The Templar's Curse

by Sarwat Chadda

  Mo helped her up as Carados did the same for Idres and eased him against the wall as he caught his breath. Mordred looked over at the two squires. “They’re good, aren’t they?”

  “Better than we were?” Billi replied as she stretched out the aches and loosened the bruised ribs.

  Mo smirked. “Better than you, maybe. I’m still pretty amazing.”

  “I liked you better when you were more modest. You still have a lot to be modest about.”

  Mo pretended to be shocked. Then he reached into his back pocket. “All unlocked and awaiting your pleasure.”

  Billi took Lawrence’s mobile. “That was quick. I only gave it to you last night.”

  Mo shrugged. “What can I say? Old habits die hard. I couldn’t hack all of the accounts, but managed to salvage some interesting emails.”

  “You looked?”

  “Of course I looked. Check out the thread between Lawrence and a George Cartwright. General Sir George Cartwright, retired.” Mo sighed loudly. “Gwaine is glowering at me. I better get back to work.”

  Billi scrolled through the emails. There were a lot between Lawrence and this Cartwright bloke. “You know where I can find this Cartwright fella?”

  “Company address is right there on the email,” said Mo as he nodded at Carados to put on his pads. “I’d tell you not to cause trouble but, hey, who am I kidding?”

  ***

  One thing about living in the very heart of London was that everywhere was near. Still, Billi waited till the day was ending. She’d parked up her motorbike off Bloomsbury Square and headed to Bedford Way just after five when the streets were filling with everyone rushing home.

  It didn’t stand out. You could pass it every day of your life and not know it was there. Bloomsbury was all discreet Georgian uniformity and subtle splendour. It was just north of the British Museum and that couldn’t be a coincidence. Lawrence had said the museum was founded on loot, after all. It just proved nothing had changed, despite all the years.

  She’d been sitting at the bus stop opposite for the last hour, watching the comings and goings from Outremer Consultancy. What would you think it was, just glancing at the small brass plaque on the side of the main doors? Something to do with banking? Or maybe one of those management firms who teach bosses how best to fire their staff?

  The day was over, but the lights on the upper floors were still on. The boss worked late. Billi waited until the door was opening then started across the road, meeting the man while the door was still open as he fumbled for his umbrella. You could always count on the weather to provide opportunities. He looked at her as she came up the few steps to the entrance.

  He frowned as he wedged his briefcase under his arm, fiddled with his umbrella and tried to block her from passing. “May I help you?”

  “I seriously doubt it.”

  “Now listen, Miss. I don’t know what you think —”

  Billi pulled his briefcase from under his arm and tossed it onto the road. The guy stared from her to the briefcase to the taxi heading straight towards it, yelled and ran onto the road. Billi slipped through the open doorway and closed, then locked, the door behind her.

  She and the receptionist faced each other across the plush front room, complete with Persian carpet and portrait of the Queen over the marble fireplace. Billi smiled. “I want to speak to Sir George.”

  “I’ve called security,” snapped the receptionist. She stayed still behind the desk, hoping the heavy oak furniture was defence enough against this mad girl off the street.

  Billi crossed the room and picked up the phone, holding it out to her. “Tell him I need to speak to him about all the priceless artefacts he stole from Iraq during the war. Tell him I either talk to him, or I tweet it to every news agency in the world.”

  The side door swung open as two big men barged in. They took a step towards Billi, until the receptionist raised her hand, sharply. “It’s alright. It’s fine. This… young lady is staying.”

  The two men nodded warily, then retreated out of the room. The receptionist made a call, followed by a whispered conversation and quick glances at Billi. She put the phone down, straightened her shoulders as she stood up. “Sir George will see you now.”

  CHAPTER SIX

  Sir George was old-school privilege. Raised on tales of the Empire he was the sort of man used to dominating everyone and had been taught that the world was his and that was both right and natural. So he didn’t quite know what to make of this half-Pakistani girl in a biker’s jacket apparently ready and willing to tear his entire world down around his ears. So he did what any Englishman in his position would do. “Would you like some tea, my dear?”

