“Any explanation why he did it?” asked Billi.
“The story is he suffered severe PTSD following the war. But what’s interesting is his own father, Edward FitzRoy, spent several years in a psychiatric hospital himself before an apparent boating accident.” Lionel shook his head. “The coroner reported an open verdict, cause of death not firmly established. Most thought that it was suicide. And his grand-dad, Reggie, he died pretty young too, out in the Middle East.” Lionel tapped the books on the desk. “Here. I want you to take these.”
Billi picked up the top one. “Myths of Mesopotamia?”
“Yeah, that and a few history books dealing with that area. You never know what you might find.”
“So what did this Reggie die of?”
“It wasn’t reported, but he was only in his mid-forties and the body was buried out there. I don’t need to remind you that Islamic countries tend to get their deceased in the ground within twenty-four hours, do I? The family suffers a strange malaise, Billi.”
Or a curse, if you believed that sort of thing. “How did Simon die, exactly?” asked Billi. “Fall off a boat too?”
“Not at all. Set fire to his house then blew his brains out, dressed in his old uniform, medals included. His wife and young daughter were out at the time. The wife drank herself to death a few years later, the girl was adopted by her aunt, on her mother’s side. She inherits everything when she’s twenty-one. Here.”
It was a society photo of a glamorous teen girl with her arms around some drunken mates as they stumbled out of a nightclub, the sort of photo the paparazzi made their bread and butter on. “Meet Lady Erin FitzRoy.”
“I guess those jewels are real?” She was almost sparkling as much as her diamond earrings.
“Very. Some of them should be in museums. That necklace she’s wearing is over two thousand years old. Said to have belonged to Cleopatra herself.”
It was stunning. The necklace was a snake, its scales pure gold and eyes brilliant rubies. It was holding its tail in its mouth.
Hadn’t Lawrence been wearing a ring with that exact same design?
Billi pointed at the girl. “You able to tell me more about her necklace? It looks familiar.”
“The ouroboros. The eternal snake. It’s a fairly common motif from the Middle East. Ancient Egyptian in origin, I think.”
What did it mean, that the girl and Lawrence both had the same design? You believed in fate, or coincidence. Billi didn’t believe in coincidence. Lawrence and Reggie Fitzroy had worked together in the early twentieth century. Was the ring and the necklace all part of the same find? Or was there another connection? “You got anything else?”
Lionel nodded. “Saved the most peculiar till last. This is from a year ago. A couple of kids broke into the now derelict house that had once belonged to Reginald FitzRoy, the same one his grandson Simon had tried to burn down. They were nabbed by a passing policeman. They were hysterical. Said they’d seen something, it had scared them half to death.”
“The Haunting of Knight’s Hill? How long did it take the editor to come up with that headline?” But she read the article, her interest piqued. The kids had broken in on a dare, there’d been scary stories about the abandoned house ever since the death, but that wasn’t odd. What was odd was the regularity of those stories. Face at the window. Strange noises, sobbing coming from... the study. A man in a uniform walking the hallway.
“Could be nothing,” said Lionel as he pushed himself away from the table and stretched. “That’s all I’ve got for you, I’m afraid. Some of the major’s army buddies may know more but that’s more your field than mine. Your dad was in the army, wasn’t he?”
“Royal Marines, but that was a long time ago.” Was it legit? This haunting? There were plenty of ghosts in London, most harmless and most just faint, vague and pitiful memories of longing. She’d fought one in her Ordeal, the test she needed to pass to qualify as a Templar. The ghost of six-year-old Alex Weeks. She still remembered seeing the sad spirit sitting on a swing in an empty playground at the dead of night. That had been a close run thing, even with her dad backing her up. Exorcisms were a messy business.
There were too many links between the FitzRoys and Lawrence to be mere coincidence. Something deeper was going on. So, messy or not, an exorcism was the only option she had.
It was time to talk to the dead. But first she needed someone who could speak their language.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Who would have though there were any squats left in London? There were plenty of abandoned buildings in the city that, unless they were closely watched, might be taken over and inhabited by a community unwilling or unable to pay London rent prices. Most squats were in rundown, impoverished parts of the city, and most were derelict and dilapidated but sometimes a lucky squatter would strike gold.
Who owned this place? Some wealthy Russian who’d bought it back in the boom as an investment then just forgotten about it? Or some lesser Royal keeping it in the family for their grandchildrens’ grandchildren? It was a nice street, lined with old oaks and four storey Georgian houses and not far from Clapham Common. Maybe she should think about moving there herself?
Most of the ground-floor windows were boarded up and the front door stood open where a couple sat on the steps sharing a bowl of pasta. Some of the upper windows were broken and repaired with plastic or sheets. A Cuban flag fluttered from a balcony.
Billi slung her leather
