Authors: Jim Eldridge
The Last Enemy (13 page)
As Jake and Lauren walked back to Sevenoaks railway station, they talked about Gemma and Pierce Randall.
‘Once she tells them about Jasper Brigstocke, they’ll be moving in on him,’ said Jake. ‘We need to get to him first.’
‘I still think it’s all too simple,’ insisted Lauren. ‘There’s no way we’re just going to walk into his bookshop and find The Index on his shelves.’
‘There is if he doesn’t know what it is,’ said Jake. ‘Think about it. If it just looks like a book with a list of place names, as far as he’s concerned it’s nothing more than finding an old phone book. It’s nothing special. Not like a first edition of Dickens, or an original Shakespeare.’
‘So why would he have bought it in the first place?’
‘Because he’d have seen that it’s from the fifteenth century, so it’s bound to be worth something to some book collector.’
Lauren thought it over and then said, ‘Maybe you’re right.’
Jake was already checking out Jasper Brigstocke on his iPhone.
‘Got him,’ he said. ‘Jasper Brigstocke, antiquarian books. His shop is in Notting Hill Gate.’
Jake dialled the number. It rang, and then went to voicemail. A man’s voice said, ‘This is Jasper Brigstocke. I’m afraid I’m not available at the moment, so do leave a message and I will get back to you in due course.’
Jake hung up.
‘He’s not there,’ he said. ‘Or, he is, but he’s not answering the phone.’
‘Then let’s hope we get to him before Pierce Randall do,’ said Lauren.
Sue Clark sat at her desk, scanning a row of figures on a balance sheet. They were from the accounts of a large multinational company, which the tax authorities were accusing of fraud and tax evasion. Of course it was tax evasion; her job, along with the firm’s accountants, was to prove this was a case of tax avoidance, an entirely different and perfectly legal situation. Her desk phone rang. It was her secretary.
‘I’ve got a Gemma Hayward on the line, Ms Clark,’ she said. ‘She said you were talking to her brother, Dan, the other day.’
Immediately, Clark was alert.
‘Put her through,’ she said.
Jasper Brigstocke’s Antiquarian Bookshop was a narrow-fronted shop on a tiny old street about halfway between Notting Hill Gate and Queensway underground stations. Although the surrounding area was busy with traffic and people, this street was virtually deserted; just a few people using it as a short cut between the main thoroughfares.
The shop was ancient. The door and window displays were dusty. The books in the window looked as if they’d been there even longer than the shop.
‘It doesn’t look like a business that makes a lot of money,’ commented Jake.
‘Maybe that’s just a cover,’ suggested Lauren. ‘Keeps the tax man off his back.’
Jake was about to push the door to go in, when he saw that the sign hanging inside the glass panel said ‘Closed’.
‘What!’ he scowled. ‘Closed! We’ve come all this way for nothing!’
Lauren pressed her nose against the glass. As she did so, the door swung inwards.
Jake and Lauren exchanged puzzled looks.
‘D’you think he’d really go out and leave his shop unlocked?’ asked Jake. ‘Especially in London.’
‘Maybe he just forgot to turn the “Closed” sign back to “Open”,’ suggested Lauren.
She pushed the door open wider and stepped in, Jake close behind her.
The shop had been trashed. Books had been pulled from the shelves and lay scattered on the floor.
‘Trouble,’ whispered Jake apprehensively.
‘Hello!’ Lauren called. ‘Mr Brigstocke!’
There was no answer.
‘Maybe we should call the police,’ she muttered.
‘Let’s see if Brigstocke’s here first,’ said Jake. ‘He may have already done that.’
The shop, although narrow, seemed never-ending. As they walked through it, doing their best to avoid treading on the books on the floor, they could see that it widened out, as if it expanded into the neighbouring shops.
It was a maze of very tall free-standing wooden shelves that formed alleyways. Each shelf must have been stacked with books, most of which were now ankle-deep on the floor.
Again, Lauren called out, ‘Mr Brigstocke!’ There was no reply, just a silence hanging over the whole shop.
