Heathen/Nemesis

Sixty-Five

By the time Julie parked the Fiesta outside the cottage the sky was a mass of dark cloud. Rain was falling fast now, drenching the countryside, turning the road that led to the cottage to mud, puddling in the ruts.

The two women jumped out and sprinted for the front door of the cottage, Donna struggling with the key. She finally pushed the door open and they both tumbled gratefully inside. Donna hurried through into the kitchen and sat down at the wooden table, pulling the envelopes from her handbag. For long moments she stared at them, as if reluctant to open them. She knew for sure that one contained the means to finding the Grimoire. The contents of the other was a mystery.

‘Open them, Donna,’ said Julie, her impatience getting the better of her.

Donna looked at her sister reproachfully.

‘Give me time,’ she said quietly.

A part of her didn’t want to; in some strange way it meant severing her links with Chris. As long as there had been secrets, she had felt close to him but now, with the opening of these two slim packages, the last of those secrets would be gone. Just like he was gone. Her hands were shaking as she reached for the first of the envelopes.

It looked relatively new. The paper was untainted by age. She wondered how long they had lain in the safety deposit box.

There was a single sheet of paper in the first one.

It bore a name and an address.

‘George Paxton,’ she read aloud. ‘Wax Museum.’ And then an address in Portsmouth.

‘That must be where he hid the book,’ said Donna. ‘He wrote a novel about a waxworks a few years ago. Chris said he’d become friendly with the owner; that must be who this Paxton character is.’

‘Why hide it there?’ Julie wondered.

Donna could only shrug.

‘We don’t even know what the bloody thing looks like,’ Julie added. ‘It could be anywhere there. Paxton might even have it himself. How the hell are we going to find it?’

There was more writing at the bottom of the sheet.

‘The Crest on the Grimoire is a hawk, family crest of its author,’ she read. She looked at Julie, her eyes alight. ‘A hawk?’ Donna reached into her handbag and pulled out the photo of Ward and the five other men. She looked carefully at the picture, studying the rings on the index fingers of the two shadowy figures.

They too bore engravings of some kind.

She squinted more closely.

‘A hawk,’ she said triumphantly, jabbing the picture with her index finger. ‘The crest on those rings shows a hawk. You can see the wings.’

Julie squinted at them.

‘Jesus,’ she murmured.

Donna was already opening the second envelope.

It was another single sheet of paper, this time with typed letters on it:

RATHFARNHAM, DUBLIN.

BRASENOSE COLLEGE, OXFORD.

REGENCY PLACE, EDINBURGH.

CONDUIT STREET, LONDON.

Dublin, Oxford, Edinburgh and London. And beside each entry D.

‘Chris was at all these places shortly before he died,’ Donna said. ‘They must have been meeting places for The Hell Fire Club he discovered.’

D for Dashwood?

‘We have to get to Portsmouth,’ Donna said, ‘and find that book.’

‘We can’t go in this weather,’ Julie said, looking out of the window. The rain was coming down in a solid curtain. It was as if God had kicked a bucket of water over. ‘We’ll be stranded, with the state of the roads around here.’

‘As soon as it stops,’ Donna said.

‘If it stops,’ Julie added quietly, gazing up into the heavens.

The rain continued to pour down.

7.08 p.m.

The sky still wept.

The ceaseless deluge had turned the small front yard of the cottage into a swamp. Water poured through the guttering and splashed noisily from the eaves. It was falling so fast that rivulets of rain streaming down the window-panes made it difficult to see out at all. Darkness had come prematurely with the deluge, the gloom summoned early by such an abundance of black cloud. The sky looked like one massive mottled rain cloud.

Donna sat in the sitting-room, glancing endlessly at the sheets of paper they’d picked up from the bank that day and also at the notes Ward had left. She knew the words off almost by heart.

‘Destroy the book and you destroy them.’ She exhaled deeply and massaged the back of her neck with one hand.

‘They must be stopped.’ A throbbing headache was beginning to gnaw at her.

‘They have infiltrated everywhere.’ Donna closed her eyes for a moment.

‘No one can be trusted.’

‘Donna.’

Julie’s shout caused her eyes to snap open. She looked round and saw her sister standing at the window, gazing out.

‘Come here,’ the younger woman said, a note of urgency in her voice.

Donna did as she was asked and stood beside her sister, peering through the rain and darkness.

Two cars were moving towards the house, both with their lights turned off.

‘Who are they?’ Julie wanted to know.

Donna was reasonably sure she knew. When she spoke, her voice was low.

‘Lock the doors and windows,’ she said. ‘Hurry.’