by Jim Eldridge
‘Yes,’ said Jake warily. ‘Who are you?’
‘I’m Guy de Courcey. I believe you’re my alleged fellow-conspirator.’
‘I had nothing to do with any murder!’ snapped Jake.
‘You and me both.’ Guy nodded. ‘But it’s worth saying it for the tape.’
‘What tape?’ queried Jake, looking around.
‘A hidden mic somewhere,’ said Guy. ‘It’s the only reason I can think of for the police putting us together, hoping we’ll say something that will incriminate us. Unless there’s a shortage of cells in this place, of course. Which is possible. After all, it’s a Saturday night. Great night for street brawls.’ He grinned. ‘So, do you prefer Jacob or Jake?’
‘Jake,’ said Jake despite himself. There was a lot about the young man’s superior attitude that annoyed him, but at the same time he couldn’t help but admit that he also had some charm. It was in his smile and his confident manner. Despite being locked up in a police cell, Guy de Courcey didn’t seem at all troubled by the situation. The opposite in fact: he appeared almost amused about the whole thing.
‘Have the police told you that we apparently had a meeting with this Alex Munro this afternoon?’ Guy asked.
‘Yes.’ Jake sat down on the other bench in the cell. It was hard, just a concrete shelf. ‘I told them I didn’t have any such meeting. Not today, or any other day.’
‘I did,’ said Guy. ‘But not in a café in Crouch End at two o’clock. My appointment with him was for ten tomorrow morning at his office. I was nowhere near Crouch End at two o’clock.’
‘So, you’ve got an alibi?’
‘Yes, but it’s certainly not one the police are taking seriously. I was asleep in a hotel room the whole afternoon. And alone. Jet lag. That doesn’t count as an alibi as far they are concerned.’ He regarded Jake with an intrigued frown. ‘Are you saying that you don’t even know this Munro character?’
‘No,’ said Jake, shaking his head. ‘I’ve met him, but not for a long time. I certainly haven’t had any contact with him for months.’
‘Yet the police say your name was in his diary, along with mine.’
Jake shrugged.
‘Someone’s setting me up,’ he said.
‘The police?’ asked Guy. He shook his head. ‘From my experience, the police in this country don’t set you up as blatantly as they do in some others.’ He looked at Jake in a superior way, and added, ‘Well, they might set people like you up. But generally, they play honest where I’m concerned.’ He gave a smile. ‘That’s one of the advantages of having a title.’
Jake frowned.
‘A title?’ he echoed.
‘Viscount Guy de Courcey. At least, I was, but now I guess I’m the new earl, since the old man died.’ He gave Jake a broad grin. ‘Yes, you are sharing a prison cell with the Earl de Courcey.’
‘Am I supposed to be impressed?’ Jake asked sarcastically.
Guy shrugged.
‘No,’ he said. ‘But a lot of people are. It’s amazing what having a title does. You can get tables in exclusive restaurants, seats for concerts . . .’
‘And put in a police cell,’ pointed out Jake.
Guy laughed and Jake’s animosity towards the young earl faded slightly. Anyone who could laugh at himself couldn’t be all bad.
‘Good point,’ chuckled Guy. ‘Though with me, it’s an occupational hazard, one I’ve become used to. Which is why I guess that right now, some poor bored copper is sitting listening to our words of wisdom through a hidden microphone somewhere in this cell.’ He gestured towards the light fitting, which was set high in the ceiling and protected by a wire cage. ‘Possibly there. Maybe even a closed-circuit TV camera to keep an eye on us. That’s how they do it in some of the places I’ve been.’
‘You sound like you’ve been in this situation a few times,’ said Jake, intrigued in spite of himself.
‘Usually only overnight stays, or for a few days, in places like Honduras, Brazil, Mexico. Like I say, once they discover I’m from a titled family, they see dollar signs, and up until recently the family solicitor has generally bailed me out.’
‘I would have thought your family solicitor would have been here already, bailing you out of this one,’ said Jake.
Guy shook his head.