  Billi nodded. “Why not?”

  Sir George glanced at the receptionist. “Agatha, tea for two, if you’d be so kind.”

  He showed Billi into his office. It was on the upper floor with tall bay windows overlooking the garden at the back. The curtains had yet to be drawn and the droplets upon the glass glistened in the light from his table lamp. There were portraits upon the wall, one of Duke Wellington, another of Churchill. Upon the mantelpiece were photos of family and some birthday cards. Seems that Sir George had just turned seventy. He looked good for seventy. Thick silver hair just a tad long, straight backed from a life on parade and a proud chin, the sort of chin used to ordering men to their deaths. His mouth was wide and hard, the smile as fake as it was polite. He adjusted his tie with the Sandhurst pin as he sat down behind his desk. Billi stayed standing. She didn’t want to sit with her back to the door.

  Sir George gazed at her with heavy, hooded eyes. Some people might have found that intimidating. “Agatha says you have some fanciful tale? Something you found on the internet, no doubt?”

  There were some really beautiful items upon the mantelpiece alongside the silver framed family photos. “Relax, Georgie. I’m not here to ruin you. At least, not today.”

  “What do you want, child?”

  Oh, patronizing. That wasn’t the best way to start. Billi stopped at an alabaster figurine, not more than ten centimetres tall, of a bearded, muscular man holding a lion in one arm, an axe in the other. “Gilgamesh, right?”

  “You know your Mesopotamian mythology.”

  “Only since breakfast.” She’d crammed hard after having read through the emails between Sir George and Lawrence. That’s when the plan had formed, an idea that had brought her into the offices of Outremer Consultancy.

  Sure, she’d got hold of the djinn jar, but that had still left her wondering what else Lawrence might have locked away, waiting for the right buyer to come along. She knew he made most of his money selling mundane, non-occult, items to buyers from all over the world. But what about the more... specialized items, like the jar with the trapped djinn? What else did he have? Who had supplied him in the first place? Who was behind smuggling priceless artefacts out of the world’s war zones? Now she knew.

  Sir George Cartwright.

  It had taken her all day to piece it together. Some was just research through the internet, but some through Arthur’s old army contacts. Soldiers gossiped, just like everyone else. Sir George was quite a player in the world of private security or, in plainer terms, the world of mercenaries.

  He’d retired straight after the Iraq war. He’d used his contacts and a significant amount of private wealth to establish Outremer Consultancy, a one-stop shop for all your mercenary needs. Ranging from bodyguards all the way up to private armies, he could have boots on the sand within seven days, special discount on militias. All his years in the Middle East, all those contacts both within his army and in local troops, gave him a unique insight and advantage in waging war in places like Mosul, Fallujah and Damascus. His clients included governments that couldn’t be seen intervening in such war zones. Sir George and his company, and others like it, made sure those governments’ interests remained protected, and central in any local politics.

  But where had the m
oney come from for Sir George to set all this up? She was looking at the answer to that question right now. The detail on the figurine was exquisite, right down to the minute ringlets of his beard. “This looks just like the Gilgamesh stolen from the Iraqi Museum of Antiquities in April 2003.”

  Sir George cleared his throat. “You’re mistaken. It’s just a cheap copy I picked up at the Baghdad souk while I was stationed there. It’s just a memento, nothing more.”

  Billi put her finger on the top of its head and rocked it back and forth. “Just a cheap copy, eh? Easily replaced?”

  Sir George’s hands tightened into fists and his gaze was pure venom. “You should not touch things that do not belong to you.”

  “My thoughts exactly.” And Billi let it fall.

  “No!”

  Sir George sprang up so fast his chair flipped over, crashing loudly upon the hardwood floor. He stretched out as if hoping to catch it but he was four metres away, it wasn’t going to happen.

  Billi let the small figurine drop into her other hand. She then put it back, very carefully. “That was lucky, wasn’t it?”

