by Peter James
‘So long as you – the Catholic Church – owned the news and delivered it?’
‘No, Mr Hunter, this is not at all what I’m saying.’
‘So why are you offering my wife and me vast amounts of money?’
A couple of hundred yards ahead, Ross saw the police car had pulled alongside a large Mercedes limousine, with diplomatic plates, parked outside his house. A female officer stood on the pavement, talking to the driver.
‘Your car?’ Ross asked him.
‘Yes.’
As Ross approached the officer, he said, ‘Good evening, I’m Ross Hunter.’
‘Is everything OK?’ she asked.
‘Actually no,’ he said. He nodded at the Italian. ‘I’m being harassed.’
‘Is this your car, sir?’ she said to Silvestri.
‘It is, yes.’
‘You’ve heard what the gentleman said.’ She gave him a polite but firm stare.
The Italian opened the rear door of the car and climbed in. Looking at Ross, he said, in the same polite and charming tone of voice, ‘Mr Hunter, you have my card. I believe we should continue with our discussion.’
As the car glided away, Ross turned to the officer. ‘Thank you.’
‘We’re on shift until 11.30 p.m. tonight,’ she said. ‘If you have any concerns please dial 999 right away. I’ll make sure the next shift is briefed, too.’
Ross thanked her then went into the house. He unclipped Monty, who shot off into the kitchen and out through the dog flap, with a loud clatter. He looked up at the scrawl on the walls, with its spelling error.
ROSS HUNTER, FRIEND OF THE ANTICHRIST
IMOGEN HUNTER, EXPECTENT MOTHER OF THE ANTICHRIST
He went through into the kitchen, made himself an espresso then called Imogen and sat down at the table.
She answered almost immediately. ‘Hi, you OK?’
‘Not really. Tell me something. That Italian creep who came to see you yesterday, Giuseppe Silvestri?’
‘He wasn’t a creep, I thought he was very charming.’
‘Yep, sure. I could have scraped enough oil off his face and hair to fry an egg. What did you tell him? About our financial position? About the house being vandalized?’
‘I didn’t, Ross, honestly. He just seemed to know about – about our finances – that they’re not great. Did you say he mentioned the house being vandalized?’
‘Yes.’
‘Ross, I couldn’t have said anything about that, I didn’t know then – how could I? I hadn’t been home.’
Was the house bugged? Ross wondered suddenly. For the next half an hour he searched high and low, but found nothing. He went back into the kitchen.
92
Wednesday, 15 March
For some while, he sat very still, shaken. As the implications dawned on him, he called Imogen.
‘Maybe the police told him – perhaps he has some contact with them and they told him?’ she ventured.
Ross did not reply. He was thinking. Had Silvestri been responsible? Part of his intimidation tactics?
‘Look, Ross, why don’t you come over here, it can’t be nice sitting with all that horrible writing all over the walls? There’s that great pub, the Cat, if we’re quick we could have supper there.’
‘I’ve got stuff I have to do,’ he said, aware he was sounding distant.
Because he was feeling distant.
‘Ben’s away on business, you could use his office.’
‘I’ve got so much to do here, including the painters coming to give me a quote.’
‘Will the insurance cover everything?’
‘I don’t know, I hope so.’
‘You haven’t spoken to them yet?’
‘No,’ he said, her voice irritating him. ‘I’ll do it tomorrow. And I’ve told you, I’ve got the electrician coming to get the CCTV sorted.’
He ended the call.
Silvestri.
People have been inside your house and written bad things.
Silvestri’s people?
He sipped his coffee, pulled a fish pie out of the freezer, read the instructions and put it in the microwave. Then he noticed the light winking on their landline answering machine. One new message. He played it.
‘Hello, it’s Detective Constable Harris from Brighton CID. I’m calling to follow up on the reported vandalism incident at your home. If Mr Hunter could call me back to make an appointment or speak to one of my colleagues if I’m not here and give them the following reference.’
