by Gavin, Rohan
Darkus spoke up. “Tell them we plan to pay Beecham another visit.”
“There’s no sign of him yet,” replied Bill.
“Then we’ll wait until there is,” said Darkus, putting on his hat.
Chapter 13
An Interested Party
En route, Uncle Bill furnished the Knightleys with some further background on Bram Beecham.
Beecham had worked as a literary agent for over fifteen years and discovered several bestselling authors during that time, launching him to the top of his profession. However, his meteoric rise was interrupted by the tragic death of his daughter, Samantha, from leukemia, and the subsequent breakdown of his marriage.
It was around this time that Beecham was contacted by a new writer named Ambrose Chambers, who refused to divulge his identity but was believed to be American, and evidently had an exceptional gift for motivational writing and an extraordinary array of contacts in the fields of mythology and spirituality. It was from this array of contacts, from far-flung corners of the globe, that Chambers drew together the various threads that would eventually become the literary phenomenon that was The Code. For his part, Beecham personally credited Chambers with keeping him on the rails during his tragic trials of fate, and he vowed to bring Chambers’s inspirational writing to a wider audience, which he duly did.
The road to publication, however, was not without obstacles. The editor of The Code, Lester Norris, died in a car accident one month before the book’s release. Other members of the publishing team resigned amid rumors of a curse surrounding the book—rumors that were never substantiated, Uncle Bill was quick to point out.
Chambers himself continued to shy away from any kind of public attention, insisting on being paid through a network of front companies and offshore bank accounts. The Code, meanwhile, ascended the bestseller lists, driving Chambers deeper into hiding and leaving Beecham with the unusual dilemma of representing an author who didn’t wish to be represented.
The latest turn of events only served to heighten Beecham’s predicament: how could he defend his author from accusations of inciting criminal acts when his author refused to comment or appear in public? Beecham couldn’t betray the man who was not only his most prized client but also the person to whom he felt he owed his own life.
Beecham’s penthouse was located in an elegant apartment block in Marylebone. Knightley parked the cab on the opposite corner while Darkus and Bill sat in the backseat, observing the scene.
The white van was positioned outside the foyer, with two of Bill’s officers in the front seats. A dim lampshade was the only sign of life from Beecham’s window, which overlooked a modest roof garden and the unobstructed London skyline, lit up in the night.
Meanwhile, Knightley switched on a reading light over the dashboard and opened a copy of The Code. Darkus caught a glimpse of his father’s eyes moving left to right in the rearview mirror. Knightley scanned through the first chapter of the book, making disgruntled noises and flipping the pages dismissively. “Amazing what people choose to read these days,” he complained.
Satisfied that the book was having no ill effects, Darkus trained his binoculars on the apartment building and the surrounding area, employing his catastrophizer to detect anything that might be worthy of note.
His lenses focused on a second black cab pulling up at the curb outside Beecham’s building. A long pair of legs stepped out.
“Dad?” said Darkus.
“Yes?” he answered, without looking up from the book.
“Someone’s going inside.”
Bill craned his neck to look out of the window. “Aye, he’s right,” he said with a twinkle in his eye.
The new arrival was dressed in a short business skirt under a raincoat, her stilettos clicking as she paid the cabbie and entered the building.
“Her name’s Chloe. She works for Beecham,” Darkus explained, as they watched her cross the foyer and enter the elevator.
A moment later, a light flicked on at the summit of the building. Chloe emerged on to the roof garden and posed with one stiletto heel resting on a flowerpot, using a watering can to tend the plants.
Knightley and Uncle Bill both reached for their binoculars and angled them up toward the roof.
“Anything of interest?” Darkus asked, curious.
“No,” both men responded in unison.
Darkus kept his binoculars at street level and noticed a silver minivan with tinted windows. Fumes were rising from the exhaust, but its lights were off.
“Uncle Bill?” he asked.
“Aye?”
Darkus pointed to the silver minivan. “Is that one of yours?”
