The Larmenius Inheritance

by John Paul Davis

  He cursed himself as he scaled the stairs. He had three choices and zero time.

  He looked at the bottom of the next set of stairs.

  The man in the brown jacket was descending onto the platform.

  Nicole descended the stairs, designated to platforms 2 and 3, Circle line west or the eastbound for both the Circle and District lines, doing her best not to move too fast or too slow. She avoided attention by mingling with the small crowd and continuously monitored the stairs behind her.

  The platform was sparsely crowded, but it was busy enough not to allow anything bad to happen.

  She had a new plan: stick where someone can see you. At least that way she would avoid being hurt.

  The next train on platform 3 was due in less than a minute. She looked at her watch and then over her shoulder. Suddenly she realised that she was desperate for a wee and that the feeling intensified as she waited. Never had she wanted a train to arrive so badly.

  The sound of brakes informed her that the train was arriving. The lights appeared, followed by the train. From the outside, the carriages appeared to be sparsely populated. The train stopped with the middle carriage in front of her, and she entered. Looking over her shoulder, she realised that the man she had just seen was nowhere in sight.

  She bit her lip and exhaled. Her lungs were blowing, and her heart racing. Tentatively she took a seat nearest the door and immediately got up again. The doors bleeped and closed with force. Seconds later the train started to move.

  The presence of the man in brown was disturbing. Instinct told her to trust no one, but there was something about the man she liked. His tone was straightforward, non-compromising. Either way, it was a risk.

  She made her way through the doors that connected the carriages. The next carriage was the penultimate one and deserted except for a few passengers travelling alone or in couples.

  The door to the final carriage opened, revealing a littered interior inhabited by two bearded males, both alone, both unappealing. On any other day she would have chosen a different place, but today she decided to stay.

  Still no sign of the man in brown.

  She took a seat at the back of the carriage, at least fifteen feet away from the nearest occupant. One of the men looked at her briefly and looked away again, his attention on a tattered copy of the Metro. The other man had his head to the window and was pleasingly minding his own business.

  She chose a seat away from the crowds, assuming the man in brown would soon join her. His absence left her nervous. She looked at the now deserted platform and then at the carriage through the glass in the door. She inhaled deeply. The man was nowhere in sight.

  The train was moving. Out of the side window, she looked at the platform to see if there was any sign of the man.

  Turning, she looked at the platform on the opposite side. The man in brown was standing by a pillar.

  She looked desperately, wondering what had happened to make him delay.

  Suddenly she recoiled.

  The man in brown slumped to the floor. The pillar behind him was stained with blood, and wounds oozed from the man’s skin.

  She looked on in horror. Even from a distance, she could see the man was not moving.

  Next thing, she saw him. The man in the black woolly hat appeared by the pillar.

  Her phone began to ring. She could see from her position that the man held a phone to his ear and that his eyes were fixed firmly on hers.

  She looked at her iPhone, now in her hand. Again the withheld number message flashed on the display.

  Slowly, she placed her finger on the green phone icon and then placed the phone to her ear. ‘Who are you?’

  A brief silence followed, disturbed by the sound of breathing.

  ‘It is never wise to concern yourself with things that do not concern you.’

  She continued to watch him. As the train continued, the man disappeared slowly from sight. Then completely.

  ‘What do you want from me?’

  ‘It would be wise not to ask any more questions,’ the man said seriously. ‘Do not return to your home. Your friend is dead.’

  Nicole left the train at Wimbledon Park and sprinted up the steps onto the nearby street. Her head was spinning, and her eyes filled with tears.

  She had left the train at South Kensington and immediately taken another District line train west. The train was deserted, but there was no sign of the man with the woolly hat.

  She sprinted in the direction of her apartment block and fumbled with her keys in front of the door. With shaking fingers, she dropped them. She started crying again and panicked as she picked them up. She entered and sprinted up the stairs, passing nobody. Outside her flat, she shuffled for the correct key and entered.

  The lights were off. Strange, considering the time. Surely Amanda should be home by now.

  ‘Amanda?’ she said once, then slightly louder. She turned on lights as she continued, aware that the house might not be deserted.

  ‘Amanda?’

  Her shout was loud, she assumed loud enough to be heard elsewhere. She continued into the lounge and saw nothing. Everything was as it should be.

  She tried the bathroom, then her room. Both were as she’d left them. Finally she tried Amanda’s room.

  She closed her eyes and switched on the light simultaneously. She feared what she would see. She feared the idea of fear.

  The contents were as they should be. Her clothes folded over the chair, the alarm clock in the corner of the room displayed the correct time. The house appeared as though her friend had gone out for the evening, due to return before long. All of her clothes were as they usually were, her handbag missing.

  She grimaced. Without further ado, she left the room and started packing things into a small case. She placed her phone to her ear and called again. For over half an hour she had tried to contact Amanda; every time she got nothing but voicemail. It was so unlike her to switch off her phone.

  She struggled for breath. She feared the man was correct.

  Surely they had killed her friend.

