The Drakon took several steps backwards, her body completely vanishing in the darkness. Panicked, Mary tracked her pistol wildly from side to side, trying to pick out any sign of movement in the black void.
The dog at Mary’s side snarled loudly, its jaws biting at an invisible enemy. For an instant, two points of crimson light flashed in the darkness like the burning eyes of a serpent. Mary heard the demon chant loudly in a language not of this world, the words swirling upwards like a vortex. Pointing the gun into the darkness, Mary squeezed the trigger. A shot rang out deep below the dome of St Paul’s Cathedral but the words continued even faster than before. Mary squeezed the trigger again and then again, the sound of the gun reverberating in the empty void.
Suddenly, the Drakon’s body stepped out from the shadows into the light. Terrified, Mary jabbed at the trigger but the weapon just returned a series of hollow clicks. Only then did Mary see the single bullet hole through the Drakon’s temple, a line of blood tracking a path down her face. The Drakon staggered forward and then crashed to the floor like a boxer cut down by a killer blow.
Still shaking, Mary moved warily towards the dead body. The Drakon’s face stared up from the ground. All of a sudden, the dog’s ears pointed forwards to get a fix on something in the darkness. The animal bore its fangs, readying itself for attack, but all was silent apart from the sound of Mary gasping by its side. After retrieving her coat from the floor, Mary ran over to the marble plinth and placed the rod into its heavy folds of material. Then she knelt down next to Blake’s and Sabatini’s unconscious bodies. With her arms raised, she began to pray fervently aloud: ‘By your almighty power, Lord, save them.’
Moments later, Mary and the black dog were moving quickly back down the tunnel.
Chapter 68
The first thing Blake saw after regaining consciousness was the sight of Sabatini’s face smiling back at him. Initially her outline drifted in and of focus, but within seconds it had stabilised in his field of view. He realised that she was lying on a stretcher next to him wrapped in a silver space blanket. Instinctively, he reached out towards her, but his movement was immediately checked by the hand of a paramedic adjusting the flow rate of the intravenous drip in his arm.
‘Slow down, my friend. You will both be fine.’ The familiar voice of DCI Milton echoed in the subterranean chamber.
As soon as Milton and four members of the Metropolitan Police’s armed tactical response team had arrived at the taxi parked outside St Pauls, its driver, a Gregory Kovac, had directed them to the main entrance. Kovac had jumped out of the driver’s seat of his taxi just in time to see his terrified passengers bound up the main steps of the cathedral.
Bursting through the large doors of the packed nave, Milton and his team had been immediately greeted with a torrent of instructions from the most unlikely of sources. The instructions had come from a wheelchair-bound seventy-eight-year-old lady holidaying from the States. She had seen two ‘undesirables’ force open the door to Wren’s floating staircase who she was concerned were ‘up to no good.’ Her suspicions raised, she had commanded her husband to inform the Cathedral’s staff; however, after thanking the senior citizen for his diligence, they had advised him that the two individuals were actually workmen employed on the staircase’s restoration. The woman, however, had not been convinced.
Milton crouched to his knees beside Blake.
‘I don’t know what the hell went on down here, but it’s all over. You and Carla are safe,’ said Milton as he patted Blake’s shoulder. ‘But I tell you, you were both very lucky. If it wasn’t for a stray dog barking at the base of that plinth showing us the way down here, I don’t think we would have found you in time.’
Chapter 69
Three Months Later: Tuesday 1 March
As he waited for the consultant to finish flicking through the charts pinned to the clipboard at the foot of Sarah’s bed, Blake allowed himself a smile. He had received the call from the auction house whilst clambering into the back of the taxi on the way to the hospital. He balanced his crutches on the seat next to him to answer the insistent ringing of his phone. The call lasted seconds but produced such a feeling of jubilation in him that he punched the back of the driver’s headrest, much to the driver’s annoyance. The sales clerk rang to inform him that his lot had been sold successfully during that morning’s auction. Something of a buzz had been created around the unique twelfth-century Cabbalistic amulet, and the sales price had exceeded all expectations. The auction catalogue had described it as ‘the earliest known example of a Jewish amulet displaying the Star of David.’ The final auction price was a record six-figure sum. With the proceeds from the sale, Sarah’s ongoing hospital bills would be paid for the foreseeable future.
