The Templar's Secret (The Templar Series) (12 page)

Caedmon
concurred with a nod. ‘And, according to the Chinon transcript, the Roman Catholic Church had been very keen to find the
Evangelium Gaspar.
’

‘
Yeah, seven hundred years ago,’ she countered, pointing out the obvious.

‘
No institution survives as long as the Papal See without having a long memory. I suspect that the
Evangelium Gaspar
contains some damning revelation that contradicts traditional Church teaching. If it was merely a recitation of what’s already contained in the four canonical gospels, Anala’s abductors wouldn’t have gone to such extreme lengths to retrieve it.’

‘H
opefully, the historian at the St. Thomas Seminary can shed some light on the matter.’ As she spoke, a bead of perspiration broke free from her brow and rolled down Edie’s right temple. Opening her basket-weave satchel, she retrieved a paper fan. Glad that she’d had the foresight to toss it in her bag, she unfolded the gilded fan, swishing it back and forth in front of her face.

Their driver, applying the horn with great aplomb, abruptly swerved – this time to the left– bypassing a stalled
truck loaded with burlap sacks full of produce. Edie grabbed hold of the hand strap to avoid being hurled on to Caedmon’s lap. In front of her, the dangling glass beads that separated front and rear passenger seats noisily clattered. Having left Fort Cochin, they were now headed southeast on a rural two-lane highway fringed with coconut palms. To the east were the green foothills of the Western Ghats, home to Kerala’s fabled tea plantations, coffee estates and cardamom groves. To the west were the region’s fertile rice paddies.

Realizing that the
backs of her calves were stuck to the vinyl upholstery, Edie briefly considered reaching down and unsticking them, but couldn’t summon any enthusiasm for the task. Because they had an appointment at a religious seminary, she’d purposefully worn a plain white dress with a high décolleté. Big mistake – beads of sweat were trickling down her cleavage. The ponderous humidity and high temperature were a debilitating combination, the miasma so thick that she was forced to take small measured breaths. Although her brain knew better, she secretly feared that if she inhaled too deeply, the muggy air might clog her lungs and asphyxiate her.

Having retreated into silence,
Caedmon stared pensively at the Chi-Rho symbol that he’d drawn in his journal.

‘
You never did say how you and Gita met,’ Edie ventured timorously.

To her surprise,
Caedmon’s lips curved into a faint smile – the first in days. ‘“The clouds methought would open, and show riches ready to drop upon me, that when I waked I cried to dream again.”’ Then, just as quickly as it appeared, the smile vanished. ‘We were in the same Oxford thespian troupe,’ he said by way of explanation. ‘I played Caliban to Gita’s Miranda in
The Tempest.
’

Edie quickly searched her memory bank. ‘Miranda was Prospero’s daughter and Caliban was the freckled monster who tried to rape her, wasn’t he?’

‘Er, yes. But I can assure you that my actual feelings were of a more tender nature, Gita Patel my first love.’ The admission caused two ruddy splotches to instantly materialize on his cheeks. Clearly embarrassed, he turned his head and stared out the window.

Having suspected as much, Edie made no comment. She certainly didn’t begrudge
Caedmon the relationship; the boom and blush of love’s first rush was one of life’s more poignant chapters.

‘
My father, as you know, was a stern taskmaster,’ he continued in a low voice, his gaze still focused on the rice paddies in the near distance. ‘Gita possessed a gentleness that had been lacking in my youth and . . . she was incredibly empathetic.’ Slowly turning his head from side to side, Caedmon rubbed the back of his neck, giving Edie the distinct impression that speaking about the past was a painful exercise for him. ‘Shamefully, I never questioned why Gita left Oxford so abruptly. When she returned my letters unopened, instead of pursuing the matter, I shrugged it off and blithely traipsed on to the next love. I assumed the relationship was over and that was that. But I should have pressed harder. Should have gone down to London and –’ He broke off abruptly, leaving the thought unfinished.

‘
You have no reason to feel guilty,’ Edie told him, sensing that was the root cause of Caedmon’s distress. ‘You didn’t commit any misdeed or transgression.’