Ross wrote down the phone number and the reference number, then went up to his den.
There was an email from Jolene at ATGC.
Hi Mr Hunter, we have a result for you from the ESDA on your document. Will be here all tomorrow from early.
He thought for some moments and had an idea. He emailed her back asking if she could courier the result and the manuscript sheet to his lawyer in Brighton.
Then his eye was caught by the folded copy of the page he had torn from The Times.
PASTOR WARNS BEWARE
THE GREAT IMPOSTER
He typed the link for Wesley Wenceslas’s YouTube channel into Google and waited.
A white Boeing aircraft appeared, decorated with a logo showing a winged fish entwined round a cross. Superimposed were the words:
PRAY FOR AN AIR MILE. HELP OUR PASTOR WESLEY WENCESLAS COMMUNE WITH GOD FOR YOU – AND TO SPREAD THE GOSPEL WIDER AROUND THE WORLD. ALL MAJOR CREDIT CARDS ACCEPTED.
Then the pastor himself appeared. Along with the wording, superimposed:
PRAY FOR PASTOR WESLEY WENCESLAS. HELP HIM PRAY FOR YOU!
The plane disappeared and was replaced by sharp-suited, dog-collared Pastor Wesley Wenceslas, microphone in hand, strutting around in front of a huge congregation. Behind him was a twenty-foot-tall illuminated cross, an orchestra and a dazzling lighting display.
He was speaking quietly, sincerely. His flock was silent, enraptured. The camera singled out faces. All of them nodding, as if the pastor was speaking to each and every one of them individually.
‘How important is your soul to you? Do you ever think about that?’
He paused to let that sink in, then went on. ‘I want to talk to you tonight about the man who came here to save you. His name is Jesus. Jesus Christ, who was crucified, dead and buried. And on that third day he rose again. He rose, ready to come back to save you. And He is coming back, will He save you? Where do you think He will come back to? One of the great Christian cities? Or to a place that needs saving first? You are all here because you believe in Jesus.’
There was a chorus of cries from the room, ‘Hallelujah!’
He nodded, a humble, pious expression on his face. ‘Read the Book of the Lord, Matthew 24. He tells us what to expect before the Lord gets back.’ He lowered his voice, staring at his congregation, imploringly. ‘He said we must expect trouble. Great tribulation. Jesus is honest, He has told us the truth about the future, He hasn’t hidden things.’
Then Wenceslas clasped his hands together and raised his head. ‘Thank you, Jesus, for being honest.’
He paused as there were more cries of ‘Hallelujah!’
He smiled and took a few steps across the stage, closer to his worshippers. ‘Look, I’ll level with you. We are all facing big trouble until Jesus comes back. There is nothing without suffering, no crown without the cross. There is trouble coming. Matthew 24 gave us a clear picture, when the disciples asked what the signs of His Coming would be. He gave four clear signs – and a warning about deception. Remember the first? Sign one: you will see disasters in the world. Earthquakes, wars, famines.’ He paused again and once more expanded his arms, speaking gently. ‘Don’t be troubled, these are not death pains, they are birth pains! When non-Christians say they do not know what the world is coming to, Christians say, as one, We do!’
Ross watched, feeling angry at the way the man was manipulating his audience, and waiting for the next cash call to come.
‘There w
ill be false messiahs who claim to be the Saviour. Daniel wrote about the abomination of desolation. In it is a man who thinks he is God, who rises. He is lawless, promises peace and security. But he is the Beast. A very dangerous figure. A political dictator. Fortunately, his reign will be brief.’
He paused again, to increasing cries of ‘Hallelujah!’
‘You will read in Revelation of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse. The first is white, symbolizing military aggression. The second is red, for bloodshed. The third is black, for famine. The fourth is pale, for pestilence. Instead of Father, Son and Holy Spirit you will be offered Satan, Antichrist and False Prophet. I am telling you, it has all been foretold in the Bible. Every single prophecy in the Bible so far has come true. But as true Christians, you can be saved!’