  There was a knock at the door and Agatha appeared with the tea. “Sir George? Is everything —”

  “Just piss off, Agatha!” he snapped, glowering from his desk.

  Agatha left. With the tea.

  He was nice and rattled now. It was just like having a duel. You wanted your opponent unsettled, out of his comfort zone and deep in yours. Then the jabs and stabs landed easily. Put him on the back foot and keep him there. “You smuggled a lorry-load of artefacts out of Iraq at the beginning of the war when the whole place was in chaos. You did it for a man called Lawrence, you’d been working for him for years already, and you handed the artefacts over to him at the Turkish border, in exchange for several million dollars, transferred to your account in the Cayman Islands. All I want is the inventory of everything you stole, then I’m out of your life.” Billi held out Lawrence’s mobile. “He really should have deleted those emails.”

  Sir George pulled a silk handkerchief from his breast-pocket and tapped the sweat from his forehead. He was pale, leaning over the desk, chewing his neat white moustache. He was out of breath. Just like in a duel. “I was just handling logistics and transport. There were troops working under me. They were the ones stationed in Baghdad. It was a major under my command who did the... removal.”

  “His name?”

  “Simon FitzRoy. I chose him because he was discreet, and his family had been soldiers for generations. His grandfather had served under Allenby out in the Middle East during World War I. Simon knew the people, the language and territory well.” Sir George’s shoulders slumped. He looked through his desk drawer and pulled out a manila folder and slid it across the desk. “Here. Take it for all the good it’ll do you.”

  Billi took it and gave it a quick look. There were a dozen items listed, including a bronze canopic container, the djinn jar. “What do you mean?”

  “I should never have trusted Simon. It wasn’t till years later when one of his men, a sergeant who now works privately for me, told me the major had separated some artefacts from the collection and kept them for himself. What I got were the leftovers. The bastard kept the best treasures for himself.”

  “Does Lawrence know?”

  He stared at her. “Are you mad? Of course not. As far as Lawrence knows he got everything of value.”

  “I think I need to pay this Simon FitzRoy a visit.”

  Sir George laughed. Genuinely laughed. He looked at her with a hint of victory in his eyes. “Good luck with that. I’ll be very surprised if you get anything out of him.”

  “I can be persuasive.”

  “You’ll have to be a medium, child,” said Sir George. “Simon FitzRoy killed himself ten years ago.”

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  So this FitzRoy fella was dead. That didn’t mean this investigation was over. Billi left Sr George to ponder his life choices and she even collected a biscuit from the tea tray at reception, and a scowl form Agatha, then had the door firmly closed, and locked, behind her.

  What to do next? She had the list from Sir George and that was a start. She didn’t know to where to go next, but she wasn’t going to let it go because of a single suicide. The djinn jar was in their hands, but there were more items out there, which not being traded through Lawrence. The Templars had dealt with mystical artefacts throughout the ages. They remained guardians of the Holy Grail, despite Billi having broken it one Easter, and once they’d had the fabled Cursed Mirror, the device that had allowed access with the realms of angels and devils. It didn’t have to be as grand as the Ark of the Covenant but there were rumours that somewhere out in the Iraqi desert were the Tablets of Destiny, last read by Alexander the Great. The flower of immortality bloomed in some remote oasis, and in the Alborz mountains were the gates to Alamut, the secret fortress of the Assassins, now said to lie between the mortal, physical world and the ethereal realm of spirits.

  She needed more information and where did you go when you needed to know something?

  To the library.

  A short tube trip north on the Victoria Line and Billi was out at Finsbury Park. Then a stroll down the darkening streets and an hour after having left Outremer Consultancy the doorbell chimed gently as Billi entered Elaine’s Bazaar.

  How could this be the same place? Even the smell had changed, and she’d thought that had been soaked deep into the building’s brickwork soul.

