by D C Macey
Who knows, perhaps he was one of Xavier’s task bearers who simply got caught up in Bruce’s northern civil war, then was dragged to the south into the main war. That could also explain how de Bras suddenly led a larger force. Once he was obliged to come south with Bruce, perhaps the remaining Templar Knights from the preceptory at Temple had joined with him. He did well, was made a lord and rewarded with lands. In fact, he did very well, becoming one of Bruce’s closest confidants, a member of his inner circle.
At the end of Bruce’s reign, Bernard de Bras was part of the old guard that carried his heart south on a crusade to fight the Moors in Spain. By that time, de Bras and many of his band were older, truth to tell, far too old for campaigning abroad. The fighting was fierce and there were many casualties, but de Bras and his men seemed to fight with a wild and almost inexplicable fever that many remarked on. They seemed to seek victory without any thoughts of death. Eventually, they got both. He died with his men, standing in the face of a frantic Moorish attack against the Christian army, providing a determined suicidal block that held the Moors back until the Christians could rally and take the day.
Bernard de Bras had never married. Of course, if he were a Templar Knight it was not allowed. So when he was killed in Spain, his brother inherited the title and thereafter the family remained as small but steady players in Scottish life right up to the First World War when the family’s two sons were killed. They were junior officers, leading platoons in the same battalion, both died at the battle of the Somme in 1916. Their father could not cope with the loss of his sons and was dead within a year and the family line came to an end. No distant cousins or whoever to step in, the Great War had taken them all.
Eventually, a forerunner of the National Museum ended up receiving a bequest from the dead man’s widow: family papers and a stack of money for the preservation of various artefacts. Included amongst those things were the dagger and gold signet ring, but the old lady had not told them much about these artefacts. Only that her late husband had always identified them as the family’s most precious possessions. He kept them locked in the family safe and allowed only his sons to see them and then only very occasionally. The family story had it that they had passed from the first lord to his brother and then down the line over successive generations.
Pausing for a moment, Sam looked at Helen. ‘The old widow had no idea why the things were so valuable, but we certainly do,’ he said.
Helen nodded agreement. ‘You bet we do, but knowing the story’s not any good to us is it? They’ve got away with the dagger already. Both the daggers.’
Sam grinned back at her. ‘Yes, they have, but we don’t need the museum dagger. We’ve got copies of the museum’s photographs and we know the scale. If it really is part of a message, as Francis and your new friend Xavier say, then the picture should do just as well as the original dagger, shouldn’t it?’
Helen looked carefully at the picture Sam had produced, saw the logic in his argument and suddenly felt a surge of excitement displacing the mood of gloom that had settled over her. ‘Too right it should.’ She leapt up and strode to the window. In silence she looked out at the city, watched the buses and cars passing beneath. People just following their ordinary lives, all quite oblivious to the events besieging her and her little band. She looked up to the clear blue summer sky above the tenement roofs, searching for some inspiration.
Sam was just beginning to get anxious about her when she spun round. ‘Sam Cameron, you are smart, you know that? Just when I was lost, in you come with an answer.’ Pacing quickly back to the sofa, she bent down and kissed him enthusiastically. She pulled back, looked him in the eye, then kissed him again. Straightening up, she took his beer bottle. ‘You won’t be needing that just now, there’s some driving to do. We need clear minds if we are going to put together some sort of defence. I don’t know how it will work out yet, but I know they’ve just lost their edge.’ She took his hand and pulled, though he didn’t need much encouragement to stand. ‘Maybe we really can mount a bit of offence too. What do you say?’
‘Well, if they are coming after us as Xavier thinks and we can’t look for police protection since we might put the police themselves at risk or even be seen as suspects ourselves, then I’m with you,’ he replied. His voice sounded confident, though Sam was not sure what could be done. He just knew he did not fancy sitting and waiting for a knock on the door, whether it was a visit from the police or someone altogether more sinister.
