The Plantagenet Vendetta (20 page)

Still in his office at 9pm, the editor of the
London Chronicle
scanned the document in front of him.

The piece differed from the journalist’s usual style, but the article was not uninteresting. It was just the opposite, in fact. If it was true, the revelations were startling.

Better yet, apparently he had a source.

He double-clicked on his mouse and copied and pasted the original article into the new document.

The article would be ready for tomorrow’s evening edition.

28

It was dark by 9:30. Along the high street, buildings were closed for business, their interiors revealing no sign of life. The only illumination was the white glow of the streetlights, radiating a warm atmospheric haze above the pavement. Between Dovecote Ridge, where Martha and Anthea lived, and the middle of the high street, there was not a soul to be seen, apart from Jen and Anthea. And that boded well; even for such a short walk it would be unwise to be conspicuous. As they passed the estate agent’s, the dim glow of what appeared to be a backlight served as a reminder that observation could come from any corner.

But as far as they could see, the building was deserted.

The light was merely a deterrent to put off potential thieves.

There was activity across the bridge. Lights were on in the Hog, as expected. Laughter and chatter resonated within its ancient walls – as it surely had done for centuries. Jen thought she heard the sound of Brian Hancock laughing boisterously, but she knew she couldn’t be sure.

Among the sounds of many,
those of the few were lost.

About an eighth of a mile further on, the church was dark and deserted. On warm and still nights, the sight of passing teenagers, lonely figures walking their dogs or local residents taking in the night air was not uncommon, but tonight there was not a soul to be seen. Even the birds had disappeared.

Like the monks of old, a vow of silence had taken over the village.

Making her way through a cluster of gravestones, Jen headed for the main doors of the church.

A sudden glare of bright lights caught her completely off guard.

“Shit,” Jen said, taking cover behind the nearest gravestone. She realised her mistake immediately. The security lights overlooking the main door were obviously movement activated.

Two minutes in and the plan had failed.

“That always comes on,” Anthea said. “People’ll just think it’s a squirrel or a bird.”

Jen was unconvinced.

“Come on, before it goes off and comes on again.”

This time Jen followed Anthea, sprinting for the front door. Her gut feeling was she had made a mistake – potentially a huge one. Until this point she had not considered the possibility that CCTV cameras could be in operation. The sleepy nature of the village made her think it unlikely, but she reminded herself she was living in the 21st century. Technically, she was considering breaking and entering.

And the law was pretty clear on the matter.

Anthea inserted the main key into the lock and opened the door. She locked it immediately from the inside, and for several seconds they both held their breath. The lights outside the church went out after about fifteen seconds. Even the interior of the church seemed darker. As best they could tell, nobody had seen them enter; aside from the Hog and the presbytery, there were no nearby buildings, and Jen knew from personal experience that visibility from the Hog’s windows was poor. For now she was satisfied.

At least they were in.

Jen followed Anthea toward the cloisters, concentrating on her footing. As expected, the door was locked, but that was remedied thanks to a small key on the key ring. The cloisters appeared lighter than the main church; the faint gleams of moonlight, entering through the windows, shone down on the tiled floor and reflected off the walls. The images in the glass appeared different at night, the patterns causing unique shadows. Even though she knew they were more modern than they looked, tonight they appeared somehow more sinister.

If that were possible.

“What are these?” Jen asked, now unconvinced by the priest’s answer the day before.

“Heritage,” Anthea replied. “People of the village were prominent supporters of the House of York.”

Jen accepted the response – though still confused by the relatively modern design.

They made their way to the bottom of the steps and opened the door to the vault.

Predictably, the tunnel was shrouded in darkness. Jen activated the flashlight facility on her iPhone, and Anthea did the same. Despite the improvement, the dense colour of the stone absorbed more light than it reflected. She remembered from earlier that the passage wound gently from left to right.

In theory, all they had to do was follow it.

They passed the vaults Jen had visited earlier and continued all the way to the one belonging to the Jeffries. Jen entered through the same open archway and into a desolate chamber that on this occasion seemed even gloomier than when she had seen it earlier. Inside, the chamber was pitch black – the dim glow of the surrounding wall lights that had lit up the vicinity a few hours earlier was no longer present. There was obviously a light switch somewhere – or switches – but even Anthea didn’t know where.

Their mobiles were the only aid.

The locked door was visible in the torchlight, as was most of the debris. A large spider web had appeared in front of the door, beginning at the top corner and continuing all the way to the nearest tomb.

Jen saw movement and jumped. A small spider was floating across the torchlight. She batted it immediately, not knowing whether or not she killed it.

She heard laughter developing into intense giggling. She pointed the light at Anthea.

“What? It was only a spider.”

Jen’s breathing returned to normal. She ran her fingers through her hair, assuming she had fallen victim to another cobweb. “I hate spiders.”

“I’d never have guessed.”

Jen attempted to regain her composure, but it was becoming difficult. Enclosed spaces were a no-no, and had been since she had become lost at Wookey Hole when she was seven. The chamber had seemed more open in the day – and certainly less dusty.

She sneezed, causing several motes to move in the torchlight. She shone the light on the door and turned her attention to Anthea.

