Sacred Sword Read online

Penrose watched the white crests of the waves in the darkness until his father’s voice receded to nothing and his migraine began to ease.

  How he had detested that man, with a burning force of hatred whose violence had never abated, from his earliest youth to the time he’d left home, to the day of the old man’s death eleven years ago. Standing there at the graveside surrounded by those forlorn, snivelling mourners who’d lacked the wits to see through the tyrant’s veneer of charm, Penrose hadn’t been able to restrain himself from cackling out loud as he’d watched the coffin descend into the ground. His only regret had been that the Reverend Gerald Collingsworth Lucas, Deacon for the Diocese of Winchester, had now been released from the agony of the cancer that had been eating him away, one wretched cell at a time, for over a decade.

  By the time of his father’s long-awaited, infinitely relished passing, Penrose’s academic career had been well on track. A sparkling talent, he’d been set from early on to become one of the youngest university professors of his generation. He’d never married, never formed any serious relationships with women and had few friends, devoted instead to his work and to the first glimmers of what had eventually evolved into his first book. When he hadn’t been buried in the rapidly expanding manuscript of God? What God? he’d been nailed to his desk writing hosts of long, impassioned online articles about the evils and corruption of organised religion, most especially those of Christianity.

  After the completed book manuscript, all one hundred and eighty thousand incendiary words of it, had unexpectedly sparked off a bidding war between major British publishers and Penrose had found himself suddenly in possession of a six-figure advance that he didn’t really need, he’d immediately begun putting the money to good use. Thus had begun the second stage of his war against the church and his father’s memory.

  Penrose secretly paid seventeen thousand pounds to a firm called Hardstaff & Baldwin Ltd, a shabby little private investigation outfit in Darlington, to dig up as much dirt as they could on members of the clergy, of any Christian denomination, across the north-east of England. Within three months, H&B’s diligent sleuthing had managed to produce video footage of a well-respected pastor in Leeds, one Reverend Tobias Bateman, sneaking away from his wife at night for regular visits to the notorious Water Lane red light district in Holbeck, where he was reported to enjoy being tied up and beaten by a lady wearing only a shiny leather mask.

  Penrose swiftly closed in for the kill. The ensuing media furore led to the defrocking, disgracing and divorce of the good Reverend Bateman. The source of the information remained a secret, naturally. Penrose’s money had been well spent, and he had a lot more to burn now that his book was selling like hot cakes. Having tasted blood, he now enlarged his operation to include the whole of England, an initiative that cost him the remainder of his publishing advance and then some more. To his horror, his investigators turned up nothing for months. No church sex romps, no internet poker-addicted bishops or lesbian nuns, not a shred of scandal or intemperance to be found anywhere. Penrose began to realise he was going to have to become more creative.

  It wasn’t long afterwards that he hit paydirt, in the form of a highly esteemed and well-known psychotherapist called Dr Nora Gibbs, shrink and hypnotist to sports personalities and television celebs. Purely by chance, one of Penrose’s growing network of investigators stumbled across an old legal case and happened to report it back to his employer. It appeared that two decades earlier, when Nora Gibbs had been Nora Jamieson and a student at Sussex University, she’d been arrested in possession of amphetamines, cocaine and a quantity of magic mushrooms, which she’d been distributing to her fellow students – one of whom ended up hospitalised as a result. It had been a minor scandal at the time, but nobody had ever before dug up the connection with the famous Dr Gibbs.

  Two days after Penrose’s tip-off, the celebrity shrink received an anonymous letter giving her very specific and clear instructions on how to avoid revelations about her past being leaked to the national media. Some time later, a very well-known male TV presenter, who’d been receiving hypnotherapy treatment from Dr Gibbs for stress and depression, suddenly recovered deeply repressed and hitherto undreamed-of memories of serious sexual abuse at the hands of the nuns and priests at the Catholic boarding school he’d attended in his youth. The TV presenter, shaken and angry but eternally grateful to his shrink for having made him aware of his forgotten past, went public with his allegations. Despite the lack of a single shred of evidence, the ensuing storm was enough to bring about the closure of the school. A retired priest called Father O’Rourke narrowly avoided being lynched by a mob that gathered outside his home, and died soon afterwards of heart failure.

