by D C Macey
Collette opened the door just a fraction and discreetly squirted a little tube of superglue against the door latch, then twisted the nozzle and allowed more glue to smear across the strike plate fixed on the doorframe. Leaving the vanity curtain closed, she stepped into the corridor and closed the door behind her.
Grace was standing closer to the young guard now, filling the space in the middle of the corridor. She stepped back to let the nurse pass, glancing at her again as she noticed both the guards were unable to resist giving the woman appreciative looks. She felt a twinge of irritation that the young guard could be swayed so easily, but that feeling passed as she acknowledged within herself that, even without makeup, the nurse was a quite stunning beauty - tall, shapely, long dark hair, full lips and dark eyes, a complete driving hazard.
‘Grazie,’ said the nurse with a little smile, acknowledging Grace had made space for her to pass. Then she was beyond them, then passing Sam who was still discussing Xavier’s condition at the nurses’ station.
Grace shook her head in faux exasperation as she watched the guards swivel their heads to trace the nurse’s passage. Then she stopped as a sudden panic gripped her and she rushed to the nurses’ station.
‘Sam, Sam,’ she hissed, gripping his arm and pulling him round to face her.
‘What’s up?’ said Sam with an enquiring smile.
‘It’s her, the nurse. It’s her, from the photo you showed me, the one from the CCTV at New College.’
Sam glanced over his shoulder to look at the form of the retreating nurse. ‘Are you sure? It seems unlikely.’
‘I know it’s her, now I see her in the flesh, there’s no mistake. She’s the one for sure. Sam, come on, she’s just come out of Xavier’s room.’
Grace looked into Sam’s eyes and could see he recognised the implications. He stepped away from Grace and into the middle of the corridor, waved to the guards and shouted a warning while pointing towards the nurse as she continued to move steadily away down the corridor.
Hearing the commotion behind her the nurse sped up without looking back. The two guards were suddenly up and running, shouting to their colleague at the far end of the corridor. Instantly the wiry little man converted from slouch to sprint athlete. He ran towards the nurse, she was caught in a pincer movement.
‘Come on,’ said Sam as he headed for Xavier’s room. ‘They can deal with her. We’re needed over here.’ He ran towards Xavier’s room.
For a moment, Grace stood transfixed. She could see that the guard from the far end of the corridor was going to catch the nurse before she reached the stairwell. Saw the nurse fumble in her pocket, saw the blur of something black rising in her hand. Saw the flash, heard the crack of a pistol and gasped as the wiry guard dropped to the floor. Nurses and doctors scattered amidst a round of shrieks and screams.
Unable to pull her attention away from the clash, Grace saw the guard’s momentum carry him along the marble floor towards the nurse. She saw him roll sideways while producing his own pistol. As he raised it, the nurse fired again. The guard flinched, slumped slightly; a sheet of blood suddenly covered half his head.
‘Grace! Come on I need you,’ shouted Sam as he approached Xavier’s room.
The guard was clearly a hard man. A grazed head was not going to put him out of action. Grace could see the pain on his face as he fired once. The nurse recoiled as the round bit into her right shoulder. Right arm useless, her pistol fell to the ground; as she reached the stairwell and headed into the stair the guard fired again. With a cry, she fell, prone - only her long legs visible, jutting out into the corridor, her torso hidden from view in the stair.
Grace watched the wounded guard stand, saw him step across to the stairway. He wiped blood from his eyes and raised his pistol, aimed into the stairway, fired twice. Grace flinched, she didn’t see the bullets hit but knew the nurse was dead. She bit her tongue hard to avoid adding her screams to those that already filled the corridor.
Suddenly, the corridor was silent. Frightened staff realised what they had witnessed. The dress and demeanour of the countryman who had just fired the killing shots registered in twenty minds at once. All the staff looked away, everyone determined not to see the man; determined not to be able to recognise him. No one wanted to be drawn into a feud that might bring a similar hell down on them and theirs.
