by Gavin Scott
Among the features of the building were a music box museum, a collection of automata, and a library of occult books. (Of course, thought Forrester, there had to be a library of occult books.) A lively youth called Alphonse Daguerre patrolled the reception area in a smart uniform, theatrically paging guests in three perfectly pronounced languages as he manoeuvred neatly between immense leather Chesterfields and a fireplace that would have done credit to Xanadu. Adapted from the former great hall, the lobby was crowned, two storeys up, by a carved and painted hammer-beam ceiling featuring scenes from Genesis and Exodus. A grand staircase took visitors to the gallery which ran around it, from which it was possible to look eye to eye with a wrathful medieval God as he directed Adam and Eve to leave Eden in eternal disgrace, though sharp-eyed visitors noted that when the sun was in the right position, Eve seemed to be giving them a discreet wink.
When Forrester arrived at the hotel his room was not ready, so he left his luggage at the front desk and went for a stroll in the grounds. Once the trees had swallowed him up the only sign of human habitation was an occasional glimpse of the conical towers of the chateau just visible above the canopy, their blue-grey slate glowing in the morning sunshine. After a while he came to a viewpoint where he could look over the forest towards the lake, and sat down on the bench.
As he gazed over the vista Forrester thought about the task he had undertaken. Eleven people, only two of whom he knew by sight, were now under his protection from an enemy whose identity he did not know. An enemy who had struck three times before and who had nearly succeeded in dispatching him in a fourth attack. An enemy who might have already tried to kill him, an enemy to whom he might have spoken face to face in the last twenty-four hours… or an enemy he might never even have met.
An enemy with an uncanny ability to create the illusion – and Forrester was determined it was an illusion – of having ancient and evil power at his disposal.
Was it this that triggered the realisation that someone was watching him? Someone hidden in the trees behind him. An observer, or an assassin? He resisted the temptation to rise, turn and face whoever it was, because he knew the moment he stood up that a finger could close around a trigger, and he could die, still ignorant of his enemy’s name.
Instead, without warning and without dignity, he slid forward off the bench until he was sitting on the ground with the stone of the seat between himself and whoever was behind him. The ground immediately in front dropped steeply away and he slid inelegantly down the slope and into the bushes before he risked turning to look back up the hill.
There was, of course, no one there – but, on the edge of his vision, he saw a shape melting into the darkness of the trees. Who has been sent? Why did he formulate that thought with such certainty?
Forrester stood in concealment for a long time, allowing his heart rate to slow down and the sudden burst of adrenaline to drain away. Then he took a deep breath and began to walk back down to the hotel. On the way he passed the grotto with the tiny remnants of the hot spring, now surrounded by eighteenth-century cherubs, grinning gargoyles and cavorting dolphins. There was no hint of the massacre which had claimed the lives of the Roman soldiers so long ago, but above one of the gargoyles there was a crude charcoal drawing of Narak, its eyes apparently fixed on him.
Very similar to the one in the Westinghouse Pavilion at Flushing Meadows, below the bleeding body of Jan Loppersum.
* * *
When he re-entered the lobby of the Chateau Bougerac, Mrs. Theresa Palmer was sitting on one of the Chesterfields, reading a book. She smiled as she saw him, entirely unsurprised.
“Dr. Forrester,” she said. “What a pleasure it is to see you. I had a presentiment, you know.”
“I too thought we would meet again,” said Forrester, sitting down beside her. “What brings you here, Mrs. Palmer?”
“The library, of course,” said Theresa Palmer blandly. “The counts of Bougerac amassed one of the great esoteric collections, including the Heptaméron and a fifteenth-century edition of the Munich Necromancer.”
Something about her tone convinced Forrester that this was no more than a casual cover story, and he remembered what MacLean had told him about Joseph Yeats’ hospital visitor.
“And is Mr. Smith with you?”
“Mr. Smith?”
“He was with you in New York, was he not?”