His jaw tightened. ‘You can’t absolve me of my sins. I
am
blameworthy in this tragedy.’

Stymied by
Caedmon’s heartfelt conviction, Edie cast her glance downward; she’d had no idea that he felt so culpable. Having unexpectedly stepped on a verbal landmine, she nervously fiddled with her fan. Guilt, like jealousy or mistrust, was one of those emotions that carnivorously gnawed at the inner core.

‘You
were a nineteen-year-old kid,’ she pointed out in a renewed attempt to reassure him. ‘Hardly an experienced man of the world. And it’s not as if you knew that Gita was pregnant and then turned your back on her and the baby.’

‘
No, that would have been unforgivable. A better man than that, I was merely a despicable coward,’ he rasped in a mocking voice. Folding his arms over his chest, Caedmon leaned his head against the back of the vinyl seat and closed his eyes. Effectively ending the conversation.

The fact that he’d opened up at all was something of a miracle;
Caedmon rarely spoke of his past, particularly his childhood. But to be fair, neither did she. Once, early on in the relationship, he’d revealed that his father, Neville, resented the fact that his wife had died in childbirth, wrongly blaming Caedmon. In return, she’d confessed that when her mother Melissa died of a heroin overdose, she’d been forced to spend two years in a sexually abusive foster home. But that’s all that they’d shared with one another, their respective pasts hermetically sealed as an emotional safeguard to protect the living. Edie sometimes worried that they were so well insulated, it might harm their burgeoning relationship.

A few minutes later, the taxi slowed as they approached the congested streets of Kottayam, verdant fields giving way to an urban hustle-bustle. Directly ahead of them, spewing dark plumes of oil-laced carbon monoxide, was a dilapidated red bus that had clearly seen better days. Those days being the 1950s from the look of it. Not only were there at least a dozen men ‘riding shotgun’ on the roof, there were four scrawny men clinging precariously to a metal rack mounted on the rear. Presumably installed for that very purpose.
No sooner did the bus slow than ‘passengers’ began to disembark by leaping over the side.

‘
I don’t know why that reminds me of lemmings jumping off a cliff. Probably because it’s an inherently dangerous activity,’ Edie mused as she watched them.

‘Mmmm . . .’
Clearly uninterested, Caedmon peered in the other direction.

Up ahead, traffic had inexplicably come to a standstill.

‘There’s a festival today,’ their driver said, jutting his chin at the stalled gridlock.

Muttering under his breath,
Caedmon glanced at his watch.

Edie, hoping to put the delay to good use, unfolded the tourist map that she’d picked up at their hotel. Trying to determine her e
astings from her northings, she caught sight of a red motorbike in the driver’s side mirror.

The skin on the back of her neck
instantly prickled.

Craning her head, she peered over her left shoulder
at the press of cars, rickshaws and motorbikes idling directly behind their taxi, the red two-wheeler in the middle of a dusty pack about twenty feet back.

‘Is s
omething the matter?’ Caedmon inquired.

‘
I just had the strangest feeling that –’ Shaking her head, she snorted self-consciously at her overblown fear. ‘Forget it.’

‘Forget what?’ he pressed, eyes narrowed.

Worried that she was going to sound paranoid, Edie relented and said, ‘I glimpsed a red motorbike that I think I may have seen back in Fort Cochin. But I’m sure it’s probably –’

‘There was a sentry with a red motorbike posted outside of Gita’s house,’ he interjected.

Flabbergasted, Edie’s jaw slackened. ‘And you were going to tell me this
when
?! For crying out loud, Caedmon! What did this sentry look like?’

‘He was olive-skinned with dark hair.’

Great.
A description that fitted nearly every man in Kottayam. Including the guys who’d just jumped off the bus.

‘Oh, yes, and he had a moustache.’

Oh, God.
Edie reflexively grabbed the vinyl seat to steady herself.

‘The guy on the red motorbike has a moustache,’ she whispered hoarsely.

