Shroud of Concealment (Jake Dillon Adventure Thriller Series)

Shroud of Concealment

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Andrew Towning

Shroud of Concealment is Andrew Towning’s third Jake Dillon novel. Andrew lives in Dorset with his family and is currently completing yet another novel in the series of Dillon adventure thrillers.

OTHER BOOKS BY ANDREW TOWNING

The Constantine Legacy
Dead Men Don’t Bite
The Chimera Code

Thank you to Jennie Franklin, of Jennie Franklin Photography, who has interpreted my Dillon books perfectly in terms of the magnificent new cover images.

CHAPTER ONE

For one split second the emotion of the moment, and the fear that he felt, almost overwhelmed him. Then it was gone, and the hollow emptiness returned to gnaw away at his insides like it always did. It had been enough to make him want to get up and walk away. Yet he remained perversely rooted to the spot, sitting in the drab little café at one of the tiny circular tables by the window. He gazed out through the grimy glass at people rushing here and there, in and out of doorways, going about their daily business. But his attention always strayed back to the same old building on the other side of the noisy road. In its day, it had been a busy florist’s shop, but now there were wooden boards in the windows on the ground floor, and the paint on the sign above the door had all but weathered off.

It was what an estate agent might refer to as an area in need of rejuvenation. And that was what was gradually happening to this once fashionable Victorian suburb of Bournemouth. The elegant guest houses and small hotels that in days gone by had dominated the cliff top were now being bulldozed to make way for luxury apartment blocks that boasted far-reaching sea views.

A spotty-faced youth wearing a black hoody lumbered between the tables towards the exit and, as he went past his, knocked into it. The sudden movement sent black coffee from the mug across the shiny plastic table cloth and onto the floor. He got up quickly before it had a chance to pour into his lap. The youth looked around, a smirk crossing his face. He didn’t apologise, but instead blurted, “Steady on, grandad; you want to watch it.”

Charlie Hart stood up and stared at him with dark brooding eyes. He said nothing, but there was something about his gaze which made the youth turn away and quickly leave the café. A woman in her mid-thirties came out from the back and mopped up the spilt coffee, apologised and brought him another. Sitting back down on the narrow chair, Hart continued to gaze back through the window towards the old florist’s shop across the street.

Hart’s features were youthful and the fit muscular body underneath the expensive clothes was rock hard. His expression could be so intense that he appeared to be giving off some sort of energy, almost like that of a power station in overload. At other times, he appeared empty and completely lifeless. He was fifty-six years old and, in some respects like his almost wrinkle-free features, looked at least fifteen years younger, with the reflexes of a cat and a razor sharp mind. He was well-groomed and obviously well-off. He did not belong in this part of town.

Across the street, a door opened and a woman somewhere in her early sixties came out onto the pavement. Her general appearance looked poor, some might even say cheap, as she stood rummaging through her handbag.

It was clearly evident how time, too many cigarettes and nights on the town had taken their toll. She found the object that had been hiding in the dark recesses of the large red bag and placed it in the lock. She pulled the shabby-looking door closed with a heavy thud, double locked it, and then slowly walked up the road.

Hart felt desolate as he watched her. Tears welled up and it was as though he was peering through a thick sea mist. His mind rambled and he was almost beyond any feeling. The years had not been kind to the haggard woman on the other side of the street. It was almost too late for her as time marched on relentlessly. God, she looked nearer to seventy. It was like watching a surreal scene being played out before his very eyes. A person who looked work-worn and tired, and was simply getting through life day by day, without knowing why. Was he making a dreadfully silly mistake by being here? He got up, left the café and followed the woman, at a safe distance, for a few hundred metres. She rounded a corner and Hart thought he’d lost her. He started to run up the road, turned and just caught sight of her going up the steps of a Roman Catholic church. Not really sure what to do next, he walked back the way he’d just come, and  not being familiar with the area, got lost a number of times before he found the road where he’d parked his car.