The wounded guard stepped back and stooped to pick up his broad cap that had fallen in the rush. He theatrically dusted it against his leg and placed it on his head, which was still running with blood. Then he stepped across to the lift beside the stairwell and pressed the call button. Grace saw his nod towards the other two guards who had not had the chance to participate. Then he was gone, carried down and away by the lift.
Grace was called back to the present by Sam’s urgent call.
‘Over here! The door’s locked or jammed - we have to get in!’ Sam rattled the door, pressing his shoulder against it. Nothing moved it. He stepped back and kicked hard on the door. ‘Come on, more muscle needed here,’ he called, kicking again.
The two guards rushed past Grace and threw their weight against the door, bursting it open. They stepped back and allowed Sam in.
As the guards retreated away towards the lift, the young man paused beside Grace. ‘We have to go. Remember, you do not know us.’
Grace nodded and he was gone.
‘Grace, I need you!’
She hurried into Xavier’s room just as Sam reached the bed. She heard unintelligible mutterings, saw Xavier’s eyes rolling hard towards his hand and up towards the drip, back and forth, back and forth.
‘What did she do to you?’ said Sam. Looking quickly for wounds and finding none.
‘He’s trying to tell you something,’ said Grace.
‘Yes, but what?’
‘Has he been drugged?’
‘Hard to tell, he was drugged already.’ Sam looked closely at Xavier who continued to roll his eyes back and forth.
‘What is it?’ Sam was desperate, knew something was amiss and couldn’t work out what. Then, in a moment of clarity, Xavier’s eye signals made sense - the eyes repeatedly glancing from drip bag to wrist and back.
Instantly, Sam leant across the bed and gripped the plastic tube linking the drip to the cannula fixed in Xavier’s hand. Sam kinked the tube, stopping the flow from the drip. He saw Xavier nod and relax, knew he had guessed right, but had he done it in time?
At that moment, nurses and doctors appeared in the doorway. Sam released a stream of urgent Italian explanation that triggered an instant response. The tube was disconnected. Hands guided Grace out of the room; the drip bag was whisked away for analysis. Xavier was surrounded by caring souls who knew him or of him. He was a respected priest and was in good hands.
Sam joined Grace in the corridor as Francis and Elaine appeared hurrying from the direction of the ICU, their worried faces anxious to understand what was happening.
Grace felt Sam’s arm slide round her shoulder. ‘Come on, Grace. You take the others, go down to the cafeteria, sit quiet there until I join you. Be strong, I’m sure Xavier’s going to be fine. He’s in good hands.’ She pressed in closer to him as they walked.
‘It’s never ending, Sam. What’s going to happen?’
‘Don’t worry right now. It will end. We’re going to end it. I’m going to wait here and speak with the police. They will want to speak with you too. When they do, just say you saw nothing, okay. That’s what everyone else in this corridor will say. I’ll be with you, don’t worry. In the meantime, you get Elaine and Francis up to speed. Can you do all that?’ Sam waited for a nodded response then Grace found herself being propelled into her mother’s arms as Sam hurried back to Xavier’s room.
CHAPTER 22 - FRIDAY 30th AUGUST
With one hand, Helen held the mobile phone against her ear, with the other she opened the manse’s front door and beckoned Sam inside. She could hear the rumble of a black cab’s diesel engine receding into the distance and broke o
ff from the call for just a moment to kiss Sam’s cheek. ‘It’s Grace on the phone,’ she said, ‘she’s sending you her love.’
Sam returned the kiss to Helen. ‘And mine back to her,’ he said moving into the hallway.
Helen closed the front door and ended the phone call as she followed Sam towards the kitchen.
‘She says everything is as you left it, better in fact. Xavier’s going to make it. You stopped the drip before much of the drug had got into his system. It was some sort of sedative or anaesthetic. Word is, if it had all got into him there would have been no way back. Thank God, you were there. Tomorrow the doctors are planning to bring Angelo out of his induced coma. That’s great news too.’
‘Brilliant news, let’s hope for the best.’
‘Sam, let’s pray for the best.’
