The Devil’s Architect: Book Two of the Dark Horizon Trilogy

by Duncan Simpson

  In unison, the three guards leaning over Hart’s body turned their heads towards the door. A smartly dressed lady charged into the room, swiftly followed by a uniformed prison guard pushing a medical trolley. Moving quickly, the woman took charge and gave a series of rapid and clipped instructions to the men around her. As she leant forward to secure the blood pressure monitor onto Hart’s arm, his eyes rolled backwards revealing the whites of his eyes.

  Chapter 4

  ‘Sarah will be down in a minute,’ said the physiotherapist. ‘I thought we could have a little chat before she arrives.’

  Blake edged back slightly in his chair and two lines of wrinkles appeared on his forehead.

  Sarah’s new physiotherapist was a small woman with greying hair cut into an immaculate bob. She sat perfectly upright in her crisp white uniform, a pair of sharp elbows resting on the sides of her chair. Blake could feel her eyes sizing him up.

  ‘Over the last few days, Sarah’s attitude has become a little, shall we say, unfocused.’

  ‘Right?’ said Blake.

  ‘She's obviously come a long way, but recovering from a coma is an unpredictable business. Her muscle strength, balance and flexibility are all improving, but they need constant work, and I mean hard work, if she’s going to get full use of her legs again. There are no certainties. She had been making very good progress up until recently, but things have somewhat plateaued. Sarah needs to battle, Mr Blake. Battle long and hard.’

  Blake rubbed his temple. Like a jumping movie reel, Blake’s mind rewound to the months following Sarah’s waking. Working with the team at London Bridge Hospital, one of the world’s leading coma rehabilitation centres, his twelve-year-old daughter had slowly relearned her motor skills: first learning to roll over; then manoeuvre herself into her wheelchair; and several months ago, with the aid of a transfer board, to shuffle in and out of the bath.

  Now she was learning to walk again, and it was maybe the hardest thing she would ever have to do in her life. It felt like they had slid to the bottom of the ladder again.

  ‘Her progress has slowed,’ said the woman, making a steeple with her fingers. ‘She needs to grit her teeth, focus on the task in hand, and—’

  Before she could continue, the doors of the elevator at the far end of the therapy room scraped open.

  ‘Dad!’ The call was loud and excited.

  ‘Excuse me,’ said Blake, quickly getting to his feet.

  Half walking and half running, he was at the elevator doors before Sarah had steered her wheelchair onto the therapy room floor.

  As they hugged each other hard, Sarah whispered something.

  ‘Don’t listen to what she says, she’s a witch.’

  Blake pulled back in surprise and looked quizzically at his daughter. Even though her clothes hung to her like a limp sail, Sarah’s eyes were bright and alive. ‘Pardon?’

  ‘She’s horrible and a bully,’ mumbled Sarah whilst her hand smoothed down her loose ponytail of black wavy hair.

  ‘Let’s go Sarah, we have lots of work to do today,’ a voice came from the other end of the room.

  Blake raised his hand in acknowledgement. ‘We’re coming.’ He gave Sarah a concerned look and lowered his head so he was almost cheek to cheek with his daughter. ‘You okay?’

  ‘I’m okay, Dad. It’s just that she’s a witch,’ she whispered back as a slanted little smile appeared on her face.

  Blake’s brows unknitted. ‘You going to give this a shot?’

  ‘Just watch me,’ said Sarah as her hands returned to the wheels of her wheelchair.

  ‘We’ll chat more after the session, okay?’

  ‘Okay, pops,’ said Sarah as she moved towards the parallel bars.

  The bars ran the entire length of the therapy room. Surrounded on three sides by floor-to-ceiling mirrors, the walking track between the bars was made of soft padding. As Blake helped Sarah out of her wheelchair, the therapist adjusted the control console on the wall. There was a slight hum of electric motors and the bars started to lower.

  ‘Right, young lady, let’s get to work,’ said the physiotherapist as she clapped her hands.

  Standing upright with a stick, Sarah waited for the ache to settle in her legs. With the bars now at a height just above her hips, she licked her lips in readiness.

