Leon studied the Abbey. “They are wonderful these places, too good to be sullied by the likes of Hainsley-Sihl. There are a lot of entrances to cover; we'll have to be on our toes.”
He studied the Abbey in silence for a while. “Is there a church in there now; is that Hainsley-Sihl's interest? Don't they have to conduct these black magic ceremonies in a consecrated place?
“I think you’re right and they do. There is a Chapel in there. It's small but complete. It was hidden for a long time after the Dissolution but restored by the Cary’s. It was the first, and for a very long time, the only Catholic Church in the area.”
Leon gave me one of those really warm smiles that made him a pleasure to be with. “You should be a guide when you retire Mike. You’re a good advert for Torquay.”
Graeme Dee appeared clutching plastic cups of coffee. “Got the restaurant staffed for the night.” He said, and shrugged his shoulders, courtesy of Interpol's generous offer of funds.”
Leon ginned. “Hope they make good sandwiches then! Got to get our money's worth.”
Graeme walked to the rail and had a look at Torre Abbey. “We are sealing Falkland Road and Chestnut Avenue and there's a car or two in the small car park on Walnut Road. They'll cover Kings Drive from there. That's all plain cars, the squad vehicles are all here but around the far side away from the view of the Abbey or anyone entering from King's Drive. Avenue Road has a couple of cars ready to close it as soon you chose to move Mike”
“We can't do anything but wait then.” I tuned to Graeme. “See if anyone's got a pair of binoculars will you. Leon and I will stay here. You take the frontal team and bring them across the Putting Green to the front door. That's where they'll try to run if they can Graeme.”
“Do we know where the woman is now? “Leon asked Graeme.
“She's in the Spanish Barn at the moment but there's a lot of movement between there and the public entrance to the Abbey. They're expecting a lot of guests is my guess. I think they are catering for them in the Barn and planning to move to the Abbey after they've eaten.”
“The more the merrier,” Leon said. “We need to clean the lot of them up.”
The night darkened as Leon and I stood there watching the Abbey. There were a few locals strolling about, the odd dog getting walked or courting couple but slowly the cars started to arrive and Hainsley-Sihl's guests entered the Spanish Barn.
Ann Taylor took a stroll past and came up the back steps to our Terrace lookout. “They are all in the Spanish Barn having a buffet and enjoying themselves.” She reported. “How come if they are all Mediums and Spiritualists they don't know we're here Inspector? She smiled at Leon, the tease in her eyes making him laugh.
“They only work if you pay them,” he told her, “and we aren't paying - Not even Interpol.” He finished, looking pointedly at Graeme Dee.
I saw David Cooper and Derek Smith coming out through the doors of the Restaurant. I'd sent for them both earlier. I wanted the strongest team I could get and I knew I could rely on them both implicitly despite the long hours they had already done searching the tunnels of Kents Cavern and Ilsham Chapel.
“I've left Ivor Martin trying to crawl his way into Hainsley-Sihl's tunnels.” Derek said. “He has done a good job for us. Found a new way through some old workings and down under Ilsham but it's dangerous down there. They won't get through tonight Mike.”
I thanked him. He looked tired but that would disappear the moment we made our move. We could all be tired tomorrow.
David Cooper had found a clean uniform and looked tired too. “We haven't been able to follow whatever route Harold used to get to Ilsham Chapel,” he told me. “They’ve pulled down the tunnel further along and we can't get through. We did find some part of the old workings though. Not Hainsley-Sihl's tunnels but I would think something to do with this place, he indicated Torre Abbey. There were some carvings and statues of Monks and a lot of dead ends. The whole hillside around Kents Cavern must be riddled with caves and tunnels. It will take years to excavate them all.”
I looked at my watch. It was just after ten. Leon watched me and I understood that he was getting Impatient to go in search of his niece. We both knew that as long as the blonde woman was in the Spanish Barn nothing was starting elsewhere. We had a lot of eyes with binoculars watching the Barn entrance and the entrances to the Abbey and would know if she moved from one to the other. Nonetheless the pressure was growing.
Graeme held a hand up to stop us talking. He was listening to his radio earpiece. “They are leaving.” he said. He looked at me waiting for a response.
I was conscious of Leon's eyes on me too.
I waited, watching Graeme as he continued to concentrate on the incoming information.
“Some of them, not many, are going into the Abbey. The rest are piling into their cars and getting ready to depart.”
I looked at Leon. He knew what I was thinking. “Let them go.” I said. “We only want the ones who go into the Abbey.”
Graeme relayed my instructions. We already had the licence plate numbers of all of the cars and a lot of photography. No one was getting away. They were merely getting a temporary reprieve.
“The blonde is in the Abbey now,” Graeme told us and they are closing up the Spanish Barn.”
Ann Taylor and Juliet had found their way out to join us. Ann would of course accompany us as we went in to the Abbey. I'd expected Juliet to remain inside but she wouldn't of course, she wanted to find Cherie Leclerc as much as anyone. Their shared experience as prisoners of Hainsley-Sihl had bound them together very strongly.
