The Armageddon Conspiracy (25 page)

‘
Why?’
she said,
talking to the blue sea.
‘Why did you leave me?’
She longed to hear
her dad’s voice again.
Cancer had taken her mum, but it was love
that took her dad, and love that put her in an asylum.
Now she
wanted her heart to freeze.

‘
You must learn to love
life again,’ her psychiatrist told her.
‘There’s so much beauty out
there, so many wonders.
You just to need to reach out and take
them.’

Did some people really believe that?
They made it sound so easy.
In time, they’d learn.
In the end,
they’d be flattened.
They didn’t have the bitter taste in their
mouth, the nausea in their bellies, that came when love showed its
true colours.
But, one day, they would, and it would be much worse
for them because they’d denied it for so long.

Transfixed by the increasing glow of
the sea, Lucy wondered if her father’s heart had choked with love.
When love is everything and then it’s snatched away, what can fill
that aching void?

Her dad’s body was
found down there in the icy water, by a tourist in a rowing boat,
taking pictures of Tintagel from the sea.
It was shameful, she
thought, that a stranger should know about her father’s death
before she did.
What did the tourist think when he fished the
bloated body out of the water?
He would have known nothing of who
this body once was, the love he enjoyed.
The sea took all that
human warmth away.
All that remained was an anonymous body in the
water with no one to speak for it, to make anyone care.
A complete
stranger finding a corpse and wondering what to do with it so often
marks the end of a life.
Some
life
.

Sometimes, back at the convent, Lucy
imagined her father calling to her from the sea, inviting her to
join him and her mum in death.
The family would be whole again.
Love restored, the Wasteland redeemed.
Now she had the chance to be
with him, but she couldn’t jump into the blue.
As long as she
lived, she didn’t want to go into the water ever again.

It still stunned her that her dad
killed himself here of all places.
The Arthurian romances never
interested him.
As a Professor of Classics at Bristol University,
he was obsessed with Ancient Rome.
He liked to tell her that so
much of what we knew of Rome was mistaken.
His favourite example
was the thumbs-up sign used at the end of gladiatorial fights.

‘
We have it completely
the wrong way around,’ he said.
‘When the crowd raised their
thumbs, it didn’t mean they wanted the loser to be saved.
It was
the opposite: they were demanding he be despatched to the
afterlife.
The thumbs-down signified they wanted the defeated
fighter to stay on this earth, to live.
Something that would have
been blindingly obvious to any Roman ended up being perfectly
misunderstood by us.

That had left a big impression on Lucy.
How many of the greatest certainties were false, just like the
thumbs-up sign?
It was impossible to trust anything.
Which one
should she trust between Kruger and Sinclair?
Her life might depend
on it, but she had no idea.
Thumbs up or thumbs down?

Was it because of her that her dad came
here to end his life?
He knew how much the story of Arthur meant to
her.
This was where Arthur was supposedly conceived.
It might even
be Camelot.
Each time she visited Tintagel, she phoned her dad and
told him how enchanting it was.
She described its spectacular
setting, talked about how powerful the sea was, about the imposing
cliffs, how exquisite he’d find it if he ever came.
Did he finally
make the trip because it was as close as he could get to her
without physically being with her?
No one, on the day they planed
to kill themselves, would want to see their loved ones, but maybe
they’d choose a place that reminded them of those closest to
them.

How much she wanted to
see him again.
To say all those things she never had the chance to
tell him, to
love
again.
Why had he done it?
It was so unjust.
They shouldn’t do
these things, these irrevocable things.
Why didn’t he speak to her?
Together, they might have coped.
On their own, there was no hope.
She remembered something Kafka said:
There’s an infinite amount of hope, but not for
us
.
Those words might as well be engraved
on her heart.

When her dad jumped, did he hear
anything other than the raging of the sea?
More and more, she
longed for silence; it allowed her to imagine she was alone in the
world.
Sometimes that was all she wanted.
Other people brought
pain.
If they didn’t exist, she wouldn’t suffer.
Above all, she’d
be protected from love.
Sometimes, she was certain love was the
proof there was no God.
No benevolent deity could inflict something
so cruel.

She had loved only one other person –
James Vernon.
It was a dark, freezing night just like this when she
decided to tell him it was over between them.
She wasn’t brave
enough to say it to his face so she took the coward’s way out and
wrote a letter.
Love made her do it.
She couldn’t go through with
losing the last of the people who meant something to her.
Better to
end it and save them both from the suffering.
It didn’t work out,
though.
Just another reason to be depressed.

‘
You know about my
father, don’t you?’
she said.

Kruger pressed his face against hers.
For a second it felt lovely and warm.

‘
It was critical that
we know as much about the…’

‘
The what?’