He turned back to the altar, knelt and raised his hands in suppliant prayer. Then he stood and addressed the crowd.
‘One day soon you will look into the sky and you will find the sun, the moon and the stars switched off. Daytime will be like the middle of the night. God is going to switch the house lights down. But then! There will be a sudden blinding light. Curtain up. You will see Jesus and a blaze of angels!’
Hundreds of people cried out together, ‘Hallelujah!’
He ran off the stage as if drawn by an invisible force. On the wide screen appeared the words:
DONATE NOW TO BE SAVED. CASH BUCKETS ON THE WAY OUT. VISIT MY WEBSITE FOR MIRACLES PRICE LIST. ALL MAJOR CREDIT CARDS ACCEPTED.
Then the video of the Boeing 737 appeared again.
PRAY FOR A MILE!
Ross logged out, seething at the man. Didn’t they realize what a fraud he was? How stupid people could be. He had tried to expose Wenceslas previously, but it clearly hadn’t had much effect.
He looked back down at the Times article on Pastor Wesley Wenceslas. It just amazed him how people were taken in.
Then, he reflected, perhaps the same way he had been taken in by Cook?
He was startled by the ping of an incoming text, and picked up his phone. It was from Sally Hughes.
Hi Ross. How are you? XX
From the moment he and Imogen had started dating, he could honestly say he had never strayed, nor, as some of his friends had crudely put it, had he ever been window shopping. But there was something, he had to admit to himself, about this radio presenter that he was finding increasingly attractive. Apart from that, he was intrigued as to what she might be up to.
He typed a guarded reply.
I’m feeling a bit like that old Chinese curse. ‘May you live in interesting times.’ X
A few moments later she texted back.
Oh? Tell me more? XX
He replied:
Rather too much happening to put in a text. Meet for a coffee or drink sometime? X
She replied:
Have to come to Brighton 2morrow. Doing a piece on how many writers live in your city. If u have time?
Caffeine v alcohol? Alcohol wins every time in my book!
XX
He frowned. Hadn’t she told him she would be away skiing this week? Was there a more sinister reason for this visit? Something connected to Harry Cook and her uncle?
I like your style. Call me when you’re in town. X
93
Thursday, 16 March
It was still dark when Ainsley Bloor, in jogging kit, let himself out into the dry, mild, morning air. He did some stretches, switched on his head torch and started his route, pounding along the cinder path which he’d had laid down some years ago, and which meandered around the boundary of his estate.
Beating the bounds, he liked to call his morning run. Streaks of red and pink speared the sky. No fog or mist. Good, his helicopter would be able to take him to the office, landing on the roof of the KK building, which meant he’d get there at least forty minutes sooner than going by road.
As he ran through the deer park, he was thinking about Ross Hunter. How the hell to deal with him? How best were they going to get what they wanted from him? He ran around the great lake, then sprinted the final quarter of a mile, flat out. He finished, panting and perspiring, at the orangery, where lights stayed on throughout the night. An idea was forming in his mind.
He entered and walked along the six monkey cages, peering inside each. As he expected, the first five capuchins still had produced nothing, but it looked as though there were several pages of printout in the collection box of his star.
The monkey, perched high up, eyed Bloor suspiciously as he entered, walked over to the printer and opened the lid of the collection. ‘Have you been brilliant, Boris?’ he asked. ‘Let’s see how brilliant, eh?’
The monkey remained still as Bloor looked at the sheets.
Bloor remained still, too. Every page was covered in the repeated word, ‘the’ – the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the . . .
All eight pages.
‘Tut tut tut!’ he said. ‘Boris! I want better than this!’
As if in dismissive reply, the monkey leaped from his perch onto his trapeze and let out a screech.