‘Yes, okay. But, you know, it was Grace who spotted the woman. It was down to her we were able to react so quickly. Though it was all pretty horrific for her.’
‘Yes, so it seems. She’s bearing up well, isn’t she?’
‘Hmmm, I think she’s done really well. When I left the hotel for the airport, she seemed to have taken charge, though a couple more of Xavier’s parishioners had turned up there and were keeping an eye on things.’ He held the kitchen door open for Helen, letting her go ahead of him and kissed her again as she passed. ‘I don’t know what Xavier’s set up is over there, but it all seems a bit cloak and dagger, like he’s the friend of the local godfather.’
Helen gave a laugh as she filled the kettle. ‘Perhaps he is the godfather! Coffee?’
‘Yes please, just what I need. I’m exhausted; I didn’t get a moment’s sleep during the journey back. You’re joking about Xavier, but I’m wondering, maybe he is the big man there. There must have been a score of doctors and nurses in that corridor and not one of them saw a thing. Still, I’m not complaining. It seems to have worked in our favour in the end.’
‘I know, Grace was just telling me. She said the police have posted proper guards over Xavier and Angelo. They’ll be safe now.’
‘That’s good, though Xavier’s boys pretty well eliminated the threat. They literally don’t take any prisoners. That’s a message that should hit the mark. Xavier will be safe now.’
‘Thank God. Oh, you’ll never guess - it seems Grace is quite the celebrity. After you left for the airport Xavier’s new deacon arrived at their hotel. There may have been no witnesses in the corridor but everyone who needs to know knows. Now Xavier is out of danger they are laying on a party for Grace and Elaine on Saturday. They plan to stay on over the weekend, make sure Xavier and Angelo have surfaced properly; should be back in Edinburgh on Tuesday, provided nobody takes a turn for the worse at the hospital.’
Helen placed mugs of coffee on the table and sat herself on Sam’s knee. They hugged in silence. She felt the pressure of his hand rubbing gently across her back and turned her face to press her lips against his neck.
• • •
Cassiter and Parsol sat regarding one another. The death of operatives was an industrial hazard, though Cassiter invested so much in developing each of his people that such losses were always a heavy cost - even on those occasions when he chose to sacrifice one, which he had not in this case. The news and the manner of Collette’s death had been unexpected. Once again, those Latin priests had surprised them and that was not good.
Cassiter let his eye drop to the array of daggers on the table. No matter, they had the Sardinian dagger. The execution of the priests was to have been a punishment for compromising the previous operation in Edinburgh. They could die another day. The real question was what had Helen Johnson been doing in Switzerland? For the time being his activity in Edinburgh was constrained by that damned policeman Wallace, but he would be retired soon. Then restrictions would start to ease. In the meantime, he had his people monitoring, searching from afar, for whatever information they could find.
• • •
Sam had spent an hour sitting at the manse’s kitchen table while looking at the photographs Helen had brought back from Switzerland. Professional interest made each picture a magnet for his thoughts and he really wanted to see all the artefacts up close, to touch and turn, consider and conclude. For now, he had to make do with the pictures.
In general, he agreed with Helen: only the gold framed glass seemed to have any direct linkage to their current predicament. Its little ruby did seem a perfect match for the one in Helen’s ring. The tiny Templar cross emblem on the gold framed glass was identical to the ones engraved on the dagger blades too. Looking again at the picture, he let his finger trace the strand of gold, following its winding route across the glass face.
‘These photos are useful but I really need to see the original artefact. Talk me through the pictures again.’
Helen leant across and, as Sam listened attentively, she carefully pointed out each facet of the gold framed glass as she described what she had seen. Then sat quietly, allowing Sam to weigh up her description.
‘What about the edges of the frame, these little crenulations? Are they really the base? Feet for it to stand on or might they point up instead? So leaving the glass to rest on the surface,’ said Sam.
