Heathen/Nemesis

‘Can I help you?’ he asked.

‘I want to see the manager, please,’ Donna told him.

‘Can I ask what it concerns?’

‘Could you just fetch him, please? It is important. Tell him my name is Donna Ward. My husband was Christopher Ward.’

The young man nodded and scuttled off, returning a moment later with a much older man in tow. The older man regarded the two women expressionlessly for a moment, then stepped forward. Donna made quick introductions. The man told her in a broad Scots accent that he was Maurice Langton, the manager. Then he invited them both through into his office.

‘I was very sorry to hear about your husband, Mrs Ward,’ Langton said, closing the door of his office and ushering them towards two chairs.

‘My husband kept a safety deposit box here, didn’t he?’ Donna said. She reached into her handbag and took out the key. ‘I need to see the contents.’

‘There are one or two forms to be signed first ...’ Langton began but Donna cut him short.

‘That’s all right,’ she said briskly. ‘It’s important.’

Langton looked at her for a moment, then reached into his desk. He produced the necessary documents and handed them to her, pointing out where she should sign. She did so and handed them back to him, her irritation scarcely hidden.

Langton realized her impatience and ushered them out of the office towards another door, which he opened with a heavy key he took from his pocket. Beyond it fell a flight of stone steps which led down to the bank’s vault. The walls on either side of the stairwell were dazzling in their brightness. Led by the bank manager, the two women descended to a corridor and more antiseptically white walls that seemed to crowd in on them like banks of snow. Langton led them through two more doors, finally coming to a small room with a desk and two chairs. To the right was another door; beside this one stood a uniformed man in what looked like a Securicor outfit. He looked impassively at the trio of visitors as they approached.

Julie waited outside while Donna and Langton passed through the last door into the vault itself. She saw hundreds of drawer facings, row upon row of safety deposit boxes. Langton led her to the one she sought.

‘Your key, Mrs Ward,’ he said.

Donna just stared at the box.

‘I need your key,’ he said, almost apologetically.

She nodded, handed it to him and watched as he put her key into one of the locks and the duplicate he carried into the other, turning both simultaneously. He pulled the drawer free and carried it outside for her, setting it on the desk.

‘Just call me when you’ve finished,’ he said and stepped back.

Donna sat looking at the box for long moments. Then, finally, hands quivering slightly, she reached for the contents.

All it contained were two envelopes.

Two flat, white envelopes.

‘What the hell is this?’ said Julie. ‘This is the big secret?’

Donna slipped the envelopes into her bag and called Langton back over.

‘Did you know what was inside the box?’ she asked him.

The manager looked aggrieved at the suggestion he might be privy to the contents of one of the high-security lockers.

‘You knew there were just two envelopes in there?’ she continued.

‘I had no idea what was in there,’ he said.

‘Was my husband alone when he brought them in?’ Donna wanted to know. Or did he have another woman with him?

‘Most certainly,’ Langton told her. ‘Is there something wrong, Mrs Ward?’

She shook her head, thanked him for his co-operation and then headed for the way out. Julie followed closely behind. They passed back the way they had come, past the gleaming white walls and up the stairs. Donna thanked Langton again and the two women left the bank.

Inside the car, Donna glanced at the two envelopes then slipped them into her handbag.

‘Get us home,’ she said, ‘as quick as you can.’

Sixty-Five

By the time Julie parked the Fiesta outside the cottage the sky was a mass of dark cloud. Rain was falling fast now, drenching the countryside, turning the road that led to the cottage to mud, puddling in the ruts.

The two women jumped out and sprinted for the front door of the cottage, Donna struggling with the key. She finally pushed the door open and they both tumbled gratefully inside. Donna hurried through into the kitchen and sat down at the wooden table, pulling the envelopes from her handbag. For long moments she stared at them, as if reluctant to open them. She knew for sure that one contained the means to finding the Grimoire. The contents of the other was a mystery.

‘Open them, Donna,’ said Julie, her impatience getting the better of her.

Donna looked at her sister reproachfully.

‘Give me time,’ she said quietly.

A part of her didn’t want to; in some strange way it meant severing her links with Chris. As long as there had been secrets, she had felt close to him but now, with the opening of these two slim packages, the last of those secrets would be gone. Just like he was gone. Her hands were shaking as she reached for the first of the envelopes.

It looked relatively new. The paper was untainted by age. She wondered how long they had lain in the safety deposit box.

There was a single sheet of paper in the first one.

It bore a name and an address.

‘George Paxton,’ she read aloud. ‘Wax Museum.’ And then an address in Portsmouth.

‘That must be where he hid the book,’ said Donna. ‘He wrote a novel about a waxworks a few years ago. Chris said he’d become friendly with the owner; that must be who this Paxton character is.’

‘Why hide it there?’ Julie wondered.

Donna could only shrug.

‘We don’t even know what the bloody thing looks like,’ Julie added. ‘It could be anywhere there. Paxton might even have it himself. How the hell are we going to find it?’

There was more writing at the bottom of the sheet.

‘The Crest on the Grimoire is a hawk, family crest of its author,’ she read. She looked at Julie, her eyes alight. ‘A hawk?’ Donna reached into her handbag and pulled out the photo of Ward and the five other men. She looked carefully at the picture, studying the rings on the index fingers of the two shadowy figures.

They too bore engravings of some kind.

She squinted more closely.

‘A hawk,’ she said triumphantly, jabbing the picture with her index finger. ‘The crest on those rings shows a hawk. You can see the wings.’

Julie squinted at them.

‘Jesus,’ she murmured.

Donna was already opening the second envelope.

It was another single sheet of paper, this time with typed letters on it:

RATHFARNHAM, DUBLIN.

BRASENOSE COLLEGE, OXFORD.

REGENCY PLACE, EDINBURGH.

CONDUIT STREET, LONDON.