“I’m not sure to whom you refer,” said Theresa Palmer, smiling kindly.
Forrester smiled back, as if it was a secret they shared.
“His real name is Joseph Yeats. I suspect he was somewhere aboard the Queen Mary when you and I first met, and I’m guessing it was he who helped you steal the Narak effigy from Columbia.”
“I see you enjoy guesswork, Dr. Forrester.”
“But here’s what puzzles me: Aleister Crowley insists he controls Mr. Smith, not you.” At the mention of Crowley, as Forrester had hoped, a flash of anger passed across Mrs. Palmer’s face.
“Mr. Smith became disillusioned with Mr. Crowley, as have most of that man’s followers.”
Forrester smiled inwardly: the anger had led her to drop her guard.
“And he adopted you as his mentor instead,” he said admiringly.
“It was I who found him first, when the poor creature was recovering from his wounds in hospital. When Aleister and I parted company, Joseph came with me.”
“I can understand him making that decision, because you are a woman of power.”
He could see the words pleased her, but she shrugged modestly.
“There are those who believe so. But you, I think, are a sceptic, Dr. Forrester.”
“Not when it comes to Revelations five to nine,” said Forrester.
Suddenly there was a stillness about Theresa Palmer he had not observed before.
“Tell me more,” she said.
“The Lamb with Seven Horns opens the Seven Seals,” said Forrester. “And as the adepts know, he who feeds the lamb will sit at the right hand of God.”
It was as if he had given a secret password.
“And where is the Lamb now?” said Theresa Palmer softly, leaning towards him. “Has that been vouchsafed to you?”
And Forrester understood.
“Of course,” he breathed, his face close to hers. “Narak and the Lamb are one, and Narak is with you.” He paused, and saw her face flush with pride.
“So your hour of glory must be approaching,” said Forrester, “when Master Aleister will be cast down.”
“Oh, Narak will utterly cast him down,” said Theresa Palmer, “as soon as the last seals are in place.”
“And you seek them here.”
“I seek them where I am guided.”
“Who guides you, Mrs. Palmer? Who is your inspiration?” Her hard smile became oddly gentle, almost like that of an adolescent girl contemplating her beloved.
“The Great Wanderer, of course.”
“And who is the Great Wanderer?” asked Forrester softly, and he was certain the answer was on the tip of her tongue, when her eyes shifted focus and her smile faded.
“You may have begun to follow the path, Dr. Forrester,” she said, “but if you do not know the Great Wanderer, you are not yet of the elect, are you?”
Certain she had seen someone over his shoulder, he spun round in his seat, only to find his view of the far side of the lobby hidden by the stream of newly arriving guests.
The United Nations Special Committee on Palestine had returned from their visit to the camps, and suddenly Mrs. Theresa Palmer’s attention was switched elsewhere.
* * *
If Forrester had had to characterise their expressions in a single phrase it would have been “shell-shocked”. It was a sober, almost grey-faced body of men that collected their keys from the reception desk and headed up the stairs to their rooms. If Forrester had been obliged to guess which of them was in most need of protection, because that man was beginning to favour a homeland for the Jews, he would have been hard put
to do it: they all looked as if they had made up their minds. But in the restaurant he found himself sitting at a table next to three of them, and realised matters were not quite so simple.
Djurik, from Yugoslavia, was arguing the case for creating a federal state in Palestine, divided into Jewish and Arab provinces. The Holocaust survivors would be allowed to emigrate there, but there would be no Jewish sovereignty.
The man from Uruguay waxed emotional about the historic beauty of recreating the ancient Jewish state, but had no answer to Zaheer’s assertion it would almost certainly be overrun by the surrounding Arabs and destroyed within months of its creation.
From another table, Forrester heard Eban’s persuasive tones as he strove to convince another group that a Jewish state would be viable, that any continuation of the British mandate would be disastrous and that giving the Jews statehood would be an assertion of the highest human values. So passionate was he that as the waiter brought coffee to the table, Forrester fully expected Eban to seize him by the arm and try to convince him too.