‘The question remains, what should we do?’ said Sam.
‘Let’s start by getting the others up to speed. Your news is important. It’s a break and it’s independent confirmation of Xavier’s back story. So you and I, all of us, now know there really is a history to this. And a threat too, not just some coincidence of evil.’ She paused for a second before continuing. ‘And you know what? Your envelope from Suzie tells us no matter how ruthless they are, how clever and determined to gather in all the evidence and information, they are not infallible. If they missed those,’ she pointed at Suzie’s envelope, ‘then just maybe they missed something with your dunes dagger too.’
The pair headed out of the flat as Helen tapped in the speed dial for Elaine; hopefully they would still be searching the church, and the sooner they all got the news the better.
• • •
At the church, the others had been locking up when Sam and Helen arrived. They had been excited by Sam’s news and heartened by the revelation their opponent was not infallible. But taking their lead from Xavier, they determined to break for the evening - it had been a long day. They all agreed to meet again in the morning to resume their search. Xavier looked particularly drained, the whole business and his long journey had caught up with him, simply exhausted the older man.
• • •
Back at Helen’s flat once again, Helen and Sam had eaten a quick snack, neither feeling inclined to tackle a full evening meal. They were back sitting together on the living room sofa, taking a few minutes’ break, quietly thinking.
Helen looked across towards the pile of old parish papers she had brought home with her in the hope she might unearth some clue, anything that might lead them towards this parish dagger. She had found nothing.
Jingling a set of house keys, Sam tried to introduce a change of tack. ‘Do you fancy coming with me?’ The police had asked that his department check MacPherson’s house to establish if any university valuables were there. Particularly those things an archaeologist might have about the house, things that the police might not recognise as valuable.
The idea did not appeal to Helen, and she declined, but it did trigger a thought in her mind. She went over to the bureau and looked out Sarah MacPherson’s letter. The police wanted it. What had it said again? It deserved to be treated with respect, as it may have been the last thing the poor woman wrote. She read it again, thinking of her, hoping for her.
Helen,
Mission accomplished. MacP will be grumpy if he finds out, so don’t spill the beans. Come and see me, we’ll crack this one together!
Sarah.
Helen weighed up the letter, yet it still made no sense to her at all. She passed it to Sam and asked him what he thought.
He read it and handed it back. ‘Haven’t got a clue,’ he said. But a moment later he was on his feet, suddenly very excited. ‘Let me see it again.’
Taking the letter back from her he re-read it. Then with a triumphant smile, he waved it at her. ‘I think I know what it means. Look, here,’ he handed the letter back to Helen. ‘Think, what did Sarah do?’
Helen was puzzled. ‘She was an artist,’ she said.
Sam nodded. ‘Yes, but what sort of artist?’
‘A sculptor?’
‘Not just any sculptor, she worked in metals,’ he took the letter back from Helen and tapped on it. ‘Look what she wrote: Come and see me, we’ll crack this one together.’ He looked at Helen meaningfully, expectantly.
Helen was tired and fed up w
ith games. ‘Sam, just tell me, what does it mean?’ She was finding it hard to get excited while thinking about the threat they all faced.
Sam took her gently by the shoulders and looked into her eyes. ‘What do sculptors do with metal?’ He paused for a moment, giving her shoulders the lightest of squeezes. ‘They cast things. And what would Sarah have cast that could be of the slightest interest to you? That would make MacPherson grumpy?’
The penny dropped. ‘The dagger! She cast the dagger.’ Helen was suddenly buzzing too. ‘She told me not to worry when we left their house, remember? She said she’d make sure we got access to the dagger, even though MacPherson was being awkward about it. She’s cast the dagger!’ Helen took a deep breath, letting the thrill subside. ‘Sam, we could still have access to your dunes dagger. This is big news. But, where would she have put it? Wouldn’t whoever killed them have taken it?’
