by Sam Christer
The two men are looking at each other, thin smiles on their lips. ‘I find this very hard to believe. Human sacrifice is unknown in modern day Europe,’ says Gibson. ‘Even in America, where they have more than their share of extremists, there are only a few documented cases over the past hundreds of years. I’m really struggling to buy into this theory of yours.’
‘I was too, sir,’ says Megan. ‘But certain events have changed my mind.’
Willis glances impatiently at his watch. ‘And they are?’
‘It all seems to come back to Stonehenge. It is at the centre of all our recent major cases. Nathaniel Chase, an expert on the henge, commits suicide. Lock and Timberland are attacked while visiting the stones. Sean Grabb, one of the men we wanted to interview about those attacks, is found dead in Bath. He was working security at Stonehenge. And all of this happens around the summer solstice.’
Gibson seems interested. Or maybe amused. It’s hard for Megan to tell. ‘Sir, I’ve checked the medical records of Gideon Chase. He told me he had cancer as a child and the stones cured him. According to the records, his claim seems to be true.’
Willis frowns. For him, it’s just not credible. ‘Are you telling me that his medical records say he was cured of cancer by a ring of stones?’
‘No, sir. They say he had an incurable form of cancer and was cured. They give no explanation, simply because they couldn’t find one.’
Gibson lets out a sigh of exasperation. ‘DCI Tompkins said evidence had been tampered with. What evidence and what tampering?’
Megan realises his patience is wearing thin. She summarises as tightly as possible. ‘Someone broke into and set fire to the home of Nathaniel Chase. But not before trying to recover or destroy something of value. We think the intruder was after the secret diaries we now know the professor had written about Stonehenge and the cult connected to it. His son Gideon managed to take a camera-phone snap of the burglar. Our facial recognition software produced a match with a local man. And we also recovered physical evidence from the break-in. Tools in a kit bag that had been left behind. When I last checked, sir, all that evidence was missing from the property store. All trace of it had been wiped from the computer log. As had the electronic bulletin sent to my mailbox about the facial match. Everything had been erased from my files.’
Gibson makes notes then looks up at Tompkins. ‘We need to talk separately about this and how we handle it.’
She nods.
The Met Commander sits back and weighs up Megan. As crazy as everything sounds, she seems a first-class officer and not the type to get carried away on flights of fancy. He is also aware that she is supposed to be in Swindon setting up a new cold case unit. What she shouldn’t be doing is speaking confidentially to him behind her chief’s back.
He leans forward and clasps his hands on the desk. ‘You’re an experienced officer, Megan, so I’m sure you’re aware that our investigation is on a knife edge. We have the FBI, Interpol, private investigators and most British police forces all chasing leads. The strongest of inter-agency evidence demonstrates that an international crime syndicate has taken Caitlyn and is extorting money from her parents. The asking price is currently twenty million dollars. I respect the manner in which you came to us, but at the moment I cannot risk deploying resources to investigate your claims, I—’
‘But sir—’
He stops her. ‘Let me finish.’ A stern pause. ‘I need proof. I need to see the coded diaries you mentioned. I need evidence that there have been human sacrifices in the past. I need something forensic before I even think about switching precious time and people away from where I have directed them. Bring me that and you’ll get a different response.’
Tompkins pushes her chair back. ‘Thank you, Commander.’ She nods to Willis. ‘Chief Superintendent. I’d like the assurance that this conversation remains confidential for the moment. For obvious reasons.’
‘You have it,’ says Gibson. ‘But only for the moment.’
135
The day before the ritual is the start of a holy period. A time of reverence. The Master, the Inner Circle and all Followers begin a devout fast. They do it out of respect for the sacrifice. They drink only water. They abstain from any sexual acts of any kind, either practised or witnessed, until the first evening twilight after the completion of the ceremony.
The Henge Master explains the pursuit of purity to Gideon as they sit in his chamber. ‘The ritual of renewal is sacred to us. But that does not mean we are barbarians. No. The most important person among us right now is the one who will be sacrificed.’ He rests his left hand on the four diaries. ‘I believe that through your father you may well have learned more about the sanctity of life and its meaning in death than most.’
Gideon is unsure where this is leading. ‘All I know is, he was willing to give his life to save mine. To give me the chance to raise children of my own.’
‘Exactly. A single sacrifice for the greater good of the many.’ The Master studies the young man opposite him. ‘It is our practice that one of our Followers, usually a member of the Inner Circle, spends the last stressful hours in the company of the sacrifice. To give moral and spiritual support until the very last moment. And to ensure that nothing can happen to them before the ritual begins. This is a role, Gideon, that I would like you to perform for us.’
He can’t hide his shock. ‘I don’t understand. Why me?’
The Master smiles. ‘I think you do, Gideon. I think you know why I have shown you mercy and favour. Why I have invested my personal trust and faith in you, despite those close to me doubting the wisdom of letting you live.’
Gideon feels a chill creep through him.
‘It is important to me that I go into the ritual with a clear mind and an open spirit. Tell me, Gideon. Is there something your father told you that you haven’t shared with me?’
