by D C Macey
‘Byzantine? I thought we were talking Roman,’ said Helen.
‘By that time, control of Leptis Magna had passed from Rome and the Western Roman Empire to Byzantium and the Eastern Roman Empire. Thence, eventually, to the Muslim Saracens,’ said Miles, his chest inflating slightly as he prepared to launch into automatic and give a well-practised and oft-delivered briefing.
Sam pressed his hand against Helen’s forearm, discreetly checking her before she could ask another question. This was clearly Miles’ hobbyhorse; allowed the time, it seemed he might expand all day without actually answering Sam’s question.
‘My key?’ said Sam.
‘Yes, yes, of course.’ Miles returned to the topic. ‘It’s the stairway, very straightforward when you know to look. It took me a while, but I finally linked it all up. mind you, I spent a month there with little else to do.
‘To either side of the stairway, starting from the top and on every alternate step down, pairs of tiles were set. Not immediately obvious to somebody strolling along. The stair is too wide to see the detail of both decorated tiles at the same time, but as soon as you know to look, there they are.
‘You see, unlike much Roman fresco and artwork, the individual tiles in isolation seemed to make no sense, had no pattern. Each tile seemed similar to its partner on the opposite side of the stairway but not an exact copy, and the thing missing from the whole sequence was always a pattern. It’s what you would expect to find, and there wasn’t one, just random.’
‘What does that mean?’ asked Sam.
‘I thought about it a lot. The absence of a pattern in the tile sequence was a real puzzle, especially for artwork on such a prestigious building.’ Pausing for a moment, Miles fixed Sam with his gaze. ‘Of course, in the end, it came to me. The absence of the pattern is the pattern.’
‘I’m sorry, you’ve lost me.’
‘I think they are a sequence, a code sequence, perhaps that’s your key - hidden in plain view for nobody to ever notice. It’s the only possible purpose for the tiles I can come up with. I can’t prove my theory - after two thousand years, I never stood a chance of finding the message to decode. It will have been lost to time, long ago. They invested a lot of effort in keeping secrets secret - loved their codes and ciphers.’
Sam shifted on the stone. It was hard and becoming uncomfortable, but he moved, because instinctively, he wanted to be just a little closer to Miles. ‘What do you mean a code sequence? Can you remember the tiles?’
Miles laughed. ‘There were a dozen of them, and it was a long time ago. But of course, two thousand years ago there were no toughened steel vaults, no electric alarms. If you wanted to keep something secret, you did it by guile, by cunning. The use of codes and concealment was very common.’
‘Yes,’ said Sam. ‘Yes, it was.’
‘So, to see these tiles and how they’re laid out, we would need to go to Leptis?’ said Helen.
‘I wouldn’t go there these days. You’d be very lucky to come out with your life. But no, you don’t need to go to Leptis Magna to see the tiles. I have a full set of photographs at home in Morecambe.’
‘You do? May we see them?’ Sam’s voice was as steady as ever, but inside, his heart was pounding. Had they found what he needed, here, in the most remote and unlikely of places? Had they?
The conversation continued a little longer and reached an impasse due to Miles’ plan to stay on Orkney for another two weeks and Sam’s desperation to see the photographs as soon as possible. Finally, Miles promised when he got back to his farmhouse lodgings that afternoon, he would borrow the telephone to call his daughter. He’d warn her to expect a call from Sam and make sure she was ready to give him access to the photographs as soon as possible. He’d call the warden at his housing complex too, just to make sure they got access okay.
Miles chatted a little more, until finally, he made it clear he needed to return to his work. They moved back to the little passageway entrance. Helen gave Miles a brief hug, refastened her jacket and crouched down. Twisting and settling her back flat on the trolley, she looked up as Miles jotted down his daughter’s phone number for Sam.
‘Goodbye, Miles, I hope we meet again,’ she said and reached up to grab hold of the blue pull rope.
‘Oh, hold on one moment, please.’
Helen paused as Miles turned his attention back to Sam. ‘While you’re up here, there’s something interesting just a bit further along the coast, close to the cliff’s edge. I think it’s medieval, more your time than mine. An engraved stone marker. It must have fallen centuries ago, been overgrown and finally buried beneath the turf. I unearthed it a couple of winters back. I think it may be right up your street.’
‘Great, we’ll have a look right now.’
‘You won’t be able to, I’m afraid. I covered it up again to preserve the site. Always meant to get in touch with somebody with an interest in the era, just never quite got round to it.’
‘Oh well, another time maybe.’
‘Yes, another time. But I’ll ask my daughter to look out the photographs of that too. I think you’ll find it an interesting artefact. I’m no expert on the period, but I think the markings may have some Templar significance. That’s not surprising as the Earl of Orkney was apparently involved with the Templars.’
Involuntarily, Helen’s hand gripped the blue rope tighter.
‘That does sound interesting,’ said Sam, reaching out his hand to shake Miles’ as Helen finally pulled on the blue rope and disappeared from view, heading back out into the winter’s cold.
• • •
Sam returned the keys to the car-hire kiosk and joined Helen in the cafeteria where she had bought them hot soup and rolls. She gave him a smile as he sat.