  It was Penrose 2, God 0. He would lie awake at night, savouring the ingenious brilliance of his coup and fantasising about what he could achieve if he had more money to spend. With a big enough budget, he could bring the whole rotten thing down. Squash all of the cockroaches flat. By now he was hard at work researching his second book, Murdering for God, a scabrous condemnation of every war atrocity and act of violence ever perpetrated in the name of Christianity. Meanwhile, he’d launched his brand-new website along with its own popular discussion forum that attracted enlightened thinkers and militant atheists from all over the world.

  He was rolling.

  It had been one rainy early October day, heading back to his car after a hard afternoon’s lecturing of a group of second-year anthropology students, that the Hand of Fate had reached out to Penrose Lucas in a very unexpected manner. And his life had changed.

  The stranger was loitering near a sleek black Mercedes that Penrose had never seen in the University staff car park before. The Mercedes looked brand new. The number plate was private. The man was about forty, greying above the ears, lean and sharp-featured. He was wearing a dark suit and a camel coat that was worth Penrose’s monthly salary. His shoes gleamed on the wet tarmac. As Penrose approached his car, the man stepped away from the Mercedes and walked up to him. ‘Professor?’

  Penrose stopped. The man was smiling and looking him right in the eye.

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘My name is Rex O’Neill,’ the man said. ‘I represent The Trimble Group.’ He reached into the pocket of the camel coat and came out with a business card. Penrose took it. The card was shiny and black, completely blank except for the organisation’s name embossed in gold across the front. No number or address.

  ‘The Trimble Group? What’s this about?’

  O’Neill smiled. ‘Don’t bother trying to look us up, Professor Lucas. You won’t find us. But we’ve been watching you, and have taken a special interest in your work.’

  ‘My work?’

  ‘I’m not talking about your academic career,’ O’Neill said with a twinkle. ‘Let’s just say that your … extracurricular activities have been closely monitored by the people I work for. You’re a very clever fellow, aren’t you?’

  Penrose’s legs weakened and his guts twisted. ‘What are you talking about? Am I in trouble?’ He was convinced that this was some kind of reprisal against him. Someone had been spying on his spies. Now the Church of England had sent hired thugs out to ice him. He was ready to bolt like a scalded cat.

  ‘Relax, professor. Quite the contrary.’ O’Neill reached into his pocket, and instead of pulling out a gun he produced a crisp white letter-sized envelope, which he handed to the terrified Penrose. ‘Go on, open it.’

  Penrose hesitated, swallowed hard and then tore open the envelope. Inside was an unsigned cheque. It was made out to him. The name at the bottom was The Trimble Group. The amount was one hundred thousand pounds. Penrose gaped at it.

  O’Neill chuckled at the look on his face. ‘That’s just a very small taster. My employers have a proposal to make to you. If you’re interested in hearing it, meet me in the bar of the King’s Lodge Hotel at midday tomorrow. I’ll take you to meet them. They’ve come up from London specially to make your acquaintance.’

  ‘I don’t
understand. Who are your employers?’

  ‘One step at a time, professor. If once you hear the proposal you’re not interested in proceeding any further, there’ll be no hard feelings. The cheque will be signed and the money’s yours. But if you agree to come on board … well, let’s just say the rewards will be considerable for someone of your qualities. My employers believe you’re just the man for us. In fact, the only man for us.’

  Penrose stared again at the cheque. This was no practical joke. It was real. Had to be. ‘Come on board what?’ he said. ‘Just the man for what?’

  O’Neill only smiled. ‘See you tomorrow, Professor Lucas,’ he said, and walked away towards the black Mercedes.

  Chapter Sixteen

  After he’d finished watching the video recording, Ben sadly poured himself a measure of Glenmorangie from the Arundels’ drinks cabinet. So much for Simeon’s enemies, he thought as he took a long sip. The ladies of the Little Denton Women’s Institute probably posed more threat than some pumped-up egomaniac of a professor.