‘Well, it stood pretty well perfectly on the crenulations, just like little feet. So I think the crenulations are just that - feet. And look,’ she pointed to another photo that showed the other side of the frame. At the edge of the picture, she tapped the blue. ‘See the strips of lapis lazuli? They’re set into the gold frame so they’re only visible when the frame is placed with the crenulations down. What would be the use in setting beautiful blue stone into the gold frame and then hiding it?’
‘Point taken. So we agree; it’s the blue decoration facing up, crenulations down. But what’s its purpose?’ He looked up to make eye contact with Helen. ‘Just as confusing as your daggers I’m afraid. Why couldn’t those Templars ever do anything without a puzzle?’
‘I don’t know, Sam. I guess it was important to them; and don’t forget those Templars end up with me and now I’ve co-opted you. So they’re our Templars and it’s our puzzle now.’
‘Yes, and solve it we will. Before those rampaging madmen can do any more damage. The problem is nothing seems to make sense. None of the daggers fit together, though we believe they should merge to form some sort of map or message if combined correctly, and we don’t have all the daggers. So I have no idea what the message is.’
Helen nodded sympathetically. ‘I thought we had a breakthrough with the glass pictures in the church. There’s no doubt you’ve linked the names of the churches we know hold daggers with the saints in the pictures. Logically we should be able to narrow down the number of churches we need to consider, focusing just on those churches that share names with our unallocated saints. But even then, there could be thousands of churches dedicated to Mary Magdalene alone. Never mind any other churches and chapels dedicated to her that may have grown up and then vanished into dust during the past seven hundred years. The places we are looking for might not even exist anymore.’
‘Yes Mary Magdalene is a real problem; I haven’t even begun to come up with a solution to tracing that church. But at least St Athanasius may not be quite so hard. I’ve had Davy working on that problem for the past few days. He wouldn’t let things drop so I thought I might as well make use of his skills - already had a phone call from him this morning.’
‘So what’s he found?’
‘Well, thankfully St Athanasius is not quite as popular as Mary but nonetheless, he’s still big in the Eastern Church. Davy’s last count was several hundred possible churches scattered here and there, from Christian communities in Egypt right round the Med to Greece, up around the Black Sea and on into central Europe. Even some dotted about the UK. He’ll be able to narrow the list down further still by applying various criteria; things like the age of the church and does its location feature on the Mappa Mundi. So, not so many churches to consider but scattered wide, with accessibility and
language barriers just the first of the obstacles to overcome.’
‘If only we could find a way to narrow the search down more.’
‘There will be a way. I don’t know how yet, but we will find it, just needs a bit more thought. The real problem is we have no scope for error. One church should represent a trusted task holder, if it survived. But the other is where we think the trouble is coming from. We will have to be careful not to approach the wrong one or we will walk into the lion’s den.’
‘How do you propose to avoid that?’
‘I don’t know yet. We need to do the narrowing down first. Without a breakthrough on that front, we’ve got a long way to go before we have to worry about where the bad guys are based. To be able to find the churches that hold the last two daggers we need something more, something tangible. Something we haven’t got yet.’
‘Okay, you’re the brains trust; I’ll have to leave it with you, no point in me breaking your train of thought just now. I think I’ll go down to the tunnel and bring up the base of the cross. Just before you all set off for Sardinia, Grace said something odd had happened to it. I’m not sure what she meant but I’d better look.’
Sam nodded absently as his mind returned to the puzzle at hand and he was only vaguely aware of Helen leaving the kitchen.
• • •
An almost inaudible click signalled the opening of the doorway into the tunnel beneath the manse. Helen stepped into the tunnel. She glanced about and spotted where Grace had placed the communion set box for safekeeping.
She stooped and picked out the broken base. Looking at its familiar shape, she took a moment to reflect how for so long she and so many others had failed to see it for what it really was.
Helen tried to remember exactly what Grace had said was wrong; she had been a bit vague. With both hands, she held the base out at arm’s length and looked carefully. It seemed exactly as she had last seen it. Rotating the base through 360 degrees, she saw nothing that marked out any obvious change and wished she could recall what Grace had actually said.