As he left the dining room he found himself walking alongside Brian Cross, the Australian who had replaced William Burke, and reminded him of their meeting at the United Nations.
“I imagine you’ve been given quite a lot of food for thought since we last spoke,” said Forrester.
“My oath we have,” said Cross. “And we’re arguing about a place that would fit into one corner of bloody Tasmania.”
“You think the Jews should have a homeland?”
“In Tasmania?” said Cross. “Yeah, that might solve a few problems. The only people that might have objected would have been the Tasmanian Aborigines, and we got rid of them a long time ago.” And he passed on.
“Don’t take too much notice of what he says,” said Nicholas Van Houts, falling into step beside Forrester. “He likes to play the crude Australian, but he too was deeply moved by what we saw in the camps.”
“You think Mr. Cross takes things more seriously than he makes out?” said Forrester.
“Oh, certainly,” said Van Houts. “We all do. It is a very distressing situation.”
“When we spoke on the Queen Mary,” said Forrester, “I remember that your experiences as a colonial official gave you quite a lot of sympathy for the British position in Palestine.”
Van Houts’ face darkened. “It did,” he said. “Knowing how difficult life can be for a colonial administrator, I gave your countrymen the benefit of the doubt. But I have to say I have not been impressed by what I saw of the British administration in Palestine, and the Jews have made a very strong case for themselves.”
“Did you speak to many in the camps?”
“Yes, including one man who after his release from Bergen-Belsen had returned to his old village in Poland – only to see his twelve-year-old daughter beaten to death by a Catholic mob egged on by their local priest. How could they do that, after the Holocaust? How could such hatred persist?”
“So you think a Jewish state is the best way forward?”
“I’m beginning to think, Dr. Forrester, that there is no other morally defensible option, yet I hope we can find a compromise which will satisfy both sides. And now here is the bus, waiting to take us to the Palais des Nations for our next session. I can’t say I’m looking forward to it.” And with that he joined the rest of the committee streaming back out through the great doors of the Chateau Bougerac.
* * *
When the bus had gone, Forrester met with Eban by the grotto.
“How do you think it’s going?” he asked.
“To be honest, I’m too close to tell,” said Eban. “I seem to have been talking non-stop to these people ever since we left New York. Grabbing their elbows in corridors, joining them for coffee, dropping in on their tables at lunch, like today. They must be sick of us.”
“Are the Arabs talking to them as well?”
“They’ve harangued them in public meetings and private consultations, but they refuse to appoint liaison officers and they still insist that one hundred per cent of Palestine must be theirs. But of course they know perfectly well their case is being made sotto voce by the British Foreign Office people.”
“Who claim, of course, to be neutral.”
“Would that that were so. Have you made any progress in identifying the source of danger?”
“I’m not sure that progress is the right word. Thornham and Priestley, the two men from the FO who’ve been in this from the beginning, are here, and probably doing exactly the kind of lobbying you suspect them of. But Sir Jack Casement has turned up as well – he’s the aircraft manufacturer who’s also a member of Industrialists International, and he’s with Angela Shearer, wife of Charles Templar, who was the first man to die. Casement and Miss Shearer have been conducting a long-standing affair which began before her husband’s death, and he’s warned me, as he did in New York, to keep out of his way.”
“Jack Casement,” said Eban, thoughtfully. “That name came up once, and was then suppressed by someone else at the Jewish Agency as I remember. I’ll make enquiries.”
“Also present,” said Forrester, “in fact staying in this very hotel, is Mrs. Theresa Palmer, who leads a faction of Britain’s occult. She claims she’s here to consult the Bougerac library, but she’s also effectively admitted she’s connected to a shadowy figure known as Smith, who tried to kill me on the Queen Mary and in New York, and may have been responsible for some of the other deaths. I haven’t seen him here but I suspect his presence. Oh, I should mention that I’ve also been approached by someone from MI6 and told in no uncertain terms to keep my nose out of this.”