Hearing that, Caedmon immediately leaned forward and said to the driver, ‘We’re getting out here.’

Caedmon
hastily ushered Edie to the curb, peering first in one direction and then the other.

Along the bustling artery
conveyances of every imaginable description choked the thoroughfare. An endless stream of honking vehicles belching dark plumes of noxious exhaust. A few feet away, a trio of untethered goats nonchalantly grazed on a pile of rubbish. One of them lackadaisically raised its head, stuck out its tongue and ‘greeted’ them with a quavering ‘
Blaaaa.
’

‘Great. We’re actually sharing the
curb with the Three Billy Goats Gruff.’ A few seconds later, lowering her voice, Edie said, ‘Here he comes.’

Slowly passing them, the
mustachioed brute on the red motorbike craned his head in their direction. Leering malevolently, he lifted his right hand off the handlebar. Purposefully showing them the telltale brand on his palm.

The mark of Cain.

Visibly flinching, Edie grabbed hold of Caedmon’s arm.

‘
As you’ll undoubtedly recall, Gita was warned not to go to the authorities,’ he told her.

‘
But you’re not the authorities. You’re Anala’s biological father. Which, I know, sounded
way
too clinical. Sorry.’

‘
Clinical or not, the abductors have no idea that I’m her father. They may have erroneously concluded that Anala hired a private detective.’

‘But that doesn’t explain why – Oh, Lord Shiva!’ Edie shrieked as the two of them dodged to the far side of the pavement, narrowly avoiding a collision with a blue Tata
truck, richly decorated with Hindu symbols, fresh flowers and dangling beads. At the back of the open lorry there was a large elephant in tow, the animal painted in vivid shades of green, yellow, pink and purple. A gargantuan coat of many colors.

‘Our cab driver said that there was a festival going on,’ Edie remarked, wide-eyed. ‘He didn’t say anything about the circus being in town.’

‘My understanding is that Hindu religious festivals are rather like a circus.’ As he spoke, Caedmon glanced at his watch. 2:45 p.m
.
Ample time to make their three thirty appointment at the St. Thomas Seminary. If they faded into the festival crowd, they could then double-back and hail another taxi, losing the mustachioed brute in the process.

Cuffing
a hand around Edie’s elbow, he quickened the pace.

With her free arm, Edie swiped at her brow. ‘And I thought that DC in August was brutal; this heat is debilitating. I feel like a wrung-out sponge.’

‘Just be grateful that we’re not here during the monsoon season,’ Caedmon rasped irritably, the noise, the soaring temperature and the branded bastard all having a disagreeable effect on him.

Up ahead, the lane opened on to a large grassy square jam-packed with lorries, elephants, bare-chested musicians and a milling mob of excited onlookers. A rambunctious kaleidoscope of Indian culture, it was a different world entirely, the air thick with a palpable, frenetic energy.

Closer at hand, an Indian swaddled in a white cotton
mundu
was in the process of unloading a decorated elephant from a truck, the animal’s forehead majestically caparisoned in a glittering golden
nettipattam.

‘Mind your step,’
Caedmon cautioned, guiding Edie around a far less majestic sight – a puny wrangler holding a plastic-lined garbage bin to a pachyderm’s wrinkled haunches.

‘Sorta like cleaning the kitty litter box, huh?’ Edie wrinkled her nose. ‘Although I’m guessing that’s not the most enviable job at the circus.’

‘Obviously, we’ve stumbled into the elephant holding area. We need to –’ Suddenly hearing the sound of a deep-throttled engine, Caedmon peered over his shoulder.

At the far end of the lane, the branded bastard calmly sat on his idling red motorbike. Raising his right hand, he grinned and waved . . . before loudly revving the engine.

Several wranglers glanced nervously around, the elephants becoming noticeably agitated. Just then, one of the behemoths raised its trunk, hurling a loafing truck driver to the ground. Hollering in a foreign tongue, the man nimbly rolled out of the stomping beast’s path. In a whirl of motion, the keepers scrambled to keep their charges calm, rightfully worried that the tuskers might suddenly stampede.