Gideon shakes his head. His denial is true. But he knows what the Master is driving at. He sees his mother again. The frail old woman whom he barely recognises sits up once more in her deathbed. She speaks the words that turn his life upside down.
Nathaniel is not your father, Gideon.
The Henge Master reads it in his eyes. ‘Then your mother told you. I am your father, not Nathaniel Chase.’
136
Megan pulls the car into the kerb a street away from her house and walks the rest of the way. She’s trying to cool down. The meeting with Gibson and Willis had been a waste of time. Made her and Tompkins look foolish. The DCI said as much. The two Met men hadn’t believed a word that had been said. They wanted facts. Wouldn’t listen to anything else.
Megan feels alone. Vulnerable. Edgy. She’s not just walking to cool down, she’s also taking precautions. Adam might be at the house. Adam, the husband she thought she was falling in love with again. Adam, the man she saw sitting alongside burglar and police attacker, Matt Utley. She can’t see any strange cars near her home. She loiters in the quiet cul-de-sac for almost five minutes before she feels safe enough to go inside.
The house is empty. But he’s been here. She knows he has because there’s a note propped up on the dining table, bearing his writing. She snatches it away from the vase of flowers.
‘Meg. Gone back to mine. Call me when you’ve got your head together.
A x.
P.S. – we need to talk about me seeing Sammy.’
She screws it up, drops it in a full pedal bin. Her heart is racing. She gathers swimming clothes and thick towels for her and her daughter, takes a quick look around and then steps out on to the drive and locks the door.
There’s a man there. A man who has been watching her home and waiting for her.
137
Father and son look at each other across the ancient stone table.
‘When did you find out?’ asks Gideon.
The Master bows his head. ‘Not until Marie was dying.’ He looks up, his eyes glassy. ‘Nathaniel sent for me when she was in the hospice. She told me just hours befor
e she passed. There was nothing I could do. It was too late to seek intervention.’
Gideon is surprised to feel anger rising. ‘And what was she to you?’
The Master scowls. ‘What was she? She was everything. Everything and nothing. She was the woman I couldn’t have but would have married. The person I would have spent my life with had we not argued and drifted apart. If she hadn’t met Nathaniel.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘We were childhood sweethearts. After our relationship broke up, she moved away, to Cambridge. It was there that she met Nathaniel, and married him. I didn’t see her until a year after the wedding when she moved back to Wiltshire.’
Gideon does the maths. His sainted mother had apparently broken her marriage vows with the monster sat opposite him only a year after pledging her eternal love to the man he thought was his father. ‘How could you?’ He stands, face flushed with anger. ‘She’d only just got married and you seduced her.’
‘It wasn’t anything like that,’ says the Master, undisturbed by Gideon’s rage. ‘It just happened. You’d have to understand how intensely I loved your mother to begin to realise how that one moment of weakness surprised us both.’
‘One moment?’ Gideon doubts it. ‘I was the result of one moment of weakness?’
The Henge Master gets to his feet and comes round the stone table. ‘I had no idea until your mother passed. How could I then approach Nathaniel? What could I have said to him about you?’
‘Did you know the cancer was genetic?’
He nods.
‘And you persuaded my father to join the Craft to protect your own son, to protect me?’
‘Yes. It is what a father should do. I needed to protect you.’
The Master embraces him. Holds him tight. As tight as a father would hold his long lost child.
138
Jimmy Dockery steps down the driveway towards Megan. He can see she is scared. ‘Don’t be frightened, boss.’
But she is. She backs off, retreats towards her own front door.
‘I need to talk to you.’ He takes another slow step her way.
She drops her handbag, turns the keys in her clenched right fist into a spiked knuckleduster.
He glances at the makeshift weapon, a dismissive look on his face. ‘You want to fight me?’
‘Come any closer, Jimmy, and I’ll kill you.’
He can tell she means it. He doesn’t have much time. He lurches forward and makes a pretend grab with his left hand. Megan falls for it. She throws a spiky cross with her right. He steps inside and blocks hard with his left forearm, knocking the keys from her fingers. He could pick her off now with one knockout blow to the jaw. Instead, he snatches her left wrist and whips it up behind her back. Slaps his other hand across her mouth.
Before she knows it, he’s bundled her around the side of the house. She tries to kick out but Jimmy is wise to it. He spreads his legs and holds her like an adult would a kicking toddler in a tantrum.
‘I’m not going to hurt you.’
Megan carries on kicking.
‘Boss, stop it. You were right, okay? I’ve been following Smithsen and you’re right.’
She’s not sure that she heard him properly. But she caught enough to stop thrashing and fighting.
Jimmy takes his hands off her.
She turns to face him. ‘What did you say?’
‘I know where they go. Where Smithsen and the others meet.’
139
The Henge Master opens the diary and points to his own name. ΟΩΜΥΖ ΙΥΛΦΗΩΣΚΛ. ‘James Pendragon,’ he says aloud. He puts a fist to his heart in a gesture of pride. ‘It’s a name to be proud of. A family line that stretches back through Celtic times. Back to the most famous king of Briton. Back into the mists of mythology and beyond. We are the stuff of history you and I.’
Gideon is familiar with both fact and the fiction. ‘King Arthur is more fairy tale than reality,’ he says.
