The Armageddon Conspiracy (24 page)

As the convoy
manoeuvred through the few narrow streets, she sensed an eerie
atmosphere.
Abandonment
.
She was convinced the villagers weren’t asleep in their
houses; they weren’t here at all.
The Government had probably cut
off gas and electricity supplies to isolated communities like this.
The villagers must have fled to the cities.

As the convoy headed
down a long slope towards the castle and the sea, Lucy tried to
summon the good feelings she once had for this place.
She’d made
this journey ten times previously.
Each time, the weather was
perfect, and she thought she’d discovered a backdoor to paradise.
Those days didn’t belong to the routines of ordinary life.
They
were tinged with a unique glow.
Numinous
was the word she liked to
use.
Tintagel was that kind of place, touched by the Otherworldly.
But now all that awaited her here was horror.

They parked outside the
English Heritage ticket-office, the lights of the lead vehicle
shining onto the gloss-painted blue door.
A sign, scrappily
handwritten with a black marker pen, was pinned to the door
saying:
Temporarily closed.
Apologies for
any inconvenience
.

Lucy’s guard told her to get out of the
Land Rover and she stiffly clambered out, her right foot squelching
into a puddle.
Frost covered the grass around her.
It was cold
enough for snow.
Thrusting her hand into her pocket, she took out
her rubber torch, wishing again that she had gloves.

One of the Swiss Guards used his pistol
to shoot away the padlock on the gate sealing off the Heritage
office from the ruins of Tintagel Castle.
Kruger screamed at him in
German.
Lucy assumed he was angry that the gunshot might have given
away their position.

They climbed up a
narrow path, avoiding the iced-over puddles scattered all around.
Kruger led the way with a torch set to a narrow beam.
He’d told
everyone not to wave their torches for fear of attracting
attention.
As they walked, they cast weird shadows.
Lucy remembered
once coming across an old sundial in Brick Lane in London.
On it
was an inscription: Umbra Sumus –
We are
shadows
.
That was what she thought they’d
become.

Kruger took them across a narrow bridge
separating the mainland from the small island where the most intact
sections of the castle’s ruins were situated.
Even now, with its
walls reduced to stumps, it was possible to imagine how the castle
once was, as if its ghost were here, every now and again shimmering
into full view with its high turrets and fluttering pennants, its
knights in shining breastplates riding out over the drawbridge.

Kruger stopped in the middle of the
ruined castle and told his men they could rest.
They sat down on
the walls and started to eat army rations from their backpacks.
Lucy sat down too, but Kruger kicked her foot.

‘
You’re coming with
me.’
He pointed towards the surviving shell of the island’s small
chapel.
It was to the rear of the castle, on the summit of the rock
outcrop, close to
there
.

‘
I’m not going.’
Lucy
turned her head away.

Grabbing her hand, Kruger hauled her to
her feet.
‘I don’t have time for this.’
He started pulling her
towards the gate leading to the chapel.

Lucy grasped the gatepost and tried to
hold on, but Kruger was too strong.
He dragged her along behind
him, almost crushing her hand in his.
All the time, the sea hissed.
They were only feet from sheer cliff-faces, and there were no
protective barriers.
Inside, Lucy was churning up.
She was so close
to where it happened.
Please God, anywhere else on earth but here.
Tintagel was a tomb where the dead kept watch.

When they reached the chapel – little
more than an outline on the ground after centuries of decay –
Kruger stopped and shone his torch into Lucy’s eyes.
The light
stung, and she raised her hands to block the beam.

‘
Don’t trust Cardinal
Sinclair,’ he said.
‘He’s an ambitious man.’

Lucy didn’t know how to respond.
Should
she shout at Kruger, or be cooperative, sympathetic, to try to win
him round?
‘What do you mean?’
She spoke softly, as
non-confrontationally as possible, hoping she could persuade him to
turn back.

‘
Last year, the Pope
had a health scare,’ Kruger said.
‘There was speculation about who
might succeed him.
The Pope told me what was likely to happen.
Sinclair would initially claim to have no interest in becoming the
new Pope, but, using his influence, he would ensure that the Sacred
College of Cardinals was unable to reach a decision.
When the
cardinals were deadlocked, he’d step forward and say, for the good
of the Church, that he was prepared to accept the burden.
Julius
believed Sinclair would then be elected unanimously.’

Lucy nodded, but she was scarcely
listening.
She wanted to go back to the others.
Why had they come
here?
This place had nothing to offer.
It was long past time to
leave.
Besides, she’d recalled a disturbing fact.
The founder of
the Swiss Guard was…Pope Julius II.
If, as she now believed, he was
a heretic, what did that mean about his private army?

‘
I’ve heard the Sacred
College of Cardinals is now deadlocked.’
Kruger pointed his torch
beam at the frost-covered grass, glittering like a lake of
ice.

