of the field and down a sharp incline. A sudden dip as the front of the car plunged into empty space. Then a crash as they smashed into the opposite bank of the deep trench. The Peugeot bounced and lay still. They climbed out as the BMW came bounding down the hillside after them. Seeing the dust rising from the crashed Peugeot, the driver braked–too hard, sending the BMW into a sideways skid. It spun, hit another rut, went up sideways on two wheels and rolled, coming to a rest upside down in a great plume of dust. Its four dazed occupants spilled out. A fat man with blood streaming down his temple fired a pistol at the Peugeot. The passenger window burst and showered Roberta with glass as she crawled for cover. ‘Roberta!’ Ben grabbed the Browning and returned fire, the gun bucking in his hand as his bullet went through the side of the BMW four inches from the fat man’s head. She took cover next to him. Three of their pursuers dived behind the BMW. The fourth scrambled behind a rock, clutching a short-barrelled shotgun. He fired. The shot blew a ragged hole in the roof of the Peugeot, and Roberta screamed. Ben brought the Browning up again and loosed off four rapid shots. Dust flew up around the prone shooter. Ben’s fourth shot caught him in the upper arm. He rolled out from the cover of the rock, racking the shotgun. Ben fired at him again, and kept squeezing off round after round until he was down and the Browning was out of ammunition. He ejected the spent mag and reached into his pocket for a spare one. His pocket was empty. He suddenly remembered that all the magazines and ammunition were in his bag inside the car. Another man came out from behind the upside-down BMW. The gun in his hands was black and oblong, with a stubby silencer and a long pistol-grip magazine. He fired a chattering burst from the Ingram submachine gun which peppered the side of the Peugeot with holes and forced Ben to take cover as he tried to get into the car. The third and fourth shooters were stepping out from behind the BMW, pistols in their hands, cautiously advancing. The man with the Ingram let off another spray, whipping up dust and stones in a line to Ben’s left. Not good. Suddenly the Ingram had shot itself empty, and the man was struggling to reload it. Ben saw his chance. He reached inside the Peugeot and grabbed his bag. Fumbled with the catches and found what he was looking for. He slammed in a fresh magazine as the man with the Ingram came closer. Throwing his gun arm up over the top of the car, Ben shot him twice in the chest and saw him go down on his back with his legs kicking in the air. The gunman nearest the BMW ran back for cover, snapping a wild shot over his shoulder. His colleague, realizing he was too far from the car, went down on one knee and emptied his 9mm at Ben. Ben ducked down as bullets whanged past him. But one caught him. The blow to his right side jerked him round. He righted himself and returned fire. The man came down sprawling with his arms outflung and his pistol tumbling to the ground. Ben staggered. There was blood everywhere. His vision clouded and suddenly he was gazing up at a circle of treetops and grey sky. Roberta saw him go down, screaming NO!!! and catching his pistol as it fell. She’d never fired a gun before, but the Browning was easy–just point and squeeze. The last gunman stepped out again from behind the BMW and fired at her. She felt the crack as the bullet zipped past her. With the Browning in both hands she fired back and sent him under cover in a shower of glass. She grabbed her shoulder-bag out of the Peugeot’s broken window. ‘Can you run?’ she yelled at him. Ben groaned, rolled and staggered to his feet. His knees were weak. Another shot rang out. Her wild answering bullet caught the man in the thigh, and with a scream and a spray of blood he fell back behind the car. Now the Browning was empty again and wouldn’t work any more. The injured man came crawling back out with a double-barrelled shotgun. He fired and the Peugeot’s wing-mirror exploded. ‘Come on!’ She grabbed Ben’s arm and they ran down the steep slope. Below them, a rough earth bank led sharply down to a winding country lane. A farm truck carrying a load of hay was lumbering slowly by. In four running leaps they were ten feet right above it and then Roberta threw herself into the air, taking him with her. They sailed through space for a terrifying second. The back of the truck rushed up to meet them–and then they plummeted into the prickly bed of hay, all arms and legs and confusion. The man with the shotgun hobbled swearing down the slope past his three dead companions. He roared with fury as he watched the truck, with Ben and Roberta in the back, disappear in the fading light. 33 (#ulink_cd90f908-220b-5a7d-8840-46df0f4d047a) Paris After the long, hot drive from Rome, Franco Bozza was in no mood for niceties. He filtered the black Porsche 911 Turbo through the traffic of the city outskirts and headed towards the suburb of Cr?teil. He soon found what he was looking for in a rundown industrial zone on the outer fringes. The disused packing plant stood back from the street, behind rusted iron gates that were locked with a chain. Weeds littered the forecourt. Bozza left the Porsche running and walked up to the gates. The padlock was shiny and new. He took the key from his pocket and unlocked it. Checked left and right that nobody was around, then pushed open the right-hand gate with a grating of rusty hinges. He drove the Porsche through, then locked the gates behind him. The street was empty. Bozza parked out of sight around the back of the neglected building, and walked in through the back entrance that he knew would be left open for him. The appearance of the tall, broad and silent figure in the long black coat created a chill in the air for the three men who’d been guarding the unconscious Gaston Cl?ment. Naudon, Godard and Berger all knew the Inquisitor’s reputation and stayed as far from him as possible, barely daring even to look at him as the man opened up the black bag he was carrying and laid out the shiny assortment of instruments on a trolley. Some of the implements were obviously surgical, like the scalpels and the saw. They could only guess at the grisly purpose of the bolt cutters, claw hammer and blowtorch. In the centre of the wide empty space, the old alchemist was hanging naked and limp by his feet from a chain wrapped around a girder. The last item Bozza took out of his bag was the heavy plastic overall. He slipped it carefully over his head and smoothed it down over his body. Then he ran a gloved finger along the row of instruments, deciding where to start. His face was blank, impassive. He picked up a long, sharp probe and twirled it between his gloved fingers. He nodded to himself. Then the whispering questions began, and the screaming. A little over an hour later, the old man’s screams had died to a constant babbling whimper. There was a spreading pool of blood under him, and Bozza’s plastic overall and the tools on the trolley were thickly smeared with it. But this had been a waste of time. The old man was sick and frail, and Bozza could see from the bruises and blood-encrusted gashes on his face that his captors had beaten him into uselessness long before he’d even got there. Now his ravaged body had gone into total shock and the torturer knew there was no point in prolonging the agony. There was nothing to learn from him. Bozza walked to the trolley and unzipped a small pouch. The syringe inside contained a massive dose of the same substance vets used to euthanize dogs. He walked back to the hanging body and jabbed the needle into Clement’s neck. When it was all over, Bozza turned and looked coldly at the three men. Their anxiety at his presence had diminished, and they were standing in a distant corner of the factory, chattering and smoking cigarettes, laughing and joking about something. He smiled. They wouldn’t be laughing long. What they didn’t know about his visit was that getting information out of Cl?ment wasn’t the only reason Usberti had sent him here. His orders to ‘clean up the mess’ went further. These three amateurs had bungled their jobs once too often. Gladius Domini’s days of hiring petty crooks to do its dirty work were coming to an end. He motioned to them to come over. Godard, Naudon and Berger stamped out their cigarettes, shot serious looks at one another and approached. Their good humour had suddenly evaporated, quickly giving way back to nervousness. Naudon was wearing a weak grin, about to say something. They were ten metres away when Bozza casually drew out a silenced .380 Beretta and dropped them in rapid succession without a word. The bodies slumped quietly to the floor. A spent case tinkled across the concrete. He looked down impassively at the dead men as he unscrewed his silencer and replaced the little pistol in its holster. Four bodies to dispose of. This time there’d be no traces left. 34 (#ulink_44ecccf5-3fee-55b2-9bd5-7d7e15c2c86f) The van drove away in a haze of dust and diesel smoke. The delivery driver was more than happy with the bulge in his pocket, to the tune of 1,000 Euros, that his odd hitchhikers–the short-tempered American woman and her quiet, pale and sick-looking boyfriend–had given him to go the extra kilometres out of his way as far as the tiny hamlet of Saint-Jean. He wondered what that was all about…but then again, what did he care? The drinks would be on him that night. Roberta was still picking bits of hay out of her hair after their uncomfortable night in the barn. The farmer whose truck they’d jumped on had never noticed his passengers. After the bumpy ride through the country lanes he’d backed the truck up into the barn and then disappeared. Roberta had sneaked down and hunted around until she’d found a rough old blanket to cover Ben with. He was shivering and in a lot of pain. She’d spent most of the night sitting watching him and worrying that she should have got him to a hospital. Two farm cats had found them and snuggled up next to her in the deep bed of hay. She’d fallen asleep sometime after three, and it seemed like only minutes had passed before the dawn cries of a rooster had woken them. They’d crept away before the farmer appeared. It had taken hours to get to Saint-Jean, and the afternoon sun was beginning its downward curve. The village seemed deserted. ‘This place looks like it hasn’t changed much in the last few centuries,’ Roberta said, looking about her. Ben was slumped against a dry-stone wall, head hanging. He looked pretty bad, she thought anxiously. ‘You wait here. I’ll go see if I can find someone who can help us.’ He nodded weakly. She touched his brow. It was burning, but his hands were cold. The pain from his side was making it hard for him to breathe. She stroked his face. ‘Maybe there’s a doctor in the village,’ she said. ‘Don’t want a doctor,’ he muttered. ‘Get the priest. Get Father Pascal Cambriel.’ For the first time in her life, Roberta found herself praying as she walked through the empty street. The road was bare earth, crumbly from lack of rain. The ancient houses, dirty in a way that would have looked squalid anywhere but the south of France, seemed to lean against each other for support. ‘If you’re up there at all, Lord,’ she said to herself, ‘then please let me find Father Pascal.’ She was suddenly chilled at the thought of being told he was dead, or no longer there. She quickened her step. The church was at the far end of the village. Beside it was a little graveyard and beyond that a stone cottage. She could hear the cosy sound of hens clucking from the shelter of an outbuilding. A dusty and well-used old Renault 14 was parked outside. A man walked out from between two houses. He looked like a labourer, his deeply lined face like leather from years of working in the harsh sun. He slowed as he caught sight of her. ‘Monsieur, excuse me,’ she called out to him. He peered at her curiously, quickened his pace and disappeared into one of the houses, slamming the door in her face. Roberta was shocked–and then it dawned on her that a tousled and grimy foreign woman with a bloodstained shirt and ripped jeans might not be a typical sight in these parts. She hurried on, thinking of Ben. ‘Madame? Je peux vous aider? said a voice. Roberta turned and saw an elderly lady, dressed all in black with a shawl wrapped around her shoulders. A crucifix hung from a chain around her wrinkled neck. ‘Please, yes, I hope you can help me,’ Roberta answered in French. ‘I’m looking for the village priest.’ The old lady raised her eyebrows. ‘Yes? He is here.’ ‘Is Father Pascal Cambriel still the priest of this village?’ ‘Yes, he is still here,’ she said, smiling a gap-toothed smile. ‘I am Marie-Claire. I take care of his house.’ ‘Will you take me to him, please? It’s important. We need help.’ Marie-Claire led her along to the cottage and they went in. ‘Father,’ she called. ‘We have a visitor.’ The cottage was a humble abode, sparsely furnished yet giving off an air of immense warmth and security. The evening fire was ready for lighting, logs piled on twigs. At a plain pine table were two simple wooden chairs, and at the other end of the room was an old couch covered with a blanket. A large ebony crucifix hung on one whitewashed wall, and there was a picture of the Pope beside an image of the Crucifixion. There were creaky, uneven footsteps on the stairs, and the priest appeared. Now seventy, Pascal Cambriel was having a little difficulty walking and he leaned heavily on his stick. ‘What can I do for you, my child?’ he asked, casting a curious eye over Roberta’s unusual appearance. ‘Are you hurt? Has there been an accident?’ ‘I’m not hurt, but I’m with a friend who’s not well,’ she said. ‘You’re Father Pascal Cambriel, aren’t you?’ ‘I am.’ She closed her eyes. Thank you, Lord. ‘Father, we were on our way especially to meet you when my friend was injured. He’s sick.’ ‘This is serious.’ Pascal frowned. ‘I know what you’re going to say, that he should see a doctor. I can’t explain right now, but he doesn’t want one. Will you help?’ ‘In any case, there is no doctor here any longer,’ Pascal told her as they bumped back down the street in his Renault. ‘Dr. Bachelard passed away two years ago, and nobody has taken his place. No young people want to come to Saint-Jean. It is a dying place, I am sorry to say.’ Ben was semi-conscious when the priest’s car ground to a halt on the village outskirts. ‘My Lord, he is very sick.’ Pascal limped over to Ben’s slumped form and took him by the arm. ‘Can you hear me, my son? Mademoiselle, you will have to help me get him into the car.’ Roberta, Pascal and old Marie-Claire nursed Ben up the stairs of the cottage, into the priest’s spare bedroom. He was laid in the bed and Pascal unbuttoned his bloody shirt. He winced at the sight of the wound across Ben’s ribs. He said nothing, but he could see that it was a gunshot wound. He’d seen them before, many years ago. He felt with his fingers. The bullet had passed straight through the muscle and out the other side. ‘Marie-Claire, would you kindly fetch hot water, bandages and disinfectant? And do we still have any of that herbal preparation for cleansing wounds?’ Marie-Claire tiptoed dutifully off to attend to her task. Pascal felt Ben’s pulse. ‘It is very fast.’ ‘Will he be OK?’ Roberta was drained of all colour, her fists balled at her sides. ‘We will need some of Arabelle’s medicine.’ ‘Arabelle? Is she a local healer?’ ‘Arabelle is our goat. We have some antibiotics from when she suffered a hoof infection some time ago. I am afraid that is the limit of my medical prowess.’ Pascal smiled. ‘But Marie-Claire knows much about herbal remedies. Many a time has she helped me, and other members of our little community. I believe our young friend here is in good hands.’ ‘Father, I’m so grateful to you for your help.’ ‘It is my duty, but also my pleasure, to give service to the needy,’ Pascal replied. ‘It has been some time since this room was last used to tend to a sick man. I believe it must be five, even six years, since the last injured soul found his way to our village.’ ‘It was Klaus Rheinfeld, wasn’t it?’ Pascal stopped what he was doing abruptly and turned to give Roberta a penetrating look. ‘He is sleeping,’ Pascal murmured as he came down the stairs. ‘We will leave him for a while.’ Roberta was fresh from her bath and wearing the clothes Marie-Claire had given her. ‘Thanks again for your help,’ she said. ‘I don’t know what we’d have done…’ Pascal smiled. ‘There is no need to thank me. You must be hungry, Roberta. Let us eat.’ Marie-Claire served a simple meal–some soup, bread and a glass of Pascal’s own wine, pressed from his little vineyard. They ate in silence, the only sound the rasping of the crickets outside and a dog barking in the distance. From time to time the priest would reach out and take a split log from a basket and throw it into the fire. After the meal was over Marie-Claire cleared the table, and then said goodnight before returning to her own cottage across the street. Pascal lit a long wooden pipe and moved to a rocking chair by the fireside. He turned out the main light so that they were bathed in the flickering orangey glow from the fire, and invited her to sit opposite him in an armchair. ‘I think we have some things to discuss, you and I.’ ‘It’s a long and strange story, Father, and I don’t even know all there is to know. But I’ll do my best to explain the situation to you.’ She told him what she knew about Ben’s assignment, the danger it had led him into, the things that had happened to her, her fears. Her account was rambling and disconnected. She was terribly weary and her body ached. ‘I now understand your reluctance to see a doctor,’ Pascal said. ‘You are afraid of being reported and falsely accused of these crimes.’ He looked at the clock on the wall. ‘My child, it is getting late. You are exhausted and must rest. You shall sleep on the couch. It is actually very comfortable. I have brought you down some bedclothes.’ ‘Thanks, Father. I’m certainly exhausted but I think, if it’s all right with you, that I should sit up with Ben.’ He touched her shoulder. ‘You are a loyal companion to him. You care for him deeply.’ She was silent. The words struck her. ‘But I will sit up with him while you take your rest,’ Pascal continued. ‘I have done little today except tend the chickens, milk Arabelle, God bless the dear creature, and hear two very routine confessions.’ He smiled. Pascal sat until late and read his Bible by the light of a candle, while Ben tossed and turned fitfully. Once, around four, he woke and said ‘Where am I?’ ‘With friends, Benedict,’ the priest replied. He stroked Ben’s clammy forehead and settled him back to sleep. ‘Rest now. You are safe. I will pray for you.’ 35 (#ulink_4c93cb81-2afc-525a-89b4-b5aa124e2bb2) Ben tried to move his legs across the bed. He’d been lying here long enough. It was tough going, an inch at a time. The pull on his injured muscles was agonizing. He clenched his teeth as he gently lowered his feet to the floor and slowly stood up. His shirt had been washed and neatly laid out for him on a chair. It took him a long time to dress. Through the window he could see the village rooftops and the hills and mountains beyond rising up to the clear sky. He cursed himself furiously for letting this situation happen. He’d underestimated the dangers right from the start of this job. And here he was, stuck in this backwater, hardly able to move or do anything useful, while a dying child needed his help. He grabbed his flask and took a deep swig. At least this is something I can do. He wished he had a whole bottle, or maybe two. Then he remembered Fulcanelli’s Journal. He bent stiffly and fished it out of his bag. He lay on the bed with it, leafing through the pages, and resumed his reading. 