The Mask of Destiny

by Richard Newsome

  Rows of pews were smashing over like a line of dominos, each one knocking into the one in front. In the cavernous church, the sound was like a battery of field guns. Next to the first of the fallen pews stood Sam, a ‘whoops’ look on his face.

  The last pew crashed onto the flagstones. The clatter curled up and out the arched windows high above like a cloud of bats scouring into the night.

  Sam stood rooted to the spot, frozen in place by the silence that had descended over them.

  Ruby glared at him. ‘You idiot,’ she said.

  The silence was short-lived. From outside the church came the sound of running boots.

  Police boots.

  ‘This way,’ Gerald called, bolting towards the semi-circular chancel. Fluted pillars loomed high out of the surrounding shadows like forest trees around a clearing. Incense wafted from two brass burners suspended nearby.

  ‘Come on,’ Gerald said, and the three of them dived into an alcove on one side of the altar. They disappeared into the darkness, but they were boxed in. The only way out was back into the church.

  And there was no question of going that way. A second after Sam slid next to Gerald, three men burst in from the northern transept.

  Gerald flattened himself against the back wall of the alcove. His throat tightened. In the eerie moonlight, just metres away from them, stood Constable Lethbridge, a French policeman and…his mother’s life coach.

  Walter had joined the manhunt.

  Chapter 11

  Gerald was sure the thump of his heart rattling the bars of his ribcage would give them away. The pounding reverberated in his ears, growing more urgent with each beat. He didn’t dare move his head to see what Sam and Ruby were doing on either side of him. All he could do was stare out from their hiding place into the body of the church.

  Walter was different.

  Gerald had only ever seen him with Vi. On those occasions, he was as smooth as a fox rolled in velvet. It was all opening doors and gracious manners, witty asides and casual laughter. Walter could not be more considerate. Did Vi need somewhere to sit? Could he fetch her a cup of tea? Or champagne, perhaps? He’d treated Gerald’s mother like royalty. Nothing had been too much trouble for Walter.

  But not now. Not with Gerald on the run.

  The look on Walter’s face was that of a man who had not slept in the past two days. Until that moment, Gerald had given little thought to the man. He had been just another of his mother’s fripperies, picked up after Gerald inherited his great aunt’s fortune. First the Botox, then the spray-on tan, now the life coach. But Walter’s expression revealed he had much more on his mind than helping Vi draft a blueprint for her life. His face betrayed a focus that bordered on desperation.

  ‘They must be in here,’ Walter said. His eyes scanned the shadows, grazing right past Gerald’s hiding place.

  ‘These pews have been pushed over.’ The French policeman’s voice sounded out from the nave. ‘They must have come through this way.’

  Lethbridge stood beside Walter. He was looking directly at the alcove where Gerald, Ruby and Sam were cowering.

  ‘Maybe a dog knocked them,’ the constable said.

  ‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ Walter said. ‘It was them. They’re here somewhere.’ He took a step closer to the alcove. ‘I can feel it.’

  Lethbridge suddenly jabbed his finger towards the doors at the far end of the nave. ‘Over there!’ he cried. ‘I think I saw someone run outside.’

  Walter’s head turned towards the doors. ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘Oh yes,’ Lethbridge said. ‘Very sure.’

  Walter took off towards the entry, collecting the French policeman on the way. In seconds, they were out the door and into the night.

  Lethbridge watched them leave. He then wandered towards the alcove and knelt to tie his laces.

  ‘You three have created a ruckus and that’s for sure,’ he said. Lethbridge lifted his head and looked straight at Gerald.

  Gerald’s breath caught in his throat. ‘You can see us?’ he said.

  ‘Good eyes,’ Lethbridge said. ‘From spotting pigeons on cloudy days. Those little grey and white beauties blend in when the weather rolls in. One time we were near Gloucester when—no, I tell a lie, it was Tewkesbury. Just off the M50 it was. Anyway, the weather turned nasty and, would you believe it, I had to—’

  ‘Constable,’ Ruby interrupted. ‘We don’t have the time.’

  ‘Oh, yes,’ Lethbridge said. ‘Pardon I. Look, what do you lot think you’re playing at? Inspector Jarvis is furious.’

  ‘I didn’t kill him,’ Gerald whispered from the shadows.

  ‘There’s plenty who think you did,’ Lethbridge said, still fiddling with his boots. ‘Your mother’s friend out there is leading the charge.’