  Blake put his arm around Sarah’s shoulder and followed her line of sight down the runway of the parallel bars. ‘Remember what I said princess: walk tall, tall like a tree,’ said Blake.

  Blake’s comment was more than academic. It had been his mantra during his months of rehabilitation following the reconstruction of his knee. These were the same months of Sarah’s gradual awakening from her coma. He had told his daughter that the injury to his right kneecap was the result of a fall from a motorcycle. He wondered if he would ever tell her the truth.

  Chapter 5

  Hart’s eyelids flickered open. As his vision stabilised, he slowly became aware of his surroundings. The graveness of his situation then hit him with full force. A cold sweat trembled down the length of his body. He was lying alone in a hospital bed.

  Instinctively, he tried to raise his hand to rub his face, but his reach was halted abruptly with a clatter. His eyes jerked downwards. His left wrist was handcuffed to the metal tubing of the bed. He tugged at the restraint again. This time the loop of the cuff scraped noisily along the length of the metal side rails.

  Hart’s shoulders collapsed into the pillow as if the air had been let out of him, and waves of exhaustion and nausea took hold of his body. Willing his eyes to focus inward, new voices began to echo in his head. The killing would start soon. There would be blood sacrifice. The moon will run with blood.

  He needed to move fast before the window of opportunity was lost forever. His body stiffened with the weight of the moment, but seconds later he was regulating his breathing to a well-rehearsed rhythm. He had trained for this time, and this is where the war would begin. Almost instantly he could feel the thud of his heart beginning to slow.

  The door handle of his room jerked downwards and in walked two policemen dressed in black military-style uniforms, followed by a female nurse. The face of the stockier of the two policemen bore the deep lines of experience; so did his uniform, which proudly displayed the three-chevron insignia of the rank of sergeant. His colleague was his junior and much younger looking, tall and lean in stature. Seeing the athletic frame of the seemingly unconscious prisoner, the Sergeant’s face hardened. Moments later he was circling Hart’s bed.

  As the nurse busied herself checking the stack of medical monitoring equipment beside her patient, she couldn’t help but steal another glance at the pistols secured on the belts of the policemen. A disapproving frown travelled over her forehead.

  ‘How’s he doing?’ asked the younger policeman.

  ‘Well, he’s stable,’ said the nurse, not looking up from the blood pressure machine, ‘but his body has suffered a serious shock. I doubt if he’s going anywhere soon. The consultant will examine him on his ward round in the morning and you can ask him then.’

  Hart willed himself not to swallow. He felt a slight waft of air against his cheek, just before his left hand was dragged several inches over the tight sheets of his bed.

  The police sergeant tugged at the handcuff. ‘All secure,’ he said over the clinking sound of metal on metal. He checked his watch. ‘You okay to take the first shift?’ He nodded over to the younger policeman.

  ‘No problem, but first I need something to eat.’

  The nurse looked up from her medical notes.

  ‘The canteen is still open for another ten minutes. It’s on the third floor. If you hurry you should be able to get something.’

  ‘Sounds like a plan,’ accepted the Sergeant.

  With that the two policemen left the room, followed seconds later by the nurse.

  Hart’s eyes snapped open. Soon he was twisting and turning his body free of the tightly tucked hospital sheets. Threading the loop
of the handcuff along the side rail of the bed, he managed to get his body sitting upright. He quickly scanned the room and clocked the time pulsing on the top corner of the digital blood pressure monitoring machine: 01.23 am.

  At the side of his bed stood a small white cabinet. In a series of small bucking movements, Hart bounced his body closer to it. Using his left handcuffed hand as a pivot, he turned his body over the side rail and reached down to the cabinet. Fumbling fingers quickly found the handle and inched open the door. A ghost of a grin flitted across Hart’s face at what he saw on the lowest shelf. He reached down with all his might, the strain squeezing the breath out of his chest. His fingertips were just millimetres away from their target, twitching in mid-air. With his face running in sweat, Hart relaxed his body just enough to take on several lungfuls of air and then tried again, this time sliding his hips square to the side rail.