“Try opening it.”

Anthea seemed reluctant to move.

“Okay, I’ll try.”

She collected the keys from Anthea and slowly approached the door. There was rubble beneath her feet, making it impossible to stand without moving it first. She spent the next minute doing so before finally getting a clear view of the door.

Strangely, it looked smaller in the bad light, whereas earlier it had looked more imposing.

She concentrated on the lock. The first key was the wrong shape, the second, a perfect fit. Nevertheless, there was no sign of the door opening. There were eighteen keys in total, seven of which were the correct shape.

But none unlocked the door.

She went through them all a second time, concentrating on the seven that fitted. She tried everything she could possibly think of: turning them left, right, turning the handle, lifting it…

It was useless.

Jen tried the last key for longer, now rattling the handle. She pushed and pulled…

Useless.

“Ugh!”

She removed the key from the door and retreated several metres.

“How exactly did you get in the first time?”

The question unsettled Anthea. “Through that door, there.”

Jen swept her hands through her hair. It was obvious that the keys did not work.

“There must be another way in,” Jen said, her eyes on the surrounding walls. She investigated them one by one.

Nothing but graves and debris.

Useless.

She returned to the door, trying the keys for a final time.

Nothing.

Jen rattled the lock vigorously before retreating several steps and picking up a piece of debris. She hurled it at the door, the object making no impression other than a dull thud followed by an echo.

“It’s hopeless.” She sighed. “Come on. Let’s go.”

Jen left the chamber and stopped on reaching the main passageway. She was still convinced there was another way in, probably from a different part of the vaults. Thanks to the appearance of the priest earlier, she hadn’t had the chance to explore anything past the Jeffries’ vault.

If there was another entrance, it was almost certainly nearby.

Movement from close by chilled her to the bone. It sounded like stone, not falling but definitely moving. She turned, the light from her phone now centred on Anthea’s face.

“What was that?”

The girl shook her head. Jen could see in the torchlight that Anthea swallowed, a nervous gulp. It was evident from her expression that she had heard the noise as well.

“Can we leave now?” Anthea asked, petrified.

That wasn’t going to happen.

Jen re-entered the chamber. She passed Anthea on the way back, neglecting to reply to her question. The noise had definitely come from inside the Jeffries’ vault.

She scanned the room with her phone light. As best she could tell, nothing had changed. She assumed the most likely cause was falling debris.

Finding it would be like looking for a needle in a haystack.

Jen turned her thoughts to the tombs and then once again to the walls. Behind the debris was that doorway again, surrounded by the elaborate archway. The sight of it angered her – the keys that didn’t fit, the peculiarities that allegedly existed on the other side. She shone the light on the debris surrounding the archway before aiming it slightly higher.

She noticed something. The symbol above the archway was different; instead of the Jeffries’ flower, it was a five-pointed rose.

Was she seeing things? The darkness playing tricks?

She moved closer, hoping for a better view. She had seen the type before; it reminded her of the ones used by the houses of Lancaster and York in the Wars of the Roses.

But there was something stranger about this one. The original symbol was still there.

Only it had slid to one side.

A strange feeling had overcome her, somewhere in between excitement and sheer astonishment. Without doubt, the five-pointed rose had previously been hidden behind the Jeffries’ symbol. On closer examination, there was some sort of hinge attached to it, which was why the Jeffries’ symbol had been able to move. Jen attempted to rationalise how it might have happened, but for now nothing made sense. Had her throwing of the debris a few seconds earlier been the cause?

If not, she was stumped.

The excitement in her started to rise again. Unable to reach the symbol, she climbed up onto a nearby block of stone, but still came up short. Following that, she tried making a small pile out of other pieces of stone and debris that were close at hand, but it still wasn’t high enough.

The extra height, however, did at least allow a better look at the crest: the five-pointed flower had a second flower at the centre and a circle within that – presumably the sun. She remembered that the white rose of York pointed downwards, whereas that of Lancaster did the opposite. While the identity of the symbol did not surprise her, of greater interest was its condition. The stone was weathered, obviously older than the Jeffries’ symbol, but even more intriguingly, it contained no motto, unlike the one in front of it.

To Jen, that was itself a sign of authenticity.

She knew that mottos were not widely used until the 17th century.

Standing on the rubble, she looked up to her right at the Jeffries’ emblem. The Latin motto was
dieu et mon droit
. Her Latin was rusty, but good enough to know the literal translation:

God and my right.

She heard something, somewhere in the distance. Turning to her left, she shone the light on Anthea.

The poor girl was scared out of her wits.

Jen came down from the makeshift pile and moved quickly to the entrance of the chamber. She looked both ways, not daring to expose the light. On either side she saw nothing. Whatever had made the noise had stopped. The only thing she could hear was the extended breathing of the poor girl standing behind her.

Jen pointed the light at her face.

“Okay. Now we can go.”

Sitting alone before the big screen, the man with whitening hair watched as the two female intruders left the vault.

People said he had been crazy wanting to install a camera among the tombs – a lookout against would-be intruders. Even his own wife had scorned him for resorting to such drastic measures. Up to this point he had already been proven right on six occasions…

Tonight he could proudly make that seven.