“Idiotic?” Billi suggested.
“…friendly. Cuddly, if you know what I mean?”
“No, not really but, hey, it’s your place now, Lionel.”
Lionel took a key from a leather loop around his neck and unlocked the door. He grunted as he fought the rusty hinges but eventually got it open wide enough for him to squeeze through.
The temperature dropped sharply in the basement. It had been years since she’d been down here and all the old memories were bad ones. Billi rubbed her arms, not sure why she was shivering, because of the cold or the ghost that might still be lingering here.
She still thought about Kay, the first boy she’d ever loved. The first person she’d ever killed. It felt so long ago, but it had only been two years. Time moved differently in your heart.
But instead of shelves of occult lore and chests of ancient treasures, there was a smart glass desk with a computer upon it, a red folder and a couple of history books. But against the far wall was a large, black cabinet.
It had been years since she’d seen it, but it still radiated a malevolence, of secret, dark dreams and wishes. The bronze hinges had been polished as good as new and the ornate inlay of demons and monsters made of precious metals and mother of pearl shone with iridescence. There was a copper disc centred where the two cabinet door panels met, marked by the six-pointed star, the seal of Solomon.
Lionel sat down at the computer and dragged up a spare stool for Billi. “This is what I found on your Lawrence. Most of this is common enough, what you can dig up yourself if you know where to look, but then I dug a little deeper and found some nice pieces. Not enough for a complete picture, but you can see its shape.” He tapped the folder. “Have a look at that.”
Billi opened the folder and found photocopies of old shipping manifests and what looked like diaries and personal correspondence. One name sprang out. “Lawrence. He wrote these?”
“Check out the dates.”
She gasped. Lawrence was older than she’d thought. “1602. That’s unbelievable.”
“Have a look at the picture. It’s a portrait of the merchants that founded the East India Company back in 1625. Check out the guy seated on the far right.”
The blazing blue eyes were unmistakable, but all else was changed. There, seated in an ornate room of gilt and marble was a robust young man, pink cheeked, straight-backed and muscular with shoulder length blonde hair. “The years have not been kind, have they?”
“A century later he pops up in the Hellfire Club, along with Dashwood and the other more famous members. You must know all about the rumours. The Templars of the day clashed with them more than once.”
Billi nodded as she inspected a copy of another painting. There was Lawrence again, older, but only by a decade or two. The wish he’d made clearly slowed down his aging. “The usual occult activities. Most of it useless, and harmless, but one New Year’s Eve they accidently summoned a demon. It ate half the members before the Templars arrived and destroyed it.”
Lionel chuckled. “The guy’s been a trader since the very beginning. Spices, opium, treasures from faraway places. But as the years and centuries passed he specialized more and more in what you might call esoteric items. Items with legends attached. And there is no better place for that business than the Middle East. Again, something you Templars have a special interest in.” Lionel gestured to the glowing screen. “Now we move into the modern age. He was in the Middle East during World War I, working behind the scenes with Allenby. That’s when, I think, he made contact with this guy. Take a look at Colonel Reginald FitzRoy.”
“FitzRoy?” said Billi. “That family’s been involved with Lawrence before?”
Lionel blew up the old photo to fill the screen. A young man, bare-chested and in khaki shorts stood amongst some ruins out in the middle of the desert, his arm was slung over a local Arab and there were more workers in the background, diggers taking part in an excavation judging by the piles of sand and rock. He had one foot resting on a broken statue. Judging by the scales it had to be a snake, or dragon.
“The first FitzRoy came over with William the Conqueror. FitzRoy was originally FitzRoi, which means son of the king.”
“So he was the bastard of William the Bastard?”
“That’s one way of putting it. Anyway, the family still have a castle up in East Anglia, a place called Hollburgh though it’s a ruin now. The FitzRoys have fought in pretty much every battle ever since. They have war in the blood.”
Billi peered at the photo, and spotted a figure sitting in the shade of a wall. “Is that Lawrence?”
“Yes. Hardly recognise him now, eh?”
He wore typical Bedouin garb, the flowing robes and the keffiyeh headscarf, but his frame was bent now and the hands clutching the cane were thin and bony. He was much more like the man she’d met last night. Withered.
Lionel clicked the mouse and brought up another page. “Then we have the Iraq War of 2003 and the name FitzRoy appears once more. Major Simon FitzRoy, grandson of Reginald, was in charge of protecting the Museum of Antiquities in Baghdad. It was his job to remove the most valuable artefacts for safe-keeping. But one night the place was hit by the Republican Guard. FitzRoy survived, surprisingly unscathed, but the convoy he was meant to be protecting was destroyed. Lost everything.”
“That was convenient.” So that was how he covered up the robbery, by pretending it had been destroyed by the enemy. Billi looked closer at the major. Simon FitzRoy sat on the top of a fallen-down statue of the old Iraqi dictator. He was waving a captured Iraqi flag, grinning like a victor.
“Very. He leaves the