  The muscles of his outstretched arm trembled, and his fingertips finally touched their quarry. Seconds later, Hart’s prison-issue shoe landed on the bed with a thump. He looked up at the clock on the blood pressure monitor and a sickening feeling lurched inside his stomach: 01.25 am. There was no time to lose.

  To ease the tight ache numbing his hand, he clenched and unclenched his fist several times before moving it to the back of his head. He dragged the rubber band free from his loose ponytail, and his hair fell in lank sweaty ribbons across his face. The palm of his hand patted down the back of his head. It took no time to find the thin length of metal woven into the strands of greasy hair. After several concerted yanks, the hacksaw blade was free and feeling sharp between Hart’s fingertips: 01.26 am.

  Nothing special had been added to the plain black leather shoe that now rested on Hart’s lap. Like all shoes issued to maximum-security patients, it had no laces, only Velcro straps. A pair of shoelaces in the hands of a determined patient could be used to garrotte an unsuspecting guard. The shoe had passed through countless metal detector examinations at Broadmoor; no weapon was concealed in the heel; no drugs were hidden under the insole. But it did have an unusual feature; Hart had made sure of it. Not something added, but something carefully removed.

  With matted hair clinging against his cheeks, Hart secured the shoe, heel facing upwards, between his knees. Picking up the hacksaw blade between his thumb and index finger, he moved it closer to the back of the shoe. Squinting, he could see the tiny hole that he had burned into the rubber heel with the end of a blade weeks before in the prison workshop. Holding his breath, he lowered the fine-toothed strip of metal vertically down into the hole. It was a perfect fit, with half its length securely fixed in the rubber and half protruding out: 01.27 am.

  Using the shoe as a saw handle with the blade fixed rigidly into the heel, he set to work on the metal tubing of the side rail securing the handcuff to the hospital bed. Hart went at a frenetic pace and soon cut a groove into the metal tube. His arm gunned in and out, like the piston of a steam engine. After several minutes, Hart’s face turned slack and he discarded the makeshift saw onto the bed. He blinked through the sweat filling his eyes and examined the half-cut metal tube. His fingers touched the slit and felt heat radiating from the incision line. Only a third of the tube’s circumference remained. He yanked at the side rail with all his power. It yielded almost immediately, and the loop of the handcuff clattered against the side of the bed as it slid free.

  Hart swung his legs over the side of the bed and stepped down. The floor felt cold on the soles of his feet.

  At 01.32 am, the police sergeant’s fist hammered down upon the emergency alarm.

  Chapter 6

  Gerry Sanders breezed into the conference room and shook the hands of the two men seated by the window.

  ‘Sorry to keep you gentlemen waiting,’ he said. Sanders bounced into one of the leather chairs and glanced at his Rolex. ‘I can only give you twenty minutes I’m afraid. I have to be on the other side of town in an hour to meet the councillor.’

  Sanders talked like a politician, fast and as smooth as a milkshake. Over the last decade, he had built a reputation as one of London’s most aggressive and successful property developers. Where there was development opportunity, Sanders wouldn’t be far behind. His first million, however, had been made in the gambling industry. He was the man behind the explosion in the fixed-odds betting terminals now ubiquitous in London’s betting shops: machines which were as addictive as crack cocaine. At the time, Sanders had controlled the UK licence for the distribution of the terminals. He then used his wealth to make investments in property all over the capital and in the adult film industry.

  ‘Angelo, you’re looking well, and this must be the Reverend Jackson,’ he said, casually brushing the knee of his flint grey suit. ‘I suspect you have both made a wasted journey. Anyway,’ continued Sanders, ‘as a favour to Angelo, I am willing to hear what you have to say.’

  Sensing his opening, the Reverend cleared his throat.

  ‘Mr Sanders,’ he said falteringly. ‘On behalf of the Trustees of the Hawksmoor City Churches, I would like to thank you for your time today.’ In contrast to Sanders, the Reverend cut a crumpled figure. He was a fidgety man and looked dishevelled with windblown hair.