‘I decided against contacting him. He doesn’t like me, thinks I’m a wastrel. And he’s very old-fashioned. You can tell that from his name: Montague Ainsworth of Hapgood, Ainsworth and Ainsworth. This new chap, Alex Munro from Randall Pierce, he sounded interesting. The sort who’d be prepared to cut a few corners. Bend the rules.’
‘Oh yes, he most definitely is,’ said Jake. Then he corrected himself. ‘Was,’ he added. ‘How did you meet Munro?’
‘I never actually met him,’ admitted Guy. ‘He tracked me down to a little place in Mexico, my last port of call. He phoned me up and offered me a plane ticket back to England and all my expenses paid, as well as taking care of some debts. And I have a few of those.’
‘Why would he do that?’
‘He wanted to talk to me about some outfit called the Order of Malichea.’
Jake guessed that would be at the heart of this. The murder of Alex Munro. Himself being framed and arrested. But where did his aristocratic cellmate fit in? Or was he a new player in the game?
‘Why you?’ asked Jake.
‘Because it seems my family had some of their books.’
Jake felt a surge of excitement that he tried hard not to show.
‘Which books?’
‘According to Munro, one of them was the Journal of the Order,’ said Guy. ‘You know, the diary of the Order. What went on from year to year. Boring stuff. “Got up. Prayed. Civil War again.” That sort of thing. The other was something called The Index.’
The Index! thought Jake, and now he found it even harder not to show his excitement. Surely this was why Munro had been murdered.
‘Anyway, Pierce Randall seemed the right kind of lawyers to have on your side,’ continued Guy. ‘So I phoned them when I was arrested. I expected them to be here by now.’ Then he sighed and added, ‘Though they could be having second thoughts, seeing as I’m charged with killing their boss.’
‘So, you must know quite a bit about the Order of Malichea,’ said Jake, trying to appear casual.
Guy shook his head.
‘Nothing. I was hoping this character, Munro, would tell me all about them, and these books he was all het up about. But then, the de Courceys have never been that hot on things like books — more hunting, shooting, fishing and gambling. Although there have been a few Churchy types in the family, way back. Not that I know much about them. The old man was always telling me I ought to find out about our family history and the family home, but whatever he told me to do only made sure I didn’t do it.’
‘So where is the family home?’ asked Jake.
‘De Courcey Hall in Kent. At least, it was the family home. It isn’t any more.’ He gave a sigh. ‘Sold, along with everything else.’ He chuckled and added, ‘As a family, we’ve been broke for hundreds of years, ever since we backed the wrong side in the Civil War. The de Courceys backed Charles I. What they should have done is what all the rest of the aristocracy did: back both sides. Anyway, since then things went downhill, money-wise. And every time another earl died, it piled up more and more death duties. That’s why my father decided to get rid of the hall and everything in it.
‘He tried to sell it, but no one wanted it. I’m not surprised, the place is huge and damp. It would cost the budget of a small country just to heat it. So, in the end, he gave it to the National Trust, just before he died. The small amount of money left over from the sale of the contents went into a family trust to tide me over until I reach the age of twenty-five. Then, if there’s anything left, it goes to charity.’
‘Charity? You mean you get nothing?’
Guy shrugged.
‘Fair’s fair,’ he said. ‘The old man guessed that if he left it to m
e I’d just drink it away. So, I’m doing my best to spend what I can of it in the next three years. I’ve overspent most of it already.’
‘But the library? Did that go to the National Trust as well?’
‘Most of it, though I think the old man kept some of the books. The rarest ones.’ Guy looked at Jake with his air of studied world-weariness, and asked, ‘Do you know anything about this Order of Malichea?’
‘Quite a lot,’ said Jake.
‘Well, maybe you can fill me in,’ said Guy. ‘After all, it’s Saturday night, and there’s no sign yet of our solicitors. It’ll be as good a way to pass the time as any.’
Yes, thought Jake. Though the young earl was a self-confessed rogue — unless he’d been exaggerating — there might be some memory of the ancient books from his childhood at de Courcey Hall, and maybe telling him about the Order and the hidden books might trigger something. It might even lead Jake to The Index.