‘I don’t know,’ said Sam, as he waved MacPherson’s house keys again, ‘but I know how to find out.’
• • •
Sam parked the car in the driveway of the MacPhersons’ house. From the front, there was remarkably little damage. Some flowerbeds had been churned up by emergency vehicles and the side gate that gave access to the rear gardens was off its hinges, knocked aside in the initial rush of the rescue crews.
They sat for a moment looking up at the grand old house. Its faded golden sandstone and comfortable rectangular symmetry exuded a reassuring sense of strength that belied recent events. Helen suddenly shivered, remembering the laughs and fun she had found here, the wonderful food and sparkling hospitality Sarah had offered her visitors. She wondered at the hell that had visited and steeled herself to go inside. It suddenly seemed a less attractive idea than it had even a few minutes before. A sinister though unspoken threat now seemed to hang over everything.
Both hands still on the steering wheel, Sam pulled himself a few inches forward and theatrically squinted through the windscreen, peering intently up at the house. He blew a noisy breath out through his teeth, leant back again and turned to look at Helen. ‘Well, let’s get it over with, shall we?’ Sam shared Helen’s sudden change of mood and she found a little strength from that. She was not alone in her disquiet.
Just like the front façade, the inside of the main house was remarkably undamaged, though the taint of smoke hung in the atmosphere. The sturdy wooden fire door that led from the back of the hall into the kitchen had withstood the original blast. It now had a strong hasp and padlock on it, preventing access to the wrecked kitchen. Apart from the smell of smoke, it was hard to tell there had ever been a fire.
Sam inspected the padlock and shrugged. He had not expected it to be there, but on the other hand, he had arrived with no real preconceptions. Quietly and methodically, they searched the house, room by room. Sam examined items that might have some particular value or academic interest or simply belong to the university. He was making notes as they moved through the house. Once he had typed it up, the list would go to the police and to the MacPhersons’ solicitor, to inform their arrangements for short-term security and eventual distribution of the estate. Helen searched for signs of Sarah’s cast without success.
Finally, with a growing sense of anti-climax, the pair moved into the smallest of the rear facing bedrooms, the last room to search. It took only minutes to establish that the room contained nothing of interest.
‘Looks like we’ve drawn a blank,’ said Helen. ‘Do you think they got away with her cast as well as the original?’ her voice was sad, and it wavered as she glanced through the window. The outside of the bedroom window was streaked with soot from the fire. It allowed only a blurry view out over what had been the original single story kitchen and beyond into the secluded back garden. ‘Oh my God, Sam, look at this.’ She pointed out of the window, down towards the kitchen.
Sam joined her. He looked out and down across the kitchen, and instinctively put his arm around her, providing comfort, finding some too. From this angle, it was clear why the kitchen door had been fitted with a padlock. It was now, in effect, the back door. The kitchen fire door had deflected the blast energy back into the kitchen, which was all but destroyed. Just a charred shell remained. Windows blown out, ceiling down, the roof and slates lost: a bombsite. Everything completely written off with charred roof beams and rafters left open to the sky.
‘Well, we’re not going to find anything down there,’ said Sam.
Helen nodded. ‘You’re right. God bless them. What an awful way to go. What a cruel thing to do,’ she shook her head despairingly. ‘Who are we up against here, Sam? I just can’t get my head round it. It’s so, so alien.’ She pressed her head against the window frustrated. ‘And they must have got the cast too.’
Sam looked beyond the charred kitchen. ‘You know, Helen, I’m not sure about that.’ He pointed across the garden towards an old single story outbuilding that was partially concealed behind mature shrubs at the bottom of the garden. ‘We’ve seen no sign of where Sarah worked in the house. If you had all sorts of sculpting tools and furnaces and the like, you’d need a lot of space and want to keep it all together, like in a -’
‘Workshop!’ Helen finished his sentence.