  Ruby shook her head. ‘What does she see in him?’ she said.

  ‘I think it’s more what he sees in her,’ Sam said. ‘If Gerald’s in jail for murder I bet his parents get full control of everything.’

  ‘The DNA test came back positive,’ Lethbridge said. ‘That blowgun they found in your room is the one used to kill Sir Mason Green, and it had your saliva on it.’

  ‘That’s because the woman who broke into the house to steal the ruby planted it there,’ Gerald said, ignoring Ruby’s plea to keep his voice down. ‘I’m being set up.’ Then a memory flashed into his head. ‘Hold on. You were the one who told her the ruby was there, you great numpty!’

  Lethbridge’s face went pale. ‘Not Charlotte?’

  ‘You know her?’ It was Ruby’s turn to ignore Gerald about the volume.

  Lethbridge stiffened and sniffed back a tear. ‘I thought I did.’ His left hand rubbed at his backside.

  ‘This is getting weird,’ Sam said. Ruby shushed him as well.

  ‘Are you going to arrest us?’ Gerald asked.

  Lethbridge shook his head. ‘I don’t know how you’re going to convince Inspector Jarvis. He’s like a dog with a bone on this one.’

  Gerald swore to himself. ‘We’ve got to find Charlotte. It’s the only way.’ Then he looked back to the constable. ‘You better catch up with Walter and your French mate before they realise you’ve spent the last five minutes tying the laces on a pair of elastic-sided boots.’

  A sharp voice shot into the church, like an arrow into a bullseye.

  ‘Are you all right, constable?’

  Walter’s brash accent seemed out of place in such a solemn setting. Gerald shrank back into the shadows. Lethbridge froze like a four-year-old caught with a handful of biscuits.

  Gerald held his breath as his mother’s life coach materialised over Lethbridge’s shoulder like a wraith from the shadows.

  ‘Seen something?’ Walter asked, his eyes sweeping the corners of the chancel like a bloodhound denied his dinner.

  It was then that Sam sneezed—a nostril-blasting WATSHOO!

  Ruby flung her hand across Sam’s nose and mouth.

  Lethbridge’s eyes sprang wide, then he too let fly with a moisture-soaked WITASHEEOO!

  Walter studied the back of Lethbridge’s head for a second. Gerald saw that Ruby was cutting off her brother’s air supply. Sam batted her hand away.

  Walter’s eyes narrowed. ‘Bless you,’ he said.

  ‘Thanks,’ said Sam.

  Gerald had to restrain Ruby from smothering Sam on the spot. But it was no use.

  ‘I knew it!’ Walter cried, and he thrust an arm into the alcove. He gripped Gerald’s shoulder like a vice, and dragged him across the flagstones. ‘Come out, you criminal.’

  ‘Let me go!’ Gerald screamed. A jolt of pain shot down his spine. He kicked out, trying to connect. But every time he moved Walter tightened the vice. Gerald was sure his collarbone would snap at any second. It was agony.

  ‘You’re coming with me,’ Walter said. ‘Back to face justice, you little wrecking ball.’

  Gerald kicked out again, but missed.

  ‘Your mother doesn’t need her treatment to be bulld
ozed by you,’ Walter said, wrenching another cry from Gerald. ‘She’s at a very delicate stage.’

  ‘What?’ Gerald said. ‘Hasn’t she given you enough of my money yet?’

  Walter’s face darkened. He drew back his hand and was about to strike, when Lethbridge grabbed him by the wrist. Walter had rounded on the policeman, his face ablaze with rage, when there was a colossal bong. Walter’s eyes rolled back in their sockets and his knees gave out. He sank to the floor, revealing Ruby standing behind him, one of the large brass incense burners swinging from a chain in her hands. She looked extremely pleased with herself.

  ‘Holy smoke,’ Lethbridge said.

  ‘Look, I’m sorry Constable Lethbridge,’ Gerald said, ‘but we’re not coming with you.’

  Lethbridge glanced at the still-smoking incense burner in Ruby’s hand. ‘Fine by me,’ he said nervously. ‘But where are you going to go?’

  ‘Even if we did know, I’m hardly going to tell you, am I?’ Gerald said. ‘But you believe me, don’t you? Charlotte is the one you should be after.’

  ‘What I believe don’t count for nothing,’ Lethbridge said. ‘Inspector Jarvis is the one you need to convince. And he’ll be on your tail.’