‘It seems like we’ve had a successful trip.’
‘Yes. Anything that ensures I don’t have to go to Libya is positive.’
‘I? Knowing who’s involved, you don’t think I’d let you go alone?’ said Helen.
Sam shook his head. ‘I knew you’d think that, but if I’d gone, you couldn’t have come.’
‘How so?’
‘You’re a Christian minister, a woman and an American. That would single you out for every sort of special attention from the extremist elements. You’d be a prize many would sacrifice anything to capture. It’s just not safe for you.’
Helen was about to argue when she stopped herself, thought and nodded; Sam was right. They finished their soup and made for the departure gate, eager to get home.
Even as Helen and Sam lined up to board the plane, passengers newly arrived from Edinburgh, including two burly men on very private business, funnelled through the arrivals channel.
6
Thursday, January 9th
Helen gave the slightest of shivers as Sam drove his hire car past the place where she had so recently been rammed and forced off the road.
‘That’s where it happened,’ she said.
Sam glanced sideways to where Helen indicated then returned his focus to the road ahead. He was taking no chances, even though the council had, at last, got to grips with recent snowfalls, and the main road was glistening wet-black. The verges were stacked with brown, grit-stained snow, ploughed aside by the road crews. The black leaf-free hedgerows were topped with a thick slab of snow, and beyond, the fields were buried in an unbroken layer of white.
‘Turn in here,’ said Helen.
Sam flicked on the indicator and turned off the main road.
Helen looked over her shoulder into the back seat. ‘This is it guys.’ In the back sat Davy and Julie - students from Sam’s tutor group. Following their unintended involvement in previous incidents around Helen’s Templar inheritance, they had become enthusiastic and trusted aides. Today, they were on hand to help Sam undertake a brief appraisal of what had been found in the woods.
Ten minutes later, they had parked up, grabbed their gear and walked up the field to the treeline, where they paused and looked back down and acr
oss the field to the hire car by the gate.
‘There are more sets of footprints running back and forth across the field than I would have expected,’ said Sam.
Helen had to agree. She recalled the set of tracks she thought she had seen amid the falling snow on her first visit. Perhaps she had been right after all.
A movement caught their attention. In the distance, they could just make out a tractor cab slowly making its way between the hedgerows that defined the lane.
‘That will be Alan clearing the road,’ said Helen.
‘It’ll certainly make access easier,’ said Julie.
‘I’m not sure we want that,’ said Sam, glancing again at the footprints.
He turned and headed into the woods; Davy and Julie followed. Helen paused to raise an arm and wave towards the tractor. She smiled to herself as the driver acknowledged her with a bright flash of the floodlights that were ranked along the top of the tractor’s cab. She turned and followed the others.
• • •
‘Who’s there?’ Miles Bertram called along the low passageway. There was no answer. He stooped and peered into it. From the gloom within the passage, he could see only bright daylight. He was sure he had heard voices. Muttering to himself, he turned back to his work. He must have been mistaken - probably just the wind. He’d had visitors the day before. In all his years of winter research, he’d never had a visitor; it couldn’t happen twice in successive days.
Miles thought about waiting for a bus and two coming at once then shook his head, laughed quietly and made his way to the far end of the cairn. As he ducked away into the side chamber, he did not see the trolley roll away into the passage. Nor did he see the blue pull rope tense. Moments later, a new visitor began to pull himself through the passageway and into the cairn.
• • •
‘It’s quite a site, bigger than I’d envisaged,’ said Sam. Having pegged and taped off the immediate area, they had rigged a rope ladder and clambered down into the trench. Standing on what had once been the vaulted ceiling of the buried chamber, Sam had carefully worked his way along the length of the trench, checking the walls as he went.
His initial inspection over, he turned his attention back to the team who were spread out along the trench’s length.
‘It seems to be a single space. I can see no signs of side chambers or doorways.’ He let his hand drift across the clean lines of the cut-stone walls. ‘This is old. Much older than you would think from the state of the stone but being buried has protected it from weathering. Fine craftsmanship too. The best of masons worked on this.’
‘Do you think it was our lot?’ said Helen, crossing the chamber to join him.
‘The Templars?’ Sam shrugged. ‘I’ve seen nothing to support that yet. Perhaps once we clear the fallen roof stones, we’ll find clear evidence of who built it. But for now? Yes, my money’s on your Templars. After all, they must have left this wood in trust for a reason. I can’t think of any better reason to do that than to pass on a secret chamber. Whatever its purpose is.’
• • •
Miles Bertram didn’t understand what was happening; he only knew he’d had enough.
Things had happened in a flurry. A strong hand had propelled him against the neatly stacked stones that formed the inside walls of the cairn. A second hand had quickly followed, forcing his face into the stone. His nose had broken at once. As the blood started to flow, he had pulled his head away from the stones only for it to be driven back again with added vigour. A split in his forehead had opened and a second stream of blood flowed down to fill his eyes and blind him. Then he was dragged back and thrown face down on to the stone floor.
‘What’s going on? Stop this. Who are you?’ Miles rolled onto his side and tried to lever himself up on his arms. Age had weakened his body, but he had always been game.