They moved along one of the narrow alleyways, over the carpet of scattered books, and finally, at the back of the shop they came to a door with the word ‘Office’ on a nameplate fixed to it.
Jake rapped on the door, at the same time calling, ‘Mr Brigstocke! Hello!’
There was still no answer.
The door swung inwards.
‘Mr Brigstocke?’ said Jake, stepping inside. Then he stopped.
‘What’s the matter?’ asked Lauren.
‘Don’t come in,’ said Jake, his voice shaking.
He tried to stop Lauren, but it was too late. Lauren uttered a sound that was half scream, half groan.
A man was tied to a high-backed wooden chair. He was dead; that was obvious from the lifeless eyes staring out from the pale bloodstained face. But what was worse was the sight of the fingers on the floor by his feet, and the dried blood smearing the wooden chair near his hand, where those fingers had once been.
Lauren stumbled outside the room and suddenly threw up. Jake knew how she felt; at the sight of Jasper Brigstocke’s dead and mutilated body, he could feel the contents of his own stomach rising up in his throat, but he did his best to keep them down.
‘We have to call the police,’ panted Lauren.
‘No,’ said Jake. ‘Bullen will think we did this, and he’ll lock me up. We have to stay free if we’re going to prove our innocence.’
Lauren shook her head, her face deathly pale.
‘Do you think Pierce Randall did this?’ she asked hoarsely.
‘I don’t know,’ said Jake. ‘All I know is we have to get out of here, and fast.’
A short time later Jake and Lauren were in a café at Marble Arch; their cups of coffee sat on the table, untouched. For both of them, the image of Jasper Brigstocke, tortured to death, filled their minds.
‘We have to get a hold of ourselves,’ Jake whispered. ‘And we have to move fast. Once the police discover Brigstocke’s body and they start checking for fingerprints, they’ll find ours at the shop and they’ll put out a search for us.’
‘How do we stop them?’ asked Lauren. She was still in a state of shock.
‘Just like we said before: we find The Index,’ said Jake. ‘It’s not just the proof about the Order of Malichea, and why all this has been happening, it’s our bargaining tool. Pierce Randall, MI5, everyone will make sure we’re free if we’ve got that.’
‘But we haven’t!’ hissed Lauren. ‘And if Brigstocke had it, then it’s gone! Whoever killed him will have forced him to tell them where it was in the shop, and they’ll have taken it!’
Jake shook his head.
‘I don’t think Brigstocke had it. If he did, he would have told them. Why hold out under torture like that for a book? The fact they did those dreadful things to him means they weren’t getting the answers they wanted. Brigstocke didn’t have it.’
‘So where is it?’ agonised Lauren.
Jake stared into his cup of coffee, at the dark liquid, the touches of froth on the side. Think, he urged himself. Think! The de Courcey family were given The Index for safe keeping after Glastonbury was destroyed. Where would they have put it? In plain sight, in the library? Or would they have hidden it somewhere? The book was precious, very precious. They wouldn’t have taken a chance on leaving it in the library for anyone to see.
Suddenly a thought struck him. Something Guy had said when they’d been in the cell at the police station.
He looked at Lauren, his eyes suddenly alive, agitated.
‘I think I know what happened to The Index!’ he said.
Lauren studied him, a doubtful expression on her face.
‘You’re sure this isn’t just coming out of desperation, Jake?’
‘No.’ He leant towards her. ‘Guy told me his family backed the wrong side in the Civil War, so they supported King Charles I and his cavaliers.’
‘Yes.’ Lauren nodded. ‘So?’
‘Well, it’s common knowledge that Catholics sided with the cavaliers. And we know that a de Courcey ancestor headed up the Order of Malichea at Glastonbury in the 1500s. So what does this tell us about the de Courcey family?’
Lauren thought about it.
‘That the de Courceys were Catholics,’ she said.