Bloor folded the pages and carried them back towards the house, annoyed and very deeply disappointed. He went downstairs to his indoor pool, stripped off, pulled on his goggles and began his daily twenty-minute swim. As he did lap after lap in a fast crawl, his mind was all over the place. He put Ross Hunter temporarily aside and concentrated on Boris.
the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the . . .
Out of fear of ridicule, he’d kept this experiment totally quiet. Few of his work colleagues knew about it, and only one trusted member of his staff here at his home did – his head gardener. Every day the man cleaned out the cages and kept the monkeys’ food topped up. Bloor’s wife, Cilla, thought the experiment was bonkers.
Maybe she was right.
But she had never read Richard Dawkins, other than The God Delusion. It was The Blind Watchmaker which had been Bloor’s inspiration for this experiment. Dawkins had come the closest to anyone in showing how evolution took place over millions – billions – of years. How the human eye had developed, through evolution, from a single cell.
Philosopher Antony Flew, at one time the world’s most notorious atheist, was the last public figure to have taken a serious interest in the monkey and typewriter experiment – at least, that Bloor was aware of. That had ended in disastrous failure, and had contributed to Flew’s conversion to belief in Intelligent Design.
Now his own experiment, although only six months old, was at the moment heading for failure, too.
the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the . . .
Was it the reward system that he had got wrong, he contemplated? Was it simply chance, because the keys for the letters ‘t’, ‘h’ and ‘e’ were close together, and Boris liked the pattern? Or was something else going on in the monkey’s brain?
And how did he change the creature’s mindset? Bigger rewards for different words? But that wouldn’t count as random.
He parked it, because at this moment he had a bigger problem to worry about. And bigger rewards. The monkey experiment was his personal interest. Ross Hunter was his company’s future.
Bloor switched his focus to the board meeting in a few hours’ time. A big decision needed to be made.
94
Thursday, 16 March
Unable to sleep much, Ross got up shortly before 6.30 a.m. and took Monty out. With daylight breaking, he crossed the footbridge over the A27 dual carriageway, checked there were no sheep around, unclipped the dog and let him run free over the fields on the far side.
Then, hands in his tatty old Barbour’s pockets, he walked slowly, trying to take stock of everything. So many things to weigh up, but much depended on what result the ATGC laboratories had for him. He needed to see that and, afterwards, he’d make a decision.
Returning home, he watched the 8 a.m. Breakfast TV news headlines, showered and made breakfast for himself and
Monty. There was no text from Imogen, so he sent her one.
Hope you’re OK. X
He scanned through the papers whilst Monty gulped his food, his dog tag clattering against the side of his bowl.
As soon as he had finished his granola, Ross hurried upstairs. He called the number Detective Constable Harris had left yesterday, and arranged an appointment for 10.30 a.m. Next, he had a quick glance at Twitter. Nothing new. He still had the same number of followers as last time he’d looked: 7,865. He took a look at Instagram on his phone, realizing it had been over a month since he had posted anything there. The one Imogen had taken of him trying to read a Sunday paper with Monty’s head in the way was still there with his caption, Newshound? It had forty-seven likes.
The front doorbell rang. It was the electrician, come to replace the damaged CCTV cameras. Ross made him a mug of tea and himself a strong coffee, and went back upstairs.
An email from Jolene had just come in. A courier would be no problem, she said. Could he call her to arrange payment?
Concerned about the possibility of his landline and personal phone being bugged, he texted her using one of the burners, giving her the address of his solicitor and asking her to use the same credit card details she now had on file.
Next, he texted his solicitor, told him about the expected delivery and asked him to photocopy what came in, put the copy in the same vault as the manuscript and courier the original to him, urgently, at his home address.
Scanning his overnight emails, he binned a couple of obvious scam ones, then saw one from Natalie at the Sunday Times.
Hello Mr Stranger. Any chance of seeing that big story you said you’re working on sometime this century?
He got up and checked the street below. A builder’s van was parked opposite, with a flatbed behind it, from which they were unloading scaffold poles. There were no other unfamiliar vehicles that he could see. He sat back down.