  A hipster looked up from his laptop. He frowned momentarily, before adjusting his earplugs and returning to his screen. There was a stack of screen-writing guides on the table, along with a cappuccino cooling in a painted jar. There were three other tables, all occupied by off-duty mums continuing the gossip they’d started at the school gates. The countertop was laden with gluten-free cakes and the coffee machine hissed noisily.

  She’d heard Lionel had given it a make-over but… this?

  Original artwork hung upon the bare brick walls and the lighting over the front of house café was provided by a chandelier that looked like it had been stolen from a ballroom. It was outrageously grand for this street corner store.

  Where was the lingering stench of tar and cigarette smoke? The musky odour of dust and cobwebs? Where had the mould gone, and the mousetraps? And the windows… she could see through them now.

  “Billi?”

  The guy at the counter was perched on a high stool, paperback in his hand and a pair of wire-rimmed specs perched on his prematurely balding head.

  Billi shook his hand. “Hey, Lionel. I like what you’ve done with the place.”

  He inserted a leather bookmark before tucking the book away in his apron pocket. “Elaine hates it.”

  “Your granny is a hard woman to please. I gave up trying a long time ago.”

  He smiled as he nodded. “These floorboards are original. Can you believe that?”

  She still couldn’t believe this was Elaine’s grandson. She wasn’t sure what surprised her more, that Elaine had been a mum once, or that this guy could be remotely related to her. Elaine had been wiry and hard, held together by cigarette tar, but this guy was a cuddly great bear. His brown eyes were as soft as chocolate and the smile open and sincere. It was as if the Almighty was overcompensating for having created Elaine in the first place.

  “How’s Elaine doing?” Billi asked. She should have dropped her a line but she was always too busy. Still, she’d definitely call her tonight. Tomorrow for sure.

  He laughed. “Miserable. She says the seagulls keep her awake all night and the salty air saturates all her clothes. She hates the nurses and is fed up with all the old people. She says she’s planning to become a roadie for a heavy metal rock band. Says she wants to die dancing in a mosh pit.”

  “There are worse ways to go, I reckon.”

  Lionel polished his glasses. “Carados brought the djinn jar, in case you’re wondering. It’s put away somewher
e safe.”

  “That’s not why I’m here. Did you get my text?”

  “About Lawrence and this FitzRoy guy? Yes, found something that might interest you quite a bit. Come downstairs and we’ll have a look.”

  Elaine’s Bazaar had been a pawn shop, first established in the latter half of the 19th century. The place had been a dusty, chaotic junk shop with no organization, and everything just piled in or squeezed into every little gap available. There’d been suitcases full of outfits from the roaring twenties, dining sets from old cruise liners, fur coats last worn during the reign of Queen Victoria and once Billi had found a stainless-steel whiskey flask with a bullet lodged in it.

  But Elaine’s Bazaar had been a cover. Elaine had been guardian of the Templar reliquary, responsible for those treasures taken from the Paris headquarters when the order had been destroyed. That, of all the mysteries, remained the greatest. The French king had opened the treasury to find it empty. The Templars had smuggled out their great treasures, mundane and magical, loaded them onto their ships at La Rochelle and simply disappeared.

  How would people feel, knowing it was now in the basement of a North London bookshop?

  Lionel held his belly in as he led the way through rows of closely-lined mahogany bookcases. “We keep the latest blockbusters up front but in the back are the second-hand shelves.”

  “And first editions you’re saving for your pension?”

  Lionel grinned. “You heard of Harry Potter?”

  They stopped by a back door, guarded by a stuffed bear. Lionel flushed a little red. “I couldn’t bear to get rid of it.”

  “The feather boa was your idea?”

  “Yeah. You know it used to give me nightmares when I’d stay over as a kid? The boa makes it more…”

  “Idiotic?” Billi suggested.

  “…friendly. Cuddly, if you know what I mean?”

  “No, not really but, hey, it’s your place now, Lionel.”

  Lionel took a key from a leather loop around his neck and unlocked the door. He grunted as he fought the rusty hinges but eventually got it open wide enough for him to squeeze through.