  She packed without consideration, throwing things in without order. She emptied the contents of her handbag and threw most of it into the suitcase. The three books slid across the pile, one hitting the floor and bouncing beneath her bed.

  She closed the suitcase and rolled it out, sprinting along the corridor. She changed direction in the middle of the lounge, looking frantically for her car keys.

  Thankfully, they were still there, in the same bowl as usual.

  She picked them up, her attention falling on the wall.

  She screamed, a high-pitched shriek that could almost certainly be heard elsewhere.

  A darkened figure hung from the wall, its shape resembling that of a crucifixion. She didn’t need telling that the victim had also been flayed.

  But mixed with the despair was a strange feeling of relief.

  The person was not Amanda.

  It was Gladstone.

  44

  Sandra shook her head. ‘New Ross, Nova Scotia?’

  She walked quickly across the lounge, taking a seat on the couch.

  ‘It fits,’ Matt said, ‘all of it fits. The monuments were there for a reason.’

  Sandra rose to her feet, leaving the couch almost as soon as she sat down. She headed in the direction of the window and held back the blinds. Despite the sunlight, the angle of the garden prevented her from seeing everything.

  It was crazy, surely. The idea that there existed in that garden an exact model of the world.

  Surely even George Anson was incapable.

  ‘How would he have known? Seriously. How would he have known?’

  Matt bit his lip, struggling to find an answer. Deep down he knew the items stolen from the safe were pivotal.

  ‘It fits,’ he said. ‘It has to. The painting was stolen; it had reference to the DM inscription. George Anson’s ship’s log was there. Clearly he must’ve found it.’

 
Sandra looked at him. It was evident from his face that he believed the tale to be true. ‘Why Nova Scotia?’

  ‘Why not? You said yourself, Gaspar Corte-Real had made it to Newfoundland.’

  Sandra nodded. That much at least figured. ‘Why New Ross? There’s nothing there. There is nothing there even remotely old enough.’

  She walked away from the window, stopping in front of Matt. ‘Show me what you did.’

  Twenty minutes later, they were standing before the fourth monument. The DM inscription was far more visible, its letters dark and rugged after exposure to the previous night’s rain.

  Sandra exhaled lengthily. ‘I can’t deny you have a point,’ she said, silently ruing it. ‘It still doesn’t tell us anything.’

  ‘Where is New Ross?’

  ‘It’s a small town, arguably just a village. There is nothing there that resembles this. Its history dates back to the early 1800s, after the revolution. It’s little more than a mining community.’

  Matt nodded, understanding the frustration. ‘How about nearby?’

  She shrugged.

  Matt grimaced, his attention again on the monument. He looked at it closely. On the right was the sculpture of the original painting of the Arcadian shepherds, to the left, the flaying. The images had been cleverly interrupted by a large cross, splitting them in two.

  He looked at the right side. Although the image was flipped, the words Et In Arcadia Ego were located in a similar way to the painting. Like the painting, they covered the tomb with the skull on it, but now they were on a different part of the tomb.

  Other things were different. In the painting there was a mouse, just below the skull. There was also a bee on the skull, and a bird, perhaps an owl, looking down from a tree in the top left.

  ‘What’s it mean?’ he asked.

  ‘The bee is a symbol for Solomon,’ she said emphatically. ‘The owl also represents wisdom.’

  She looked to her left at the flaying. ‘Marsyas was also famous for speaking with birds.’

  Matt nodded. He gritted his teeth, his excitement building. Somewhere he felt they were missing something.

  His attention fell again on the mouse, then the words below. The tail of the mouse continued along the tomb, crossing the letter R in Arcadia.

  He looked at it. ‘This wasn’t on the original, surely?’

  She followed his finger. ‘Of course not; like you said, the image has been flipped.’

  ‘How about the name?’

  She removed her iPad from her handbag and looked it up online. Indeed, none of the letters of the painting were covered.

  ‘Why is the letter covered?’ Matt asked.

  Sandra shrugged. ‘It’s the change.’

  Matt was unconvinced. He looked in detail. ‘What’s Arcadia without an R?’

  ‘Acadia,’ Sandra said.

  At that moment, her eyes lit up. ‘Acadia! Matt, you’re a freaking genius.’

  He looked back, bewildered.

  ‘Acadia was an area of Canada. Prior to the American War of Independence, both the English and the French colonised parts of North America and Canada. The British conquered Nova Scotia. The name was Acadia.’

  She felt a tear fall from her eye. ‘I am also in Acadia. Oh my God.’

  Her excitement dissipated. The initial problem remained. ‘Okay, but it still doesn’t help. New Ross is not old.’

  ‘Maybe they went there earlier. 1511 would have been way before the colonisation.’

  ‘I know, but…’

  Sandra stopped mid-sentence. She looked at the monument. The one thing she had missed.

  ‘The cross.’

  Matt looked at it. To him it was a typical cross, probably crucifixion. It split the two scenes.

  ‘What about it?’

  ‘I am also in Acadia.’