As Hart approached the gleaming black Jaguar XK convertible, the keyless entry system automatically unlocked both doors. He climbed in and for some moments just sat there thinking. Nothing in his expression or demeanour showed what was going on in his head; there was no-one better at concealing his true feelings than Hart – he’d had considerable practice. He finally gave way, and let out an inaudible curse. With the tip of his index finger, he tapped the small touch screen in the centre of the dashboard just once. The car’s Bluetooth phone display lit up as it connected to the network, and for the next five minutes Hart conversed in fluent Pashto. He drove back towards the Sandbanks peninsula, his driving subdued like so much about him on public view. He was disturbed, but perhaps it was mixed with a strange kind of relief. When a degree of shame crept in he immediately dismissed it, there was no room for such feelings in his life and its intrusion was unwelcome. Perhaps he should never have gone there, for nothing could come of the visit.

He reached Canford Cliffs village, and turned down Haven Road towards Poole Harbour. A feeling of melancholy had come over him, and his eyes started to water. He wiped them quickly and decided that it must be the pollen in the air that was setting off the damned hay-fever again. He pulled over to the side of the road, closed the electric hood and switched on the air-conditioning. And, as he drove on down the hill, thought about who he was really deceiving.

* * *

Daniel Hart walked slowly around the edge of the room. Every now and then he would stand in front of one of the many priceless paintings that adorned the walls; gazing at each work of art for minutes on end before moving on to the next. The gallery room, about thirty by twenty feet, was a veritable treasure trove and the alarm system was of the most sophisticated on the market with a back-up generator and full lock-down capability if the main power supply failed or was tampered with.

In the centre of the gallery, there was a round pedestal made of black onyx, standing incongruously amongst the fine art. Placed on the highly polished top, an almost life-size skull carved out of a solid piece of natural quartz crystal.

Daniel had been instantly seduced by its beauty, by the mystery of why it existed. As he moved around it, he marvelled at the Mayan craftsmanship, admired the perfectly chiselled beauty of the teeth, the smooth contours of the cheekbones and the way the jaw fitted faultlessly into the cranium. The question he always asked himself was how could this indigenous people living a simple life deep in the South American jungle have created something so accomplished, so perfect? But that was part of its allure for him. If the Mayan’s did, in fact, create the skull they would have had to use copper rods and hand bows, as well as patiently sanding the natural block of quartz using a mixture of river sand and water. This would have taken several generations of effort to finally achieve, and that’s assuming the quartz didn’t shatter along the way, which it is prone to do with too much vibration. How his father had come by the skull was as much of a mystery, and something he would never talk about. Not even to Daniel. However, he had told him something of the myth that surrounded it, this was one of thirteen crystal skulls that had been discovered hidden around the planet, and others, over the years, had been found by archaeologists, mostly in South America. There was immense interest in the skulls, from scientists looking deeply into the fabric of the quartz, to eminent psychics who had come into contact with them over the years. They had all reported seeing and hearing the same thing. That the skulls talked to them, and that each of the thirteen genuine skulls held information about our world. The past, the present, and the future. And that they also have the power to deliver both good and evil to the world. Should all thirteen ever be brought together, it would give whoever had them in their possession the omnipotent power over everything living.

The gallery was accessed through an air-lock directly off the hallway; with a second door made from one inch thick Armourlite steel on the opposite side of the small space. This had eight electromagnetic locking shoot-bolts that were located along all four edges. With anti-tamper contact points between door and frame connected to the main system and concealed sensors around the door frame under the plasterwork. There were no windows and the room itself had its own computer-controlled air-conditioning and humidifying system, both independent of the main house. The air was cool, the temperature constant, and the paintings were maintained in pristine condition. Recessed spotlights and cleverly disguised sound speakers were positioned strategically around the ceiling and were controlled by a remote unit inside the air-lock. No-one was ever allowed in this gallery without invitation – a fact which irritated Daniel very much. It was a rich man’s indulgence and in Daniel’s view such treasures should be shared.

Daniel liked the luxury house on the Sandbanks peninsula, it had been built to his father’s exact specification. They had moved into it within twelve months of the purchase of the original derelict property, which had sat on the prime piece of land for many years prior to its demolition.