‘
And you think Sinclair
will go back to Rome and be proclaimed Pope?’
Lucy maintained her
pretence of calm.
Please get me away from
here
.

‘
Everything is exactly
as Pope Julius predicted.’

‘
But what’s wrong with
Sinclair having ambition?
Why does that make him suspect?’
Lucy’s
ambition was to get as far from Tintagel as possible.

‘
Popes are supposed to
be humble.’

‘
I see.’
It was a
ridiculously idealistic remark, Lucy thought.
She pointed her torch
at Kruger.
‘Please, let’s go back now.’
Staring at his blue eyes,
she hoped to see some sign of…she didn’t know exactly.
An answer?
Sympathy?
Kruger was so cold, a real soldier, his face lacking any
trace of compassion.
She couldn’t imagine him loving anyone or
anything.
Except duty.
That sort of abstract love would appeal to
him, but what was certain was that he’d never whisper things of
love to a woman.

Kruger frowned.
‘You have no idea, do
you?
You’re still in denial.’

‘
I didn’t ask for this.
I don’t know why you brought me here.’

‘
You know
exactly.’

Lucy stood there in the
darkness with the wind swirling around her.
She’d never felt more
alone in her life.
Kruger
knew
, didn’t he?
For some twisted
reason he’d brought her right here to where it happened.
A
sadist.

‘
I’m here to make you
face reality.’
Kruger grabbed the hood of Lucy’s parka and pulled
it back.
‘I’m going to make you break through all the garbage in
your head.’

Lucy swallowed air as
the wind blasted into her face.
She stared at Kruger, at his face
slipping in and out of her torchbeam.
Maybe she should hit him with
the torch, try to knock him out, then run away.
If she didn’t, he’d
take her to
that
place.

‘
Please let me go.’
Her
voice was pathetic, taken by the wind.
Why was Kruger doing this?
Did he want to torture her, make her crazy again?

Another look flashed
across Kruger’s face.
Disgust
?

‘
You can’t stand me,
can you?’
she blurted.
Maybe it was more than that.
He might kill
her, just as Sinclair predicted.
Throw her off the
cliff.

‘
We’re going for a
little walk.’
Kruger gripped her again.

She tried to dig her heels into the
ground, to resist the overwhelming force he was exerting on her.
For a second, she thought he was going to lift her off her
feet.

‘
I’m not going,’ she
yelled.
‘You can’t make me.’

Kruger spun her round like a child’s
toy then wrapped her in his huge arms.
Slowly, he manoeuvred her
forward, as though he were moving a coal sack.
She kicked her heels
against his shins.

‘
Don’t, I beg
you.’

Kruger kept pushing her forward, closer
to the edge of the cliff.
The moon broke through clouds and threw a
sickly light over the frothing sea.

Lucy closed her eyes, trying to avoid
thinking about what was happening.
Agonising pains were in her
stomach, spreading through her bloodstream to every part of her
body.

‘
Open your eyes,’
Kruger barked.

Thick, driving rain was descending now.
Drops spattered Lucy’s face.

‘
I told you to look.’
Kruger’s voice was a harsh snarl in Lucy’s ear.

Slowly, she let her eyes open.
At
first, the blinding rain stopped her from seeing anything.
Then her
vision cleared.
She was inches from the edge of the cliff,
confronted by the wild sea, tossing waves up at her like the
tentacles of a giant squid.
She was terrified that they’d take her
feet and she’d plunge over the edge.
Jagged rocks were down
there.

Kruger held her tight, his body pressed
against hers, his hot breath on her neck.
He was panting.

As she stared at the sea, Lucy thought
she saw tiny lights in the water, making the water glow with an
eerie blue luminescence.

‘
You have to move on,
Lucy.’
Kruger’s voice was almost tender.
‘You can’t let the past
destroy you.’

Lucy was afraid she’d
hyperventilate.
Was this how
he
felt?
She was certain she was standing at the
exact spot, staring into the same sea.
It was about 2 a.m.
The
coroner said her father committed suicide some time between 1 and 4
a.m.
Seven months ago.
A lifetime.
Did he count to ten before he
jumped or do it straight away?
He’d kept it so bottled up.
When she
found his diary after his funeral, she discovered that his
meticulous entries stopped the day mum died.

‘
In the blue,’ was all
he wrote that day.
Every day afterwards, he wrote the same three
words, the writing growing progressively more jagged.

Those words were burned into Lucy now.
Her whole life was in the blue.
The sea glowed blue in front of
her.
The nightmare, living and breathing.

‘
He loved you, Lucy,’
Kruger said.
‘Do you think he wanted you to end up in a care
home?’

Tears filled Lucy’s eyes.
People had
always remarked on how close she was to her parents, even for an
only child.
Sometimes she thought love was the worst thing in the
world.
What no one told you was that it was simply a seductive
wrapping for pain – the worst pain of all because you never
expected to find it beneath something so beautiful.