  ‘As you may know, the Friends of Hawksmoor City Churches came into being a little over eight years ago. Founded by Angelo here, and other senior church representatives across the city, our organisation aims to ensure that Hawksmoor’s architectural legacy is preserved for posterity and, most importantly, that his churches are kept open as places of worship. Hawksmoor’s churches are a priceless heritage that need to protected.’

  ‘From the likes of people like me,’ Sanders teased.

  ‘We have nothing against progress,’ Reverend Jackson said, unconsciously raising his voice. ‘But sometimes it can destroy the culture and heritage of an area. These churches are totally unique and can’t be replaced. With Angelo’s help, the Friends have managed to secure the long-term stewardship of five of Hawksmoor’s churches, but your planned Windsor development is threatening the future of St George-in-the-East and the important work it does in the local community.’

  The Windsor Development was a seventy-million-pound building project to transform the church’s surrounding area into luxury apartments. Targeting wealthy Russian and Chinese business people who worked in the nearby Canary Wharf financial centre, the Windsor Development was set to return significant profits in today’s superheated property market.

  ‘St George’s,’ the vicar continued, ‘has been a blessing to so many of its congregation, many of whom are City professionals. They are seeking comfort in the Christian faith, and St George’s brings them sanctuary from the stress and anxiety of their workplace.’

  Sanders pushed back from the table, a trace of a smile on his face.

  ‘I’m sure the Church is doing lots of good work, but please forgive me for saying so, there seem to be more pews than people in there. Redevelopment won’t kill the area, it will only strengthen it,’ said Sanders. ‘Many of the churches have fallen into disrepair and, with respect, I see them as an impediment to progress. Many are deserted and magnets for vandalism.’ He locked eyes with the third man sitting at the table. ‘Angelo, you know what I’m talking about.’

  Angelo Ricard adjusted the orientation of the gold pen sitting in front of him so that it was parallel to the edge of the table. Exquisitely tailored in a black suit, Ricard wore gleaming tan brogues and a silk handkerchief sticking out from his jacket pocket. He was in his early fifties, but his immaculately parted hair was untroubled by any trace of grey.

  Ricard had made his money in hedge funds during the crazy days of unregulated markets, but he had quickly diversified into property. His dramatic conversion to faith had been well documented in the financial press. Ricard was now seen as a philanthropist, a spokesman for good causes, and a safe pair of hands, having donated much of his wealth to inner-city projects.

  ‘Gerry, how long have we known each other?’ said Ricard, in a distinctiv
e sonorous voice. ‘Maybe ten years, give or take?’

  Sanders nodded from the other side of the table.

  ‘I’m not as young as I used to be.’ He smiled. ‘But I have realised that certain things need to be protected, whatever the cost. These churches are not just bricks and mortar. They are our nation’s heritage.’ Ricard started tapping his fingers on the table.

  ‘Come on, Angelo, you’re going to have to do better than that. This is a legitimate development opportunity. We aren’t even touching the fabric of your church. We are reclaiming some of its surrounding land. Land that is overgrown and unkempt, I might add.’ He took a pause to take on breath. ‘Here’s the thing; if you want the plans adjusted, you need to give something in return. You’ve got to have some skin in the game, if you will. Then maybe I could iron things out with my investors.’

  The developer tried to read Ricard’s face as he exchanged a sideways glance with the vicar.

  ‘You help us here, Gerry, and I will make sure you get a good hearing with the City Corporation about that office development south of the river. I can’t promise a result, but I can arrange a private lunch with you and the Chief Financial Officer.’ Ricard waited for his words to take root.

  Sanders’s swinging foot suddenly went still, and a smile travelled across his face.

  ‘A small gesture of goodwill goes a long way in this world,’ said Sanders. He leaned over the table and offered his hand to seal the deal. ‘I’ll talk to my investors this afternoon.’

  Two minutes later, Ricard and Reverend Jackson were outside Sanders’s exclusive riverside offices nodding their goodbyes to each other. Ricard felt his mobile phone vibrate in his pocket. He read the message, and his heart went cold.