Sacred Sword (Ben Hope 7) Page 9

  The intruder went for his pistol.

  Ben went for the shotgun.

  The guy thought better of it. He abandoned the bag and ran for the front door. Wrenched it open and burst out into the night.

  Scruffy was barking dementedly from the other side of the wall. Ben struggled to his feet, dazed from the kick. He ran out of the open front door and saw the intruder heading around the side of the vicarage, making for the path that led through the back garden and down to the meadow.

  Seconds into the chase, Ben knew he was at a major disadvantage. The intruder wasn’t necessarily the faster runner, but he didn’t have to sprint barefoot over the hard, cold ground carrying a cumbersome duffel bag and a shotgun. Ben had only just made it to the edge of the meadow when he realised that his quarry had disappeared into the darkness. Moments later, he heard the roar of an engine from beyond the trees, and a car took off at high speed down the road.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Ben hobbled back to the vicarage on his cut and bruised bare soles. No lights had come on in the neighbouring houses dimly visible through the trees. The blast of a shotgun, muffled within thick stone walls, wasn’t much more than a dull ‘pop’ from a few hundred yards away, not enough to raise the alarm even in a sleepy little village like Little Denton.

  It was rather more than that from a few inches away, though. Ben knew he’d have to wait a day or two for the high-pitched whine in his right ear to subside and his full hearing to return. Back inside the vicarage, he strode back to the study. Now to revive his masked friend and get some truth out of him.

  But as he walked through the doorway into the room, he stopped dead and stared at the empty patch of floor where the fallen intruder had been lying unconscious just moments ago.

  The man was gone.

  Ben had hit him pretty hard. Evidently not hard enough, though.

  Turning on the lights in the corridor, Ben saw the thin trail of blood spots that led through the house. He followed them all the way to the back door. It was swinging open and bore faint marks from where the intruders had broken in earlier. A clean job, efficient and professional.

  And too conveniently timed for the burglary attempt to have been a coincidence. There was no doubt left in Ben’s mind now: the car crash had been no accident. Someone had wanted the Arundels out of the way, and it had something to do with the contents of Simeon’s safe.

  Ben looked closely at the shotgun. It was a Mossberg pump-action with a folding stock and a barrel not much more than a foot long, making it a seriously prohibited weapon in Britain and most other countries of the world. It still had four rounds in the magazine plus another five in a shell holder attached to the butt. The ammunition was solid slug, as he’d suspected. But that wasn’t what interested him most.

  While the majority of weapons of its kind in circulation among the criminal underworld tended to have been made for civilian use originally, before their crooked new owners adapted them for purpose by sawing the barrels, this one was different. The matt finish and MOD serial numbers and proof marks told him this one clearly had started life as a military weapon. Guns like this didn’t generally fall into just anyone’s hands, and combined with the way the man holding it had shown such skill in sneaking up on him, it confirmed his impression that he was dealing with a former soldier. And a good one, too. Not many guys could have upped and run from the blow Ben had dealt him.

  Ben wondered whether he should call the cops, then decided against it. They’d muddy the ground like a herd of cattle and ask too many questions. In any case, he was disinclined to hand them over the shotgun – knowing the British police, it would be treated as though it were a live nuclear warhead, and he as a terror suspect.

  No, it was better to keep this incident to himself and follow up whatever leads he could, on his own.

  Ben let the dog out of the annexe. Sniffing everywhere and growling to himself, Scruffy followed him as he carried the thieves’ duffel bag through to the kitchen. Ben laid the bag on the old oak kitchen table and pulled up a chair. The numbing sense of grief was losing its bite now, replaced by a mixture of burning rage and adrenaline that made his hands shake as he emptied the bag’s contents onto the table.

  There was nothing inside but the brown envelope and the small black Toshiba laptop that Ben had seen the thief take from Simeon’s safe. He laid the computer aside for the moment and picked up the envelope.

