by Rowan Casey
“That is something at least. Perhaps we can still make this all go away.”
Matthias felt a wave of relief wash over him, even though it only lasted a moment. He had been starting to think he was being dragged into a downward spiral and like a dying man he was reaching out, prepared to clutch onto anything.
“My… employer,” Hautdesert said, the pause while he sought the right word to describe his relationship with Dante Grimm, spoke volumes. Matthias was not sure what the relationship was while he had been over in the States and he was none the wiser now. If anything, that pause cast more doubt over it. “My employer was disappointed that you decided to leave before you heard everything he had to say. More importantly, that you left without agreeing to carry out the mission he has planned for you.”
“Mission? All I saw was a load of nonsense and trickery.””
“You think that was all trickery?”
“What else? I’ve seen enough fancy illusionists to last me a lifetime and one more isn’t going to make me find them any more entertaining.”
“What would it take to convince you that it was all real? That there was no trickery involved? My employer is no charlatan.”
“That’s what they all say.”
Hautdesert fell silent but his gaze did not waver. Matthias held his stare even though it soon became uncomfortable. He had used the same trick himself, more than once. Sometimes it worked, sometimes it didn’t. All the man succeeded in doing was make him angry. But he was only too aware that at that moment he was relying on the man to get him out, and the last thing he wanted to do was piss him off. It was better to look away and let him think he had won. It was a small price to pay.
“So, you think that everything Grimm said was some kind of sideshow patter, do you? Something to add to the show?”
Matthias nodded but said nothing. He had the feeling that if he said anything he might risk poking the hornet’s nest. There was no point in making things any worse than they were.
“Okay. So you think the story is harmless? That there’s no danger and that it’s all a trick?”
“That about sums it up.”
Hautdesert leaned back, though he showed no sign of surprise when the chair didn’t move. “Then humor him? Go and find what he asked you to, and I’ll make this thing go away.” He reached inside his jacket and pulled an envelope from his pocket. “This will be yours when you walk out of here.”
“You going to pull the same trick that Grimm did?”
There was a puzzled look on the man’s face, a crease in his brow that lasted only a moment before his face erupted in a smile. “Was there a drink in it for you?” he laughed. “No, no trickery on my part. Find what he’s looking for and the money is yours. It should more than cover any expenses and leave some in your pocket. Assuming that you don’t have anything better to do?”
“And if I refuse?”
“Then I walk out of here and you get to sort this sorry mess out for yourself.”
“Sounds like I’m caught between a rock and a hard place.”
“If you want to look at it like that. I’d say that doing what Grimm is asking is more of the soft option. As you say, it’s all a lot of nonsense, all you’re doing is being paid to go on some wild goose chase. Isn’t that what you call it?”
The man was right and Matthias knew it. He could take a chance that another solicitor might be able to spin whatever trick Hautdesert had in mind, but he wasn’t sure that he wanted to take that chance. He had not been able to take his eyes from the envelope and the sheaf of notes inside it, and he knew that he was going to have to take it.
“And if I don’t find whatever it is Grimm wants me to find?”
“No harm, no foul. If you haven’t found it within a week you might spend a lifetime looking and never find it. But if you find it, Mr. Grimm will pay you this amount again. That should buy you enough time to find a part that’s worthy of your talent. At the moment, I suspect that you wouldn’t be able to hold out that long.”
“Then you’d better tell me what you want me to find, and what you want me to do with it when I’ve found it.”
“That might be the hard part. I am not completely sure what it will look like.”
“You’re kidding me, right?”
“I wish I was. We know what form most of the treasures currently take, but not this one.”
“Treasures?”
“Artefacts then. Let’s call them that. There is a stone. It was once used for sharpening blades, but at some point it might have been used in the construction of a church. If you are fortunate, it will still be there and you will have earned your reward with very little effort.”
“The stone is part of a church?” This was making less sense to him by the minute. “Even if I find it, what am I supposed to do with it when I find it? Pull the sodding church down?”
A smile played across Hautdesert’s lips. It was fleeting, but there was no doubt that he was finding this all amusing. “In the unlikely event that you find the stone still set in the remaining walls, then all you need to do is let me know and I’ll take care of it.”
“But you think that it’s more likely to be just lying on the ground, just waiting for me to pick it up?”
“Perhaps.”
“But how will I be able to identify it? How do you expect me to be able to pick out one rock amongst many? Does it have any identifying mark? Does it glow in the dark?”
“You will know it. There is a connection. It might look different, it might feel different, it might even sing to you, but you will know.”
Sing to him? What the hell was this? More nonsense. “And if it’s not there?”
“Then you keep looking until you find it. “
“Or until I run out of money?”
Hautdesert wrote a number on a piece of paper and slid it across the table to him. “When you find it, call me at this number. If you run out of money, call me. But don’t take too long about it.”
“I’ll try not to. The sooner I find this lump of rock, I can walk away, right?”
“If that’s what you want to do, I won’t try to stop you, but when the time comes you might want to hang around to see what happens next. Call it your destiny if you like.”
“Destiny? Yeah, right.”