The consultant returned the clipboard and stood beside Sarah’s bed. ‘Mr Blake, Sarah continues to make progress. Her level of consciousness seems to have changed since the … incident.’ The consultant shifted uncomfortably as Blake glanced at Sarah’s hand and the gap where her little finger used to be.
‘When Sarah was first admitted, she was in a very deep coma and completely unresponsive to external stimuli, but gradually she seems to be recovering. There are real signs that her body is becoming responsive.’
Blake listened intently to the consultant.
‘The nursing team have reported some very encouraging signs over the last few weeks. Now and again Sarah has partially opened her eyes, and it’s really great news about her breathing.’
A smile returned to Blake’s face. Today was a special day: the first day in over a year he had seen Sarah’s face without the plastic intubation tube. Without it, her mouth looked relaxed. She looked beautiful. Just like her mum.
Blake tried to talk, but his tongue stuck to the roof of his mouth.
The consultant continued. ‘Waking up from a coma is usually very gradual. The signs are encouraging but we need to be cautious. Every coma is different. We need to take one day at a time.’ The consultant repositioned the stethoscope around her neck and changed the subject. ‘So, Mr Blake, how’s that knee of yours?’
‘It’s getting there. I was told that the surgery was a success,’ said Blake.
‘Very good, very good, and how long before the cast comes off?’
‘Two more weeks and then physio.’
The doctor smiled reassuringly.
‘They’re pretty confident that with time I’ll regain most of the movement in the joint.’
‘Good.’ With that, the medic stood up, shook Blake’s hand and left the room.
Before the door had chance to shut behind her a head peered through the door. It was Anje, the Filipina nurse who had been assigned to Sarah’s ward.
‘Vincent, you want tea?’ said the nurse.
‘Yes, please.’
‘Okay, tea with milk coming up.’
Since their first meeting at Sarah’s bedside months ago, Blake and Anje had become friends. She had shown him photos of her family back in Cebu and told him about the money she sent back every month for her sons. She was kind-hearted and had a mischievous personality.
Carefully backing her way through the door, Anje returned with two overfilled mugs of tea. On seeing the magazine tucked under her arm, Blake gave out a loud groan.
‘Vincent, you didn’t tell me you were so famous,’ she said playfully. ‘After all, it’s not every day I know someone who’s on the cover of The Times magazine.’
After depositing the mugs of tea on the table next to the window, the nurse recovered the magazine from under her arm and opened it to the inside cover. Blake moved uncomfortably in his seat. With a strained expression, Blake nodded his approval and Anje started reading from the lead article.
‘A church has stood on the summit of Ludgate Hill, in the heart of the City of London, for more than 1,100 years. The most recent incarnation of the church, Christopher Wren’s baroque master
piece, vies as the nation’s most iconic building. Since its construction after London’s Great Fire of 1666, the cathedral has laid witness to some of the most remarkable episodes in the City’s history. But the events of 30 November go down as some of the most dramatic in the cathedral’s history. Tourists and cathedral staff looked on in horror as an armed tactical response team, led by Detective Chief Inspector Lucas Milton from Scotland Yard’s Art and Antiques Section, stormed the cathedral’s entrance.
What the police discovered buried deep in the cathedral’s foundations has shocked and intrigued the nation in equal measure. Whilst the cathedral’s regular thanksgiving prayers were being read to the assembled congregation of holidaymakers and local parishioners, a shoot-out was taking place deep underground beneath the cathedral’s dome. The subterranean battle left three people dead and two injured, one seriously. The dead include industrialist Ema Mats, the founder of the celebrated Mats Institute, and two hit men wanted by Interpol. The unconscious bodies of Dr Carla Sabatini, a Vatican official, and Dr Vincent Blake, an art recoveries consultant—a man who is himself no stranger to controversy—’ Anje sent Blake a playfully disapproving look, ‘were also found at the scene.’