‘You have no right to be here. This is private land, and there’s nothing of value. Just go. I’m going to report this to the authorities.’
There was a second assailant, a man whose presence Miles had not initially registered. He raised his boot and brought his heel down against the locked arm that supported Miles’ weight as he started to rise. The elbow joint snapped, and Miles collapsed back to the ground with a scream of pain and fear. He tried to reach his good arm round to tend the snapped elbow - he never reached it.
The boot returned and met his face, scattering teeth that he had spent a lifetime preserving and protecting. Then the boot settled on his good arm, pinning it to the floor. As his pained cries finally subsided into laboured moans, strong hands reached down and gripped his shoulders to drag him up to his knees. The interrogation began.
The men inflicting the pain didn’t really understand the questions that were being asked. Certainly, they could make little sense of the answers that Miles Bertram directed towards the screen of the mobile phone they held open.
They did understand the clear instructions that reached them in French-accented English through the phone’s speaker each time their victim failed to answer a question satisfactorily. And each time, they obliged Eugene Jr by inflicting more pain. They didn’t bother holding back, knowing the man on the receiving end would never need to recover. Eventually, the beating seemed to elicit the required responses, and the remote inquisitor declared himself content.
From his place on the ground, Miles Bertram was scarcely aware of the men clearing up their mess. He was so dazed he hardly noticed when he was tied to the trolley and pulled through the passageway into the daylight. Outside, his broken and swollen face did not register the cold; his eyes, almost completely closed, did see the slightest squint of blue. The clouds of yesterday had cleared to leave a perfect pale blue winter sky, resting sharp against the shimmering silver of the sea.
He was aware of the quite unbearable pain in his broken elbow as the two men took an arm each and dragged him beyond the cairn to the cliff edge. There was no pause there. He simply left them, was aware of falling. Time for just one spin, blue sky to silver sea, then to black and nothing more.
• • •
Sam had rolled down the blind to block out the winter night. He returned to the kitchen table and sat beside Helen, resting a comforting hand on hers. He could see that, in spite of the kitchen’s warmth, she was shivering.
Helen smiled at him through tear-filled eyes as she continued her telephone conversation. ‘I’m so sorry, Ignatius. I want to come to the service, if it’s at all possible. Promise you’ll let me know the date of the funeral as soon as arrangements are made. If I can come, I will. Let’s speak again soon. Now, I know you really need to speak with Sam; he’s right here. I’ll pass you over.’
Wiping away tears from her eyes, she passed the telephone handset to Sam and sat quietly as the long-distance conversation played through. Finally, the call ended, and Sam put down the handset.
Helen looked at him expectantly. ‘Well?’ she said.
‘Strikes me there’s a lot of Old Testament in Ignatius’ perspective.’
‘Oh?’
‘Eye for an eye.’
‘Oh, right. How did you handle that?’
‘I didn’t. It’s not for me to influence Ignatius.’
‘We know who we’re up against. I certainly don’t want him to go rushing in and getting himself hurt.’
‘Me too. I’ve said all that I could. I told him that it was best to leave things to the experts. Though, I couldn’t tell him who those experts were. Anyway, he was still up for me to go on the fishing boat to Leptis Magna to finish what we started, if only as a way to vindicate the sacrifice Iskinder has made.’
‘You’re not still thinking of going, surely?’
‘No, I explained that I think I’ve found the solution to the message in his ancient letter right here in the UK.’
‘How did he take that?’
‘I’m not sure. To be blunt, I think his mind is focused more on repatriating Iskinder’s body.’
‘Poor man, poor both. All t
his killing has to end one day, Sam.’
‘Yes, it does. But I think it will only end when the solution is found. Whatever these people want must be incredibly valuable.’
‘What do you think it is?’ said Helen.
‘Well, it’s got to be Templar artefacts, hasn’t it? Treasures, something or some things they gathered. And it would seem to be something more valuable to the hunters than all the gold we unearthed before. And somehow, the answer is in the boxes, which we can’t force open. We simply have to solve the puzzle. I’ll be interested to ask Xavier what he thinks when he gets here on Monday, that’s for sure.’
‘Hmm, you’re right. He may have a better idea than any of us.’
‘Now, what about an early night? It’s a fair drive to Morecambe and we want to be there for midday.’
‘Okay, when will we need to set off?’
‘I’m thinking eight o’clock. That will allow us a little time to spare.’
7
Friday, January 10th
Miles Bertram’s neat retirement home was set three or four streets back from Marine Road, the main thoroughfare that carries traffic to and fro along Morecambe’s seafront. One of a cluster of similar little bungalows, it provided comfortable living for the independent elderly, together with an alarm link to a warden’s office should that independence ever falter.
Miles’ daughter Patricia met them at his door and welcomed them inside while giving a cheery wave towards the nearby warden’s office door. The warden waved back. Professor Bertram’s daughter was a frequent visitor who occasionally popped into the office for a chat. Content, the warden pulled her office door shut behind her and started her daily stroll around the complex. A stroll that would end as it normally did with a visit to her sister’s nearby home for lunch.