  Ben had that feeling again that he was being watched. He looked down to see the dog peering curiously up at him with one ear cocked.

  ‘I know what you’re thinking, Scruffy,’ he said out loud. ‘What now? Good question.’ The answer was clear. Ben gazed across the room at the picture of Jude Arundel that sat on the piano. He had to find him and tell him what had happened.

  The Arundels’ well-thumbed address book lay on the coffee table. Ben flipped through it and saw it was crammed with numbers, as if Simeon had listed half his parishioners in there. Under J he found a mobile number for Jude. He dialled the number on his phone, holding his breath and searching for the right words to say. How did you tell a complete stranger in the middle of the night that their family had been wiped out?

  After two rings, Ben was put through to voicemail. He left a brief message, not wanting to say too much and asking for Jude to call him back whenever he could. He sighed again and slumped into an armchair. Time passed. His mind whirled until mental exhaustion forced him to close his eyes and his chin sank towards his chest.

  The landline phone jangled from across the room, startling him. He raced over to it and snatched up the receiver. ‘Is that Jude?’

  There was a pause on the crackly line, followed by a man’s voice.

  ‘Simeon? It’s Wes.’

  His accent was American, and he sounded agitated. Before Ben could say anything, he went on: ‘Listen, I didn’t reach Martha’s yet. I’m calling from the road. They’re onto me. I … damn it, this line’s terrible. Hello? Can you hear me?’

  ‘Simeon’s not here,’ Ben said.

  ‘Who is this?’ the voice asked sharply.

  ‘I’m a friend,’ Ben said.

  There was a silence. Ben could sense the man’s deep suspicion. ‘Listen. Don’t hang up. Let me help you. Who are “they”? What’s going on?’

  Click. The caller had hung up.

  ‘Shit,’ Ben said.

  Moments later, he heard another ringtone coming from elsewhere in the house, muffled and only just audible. He ran out of the room, paused in the hallway and realised it was coming from upstairs. He followed the sound, taking the stairs two at a time. The ringtone was coming from behind one of the four glossy white-painted doors off the galleried first-floor landing.

  Just as Ben opened the door, the phone stopped ringing. He stepped inside, and saw that it was Simeon and Michaela’s bedroom. He was filled with sadness all over again at the sight of the unslept-in bed and the scent of Michaela’s perfume that hung in the air.

  Where had the ringtone been coming from? Ben suddenly recalled that just after they’d arrived at the Old Windmill, Simeon had complained about having left his mobile in his other trousers. Ben quickly spotted the folded-up pair draped over the back of a chair near the wardrobe. Sure enough, Simeon’s BlackBerry was in the right hip pocket. Turning it on, Ben found there were two messages in the voicemail inbox.

  The more recent of the two messages had finished recording only moments before, by whoever had just called. Ben listened, and recognised the American accent of the man he’d spoken to minutes earlier. He sounded even more anxious and agitated.

  ‘Simeon? Wes. What’s going on? I just called your home and some guy answered saying you’re not there. I need to know you’re okay. Listen, these people tried again a few hours ago. It was just luck I got away. They want the sword real bad, whoever they are. Soon as I get to Martha’s and make sure it’s safe there, I’ll call you back. Take care, buddy – and I mean take care.’

  Ben tried calling back on the BlackBerry, but got no reply. He replayed the message twice, then saved it. It seemed certain to him that the sword the American had mentioned was the same one Simeon’s book was about. The ‘sacred sword’ wasn’t just a research topic, then, but a real, actual item that was still obviously in the possession of this Wes.

  Was it a historic relic of some kind? A ceremonial artefact? What special significance did it have that was making it the target of such dangerous people?

  ‘It’s huge,’ Simeon had said to Ben in the car. ‘It’s terrifyingly huge.’

  Just one thing was clear. Whatever the sword was, Simeon and his colleagues had somehow managed to get in way out of their depth.

  Ben moved on to the next message in the BlackBerry’s inbox. It was one that Simeon had listened to and saved, recorded late on the evening of December 2nd. Ben frowned to himself when he heard who it was from.