  It didn’t contain a lot. He found an air ticket to Jerusalem dating back to eighteen months earlier, a hotel bill printed in Hebrew and a collection of glossy photo prints that had presumably been taken while on the same trip to Israel. Most were typical tourist snaps: the Jerusalem skyline at night; the Wailing Wall; a variety of churches and mosques and synagogues; the desert, palm trees, a camel, some sandy ruins.

  Ben went through them one by one until he arrived at a group shot of Simeon posing with three other men against a backdrop of the same ancient ruins. They appeared to be on friendly terms, all smiling. Simeon’s arm was around the broad shoulders of the man on the left, who was obviously Israeli, burly and grizzled, around sixty. To the right of Simeon stood a smaller man, perhaps European, with white hair and trim beard, in good shape but quite old, closer to seventy than sixty. The man on the far right of the group was about fifteen years younger, with curly salt-and-pepper hair, a round jovial face and the belly of a bon viveur.

  Ben was unable to tell much from the photos, but he might have more luck with whatever was on the computer. He flipped open the laptop’s lid, turned the machine on and quickly discovered that it was virtually empty apart from a single Word document file titled TSS.

  Whatever it was, it must have been important enough to Simeon to warrant keeping it in a safe. Ben clicked to open the document, and a new window opened on the screen.

  The computer was asking for a passcode. Ben had just hit a brick wall.

  TSS. It didn’t look like an initial – more like an acronym for something. But what? Then, after a few more moments’ reflection, he remembered what Michaela had told him that morning, and it hit him.

  TSS. The Sacred Sword. The Word document was the unfinished manuscript of Simeon’s book. It could have told Ben a great deal – but he didn’t rate his chances of breaking Simeon’s security code. Knowing him, it would be some incredibly obscure Bible reference or an unguessable piece of Latin. It was a non-starter. Ben checked the document’s properties, but it was like trying to see into a locked room from outside. The only data he could access were the document’s size, half a megabyte or so, and the date and time it had last been saved: 15.04 on December 14th.

  Ben swore to himself and reluctantly closed the laptop down. Remembering the PC in the study, he decided to see if he might find anything out from Simeon’s email.

  There was no password to hurdle this time. Sitting at Simeon’s desk, Ben scrolled through hundreds of messages, mostly concerning everyday church matters. Some were from the TV production company, others from an outfit called Blackwood Entertainment Management who seemed to have been in the middle of negotiating an agency deal to represent Simeon in his newfound role as television celebrity.

  After flicking through a few more emails, Ben felt a pang of shame and began to sense that he was prying uselessly into Simeon’s affairs. He was on the verge of giving up when another of the messages caught his eye.

  It was from the man Michaela had talked about on their walk through the woods. Father Fabrice Lalique, the priest whose recent suicide had so upset Simeon. Ben opened the message. It was dated a couple of weeks earlier and read:

  My Dear Friends

  By the time you read this message, I will be dead. I ask you not to mourn for me, as I am unworthy of your grief.

  The shame of my sins is a burden I can no longer bear. May God have mercy on me for the terrible things I have done.

  Let his soul rot in hell for all I care, Ben thought. He clicked out of the emails and went online to run a Google search on the name Fabric
e Lalique. It didn’t take long to dig up a whole collection of French news reports about the priest’s suicide and the discovery, shortly after his death, of large amounts of obscene material on the personal computer at his home in Saint-Christophe, near Millau in the Midi-Pyrénées area of southern France.

  Revelations about paedophilia had a way of wiping out anything positive that might have been said of a man’s past life or career; not surprisingly, the news reports were full of disgust, even hatred. There were various quotes from members of his diocese, all of them expressing their shock at the appalling discovery and very little in the way of sympathy for the dead man. Some online commentators had dubbed Lalique the Paedo Priest. Ben came across forums and websites where the scandal had sparked a furious debate, with pressure groups demanding that governments step in immediately to end the secret culture of perversion and abuse within the Catholic Church or, better still, tear the whole rotten edifice down once and for all.