  Matt shook his head.

  ‘The old name for New Ross was The Cross.’

  She walked quickly away from the monument. ‘In the 1970s they found a ruin in New Ross; according to some, it was a Viking longhouse; others claimed it was a medieval castle. No one has ever taken it seriously.’

  She stopped to face Matt.

  ‘I know where the tomb is buried.’

  45

  Nicole awoke feeling both lost and disorientated. She had tried calling Amanda every five minutes since leaving the flat, but every time she received only voicemail. After coming face to face with the visual disturbances of Gladstone’s remains, she feared the words of the man in the black hat were true.

  Amanda was dead. Gladstone was also dead.

  She knew she could not hang about.

  Lying in bed, she looked up at the unfamiliar ceiling. The pale shade was similar to her room, but different enough to disturb her. There were more similarities than differences, a strange coincidence.

  She had spent the night in a hotel in Essex a few miles south of Harlow. She knew the area relatively well. Her favourite aunt had a house on the edge of Epping Forest, and her cousins played football for the same youth team as Beckham. She chose a hotel located just off the main road, one she had stayed at twice before. She knew from past experience that the car park was secluded and that she was unlikely to draw attention. Taking her own car was risky, but she knew the only other option was the tube and then the train. She had to take one risk or the other.

  She stared at the ceiling with discomfort. Despite the bed being a king-size, the tight sheets were stifling. As usual in recent days, the weather was muggy and close, causing her to sweat slightly.

  But it was not only the temperature that was stifling. Every time she closed her eyes, her mind wandered back to the horrendous occurrences of the day before. In her mind she could see the man who tried to save her slumping to the ground, his eyes still open and displaying nothing but emptiness.

  Then she saw Gladstone, his skin separated from his body. She hated herself for even following up the article. Belroc was right.

  Worse still, so was Mills.

  She removed the covers from around her legs and sat up on the edge of the bed. In the morning light coming through the gap in her curtains, she made out the features of the room. It was a standard room: TV in a cabinet, wardrobe, kettle, ensuite bathroom, ironing board and flowers on the windowsill. The walls were painted in a pale yellow colour that would reflect the sunlight on a nice day and covered with one body-length mirror and various prints of art.

  The night had been hectic. She was still tired, but her mind was struggling to rest.

  She opened the suitcase at the end of her bed and removed her iPhone. She checked for messages and felt her heart sink on seeing there was nothing new. She tried Amanda again and got the same response. For the briefest of moments, she felt as though she was going to cry, but the tears refused to come. The feeling was as though she was all cried out.

  She set her iPhone down on the side of the bed and rummaged through her suitcase. She had taken enough clothes for a fortnight. She knew she couldn’t count on being able to return and she needed to stay on the road.

  She checked her emails and found nothing new of significance. It was Saturday and, for her, technically a workday, but thanks to her suspension, she knew attendance was no longer a consideration. For once she appreciated Mills for being a knob. She placed the phone to her ear again and tried ringing Amanda’s office number. She assumed it would be too early for her in any case, but she was willing to try anything.

  She waited for seven rings and hung up. Without her realising it, the intensity of her breathing had picked up, causing a heavy pressure in her chest and an acute tightening sensation. She navigated her options and went through her phone list. She contemplated calling Mills but decided against it. Even at the best of times the guy was a jerk.

  She considered two others but again decided against it. Even if Amanda was still alive, it did not bode well. Furthermore, she feared how many people she could tell without placing them in danger.

  She scrolled through the l
ist and stopped at Matt Anson’s name. She had tried phoning him off and on since the funeral, but they were still to speak since the article on his father had been released. After everything that had gone on, it seemed a long time ago.

  Did Matt know the truth? If so, could he help?

  She pressed the green dial button and waited for the call process to begin. She shook her hair away from her head and immediately placed the phone to her ear.

  The phone made the dialling noise and continued for several seconds. After the eighth or ninth ring, the voicemail cut in, and she hung up. She had no way of knowing whether her call was being ignored or whether he was simply not by his phone. She reassured herself it was the latter and typed a quick text into her phone. She prayed he would respond.

  He was the one person who might actually understand the mess she was in.

  Her stomach growled, but the thought of food was unappealing. She took the kettle to the ensuite and filled it with water. The hotel offered a complimentary selection of teas and coffee with small containers of milk and sugar. She opened the wrappings of the complimentary biscuits and crunched them slowly while the kettle boiled. The dry taste felt slightly unpleasant in her mouth. She thought about taking a shower. In the confusion, she had remembered shampoo and a couple of towels but forgot her leg razor and toothbrush.

  She poured the coffee and took it black with two sugars, hoping it would make a difference. She tried Amanda again at both numbers twice more and on both occasions the result was the same. If she knew she was okay, that at least would allow her to concentrate.

  The question was what next. If she was being followed, the choices were limited. She could disappear or try to see it through. Deep down she knew she only had one option. She could tell from the look in the man’s eyes it was only a matter of time before they would find her.