‘Whilst the facts surrounding these sensational events are shrouded in secrecy, the discovery of an unknown network of underground passages and the ensuing gun battle have led some to suspect a hunt for hidden treasure. The presence of Dr Blake, a man who has been associated with the recovery of several high-profile works of art in the past, has only fuelled rumours of buried riches. However, police sources have categorically denied that any such treasure has been found, a fact that both Dr Blake and Dr Sabatini have corroborated.’ Feeling self-conscious, Blake fingered the inside of his shirt collar. Anje read on.
‘What does appear to be certain, however, is that the prompt action of disabled senior citizen Edna Smith, holidaying from the USA, undoubtedly saved the lives of Dr Blake and Dr Sabatini. Her suspicions had been first aroused by a man acting strangely outside a doorway close to the cathedral’s entrance. On seeing the armed police team storm into the great church, Mrs Smith, now something of a celebrity, took no time in directing DCI Milton and his unit to the door leading to Wren’s famous geometrical staircase.’
Blake waved his arm in protest. ‘No more, no more!’
Groaning with disappointment, Anje promptly shut the magazine and returned it to the table.
‘Vincent Blake, very famous man; a very good and famous man.’ The nurse pondered for a second.
‘If you not let me read on, then I think I should be able to sign your plaster cast?’ Before Blake could say anything, Anje unclipped the pen from the front pocket of her nurse’s uniform and bent down to his outstretched leg. She found a small unmarked area of plaster and began to write. After she finished, Blake was completely silent, his gaze fixed upon the words that Anje had just written in thick black ink.
The steps of a good man are ordered by God. Psalm 37:23
Chapter 70
DCI Milton looked up from his workstation just as the hands of the large wall clock shuddered forward to mark the end of another day. All was quiet on the third floor of the Central London police station except for the sound of the detective’s fingers moving quickly over the computer keyboard. The email that Milton had just composed was characteristically to the point. He rescanned its contents and carefully checked the syntax of the email addresses with those printed on the official Vatican business cards arranged on the desk in front of him. Paying no heed to the voice in his brain recommending restraint, he pressed the send button.
Less than forty-eight hours after the discovery of the bodies under St Paul’s Cathedral, Milton had been summoned to the Chief Constable’s office in New Scotland Yard. The meeting had lasted no more than a few minutes, but by the end of it Milton had become noticeably riled. Through half-moon glasses, the Police Chief had read out the details of a special access order signed by the Home Secretary herself that gave a forensics team from the Vatican’s own police force right of entry to the crime scene. He was to provide them with every assistance and not impede their investigations in any way. The specifics of the order were highly irregular and, notwithstanding Milton’s strongest protests, the Chief Constable made it clear that they were to be followed to the letter.
From the moment the three-man team arrived on the scene, it was clear that they were pursuing different objectives from Milton’s investigations. To his enormous frustration, his questions were to be referred to a special liaison officer based in Rome and not to the on-site team. Their attention seemed to focus on two areas, first of which was the recovery of a small crimson book that had been in Father Vittori’s possession leading up to his murder. The book had apparently been stolen from the Vatican archives and was to be returned at the earliest opportunity. The second area of investigation was a dark angular mark discovered on the crypt floor directly under Mats’s corpse. The area of discolouration, some two inches in diameter, appeared to have been imprinted onto the white marble stone. Milton’s own forensic team had paid it little attention, assuming that the mark was a remnant from the crypt’s construction, but the Vatican investigators’ series of chemical and ultraviolet tests seemed to show some other significance.
Milton’s email was the fourth formal request for information concerning the results of the Vatican’s investigations. As with his previous attempts, he wasn’t very hopeful of a response. He stood up and waited for his computer to complete its long shutdown procedure. Before long, the office central heating system would switch off, and the temperature in the incident room would drop significantly. It was time to go home. After collecting his coat from the back of a chair, Milton headed slowly for the lift. His body was exhausted, but his mind wouldn’t let go of the case details. There were still too many loose ends. Halfway across the open-plan office, he abruptly changed direction and walked back towards the large incident board that dominated the far end of the room. The board demanded one last inspection before his brain would let him leave for the day.