Bill adjusted his focus. “No.”
“Then whose is it?” Just visible through the untinted windshield, Darkus could detect two middle-aged men also training binoculars on the roof garden.
“Alan,” said Bill, reaching through the glass divider to prod him. “We’ve got company.”
Bill and the Knightleys stepped out of the cab and approached the silver minivan.
Bill went first, shielding Darkus with his bulk. He pulled a massive flashlight from his coat and directed the beam onto the driver and passenger, momentarily blinding them.
“Ho ye. Police. Open up,” he demanded.
Knightley rapped on the back window, and the rear doors opened to reveal four middle-aged men, a woman, and a young boy, all dressed in matching black hooded robes. None of the occupants seemed alarmed; they merely squinted into the flashlight beam as it illuminated their faces one by one.
Darkus noticed a line of Latin text embroidered on the arm of the robes. “Ordo Novi Diluculi,” he recited, then translated it: “The Order of the New Dawn.”
“That’s right,” said Knightley. “They’re a secret society. Devoted to the study of the occult.”
“In this case, a study of evil forces,” interjected one of the passengers, a gaunt man with graying hair and whiskers, evidently their elder statesman. “You may remember me, Mr. Knightley. My name is Brother Allwyn.”
“I’m afraid I took a rather long sabbatical, and my memory’s not what it used to be.”
From behind his father, Darkus whispered, “The Case of the Missing Pharaoh.”
“Ah, yes, Brother Allwyn, of course,” said Knightley, feigning recollection. “How is . . . the pharaoh?”
“Still missing,” Allywn said accusingly.
“Ah.”
“It seems we’re both here in the same capacity. To locate Ambrose Chambers, and to protect the world from the book.”
“I assume you’re referring to The Code?” said Knightley. “I’m reading it right now, and find it to be quite harmless.” Darkus realized his father was fishing for a response.
“It is not called The Code,” answered Allwyn. “Chambers has borrowed from a far older text and harnessed its power, molded it to fit his purpose,” he went on. “The text has no name, but it has been ubiquitous throughout history. It has been handed down through the generations, by both leaders and despots, guarded by some and coveted by others.”
The youngest member of the group, a boy no older than Darkus, took up the story: “The original came into the Order’s hands several years ago. The Order undertook to guard it, to act as custodian of its secrets and, if necessary, to destroy it, should it fall into the wrong hands, but in the face of more powerful forces than ours, we failed,” he concluded grimly.
“What kind of forces?” Darkus asked.
The boy hesitated, looking to the elder for permission before responding. “We don’t know. Several unrelated events conspired to deny us possession of the text. It was supposedly lost by a museum in Rome, then incinerated by a fire in a library in Cairo during the Arab Spring. In the absence of any physical evidence, there was no way of confirming whether it survived or not. That is, until certain passages of the text appeared in the manuscript of Ambrose Chambers’s book.”
Allwyn twitched his whiskers cryptically. “As my
grandson here says, these were unrelated events, but I for one detect an organization behind them—a greater, more malevolent force. It’s the only explanation.”
Knightley and Darkus looked at each other. Uncle Bill raised an eyebrow. It was clear they were all pondering the specter of the Combination.
Allwyn glanced around nervously, as if detecting a paranormal presence, then added, “Whoever is behind this latest incarnation must know that wherever the text goes, it brings only damnation and destruction.”
The words hung in the air like bodies on a gallows.
“I assure you we have only the best intentions,” said Knightley.
Allwyn shook his head. “Your intentions are of no consequence, Mr. Knightley. We’ve learned that the book has already been linked to several criminal acts, and we believe this is only the beginning. If the text spreads, the inevitable result will be chaos—Armageddon.”
“To what do you attribute these powers?” Darkus demanded. “Why does the text have this effect? And why not on every reader?”
Allwyn paused before answering. “I don’t know. A curator in Rome was analyzing the text when it was stolen. We’re convinced it survived the fire in Cairo and is still out there.”