  A low groan came up from the floor. Walter was stirring.

  ‘You best be getting on,’ Lethbridge said. ‘I’ll look after this one.’

  A shrill whistle blast pierced the church. Two French policemen appeared at the doors.

  ‘Thanks, constable,’ Gerald said. ‘I owe you.’

  Gerald vaulted over Walter just as he was sitting up, and a foot connected with his temple, sending the life coach slithering back to the flagstones.

  Sam led the way out the northern transept. They emerged into the moonlight and found themselves in the cloisters surrounding a grassed rectangular courtyard. Doorways led off in half a dozen directions, and Sam disappeared through one on the far right. Ruby and Gerald plunged after him.

  They burst into a dining hall with enough long wooden tables and benches to seat a thousand people. Gerald had no idea whether the French police were close behind them or had taken a different door, and he wasn’t going to wait to find out.

  A spiral staircase at the end of the dining hall disappeared to a lower level. They took the steps two at a time. The police whistle seemed to come at them from all directions. Sam ploughed ahead.

  They reached the bottom of the stairs and stopped. They had lost the moonlight and the way forward was shrouded in shadow.

  ‘Now where?’ Ruby whispered.

  ‘Head torches?’ Sam said, shrugging his pack from his shoulders.

  ‘No batteries,’ Ruby said. ‘Remember?’

  Just when Gerald thought they might have to retrace their steps, he caught a spark of light from the corner of his eye.

  ‘Over there,’ he pointed. ‘Is that a lamp?’

  Deep into the gloom, a flickering yellow light seemed to beckon them. Gerald tugged the straps on his back-pack and set off across the room.

  They found a hurricane lamp suspended from a stone column that had the girth of a sequoia. The lamp spilled a pool of golden light onto the floor. Then, further on, a doorway was suddenly illuminated in a similar hue.

  ‘Come on Hansel and Gretel,’ Gerald said to Sam and Ruby. ‘Someone’s leaving us a trail.’

  They picked their way through the darkness, from lamp to lamp, through a maze of interconnecting rooms and dungeons deeper into the stone forest.

  ‘Is it the monks doing this?’ Ruby whispered, sticking close to Gerald’s elbow. ‘Leaving these lamps to mark the way?’

  ‘Well I don’t think it’s our evil stepmother,’ Sam said. ‘Have you noticed that once we reach a new lantern the one behind us goes out?’

  ‘How would they even know who you are?’ Ruby asked.

  ‘Maybe the guy who opened the door for us saw my ring and figured Lucius is my ancestor. Word would travel pretty quickly in a place like this.’

  ‘Do you have any idea where we are?’ Ruby said. ‘They could be leading us anywhere.’

  ‘I guess we just have to trust whoever’s doing this,’ Gerald said. Deeper and deeper they crept, through arched openings and down damp corridors. Occasionally there was a distant blast on a whistle, but nearby the only sound was the clomp of their shoes across the stone floor. Finally they stopped under a lantern by a pair of heavy wooden doors.

  ‘We go through?’ Gerald asked.

  Sam looked over his shoulder. ‘It’s darker than midnight back there. I don’t think we have much choice.’

  Gerald pulled on a door handle and the portal creaked open. A gust of sea air hit their faces. They were on an outer walkway, high up and overlooking the southern side of the island. Far below, a ribbon of lights marked the causeway that led back to the mainland.

  ‘That’s our way out,’ Gerald said. ‘Now we’ve just got to get down there.’

  A flurry of movement caught his attention. A swirl of dark cloth disappeared around a corner of the ramparts.

  ‘Over there,’ Gerald said. ‘It’s one of the monks.’ He darted to the corner, positive that he had seen a cloaked figure skirt around it. But when he got there, the corridor was deserted.

  ‘I’m sure there was someone,’ Gerald said. ‘Someone must have been leading us this way. The monks must have recognised me: they must know about my link to Lucius and the casket. But why lead us to the heights of the abbey when we need to find a way out?’

  And then he saw it.

  A ramp—a stone ramp, not quite a metre wide, sloped steeply, very steeply, down the side of the castle, all the way to outside the city gates.

  Ruby took one look at Gerald and bucked up.

  ‘It’s not going to happen,’ she said. ‘I am not going to climb down that thing. You know I hate heights.’