‘And wealthy Catholic families in the time of Henry VIII, certainly later Henry, and when Queen Elizabeth I was on the throne, often kept their religion secret to avoid persecution and having their wealth taken from them,’ said Jake.
Lauren stared at Jake, and now her face looked as excited as his.
‘And wealthy Catholic families had special hiding places in their houses to keep items of their religion.’
‘Not just items,’ Jake reminded her. ‘They even hid their priests.’
‘Priest’s holes!’ nodded Lauren. ‘Hidden chambers.’ Then her face clouded over. ‘But surely, such a hiding place at de Courcey Hall would have been discovered by now, after all these years.’
‘Yes,’ agreed Jake. ‘And who’s likely to know if such a place was discovered, and what happened to the stuff that was in it?’
‘You’re thinking Gemma and Dan Hayward?’ queried Lauren.
Jake nodded. ‘I am.’
Lauren frowned.
‘It’s a long shot,’ she said.
‘Everything about this business has always been a long shot,’ said Jake.
‘And if The Index had turned up, Gemma and Dan would have seen it. Especially Gemma. She’s got a real nose for finding things out.’
‘Yes, but she wouldn’t know what The Index was. We do! We know what we’re looking for!’ said Jake. ‘We have to talk to Gemma!’
Jake checked his watch as they left the café.
‘Half past six,’ he said.
‘We can’t go back to our flat,’ said Lauren. ‘If the police have found Brigstocke’s body and put out a search for us, that’ll be the first place they’ll look.’
‘I suggest we head back to Sevenoaks,’ agreed Jake. ‘We’ll go and see Gemma and see what she can tell us, if anything. Then we’ll stay at a hotel near there for the night.’
‘And the priest’s hole?’
‘We’ll go to de Courcey Hall first thing tomorrow morning and start looking for it.’
‘That won’t be easy. It’s National Trust, remember. They’re not going to let us start poking around.’
‘They might if Gemma’s able to give us some information about where it might be, and the Trust don’t know about it.’
Lauren looked doubtful.
‘There’s a lot of
ifs
there,’ she pointed out. ‘
If
there is a priest’s hole.
If
Gemma tells us where it is.
If
the National Trust let us look for it.’
‘You got any better suggestions?’
‘No,’ she admitted.
Jake and Lauren arrived at the caravan park on the edge of Sevenoaks at eight. They followed the driveways until they came to South Avenue, and number 36. They rang the bell and Dan Hayward opened the door.
‘Hi,’ he said. ‘I didn’t expect to see you two.’
‘We didn’t expect to be back here,’ said Jake. ‘Is Gemma in?’
Dan shook his head, and they could see he was worried.
‘Soon after you left, I had a text from her to say she was going to London to see that firm of lawyers I told you about, Pierce Randall.’
‘She actually went to see them?’
Dan nodded. ‘Then she texted me again about six to say she’d just seen a lawyer there called Sue Clark, and she was staying up in London overnight and not to worry.’
‘But you haven’t spoken to her?’
‘No, just texts. I tried phoning her, but I keep getting her voicemail.’ He looked at them, concern written all over his face. ‘What’s she up to?’
‘Doing what she said she would, by the sound of it: getting hold of a hotshot lawyer to sue the de Courceys.’
‘Which she could find difficult,’ added Lauren. ‘Pierce Randall are also Guy de Courcey’s solicitors.’
Dan looked even more worried.
‘I don’t get any of this,’ he said.
‘I think we ought to tell him what’s going on,’ Lauren said to Jake. ‘If Gemma’s got herself involved with Pierce Randall, he has a right to know what’s behind it.’
‘What do you mean?’ asked Dan, a new note of urgency in his voice. ‘What’s going on? Is it dangerous?’
‘Can we come in and talk?’ Lauren asked.
Dan nodded.
‘Sure. Mum’s out seeing a friend of hers,’ he said. ‘There’s just me here.’
‘Good,’ said Lauren.
Inside, the trailer was big and comfortable. Jake was aware that it looked larger and a lot tidier than his and Lauren’s flat.