Heathen/Nemesis

their faces reflected in the gleaming surface. As the first of them drank, the gold ring on his left index finger clinked against the crystal.

‘What if Connelly was lying?’ said the one seated next to him. ‘What if the woman doesn’t know where the book is?’

‘She knows,’ the other said with an air of certainty. ‘She was at Rathfarnham, wasn’t she? She went to the lodge at Mountpelier.’

‘I want to know why she wasn’t stopped there,’ an angry voice from the other side of the room interrupted him.

‘Those responsible for the mistake have been dealt with,’ another said. ‘Besides, we can’t kill her until she’s led us to the book or at least told us where we can find it.’

‘If Ward did tell her about it then she might go to the police,’ a third voice said.

‘Let her,’ chuckled another. Several others joined in the laughter.

One of the men at the head of the table brought his hand down hard on the table-top and the sound ceased.

‘Enough of this. We need the book and we need it quickly. There isn’t much time left.’

‘We’ll get it,’ said another man, approaching the table. ‘We’ll get her and the book.’

The other occupants of the room gradually moved across to the table, each of them taking a seat around it.

‘It must be in our hands within seven days,’ one of the men wearing the gold rings insisted angrily.

‘It will be.’

There was a note of certainty in Peter Farrell’s voice.

‘I hope for your sake that it is, Farrell. I hope for all our sakes it is.’

‘What if she uses the book the way Ward was going to?’ another voice added with concern. ‘If she knew about the book, he may have told her about the contents, too.’

Farrell waved a hand dismissively.

‘She’s being followed now. There are two men on her. They’ll find the book. They’ll make her tell them where it is. And then they’ll kill her. End of story.’

‘What if they fail?’ a worried voice interjected.

‘They won’t,’ Farrell snapped irritably.

‘You said that about the men who went to her house to search. They failed. Perhaps we underestimated her.’

‘She’s a woman,’ Farrell chuckled. ‘Just a woman.’

A chorus of laughter greeted his remark.

‘So, we are agreed,’ said one of the men at the head of the table. ‘Once she tells us where the book is or she leads us to it, she dies.’ He looked around at his companions. ‘Yes?’ He looked at each man in turn and waited for their compliance.

They nodded slowly, solemnly, like a jury passing sentence.

Farrell merely smiled.

‘Perhaps we should have brought her here,’ said one of the men. ‘Let her enjoy our company for an evening.’

There was more laughter.

One of the men at the head of the table rose, his glass in his hand, the gold of his ring clinking against the crystal.

‘A toast,’ he said grandly.

‘To the Death of God, the destruction of morality and to The Sons of Midnight.’

Francis Dashwood spoke the words with a grin on his wrinkled features.

Beside him, Richard Parsons echoed the toast, and so did the other men in the room.

‘To The Sons of Midnight.’

Fifty-Four

The shuttle flights from Edinburgh to London were booked up right through until eleven that evening. Donna rang the station and discovered that there was a train to King’s Cross leaving at 8.27 p.m. She booked a seat on it and took a taxi to the terminus.

Trains out of Waverley were running fifteen minutes late by the time she got there, but she didn’t care. She wandered across the concourse to the Travellers’ Fare buffet and sat warming her hands around a cup of coffee while she waited for her train to arrive.

She sat in the window, watching the streams of people coming to and from the trains. Taxis waited in a long queue to ferry them away, while others struggled up the stairs with cases or bags, determined to make their way by other means. She wondered how many of them were going home. Home to relatives, to loved ones. To husbands?

Donna felt a twinge of sadness and stared down into the depths of her cup, picking up the spoon and stirring unnecessarily, watching the dark liquid drip from the plastic utensil.

On the concourse people stood around gazing up at the departure and arrival boards, checking times of trains. She saw a young man squatting on a rucksack, eating a bar of chocolate and looking at the board. Close by a couple were kissing, holding each other close to ward off the cold wind that had sprung up. Donna watched them for a moment, then looked away.

One of the station employees was following a discarded wrapper across the concrete, trying to pick it up but thwarted every time by a fresh breeze that blew the litter out of his reach. Cursing, he continued his pursuit.

Donna finally got to her feet and wandered outside, glancing up at the board, noticing that her train was due in about five minutes.

She left the buffet and headed for the small John Menzies shop opposite.

She didn’t notice the thick-set man dressed in jeans and a long dark coat get up and follow her out. He stood by the exit, watching, cupping one hand around the flame of his lighter as he lit up a Marlboro.

Donna glanced at the paperbacks on the bestseller stand as she entered the shop. Only six months earlier her husband’s last book had occupied a prominent position on that stand and hundreds like it up and down the country. Again she felt that twinge of sadness. She selected three magazines, paid for them, then made her way back out onto the concourse.

The man outside the buffet sucked on his cigarette and watched her as she headed towards the gates and the platforms beyond. She paused to roll up the magazines and push them into her handbag, rummaging for her ticket.

The man in the long dark coat glanced at Donna, then back towards the Menzies shop.

Another man, dressed in a leather jacket and trousers that were too short, was walking briskly across the concourse, his eyes fixed on Donna. In fact so engrossed with her movements was he that he bumped into a young woman who was struggling with an impossibly heavy suitcase. He almost knocked her over but continued walking, ignoring her angry shouts. Other heads turned towards the commotion; indeed, even Donna looked round briefly. But she only saw the girl who had now returned her full attention to the case.

Other passengers for the train were forming a queue. Donna joined it, filing past the barriers, showing her ticket and heading down the platform towards the First Class carriages. As she passed the buffet car her stomach rumbled, as if to remind her she hadn’t eaten since lunchtime.

She opened one of the doors and climbed up, selecting a double seat for herself, sliding her suitcase between two seats.

Further down the train the man in the long dark coat also climbed aboard.

The man in the leather jacket stood on the platform for a moment longer before stepping up into the carriage next to Donna’s.