“Believe what you like,” Hautdesert said. “But when you find this thing you’ll want to see it through to the end, wherever it might lead. But I should warn you. There may be others who are trying to find the stone, or at the very least will try to stop you. I suspect that they already know about you.”
“You mean there’s more than one lunatic looking for a lump of rock. That’s just as crazy as the nonsense that Grimm laid on for us last time we met.”
Hautdesert shrugged. “Just don’t say that I didn’t warn you.”
5
It had been a long time since Matthias had driven the long and winding road from south Wales to the north, but once he completed the fast-moving stretch between Cardiff and Merthyr Tydfil he remembered the tedium of previous trips. The rental car was comfortable enough, though he knew that he would regret not opting for a more expensive model that would have brought more comfort with it. But he had been keen to hold onto as much of the cash as he could. Hautdesert suggested that Matthias might prefer to take the train and pick up a rental car at the other end of the journey. Clearly, he had never made the journey himself. The memory of the train with only two or three carriages with the refreshment trolley wheeled on at one station and taken off at the next was a reminder of just how stuck in a time warp that line was.
The road wound through the Brecon Beacons, the mountain range that made direct travel between the cities in the south and the towns in the north more than just an inconvenience. Had it been earlier in the year the journey might have proved treacherous, but today the sun was shining and apart from the gnawing ache that was starting to worm itself in the base of his spine, all was well with the world. He was going to have to stop soon t
hough, if only for a comfort break.
It was surprisingly easy for Hautdesert to get him out of the police station, or so it seemed. Despite them having kept him there for most of the night, they ended up telling him that he was free to go and that they were happy that he had not been responsible for the man’s death. Happy might have been too strong a word for the way that the grunted their apology but Matthias wasn’t about to kick up a fuss. Grimm’s man made it all seem so easy.
That was more than twenty-four hours ago. Hautdesert drove him back to his apartment in the cold, grey early morning light, to give him the chance to catch up on a night’s lost sleep and to pack a bag. The following morning, he was at the counter of a car hire firm picking up the keys for the Ford Fiesta with a weekend bag at his feet, a folded piece of paper in his pocket, and an envelope full of cash. He still thought that Grimm was wasting his money, but that was the illusionist’s affair. If he had money to burn, then Matthias wasn’t about to stop him from throwing it in his direction.
There were plenty of places along the road to stop and take in the view, to admire the mountains and catch a glimpse of a red kite circling high overhead. Some of these stops had picnic tables, but few had any kind of place selling refreshments. He had already emptied the bottle of water he had brought with him and his bladder was full enough to start feeling uncomfortable. He was going to have to stop at the next opportunity, no matter what facilities it had to offer. Luckily, he didn’t have to wait.
The pub stood back from the road, and although there were only a dozen cars parked in front of it, the place was almost full. A fire blazed in the hearth despite the mild weather, and a dozen backpackers were crowded around it. There were a couple of tables free but he chose to answer the call of nature before going to the bar.
There was something about the smell of a country pub that was unmistakeable, and that went double for the toilets. It didn’t matter how fastidious the cleaner was, or how liberal they were with the bleach, the odor remained. One of the hikers entered a moment after him, a big man standing well over six feet tall and filling the doorway. He was still standing by the door when Matthias went to wash his hands. He tried to ignore the stranger, but even when he was ready to leave and head back into the bar, the man was still blocking his way.
“Excuse me,” Matthias said, his voice polite but the look in his eyes must have been saying something different. The man made no effort to move. Matthias took a deep breath and reached past the man to grasp the door handle. “Mind if I squeeze though?”
The big man looked down at him, his eyes holding a look of barely restrained menace. “Better if you turn back now, while you still can,” the man said, but Matthias didn’t even see his lips move.
“Sorry?”
The man moved aside without saying anything else. Matthias wanted to ask what he meant but decided that getting out of there was more important. It had been a long time since he had last been threatened in a pub toilet and he had no interest in repeating the experience. Instead he slipped out and headed back into the bar where he ordered a plate of sandwiches and an orange juice. He still had a long drive ahead of him and didn’t dare risk having anything too heavy to eat, let alone a pint of beer to quench his thirst, in case it made him feel drowsy, but as he waited for his food to arrive he felt like most of the eyes in the room were on him. He could not have been the only stranger in the room given the location of the pub. Matthias had seen less than a dozen houses within walking distance and even if the occupants of all the houses had been in the pub they would not have filled the place.
He settled himself at a table close to a window that gave him a clear view into the parking lot and the occasional vehicles passing on the road. Beyond it lay a view of the mountains and for a moment he remembered that it was places like this he had missed during his time in the States. While he waited for his food he fished out the piece of paper that Hautdesert had given him, deciding to add the number to his phone’s contacts. For a moment he thought about calling to let Hautdesert know about the encounter with the big man, but he knew that he was just spooking himself. As he unfolded the sheet of paper though, he realized that there was something on the other side; a printout of something from the Internet.