Every one of the senior officers present knew her in her professional capacity and no one would challenge her right to go in search of Cherie. That didn't prevent me from wishing she would remain safely in the Riviera Centre.
“Lights out in the barn, Abbey doors closed behind the last of them.” Graeme reported. It was time to go. I took a second to look at Leon Henry. “Let's go and ask if we can have our fortune told, perhaps it's our lucky day.” he said.
I led them down the steps and around to the right along the path towards the Abbey. I stopped on the curve of the path under the trees. We would be difficult to see from the Abbey in the gloom. I nodded at Graeme and within a few seconds I saw several uniformed Officers come through the small gate from Walnut Drive and moving to the right they quickly unlocked the door that led into the rear gardens of the Abbey. Just inside I knew they would enter the new children's garden and would soon pass through the splendid arrangements of lawns and flower beds that grace the Abbey’s ruins.
We began to walk along the path, passing the front of the ruined cloisters and then along the front of the mansion house part of the building. Looking up I saw that every light in the place was on. Somebody wasn't concerned about the Council's electricity bill.
On our right there was a grass lawn and then the low fence of the Putting Green. Graeme had left us to take up a position with the team that was moving across it from the top of Torre Abbey Meadow.
We passed the closed coffee shop and walked under the arch of the former Gatehouse. No sign of any reaction to us as yet. I could see men moving in across the green from King's Drive and as we turned the corner to our right more officers were approaching from Chestnut Avenue down the side of the Abbey itself.
The Spanish Barn door opened and somebody walked out just as Leon and I made it to the entrance of the public exhibition. It was a tall slim man who didn't have time to see us because he was immediately confronted by two officers who pressed him back inside the barn.
Leon tried the door; it was locked from the inside. I was just about to swear when David Cooper appeared with a Council officer key in hand. I asked him if there was an alarm and he said there was but it wasn't on. He pointed at a blinking light above and behind me. “It turns red when the alarm is set.”
He opened the door and we all entered in a bit of a rush, we’d selected different teams for different parts amongst the ma
ze of rooms that make up the Abbey. Leon and I with Ann, David Cooper and Derek Smith had the Chapel. We knew where we had to go and had memorised the way but it was still confusing. I anticipated meeting people every time we turned a corner but we found no one. The Chapel was lit but empty.
It didn't take long to verify that the Abbey was completely deserted.
Ann Tylor came up to me through a crowd of people and said, “I expected this. They won't be in the Abbey they'll be under it!”
“Yes of course!” Leon said. “Everything is about bloody tunnels.”
I shouted for quiet across the heads of the disconcerted assembled offices. “There's a tunnel. Everyone onto the ground floor and let’s get cracking. Get the dogs inhere pronto. We need to find it very quickly.”
I saw Leon's face. He was finally showing the strain. “The dogs will find it.” I said.
“Yes I know” he answered, “But will they find it in time, Mike?”
Juliet came and gripped my arm. “It won't be in the modern part, it will be in the Cloisters. The oldest part, the part the Monks used when they had the resources to tunnel.”
I could have hugged her. She was right and we were immediately going back down the stairs. People were getting in each other’s way there were so many of us.
The Cloisters were at the other end of the building and when we arrived there a dog was already present. We watched it at work but Leon couldn't stand still. “What about outside? The ruins are out there aren’t they?” He was pointing at a very old door with a knocker on it.
We went and looked outside. There were officers everywhere. We had obviously not been the first to think of that.
I led the way back indoors. Juliet gave me a smile, she could see my disappointment. I went and stood beside her. I'd be glad when this was over and she was no longer involved.
It was Derek Smith who cracked it. “Mike!” he said and pointed out into the hallway behind us. I turned and looked and couldn't see anything but he was already walking past me. He pointed at a panel in the wooden walls. “Isn't that the same as the rings you told me about?”
He was pointing at an inscription on the panel itself. He was right. The God Pan with Lucifer upon it's back. It was very lightly etched, almost invisible. I wondered how Derek had seen it from three metre s away.
“You can see it better from back there. The light from in there is falling on it,” he explained.
We examined the panel but although it was two metres wide and six feet in height it couldn't be an entrance, it reached from half way up the wall to the ceiling. I stepped back and found the answer beneath my feet. I'd been standing on it.
The flagstone had a small hole in one side of it.
It was the perfect conundrum for Derek's practical mind. “It's like a keyhole,” he said. “Something goes through it, turns and lifts it like a lid. Sort of thing the Water board uses in the streets.”
We cast about us and knew the key was missing. “They took it with them. “Leon said. “What better way to make sure you’re not followed.”
It took another ten minutes to improvise something that would work but in the end Derek got the damn thing open. The moment one lip of it cleared the floor there were plenty of hands to ensure that it didn't fall back in place.