“And if Chambers didn’t write it . . . then who did?” asked Darkus.
“Once again, I don’t have that answer for you,” the elder replied.
“Seems like ye don’t have much to go on at all,” observed Bill.
Knightley took a moment to summarize. “A self-help book for leaders and despots that has been passed around the world for centuries and somehow landed on the bestseller lists. Sounds a little implausible, even to me.”
Allwyn’s grandson mounted a defense: “Every leader throughout history has harbored their own personal source of inspiration, to feed their thirst for power,” he lectured. “For some it was religion; for others it was communing with the supernatural.”
Darkus shrugged. “Yet every despot, however powerful, has ultimately proved mortal and been defeated by ordinary, often mundane, methods.”
“I assure you, there is nothing ordinary about this text,” Allwyn responded. “It contains magic and necromancy that have baffled some of the greatest minds that ever lived. And in some cases it has infected, consumed, and destroyed them.” The elder punctuated the sentence with a grim nod. “We will not rest until every copy of The Code is incinerated, along with the original—if it cannot be adequately protected.”
The Order members in the front seats turned their binoculars back to the roof garden, ignoring the detectives. Uncle Bill bristled at this, then a bagpipe ringtone announced itself from somewhere on his person. He began patting himself down, locating his phone in a commodious inside pocket.
“Aye,” he said, answering the call. “Aye,” he repeated, his eyebrows rising. He stepped away from the minivan privately. “Aye,” he said conclusively, and ended the call, beckoning the Knightleys to follow him out of earshot.
“What is it?” asked Knightley.
Bill’s eyes lit up. “Bram Beecham. He’s contacted Scotland Yard. He wants to cooperate.”
“Excellent,” said Knightley.
“He’s agreed to meet us here in twenty minutes.”
“What if it’s a trap?” said Darkus.
“We have protection,” said Bill, nodding to his officers.
“Right now Beecham’s the only lead we’ve got,” argued Knightley.
Bill shined the flashlight beam at the driver of the minivan and informed the occupants, “A’right, party’s over, muckers. Move along. There’s nothing to see.” He waved them off.
The driver begrudgingly switched on his headlights. As the minivan pulled away from the curb, Brother Allwyn powered down his window and addressed the detectives: “I say again—don’t be fooled. You are not dealing with an ordinary author, or an ordinary book.” The window rolled up and the minivan accelerated away into the night.
Knightley visibly winced at the warning, then shrugged at Darkus as if to downplay it. “Kooks . . .” he muttered in an attempt at reassurance. They both checked their watches in unison, looked up and down the street, then returned to their vantage point.
Uncle Bill issued a request, then a few minutes later a Metropolitan Police van took up position outside the apartment building and a uniformed officer delivered three hot cups of tea and a packet of chocolate digestives to the back of the cab. Although it was approaching midnight, Darkus’s mind felt sharper than ever—or at least he hoped it was, for he knew that the next twelve hours would prove crucial to the investigation.
After approximately twenty minutes, another black cab arrived outside the apartment building, and Bram Beecham stepped out. When he reached the sidewalk, four uniformed officers quickly hustled him into the foyer. Beecham made no attempt to resist, and was carefully patted down and declared safe. Satisfied, Bill led the Knightleys inside, and the throng of officers entered the elevator with Beecham in their charge.
Resigned to being treated as a suspect, Beecham said little other than to unlock the door to his penthouse apartment and invite them in. Bill ordered two officers to stand guard, then followed the Knightleys inside.
The penthouse was even sleeker and colder than Beecham’s office. The furniture was uniformly black and uniformly leather, with the occasional cashmere throw pillows. The floor itself also appeared to be leather or some synthetic equivalent, and the overall impression was of being inside the carcass of an exotic black animal of some kind.
Chloe closed the glass doors to the roof garden and greeted Beecham in a surprised but professional tone. “Bram. I didn’t know you were expecting guests. I would have done the watering another time.”