  ‘Come on, Ruby,’ Sam said, peering over the lip of the castle wall and down the narrow buttress. ‘The police will be watching the gates. It’s the perfect way to get around them.’

  ‘No way,’ Ruby said. ‘I won’t do it.’ She folded her arms across her chest. ‘After what happened on the Tor at Glastonbury I swore I’d never risk a climb like that again. And I won’t.’

  Sam looked to Gerald, silently urging him to do something. Gerald thought for a second then took Ruby by the shoulders and spun her round to face him.

  ‘You know I’m a good climber,’ he said. ‘I’ll go first, then you and then Sam. I’ll catch you if you fall.’

  ‘Fall!’

  ‘But you won’t fall,’ Gerald said. ‘Because I’ll be with you. All the way.’ In the pale moonlight their eyes connected.

  Ruby looked at Gerald for a long time. Then she pulled him into a close hug. ‘Only because it’s you,’ she said, her cheek resting on his chest.

  Gerald stared mortified over Ruby’s shoulder at Sam, a ‘what’s this all about?’ expression on his face. Sam looked like he’d just discovered his sister was an alien with two heads and a set of gills.

  ‘Uh, we should probably get going then,’ Gerald said, giving Ruby an awkward pat on the back. Ruby unwrapped her arms and had a quick peek down the length of the ramp. ‘I’m not happy about this,’ she said.

  ‘You’ll be fine,’ Gerald said. ‘It’s like climbing a ladder. One step at a time. Just don’t look down.’

  He sat on the ledge and looked out into the night. They were a long way up.

  Gerald rolled to his stomach and eased his legs over the edge. The ramp was constructed from stone blocks, with a worn track either side of a central slab. The monks must have used it to haul things up to the abbey. It would beat carrying stuff up all those stairs, he thought. There was a deep notch between each block, perfect for fingers and toes to find purchase. It should be an easy climb down.

  Gerald stopped after a few metres and called up to Ruby. ‘Your turn now,’ he said. ‘Face the wall and take it slow. Use the cracks between the blocks like rungs on a ladder. It’s easy as.’

 
; Ruby nodded and lowered herself over the edge. Gerald could sense her fear.

  But, step by step, Ruby edged down the ramp, keeping her eyes fixed on the rocks in front of her. Gerald waited until she was only a few blocks above him, then he set off again.

  The breeze had strengthened and was starting to whip across the fortifications. Gerald tested each block with his foot, pushing down to make sure it would take his weight. Everything seemed secure.

  Then a searchlight swept across the wall just below his feet.

  Gerald froze.

  ‘Ruby,’ he called. ‘Stop climbing.’

  He craned his neck. Ruby was caught between rungs. One leg was stretched down with her toes wedged into the notch between the blocks. The other foot was still jammed into the stone above.

  ‘What is it?’ Ruby whispered. ‘This isn’t very comfortable.’

  ‘A searchlight,’ Gerald said. ‘Coming from the top of the abbey.’ As he spoke, a broad beam of intense white light swept just metres beneath them, picking out every crack and weed in the rock face.

  ‘We have to hurry,’ Gerald said. ‘Ruby, when I say go, you have to come down to me as fast as you can. Okay?’

  Gerald heard a grunted reply. The timing had to be perfect. He watched as the spotlight reached the far end of its arc, paused, then came again. This time the light was higher, scouring a path right towards him. He scrambled further down the ramp, like a spider down a drainpipe. His shoes knocked out rocks and pebbles, sending them into the void and scattering against the wall below like buckshot. Gerald glanced up to see the searchlight sweep across the blank space between him and Ruby.

  ‘Okay, Ruby,’ he called up. ‘Your turn. On the count of three. One—’

  Ruby fell.

  Her lower foot slipped out of the notch and she lost her grip. Her shoes landed in the smooth tracks on the sides of the ramp and she set off in a scrambling slide down the wall. The searchlight on its return arc grazed the top of her head as she shot down the ramp, hands flailing in search of a hold.

  Gerald had no time to process what was coming at him.

  He braced his feet deep into a crevice and wrapped his knees around the stone slab as if it was a rodeo horse. A split second before Ruby tumbled into him he pushed off with his hands, forming a safety net with his torso and arms. He batted her feet off the tracks and she landed into the cup of his lap with a thud. Gerald groaned with the strain on his legs and flattened himself to the wall, wrapping himself over Ruby like a spider’s web.