We were looking at a flight of old, worn stone steps. Leon was on his way down before he thought of a torch he was so keen to get after them.
David Cooper had been well in advance of us on that one, he had several and we shared them out.
I let Leon lead the way. It was easier than being trampled by him. He set off at a rapid pace and didn't look back for any of us. After about thirty yards the tunnel turned to the left and began to descend gradually. It was quite slippery and in the slime on the floor we could see that others had been slipping before us. We were definitely on their trail.
It was fully ten minutes before we came to the first cave. It was quite large, about the size of a tennis court. There were modern camping lamps on the walls but they were unlit. There were two exits but it was easy to see which one had been used by the marks in the slime. Leon rushed into the next tunnel without waiting for us to catch up. Derek had got ahead of me and he went after him more quickly than I could go on the slippery surface. I had leather soles on my shoes and they were decidedly not the right thing for this.
Ann too got away in front of me and I was beginning to feel pressured. She pelted off into the tunnel ahead and I realised she was going after Leon. She was worried he would rush headlong into something he couldn't handle.
I slipped and would have gone down but David Cooper grabbed me. “Leather shoes?” He asked and I nodded yes. “Me too!” he said. “Bloody things!” Then he was gone too.
I was running out of breath. We'd come a long way and we were still descending. It was getting wetter all round us. The red stone was familiar and I realised it was the same as the rocks on Corbyn Head. I did a quick check on my geography. The left turn at the bottom of the first steps would have headed us towards the Railway Station and we had already gone far enough to be well beyond it. That would put us just West of Corbyn Head, so the stone wasn't lying.
Ahead of me I saw lights moving, they had stopped. When I caught up they were all in a cave that was a real eye opener. It was a Chapel or Tomb and it contained a lot of Sarcophagi and the same alcoves containing knights and monks that Juliet had described to us. It was an archaeologist's dream. Even in the heat of the chase it made me stare in wonder.
They were searching for an exit but there wasn't one. Leon was shining his torch behind each knight in turn, hurrying from one to another, seeking hidden exits in the alcoves in which they stood. He reached the last one and had found nothing.
He saw me and walked over. “I can't find a way out.” His voice was laden with frustration. He was really feeling the strain now and I looked at my watch, it was nearly eleven.
“We didn't pass anything.” I said. “I've been looking really carefully as I couldn't keep up with you.”
Juliet turned up with an escort of stragglers. She stood and looked at the cave and then walked over to me. “This isn't the one I was in, it's much bigger.”
I pointed at the monks and knights. “Are they the same?”
“No! Thy have ordinary crucifies not five folded ones. These are Premontratanean Monks I think. They could be from a later period.”
Leon was trying to slide the Sarcophagi to one side. They must have weighed half a tonne each, they weren't budging. David Cooper and Derek Smith were searching for another trap door in the floor.
“It's inside one!” I suddenly saw the light. “It's in one of the coffins!”
We all teamed up and the last one we tried was the one that we wanted. The lid grated noisily to one side and inside was another narrow stone staircase. Clever stuff!
I let the fitter ones go first. I wasn't being a gentleman; I just didn't want the embarrassment of being overtaken again.
I helped Juliet into the coffin and led the way. The walls were still leaking and underfoot it was still treacherous. I was trying to keep my bearings all the time. We were somewhere west of the Railway Station; beneath Livermead, heading for Cockington and the home of the museum curator Joplin. That made me think some as I tried to keep up. For some reason, I'd expected to be heading toward Wellswood and Kents Cavern.
Light ahead again and this time it wasn't their torches. Juliet and I entered a larger cave which had electric lighting in it. It was strung from the ceiling and ran away into the distance lighting a long wide tunnel that had obviously been cut by water. The walls of it were as smooth as a bath. At some time in the past a lot of water had found the ocean this way.
It was clean and dry underfoot now and we dashed along trying to catch up. We found them in another cave and we both stopped and gawked at it in amazement. It was meant I am sure as a parody of all the works the Monks had done in other places but this was Satanic. The artwork was obscene and unholy. The statues
had been placed in alcoves in imitation of the practice of the Monks but each alcove contained a different Demon. Each one was tormenting some poor soul dressed in the livery of a Crusader Knight; the anguish on the faces of the tormented was ugly and grim.
At the end of the cave covering most of the wall was the picture we had all come to know. Ill Diavolo, the Devil card from the Tarot. This was I was instantly certain, the source of that choice by Hainsley-Sihl for use as the symbol of his coven. It was twenty feet high and carved from the living rock by someone of great skill. It was an ugly thing designed to impress the gullible and I was certain that it had done so. It impressed me despite my loathing of it.
There were many other Tarot cards depicted on the walls and on one side a huge scene that contained a statue of a girl hanging from an inverted cross with her throat cut. Behind the cross was a large representation of Pan, cloven hooved and bearing horns. A horrible scene designed to frighten. In the ‘Middle Ages’ it would have terrified people.
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