‘OK,’ said Jake. ‘The story starts way back in the seventh century, on the island of Lindisfarne.’
‘Oh my God,’ groaned Guy. ‘That far back? This is going to take for ever!’
‘Not that long,’ Jake reassured him.
‘OK,’ said Guy. ‘So, what happened on Lindisfarne in . . . whenever?’
‘A monk founded a monastery there. Over the years, as word about it spread, scholars from across the world came to exchange scientific research. Then the Spanish Inquisition came. Because lots of the scientific works in their library were by Arabic or Islamic scholars, and quite a few dated from pre-Christian Roman or Greek times, most of them would be considered heretical, as would any texts that went against the orthodox Church view of the world.’
‘So they’d be destroyed,’ commented Guy.
‘Absolutely,’ said Jake. ‘To save the texts from destruction, they moved the library to Glastonbury Abbey, where they hid the books in secret rooms behind the official library. But the threat spread, and the leader of the Order of Malichea instructed the monks of the Order to take these so-called “heretical” science books and hide them in a place that was unlikely to be disturbed because it was either sacred, or said to be cursed, or claimed to be haunted. A coded list of the different books and their hiding places was kept, known as The Index. The intention was for the books to stay hidden until the threat of the Inquisition had passed, and then the books could be recovered.’
‘So what happened?’
‘The plague. It returned to Britain and wiped out a huge percentage of the population, including many of the monks who had hidden the scientific texts. With them went the knowledge of where they’d hidden them. The only evidence that these “lost sciences” actually existed and had been hidden was in the Journal of the Order of Malichea, which was a history of the Order handed down through the ages, and The Index, the list of where the scientific books were hidden.’
‘Bummer,’ murmured Guy. ‘So where do we come in? The de Courceys?’
‘I’m not sure,’ admitted Jake. ‘Your family could have been tied in with the Order? Or, maybe, with Henry VIII.’
‘Yes, now that is quite likely.’ Guy nodded. ‘There are paintings in the hall, or, rather, there used to be, with the earl at the time and Henry VIII.’ He looked inquisitively at Jake. ‘But why would my family being pally with King Henry tie us in with these missing books?’
‘The Dissolution of the Monasteries,’ explained Jake. ‘Henry VIII ordered most of the monasteries to be shut down. It was part of his getting rid of the old Catholic religion and replacing it with one of his own, the Church of England.
‘Henry VIII’s forces looted the abbey at Glastonbury and the books in the priory’s library came into the hands of the king, and so into the possession of the State. But it’s not known what happened to The Index or the Journal of the Order of Malichea.’
‘According to Munro, he thinks they ended up in our family library,’ said Guy. ‘Are they worth much? I expect so, if Munro was prepared to pay for me to come all the way back here from Mexico.’
‘Millions,’ said Jake. ‘Possibly billions.’
Guy stared at Jake, and for the first time his air of casual nonchalance had vanished. He looked at Jake, his mouth open in bewilderment.
‘Billions?’ he echoed.
‘Billions.’ Jake nodded.
‘But . . . just for a couple of old books? Why?’
‘Not so much the Journal of the Order of Malichea, it’s The Index that’s the valuable one. Because it’s said to show where every one of the books was hidden.’
‘But . . . but so what? These are just old books!’
‘No,’ Jake corrected him. ‘These are books that are said to contain some secrets of science that had to remain hidden because they were seen as heretical. Books about time travel, invisibility . . .’
‘Sci-fi and fantasy,’ chuckled Guy.
‘Not all of them,’ said Jake. ‘I saw the effects of the science of one of them when a book was dug up and opened accidentally. It was about creating food from the water in the air. A sort of fungus. The trouble was, the fungus grew all over the poor bloke who found it.’
‘Did it kill him?’ asked Guy.
‘I’m not sure,’ said Jake.
‘That would make a powerful weapon,’ said Guy thoughtfully. ‘I can see people paying for that.’
‘And for some of the other stuff. There are said to be cures for cancer, and other serious illnesses. Can you imagine how much the patents on those would be worth to a drug company!’
Guy nodded, and Jake could almost see the young earl’s mind calculating his new wealth.
