Helter Skelter

by Des Sheridan

  Theo was desperate not to lose sight of Leandro as the crowds thickened. There was so much at stake! Earlier he had spoken to Pascal about how he had located Tara and Robert and happened upon a stranger who was following the couple. Pascal had been ecstatic about the breakthrough.

  ‘This is fantastic news and is much better than I could have expected. When I sent you there it was a long shot. You are earning a bonus, Theo, a big one!’

  ‘I am watching him to establish his routine movements. He seems a devout type, went to Mass first thing. I was thinking that this evening I can collar him and work him over, see what he knows.’

  Pascal’s voice had screeched down the line from England.

  ‘NO! You must do nothing of the kind! Just observe him, no initiatives here, Theo. I want to see who he leads us to. He is not Mr. Big, just a foot soldier. Keep well back and don’t let him know that he is being watched. Find out who he is. You understand? Ring me tonight and let me know.’

  Theo had never received such praise from Pascal before and it had spurred him on. He had established his quarry’s name late in the day by bribing a female clerk at the garage in Vigo where the man worked. Pascal would be pleased when he heard that.

  Lallio had gone directly home after work and emerged half an hour later in fresh clothes and with wet hair. Theo caught the whiff of hair lotion and strong, cheap aftershave. He was going out for the night, it seemed. Theo had followed him, which was how he ended up here in Noia.

  Only he couldn’t see Leandro now, the crowds were so thick.

  ‘Oh fuck,’ he thought. ‘I can’t lose him now.’

  Whatever had brought Leandro Lallio here must be linked to the Triskell, Theo reasoned. An operative didn’t go sight-seeing in the middle of a mission. Most likely he was going to meet someone else and a second contact would really please Pascal.

  Leandro’s head suddenly popped back into view about twenty yards to the left. That battered leather hat was a godsend, thought Theo. He pushed through the crowds again trying to keep Leandro in view, only to lose him again.

  ‘Oh fuck it, merdre!’

  As he swore again, people around him looked in surprise. This was getting ridiculous. Despite all his efforts to keep close on his quarry, he was gaining no ground.

  Suddenly, a cloud of incense swept across the throng and the pungent smell filled his nostrils. As if in response the crowd, like a flock of starlings, surged and carried him sideways deeper into the smoke. He felt light-headed and couldn’t figure out what exactly was happening. A tug on his T-shirt made him look down and a child’s face smiled up at him. He was about to ignore her when he saw that she was holding up a glass cup of lemonade for him to have. The effervescent drink looked so refreshing that he gladly took it from her, downing it thirstily. He thought to ask her for more and looking down his gaze fell upon a pendant hanging around her neck. Darkness had fallen upon the festivities but, in the flickering light cast by swaying candles, he could see that the design was a triple spiral – the Triskell! His arm shot out triumphantly to grab the child.

  Chapter 59

  Dorking, UK, 13 October 2014

  Fortified by the sandwiches, the bully and his victim were as one in not wanting to waste any time. Pascal wanted to retrieve the Triskell directly and needed James’ help to access William’s grave. And he could see that James, realising that he had no choice but to assist them, wanted it over as quickly as possible. Pascal made clear to the man that he intended him no harm as he long as he complied and he could see James take hope in that. The alternative interpretation, that Pascal was lying, might no doubt cross his mind but therein lay despair so Pascal reckoned that his victim would push it to one side. He would comply and hope for a miracle, a chance event that might afford him escape. Not that I intend to let that happen, thought Pascal.

  For Pascal the matter was clear cut. James needed to die once he had served his purpose. Leaving James in Dries’ hands he asked Erik to show him and Jean the grounds. To the rear, in dense shrubbery and trees, a gate opened on to a path that skirted an old abandoned meander in the local river. Marshy, isolated and overgrown, the oxbow was an excellent spot to dump a body. Pascal was rehearsing the killing verbally with Erik when Jean interposed.

  ‘You can’t do that. We are in Britain and have kidnapped a close associate of the Duke of Norfolk. The Earl Marshal, for God’s sake. Do you recall who that is?’ Jean spat out in anxiety.