3 September, 1926 It has finally happened: the pupil has challenged the master. As I write, I can still hear Daquin’s words ringing in my ears as he confronted me today in the laboratory. His eyes were blazing, and his fists were clenched at his sides. ‘But master,’ he protested. ‘Aren’t we being selfish? How can you possibly say it’s right to keep such important knowledge a secret when it could benefit so many people? Don’t you see the good that this could do? Think how it would change everything!’ ‘No, Nicholas,’ I insisted. ‘I am not being selfish. I am being cautious. These secrets are important, yes. But they are too dangerous to reveal to just anyone. Only the initiated, the adept, should ever be allowed to have this knowledge.’ Nicholas stared at me in fury. ‘Then I can see no point in it,’ he shouted. ‘You are old, master. You’ve spent most of your life searching, but it’s all for nothing if you don’t use it. Use it to help the world.’ ‘And you are young, Nicholas,’ I replied. ‘Too young to understand the world you want so much to help. Not everyone is as pure of heart as you are. There are people who would use this knowledge to serve their own greed and their own purposes. Not to do good, but to do evil.’ On the table beside us was the ancient scroll in its leather tube. I picked it up and shook it at him. ‘I am a direct descendant of the authors of this wisdom,’ I said. ‘My Cathar ancestors knew theimportance of preserving their secrets, at all costs. They knew who was seeking them, and they knew what would have happened if they had fallen into the wrong hands. They gave their lives trying to preserve this wisdom.’ ‘I know, master, but…’ I interrupted him. ‘This knowledge we have been privileged with is power, and power is a dangerous thing. It corrupts men, and attracts evil. That is why I warned you about the responsibility I was giving you. And don’t forget–you swore an oath of silence.’ I hung my head in sadness. ‘I fear I have revealed too much to you,’ I added. ‘Does that mean you’re not going to tell me any more? What about the rest? The second great secret?’ I shook my head. ‘I am sorry, Nicholas. It is too much knowledge for one so young and rash. I cannot undo what is already done, but I will not take you any further until you have proved greater wisdom and maturity.’ At these words, he stormed out of the laboratory. I could see he was on the edge of tears. I, too, felt a knife in my heart knowing what had come between us. Ben heard a soft knock at the bedroom door. He looked up from the Journal as the door opened a crack and Roberta’s face appeared. ‘How are you feeling now?’ she said. She looked concerned as she came in carrying a tray. He closed the Journal. ‘I’m OK.’ ‘Here, look, I prepared this for you.’ She laid a bowl of steaming chicken soup on the table. ‘Eat it while it’s hot.’ ‘How long was I out of it?’ ‘Two days.’ ‘Two days!’ He took a slurp of whisky, wincing at the movement. ‘Should you be drinking, Ben? You’ve been on antibios.’ She sighed. ‘At least eat something. You need to get your strength back.’ ‘I will. Can you kick over my bag? My cigarettes are in it.’ ‘Smoking isn’t good for you right now.’ ‘It’s never good for me.’ ‘Fine. Have it your own way. I’ll get them for you.’ ‘No, just–’ He moved too abruptly and pain shot through him. He leaned back against the pillow, closing his eyes. She reached down. As she rummaged around in the bag, a small object fell out and landed on the floor. She picked it up. It was a tiny photograph in a silver frame. She studied it, wondering what it was doing in there. The photo was old and faded, creased and worn at the edges as though it had been carried for years in a wallet. It was a picture of a child, a sweet little girl of about eight or nine with blond hair. She had sparkling, intelligent blue eyes and a freckly face, and she was smiling at the camera with an expression of open happiness. ‘Who is she, Ben? She’s lovely.’ She looked at him and her smile faded. He was staring at her with an expression of cold fury she’d never seen before. ‘Put that down and get the fuck out of here,’ he said. Father Pascal saw the look of anger and hurt on Roberta’s face as she came downstairs. He laid a hand on her arm. ‘Sometimes when a man is in pain, he lashes out and says and does things he does not mean,’ he said. ‘Just because he’s injured, that doesn’t excuse him for behaving like a bas-’ She caught herself. ‘I was only trying to help him.’ ‘That was not the pain I was referring to,’ Pascal said. ‘The true pain is in his heart, his spirit, not in his wounds.’ He smiled warmly. ‘I will speak to him.’ He went into Ben’s room and sat beside him on the edge of the bed. Ben was lying there staring into space, clutching his flask. The whisky was dulling his pain a little. He’d managed to retrieve his cigarettes, only to find the packet almost empty. ‘You do not mind if I join you?’ said Pascal. Ben shook his head. Pascal was quiet for a few moments, then he spoke gently and warmly to Ben. ‘Benedict, Roberta has told me something of your occupation. You have a calling to help those in need–a noble and commendable thing indeed. I, too, have a calling, which I carry out as well as I can. I must say it is less dramatic, less heroic, than yours. But the purpose the Lord has for me is nonetheless an important duty to fulfil. I help men to release their suffering. To find God. For some, that simply is to find peace within themselves, in whichever form it may come.’ ‘This is my peace, Father,’ muttered Ben. He held up his flask. ‘You know it is not enough, that it will never be enough. It cannot help you, it can only hurt you. It drives your pain deeper in your heart. The pain is like a poisoned thorn. If it is not released, it will fester like a terrible wound. And not one that may be cured by the simple application of penicillin intended for a goat.’ Ben laughed bitterly. ‘Yeah, you’re probably right.’ ‘You have helped many people, it seems,’ said Pascal. ‘Yet you continue on your path of self-destruction, relying upon liquor, this false friend. When the joy of helping others has faded, does the pain not return soon after, and worse?’ Ben said nothing. ‘I think you know the answer.’ ‘Look,’ Ben said, ‘I’m grateful for all you’ve done for me. But I’m not interested in sermons any longer. That part of me died a long time ago. So with the deepest respect to you, Father, if you’ve come up here to preach to me you’re wasting your time.’ They sat in silence. ‘Who is Ruth?’ Pascal asked suddenly. Ben threw him a sharp glance. ‘Didn’t Roberta tell you? The little girl who’s dying, my client’s granddaughter. The one I’m trying to save. If it’s not too bloody late.’ ‘No, Benedict, that is not who I meant. Who is the other Ruth, the Ruth of your dreams?’ Ben felt his blood turn to ice and his heart quicken. With a tight throat he said, ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about. There isn’t any Ruth in my dreams.’ ‘When a man sits through two nights with a delirious patient,’ Pascal said, ‘he may discover things about him that might not be openly discussed. You have a secret, Ben. Who is Ruth–who was Ruth?’ Ben let out a deep sigh. He raised the flask again. ‘Why don’t you let me help you?’ Pascal said gently. ‘Come, share your burden with me.’ After a long silence Ben started talking quietly, almost mechanically. His eyes were staring into space as he played the familiar, painful images back in his mind for the millionth time. ‘I was sixteen. She was my sister. She was only nine. We were so close…we were soulmates. She was the only person I’ve ever loved with all my heart.’ He gave a bitter smile. ‘She was like the sunshine, Father. You should have seen her. For me, she was the reason to believe in a Creator. This might come as a surprise to you, but at one time I was going to become a clergyman.’ Pascal listened carefully. ‘Go on, my son.’ ‘My parents took us on a holiday to north Africa, Morocco,’ Ben continued. ‘We were staying in a big hotel. One day my parents decided to go to visit a museum, and they left us behind. They told me to take care of Ruth and not to leave the hotel grounds under any circumstances.’ He paused to light his last cigarette. ‘A Swiss family were staying in the hotel. They had a daughter about a year older than me. Her name was Martina.’ Talking about it for the first time in years, he could remember it all perfectly. He saw Martina’s face in his mind. ‘She was great-looking. I really liked her, and she asked me out. She wanted to visit a souk without her parents being there. At first I said no, I had to stay in the hotel and look after my sister. But Martina was going back to Switzerland the next day. And she said that if I went with her to the souk, when we got back she’d…anyway, I was tempted. I decided it would be OK to bring Ruth along too. I figured that my parents would never know.’ ‘Go on,’ Pascal said. ‘We left the hotel. We wandered around the market. It was crowded, full of stalls, snake-charmers, all those strange sights and music and smells.’ Pascal nodded. ‘I was in Algeria, for the war, many years ago. A strange, alien world, for us Europeans.’ ‘It was a good time,’ Ben said. ‘I liked being around Martina, and she kept holding my hand as she was looking at all the stalls. But I kept a close watch on Ruth. She stayed right by my side. Then Martina saw a little silver casket she liked, to keep jewellery in. She didn’t have enough money, so I said I’d buy it for her. I turned my back on Ruth while I was counting the money. It was only for a moment. I bought the present for Martina, and she hugged me.’ He paused again. His throat was dry. He went to take another swig from his flask. Pascal stopped his arm, gently but firmly. ‘Let us leave deceitful friends out of this for the moment.’ Ben nodded, swallowed hard. ‘I don’t know how it could have happened so fast. I only took my eyes off her for a few seconds. But then she was…gone.’ He shrugged. ‘Just gone, just like that.’ His heart felt like a huge bubble ready to burst. He put his head in his hands, shaking it slowly from side to side. ‘She just wasn’t there any more. I never heard her cry out. I didn’t see a thing. Everything around me was normal. It was as though I’d dreamed the whole thing. As though she’d never existed.’ ‘She had not simply wandered off.’ Ben took his head out of his hands and sat straighter. ‘No,’ he said. ‘It’s a lucrative trade, and the people who take them are expert professionals. Everything that could be done was done–police, consulate, months of searching. We never found a trace.’ The bubble burst. He’d held it back for so long. Something was pierced inside him, a sense of gushing. He hadn’t cried since those days, except in his dreams. ‘And it was all my fault, because I turned my back on her. I lost her.’ ‘You have never loved anyone since,’ Pascal said. It wasn’t a question. ‘I don’t know how to love,’ Ben said, collecting himself. ‘I can’t remember the last time I was really happy. I don’t know what it feels like.’ ‘God loves you, Benedict.’ ‘God’s no more a friend to me than whisky is.’ ‘You lost faith.’ ‘I tried to keep faith then. At first I prayed every day that she’d be found. I prayed for forgiveness. I knew God wasn’t listening to me, but I kept on believing and I kept on praying.’ ‘And what about your family?’ ‘My mother never forgave me. She couldn’t stand the sight of me. I couldn’t blame her. Then she went into a deep depression. One day her bedroom door was locked. My father and I shouted and beat on it, but she wasn’t answering. She’d taken a massive overdose of sleeping-pills. I was eighteen, just starting my theology studies.’ Pascal nodded sadly. And your father?’ ‘He went downhill fast after we lost Ruth, and Mum’s death made him worse. My only consolation was that I thought he’d forgiven me.’ Ben sighed. ‘I was home on vacation. I went into his study. I can’t even remember why. I think I needed some paper. He wasn’t around. I found his diary.’ ‘You read it?’ And I found out what he really thought. The truth was, he hated me. He blamed me for everything, didn’t think I deserved to live after what I’d brought on the family. I couldn’t go back to university after that. I lost interest in everything. My father died soon after.’ ‘What did you do then, my son?’ ‘I can’t remember much about the first year. I bummed around Europe a lot, tried to lose myself. After a while I came home, sold up the house. I moved to Ireland with Winnie, our housekeeper. Then I joined the army. I couldn’t think of what else to do. I hated myself. I was full of rage, and put every bit of it into my training. I was the most disciplined and motivated recruit they’d ever seen. They had no idea what was behind it. Then, in time, I became a very good soldier. I had a certain attitude. A certain hardness. I was wild, and they made use of that. I ended up doing a lot of things that I don’t like to talk about.’ He hesitated before going on, and his mind filled briefly with memories, images, sounds, smells. He shook his head to clear them. ‘In the end I realized the army wasn’t what I wanted. I hated everything it stood for. I came home, tried to get my life back together. After a while I was contacted to find a missing teenager. It was in the south of Italy. When it was over and the kid was safe, I realized that I’d found what I wanted to do.’ He looked up at Pascal. ‘That was four years ago.’ ‘You found that by returning missing people to their loved ones, you were healing the wound caused by the loss of Ruth.’ Ben nodded. ‘Every time I brought one home safe, it drove me on to the next job. It was like an addiction. It still is.’ Pascal smiled. ‘You have been through much pain. I am glad you trusted me enough to speak of it, Benedict. Trust is a great healer. Trust and time.’ ‘Time hasn’t healed me,’ said Ben. ‘The pain gets duller, but deeper.’ ‘You believe that finding the cure for this little girl Ruth will help you to cleanse out the demon of guilt.’ ‘I wouldn’t have taken this assignment otherwise.’ ‘I hope you succeed, Ben, for the girl’s sake and for yours. But I think that true redemption, true peace, must come from deeper within. You must learn to trust, to open your heart, and to find love within yourself. Only then will your wounds heal.’ ‘You make it sound easy,’ Ben said. Pascal smiled. ‘You have already started out on your path by confessing your secret to me. There is no salvation in burying your feelings. It may hurt to draw the poison from the wound–at such times we come face to face with the demon. But once it is brought to the surface and released, you may find freedom.’ Wax from the candle dripped onto Ben’s hand as he crept into the church of Saint-Jean. The door was never locked, not even at two in the morning. His legs were still weak and shaky as he made his way up the aisle. Shadows flickered all around him in the empty, silent building. He fell to his knees in front of the altar and his candlelight shone on the gleaming white statue of Christ above him. Ben bowed his head and prayed. The trail was leading Luc Simon south. It was easy to follow–it was a trail of bullets and dead men. A farmer in Le Puy in mid-France had reported shots heard and two cars involved in a chase on rural roads. When the police found the field where the gun battle had taken place they’d discovered three dead men, two wrecked cars shot to pieces, weapons and spent cartridge cases lying everywhere. Neither car was registered to anyone, and the BMW had been reported stolen a couple of days earlier in Lyon. More interestingly, inside the other car, a silver Peugeot with Paris plates, they’d found prints that matched Roberta Ryder’s. Among the many spent cases found in the grass were eighteen 9mm empties that had come from the same Browning-type pistol as those found in the Mercedes limo and at the scene of the riverside killings. Ben Hope might as well have carved his name on a tree. 36 (#ulink_11a6a26b-3c54-5e61-887c-3b0b6cfab829) The Institut Legrand, near Limoux, southern France Three months earlier ‘Oh shit–look, Jules, he’s done it again!’ Klaus Rheinfeld’s padded cell was covered in blood. As the two male psychiatric nurses entered the small, cube-shaped room, its occupant looked up from his handiwork like a child caught in the act of some forbidden game. His wizened face crinkled into a grin, and they saw that he’d knocked out two more teeth. He’d torn open his pyjama top and used the jagged teeth to reopen the strange wound pattern on his chest. ‘Looks like time to increase your dose again,’ muttered the male nurse in charge as Rheinfeld was led out of the cell. ‘Better get the cleaners in here,’ he said to his assistant. ‘Take him to the clinic, give him a shot of diazepam and put him into some clean clothes. Make sure his nails are cut really short, too. He’s got a visitor coming in a couple of hours.’ ‘That Italian woman again?’ Rheinfeld’s ears pricked up at the mention of his visitor. ‘Anna!’ he sang. ‘Anna…like Anna. Anna is my friend.’ He spat at the nurses. ‘Hate you’ Two hours later a much more subdued Klaus Rheinfeld sat in the secure visiting room at the Institut Legrand. It was the room they used for more borderline-risk patients who were allowed to see outside guests from time to time but not trusted to be left alone with them. One plain table, two chairs, bolted to the floor, a male nurse either side of him and a third standing by with a loaded syringe, just in case. Through a two-way mirror on the wall, Dr. Legrand, head of the Institut, was watching. Rheinfeld was wearing a fresh pair of pyjamas and a clean gown to replace the ones he’d bloodied earlier. The new gap in his teeth had been cleaned up. His improved mood was due partly to the psychotropic drugs they’d pumped into him, and partly due to the strange calming effect that his new friend and regular visitor, Anna Manzini, had on him. Clasped in his hands was his prize possession, his notebook. Anna Manzini was shown in by a male nurse, and the stark, sterile atmosphere of the visiting room became filled with her airy presence and perfume. Rheinfeld’s face lit up with happiness at the sight of her. ‘Hello, Klaus.’ She smiled and sat opposite him at the bare table. ‘And how are you today?’ The male nurses were always amazed at the way this normally difficult and agitated patient would settle down with the attractive, warm Italian woman. She had a way about her, so gentle and calm, never stressing or placing demands on him. For long periods he wouldn’t say a word, just sitting there rocking gently in his chair with his eyes half shut in relaxation and one long, bony hand resting on her arm. At first the nurses had been unhappy about this physical contact, but Anna had asked them to allow it and they’d accepted that it did no harm. When he did speak, for much of the time Rheinfeld kept muttering the same things over and over-phrases in garbled Latin and jumbled letters and numbers, obsessively counting his fingers in jerky movements as he did so. Sometimes, with a little gentle prompting, Anna could get him to speak more coherently about his interests. In a low voice he would talk about things the nurses couldn’t begin to understand. After a while his conversation would often fade back into an unintelligible mumble and then die away al together. Anna would just smile and let him sit there quietly. These were his most peaceful times, and the nurses considered them a useful part of his treatment programme. This fifth visit was no different from the others. Rheinfeld sat serenely clasping Anna’s hand and his notebook and running through the same number sequence in his low, cracked voice, talking in his own weird language. ‘N-6; E-4; I-26; A-11; E-15.’ ‘What are you trying to tell us, Klaus?’ Anna asked patiently. Dr. Legrand stood watching the scene from behind the two-way mirror with a frown on his face. He checked his watch and then strode into the visiting-room through a connecting door. ‘Anna, how wonderful to see you,’ he said, beaming. He turned to the nurses. ‘I think that will do for today. We don’t want to tire the patient.’ At the sight of Legrand, Rheinfeld screamed and covered his head with his skinny arms. He fell off his chair, and as Anna was getting up to leave he clawed his emaciated body across the floor and clutched at her ankles, protesting loudly. The nurses dragged him away from her, and she watched sadly as they bundled him through a door back towards his room. ‘Why is he so afraid of you, Edouard?’ she asked Legrand when they were back out in the corridor. ‘I don’t know, Anna.’ Legrand smiled. ‘We have no idea about Klaus’s past. His reaction to me may be the residue of some traumatic event. It’s possible I remind him unconsciously of someone who has hurt him–perhaps an abusive father or some other relative. It’s quite a common phenomenon.’ She shook her head sadly. ‘I see. That would explain it.’ ‘Anna, I was thinking…if you’re free tonight, how about dinner? I know a little fish restaurant on the coast. The sea bass is just to die for. I could pick you up around seven?’ He caressed her arm. She pulled back from his touch. ‘Please, Edouard. I told you I wasn’t ready…Let’s leave dinner for another time.’ ‘I’m sorry,’ he said, withdrawing his hand. ‘I understand. Please forgive me.’ Legrand watched from his window as Anna left the building and climbed into her Alfa Romeo. That was the third time she’d knocked him back, he thought. What was wrong with him? Other women didn’t react this way. She didn’t seem to want him to touch her. She continually gave him the cold shoulder, and yet she seemed to have no problem letting that Rheinfeld hold her hand for hours on end. He turned away from the window and picked up the phone. ‘Paulette, can you check and tell me if Dr. Delavigne is scheduled for today’s treatment assessment with one of the patients?…Klaus Rheinfeld…He is?…OK, can you call him and let him know that I’ll take over from him…That’s right…Thanks, Paulette.’ Rheinfeld was back in his padded cell, singing to himself contentedly and thinking of Anna, when he heard the rattle of keys from outside in the corridor and his door swung open. ‘Leave me alone with him,’ said a voice that he recognized. Rheinfeld cowered, his eyes bulging with fear, as Dr. Legrand walked into his cell and quietly shut the door behind him. Legrand approached, and Rheinfeld backed away as far as he could into the corner. The psychiatrist towered over him, smiling. ‘Hello, Klaus,’ he said in a soft voice. Then he drew back his foot and kicked Rheinfeld in the stomach. Rheinfeld doubled up helplessly in pain, winded and gasping. Legrand kicked him again, and again. As the blows kept coming, Klaus Rheinfeld could do no more than weep and wish he was dead. 37 (#ulink_457bab05-a041-5a4c-a5c6-cf05543f1693) On the third day Ben felt strong enough to come down and sit outside in the autumnal midday sun. He saw Roberta in the distance, feeding the hens and making a point of avoiding him. He felt bad, knowing he’d hurt her feelings. He sat and sipped the herbal tea that Marie-Claire had prepared for him, and carried on with Fulcanelli’s Journal. September 19 , 1926 I begin to truly regret the faith I had placed in Nicholas Daquin. It is with a heavy heart that I write these words, knowing now what a fool I have been. My one consolation is that I did not reveal to him the complete sum of the knowledge gained from the Cathar artefacts. My worst fears were confirmed yesterday. Against all my principles and to my eternal shame, I have employed an investigator, a discreet and trustworthy man by the name of Corot, to follow Nicholas and report his movements to me. It appears that my young apprentice has for sometime now been a member of a Parisian society called the Watchmen. Naturally I knew of the existence of this small circle of intellectuals, philosophers and initiates of esoteric knowledge. I also knew what had attracted Nicholas to them. The Watchmen’s aim is to break away from the strictures of the secretive alchemical tradition. In their monthly meetings in a room above Chacornac’s bookshop they discuss how the fruits of alchemical knowledge could be brought into modern science and used to benefit mankind. To a young man like Nicholas, they must represent the future, the foundation of a new era–and I well understand how torn he must feel between their progressive vision of a new alchemy and what he perceives as the antiquated, guarded, mistrustful approach that I represent. Such youthful spirit and candour are not to be despised. But what Corot went on to report to me has given me great cause for concern. Through his association with the Watchmen, Nicholas has made a new friend. I know little of this man, save that his name is Rudolf, that he is a student of the occult and that they call him ‘The Alexandrian after his birthplace in Egypt. Corot has observed Nicholas with this Rudolf on several occasions, watching them as they sit in caf?s and have long discussions. Yesterday he followed them to an expensive restaurant and was able to eavesdrop on some of their conversation as they sat on the terrace. Rudolf plied my young apprentice with glass after glass of champagne, and it is clear he was doing so to loosen his tongue. ‘But it’s the truth, you know,’ Rudolf was saying as Corot secretively took notes from a nearby table. ‘If Fulcanelli really believed in the power of this wisdom, he would not try to hinder one of its brightest stars.’ Here he filled Nicholas’s glass to the brim. ‘I’m not used to such high living,’ Corot heard Nicholas say. ‘One day, you’ll have all the high living you could ever desire,’ said Rudolf. Nicholas frowned. ‘It’s not fame and glory that I’m after. I just want to use my knowledge to help people, that’s all. That’s what I can’t understand about the master, why he thinks that’s such a bad thing.’ ‘Your selflessness is laudable, Nicholas,’ Rudolf said. ‘Perhaps I can help you. I do have some influential contacts.’ ‘Really?’ replied Nicholas. ‘Though it would mean breaking my oath of secrecy. You know that I’ve often thought about it–but I still can’t make up my mind.’ ‘You should trust your feelings,’ Rudolf said. ‘What right has your teacher to prevent you from fulfilling your destiny?’ ‘My destiny…’ Nicholas echoed. Rudolf smiled. ‘Men of destiny are a rare and admirable breed,’ he said. ‘If I am right about you, that means I will have had the privilege of meeting two such men in my life.’ He poured out the last of the champagne. ‘There is a man I know, a visionary who shares the same ideals as you. I have told him about you, Nicholas, and he, like me, feels you could play a very important part in creating a wonderful future for mankind. You will meet him one day.’ Nicholas gulped his glass empty and set it down on the table. He took a deep breath. ‘All right,’ he said. ‘I’ve decided. I’ll share with you what I know. I want to make a difference.’ ‘I am honoured,’ Rudolf replied, with a short bow of the head. Nicholas leaned forward in his chair. ‘If you only knew how much I’ve ached to talk about this with someone. There are two important secrets, both of which were revealed in an ancient encoded document. My master discovered it in the south, in the ruins of an old castle.’ ‘He has shown you these secrets, then?’ Rudolf asked eagerly. ‘He has shown me one of them. I have witnessed its power. It is truly amazing. I have the knowledge. I know how to use it, and I can show it to you.’ ‘What about the second secret?’ ‘Its potential is even more incredible,’ Nicholas said. ‘But there’s a problem. Fulcanelli now refuses to teach it to me.’ Rudolf placed a hand on the young man’sshoulder. ‘I’m sure you will learn it in time,’ he said with a smile. ‘But meanwhile, why don’t you tell me more about this amazing knowledge of yours? Perhaps we should continue our discussion at my apartment.’ Ben laid the Journal down. Who was this ‘Alexandrian’? What had Daquin told him? Who was the ‘man of vision’ Rudolf had promised to introduce him to? It was probably some other weirdo like Gaston Cl?ment, he thought. He flicked through the next few pages and found that the whole last section of the book had been severely damaged by rot. It was hard to tell how many pages were missing. He strained to read the last entry in the Journal, which he could only just make out. It had been written just before Fulcanelli’s mysterious disappearance. 23 December, 1926 All is lost. My beloved wife Christina is murdered. Daquin’s betrayal has placed our precious knowledge in the hands of the Alexandrian. May God forgive me for having allowed this to happen. I fear for much more than my own life. The evil that these men may do is unimaginable. My plans are underway. I will be departing from Paris immediately with Yvette, my dear daughter who is all I have left now, and I leave everything in the hands of my faithful Jacques Cl?ment. I have warned Jacques that he too musttake all precautions. For my part, I shall not return. So that was it. Somehow, Daquin’s betrayal of Fulcanelli’s trust had led to disaster. It all seemed to centre on this mysterious Rudolf, the ‘Alexandrian.’ Had he murdered Fulcanelli’s wife? More to the point, where had the alchemist gone afterwards? He’d been in such a hurry to get out of Paris that he’d even left his Journal behind. ‘What a beautiful day it is,’ said a familiar voice, breaking in on Ben’s reverie. ‘May I join you?’ ‘Hello, Father.’ Ben closed the Journal. Pascal sat by him and poured a glass of water from an earthenware jug. ‘You look better today, my friend.’ ‘Thanks, I feel better.’ ‘Good.’ Pascal smiled. ‘Yesterday you honoured me greatly with your trust in me, and by telling me your secret–which, naturally, will never go any further.’ He paused. ‘Now it is my turn, for I too have a little secret.’ ‘I’m sure I can’t possibly offer you the kind of support that you’ve given me,’ said Ben. ‘Yet I think my secret will interest you. It concerns you, in a way.’ ‘How?’ ‘You have come looking for me, but in fact your goal was to trace Klaus Rheinfeld? Roberta told me.’ ‘Do you know where he is?’ Pascal nodded. ‘Let me start from the beginning. If you knew to look for me, you must already know how I came across the poor wretch.’ ‘It was in an old news item.’ ‘He seemed to have completely lost his mind,’ Pascal said sadly. ‘When I first saw the terrible cuts he had made on his body, I thought it must be the work of the Devil.’ He automatically made the sign of the cross, touching his forehead, chest and shoulders. ‘And you probably know that I tended to the sick man, and then he was taken away and placed in the institution.’ ‘Where did they take him?’ ‘Patience, Benedict, is a great virtue. I am coming to that. Let me continue…What you do not know, what indeed nobody has ever known apart from myself and that poor lunatic, was the nature of the instrument Rheinfeld used to carve those dreadful cuts on himself…here is my secret.’ His eyes took on a faraway expression as he recalled the memory. ‘It was a terrible night, the night Rheinfeld arrived here. So wild and violent a storm. When I followed him to the woods, just over there,’ he pointed, ‘I saw he had a knife, a dagger of a most peculiar sort. I thought to begin with that he was going to kill me. Instead I watched in horror as the poor fellow turned the blade on himself. I still cannot imagine the state of his mind. Anyhow, he soon collapsed and I carried him back to the house. We did what we could for him that night, though he was out of his wits. It was only after the authorities had come for him early the next morning that I remembered the dagger, lying fallen in the woods. I returned there, and found it among the leaves.’ He paused. ‘The dagger is, I believe, of medieval origin, though perfectly preserved. It is a crucifix of clever construction, the blade concealed inside. It has many markings, strange symbols. The blade also bears an inscription. I was fascinated and shocked to learn that these symbols were the same as the marks Rheinfeld had cut into his body.’ Ben realized that this must be the gold cross that Cl?ment had mentioned. Fulcanelli’s cross. ‘What happened to it?’ he asked. ‘Did you hand it over to the police?’ ‘To my shame, no,’ Pascal said. ‘There was no investigation. Nobody questioned that Rheinfeld had inflicted the wounds upon himself. The police did no more than note a few details. So I kept the dagger. I am afraid I have a weakness for old religious artefacts, and it has been one of the prizes of my collection.’ ‘Will you let me see it?’ ‘Why, of course.’ Pascal smiled. ‘But let me continue. About five months later, I had an unusual and illustrious visitor. A Vatican bishop, named Usberti, came to see me. He was asking many questions about Rheinfeld, about his madness, about things he might have said to me, about the markings on his body. But what he most wanted to know was whether Rheinfeld was carrying anything when I found him. From what he said, although he made no direct reference to it, I believe he was interested in the dagger. May the Lord forgive me, I told him nothing. It was so beautiful, and like a stupid greedy child I wished to keep it for myself. But I also sensed something that frightened me. Something about this bishop unnerved me. He hid it well, but I knew he was desperately seeking something. He also was most curious to know whether the madman was carrying any papers, documents. He kept mentioning a manuscript. Manuscript– he asked me this again and again.’ Ben started. ‘Did he say any more about it?’ ‘The bishop was rather unclear. In fact I thought he seemed deliberately evasive when I asked him what kind of manuscript he was looking for. He would not say what his interest in it was. His manner seemed strange to me.’ ‘And did Rheinfeld have a manuscript?’ Ben asked, trying hard to cover up his growing impatience. ‘Yes,’ Pascal said slowly. ‘He did. But…I am afraid to say…’ Ben tensed up even more as he waited. Two seconds seemed like an eternity. Pascal went on. ‘After they took him away and I returned to the spot where the dagger lay, I found the soaked remnants of what seemed to be sheets of old scroll. They must have fallen out of his ragged clothes. They were crushed into the mud where he had collapsed. The rain had all but destroyed them–most of the ink was washed away. I could see some inscriptions and artwork still intact, and thinking the manuscript was precious and I might be able to return it to its owner I tried to pick it up. But it simply fell apart in my hands. I gathered up the pieces and brought them back here. But it was impossible to save them, and so I threw them away.’ Ben’s heart fell. If Rheinfeld’s papers had been the Fulcanelli manuscript, it was over. ‘But I mentioned none of this to the bishop,’ Pascal went on. ‘I was afraid to, even though I could not understand why I felt this way. Something told me it would be wrong to tell him.’ He shook his head. ‘I have known since then that this was not the last I would hear of the Rheinfeld story. I always felt that others would come and find me, looking for him.’ ‘Where’s Rheinfeld now?’ Ben asked. ‘I’d still like to talk to him.’ Pascal sighed. ‘I am afraid that will be difficult.’ ‘Why?’ ‘Because he is dead. May he rest in peace.’ ‘Dead?’ ‘Yes, he died recently, about two months ago.’ ‘How do you know?’ ‘While you were ill I telephoned the Institut Legrand, the mental institution near Limoux where Rheinfeld spent his last years. But it was too late. They told me that the poor unfortunate had ended his own life in a gruesome manner.’ ‘Then that’s that,’ Ben muttered. ‘Benedict, I have given you the bad news,’ said Pascal, touching his shoulder. ‘But I also have some good news for you. I told the people at the Institut who I was, and asked if it would be possible to talk to someone there who might have known Rheinfeld. Perhaps someone who had come to know him well during his time there. I was told that nobody at the Institut Legrand had managed to break through the madman’s shell. He never allowed anyone to approach him or form any bond with him. His behaviour was disruptive and even violent. But there was a woman, a foreigner, who used to visit him occasionally during his final months. For some reason, her presence calmed Rheinfeld down, and she was able to speak quite normally to him. The hospital staff said that they used to talk together about things that none of the psychiatric nurses could understand. I am wondering, Benedict, if this woman might not have discovered some information that would be useful to you.’ ‘Where can I find her? Did you get her name?’ ‘I left my number and asked them to tell the lady that Father Cambriel would like to talk to her.’ ‘I bet she won’t phone,’ Ben said darkly. ‘Trust is another virtue we discussed yesterday, Benedict, and one that you must learn to cultivate. In fact, Anna Manzini–that is her name–telephoned here early this morning, while you and Roberta were still sleeping. She is a writer, a historian if I gather correctly. She has taken a villa some kilometres from here. She is expecting to hear from you, and is free tomorrow afternoon if you would like to pay her a visit. You can use my car.’ So there was still a chance. Ben’s spirits lifted. ‘Father, you’re a saint.’ Pascal smiled. ‘Scarcely,’ he said. ‘A saint would not have stolen a gold crucifix and lied to his bishop.’ Ben grinned. ‘Even saints have been tempted by the Devil.’ ‘True, but the idea is to resist him,’ Pascal replied, chuckling. ‘I am an old fool. Now–I will show you the dagger. Do you think Roberta would like to see it too?’ He frowned. ‘You will not tell her I stole it, will you?’ Ben laughed. ‘Don’t worry, Father. Your secret’s safe with me.’ ‘It’s beautiful,’ Roberta breathed. Her mood was brighter now that Ben had apologized for his harsh words to her. She knew there was something about the picture that caused him pain, that she’d touched some raw nerve. But somehow, he seemed different since his talk with Pascal. Ben turned the cruciform dagger over in his hands. So this was one of the precious artefacts that Fulcanelli had prized so highly. But its significance was beyond him. Nothing in the Journal gave any clue. The cross was about eighteen inches in length. When the blade was sheathed inside the shaft-scabbard, it looked just like an exquisitely ornate gold crucifix. Curled around the scabbard, like the ancient symbol of the caduceus, was a golden snake with tiny rubies for eyes. Its head, which was placed at the top of the scabbard where it met the crosspiece, was a sprung catch. If you grasped the upper part of the cross like the hilt of a short sword and depressed the catch with your thumb, the glittering twelve-inch blade could be drawn out. It was narrow and sharp, and strange symbols had been engraved in fine lines into the steel. He hefted the weapon. Nobody would be expecting a man of God suddenly to whip out a concealed dagger. It was a fiendishly cynical idea–or maybe just a very practical one. The dagger seemed to sum up medieval religion pretty well. On the winning side were the kind of churchmen who might stab you in the back. On the other side were the priests who were always watching their back. From what Ben knew already about the history of the Church’s relationship with alchemy, whoever had carried this cross might well have belonged to the latter. Pascal pointed to the blade. ‘This is the marking that Rheinfeld had made at the centre of his chest. It looked as though it had been re-cut again and again, a huge pattern of scar tissue that stood out from his skin.’ He shuddered. The symbol he was pointing to was a precise pattern of two intersected circles, one above the other. Within the upper circle was a six-pointed star, each of its points touching the circumference. Within the lower circle was a five-pointed star or pentagram. The circles intersected so that the two stars were locked together. Delicate criss-cross lines pinpointed the exact centre of the strange geometrical shape. Ben stared at the design. Did it mean anything? It obviously had meant something to Klaus Rheinfeld. ‘Any ideas, Roberta?’ She studied it carefully. ‘Who can say? Alchemical symbolism is so cryptic sometimes, it’s virtually impossible to figure out. It’s like they’re challenging you, teasing you with scanty information until you know where to go and look for more clues. It was all about protecting their secrets. They were fanatical about security.’ Ben grunted. Let’s just hope these ‘secrets’ are worth finding, he thought. ‘Perhaps this Anna Manzini will be able to shed more light on it,’ he said out loud. ‘Who knows, maybe Rheinfeld told her what the symbols meant.’ ‘If he knew.’ ‘You have any better ideas?’ He’d had to walk up the hill overlooking Saint-Jean before he’d been able to get any kind of reception on his mobile to contact Fairfax and give him a progress report. His side was aching as he looked out over the wooded valley. Against the blue sky two eagles were swooping and curving around one another in an aerial dance of graceful majesty. He watched them riding the thermals, gliding and side-slipping as they called to one another, and he wondered fleetingly what that kind of freedom must feel like. He dialled Fairfax’s number and shielded the phone from the crackling roar of the wind. 38 (#ulink_d45dd53e-d367-5d97-afdc-5bed8d424ee1) It was late afternoon when they took Father Pascal’s car and drove to Monts?gur, an hour or so away. The old Renault wheezed and rattled along the winding country roads, through landscapes that alternated between breathtaking rocky mountain passes and lush wine-growing valleys. Just before the old town of Monts?gur they turned off the main road. At the end of a long lane, high on a hill and surrounded by trees was Anna Manzini’s country villa. It was a fine-looking ochre stone house with shuttered windows, climbing wall-plants and a balcony running across its fa?ade. The place was like an oasis in the middle of the arid landscape. Terracotta pots overflowed with flowers. Ornamental trees grew in neat rows along the walls, and water burbled brightly in a little fountain. Anna came out of the house to greet them. She was wearing a silk dress and a coral necklace that showed off her honey-coloured skin. To Roberta she seemed the classic Italian beauty, as fine and delicate as porcelain. Amid the sweat and dust of the wilds of the Languedoc she seemed to come from another world. They got out of the car and Anna welcomed them warmly, speaking English with a soft, velvety Italian accent. ‘I’m Anna. I’m so pleased to meet you both. Mr. Hope, this is your wife?’ ‘No!’ Ben and Roberta said in unison, glancing at one another. ‘This is Dr. Roberta Ryder. She’s working with me,’ Ben said. Anna gave Roberta an unexpected kiss on the cheek. Her delicate perfume was Chanel No. 5. Roberta suddenly realized that at close quarters she probably reeked of Arabelle the goat–she and Marie-Claire had milked her that morning. But if Anna noticed anything, she was too polite to wrinkle her nose. She flashed a perfect smile and led them inside. The cool white rooms of the villa were filled with the scent of fresh flowers. ‘Your English is excellent,’ Ben commented as she poured them a glass of ice-chilled fino sherry. He drank it down in one, and noticed the hot glare Roberta threw at him. ‘Don’t gulp like that,’ she whispered furiously. ‘Sorry,’ he said. ‘Mea gulpa.’ ‘Thank you,’ said Anna. ‘I’ve always loved your language. I worked in London for three years, at the start of my teaching career.’ She laughed her musical laugh. ‘That was a long time ago.’ She showed them into an airy living-room with french windows opening out onto a stone terrace with the garden and the hills beyond. A pair of canaries sang and twittered in a large ornamental cage by the window. Roberta noticed some copies of Anna’s books on a shelf. ‘God’s Heretics–Discovering the Real Cathars, by Professor Anna Manzini. I’d no idea we were coming to visit such an expert.’ ‘Oh, I’m no real expert,’ Anna said. ‘I just have an interest in certain under-researched subjects.’ ‘Such as alchemy?’ Ben asked. ‘Yes,’ Anna said. ‘Medieval history, Catharism, the esoteric, alchemy. That’s how I got to know poor Klaus Rheinfeld.’ ‘I hope you won’t mind if we ask you a few questions,’ Ben said. ‘We’re interested in the Rheinfeld case.’ ‘May I ask what your interest is?’ ‘We’re journalists,’ he answered without missing a beat. ‘We’re doing research for an article on the mysteries of alchemy.’ Anna made them a black Italian coffee served in tiny little china cups, and told them about her visits to the Institut Legrand. ‘I was so upset to hear of Klaus’s suicide. But I must say it didn’t come as a complete surprise. He was deeply disturbed.’ ‘I’m amazed they even allowed you access to him,’ Ben said. ‘They normally wouldn’t have,’ Anna replied. ‘But the Director granted me these visits to help me research my book. I was well guarded, although poor Klaus was usually calm with me.’ She shook her head. ‘Poor man, he was so ill. You know about the marks he carved into his own flesh?’ ‘Did you see them?’ ‘Once, when he was very agitated and tore open his shirt. There was a particular symbol he was obsessed with. Dr. Legrand told me that he had drawn it all over his room, in blood and…other things.’ ‘What symbol was that?’ Ben asked. ‘Two circles intersecting,’ Anna said. ‘Each circle contained a star, one a hexagram and the other a pentagram, their points touching.’ ‘Similar to this?’ Ben reached into his bag and took out an object wrapped in a cloth. He laid it on the table and peeled back the edges of the cloth to reveal the glinting cruciform dagger. He drew out the blade and showed Anna the inscription on it. The two circles, just as she’d described. She nodded, her eyes widening. ‘Yes, exactly the same. May I?’ He passed it to her. She carefully slid the blade back into the shaft and examined the cross from all angles. ‘It’s a magnificent piece. And extremely unusual. Do you see these alchemical markings on the shaft?’ She looked up. ‘What do you know about its history?’ ‘Very little,’ Ben said. ‘Only that it may once have belonged to the alchemist Fulcanelli, and we think it might date back to medieval times. Rheinfeld apparently stole it from its owner in Paris, and brought it with him down south.’ Anna nodded. ‘I’m no antiquarian, but from these markings I would agree about its age. Perhaps tenth or eleventh century. It could easily be verified.’ She paused. ‘I wonder why Klaus was so interested in it. Not just because of its value. He was penniless, and he could have sold it for a lot of money. Yet he kept hold of it.’ She raised one eyebrow. ‘How did you come to find it?’ Ben had been ready for that one. He’d promised Pascal he wouldn’t give away his secret. ‘Rheinfeld dropped it,’ he said. ‘When he was found wandering and taken away.’ He watched her reaction. She seemed to accept it. ‘What about the twin-circle symbol on the blade?’ he asked, changing the subject. ‘Why was Rheinfeld so interested in it?’ Anna grasped the shaft of the cross and drew the blade back out with a quiet metallic zing. ‘I don’t know,’ she said. ‘But there must be a reason. He may have been deranged, but he wasn’t stupid. He had areas of knowledge that were very deep.’ She studied the blade thoughtfully ‘Do you mind if I make a copy of this symbol?’ She laid the dagger down in front of her and took a piece of tracing paper and a soft-leaded pencil from a drawer. Laying the paper across the bare blade she did a careful rubbing of the markings on it. Roberta noticed her perfectly manicured hands. She glanced down at her own. Slipped them under the table. Anna studied her finished rubbing, looking happy with it. ‘There.’ Then she frowned and looked at it more closely. ‘It’s not quite the same as the one in the notebook. There’s a slight difference. I wonder…’ Ben looked at her sharply. ‘Notebook?’ ‘I’m sorry, I should have mentioned it to you. The doctors gave Klaus a notebook in the hope that he would keep a record of his dreams. They believed this would help in his treatment, and perhaps help to shed light on what had caused his mental condition. But he didn’t record his dreams. Instead he filled the pages with drawings and symbols, strange poetry and numbers. The doctors couldn’t make any sense of it, but they allowed him to keep it as it seemed to comfort him.’ ‘What happened to it?’ Ben said. ‘When Klaus died, the director of the Institut, Edouard Legrand, offered it to me. He thought I might be interested in it. Klaus had no family, and in any case it wouldn’t have been much of an heirloom. I have it upstairs.’ ‘Can we see it?’ Roberta said eagerly. Anna smiled. ‘Of course.’ She went to fetch it from her study. A minute later she returned, filling the room again with her fresh perfume, holding a small polythene bag. ‘I put it in here because it was so filthy and smelly,’ she said, laying the bag gently on the table. Ben took the notebook out of the bag. It was frayed and crumpled and looked like it had been soaked in blood and urine a hundred times. It gave off a sharp musty smell. He flipped through it. Most of the pages were blank, apart from the first thirty or so which were heavily stained with grubby fingerprints and reddish-brown smears of old dried blood that made it difficult in places to read the handwriting. The bits he could make out were just about the strangest thing he’d ever seen. The pages were filled with snatches of bizarre verse. Obscure and apparently meaningless arrangements of letters and numbers. Scrawled notes in Latin, English and French. Rheinfeld had obviously been an educated man, as well as a competent artist. Here and there were drawings, some of them simple sketches and others drawn in painstaking detail. They looked to Ben like the kind of alchemical images he’d seen in ancient texts. One of the most grubby and well-thumbed pages in the notebook had a drawing on it that was familiar. It was the diagram from the dagger blade, the twin intersecting star-circles that Rheinfeld had been so obsessed with. He picked up the dagger and compared them. ‘You’re right,’ he said. ‘They’re slightly different from one another.’ Rheinfeld’s version was identical except for one small extra detail. It was hard to make out, but it looked like a tiny heraldic emblem of a bird with outstretched wings and a long beak. It was positioned at the dead centre of the twin-circle motif. ‘It’s a raven,’ Ben said. ‘And I think I’ve seen it before.’ It was the symbol he’d seen carved in the central porch at Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris. But why had Rheinfeld altered the design from the blade? ‘Does any of this mean anything to you?’ he asked Anna. She shrugged. ‘Not really. Who knows what was in his mind?’ ‘Can I have a look?’ Roberta asked. Ben passed the notebook to her. ‘God, it’s gross,’ she said, turning the pages with revulsion. Ben’s heart was sinking again. ‘Did you learn anything at all from Rheinfeld?’ he asked Anna, hoping he might be able to salvage at least something of value. ‘I wish I could say yes,’ she replied. ‘When Dr. Legrand first mentioned this strange, intriguing character to me I thought he might help to inspire me for my new book. I was suffering from writer’s block. I still am,’ she added unhappily. ‘But as I got to know him I felt so sorry for him. My visits were more for his comfort than for my own inspiration. I can’t say I learned anything from him. All I have is this notebook. Oh, and there is one other thing…’ ‘What?’ Ben asked. Anna blushed. ‘I did something a little…what’s the word…naughty. On my last visit to the Institut I smuggled in with me the little gadget I use for dictating my book ideas. I recorded my conversation with Klaus.’ ‘Could I hear that?’ ‘I don’t think it could be of any use,’ Anna said. ‘But you’re welcome to listen to it.’ She reached behind her and picked up a miniature digital recorder from a sideboard. She set it down in the middle of the table and pressed PLAY. Through the tinny speaker they could hear Rheinfeld’s low, muttering voice. It put a chill down Roberta’s spine. ‘Did he always speak in German?’ asked Ben. ‘Only when he was repeating these numbers,’ Anna said. Ben listened intently. Rheinfeld’s mumbling tone started low, mantra-like. ‘N-sechs; E-vier; I-sechs-und-zwanzig…’ As he went on his voice rose higher, beginning to sound frenzied: ‘A-elf; E-funfzehn…N-sechs; E-vier…‘and the sequence repeated itself again as Ben scribbled it down in his pad. They heard Anna softly saying ‘Klaus, calm down.’ Rheinfeld paused for a moment, and then his voice started again: ‘Igne Natura Renovatur Integra–Igne Natura Renovatur Integra–Igne Natura Renovatur Integra…’ He chanted the phrase over and over, faster and louder until his voice rose into a scream that distorted the speaker. The recording ended with a flurry of other voices. Anna turned the machine off with a sad look. She shook her head. ‘They had to sedate him at that point. He was strangely agitated that day. Nothing seemed to calm him. It was just before he killed himself.’ ‘That was creepy,’ said Roberta. ‘What was that Latin phrase?’ Ben had already found it in the notebook. He was looking at a sketch of a cauldron, in which some mysterious liquid was bubbling. A bearded alchemist in a smock stood watching over it. The Latin words IGNE NATURA RENOVATUR INTEGRA were printed on the side of the cauldron. ‘My Latin’s rusty,’ he said. ‘Something about fire…nature…’ ‘By fire nature is renewed whole,’ Anna translated for him. An old alchemical saying, relating to the processes they used to transform base matter. He was fixated on that phrase, and when he repeated it he would count his fingers, like this.’ She imitated Rheinfeld’s twitchy, urgent gestures. ‘I have no idea why he did that.’ Roberta leaned across to see the picture in the notebook. Her hair brushed over Ben’s hand as she moved up close. She pointed to the image. Beneath the cauldron, the alchemist had lit a raging fire. Under the flames was the label ANBO, printed clearly in capitals. ‘Anbo– what language is that?’ she asked. ‘None that I know,’ Anna said. ‘So the notebook and this recording are all you have?’ Ben asked her. ‘Yes,’ she sighed. ‘That is all.’ Then it was a waste of time coming here, he thought bitterly. That was my last chance. Anna was gazing thoughtfully at the rubbing of the dagger blade. An idea was forming in her mind. She couldn’t be sure, but… The phone rang. ‘Excuse me,’ she said, and went to answer it. ‘So what do you think, Ben?’ Roberta said quietly. ‘I don’t think this is leading anywhere.’ They could hear Anna on the phone in the next room, talking in a low voice. She sounded a little flustered. ‘Edouard, I asked you not to call me any more…No, you can’t come here tonight. I have guests…no, not tomorrow night either.’ ‘Me neither,’ Roberta said. ‘Shit.’ She sighed and got up from her chair, started pacing aimlessly across the room. Then something caught her eye. Anna finished her call and returned to join them. ‘I’m sorry about that,’ she said. ‘Problems?’ Ben said. Anna shook her head and smiled. ‘Nothing import ant.’ ‘Anna, what’s this?’ Roberta said. She was examining a magnificent medieval text hanging in a glass frame on the wall near the fireplace. The cracked, browned parchment depicted an early map of the Languedoc, scattered with old towns and castles. Around the edges of the map, blocks of old Latin and medieval French text had been highly coloured and ornamented by a skilled calligrapher. ‘If this is an original scroll,’ she said, ‘it must be worth a packet.’ Anna laughed. ‘The American man who gave it to me thought it was priceless, too. Until he found out that the thirteenth-century Cathar script he’d paid twenty thousand dollars for was a fake.’ A fake?’ ‘It’s no older than this house,’ Anna said with a chuckle. ‘About eighteen-nineties. He was so pissed off– is that the right expression?–that he gave it to me for nothing. He should have known. As you say, a genuine item in that condition would have been worth a small fortune.’ Roberta smiled. ‘We Yanks are suckers for anything more than three hundred years old.’ She moved away from the framed scroll and looked across at the tall, wide bookcase, running her eyes along the hundreds of books in Anna’s collection. There was so much here–history, archaeology, architecture, art, science. ‘Some of this stuff is so interesting,’ she murmured. ‘One day when I get time…’ She remembered she had a little book of Post-it notes in her bag, still out in the car. ‘Excuse me for a moment, will you? I want to write down a few of these titles.’ She trotted out of the room. Anna moved close to Ben. ‘Come, I’d like to show you something,’ she said. He stood up, and she took his arm. Her hand was warm on his skin. ‘What do you want to show me?’ he said. She smiled. ‘This way.’ The two of them walked out of the french window and down the long garden. At the bottom, a rocky path led up to the open countryside and after they had scrambled up a short slope Ben found himself looking out at a magnificent sunset panorama. He could see for miles across the mountains of the Languedoc, and above it all the sky was a cathedral-rich canvas of shimmering golds, reds and blues. Anna pointed across the valley and showed him two distant castle ruins, serrated black outlines perched miles apart against the sky on high mountain peaks. ‘Cathar strongholds,’ she said, shielding her eyes against the falling sun. ‘Destroyed by the Albigensian crusade in the thirteenth century. The Cathars and their ancestors built castles, churches, monasteries, all across the Languedoc. They were all crushed by the Pope’s army.’ She paused. ‘I’ll tell you something, Ben. Some specialist historians have believed that these places have a deeper significance.’ He shook his head. ‘What kind of deeper significance?’ She smiled. ‘Nobody knows for sure. It was said that somewhere in the Languedoc there lies an ancient secret. That the relative positions of Cathar sites give the clue to finding it, and that whoever could solve the puzzle would discover great wisdom and power.’ Her dark hair was blowing in the gentle evening breeze. She looked beautiful. ‘Ben,’ she said tentatively. ‘You haven’t told me the whole truth. I think you’re looking for something. Am I right? Something secret.’ He hesitated. ‘Yes.’ Her almond eyes sparkled. ‘I thought so. And it has something to do with alchemy, with the legend of Fulcanelli?’ He nodded, and couldn’t help but smile at her razor-sharp perceptiveness. ‘I was looking for a manuscript,’ he admitted. ‘I think Klaus Rheinfeld knew about it, and I’d been hoping he could help me. But it looks like I was wrong.’ ‘Perhaps I can help you,’ she said softly. ‘We must meet again. I think we could work together on this.’ He said nothing for a moment. ‘I’d like that,’ he said. Roberta had come back from the car to find the house empty. She heard their voices carrying on the wind, and looked out of the french window. She saw Ben and Anna climbing back down the slope towards the garden. She could hear Anna’s chiming laugh. Her slim figure was silhouetted against the sunset. Ben offered her a hand. Was it her imagination? They seemed to be getting on very well. What do you expect? Anna’s gorgeous. She’d be hard for any man to resist. ‘What kind of thoughts are these, Ryder,’ she said to herself. ‘What do you care, anyway?’ But then she realized. She did care. A terrible thing was happening to her. She was falling in love with Ben Hope. 39 (#ulink_3fd1939d-1edc-5cb7-8c6d-8f8a0df8d2c7) Ben was in a sombre mood the next day as he wandered aimlessly through the dusty streets of Saint-Jean. His search had slammed into a dead end. When he’d phoned Fairfax two days earlier he’d held back from mentioning that the manuscript might have been destroyed. He’d been hoping that Anna Manzini would be able to tell him something positive. That had been a stupid false impression to give the old man. Now everything looked black, time was dragging by and he had no idea where to turn next. In a square next to an ageing World War One memorial statue was the village bar, a one-roomed affair with a tiny terrace where leathery old men sat like reptiles in the sun, or played games of p?tanque in the empty square. Ben walked in, and the clientele–all three of them, playing cards in a shady corner–turned to look as the tall, blond stranger appeared. He nodded them a sullen greeting, which was returned with grunts. At the bar, the proprietor was sitting reading the newspaper. The place smelled of stale beer and smoke. He noticed a Missing Persons poster on the wall. HAVE YOU SEEN THIS BOY? MARC DUBOIS, AGE 15. He sighed. Another one. That’s what I should be doing–helping kids like that. Not hanging around here wasting time. Leaning on the bar, he lit a cigarette and asked for his flask to be refilled. They only had one type of whisky in the place, an especially vile fluid the colour of horse urine. He didn’t care. He ordered an extra double measure of the same and sat on a bar-stool, gazing into space and sipping the burning liquor. Maybe it’s time to give up this fiasco, he was thinking. This job had never been right for him, from the start. He should have stayed objective. His first impression had been right. Fairfax, like all desperate people who want to save someone they love, had fallen victim to his wishful thinking. So there was a good chance the Fulcanelli manuscript was lost–so what? It was probably all bullshit anyway. There wasn’t any great secret. Of course there wasn’t. It was all a fantasy, all myths and riddles and fodder for gullible dreamers. But could he say that Anna Manzini was a gullible dreamer? Who knows–maybe she is? He slid his empty glass along the bar, tossed some coins on the pitted wooden surface and asked for another double. He’d already finished that one, and started on another, when the three old card players in the corner looked round at the sound of running footsteps. Roberta burst in, looking flushed and excited. ‘Thought I’d find you here,’ she said. She was out of breath, as though she’d run all the way from Pascal’s cottage. ‘Listen, Ben, I’ve had an idea.’ He was in no mood for her enthusiasm. ‘Tell me about it some other time,’ he muttered. ‘I’m thinking.’ He was–thinking about picking up his phone and telling Fairfax it was over. He’d wire him back his money, give up and go home to his beach. ‘Listen, this is important,’ she insisted. ‘Come on, let’s go outside. No, don’t finish that. You look like you’ve had enough already. I want you with a clear head.’ ‘Go away, Roberta. I’m busy.’ ‘Yeah, busy drinking yourself into a stupor with that gut-rot.’ ‘Gut-rot is what happens to you when you drink it,’ he corrected her. He pointed at the glass. ‘This is rot-gut’, he said emphatically. ‘Either way,’ she grunted impatiently. ‘Look at you. Call yourself a professional?’ He shot her a ferocious look, slammed the glass down on the bar and slid down off the stool. ‘This had better be very, very good indeed,’ he warned her as they stepped out into the late afternoon sunlight. ‘I think it is,’ she said, turning to face him with an earnest look as she got her thoughts in order. ‘OK, listen. What if the manuscript Klaus Rheinfeld stole hadn’t been destroyed?’ He shook his head, confused. ‘What are you raving about? Pascal saw it in pieces. It was ruined in the storm.’ ‘Right. Now, remember the notebook, Rheinfeld’s notebook?’ ‘What about it?’ he grunted. ‘This is what you drag me out here for?’ ‘Well, maybe it’s more important than we thought.’ He furrowed his brow. ‘What are you talking about?’ ‘Just listen, OK? Here’s my idea. What if the notebook was the same thing as the manuscript?’ ‘Are you crazy? How could it be? They gave it to him at the hospital.’ ‘I don’t mean the actual notebook, stupid. I mean what’s written in it. Maybe Rheinfeld copied the secrets down into it.’ ‘Oh right. From inside a secure hospital, after he’d lost the original? What did he do, channel the information? I’m going back inside.’ He turned impatiently to go. ‘Shut up and listen to me for once!’ she shouted, grabbing his arm. ‘I’m trying to say something, you pigheaded bastard! I think Rheinfeld could have remembered it all and written it down later in his notebook.’ He stared at her. ‘Roberta, there were over thirty fucking pages of riddles and drawings, geometric shapes, jumbled-up numbers and bits of Latin and French and all kinds of stuff in there. It’s not possible to remember all that in perfect detail.’ ‘He walked around with it for years,’ she protested. ‘Probably living rough, with no money. It was all he had. He was fixated on it.’ ‘I still don’t buy that anyone could have that kind of memory. Especially a fucked-up alchemy nut,’ he added. ‘Ben, I did a year of neurobiology at Yale. Granted, it’s unusual–but it’s not impossible. It’s called eidectic memory, also known as photographic memory. It’s usually lost by adolescence, but some people retain it all their lives. Rheinfeld had an OCD, from what I can gather–’ ‘OCD?’ ‘Obsessive Compulsive Disorder,’ she said more patiently. ‘He had all the symptoms, kept repeating actions and words for no apparent reason–or for no reason that anyone could understand except him. Now, it’s been known for compulsive neurotics to have uncanny powers of memory. They can store huge amounts of detail that you and I would never be able to remember. Difficult mathematical equations, detailed pictures, enormous chunks of technical text. It’s all on scientific record going back almost a century.’ Ben sat on a bench. His mind was quickly clearing of the whisky fog. ‘Think about it, Ben,’ she went on, sitting next to him. ‘They gave Rheinfeld a notebook to write down his dreams–that’s a standard part of psychotherapy. But instead, he used it to preserve the memories he was holding inside, keep a written record of the information that he’d stolen and then lost. The psychiatrists couldn’t possibly have known what he was doing, where the stuff was coming from. They probably dismissed it as lunatic gibberish. But what if it was more than that?’ ‘But he was crazy. How can we trust the mind of a madman?’ ‘Sure, he was crazy,’ she agreed. ‘But mostly he was obsessive, and the thing about obsessives is, they’re crazy about details. As long as the detail he wrote down was close enough to the original, what matters isn’t his craziness but that the notebook might contain a perfect, or near-perfect, replica of the documents that Jacques Cl?ment didn’t burn because they’d been passed to him by Fulcanelli.’ He was silent for a few moments. ‘You’re sure about this?’ ‘Of course I’m not sure. But I still think we should go back and check it out. It’s worth a shot, isn’t it?’ She looked at him searchingly. ‘Well? What do you say?’ 40 (#ulink_5e43c89d-f948-5e02-9cda-c895aa9a4280) Anna couldn’t concentrate on her work. Still unable to come up with a satisfactory plot for her historical novel, she’d been reduced to sketching out a rough draft of the author’s introduction. It should have been easy–she knew the subject so intimately. But the words just wouldn’t flow. Now a new distraction had formed in her mind to add to the writer’s block that had been troubling her for so long. Each time she tried to focus on the page in front of her, after a couple of minutes her mind began to stray and she found herself thinking about Ben Hope. Something was niggling her. Something buried at the back of her mind. What was it? It was distant, hazy, like a half-forgotten word hovering teasingly on the tip of her tongue that she couldn’t crystallize into clear thought. She glanced down at Rheinfeld’s notebook, lying at her elbow on the desk, the dagger blade rubbing slipped between its pages. Maybe there was more to the notebook than she’d ever thought. The markings… She reclined back in the swivel-chair, gazing out of the window. The stars were coming out, beginning to twinkle in the darkening blue sky above the black-silhouetted line of mountaintops. Her eye followed the string of Orion’s Belt. Rigel was a distant sun, over 900 light years away. The stars brought history alive to her. The light she was seeing now had started its journey through space almost 1,000 years ago; just to gaze up at it was to travel back in time, commune with the living past. What dark, terrible, beautiful secrets had the stars witnessed over medieval Languedoc? She sighed and tried to get back to her work. The mountaintop castle of Monts?gur, March 1244. Eight thousand crusaders, paid with Catholic gold, surrounded a defenceless band of three hundred Cathar heretics. After eight months of siege and bombardment the Cathars were starving. All but four of them were to die, burned alive by the Inquisitors after the final storming of the ramparts. Before the massacre, four priests fled the besieged castle bearing an unknown cargo, and disappeared. Their story remains a mystery. What was their mission? Were they carrying the fabled treasure of the Cathars, attempting to hide its secret from their persecutors? Did this treasure really exist, and if so, what was it? These questions have remained un answered to this day. She put down her pen. It was only just after nine, but she decided she’d have an early night. Her best ideas often came when she was relaxed in bed. She’d have a hot bath, make a drink and curl up with her thoughts. Maybe the morning would see her with a clearer mind, and she’d be able to call Ben Hope and arrange to see him again. She wondered what trail he was following, what significance the gold cross and this Fulcanelli manuscript might have. Was it connected with her own research into the Cathar treasure? So little was known about it that most historians had all but given up on the old legend. A curious feeling, one she hadn’t felt for a long time…She smiled to herself. The excitement she felt at the prospect wasn’t just out of intellectual curiosity. She was keenly looking forward to their next meeting. She shut her study door and walked along the corridor to her bedroom. She went through to the ensuite bathroom beyond and turned on the bath taps, then undressed and slipped into a bathrobe, tying up her hair. She glanced at her face in the mirror, but it was already steaming up from the splashing hot water. She stiffened. Was that a noise from downstairs? She turned off the taps and cocked her head, listening for it. Maybe the pipes. She turned the taps back on, clicking her tongue in irritation at her own jumpiness. But as she was just slipping her robe off her shoulders to get into the bath, she heard it again. She knotted the belt of her bathrobe as she walked edgily back through the bedroom and out onto the landing. She stood listening, her head cocked to one side, a frown furrowing her brow. Nothing. But she’d definitely heard something. She quietly lifted up the Egyptian bronze Anubis statue from the wooden pedestal on the landing. Weighing the jackal-headed god’s effigy in her hand like a club, she padded silently down the stairs in her bare feet. Her breathing was quickening. Her knuckles were white as she gripped the statue. The dark downstairs hall rose up to meet her with every step. If she could get to the light switch… There it was, that sound again. ‘Who’s there?’ She wanted her voice to sound strong and confident, but it came out in a shaky treble. The loud knock at the door made her jump. She gasped, her heart thumping. ‘Who is it?’ ‘Anna?’ said a man’s voice from outside the door. ‘It’s me, Edouard.’ Her shoulders sagged with relief and her arm hung limp by her side, still clutching the Anubis. She ran to the door and opened it, letting him in. Edouard Legrand hadn’t been expecting such a warm welcome, after she had turned him down flat on the phone several times. He was pleasantly surprised as she ushered him inside the front hall. ‘What are you doing with that thing?’ he said with a smile, nodding at the statue in her hand. She glanced down at it, feeling suddenly foolish. She set the Anubis down on a table. ‘I scared myself so much just now,’ she said, placing her palm on her still-fluttering heart and closing her eyes. ‘I heard noises.’ He laughed. ‘Oh, these old houses are full of strange noises. Mine is just the same. You probably heard a mouse. It’s amazing how much noise a tiny mouse can make.’ ‘No, it was you I heard,’ she said. ‘Sorry if I seemed flustered.’ ‘I didn’t mean to alarm you, Anna. You were not asleep, I hope?’ he added, noticing her robe. She smiled, relaxing now. ‘Actually I was just about to have a bath. Perhaps you could fix yourself a drink, and I will be down in five minutes.’ ‘Please, go ahead, don’t let me rush you.’ Damn, she was thinking as she walked into the steamy bathroom. It looked like encouragement, the way she’d hurried him inside. Talk about giving out mixed signals. She couldn’t say she actually disliked Edouard Legrand. He wasn’t completely without charm. He wasn’t at all bad-looking either. But she could never in a million years return the feelings he obviously had for her. There was something about him, something she couldn’t define, that made her feel uncomfortable around him. She’d have to get rid of him as gently as possible, but quickly and firmly before he started getting the wrong ideas. She couldn’t help but feel a little pang of guilt. Poor Edouard. Downstairs, Edouard was pacing up and down in the living-room, working over the lines he’d prepared. Then he remembered the champagne and flowers that he’d left in the car, not wanting to appear too boldly at the door like a serenading suitor brimming with expectations. But as she’d let him in without protest and was obviously eager for his company, now was the time to produce them. Where was the kitchen? Maybe he’d time to stick the bottle in the freezer to chill it down while she was having her bath. They could have such a perfect evening together. Who knew where it might lead? Jittery with excitement, he went back outside to the car. Anna climbed out of the bath, towelled herself dry and pulled on a pair of jogging pants and a blouse. The Mozart symphony playing on her bedroom stereo system was entering its bright second movement, and she hummed along to it. As she came downstairs she still hadn’t quite figured out how she should handle her unexpected visitor. Maybe she should let him stay a while, try to play it cool. The front door was wide open. She tutted. Where had he gone? For a walk around the garden, in the dark? ‘Edouard?’ she called out through the doorway. Then she saw him. He was leaning through the open window of his car, his head and shoulders inside as though he was reaching for something. ‘What are you doing?’ she said, half-smiling. She trotted down the steps from the villa, breathing in the warm night scent of flowers. His knees were bent and his body seemed to sag against the side of the car. He wasn’t moving. ‘Edouard, are you all right?’ Was he drunk? She reached out a hand and shook his shoulder. Edouard’s knees gave way and he flopped backwards. He crunched down on his back on the pebbles and lay staring up at her with sightless eyes. His throat was slashed open in a wound that gaped from ear to ear, cut to the spine. His body was soaked in blood. Anna screamed. She turned and ran back towards the house. She slammed the door behind her and picked up the phone in the hallway with a shaking hand. It was dead. She heard it again–the sound she’d heard before. This time it was clearer, louder. It was the metallic scraping of steel against steel. It was in the house. The living-room. A knife-blade dragging slowly, deliberately, down the bars of her birdcage. She ran for the stairs. Her foot pressed against something soft, warm and wet. She looked down. It was one of her canaries, lying broken and bloody on the step. Her hands flew to her mouth. Through the half-open door of the living-room she heard a laugh, the rasping chuckle of a man who was plainly enjoying his little game with her. On the table by the foot of the stairs, the Anubis statue was standing where she’d left it. She snatched it up again in a trembling hand. She could hear footsteps coming towards her. She dashed back towards the stairs. Her mobile phone was in the bedroom. If she could get to it and lock herself in the bathroom… Her head jerked back and she cried out in pain. The man coming up behind her was tall and muscular, with cropped steely hair and a face like granite. He yanked her hair again, twisted her around and punched her hard in the face with a gloved hand. Anna fell to the floor, her legs kicking. He bent down towards her. She lashed out with the Anubis and caught him across the cheekbone with a crunch. Franco Bozza’s head snapped sideways with the blow. He put his gloved fingers to his face and studied the blood with an impassive look. Then he smiled. All right, the game was over. Now to business. He grabbed her wrist and twisted it harshly. She screamed again, and the statue fell from her hand and bounced down the stairs. She crawled away, and he watched her go. She was almost at the top of the staircase when he grabbed her again. He slammed her head against the banister rail and her vision exploded into white light. She slumped on her back, tasting blood. He knelt over her, taking his time. His eyes were shining as he slid a hand inside his jacket and drew out the blade from its sheath with a smooth hiss of steel on synthetic fibre. Her eyes opened wide as he playfully drew the blade from her throat to her abdomen. Her breath came in rapid tremors. He kept her head pinned back with a fistful of her hair. ‘The information the Englishman was after,’ he whispered. ‘Give it to me. And I might let you live.’ He calmly held the knife against her cheek. She managed to speak. Her voice sounded tiny. ‘What Englishman?’ She felt the coldness of the steel, and then she screamed in agony as he pressed the blade into her flesh. He took the knife away, looking at the three-inch gash. Blood streamed down her face. She shook her head from side to side, struggling against his grip. He held the knife against her throat. ‘Tell me what he wanted from you,’ he repeated in his rasping undertone. ‘Or I will slice you into small pieces.’ Her mind raced. ‘I gave him nothing,’ she insisted, blood trickling between her lips. Bozza smiled. ‘Tell me the truth.’ ‘I am,’ she protested. ‘He was looking for a document–an ancient script.’ Bozza nodded. This was what he’d been told. ‘Where is it?’ he whispered. She paused, thinking hard. He pointed the knife at her eye and looked at her enquiringly. ‘Over the fireplace,’ she whimpered. ‘I-in the frame.’ His cold eyes looked into hers for a moment, as though assessing whether she was telling the truth. With deliberate movements he wiped the blade clean on the carpet and laid the knife down on the floor beside her head. Then he drew back his fist and smashed it into her face. Anna’s head lolled to the side. Bozza left her lying on the stairs, sheathing his knife as he went down to the living-room. He ripped the frame down from the wall, broke the glass against the corner of the mantelpiece and shook the fragments out. He pulled the medieval script away from its mounting, rolled it up into a tight cylinder and slipped it into the deep inside pocket of his jacket. So Manzini hadn’t given anything to the Englishman. Usberti would be pleased with him. He’d found the woman quickly and efficiently, and he had found what his boss had sent him to bring back. Now he’d bring the woman round and enjoy her for a while. He loved the looks on their faces when they realized he wouldn’t let them live after all. That terror in their eyes, that delicious moment when they were so powerless in his grasp. It was even better than the slow torture and the screaming climax that came afterwards. He stepped back into the hallway and his eyes narrowed. The woman was gone. Anna staggered into her study. She could hear the sound of breaking glass downstairs as the frame was torn apart. Blood was dripping down her throat from her gashed cheek, the front of her blouse sticky and warm with it. Her head was spinning but she managed to focus on the desk. Her outstretched hand dripped spots of blood across her research notes. Her fingers closed around the notebook in its plastic wrapping. Clutching it tightly, half-blind with pain and nausea, she staggered back along the corridor towards the bedroom. From the foot of the stairs Bozza saw the bedroom door close. He followed, climbing the stairs in his easy, unhurried walk. As he approached the bedroom door he was reaching for the plastic pouch on his belt. The woman’s bedroom was empty. On the far side of the room was another door. Bozza tried the handle. It was bolted from inside. Locked in her bathroom, Anna jabbed panic-stricken at her phone, smearing the plastic with bloody fingerprints. With a sick lurch she remembered it was out of credits. She dropped the phone, giddy with horror. She knew this madman wasn’t going to let her live. She was going to die horribly. Could she kill herself before he got to her? The window wasn’t high enough. She would only be crippled and he’d soon catch her again. The door flew open with a crackle of splintering wood. Bozza strode across the room and slapped her to the floor. Her head cracked against the tiles and she passed out. Her outflung hand was clutching something. He uncurled her bloody fingers, took it away from her and studied it. ‘Trying to hide this, were you?’ he whispered at her inert body. ‘Brave girl.’ He slipped the plastic-wrapped notebook into the pocket of his jacket, then took it off and hung it neatly over the back of a bathroom chair. Underneath he was wearing a double-sided shoulder holster, a small semi-automatic and spare clips under his left armpit and the sheathed knife under the right. First drawing out the knife and laying it down on the edge of the sink, he unzipped the pouch on his belt and took out the tightly folded overall. He pulled the rustling plastic garment over his head and smoothed it down carefully as he always did. Then he picked up the knife up from the sink with a clink of steel against ceramic, and walked slowly over to Anna Manzini. He nudged her body with his foot. She groaned, stirring painfully. Her eyes half-opened. Then widened in horror as she saw him looming over her. He smiled. The knife glittered, and so did his eyes. ‘Now the pain will begin,’ he whispered. 41 (#ulink_2d4ba536-1d50-5740-9afe-1a6722effdd8) Ben turned the Renault into Anna’s driveway, its worn tyres crunching on the gravel and its headlights sweeping the front of the villa. ‘Look, she’s got visitors,’ said Roberta, noticing the shiny black Lexus GS parked in front of the house. ‘I told you we should have phoned first. It’s awfully rude, you know, just landing on people like this.’ He was out of the car, not listening. He’d noticed something lying on the ground, sticking out from the shadow of the Lexus. He realized with shock that it was an arm. A man’s dead arm, the hand clawed, bloody. He ran round the side of the car, scenarios flashing through his mind. He crouched down beside the body and ran his eye over the gaping wound in the man’s throat. He’d seen enough cut throats in his life to recognize the work of a professional. He touched the skin; it still had some warmth left in it. ‘What is it, Ben?’ she asked, coming up behind him. He rose up quickly and took her by the shoulders, turning her away. ‘Best not to look.’ But Roberta had seen it. She pressed her hands to her mouth, trying not to gag. ‘Stay close to me,’ he whispered. He raced to the villa, leaping up the steps. The front door was locked. He ran around the side of the house, Roberta following, and found the french window open. He slipped into the house, drawing the Browning. Roberta caught up with him, ashen-faced, and he motioned to her to stay still and quiet. He stepped over the twitching, broken body of a canary in its death throes, its yellow feathers stained red. A small statue lay on the floor at the foot of the stairs. He could see light from upstairs, music playing. His face hardened. He took the steps three at a time, flipping off the Browning’s safety. Anna’s bedroom was empty, but the bathroom door was ajar. He burst in, bringing the gun up to aim, not knowing what he was going to find inside. Franco Bozza had been enjoying himself. He had spent the last five minutes slowly slicing the buttons off her blouse one at a time, slapping her back down into the puddle of her blood when she struggled. A glistening crimson rivulet trickled down the valley between her breasts. He ran the flat of the blade down her skin to her quivering stomach, hooked the razor point behind the next button and was about to slice it off when the sudden sound of running footsteps startled him out of his trance. He whipped round, saliva on his chin. He was a big, heavy man but his reactions were fast. He grabbed the woman by the hair and yanked her screaming to her feet as he leapt up, twisting her body round in front of him as the door swung open with a juddering crash. Ben’s horror at the scene in front of him slowed him down half a second too long. Anna’s eyes met his, wide and white in a mask of blood. The powerful grey-haired man had his arm around her throat, using her as a shield. Ben’s finger was on the trigger. You can’t shoot. His sights wavered, the target uncertain. He slackened the pressure on the trigger. Bozza’s arm jerked and the blade flashed across the room in a hissing blur. Ben ducked. The steel passed an inch from his face and embedded itself with a thud in the door behind him. Bozza’s hand whipped across his chest and through the neck of his plastic overall, ripping the little Beretta .380 from his holster. Ben took a chance and fired off a shot, but his bullet went wide for fear of hitting Anna. At almost the same instant Bozza’s pistol cracked and Ben felt the bullet turn on the hip-flask in his pocket. He staggered back a step, momentarily stunned, but recovering fast and bringing the Browning back up to aim as his rage exploded and his sights fell square on Bozza’s forehead. Got you now. But before Ben could fire, Bozza flung Anna across the room towards him like a limp doll. Ben caught her, saving her from crashing on her face on the bloody floor tiles. He lost his aim. The big man flipped backwards out of the window like a diver. There was a ferocious ripping and rustling from outside as he scrabbled down the flimsy trellis. He dropped to the ground, torn and bedraggled. A shot rang out and a bullet went past his ear, tearing a furrow in the tree-trunk next to him. Ben leaned out of the window and fired again, blind into the darkness. The attacker was gone. For a second he thought about giving chase, but decided against it. When he turned back to Anna, Roberta had arrived and was bending over her still body. ‘Oh, my God.’ He felt her pulse. ‘She’s alive.’ ‘Thank Christ. Who the…’ Roberta’s face was white. ‘This isn’t just a coincidence, is it, Ben? This has something to do with us. Jesus, did we bring this on her?’ He didn’t reply. He knelt down and checked Anna for injuries. Apart from an ugly gash on her face, its edges drying up and crusted with brown blood, she wasn’t cut anywhere. He took his phone out of his pocket and tossed it to Roberta. ‘Call an ambulance,’ he said. ‘But not the police, and just say there’s been an accident. Don’t touch anything.’ Roberta nodded and ran into the other room. He reached up to the chrome rail on the bathroom wall and brought down a fluffy white towel. He gently lifted Anna’s head, then placed the towel underneath to cushion her. He covered her body with a bathrobe and another towel to keep her warm, and shut the window. Kneeling back down beside her, he gently caressed her hair. It was stiff and sticky with blood. ‘You’re going to be all right, Anna,’ he murmured. ‘The ambulance won’t be long.’ She stirred, and her eyes opened. They slowly focused on him, and she mumbled something. ‘Shh, don’t try to speak.’ He smiled, but his hands were shaking with fury and he silently vowed that he was going to kill the man who’d done this. The attacker had dropped his pistol as he’d thrown himself at the window. Ben decocked it and stuffed it into his waistband. There were some empty cartridge cases lying on the floor. He picked them up and tucked them into his pocket. He could hear Roberta in the bedroom, talking urgently on the phone. That was when he noticed the black jacket hanging on the back of the chair. 42 (#ulink_84741e0f-38c4-57f2-af37-a4652d3fb95a) The manor-house hotel was visible through the trees from the road, floodlit and inviting in the darkness. Ben swerved the Renault off the road and down its long, winding driveway into the wooded grounds. They pulled up in the front, next to some other cars and a touring coach. ‘Bring your bag, we’re staying here tonight.’ ‘Why a hotel, Ben?’ ‘Because two foreigners in a hotel is a normal thing, but two foreigners staying with a priest in a village gets talked about. We can’t go back to Pascal’s after tonight.’ Inside, Ben approached the reception desk and rang the bell. A moment later the receptionist appeared from an office. ‘Have you got any rooms?’ Ben asked. ‘No, monsieur, we are full.’ ‘No rooms at all? It isn’t even high season.’ ‘We have a group of English tourists here for the Tour Cathare. Almost everything is taken.’ ‘Almost?’ ‘The only accommodation left is our best suite. But it is normally…that is to say…it is reserved for–’ ‘We’ll take it,’ he said without hesitation. ‘Shall I pay you now?’ He reached in his pocket. Took out the fake Paul Harris passport and his wallet. He laid the passport down on the desk and showed her the cash. There was enough in the wallet to rent the whole hotel for a month. The receptionist’s eyes widened. ‘N…no need to pay now,’ she stammered. She rang a bell on the reception desk. ‘Joseph!’ she called out in a bellowing voice, and a wizened old fellow in a bellboy’s uniform instantly appeared at her side. ‘Show Madame and Monsieur ‘Arris to the honeymoon suite.’ Old Joseph led them up the stairs, opened up a door and shambled into their room carrying their bags. ‘Just leave them on the bed,’ Ben told him, and tipped him with a large note, which was all he had by way of change. Roberta looked around her at their accommodation. The ante-room, with sofa, armchairs and coffee-table, opened out into a huge square space dominated by a four-poster bed adorned with a giant red love-heart. On a large walnut table were flowers, chocolates tied up with ribbons, and statuettes of little brides in white dresses and grooms in tuxedos. Ben sat on the bed and kicked off his shoes, leaving them where they fell on the Cupid rug. What an absurd room, he thought. If it hadn’t been for Roberta, he’d be sleeping in the car, hidden in some secluded forest somewhere. He took off his jacket and holster and tossed them on the bed, then lay back, stretching his tired muscles. As an afterthought he reached into his pocket and took out the flask. It was dented where it had deflected the bullet earlier. If the .380 round had hit it square on, it would have gone straight through. He gazed at it for a few seconds. That’s another life gone, he thought, took a swig and put the flask away. ‘Will Anna be OK?’ Roberta asked in a faint voice. He bit his lip. ‘Yeah, I think so. She might need a few stitches and treatment for shock. I’ll phone around in the morning and find out what hospital she’s at.’ At least he could rest easy knowing she was safe. The minute the ambulance had got there, the cops would have been alerted and she’d be under protection in hospital. ‘How did they get to her, Ben? What did they want with her?’ ‘I’ve been wondering that myself,’ he muttered. ‘And the dead man outside her house? Who was he?’ He shrugged. ‘I don’t know. Maybe a friend of hers who was just in the wrong place at the wrong time.’ She sighed loudly. ‘I can’t stand thinking about it. I’m going to take a shower.’ He sat and thought as he listened vaguely to the splashing water in the background. He was disgusted at himself. It was pure luck that they’d got to Anna in time. He’d seen an awful lot of death and suffering in his life, but he didn’t even want to imagine the way she would have died if they’d arrived five minutes later. Long ago, he’d promised himself that he’d never again allow his mistakes to harm the innocent. But it was happening, somehow. These people were getting close again, and the stakes were rising much too high. He made a decision. Tomorrow he was taking Roberta to the nearby town of Montpellier and putting her on a flight to the States. And he was staying at the airport until he saw the plane leaving the ground with her in it. He should have done it days ago. He sank his head into his hands, trying to shut out the gnawing feelings of guilt. Sometimes it seemed that no matter how hard he tried to do the right thing, everything he did in his life–every move, every decision–was somehow inexorably, magnetically impelled to return to haunt him. How much regret and self-reproach could one man carry? A knock at the door disrupted his thoughts. As he walked into the ante-room to answer it, he slipped the Browning into his belt, against the flat of his lower back. He untucked his shirt to cover it. ‘Who is it?’ he asked suspiciously. ‘The food you ordered, Monsieur ‘Arris,’ came Joseph’s muffled voice. ‘And your champagne.’ ‘I didn’t order any champagne.’ Ben unlocked the door, his hand hovering near where the pistol nestled coldly against his skin. When he saw the shrivelled old man standing alone outside with the service trolley he relaxed and pulled the door open. ‘Monsieur, the champagne is complimentary,’ Joseph said as he wheeled the trolley into the room. ‘It comes with the suite.’ ‘Thanks, just leave it there.’ With his large tip from earlier on still nestling in his pocket, and the promise of more to come, the old man’s step seemed more sprightly as he wheeled in the trolley. There was charcuterie and a selection of cheese, fresh baguette and champagne on ice. Ben gave Joseph some more cash, showed him out and locked the door behind him. The champagne took the edge off their mood. They ate in silence. In the background the radio was playing soft jazz. By the time the bottle was empty it was nearly midnight. Ben grabbed a pillow from the four-poster and tossed it on the leather couch near the window at the opposite end of the room. He took some spare blankets from the wardrobe and threw down a rough bed for himself. The radio had moved on to playing an old Edith Piaf song. Roberta moved close to him. ‘Ben, will you dance with me?’ ‘Dance?’ He looked at her. ‘You want to dance?’ ‘Please. I love this song.’ She took his hands, smiling uncertainly, and could feel him tensing up. ‘I don’t know how to dance,’ he said. ‘Oh yeah, that’s what they all say.’ ‘No, really, I don’t know how. I’ve never done it.’ ‘Never?’ ‘Never once in my life.’ From his wooden, awkward movements she could see he was telling the truth. She looked up at him. ‘It’s OK, I’ll show you. Just take my hands and relax.’ She moved towards him gently and rested one hand on his shoulder, taking his hand with the other. ‘Put your free hand here on my waist,’ she prompted him. His hand was rigid. She moved with him, and he tried to follow her motion, shuffling stiffly with her steps. ‘See? Feel the rhythm.’ ‘OK,’ he said hesitantly. The song ended and another followed straight on: ‘La Vie en Rose’. ‘Oh, this is a good one too. OK, here we go again…that’s it…enjoying it?’ ‘I don’t know…maybe.’ ‘I think you could be good at this, if you could relax a bit more. Ouch, my foot.’ ‘Sorry. I did warn you.’ ‘You’re thinking about it too much.’ From a simple dance he could feel a million conflicting emotions. It was the strangest sensation, and he couldn’t decide whether it was pleasant or not. A warm and inviting world seemed to beckon to him. He wanted to embrace the warmth, let it into his heart again after so many years alone in the cold. Yet the moment he began to feel himself giving in to it, he stiffened, and a barrier seemed to come crashing down somewhere inside him. ‘Thought you had it for a moment there.’ He pulled away. It was too much for him. It was as though his space had been invaded, his comfort zone breached after years of being alone. He threw a sidelong glance at the mini-bar. She saw his eye. ‘Don’t, Ben, please.’ She laid a warm hand on his. He looked at his watch. ‘Hey,’ he laughed nervously. ‘It’s getting late. We’ve got an early start in the morning.’ ‘Don’t stop. It’s nice,’ she murmured. ‘Come on, we’ve had such a rotten day of it. We both need this.’ They danced a little longer. He felt her body close to his. He ran his hand up her arm to her shoulder and caressed it. His heart was beating faster. Their heads began to move closer to one another. The song came to an end, and the voice of the radio presenter spoilt their moment. They stepped apart, feeling suddenly self-conscious. There was silence between them for a few minutes. They both knew what had come close to happening and they both, in their different ways, felt a sadness descending on them. Ben went over to his makeshift bed on the couch and, too tired to undress, he got into it. Roberta climbed into the vast nuptial bed and lay looking up at the canopy above. ‘I’ve never slept in one of these before,’ she said after a while. Silence again as they lay there on opposite sides of the dark room. ‘How’s the couch?’ she said. ‘Fine.’ ‘Comfortable?’ ‘I’ve slept in worse places.’ ‘There’s room in this bed for about six people.’ ‘So?’ ‘I just thought.’ He raised his head off the pillow and gazed at where she lay in the dark. ‘You’re asking me to get in the bed with you?’ ‘O…On the bed, then,’ she stammered, embarrassed. ‘It wasn’t a come-on, if that’s what you think. I’m just a bit nervous. I could use a little company.’ He hesitated for a few moments. Then he got up and pulled the blankets off the couch. He felt his way over to the bed, groping blindly about in the un familiar room. He moved to the far side of the bed and lay down beside her. He pulled the spare blankets over him. They lay there in the darkness, a wide space between them. She turned towards him, wanting to reach out to him, feeling awkward. She could hear his breathing next to her. ‘Ben?’ she whispered. ‘Yeah?’ She hesitated before saying it. ‘Who’s the little girl in the picture?’ He raised himself up on one elbow and looked at her. Her face was a pale blur in the moonlight. She yearned to put her hand out and touch him, hold him tight. ‘Let’s get some sleep,’ he said quietly, lying back down. Around two, he woke up to find her slender arm draped over his chest. She was asleep. He lay there for a time, staring upwards at the dim play of the moonlight on the canopy of the bed, feeling the gentle rise and fall of her warm body as she slept. The touch of her arm was a curious feeling. It was strangely electrifying, unnerving and yet deeply comforting. He let himself relax into the feel of it, closed his eyes and dozed off with a smile curling at the corners of his mouth. 