  Most of the online articles had published the same image of Lalique, pictured at some official event wearing his priest’s garb. Ben immediately recognised him as the jolly-faced, full-bellied man who’d been standing on the right of the group shot in Simeon’s photo. Other images online showed the scene under the Millau viaduct where officials had scooped up what little remained intact of Lalique’s body after the enormous fall from the bridge. As suicides went, it had been highly efficient.

  Ben shut down the PC, left the study and made his way through to the living room, trying to make sense of it all and knowing he was a long way from succeeding. As he looked around him for inspiration, one of the books in the antique bookcase suddenly caught his eye. He opened the glass door and slipped the old Bible off the shelf. It was a beautifully leather-bound edition, and one that he hadn’t seen since his first year at Oxford. Carefully turning the cover, he saw his own faded handwriting. ‘To my friend Simeon, from Benedict Hope.’

  Ben was touched that Simeon had kept the birthday gift all these years, and saddened. He flicked through the pages of the book he’d once known virtually by heart. He still remembered great chunks of it, though a lot had faded from his memory. Maybe I should read it again, he thought. Simeon wouldn’t have minded if he borrowed it.

  Ben set the Bible down on a table and was about to close the bookcase when he noticed the collection of videotapes and DVDs on the top shelf. Some were movies, some were documentaries, some were religion-themed programmes taped from TV, with handwritten labels stuck to their spines. The one that especially caught Ben’s eye was a home-recorded videotape labelled SIMEON VS THE ENEMY. He remembered Simeon’s words from the day before: ‘I have many enemies’. It had been hard to tell to what extent he’d been joking when he said it.

  The Arundels’ TV rested discreetly on a stand in the corner, with a DVD player and VCR nestling below it. Ben took the tape down from the bookcase and inserted it into the machine.

  Chapter Fourteen

  According to the date scrawled on the videotape’s label with a marker pen, Simeon had recorded the TV programme a little over a year ago. It was one of those highbrow panel discussion shows that tended to be aired late at night, called The Monday Debate. The presenter was some tweedy type whose face looked vaguely familiar to Ben from one of the rare past occasions when he’d ever turned on a TV. Since moving to France he’d never bothered with it at all.

  ‘Tonight on The Monday Debate,’ the presenter announced, ‘we ask the question that is becoming more topical every year: Is religion harmful, and would we be better off without it?’

  Poised behind twin lecture rostrums like two rivals in a political standoff were Simeon, on the right, wearing his white dog collar but otherwise casually attired, and a man on the left whom Ben had never seen before. He was somewhat older than Simeon, somewhere in his mid-to-late forties, with thick swept-back hair that could have been dyed to hide the grey. He was less casually turned out than his opponent, wearing an expensive-looking and immaculately pressed light grey suit, and gave the impression of a man who took himself extremely seriously. His eyes were darting and intense. The presenter introduced him as Penrose Lucas, Professor of Sociology and Anthropology at Durham and author of the recent Sunday Times number one bestseller God? What God?

  Clear enough what side he was on, then, Ben thought. He’d never heard of this Lucas guy. From the brief resumé the presenter gave of the man, it seemed that the sudden runaway success of God? What God? had propelled him out of academic obscurity and into the realms of minor celebrity, as something of a figurehead for the growing pro-atheist lobby.

  As the debate opened, Penrose Lucas went straight in like a greyhound leaving the gate. Pointedly refusing to refer to his opponent as the Reverend Arundel and insisting on Mr, he began a rapid-fire tirade about the centuries of slaughter and persecution and senseless warfare carried out in the name of religion.

  It was hardly a new argument, but it was one that many Christians found difficult to refute, and Professor Lucas clearly intended to milk it to its full crushing advantage. He was eloquent and passionate, his case compelling. Religious belief was the most devastating of all the follies ever dreamed up by humanity. Without its destructive influence, mankind would be able to co-exist in a blissful state of utter peace. A new age would emerge in the wake of its long-awaited banishment to the dustbin of history, like young green shoots growing up in abundance on a fire-blighted landscape. An age of reason. An age of secularism. An age of scientific enlightenment.