  ‘Simeon – it’s me, Fabrice. The thing I told you about; I am sure it is happening again. Just now, tonight. I think someone is after me. Please call me as soon as you can.’

  Ben sat on the edge of the bed and held Simeon’s phone tightly in his fist.

  What he’d just heard was not the last message of a guilt-tormented man about to throw himself off a bridge.

  Chapter Seventeen

  After calling Simeon’s mobile and leaving his message, Wesley Holland left the public phone booth and carried his case to the nearby diner, shivering in the late-night cold.

  Wesley had been truly sorry to part company with Maynard, the gap-toothed truck driver from Vermont who’d saved his skin by showing up miraculously outside the motel several hundred miles back. Maynard had a drop-off to make further up the road, after which his route would take him northwards into New Hampshire and way off course for Wesley. The little roadside diner had seemed a good enough place to get off. So here he was, stuck in the middle of the night on the edge of some backwater town whose name he didn’t know, without transport and still an awfully long way from his destination.

  Walking into the warmth and the smell of food and coffee, Wesley found the diner almost deserted. A wolfish-looking guy in a denim jacket and a dirty red-and-white baseball cap was slumped half asleep in one corner near the door. A desultory waitress was clattering cutlery behind the counter. A TV blared from a bracket on the wall. Despite the alluring aroma of frying bacon that hung in the air, Wesley couldn’t face the thought of eating. He sat in a booth by the window and pushed the case under the table by his feet. Rubbing a hole in the condensation on the glass, he peered nervously out into the darkness. The lights of a car skimmed by on the highway. He watched it, half expecting it to veer into the diner parking lot and skid to a halt, the man in the tan leather coat and his associates spilling out of it with their guns blazing.

  But the car kept going. Wesley let out a long breath.

  During the hours in Maynard’s truck, he’d racked his brains trying to figure out how the hell his pursuers had managed to find him at the motel, and after much deliberation he’d arrived at the only possible conclusion.

  He’d used his AmEx card to pay for the room. A connection had been made. Someone had had access to that information and used it to pinpoint his location instantly. The man in the brown coat and his gang must have been on standby, just waiting for their orders to come and get him.

  The thought troubled Wesley immensely, becaus
e it meant that these people weren’t just anybody. Who had the power and reach to track a person via their credit card payments? He’d always believed only government agencies could do that – FBI, CIA, those kinds of folks. Just who in God’s name was after him? Once again, he wondered whether this sword was really worth all this. But it was too late regretting it now. He just had to keep moving and pray they didn’t catch up with him again.

  Pretending to read the laminated menu card on the table in front of him, Wesley cast a paranoid glance at the solitary guy in the corner booth near the door. He didn’t look like an agent, dressed like that. But then, he wouldn’t. Wesley kept watching him. The guy yawned, took a slug of coffee, then took off his baseball cap and scratched at his greasy hair. He laid the cap down on the table and lowered his head onto his arms, appearing to go to sleep.

  Wesley decided he might not be an undercover agent after all.

  After a few more minutes of clattering plates, the waitress eventually threaded her way through the empty tables to take Wesley’s order, throwing a disapproving look at the sleeping man in the corner. ‘What can I do for you, honey?’ she said with a tired smile as she took out a pad.

  ‘Just coffee,’ Wesley said. ‘Oh, miss,’ he added as she was about to turn away. ‘Would you mind telling me where I am?’

  The waitress balked momentarily at the odd question, then told him a name he’d never even heard of before. From her smile, he guessed not too many of the customers called her ‘miss’. ‘You know where I could get a ride out of here?’ he said.

  ‘Where you heading, honey?’ she asked him.

  ‘East, towards Boston.’

  ‘Buses come by here every few hours,’ she said, motioning at the dark window. ‘Station’s over that way. Guess you might try there. Say—’ She narrowed her eyes and peered at Wesley curiously. ‘You sure you haven’t been in here before?’

  ‘I don’t think so,’ he said blankly. ‘I’m not from around here.’