  ‘Yes, but I expect you are going to remind me anyway.’

  Pascal responded laconically, although inwardly he was starting to fume. Jean was intervening too much of late for his liking.

  ‘He is the man who organises the coronation and funerals of the English monarch. Touch one of his entourage and you will bring the combined weight of Special Branch, MI5, M16 and Interpol down on us within an hour. We will be fucked! The point is, Pascal, you don’t need to kill the man. He knows we are watching his son and daughter and his grandchild. He won’t dare do anything. Just keep him sweating and he will be compliant.’

  ‘But he has seen us, seen me!’ Pascal hissed. Jean ought to have recognised the danger sign but carried on regardless.

  ‘That is a complication, I accept, Pascal, and we must deal with it in due course, but not now, not in this way. He doesn’t know our names. The priority is the Triskell. Find it and get away! Later we can kill James if we need to. In the meantime just make the old fuck sweat and obey!’

  It occurred to Pascal that he might soon need to make Jean sweat and obey. But there was sense in Jean’s advice. Letting James live was risky, but prudent, for now. Pascal certainly didn’t want his father, Evrard, alerted to a scandal that attracted the attention of Interpol. Pascal was already conscious that his father might link him to the murder of the Irish priest. But equally Pascal didn’t like Jean’s tone one little bit. He fingered the flick knife in his pocket.

  ‘Very well, Jean,’ he said, suddenly grabbing the man and pinning him against the wall, the steel blade against his throat. ‘But if you are wrong and my interests are endangered, this is how you will pay. I will cut you like a pig and watch you bleed! Just remember who pulled you up out of nothing. And don’t ever speak to me like that again! Understood?’

  He saw stark terror dart across Jean’s eyes and beads of sweat break out on his brow, and it mollified him. Jean was once again quaking in his boots. The natural order was restored.

  Chapter 60

  Noia, Spain, 13 October 2014

  The child was quick as lightning, easily eluding Theo’s grasp. Pushing through the forest of legs in the crowd, she vanished from view, her high-pitched musical laugh left suspended in the air. Hunkering down, Theo listened intently for the sound of her voice again. Locating it ahead, and pushing forward, he caught a glimpse of her plain linen dress through the shifting silhouettes of the crowd. Some of the people, who were kitted out in some ancient form of dress, began to laugh at him and urge him to straighten up. He couldn’t recognise the tongue they were speaking, and presumed it must be Galego, the Galician language. The hand gestures, waving him to straighten up, spoke for themselves. There was something odd about the faces in the crowd, he noticed. They seemed strangely unclouded, but by now Theo realised he wasn’t feeling quite right, so perhaps it was he that was odd, not them. He had received too much sun exposure today, a pale-skinned man who hadn’t bothered with sun blocker. Now, feeling queasy, he cursed himself for not taking precautions.

  The procession seemed endless, winding its way through the narrow streets. But the crowd lining the pavements had thinned out and looking around he saw the numbers walking behind were much reduced too. What’s more, there was no sign of Leandro. Theo calculated quickly. His best bet was to catch the girl and have something to show for his efforts. Suddenly he remembered that he had forgotten to ring Pascal as he had promised. Checking the time he saw it was five minutes to midnight.

  ‘Shit,’ he thought. ‘I will get bollocked for this.’ But he couldn�
��t stop for fear he would lose the girl.

  Torn between renewed resolve and escalating desperation, he heaved forward one more time until suddenly there were no more bodies to push past. Theo stopped and, straightening to his full height, realised that he was at the front of the procession. He turned around to look for the girl or Leandro but he couldn’t see them. Instead he faced a tall figure in a monk’s habit, standing proud of those behind him, his face hidden in shade under a cowl. It was the leader of the procession. The man was carrying in one hand a small, black, bowl with a liquid in it and in the other a small, simple stone cross. He thrust his hands out to Theo so that both objects touched the Belgian’s chest. Instinctively Theo, thinking the man was going to drop them, reached out and took hold of them.