It took only a minute to lock the front door, pass through the broken side gate and follow the path down the side of the house into the back garden. The acrid smell of recent burning was much stronger here, hanging in the air. It caught in their noses as they hurried past the kitchen annex and across the lawn. Without stopping, Helen threw a silent blessing over her shoulder and promised herself she would return to the ruined kitchen at a less frantic moment.
As they got closer to the outbuilding, it became clear it was well maintained and still in use. At one time it would have been the workshop for gardeners and the handyman, but not anymore. Nicely symmetrical, a broad door was set at the midpoint of the building while to either side full sized windows let light flood inside. The faded golden stone had a rougher finish than that which faced the main house, understandably so since the original builder would never have envisaged that first owner spending any time here.
Sam was trying to open the locked door using the bunch of keys.
Helen went to the window on his right and peered in. ‘It’s the workshop, Sam. I can see stuff.’ She returned to Sam at the door. ‘Come on, are the keys working? Let’s get in.’
A distinct click answered her as the third key Sam tried turned smoothly, unlocking the door. He pushed it open and they both stepped in. The space was bigger than they expected since the building was deeper than it was wide. Off to the right were rows of tools and raw materials, welding kits, a portable hoist and various art works that may have been finished or abandoned, or were works in progress, just waiting for Sarah to provide a finishing touch of inspiration. It didn’t matter now.
Helen and Sam began to search; if there was something to be found, this is where it had to be. The middle of the room was a clear open space, scrapes and marks on the concrete floor showed this had been Sarah’s working area for larger scale jobs. It was empty now. To the left, under the window, was a workbench where she must have done smaller tasks, it too was empty. In a corner at the back of the room were a desk and filing cabinet, beside them two doors that led away into a kitchenette and toilet. The pair were running out of places to look, beginning to doubt there was anything to find in the workshop. Finally, they traced their way along the rear wall towards the furnaces. One was small, the other bigger.
Helen pointed at the rack beside the small furnace; she glanced at Sam who nodded agreement to her. Quickly, she stepped forward to look more closely at the chunky shaped mould. Around twenty inches long, six inches wide and perhaps two inches deep. If anything was going to be the mould of a dagger it was this, and it was heavy. There was definitely something inside. Helen felt her hand trembling slightly. ‘How do we get it out?’ she asked.
‘Crack it,’ said Sam, matter-of-factly. ‘Crack it carefully.’ He pointed towards a lit
tle mallet that sat in a rack next to the furnaces. ‘That should do the trick.’
Helen did not need to be prompted twice. In no time, the mould was broken and a beautiful replica fourteenth century dagger rested in her hands. They both checked anxiously for markings on the blade; they were there. With some cleaning up these would stand out as clearly as the day they had been engraved on the original dagger. She felt a surge of pleasure rush through her. At last they had something, something tangible, and taken together with the pictures of the museum dagger they were on a level playing field again. Perhaps they could now start to make some headway. For the first time, there was a real flicker of light at the end of a very dark tunnel. She did not fully appreciate the significance of these ornamental weapons yet, but at least they had something.
CHAPTER 24 - WEDNESDAY 19th JUNE - AM
Elaine and Grace McPhee walked up the drive to the manse and made for the open front door. As they passed the study window, they saw Helen sitting behind the desk. Francis sat at one end, leaning forward, elbows on the desk’s edge. Helen gave an enthusiastic wave from behind the glass, beckoning the two women to come straight in.
As they entered the hall, Sam emerged from the kitchen carrying a tray. ‘Just in time, morning coffee for everyone. You come through too, Grace. Join us for a drink before things get started,’ said Sam.
Grace smiled and nodded grateful acceptance, pleased that Sam included her as an equal. The others did not want their meeting disturbed, so today Grace had the job of housekeeping, waiting for the delivery van that was bringing a new kitchen table and chairs.
A squeal of taxi brakes heralded the arrival of Xavier and Angelo. They were all coming together to make a plan. A plan for their own survival.