  Having rapidly reduced two millennia of Christian tradition to rubble and its followers to gullible imbeciles, Penrose generously ceded the floor to Simeon. Ben watched his friend on the screen as the cameras zoomed in, and felt his throat tighten with sadness.

  ‘The dogma of Christianity gets worn away before the advances of science,’ was Simeon’s opening line. The presenter seemed taken aback by his statement, and Penrose Lucas’ eyebrows shot up in delight, as if even he hadn’t expected to win the debate so quickly. ‘Yes! Exactly!’ he interrupted, nodding, eyes gleaming. ‘Then Mr Arundel concedes the point that—’

  ‘I wasn’t conceding anything,’ Simeon said calmly. ‘I was quoting from a well-known figure from history. One who knew something about war, I might add. I’m sure my learned friend, with his deep knowledge of history among his many other accomplishments, must be aware of who spoke these words that he so enthusiastically seems to embrace?’

  Seemingly, Penrose Lucas wasn’t aware of anything, except that he’d possibly just walked into a horrible trap. He flushed scarlet under the studio lights.

  ‘That quote comes from Adolf Hitler,’ Simeon said. ‘An ardent atheist who, if Nazi Germany had won World War II, planned to eradicate Christianity within his empire just as he planned to eradicate the Jews. But I’m sure my learned friend wouldn’t try to argue that the war was fought over matters of faith?’

  Lucas wisely chose not to expand on the point. Having got his opponent on the ropes, Simeon didn’t let go and began plucking more examples at random from history: Vietnam, a conflict fought over ideologies far removed from religion; the American Civil War, ostensibly fought over the issue of slavery, not faith. And on, and on, though Simeon was being careful not to lose his audience in a welter of information. Each new point seemed to hammer Penrose Lucas down a little further behind his rostrum and turn his face a little redder. Just a few minutes into the debate, and his studied composure was already coming apart at the seams.

  ‘In fact,’ Simeon challenged him with a winning grin, ‘can the Professor name a single major conflict of the last three centuries that was even remotely connected with Christian ideology?’

  ‘It doesn’t matter,’ Penrose yelled. ‘Anyone who believes in the very notion of a god is suffering from a serious mental delusion. These people need treatment.’

  ‘Speaking as a qualified psychiatrist as well?’ Simeon asked, still smiling. ‘With all due respect, I hope your knowledge in that field is better than your understandi
ng of history.’

  The debate turned away from the issue of warfare and raged on, though all the raging was done on Penrose Lucas’ side and Simeon preserved his cool impeccably. Ben watched another few minutes, smiling to himself at the way Simeon was able to run rings around his opponent.

  By the time he stopped the video playback, the rolling script at the bottom of the screen was already giving the results of the TV phone-in. The vote was running 76% in favour of Simeon.

  ‘If Professor Lucas’ book is as well-argued as his effort in this debate,’ said one of the scrolling quotes emailed and texted in from viewers, ‘I won’t be buying it’. Others said much the same thing.

  It was highly entertaining stuff, but Ben wasn’t in the mood for entertainment. He turned off the TV. Suddenly the room was quiet and still and dark. Simeon was gone again, for the second time that night.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Professor Penrose Lucas stepped out onto the balcony of the clifftop villa and gazed out from the rocky coast of Capri across the still, dark waters of the Gulf of Naples. His migraine was throbbing, and he was still quaking from the nightmare that had racked him for what seemed like hours before he’d eventually managed to tear himself away from it, sitting bolt upright in bed with a gasp, drenched in sweat.

  Even now, his father’s roar continued to reverberate in his ears.

  ‘Hell rip and roast you for a bastard, boy!’ Whack.

  Penrose shuddered. He could still smell the dreaded leather belt that the old man had kept coiled ready for use in a jar of vinegar, the filthy sick sadist. Penrose wouldn’t ever forget the sting of that belt on his skin. The lashing crack of the leather. The sound of his own screaming, still sharp in his memory after thirty years.

  ‘Remember me, boy. Those who are tainted shall drink the wine of the wrath of God, and they shall be tormented in the presence of the holy angels!’ Whack. Whack.