  The procession flowed forward once again, pushing him around again in the process to face forward. Glancing over his shoulders Theo saw the marchers raise their hoods over their heads too. He sensed they must be reaching the climax of the march. A salty smell that told him they were on the road along the sea wall. The night air seemed abruptly colder and he realised that his clothes were wet with perspiration. He must be getting a fever. The bells of San Martino were clanging loudly, a thundering, reverberating clamour that greeted their arrival. Rounding a corner into the square he saw the great façade rising up in front of them. A sea mist, creeping fast across the square, obscured his vision, so he stopped and felt the procession behind him draw to a halt at the very same instant, in perfect unison with him.

  Turning, he saw that the marchers had dropped their hoods and it was then that he screamed. Where their heads had been a few minutes ago were now bare skulls, grinning hideously at him! The host responded instantly to his cry, moving in like a swarm of locusts, sweeping him off his feet. The throng moved purposefully, back towards the sea, this time descending the slipway and out onto the rocky foreshore, their feet marching over the wet carpet of stones, green seaweed, black mussel shells and brown kelp. On they went, advancing down into the dark choppy waters of the night. The Night Ones were taking Theo home.

  Chapter 61

  Arz, Brittany, 18 June 1940

  The figure in the wood worked diligently. In the darkness his poorly defined form gave little away. It was hard to distinguish how he was dressed apart from the sharp peak of a small cap on his head. His steady rhythm of activity, however, and smooth arm movements indicated that he was a fit man, perhaps a farm labourer. He was digging a hole near the foot of large isolated beech tree which was enclosed in a plantation of smaller conifers. The sound of the steel-tipped shovel slicing with neat precision into the turf was regular, calm and purposeful. Each crisp cut emphasised a fixedness of purpose. This excavation was no act of passion but rather a manual undertaking delivered with practised discipline. The professional gardener laboured on although the weather was not helping. For the last five minutes a persistent trickle of light rain had complicated the task, his boots regularly sliding a little as the ground became wetter.

  A second figure, almost invisible in the gloom, stood motionless and watched. Émile Bihan-Malmanche, son of the Duc d’Arz, wore a trench coat and fedora. He was anxious, wishing the task over and done with, and struggling not to pull out a cigarette and light up. It was too risky, as it might disclose their presence. It was proving a tumultuous week, he reflected impatiently. Paris had fallen the previous Friday without a fight. Apparently the Germans had marched and driven into a silent city. The authorities had fled and the Archbishop, Cardinal Suhad, was the only senior figure to remain. After that there had been rumour, panic and disorder all around. Some bastards had taken the opportunity to rob the jewellers in Arz. Émile had driven Madame Fitou, their Jewish housekeeper, to Cherbourg on the Sunday with her family, and put them on a packet boat to England. It seemed the wisest thing to do. And just as well for, if the latest rumours were to be believed, a German army was at this very moment attacking the port.

  Émile’s family was busy as well. They knew the Germans would take over the Château when they arrived because it was happening already to the great houses across Picardy and Normandy. If they stripped the house the Germans would ask questions so they were highly selective in what they were hiding. About seven of the most valuable paintings, including a Van Gogh, two by Poussin and a large Courbet, had been removed from their frames, wrapped up, and hidden away from the Château.

  And that had made Émile think about the shield of Vercingetorix. No one knew where it came although it had been in the house several generations. Maybe it was because it was such an odd object. Émile appreciated that it was meant to be Celtic in origin but to his eye it was more likely to be a nineteenth century Arthurian pastiche. The fact that the family had little interest in it and it was absent from the inventory of artistic items seemed to support that view. But Émile’s interest went further - it was personal. As a child he had found the object tucked away in a store room and laid claim to it. At his request his nanny had it mounted on the wall in his bedroom and it became a talisman for him. It often figured in his dreams and sometimes he imagined it glowed in the dark. He told everyone that his room was warmer for its presence but all the adults had laughed. But to his younger self it was indisputably true. When he returned from boarding school the object seemed to have lost its lustre but he still, to this day, treasured the fanciful memories. And this week, as they hid away the paintings, the shield had come back into his mind. But tonight it was General De Gaulle’s words on the BBC, barely audible at times because of the poor signal on the wireless, which had galvanised him. “France is not alone. This war is a worldwide war. French resistance must not be extinguished and will not be extinguished!” Somehow, hiding the shield of a Celtic warrior who had defied the Romans seemed absolutely the right thing to do.