Although there was a small amount of text on the page, it was the image that caught Matthias’ attention. It was an image of a barefooted monk standing on top of a hill, a circular halo behind his head. In his left hand he held a disc of stone, his right hand making a blessing. Tudno Sant, the image proclaimed; Saint Tudno. He might not be a fluent Welsh speaker, but it wasn’t exactly difficult to translate. He hadn’t even heard of a Saint Tudno, but he should have been able to guess that there had been one. He was heading for Llandudno and as any fool who had spent more than five minutes in the country knew, llan meant church. The town was named after Saint Tudno’s church and that was the church he was being sent to visit.
He spread the sheet of paper down on the table after wiping the surface dry with his sleeve. Was this the stone he was being sent to find? The text confirmed that Saint Tudno, or perhaps his brother, had once possessed the Whetstone of Tydwal Tuglyd, one of the Thirteen Treasures of Britain. Was this it? Was this the nonsense that Grimm was pursuing? Matthias had a vague recollection of reading something about the Treasures of Britain, but he could not be sure where. It might have been from reading the Mabinogi half a lifetime ago. Legends and fairytales. It only served to convince him that Grimm was chasing shadows.
Matthias kept an eye on the door but the big man he had encountered did not follow him into the bar. From time to time he glanced through the window, but there was no sign of any vehicles coming in or going out of the parking lot. He took a sip of his orange juice and decided that hopefully, the man was just some harmless, crazy guy. Hopefully.
6
Matthias was back on the road in less than an hour. The sandwiches had not been the best he had tasted, but they were far from the worst. There had been no more sign of the big man Matthias had encountered but there was still something about him that nagged at the back of his brain. Perhaps it had been his strange behavior, perhaps there was something the warning that Hautdesert had given him that had put him on edge. Just because he was sure that Grimm’s display had been no more than a charade did not mean that ordinary men might not be standing in his way. But if there really were others looking for the stone then either it really did have some kind of value, or the others who were looking were just as crazy as Grimm.
He was heading north, even though the road was long and winding, and sooner or later he would reach the land of the Gogs; the people of the north who spoke a different version of Welsh to the people of the south. Matthias knew that the chances of being able to tell the difference was slim but he had practiced the different accent and learned to mimic the higher pitch that the North Walians had before it morphed into the sing song accent of the Scousers from Liverpool who influenced the way they spoke English.
He tried to occupy his mind by thinking about the Mabinogi. This collection of tales included some of the earliest stories of King Arthur; placing him firmly in Wales rather than Cornwall, but beyond that he could remember little. There were fragments of other stories that he thought belonged in the collection of ancient folk tales, but he could be mistaken.
A truck blared its horn as he swept around a bend, the driver glaring at him as the two vehicles passed each other with only a matter of inches to spare. Matthias had allowed his mind to wander from the road. He slowed down a fraction, his heart racing as he realized that he had been driving a little too fast, on a road he was not familiar with. The look on the driver’s face was imprinted on his brain, even though he had been focusing on keeping control of the car. It took a moment before he was convinced that he knew the face; it was the man from the pub. He was sure of it, and yet that was impossible. He glanced into his rear-view mirror, but the truck had already disappeared around the bend.
His mind had to be playing tric
ks on him. There was no way that he could have seen the driver for more than a heartbeat and then not clearly enough to be sure that it had been the same man. Tricks. Hautdesert had got him imagining things with his crazy stories; he was seeing things when there was nothing there. There was no way that the man could have left the pub only to return heading in the opposite direction. He had thought that the break at the pub would be enough to break up the monotony of the drive, but clearly, he was mistaken. If he lost his concentration again he might find himself sliding off the edge of the road with no guarantee that the barriers would stop him sliding down the side of the mountain. Eventually his heartrate began to slow and he relaxed his grip on the wheel. With every mile that passed he relaxed just a little more until all he thought about was the tedium of the drive; not even the views of the mountains gave him any pleasure. He had been away too long and yet he had not missed it enough.
The navigation system counted down the miles to his destination, seeming to take forever to reach the point where he thought that it was in sight, and for the place name to appear on road signs. When he finally pulled the car to a halt he felt nothing but relief at the opportunity to stretch joints that had been held in one position for far too long.
It was mid-afternoon and any hope of getting back to Cardiff by nightfall had long since slipped away. Even if he managed to locate the stone easily, he was not sure that he could face the tortuous drive back, particularly at night. He was going to have to find somewhere to stay unless he wanted to sleep in the car, and he had already spent enough time in it for one day.
Eventually he saw the tiny church settled on top of a hill and the navigation released a fanfare to declare that he had reached his destination. He pulled over at the side of the road and waited for a gap in the traffic before climbing out. The breeze coming in from the sea caught him by surprise. He had been so intent on keeping an eye on the road that he had not taken in any of his other surroundings, but now he could see the sweep of the bay and he felt a sudden sense of freedom. For a moment he ignored the old, stone-built church and stepped between grave stones to get a better view of the town, pressed tight to the sea, separated only by a narrow stretch of sand. New buildings had filled in gaps just like every other seaside town he had visited. But this wasn’t about the town or the buildings, old or new. It was about the openness of the sea and the taste of the salt in the air.