“I knew MI6 was here, of course,” said Eban. “But I hadn’t seriously considered the possibility they were planning an assassination.”
“Probably not,” said Forrester. “Though they may want to assist someone who is. Or put some other sort of pressure on someone on the committee.”
“There would be hell to pay if they were found out.”
“I’m sure the FO takes that view, as well. But I’m equally sure there are some very pro-Arab characters in MI6 who are quite capable of going beyond their brief. The gentleman I had dealings with should be easily identifiable by a badly swollen nose, but doubtless he’s only one of several who haven’t yet made themselves known.”
Eban looked downcast. “I’d rather hoped you might be able to eliminate suspects, rather than increase their number. Are you able to discount any of them as potential threats?”
“So far, none. On the contrary, the fact that so many of the original cast has reassembled here makes it hard to blame coincidence.”
“Meaning?”
“That it must be very convenient for whoever is behind this to have a gallery of other possibilities present to act as a distraction.”
“That would take some arranging,” said Eban, “and seems very elaborate.” The word “elaborate”, like Eban’s earlier reference to research, rang a faint bell, but before Forrester could pursue the thought, his friend went on. “Perhaps a simpler explanation is that they are all involved.”
This led Forrester’s mind back to his conversation with Theresa Palmer.
“Listen, Aubrey,” he said, “did you ever hear the phrase ‘the Great Wanderer’?”
“You don’t mean the Wandering Jew?” said Eban.
“No,” said Forrester. “The Great Wanderer.”
Eban frowned. “I have heard that phrase somewhere,” he said. “But… it was spoken in Arabic.” After a moment his face cleared. “In fact we might both have heard it,” he said. “In Cairo during the war. Remember Taha Hussein, the Egyptian novelist? We went to tea with him.”
“I remember very clearly,” said Forrester. “A very impressive man. A student of Greece and Rome, if I recall, and a strong opponent of Wahhabism. And he spoke about the Great Wanderer?”
“He did,” said Eban. “I can hear him saying those exact words about… who? Who? An Englishman, a scholar, I think.”<
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“And he was a friend of Taha Hussein?”
“Yes. No! They’d had some disagreement, a falling-out. Of course – that’s it: over the appointment of the Grand Mufti.”
“You’re talking about St. John Townsend?” said Forrester.
“Yes!” said Eban. “He’d backed al-Husseini for the post in the 1930s. The same al-Husseini who subsequently encouraged Hitler in the Holocaust. How does he fit in with what’s happening now?”
“I don’t know,” said Forrester, “but he was present when the Narak effigy was first found in 1939, and this morning Theresa Palmer used that phrase to describe the man she said had guided her here.”
“And you think she may control this Smith fellow? Who may have committed the murders?”
“I think it very likely.”
“So if she is under the influence of Edward St. John Townsend,” said Eban, “he may be the key to it all.”
“He may,” said Forrester. “Can you get someone in the Jewish Agency to try to find out if he’s staying in or near Geneva? Or perhaps just across the border in France?”
“I will,” said Eban, and they parted.
* * *
Forrester went back to the front desk of the Chateau Bougerac and sent a telegram to Ken Harrison asking for an update on his enquiries into Edward St. John Townsend. While he was doing so, he was joined by Crispin Priestley, for once without his companion Thornham, and apparently much more relaxed. In the bar he ordered a bottle of claret, made Forrester promise not to talk about Palestine, and instead quizzed him about Oxford academic politics, the progress of Forrester’s work on Linear B, and his early life in Hull. He bemoaned his own privileged existence, from its cosy beginning in a cathedral city where his father had been dean, to the bubble of Cambridge and his present cocoon in King Charles Street. Forrester said he rather envied him. Priestley said that on the contrary he rather envied Forrester. By the time the bottle was empty they were practically ready to swap identities.