The rebuke does nothing to cool the Master’s familial passion. ‘Really? Arthur Pendragon, the great Briton King? Or Riothamus the King, or the Cum brian King, Pennine King, King of Elmet, Scottish King, Powysian King or even the Roman King? You think all these are kings of fantasy? You are a learned man. These legends are rooted in more than mere myth. They have endured.’
‘And you?’ asks Gideon, a hint of bitterness in his voice. ‘What of you is fact and fiction?’
The Master shrugs. ‘I am certainly no king, but I do serve and lead our people, the Followers. I am the only child of Steven George and Alice Elizabeth Pendragon. I have never married, and apart from you I have no children.’
‘Are they still alive? Your parents, I mean.’
‘Very much so. Your grandfather is ninety and your grandmother eighty this year. Both are in excellent health.’
Gideon’s emotions are in turmoil. Despite her deathbed confession, he still yearns for his mother, and still feels guilty about what happened between him and Nathaniel. Now he is face-to-face with his birth father and a family tree of mythical dimensions that overwhelms him.
The Henge Master senses the dilemma. ‘You will need time to come to terms with things.’ He grips his arm. ‘Thankfully, we will have it. Once the ritual is over, we can get to know each other. Find ways to bridge the years.’
Gideon still has dozens of unanswered questions but not now. Now is a time of silence. Inner thought.
‘So,’ says the Master. ‘Will you accept the task that I asked of you? Can I rely on you to be the last companion for the girl, the chosen one?’
Gideon nods.
‘Good. Very good.’ The Master embraces him again.
As they come apart, they lock eyes. ‘You are no longer Gideon. You are Phoenix. Your given name is Phoenix.’
He is confused. ‘I understood Followers adopted star signs that began with the initial letter of their first name.’
‘They do,’ says Pendragon, his face suddenly stern again. ‘The name I always wanted for my son was Philip. It is what I always called you when I thought of you. From now on, you will be known as Phoenix.’
It feels like a crude trick, a psychological blow to undermine him. This disownment of his name hurts him. Strips him of his identity.
‘Our family motto is a simple one,’ says Pendragon. ‘Temet Nosce. Thine own self thou must know.’
140
‘You nearly broke my damned arm, Jimmy.’ Megan nurses her bruised limb.
‘Sorry,’ he says. ‘I tried to stop you without hurting you. I could have been much rougher.’
She straightens out her clothes. ‘Bully for you. Where the hell did you learn that physical stuff?’
‘Got picked on a lot at school. Ginger hair, makes you a target. My old man took me to taekwondo lessons.’
‘Tompkins is going to kick your arse. You’ve been off radar so long.’ She stretches her arm several times.
‘You told her?’
‘Had to tell someone.’
Jimmy realises he’s at the point where he has to explain things. ‘You didn’t trust me, I could tell, so I went off to find something that would prove to you that I wasn’t part of this crazy cult tied to the dead professor and Stonehenge.’
She looks at him suspiciously. ‘And did you?’
‘I followed Utley and Smithsen. They certainly know each other. Caught Utley at home and followed his Merc. He met up with Smithsen in a lay-by on the A360. They got into the back of Smithsen’s van, maybe he took something out. Then went their separate ways.’
‘Which ways?’
‘Utley back east towards Tidworth and Smithsen headed west.’
She maps it out in her head. ‘There isn’t much out there, not until you loop north to Devizes.’
‘It’s all military. Part of the MOD buy-up.’
‘Did you stay on Utley? Or follow Smithsen?’
‘Decided to go after Smithsen. As far as I could.’
‘And?’
‘He we
nt north past Westdown Camp and Tilshead. After a couple of miles, he forked sharp left. Towards Imber.’
‘Imber?’
‘It’s a ghost town. Way into restricted access. No one has lived there for more than sixty years. It’s just empty houses. Buildings remain standing but no one is home. The church still holds the odd service every year.’
Megan remembers the map on Tompkins’ office wall and her records search. ‘It’s where Nathaniel Chase owns a strip of land. One of the few bits that the War Office couldn’t buy up.’
‘Can’t think why anyone would want to own it. From what I know, soldiers just shoot the shit out of the place. Then drive over it in tanks and even bomb the land around it.’
‘A lot of work for a builder?’ ventures Megan.
‘Doubt it. The army would just fix it up themselves. They’d use squaddies to do basic bricklaying and bang up some boards on doors and windows.’
She weighs things up. If Gideon Chase is still missing, it’s possible he is being held somewhere in Imber. They could be holding Lock there as well. ‘I don’t know what to do, Jimmy. I can’t go to Tompkins with this and your old man and the Chief want me transferred to Swindon.’
‘What?’
‘I’m being bumped. Shifted sideways. It’s a long story. How do we get to look around Imber without anyone at work finding out?’
‘I know exactly how.’ He gives her a confident smile. ‘In fact, I’ve already got someone who can help us. He’s waiting in my car.’
141
The chamber they’ve moved Gideon to is much bigger than the last one. About six metres long by four metres wide, he’d say. A penthouse compared with the matchbox they’ve been keeping him in. But it is still a cell.