“That’s quite all right.” Beecham’s voice betrayed a hint of anxiety—possibly even fear, Darkus thought. “Chloe, you remember Darkus Knightley,” he went on, ushering his guests into the living room. “This is his father.” Knightley bowed enthusiastically in Chloe’s direction. Beecham gestured uncertainly to Uncle Bill. “And this is . . .”
“Montague Billoch,” said Bill, using his birth name, “but ye can call me Monty,” he added, with a smile that seemed to inflate his cheeks close to bursting. “Verra canty.” Neither Darkus nor his father made any attempt to comprehend this last comment.
“I’ll see you in the morning, then,” said Chloe hesitantly.
“Thank you, Chloe.” Beecham closed the door behind her. Then he removed his coat, went to a marble-topped bar, and poured himself a large neat whiskey, using a monogrammed napkin to dab his shining forehead. “Can I offer you anything?” he asked Knightley and Bill, who looked at each other and shrugged.
“Not on the job,” Darkus responded for them. Knightley and Bill nodded in agreement, as if the thought had never crossed their minds.
“Fair enough,” said Beecham, taking a seat and gesturing for his guests to do the same. He pressed a remote control and a set of electric blinds descended silently over the windows, blocking out the roof terrace. Knightley and Bill watched, impressed, while Darkus examined the imposing bookcase that took up one entire wall of the living area.
“I understand you’ve decided to cooperate,” began Knightley.
“I’ve come to realize my options are fewer than I thought,” said Beecham, sipping deeply from his whiskey tumbler. “Like my client, I am now the subject of rumor and innuendo. I am a target for those who seek to use The Code for their own purposes, which are beyond my control,” he went on, his voice wavering more noticeably.
“Would you care to elaborate?” said Darkus, continuing his survey of the room.
“In short . . . ,” Beecham replied, “I believe my life is in danger.”
Chapter 14
Hidden Chambers
“Proceed,” said Darkus.
Beecham looked from Knightley to Bill, then began talking. “I’m aware that certain fringe groups hold my client responsible for events that could not have been foreseen. I also believe anot
her, larger organization has manipulated the book’s release for their own personal agenda—an agenda that I cannot fathom, nor do I wish to.”
“What kind of organization?” asked Darkus.
“I don’t know. But I believe Lester’s death was no accident.”
“The editor?” said Darkus.
“That’s right.” Beecham drained his glass.
“And do you have any idea who might be orchestrating this?” said Knightley.
“No,” said Beecham, looking down and to the left. Darkus knew enough about body language to know that this was a “tell”: a sure sign that Beecham was lying. It hadn’t escaped Knightley either.
“And you expect us to believe this story of a shadowy organization?” said Knightley. “With no tangible evidence? Only wild hypotheses?”
“It is not my job to investigate crimes,” answered Beecham. “It’s yours.”
“I gave you the chance to deliver your client to us, and you refused,” said Darkus. “You obstructed our investigation.”
Beecham went white, then turned to Knightley. “I’ll give you Chambers’s location. I’ll tell you everything I know. But first I want guaranteed round-the-clock protection and immunity from prosecution. In writing from a high court judge.”
Knightley looked to Bill for approval. Meanwhile, Darkus completed his assessment of the room, then calmly turned to face Beecham.
“Before we grant your request, Mr. Beecham, I believe there are some more immediate issues that need to be addressed,” he said. “Starting with this bookcase . . .” Darkus approached the heavily lacquered bookcase, running his hand over the shelves where a variety of Far Eastern trinkets were lined up for ornamental effect.
“Careful, Doc,” said Knightley, the anxious parent in him coming out.
“Is your son always this poorly behaved?” said Beecham curtly.
“Not without good reason.” Knightley watched with nervous interest. “Don’t break anything, Doc, for God’s sake,” he whispered.
“Don’t worry, I won’t.” Darkus inspected the edge of the bookcase and the adjoining wall, then turned to face the others. “It’s clear from the layout of this room that there is significantly more space behind this bookcase than meets the eye.”