  So he stood by, making occasional small talk with the digger. He waited a further tense ten minutes as the workman dug deeper. Finally the man, who was by now half obscured by the hole he stood in, spoke.

  ‘Monsieur, it is done.’

  ‘Thank you, Victor, here is the parcel. Now start filling it back in.’

  The digger stepped out of the hole and then placed the large flat parcel down into it. The object was roughly circular, just over a metre across, and thin and flat, wrapped in heavy-duty plastic and sealed with industrial tape. He then patiently refilled the hole with soil from the pile alongside that he had so recently created. Finally, he carefully refitted the turves as best he could.

  Émile spoke.

  ‘The rain will help. It means that the ground will recover fast. With a bit of luck no-one will pass this way for a while and by the time someone does the grass will have fully recovered. No one will be any the wiser. Come, Victor, let’s get out of the wet.’

  Their van was parked up an access track off the road but as they reached it they heard the rumbling sound of vehicles approaching. Quickly they crouched by a hedge. The convoy was travelling with doused headlamps and consisted of three armoured cars, two tanks and three trucks. As they trundled slowly past Émile could see they were French Army vehicles and were heading west. He knew in his gut what it meant. They were retreating and trying to avoid detection from the air. The Germans would be in Arz within a day or two at the very latest!

  Chapter 62

  Arundel, UK, 13 October 2014

  Pascal was relieved to hear that the Fitzalan Chapel was not part of the main castle complex at Arundel. The family was in residence and it would have been very difficult to enter and evade discovery. The Chapel, it turned out, was freestanding and abutted a road in the town, and that seemed the obvious point of access until James explained further.

  ‘The chapel is split by an iron and glass screen into two separate establishments. The larger part is St Nicholas’s Parish Church and follows the Anglican Communion. The inner part, which was used in the old days by the monks, is the Fitzalan Chapel, part of the Duke’s Estate and a Roman Catholic Church. The easiest access is from London Road into St Nick’
s but I don’t have a key to the door in the screen. I could get one but it would attract attention and we would have to wait until tomorrow.’

  He paused to look at his captors but they kept their expressions blank.

  ‘So, we will have to enter through the castle grounds. It is higher risk but if we are careful we should be all right. Hardly anyone goes about the gardens in the dark. There are new laser beam alarms to deter thieves from trying to steal the old lead roofing but I will disable them.’

  They parked the cars, where James advised, in a back street so as to avoid security cameras located on the Castle perimeter, and walked to the walls separately to avoid drawing attention. James let them in through a small side gate in a recess set back from the road. The street was empty so Pascal was pretty sure that no one observed them.

  The contrast between the partly-lit streets and the darkness inside the grounds was marked and it took their eyes a few minutes to adjust. Pascal could smell the wet lush vegetation tinged with the aroma of late-season roses and a faint whiff of rotting buddleia. James, keen to get on with things, was all brisk, silent efficiency and quickly found them a couple of crowbars from a tool shed just inside the gate. In a hoarse whisper he entreated them to be silent and watchful, and then set off in the dark through the gardens, the trio of men following him. Pascal felt increasingly jittery. The entire arrangement was improvised and not the normal way he operated. Despite all the bravado Pascal was usually careful to minimise risk. What would happen if they bumped into someone? To compound his unease he realised that Theo, who had successfully located Grainger and the Irishwoman in Spain, had missed a call. He was meant to have rung an hour ago to update Pascal on events. But he had heard nothing, which added to his anxiety that something might have gone wrong at that end.