43 (#ulink_f1a033cc-0f77-5f24-8469-e2c0241a3735) Ben slept less than an hour before his dreaming thoughts jerked him guiltily awake and he kicked his legs from the bed. He carefully lifted Roberta’s sleeping arm off his chest and rolled out from under it. He got up, lifted the Browning from the table and grabbed his bag. Finding his way by moonlight he padded quietly into the ante-room. He clicked the door softly shut behind him and flicked on a side-lamp. The rules of the game had changed. Suddenly it was clearer that these people, whoever they were, were after the manuscript too. He had work to do. The plain black jacket he’d taken from Anna’s house was still in his bag. He pulled it out and went through the pockets again. Apart from Rheinfeld’s notebook and the fake scroll that her attacker had torn out of its frame, they were empty. There wasn’t a scrap of a clue as to its owner’s identity. Who was he? A contract killer, maybe. He’d come across those people before, but never one like this, never a sick maniac who tortured women. He wondered about the fake scroll. Why had the man taken it down from Anna’s wall? Just like its previous owner who had passed it on to Anna, he must have been fooled by its carefully forged antiquated style and appearance. That could only mean that whoever else was looking for the manuscript had no better idea than he did exactly what it was or looked like. But certainly it was important to them. Important enough to kill for. He took out Rheinfeld’s notebook, pulled it from its plastic wrapping and sat down with it on a couch near the lamp. Until now, he hadn’t had a good chance to study it up close. Was Roberta right about it? Was it possible that Rheinfeld had transcribed from memory the secrets that he’d stolen from Gaston Cl?ment? He hoped so. There was nothing else to go on. He turned the filthy pages slowly, scrutinizing the text and drawings. So much of it seemed like nonsense. Scattered apparently at random throughout, appearing on the corners and margins of some of the pages, were scribbled alternating combinations of letters and numbers. Some of the combinations were long, some short. He flipped back and forth and counted nine of these scribbles. They reminded him a little of Klaus Rheinfeld’s ravings on Anna’s dictaphone recording. N 18 N 26 O 12 I 17 R 15 22 R 20 R 15 U 11 R 9 E 11 E 22 V 18 A 22 V 18 A 13 A 18 E 23 A 22 R 15 O What to make of them? To his eye they looked like a code of some kind. Perhaps a set of alchemical formulae. None of them seemed to relate to anything else on whatever page they appeared. Whatever significance they had, it was impenetrable. He ignored them and moved on. He came across an ink sketch of what looked like a fountain. Its base was marked with strange symbols similar to ones on the gold crucifix. Below the drawing was an inscription in Latin. Dum fluit e Christ benedicto Vulnere Sanguis, Et dum Virgineum lac pai Virgo permit, Lac fuit et Sanguis, Sanguis conjungitur et lac Et sit Fons Vitae, Fons et Origo boni Back in his student days he’d had to wade through a lot of old religious texts written in Latin. But that had been a long time ago. It took him a while to scratch about with the words and come up with a translation. It read While the blood flows from the blessed wound of Christ and the holy Virgin presses her virginal breast, the milk and the blood spurt out and are mixed and become the fountain of life and the spring of Wellbeing. The fountain of life…the spring of wellbeing. These sounded like references to some elixir of life. But they were so vague. He read doggedly on. He came to a page with just one line of text, and beneath it a circular symbol. The writing was French, the curly script barely visible through splotches of old blood and Rheinfeld’s fingermarks. Again he translated. Let us consider the symbol of the raven, because it conceals an important point of our science The symbol beneath it, he recognized right away. He flipped back a few pages. Yes, it was that same raven emblem again. It seemed to appear again and again. So the text was telling him that it concealed an important point. But what? A bloodstain was covering something written under the raven image. Ben carefully scratched away the dried blood with his fingernail until he could make it out. The hidden word was DOMUS. Latin for house. What to make of that–House of the Raven? The only other reference he could find to the raven was an equally puzzling rhyming stanza. This time, it was written in English. These temple walls cannot be broken Satan’s armies pass through unaware The raven guards there a secret unspoken Known only to the seeker faithful and fair He wasn’t even going to try to figure that one out. Moving on, he came to the last three pages in the notebook. They were identical except for three different arrangements of apparently meaningless jumbled letters, one on each page. He read them over and over again. At the top of each of the three pages were the cryptic words ‘The Seeker Shall Find’. They read to Ben almost like a taunt. ‘The seeker shall get totally lost, more like,’ he muttered. Below these three inscriptions, a line of Latin read Cum Luce Salutem. With the light comes salvation. Below that, each page had an even more perplexing arrangement of baffling text. The first of the three pages read: The second page read: And on the third page the text was arranged: The last three letters in each arrangement, M.L.R, looked like initials. Did the R stand for Rheinfeld? But his first name was Klaus. What about the ML? It didn’t seem to make any sense. What about the broken words above the MLR? Ben sat back on the couch. He’d always hated puzzles. He gazed into space. A moth flew past his nose and he watched it flit towards the lamp on the table next to him. It darted here and there and then flew inside the thin cloth lampshade. He could see it walking up the other side of the material, transparent with the light from the bulb. Then it hit him. With the light comes salvation. He gripped the three pages together on their own, folding the rest of the notebook away from them, and held them up to the lamp. The light shone through the flimsy paper, and suddenly the jumbled letters formed themselves into recognizable words. Taken together, the three blocks of text now read: FIN L’EAU ROTIE LE LAC D’SANG M.L.R THE END THE ROASTED WATER THE LAKE OF BLOOD M.L.R Maybe we’re getting somewhere now, he thought. Then again, maybe not. OK, break it down into bite-size pieces. ‘The End’–what was that, just saying it was the end of the book? That was all he could make of it. But at least that was more than he could understand of roasted water and lakes of blood. He rubbed his eyes, bit his lip. For a moment, his frustration gave way to fury and he had to control a powerful urge to tear the notebook to shreds. He gulped, tried to calm down, stared sullenly at the phrases for a long minute. Willed them to reveal some kind of meaning to him. FINL’EAU ROTIELE LAC D’SANGM.L.R But if it really didn’t mean anything, why go to the trouble of setting up the phrases over three consecutive pages like that? Like most self-taught linguists, Ben’s spoken French was far more fluent than his grasp of the written language. As far as he could make out, though, the line ‘the lake of blood’ should have read in French ‘LE LAC DE SANG’. Instead it had been written as ‘LE LAC D’SANG’, with an important letter missed out. Was it just a mistake? It didn’t seem to be. The spelling looked deliberately done that way. But why? He struggled to think clearly. It was almost as if…as if the writer was playing with the form, toying with the letters…compensating for a lack of letters? Now why would he do that? An anagram?. He snatched a piece of hotel notepaper from the table and started scribbling. He began eliminating one letter at a time by circling them, trying to create new words out of the strange phrases. He got as far as ‘L’UILE ROTIE N’A MAL… ‘the roasted oil has not wrong’…when he realized it was a blind alley and lost patience with it. Scrunch. He threw the paper ball furiously across the room and started again on a fresh sheet. Five more attempts, and he was beginning to think he’d end up buried alive in crumpled paper. But now it was beginning to look like something coherent. In another fifteen minutes he had it. He looked down at his sheet. The new words weren’t in French, but in the real author’s native Italian. IL GRANDE MAESTRO FULCANELLI. The great master Fulcanelli. It was his signature. Ben breathed deeply. It looked as though this was what he’d been searching for all along. There was only one small problem. Even if what he had here was a word-for-word transcription of the elusive Fulcanelli manuscript, he still didn’t have anything worth taking back to Fairfax. If the old man had thought the manuscript was going to offer up some kind of medical prescription, or a simple home recipe for making life-saving potions with easy step-by-step diagrams, he couldn’t have been more mistaken. A cryptic mass of arcane riddles and gibberish wasn’t ever going to help little Ruth. This search wasn’t over yet. It was only just beginning. It was after 6.30 am. Light-headed with fatigue, Ben rested back on the couch and closed his burning eyes. 44 (#ulink_250e92f2-c7f1-5965-9dfe-52ef153eafe4) The night breeze rustled the treetops above him. He sat on his haunches, perfectly still and unseen in the bushes, waiting and watching, as silent and patient as any of the wild predatory creatures that lived in the dark forest around him. His mind was shut off from the pain of his cuts and bruises, the graze on his cheekbone and the rawness of his palms after sliding down through the branches of the trellis. He hardly felt anything any longer. But his rage felt like a bubble of molten steel in his throat. There was nothing Franco Bozza hated worse than failure, than being thwarted, especially when success had seemed so assured. His prizes had been taken from him, and he was powerless to do anything about it. He’d lost. For the moment. He waited a while longer, his breathing slowing down as his fury diminished to a simmering rage. His head cocked as he heard the siren in the distance. The wail of the ambulance grew louder on the empty country road, and then it sped by Bozza’s hiding-place, turning the trees and bushes momentarily blue with its flashing lights. He watched it approaching the entrance to the villa further up the road, slowing for the turn. Before it got there, car headlights appeared, coming the opposite way. Seconds later a battered Renault passed the ambulance in the narrow road. It seemed to slow as the ambulance turned into the villa’s drive, then it picked up speed and Bozza could hear the rattle of its engine approaching. As it came by, he was already moving through the trees to the hidden Porsche. He caught up with it easily and quickly. As he drew nearer, he waited for a bend in the road where a junction turned off. He switched off the lights. If the Renault driver was paying attention, it would look as though the car behind had turned off in another direction. Now he sat focused with all his concentration in the darkened, invisible Porsche, with only the dim tail-lights of the Renault to lead the way down the twisting lanes. After a few miles his quarry slowed and turned into the drive of a small country hotel. He pulled the Porsche over to the side of the road, got out and slipped into the grounds. Hope and the American woman didn’t see him as they walked inside the hotel, but he was only fifty metres away in the shadows. He was under the trees looking up at the building when he saw lights come on. Middle window, first floor. Time passed. Around midnight he saw two figures in the window. They were dancing. Dancing. Then they disappeared and the windows went dark. Bozza waited a while longer, methodically calculating the layout of the hotel. Then he circled the building until he found a kitchen entrance that wasn’t locked. He stalked along the quiet corridors until he came to the door he wanted. His spare knife was tucked through his belt. Bozza was inserting his wire pick into the lock when the strip of yellow light appeared at the bottom of the door to the honeymoon suite. He cursed silently, withdrew the lock-pick and retreated into the dark corridor. Hope was too dangerous to confront without the element of surprise. He’d have to wait longer for his chance. But it would come, it would come. 45 (#ulink_03c7e0b2-3314-552b-a42f-cc941c1578dd) Ben awoke with a jolt. He could hear the sound of footsteps and movement from the room above. Voices in the corridor outside. He looked at his watch and swore. It was almost nine. All around him were his notes and scribbles from last night. He suddenly remembered his discovery of the encrypted Fulcanelli signature. He wanted to tell the news to Roberta. He went into the bedroom and saw that the four-poster was empty. He called her name at the bathroom door, then went in when there was no answer. She wasn’t there either. Where the hell had she gone? He didn’t like it. He grabbed the pistol, tucked it away out of sight. Left the suite and made his way downstairs. Down in the dining-room, the British tourist group were eating breakfast and all talking loudly. There was no sign of Roberta. He walked into the empty lobby. Through a door, a group of staff were huddled in a circle jabbering in loud, urgent whispers. He went outside. Maybe she’d gone for a walk. She should have told him. Why hadn’t she woken him? He walked out of the entrance and across the car-park. The sun was already hot, and he shielded his eyes against the glare from the white gravel. People were milling about. A car-load of new guests were arriving, hauling luggage out of the back of their Renault Espace. There was no trace of her. As he turned back towards the hotel his pressing thoughts were broken by the sudden shriek of a siren behind him. He spun round. Two police cars were crunching across the gravel in a hurry, throwing up clouds of dust. They pulled up either side of him. Each one had a driver and two passengers. The doors opened, and two cops climbed out of each car and started walking. They were looking at him. He turned and walked fast away from them. ‘Monsieur?’ All four were coming after him. A radio crackled. Ben walked faster, ignoring them. ‘Monsieur, one moment,’ the officer called louder. Ben stopped, his back to them, frozen. The cops caught up with him and circled him. One had the insignia of a sergeant. He was solid and stocky, square shoulders, big chest, somewhere in his mid-fifties. He looked confident, as if he could handle himself. The youngest one was a kid in his early twenties. He had nervous eyes and a shine of sweat on his brow. One hand on his pistol-butt. Ben knew that if they made a move against him, all four would be disarmed and on the ground before they could get a shot off. The hefty sergeant would be the first to go for. Then the nervy kid. He would be scared enough to shoot. Numbers three and four wouldn’t be a problem. But the two other cops in the cars were out of reach and would have time to get their pistols ready. That was a bigger problem. Ben didn’t want to have to kill anybody. The sergeant spoke first. ‘Are you the man who called the police?’ he asked Ben. Officer! I’m the one who called you!’ A guest was coming out of the hotel, a little fat man with grey hair. ‘Pardon me, sir,’ the sergeant said to Ben. ‘What’s going on?’ Ben asked. The fat guy joined them. He was agitated, breathless. ‘I called you,’ he said again. ‘I saw a woman being abducted.’ He pointed and spilled out the details. Ben stood back, listening with mounting alarm. ‘It was just over there,’ the fat guy was saying. His words came out all in a stream. ‘He was a big fella. I think he had a weapon…Walked her to a car…Black Porsche…Foreign registration, maybe Italian…She was struggling. A young woman, reddish hair.’ ‘Did you see which way the car went?’ the cop asked. ‘Turned left at the bottom of the drive–no, right…no, left, definitely left.’ ‘How long ago was this?’ The fat guy sighed and looked at his watch. ‘Twenty minutes, twenty-five.’ The sergeant talked into his radio. Three of the cops stayed to take a statement from the witness and question the staff. The fourth climbed back into his car and it took off up the road. ‘I saw her arrive last night, with her husband,’ the fat man was saying. ‘Wait a minute–now I remember it, he was the man who was standing here just now.’ ‘The blond man?’ ‘Yes–it was him, I’m sure of it.’ ‘Where did he go?’ ‘He disappeared a few moments ago.’ ‘Anyone see where he went?’ There was a shout. ‘Sergeant!’ It was the young rookie. He was waving a sheet of paper. The sergeant snatched it from him and his eyes opened wider. The picture was probably about ten years old, crew-cut hair, military look. But it was the writing underneath that drew most of his attention. RECHERCH? ARM? ET DANGEREUX 46 (#ulink_da33b26e-6832-5dda-bcc8-9f9f50996e28) Sixteen minutes later, police tactical response units were massing outside the Hotel Royal. Breaking up into groups, black-clad paramilitary officers heavily armed with submachine guns, short-barrelled shotguns and tear gas grenade launchers surrounded the building. The bewildered guests and staff were herded out and made to assemble at a safe distance in the grounds. Word spread, and soon everyone knew about the dangerous armed criminal the police were looking for. Was he a terrorist? A psychopath? Everyone had their own version of the story. The man’s trail was soon found at the back of the hotel. Behind the staff car-park was an unmown field of grass leading off in the direction of neighbouring farms. A sharp-eyed police officer found the track where the long grass had been bent over. Someone had recently run through it. The police German Shepherd dogs picked up the scent immediately. Barking furiously and straining on their leashes they led their handlers across the field as armed officers followed close behind. The trail cut across the field and into a clump of woodland. The fugitive couldn’t have got far. But the trail led nowhere. It stopped at the edge of the woods. The officers looked up the trees but there was no sign of him. It was as though he’d vanished into thin air. It took a few minutes for the pursuers to realize that their quarry had tricked them. He’d doubled back on himself to leave a false trail. Muzzles to the ground, the German Shepherds led them back to the hotel. The scent led them round the back, through an entrance into the kitchens. The officers drew their pistols. More joined them with shotguns. Suddenly the dogs stopped, disorientated, sneezing, pawing at their noses. Someone had spilled a catering-sized container of ground pepper all over the floor. On the signal, the helmeted, black-clad tactical squad swept through every room of the hotel. Exchanging hand signals, covering one another with their weapons, they moved slickly from corridor to stairway and took one floor at a time, one room at a time, checking every possible corner for the fugitive. They found a man in the honeymoon suite, but not the one they’d expected to find. He was a fifty-two-year-old Frenchman in his underwear, fastened with his own cuffs to one of the bedposts. His face was red and eyes bulged as the police shooters burst in and pointed their guns at him. Someone had stuffed a hotel hand-towel in his mouth. His name was Sergeant Emile Dupont. The tactical police uniform was a little baggy for Ben, and the trousers were a couple of inches too short. But nobody noticed as he strode confidently out of the hotel, shouting stern orders at some junior officers. Nobody noticed the non-issue green military bag he was carrying. And nobody noticed when he made his way through the crowds of chattering guests, slipped into one of the police cars parked out front and quietly drove away. The witness had said the black Porsche had turned left. He’d been hesitant. Ben took a right. Once clear of the hotel he nailed the throttle, glancing in the rear-view mirror to check he’d got away clean. Messages were coming over his radio. He couldn’t stay with this car for long. She’d only come downstairs to look at the little clothes boutique off the hotel lobby. Ben had been fast asleep over a bunch of notes and papers in the ante-room. She hadn’t wanted to disturb him. She’d be back in five minutes anyway, with something clean and fresh to wear at last. The boutique didn’t open until 8.45. She gazed in the window, decided on a jumper she liked the look of, and a pair of black jeans. A few minutes to kill, and the morning air was cool and fresh. She took a walk out front, admiring some of the plants, still trying not to think about yesterday. She hadn’t noticed the man come up behind her. His approach was silent and fast. Next thing, a black-gloved hand was over her mouth and a prickly cold knife point was pressing against her throat. ‘Start walking, bitch,’ said a hoarse whispering voice in her ear. The accent was thickly foreign. Across the car-park, half hidden behind a broad ornamental shrub, sat a black Porsche with the doors open. The man was big and powerful. She couldn’t struggle free from his grip on her arm, or scream out with that strong hand clamped over her face. He bundled her into the car and punched her in the face, hard. She tasted blood before she passed out. There was no telling how far they’d come down the road before she came to her senses. Her mind cleared quickly as the adrenaline pumped through her. Beside her in the cramped cockpit of the sports car, her kidnapper’s face looked like granite. He held the blade against her stomach, driving with one hand. The Porsche was racing down the country road with 150 on the clock, open countryside and the occasional tree flashing by. It would be madness to do anything. Kill us both. Or else he’ll put the knife in me. But she did it anyway. The car was coming into a series of tight S bends, slowing down to 85. For an instant he was distracted. She punched out with all her strength and caught him on the ear. The knife clattered to the floor. He roared. The Porsche swerved. Roberta sprang up in her seat and grabbed the wheel, wrenching it towards her. The car veered crazily to the right, skidded onto the rocky bank and smashed into a tree sideways. Roberta was cannoned against the passenger door, and the force of the impact threw her kidnapper on top of her. His heavy body knocked the wind out of her momentarily. The Porsche sat still in a haze of dust. Inside, he was pressing hard down on top of her. He picked the knife up and pressed the blade against her neck. He could imagine how, with just a little more pressure, the razor edge of the carefully whetted steel would break through the layers of skin and begin its slow, deliberate journey inwards through the flesh, deeper and deeper as the blood began to spill out. It would come slowly at first. Then in pulsing jets as he held her down and felt her body wriggling against his grip. But through the red haze of his lust he remembered his phone call to the archbishop the night before. ‘The Englishman has got the manuscript,’ he’d told Usberti, without giving away how he’d let it slip through his fingers. ‘I want them kept alive, Franco’, Usberti’s voice had ordered him. ‘If you cannot retrieve the manuscript, we will have to think of a way to force Hope to give it to us.’ Bozza loved his work for Gladius Domini, but politics and intrigue held no interest for him. He looked angrily down at Roberta Ryder’s struggling form, pinning her to the car seat as she squirmed and spat in his face. It was frustrating to be denied the pleasure of killing her. He put down his knife, punched her again and drove on. The stolen police car threw up clouds of dust as Ben pushed it hard down the empty roads. He was beginning to wonder if he should have gone the other way when he came to the S-bends and saw the fresh black skid marks leading off to the right, up the rocky bank. At the top of the bank, an old tree had been damaged, bark ripped away from the trunk and a branch left dangling like a broken arm. He stopped the car and crouched by the side of the road. On the ground and embedded in the torn bark of the damaged tree, he found flakes of black paint. Something dark and glistening on the roadside caught his eye. He dabbed it with his finger. A blob of motor-oil, still warm to the touch. Judging by their width the skid marks were made by fat, grippy sports tyres. A black performance car, going somewhere in a hurry. It had to be the Porsche. He found more oil a little way further down the road, regular spots and dribbles leading away in the direction he was going. The driver must have hit a rock and damaged the sump. Why had the car crashed? How badly damaged was it? There might be a chance of finding it broken down further along the road, if it continued losing a lot of oil. But even though the police car was fast and powerful, it was highly conspicuous and he was a sitting duck in it. He followed the oil trail for a few more kilometres, keeping an ear open for the crackling messages on the police radio. As he’d expected, it wasn’t long before they noticed that the car was missing and were sending more out to find it. He was going to have to switch vehicles, and lose his chance of catching up with the damaged Porsche. On the edge of a sleepy rural hamlet was a small garage with a single petrol pump and a sign that flapped creaking in the breeze. Just beyond it was a rutted mud track leading off to the side. He swung the car over into it, sighing with frustration. He followed the track for about half a kilometre before it ended in a rock-strewn field of yellowed brush and thorn-bushes. He took off the police uniform and changed back into his own clothes, wiped down everything he’d touched inside the car, then tossed the keys down a ditch and started running back up towards the garage. The mechanic looked up as the tall blond man walked through the opening in the metal shutter and into the workshop. He rubbed his bristled chin with coarse, blackened fingers, came away from the battered van he was fixing and lit a smoke. Yes, he’d seen a black Porsche come by. It had been a bit less than an hour ago. Nice car, shame about the damage. Seemed like it’d been in a crash, rear wheel-arch all dented in. Something rubbing on the wheel, sounded like. ‘Yeah, Italian plates? Crazy bastard smacked into me,’ Ben said. ‘Ran me off the road some way back. I’ve had to walk miles.’ ‘Need a tow?’ The mechanic jerked his chin in the direction of the rusty tow-truck sitting on the forecourt. Ben shook his head. ‘I’ve got a special deal through my insurance. I’ll give them a call. Thanks anyway.’ As they talked, he cast his eye around the place. There was a little showroom attached to the garage, selling mostly used small cars and pick-ups. His eye lit on something. ‘Tell you what, though. Is that for sale?’ He hadn’t been on a motorcycle for over ten years. The last one he’d ridden was an ancient military despatch bike that vibrated like a pneumatic drill and leaked oil and petrol. The sleek Triumph Daytona 900 triple he was riding now was a different order of machine, brutally powerful and faster than most things on four wheels. He followed the road, keeping a sharp watch for more oil spots. If he was lucky, those small round splashes would be the trail of breadcrumbs that could lead him all the way to wherever the Porsche had gone. A few kilometres up the road, his heart sank as the oil trail suddenly petered out. He rode on a mile or so, peering down carefully as he backed off the throttle and the Triumph rumbled along at walking-pace. Nothing. He cursed. Either the leak had magically repaired itself, or else the driver had been trailered away somewhere. Roadside service, with a kidnap victim sitting in the car? It seemed unlikely. He must have called a local contact to come and tow him away. And now he was gone. Ben stopped the bike and sat staring up the empty road. He’d lost her. 47 (#ulink_485851eb-bc7e-5bd4-a607-32b7423dc3bc) Among the trees at the edge of Saint-Jean he eased the big Triumph down onto its sidestand and slung the full-face helmet over the handlebar. The village streets were as quiet and deserted as always. He found Father Pascal at home. ‘Benedict, I was so worried about you.’ Pascal clasped him by the shoulders. ‘But…where is Roberta?’ Ben explained the situation and the priest’s face fell further and further. He slumped despairingly onto a stool. He suddenly looked all of his seventy years. ‘I can’t stay here long,’ Ben said. ‘The police won’t waste any time tracing the Renault at the hotel to you. They’ll come here to question you about me.’ Pascal stood up. There was a fierce glint in his eye that Ben hadn’t seen before. He took Ben’s arm. ‘Follow me. There is a better place we can talk.’ Inside the church, Ben knelt in the confessional. Pascal’s face was half-visible through the mesh window between them. ‘Do not worry about the police, Benedict,’ Pascal said. ‘I will tell them nothing. But what are you going to do? I am terribly afraid for Roberta.’ Ben looked grim. ‘I don’t know what’s best,’ he said. He couldn’t put a dying child on hold. Every minute he delayed was time lost for her. He could walk away and finish his job–but it was signing Roberta’s death warrant. He could go after her, but if she was dead already or he couldn’t find her, he risked sacrificing the child for nothing. He sighed. ‘I can’t save them both.’ Pascal sat in thoughtful silence for a minute or two. ‘It is a difficult choice that lies before you, Ben. But you must choose. And once the decision is made, you must not regret it. There has been too much regret in your life already. Even if your choice leads to suffering, you must not look back. God will know your heart was pure.’ ‘Father, do you know what Gladius Domini is?’ Ben asked. Pascal sounded taken aback. ‘The Latin means “sword of God”. A curious expression. Why are you asking me this?’ ‘You’ve never heard of a group, or organization, by that name?’ ‘Never.’ ‘Do you remember, you told me about a bishop–’ ‘Sssh.’ Pascal interrupted him with an urgent look. ‘Someone is here,’ he whispered. The priest walked down the central aisle and greeted the police detectives under the arch of the doorway. ‘Father Pascal Cambriel?’ ‘Yes.’ ‘My name is Inspector Luc Simon.’ ‘Let us speak outside,’ Pascal said, leading him away from the church and shutting the door behind him. Simon was tired. He’d just flown down by police helicopter from Le Puy. The trail there had gone dead, but he’d known that Ben Hope would resurface somewhere soon. He’d been right. But why Hope’s footsteps were leading him to this dusty little village in the middle of nowhere was beyond him. His head was hurting and he was missing his coffee. ‘I believe you’ve lost a car,’ he said to Pascal. ‘A Renault 14?’ ‘Have I?’ Pascal looked surprised. ‘What do you mean, lost? I have not used it for weeks, but as far as I know it is still…’ ‘Your car has been found at the Hotel Royal near Monts?gur.’ ‘What was it doing there?’ Pascal asked incredulously. ‘That’s what I thought you could tell me,’ Simon replied in a suspicious voice. ‘Father, your car is implicated in a manhunt for an extremely dangerous criminal.’ Pascal shook his head blankly. ‘This is all very shocking.’ ‘Who were you talking to in there?’ Simon demanded, pointing into the church. He started opening the heavy arched door. Pascal blocked his way. The priest suddenly seemed twice his normal size. His eyes were hard. ‘I was hearing a confession from one of my parishioners,’ he growled. ‘And a confession is sacred. My parishioners are not criminals. I will not let you desecrate God’s house.’ ‘I don’t give a damn whose house it is,’ Simon replied. ‘Then you will have to use force against me,’ Pascal said. ‘I will not let you in until you come back with a proper warrant.’ Simon glared hard at Pascal for a few seconds. ‘I’ll be seeing you again,’ he said as he turned and walked away. Simon was fuming as he got back to his car. ‘That old bastard knows something,’ he said to his driver. ‘Let’s go.’ They were passing through the village square when he ordered the driver to stop. He got out and strode briskly to the bar. He ordered a coffee. At the back of the room, the three old card-players turned to look at him. Simon laid his police ID flat on the counter. The barman glanced at it dispassionately. ‘Has anyone here seen any strangers in the village recently?’ Simon asked, addressing the room. ‘Looking for a man and a woman, foreigners.’ The police were back sooner than Pascal had expected. Less than five minutes later, Simon was striding down the aisle, his quick footsteps echoing in the empty church. ‘Did you forget something, Inspector?’ Simon smiled coldly. ‘You’re a pretty good liar,’ he said. ‘For a priest. Now, are you going to tell me the truth, or would you like me to arrest you for obstructing the course of justice? This is a murder investigation.’ ‘I–’ ‘Don’t try to bullshit me. I know that Ben Hope was here. He was staying with you. Why are you protecting him?’ Pascal sighed. He sat in a pew, resting his bad leg. ‘If it turns out you’ve been harbouring a criminal,’ Simon went on, ‘I’ll bury you so deep in shit you’ll never get out again. Where’s Hope, and where’s he taken Dr. Ryder? I know you know, so you’d better start talking.’ He drew his gun and jerked open the door of each confessional box. ‘He is not here,’ Pascal said, looking furiously at the drawn revolver. ‘I will request you to put that gun away, officer. Remember where you are.’ ‘In the presence of a liar and possibly an accessory to crime,’ Simon retorted. ‘That’s where I am.’ He slammed the door of the last confessional box with a bang that echoed through the church. ‘Now–I suggest you start talking.’ Pascal glowered at him. ‘I will tell you nothing. What Benedict Hope has confided in me is between him, myself and God.’ Simon snorted. ‘We’ll see what the judge says about that.’ ‘You can take me to your prison if you want,’ Pascal said evenly. ‘I have been in worse jails, in the Algerian war. But I will not speak. I will tell you just one thing. The man you are chasing is innocent. He is not a criminal. This man does only good. Few men I have known are so heroic and virtuous.’ Simon laughed out loud. ‘Oh, really–is that a fact? So perhaps, Father, you’d like to tell me more about this saint and his charitable works.’ 48 (#ulink_bba216ba-3bed-5b54-9622-e19313b35c02) The Daytona took him far and fast away from Saint-Jean, slicing through the rugged landscape, crouched low across the tank with the wind screaming around his helmet and the road zipping past under his feet. Ben’s face was hard as he rode, thinking what his next move should be. He knew in his heart that there was only one thing he could do, to find Roberta. But she could be anywhere. She could well be dead already. He backed off the throttle on the approach to a bend, a wall of sandy rock on one side of the road and a plunging drop to the forest below on the other. The motorcycle leaned sharply into the turn, his outstretched knee almost grazing the road. On the apex of the bend he gunned the throttle and the machine straightened up as it accelerated powerfully and the engine note rose to a howl between his knees. Sunlight glinted off metal in the distance ahead. He swore behind the black visor. Three hundred metres away at the end of a long straight, a roadblock was stopping vehicles. An army of police must have mobilized across the Languedoc by now. Murder at the Manzini villa, kidnapping, and a fugitive on the run. They would have circulated pictures of him to every cop in the region. He slowed. Four police cars, cops with machine-pistols slung low, but ready. They’d stopped a Volvo estate. The driver was out of the car, and they were checking his paperwork. Ben didn’t have any, and as soon as they made him take off his helmet he’d be caught. Being caught wasn’t so much the problem. It was the kind of trouble he’d bring down on himself if he resisted arrest, as he knew he’d be forced to do. He didn’t want to have to hurt them, and he could ill afford to have a thousand cops and military tearing all of southern France to pieces to find him when he needed every minute to find Roberta and finish what he’d started. He braked and the bike halted in the road a hundred metres from the roadblock. He sat blipping the throttle for a moment. If he ran the roadblock they might shoot. It was too dangerous. He twisted the handlebar and brought the Triumph round in a tight U-turn. Opened the throttle hard and felt his arms stretch and the back wheel spin and wobble with the brutal power of the engine. As the bike reached high speed and the road snaked towards him as fast as he could think and react, a snatched glance in the fairing-mounted mirror told him that they’d seen him and were following–headlights and flashing blue, followed by a siren. He opened the throttle harder, daring to release a little more of the Triumph’s power. The high mountain pass plunged downward in a long sweeping set of curves and the rocky landscape flashed out of sight as he plummeted into a wooded valley. The police car in his mirrors, already far in the distance, was fast shrinking to a tiny speck. A straight opened up ahead, carrying him up a long slope between thick banks of green and gold forest. By the time he had passed through the woods and the road was climbing steeply back up towards the next mountain pass, the police car was gone. He turned off the road at the next junction, knowing more cars would come looking for him. He rode the winding paths higher and higher until the sweep of the whole Aude river valley was laid out below him like a miniature model. The twisty lane became an unrideable rutted track. He stopped the motorcycle near the lip of a precipice, propped it on its stand, and dismounted, unbuckling his helmet and walking a little stiffly from the saddle. Here and there in the distance he could make out the ruins of ancient forts and castles, specks of jagged grey rock against the forest and the sky. He walked close to the edge of the precipice, so that his toes overhung the brink. He looked down, a dizzying drop of thousands of feet. What was he going to do? He stood there for what seemed an eternity, the chilly mountain wind whistling around him. Darkness seemed to be closing in on him. He took out his flask. It was still half full. He closed his eyes and brought it to his lips. He stopped. His phone was ringing. ‘Benedict Hope?’ said the metallic voice in his ear. ‘Who are you?’ ‘We have Ryder.’ The voice waited for his response, but Ben didn’t offer one. The man went on. ‘If you want to see her alive again, you will listen to me carefully and follow my instructions’ ‘What do you want?’ Ben asked. ‘We want you, Mr. Hope. You, and the manuscript’. ‘What makes you think I have it?’ ‘We know what you got from the Manzini woman,’ the voice went on. ‘You will deliver it to us personally. You will meet us tonight at the Place du Peyrou in Montpellier. By the statue of Louis the Fourteenth. Eleven o’clock. You will come alone. We will be watching you. If we see any police, you will get Ryder back one piece at a time’. ‘I want proof of life,’ Ben demanded. As he listened, he heard a rustling sound of the phone being passed to someone. Roberta’s voice was suddenly in his ear. She sounded afraid. ‘…you, Ben? I…’ Then her voice was cut off abruptly as the phone was snatched away from her. Ben was thinking fast. She was alive, and they wouldn’t kill her until they had what they wanted. That meant he could buy time. ‘I need forty-eight hours,’ he said. There was a long pause. ‘Why? the voice demanded. ‘Because I don’t have the manuscript any more,’ Ben lied. ‘It’s hidden in the hotel.’ ‘You will go there and retrieve it,’ the voice said. ‘You have twenty-four hours, or the woman dies’ Twenty-four hours. Ben thought about it for a moment. Whatever plan he might be able to come up with to get her out of there, he was going to need longer than that to put it into place. He’d negotiated many times with kidnappers and he knew how their minds worked. Sometimes they were inflexible in their demands and would execute a victim at the drop of a hat. But that was mostly when they knew they didn’t have much to gain, when the bargaining was breaking down or when it looked as though nobody was going to pay. If these guys wanted the manuscript badly enough and thought he was going to deliver it to them, it was a card he could play for all it was worth. He’d already got the guy backing down. He could push him a little more. Конец ознакомительного фрагмента. Текст предоставлен ООО «ЛитРес». Прочитайте эту книгу целиком, купив полную легальную версию (https://www.litres.ru/scott-mariani/scott-mariani-3-book-bundle/?lfrom=688855901) на ЛитРес. Безопасно оплатить книгу можно банковской картой Visa, MasterCard, Maestro, со счета мобильного телефона, с платежного терминала, в салоне МТС или Связной, через PayPal, WebMoney, Яндекс.Деньги, QIWI Кошелек, бонусными картами или другим удобным Вам способом.