Kruger didn’t answer.

‘
I can’t help you,’
Lucy said.
‘It’s all a mistake.
Can’t you see?’

Kruger’s hand pressed against the small
of her back.

‘
Shall I push you now?’
Kruger’s mouth was right against her ear.
‘
Into the blue
.’

Lucy tried to cry out, but the wind
whipped into her face again.

‘
Two of my men died for
you tonight,’ Kruger said.
‘Another is badly wounded.
And why?
To
save a lunatic?
So, perhaps we should forget our mission.
Perhaps
we should end it right here.
Maybe it’s best for
everyone.’

Lucy stood there, rooted.
She couldn’t
think of any words.
The whole sea was shining now, as if every
marine creature, no matter how small, was luminescent.

‘
You see that glow?’
Kruger said.
‘I know what’s causing it.
Something is very near.
It
will change everything.
If you’re not ready to fight it, you might
as well be dead.
We’ll all be dead soon enough unless you get your
wits about you.’

Lucy wanted to say, ‘I don’t
understand,’ but that would be lying.
Something had changed.
Every
part of her sensed it.
An odd electricity was in the air.
She felt
a presence nearby, a creature of some kind, yet so much more.
Something had come to the earth, ancient and unspeakable.
It was
here right now, watching.
Everything in the sea was glowing because
of this creature.
She knew its name, but refused to say it.

Soon, everyone would be
dead.
She would join her dad.
She leaned back against the
hand.
Do it
she
felt like saying.
Maybe it was what love demanded.
But she couldn’t
face that blue sea.
Any death except that.

Kruger pulled her back from the cliff
edge and twisted her round until they were face to face, his arms
wrapped securely around her back.
It took a second for her to
realise he was shaking.
Overwhelmed by emotion?
He wasn’t the type.
But he was trying to compose himself, wasn’t he?

‘
You’ve seen Raphael’s
mural,’ he said.
‘Don’t you think we’ve examined every part of it?
Don’t you think we’ve done everything in our power to understand
it?
You’re the key, Lucy.
We’re certain several of the panels on
Raphael’s mural form a map of where you’re going to be over the
next seventy-two hours.
One of the panels shows King Arthur at
Camelot, and there’s no doubt Raphael thought Camelot was here at
Tintagel.
He painted this place
exactly
.
I didn’t bring you here,
Raphael did.’

He put his hand into
his pocket, pulled out a scrap of paper and read out a bizarre
sentence:
Arthur’s conception.
Only the
chosen one can do what no other can.
The suffering place.
The death
plunge.
Death of one, or death of all.
’

Lucy swallowed hard.
‘What is
that?’

‘
Nostradamus wrote a
note for each panel.
They’re all cryptic, but this one is clear
enough, don’t you agree?
Arthur was conceived at Tintagel.
Your
father leapt to his death here.
This place makes you suffer
unbearably, doesn’t it?
You’re trembling like a little girl, but
it’s time to grow up.
Somehow, you’ll do something here that will
remove any doubt about who you are.
If you fail, we’ll all
die.’

Lucy shook her head.
Kruger kept saying
these things to her and still they made no sense.
She had no great
talents.
There was nothing special about her.
Anything that
depended on her was already doomed.
Anyway, how could Raphael be
responsible for her presence here?
Kruger was the reason.
He was
twisted.
Why did he insist on telling her how important she was?
Could there be a sicker joke?

‘
You’ve been in a
mental prison, Lucy.’
Kruger’s expression was a strange mixture of
desperation and kindness.
He seemed confused, as if he didn’t know
whether to despise or love her.
‘I’m trying to release you.
You
need to confront your demons before you can move on.
This is the
place that will destroy you or set you free.’

‘
Set me free?’
Lucy
echoed.
There was only one thing that could do that.
She needed her
medication.
Needed to close her eyes.
Drift away into
tranquillity.

‘
Snap out of it,’
Kruger barked.
‘The world needs you.
I don’t care whether or not
you believe it, I do.’
He yanked down the front zip of her parka
and thrust his hand inside her uniform, gripping first her left
breast and then her right.
She was too shocked to scream.
Snatching
out her medicine bottle from her right breast pocket, he held it in
front of her like a trophy.

‘
Give me that you sick
bastard.’
Her hands flailed in front of Kruger, but he hurled the
bottle past her into the sea.

Her mouth fell open as she tried to
conceive of a world without the oblivion, the chemical mercy, her
medication brought.

Kruger gripped her arms and shook
her…so hard she thought she’d snap.
His expression was fanatical.
Then he let her go.
She collapsed, sobbing, dropping her torch.
She
lay on the damp grass near the edge of the cliff.

‘
I can’t bear any of
this.
I can’t go on.’