When they had lived in India there had been at least a dozen servants around the family estate, but now there was only Daniel, his father and a housekeeper. Since moving to the UK seven years ago, when he was fourteen, he had spent every school holiday there. He had been sent to a good private boarding school and was now at Cambridge University reading law. He often argued with his father, but cared for him and worried about him, too. It was a concern he had never understood, for his father was rich and had been before he left India, but that was merely about business and money. There were sides to his father that he had never understood, and sometimes thought it best not to. There were even times when he was afraid of him; really afraid.

He had never known his mother. She had given birth to him and then, according to his father, had left. His father never talked about her, it was a taboo subject and as if she had never existed. His father’s attitude was always unswerving in not wanting to ever talk about her. Once, when his curiosity had got the better of him, he’d searched through his father’s private paperwork in an attempt to find out anything about her. There were no letters, no photographs – absolutely nothing. He had always assumed that she had run off with another man. That didn’t worry him, but he often wondered what had happened to her. When the subject came up, his father gave the impression that it was all too painful to talk about. Every time it had the same outcome: a blazing argument about his mother, sometimes quite vicious. At such times, Daniel had seen the darker side of his father that he would have preferred not to have seen, and it always frightened him. This was the reason why he’d not raised the matter since going off to university.

The only thing his father had ever allowed himself to comment on was just how much he looked like her. Daniel was good looking, had naturally black hair, which he kept cropped, lightly tanned skin, and the darkest coloured eyes. He was just over six foot two inches, and had girls falling at his feet.

Daniel was twenty-one, and at an age where he wanted to find a few things out about himself. He was sure that his father wanted him around, although he had never said as much. It was a strange bond, born of uncertainties and the unknown.And yet, somehow, the sometimes uneasy ambiguity provided the stimulation and the will to see it through. It was as if he was still searching for the answers and not sure whether he really wanted to find them.

Daniel walked out of the gallery, and back into the air-lock. He waited a moment whilst the computer-controlled security system closed the inner door. It rolled back into place with a low rumbling sound, and then came the heavy thud of the eight shoot-bolts locating into the framework; the door opposite slid back silently and again automatically closed as he stepped out into the hallway. He left the gallery, with all of the priceless paintings inside fully alarmed, and went up to his own penthouse in the atrium of the luxury house. This was his private space, where he could lounge around, gazing through the three hundred and sixty degree glass panels that afforded him the most spectacular view of the harbour, and across to the Purbeck hills beyond. It was a magnificent uninterrupted view, but he often asked himself why, as it was just the two of them did they need a three-storey, architect-designed house with its own mooring on the shores of Poole Harbour? His father very rarely entertained and friends seldom came to stay. Daniel himself brought university friends home from time to time, but he had his own living space with its own lift in the state of the art building – that was useful, of course. Charlie Hart was not an academic man, didn’t have one qualification to his name, but with success and enormous wealth had come a love of reading and collecting books in general. This was why he had set up his private study in the round library on the ground floor which was kept under lock and key and off limits to everyone, including Daniel.

He paced around the room, annoyed with himself for having these thoughts. Why was he thinking like this? What did it ever achieve? It was the same old issues. Perhaps because since arriving home for the half term break, he’d noticed how, over the last few days, his father’s usual charisma had left him, bit by bit. And that this, in turn, had driven him into his own shell. And the more morose he became, the more he hid behind the invisible barriers that he always erected to protect himself, even from his son. Daniel knew what it meant: a crisis of some sort was looming on the horizon.

He didn’t hear his father arrive, but heard him call out. He left the penthouse and ran down the Italian marble stairs until he reached the first floor landing. He looked over the edge of the gallery and down at the magnificent sweeping staircase running down either side of the main hall. Charlie Hart looked up as he reached the top, and Daniel thought how pale and gaunt his father was looking.

“Are you okay, Father?”

“Of course I’m okay, Daniel. Why, do I look ill?”