slid his hand inside his coat pocket, removing his wallet. ‘I would like to check out.’
The proprietor stared suspiciously at him. ‘Where’s the missus?’
‘She has gone ahead without me.’
Bill paid in full, he left the guest house and headed south as directed.
He passed a pub on his right, yellow light spilling onto the pavement. Earlier in the evening he’d sat glumly in that same pub, staring at a pint of lager. Knowing alcohol would do nothing to resolve the unsettled business with Edie, he’d handed the untasted glass to an inebriated local before wordlessly slinking out. Had he not succumbed to a moment’s weakness, he might have been able to thwart the abduction.
C?dmon shoved the thought aside. He couldn’t change the past; he could only affect the here and now. If used correctly, the metal nail file hidden beneath the leather insole of his right shoe could be a deadly weapon. He’d killed before; he could do so again. He rehearsed the plan in his mind’s eye.
Approaching a red telephone box, he turned left as he had been instructed. When he came to the alleyway, he made another left. At the end of the deserted lane, he sighted two men leaning against a parked Range Rover.
While he could not be sure, C?dmon assumed that MacFarlane recruited his mercenaries straight out of the US military. Special forces more than likely.
‘Good evening, gentlemen,’ he said, touching his fingers to an imaginary hat brim.
Neither man acknowledged the greeting, although one of them pushed himself away from the vehicle and stepped towards him. Without being asked, C?dmon raised his arms, grasping the back of his head with his clasped hands. The man impersonally patted him down, searching every crevice where a weapon might be concealed.
Search concluded, C?dmon slowly lowered his arms.
‘Take off your clothes.’
‘I beg your pardon?’
‘You heard me, take off your clothes.’ To ensure that the order was obeyed, the man opened his jacket, revealing a holstered gun.
There being nothing he could do but comply, C?dmon removed his anorak, dropping it onto the ground. Then, giving every indication that he was a man with nothing to hide, he levered off his right shoe, purposely kicking it in his escort’s direction. The subterfuge worked, his shoe warranting little more than a uninterested glance.
As quickly as possible, he divested himself of the rest of his clothes.
Naked, he stood before his captors. He couldn’t think of a time when he’d felt more vulnerable. ‘I know. I should probably be more diligent about my exercise regime.’
Neither man responded, although the one with the holstered weapon did reach inside his jacket pocket. Removing a dark length of fabric, he tossed it at C?dmon’s bare chest.
‘Put on the blindfold.’
‘That’s a bit draconian, don’t you think?’
Evidently not draconian enough, the man’s response quick and ruthless. Pulling his gun from its holster, he stepped forward and smashed the revolver butt into C?dmon’s face.
Myriad splashes of colour, like a Jackson Pollock abstract, instantly flashed behind his eyes. An instant later, the colours bled together, turning a deep, dark inky black.
61
Lucidity still beyond his grasp, C?dmon shuffled into the room. He heard himself nattering on about something. George Eliot and
He tried to focus but couldn’t contain his flyaway thoughts. Couldn’t stop the ringing in his ears.
‘C?dmon! Are you all right?’
He turned, his vision still blurred.
‘I’m fine,’ he lied, uncertain to whom he spoke.
He blinked several times, willing vague shapes to come into focus. They came in bits and bobs.
‘Edie… Thank God. Are you all right?’ He immediately realized that it was an asinine question; he could see that she wasn’t.
‘I’m fine.’
His vision clearing, he looked about. All around him he saw solid eighteenth-century construction. Shuttered windows. Wooden floor. Thick stone walls. It was a prison from which there would be no escape, even if he could somehow disable his captors, of which he counted four. He wondered which of the quartet had been responsible for the bruise on Edie’s cheek; any one of the brutes appeared capable of hitting a defenceless woman.
‘C?dmon, what did they do to you?’ Edie cried, prevented from approaching him by an older man who had a hand clamped around her upper arm.
As though he were caught in one of those bizarre dreams in which he was naked and everyone else fully clothed, he belatedly realized that while he was wearing his trousers, shirt and shoes, he held in his hands jumper, pants and socks. Mercifully, his trousers were zipped, although his shirt was completely unbuttoned.
‘I was subjected to a somewhat thorough body search. Needless to say, I feel a bit violated.’
‘I hope my men weren’t too rough,’ the older man remarked, smiling mirthlessly. ‘I ordered them to go easy on you.’
Assuming the grey-haired man to be none other than Stanford MacFarlane, C?dmon summoned up an equally humourless smile. He wiped his hand under his bloodied nostrils, his escorts having come damn close to breaking his nose. ‘I shall live to fight another day.’
‘As you can well imagine, I have several questions that I’m hoping you can answer for me.’
‘I believe this is where I’m supposed to say, “I want my solicitor.”’
Ignoring C?dmon’s sally, MacFarlane asked quietly, ‘First and foremost, where is the Ark of the Covenant?’
Knowing that Edie’s life was at stake, he replied as sincerely as he could, ‘I have no idea. Although I’m certain that if we put on our thinking caps, we can uncover its location.’
‘That’s what the last scholar said to me… right before his death.’
Out of the corner of his eye, C?dmon saw Edie put a hand to her mouth. In truth, he felt a bit queasy himself.
‘I’m not a bloody psychic; I’m an academic. And as such, I must insist that you give logic a chance. In my anorak pocket you’ll find a sketch which I believe may be of some interest.’
MacFarlane walked over to the thug holding his anorak. Removing two sheets of folded paper from the front pocket, he first examined the translated quatrains, then the sketched drawing of the presentation of Christ.
‘Before I get to the drawing, I should tell you what we’ve learned to date. We now believe that the quatrains were not written by Galen of Godmersham.’ MacFarlane’s head jerked round, the man clearly thunderstruck. ‘Rather they were written by Galen’s third wife, Philippa of Canterbury.’
‘You’re certain of this?’
‘There is no doubt in my mind.’
MacFarlane chewed on this morsel for several seconds. ‘And what about St Lawrence the Martyr?’
‘A red herring,’ C?dmon replied, suspecting the ‘last scholar’s’ fate had been sealed with that particular misinterpretation. ‘The “blessed martyr” in question is Thomas a Becket. Which led us to Canterbury cathedral, where we discovered a stained-glass window.’
MacFarlane stared at the sketch like an addict staring at a full needle.