The centre of the board was given over to two photographs of Ema Mats, aka ‘the Drakon’. The smaller of the images, a glossy black-and-white publicity photograph of Mats accepting an industry award, contrasted starkly with its neighbour: a full colour picture of her corpse with a dark red pool of blood behind her head. An elaborate spider web of string, held tight by coloured drawing pins, formed connections between suspect photographs and handwritten notes arranged in clusters around the two pictures of Mats. She had been the centre of it all.
Once her body was positively identified, Milton sent a squad car to her exclusive Mayfair residence to secure the premises for forensic examination. The police car arrived at the address moments after two fire engines from Kensington Fire Brigade had set to work training their high-pressure hoses onto the roof of the building. The luxury town house had been set alight, but the swift actions of the fire officers largely saved the back half of the building from the ravages of the flames. After the building was made safe, it became apparent that the Georgian town house was not all as it first appeared. Concealed behind an unremarkable door in the ground-floor study lay the entrance to a network of underground quarters. The evidence retrieved from this sunken labyrinth of rooms conclusively identified Mats as the mastermind behind the Newton robberies. Blake had been right all along. A ‘Dr No’ figure had been commissioning robberies to furnish a private collection. The shelves lining the underground library were filled with the stolen material from the previous Newton robberies, including Newton’s personal copy of the Principia taken from the Wren Library. Mats’s interest in the celebrated scientist had turned into a dangerous obsession. Nothing would stand in her way.
The three smartphones retrieved from the corpses in the crypt of St Paul’s had also provided a rich seam of evidence against Mats. Once Scotland Yard’s e-crime unit had decrypted each device’s text messages, the picture had bec
ome clear. Mats had commissioned Denic and Crossland to do whatever it took to secure the Newton material, which had included premeditated murder. Blake’s landlord, whose body had been found amongst the smouldering remains of his bedsit, had just been the latest victim.
The world would be a better place without scum like that, thought Milton as he drove a bright red drawing pin through the centre of an enlarged CCTV image of Denic taken from the Dover Port Authority cameras. A last waft of air from the overhead heating unit rustled the photographs pinned to the incident board before the slats directing the machine’s airflow moved noisily to a closed position.
Milton studied the network of coloured string, which criss-crossed the incident board like the connectors of some giant circuit board diagram. A single picture stubbornly refused to be linked to any other. He stared at the grainy image of what looked like a tramp entering the doorway from the nave of St Paul’s Cathedral to the stairwell of Wren’s hanging staircase. Despite the imaging department’s best efforts, the picture could not be resolved enough for a positive identification. However, Milton suspected that the several fingerprints lifted from the weapon allegedly used to shoot Mats would match those of this mystery figure. Both Blake and Sabatini had reported being stopped by a homeless woman on the steps of the cathedral, but although the picture had been distributed to police stations and homeless shelters throughout London, the search for the suspect had yet to deliver a firm lead.
Milton patted down his inside jacket pocket in search of his smoking inhalator. With some difficulty he retrieved the white plastic tube caught in the silk lining and bit hard onto its end. Another unreconciled fact gnawed at him. It was there, like a seed stuck between his teeth. Both Blake and Sabatini were convinced that Mats and her henchmen had been searching for some Jewish religious relic hidden in the cathedral. Despite a detailed search of the scene, no such object had been found. Whether the object was real was not Milton’s immediate problem: the three dead bodies found in a secret crypt under the great dome of St Paul’s were. He hadn’t the time or the resources to go on some wild goose chase hunting down a myth. Milton pushed the thought resolutely to the back of his mind and took a long suck on his inhalator. With the white plastic tube still between his lips, he headed for the lift.
THE HISTORY OF THINGS TO COME: A Supernatural Thriller (The Dark Horizon Trilogy Book 1) Page 26