‘And I own it,’ he murmured, awed.
Jake shook his head.
‘Whoever’s got the books owns them. And whoever has The Index . . .’
‘Knows where the books are hidden,’ finished Guy.
‘Exactly,’ said Jake.
Guy smiled and stretched back on the bench.
‘Jake, my friend, I think this unfortunate death of Mr Munro, leading to us being thrown in this cell together, could be the beginning of a whole new and very profitable partnership. Your knowledge of this business, and mine about our family and the library.’
‘I’m not in the hunt for the books for profit,’ said Jake.
‘Oh, I’m sure we can come to some arrangement,’ said Guy. ‘Now, it could be jet lag, but my body thinks it’s about time I had some sleep.’ He looked at Jake and smiled again. ‘Wake me up if my solicitor arrives, will you.’
Chapter 4
Jake lay on the bunk in the cell, listening to Guy snoring. Without his watch or his mobile, he had no idea what the time was. There were no windows to the outside. The light behind the protective wire mesh in the ceiling had been turned down, but not switched off. The fact it had been turned down, so it didn’t glow so brightly, told Jake that it was night-time. But whether it was midnight, or two in the morning, he could only guess.
Jake’s thoughts turned to Alex Munro. Dead. Shot through the head, according to the police. He remembered his first meeting with Munro, when the solicitor had promised Jake everything — as much money as he wanted and Lauren’s freedom — if he would work with him and his law firm, Pierce Randall, to find the missing Malichea books.
Munro had been lying, of course. Munro always lied and schemed and double-crossed.
Was that what had happened? That Munro had double-crossed the wrong person? Because most of Pierce Randall’s clients were very dangerous people: as well as governments, they represented international gangsters, terrorists, dubious dictators. Any of those people wouldn’t think twice about having someone killed. But why Munro?
One thing was certain: whoever had done it had gone to some lengths to frame Jake for the murder. Which meant whoever it was knew about Jake and his interest in the books. So his instinct had been right: he had been under surveillance.
Jake’s thoughts flitted to the Watchers, the mysterious organisation set up way back in the fifteenth cen
tury to keep watch over the hidden books and protect them from being discovered. At first the Watchers had been cooks, servants, carpenters, stonemasons. Trusted tradespeople who’d worked at the abbey in Glastonbury. As time passed, the role of Watcher had been handed down from generation to generation. Parents to their children. Uncles and aunts to nieces and nephews. They were still ordinary people doing ordinary jobs — nurses, teachers, railway workers, taxi drivers, carpenters, journalists.
But peaceful, Jake murmured to himself. The Watchers’ creed was no violence, but to protect the books at all costs.
Of course, there had been renegades. Perhaps one with the skill and commitment to blow someone’s head off and frame someone else for it.
So many questions nagged at Jake. Why frame him now? Why kill Alex Munro? Where was Lauren? And where was Gareth, and why hadn’t he got Jake out of here!
Jake woke. There was a humming noise.
For a moment he was disorientated, couldn’t work out where he was. He was lying on something hard. And then, as he opened his eyes and saw the walls of the cell and smelt the disinfectant, he remembered.
He sat up, and saw Guy sitting on his bunk, smiling at him. It was Guy who’d been humming a tune.
‘Welcome back to the land of the living,’ said Guy.
‘I’d hoped it had all been a dreadful dream,’ groaned Jake.
‘Afraid not,’ said Guy. ‘We’re still locked up.’ He sighed. ‘I wish I knew what time it was. My stomach tells me it’s breakfast, but I could still be working on Mexican time. Or it could be just that I haven’t eaten in ages. Aren’t they supposed to feed us? That’s one thing about the prisons in Latin America, you get fed. Mainly beans, but at least it’s food. I’m sure withholding food from us is a breach of our human rights, or something.’
The sound of a key jangling in the lock made them both turn towards the door.
‘Looks like breakfast after all!’ Guy grinned.
The door opened and a police constable looked in. There was no sign of a tray, or any smell of food.
‘OK, you two,’ he said. ‘Your briefs are here. You can go. Pick up your things at reception.’
