THE HISTORY OF THINGS TO COME: A Supernatural Thriller (The Dark Horizon Trilogy Book 1)

by Duncan Simpson

  ‘I guess this is going to be big news. Any witnesses?’ asked Blake.

  ‘Two, but they’re pretty shaken up.’

  ‘I bet.’

  ‘Hold on,’ said Milton.

  The detective shouted orders to someone else in earshot.

  ‘Sorry about that. Look, I’ve just come off the phone with the boss and I’ve got it cleared.’

  ‘Cleared? What?’ asked Blake.

  ‘You.’

  Blake’s stomach muscles tightened.

  ‘I’ve got it cleared with the Commissioner for you to rejoin the investigation. I mean, if you still want it?’

  ‘I want it,’ Blake answered. ‘Email me everything you’ve got. I’ll be in Cambridge before lunch.’

  Part 2

  The Second Law of Motion

  The change of momentum of a body is proportional to the impulse impressed on the body, and happens along the straight line on which that impulse is impressed.

  Chapter 28

  Thursday 26 November

  Mary awoke from her fitful night’s sleep with the fearful recollection of a dream. The dream was always the same.

  She found herself running along a narrow passageway, following the path of a golden line painted onto a granite floor. The further she ran, the more luminous the line became, until the light illuminated the entire corridor. Suddenly, she found the way blocked by a circular stone door. She reached out to touch the elaborate rim of gilded bees cut into its border, and all by itself the door opened just wide enough for her to step through.

  She found herself standing in a large room, its walls inlaid with exotic wood. To one side stood a lamp stand and next to it a table made of solid gold. At the far end of the room hung a large purple curtain that seemed to billow as if caught by a gust of wind, but the air all around was perfectly still. At the centre of the room was a magnificent altar of the finest white marble, set high on a platform of many steps. As she climbed the steps, the altar burst into flames. From the heart of the fire appeared a great phoenix of burning gold, its massive wings fanning the flames higher. Soon the outline of the mighty bird was consumed in the blaze, and Mary found herself teetering on the top step of the platform, trying to shield herself from the intensity of the heat. Then, as abruptly as the conflagration had appeared, it was gone. Looking down at the altar, Mary could see that the phoenix had disappeared and in its place was a wooden rod, several feet in length. Trembling, she reached out to touch it, fearing that its heat would burn her. Instead, it felt cold.

  Immediately, she was taken over by the compulsion to touch it with her lips, but as she brought the sacred object close to her face, the ground began to shake with such ferocity that she believed she was at the centre of some great earthquake. Gripping the side of the altar with one hand, the rod grasped firmly in the other, she tried to steady herself against the tremors convulsing through the ground. With her eyes fixed upon the altar, Mary became aware of dots of crimson appearing against the virgin white of the marble. The circles of red became numerous in number, and she was gripped by the realisation that it was raining; raining blood. In terror, she looked up at the ceiling, her eyes squinting against the warm deluge against her face.

  Mary was shaken from her dream by the tongue of a dog licking her face, its breath hot against her freezing skin. With her body still recoiling from the terror of the dream, she hugged and kissed the animal as if it were a long-lost child.

  Chapter 29

  The large blue refuse bin in the back courtyard of the Mount Mills block of flats looked slightly different to the rest of the bins awaiting collection. It was set apart, secured to the railings by a thick black chain, and a small cross of red insulation tape had been stuck onto its lid. The Mount Mills tower block, just off Goswell Road, was also unusual because it was bordered by an open area of undeveloped land: a valuable commodity in that part of Central London. However, it had remained unbuilt upon for centuries.

  The Drakon peered through the gap between the curtains of Flat 406 and tracked the arrival of a dark green Range Rover. The vehicle came to rest just outside the perimeter of the courtyard. From their vantage point high above ground level, the Drakon peered through long-range binoculars. It didn’t take long for a well-built man to appear from the passenger door, his face all but obscured by a beige cap and a pair of dark sunglasses. With the engine of the car still running, the man moved quickly towards the bin marked with the red cross, opened its lid, and carefully deposited a black refuse sack inside. The man jumped back into the passenger seat, and before he had time to shut the door, the car was already reversing at speed out of the cul-de-sac, its tyres squealing as it went. The drop was complete.

  The Drakon put the binoculars into the rucksack lying on the floor and looked out past the courtyard to the unkempt derelict land beyond. It was sacred land, and only a few residents were aware of the terrifying history of the place and the secret that lay in its soil. The loose ground that surrounded Mount Mills contained the remains of thousands of bodies dumped there during the Great Plague that had ravaged London between 1665 and 1666. Cartloads of diseased bodies were dumped and buried in shallow graves, and the houses of the diseased were marked with red crosses.

  Chapter 30

  Detective Lukas Milton was shouting into his mobile phone in front of the Mobile Crime Scene Command Centre when Blake arrived by taxi. The forty-foot state-of-the-art police transporter was the centrepiece of the Special Crime Unit, and it was parked on the manicured lawn in front of the Wren Library. Two deep furrows of brown mud trailed behind it, and the small sign warning visitors to keep off the grass had been driven deep into the soil under one of its immense wheels. The Command Centre served as a fully equipped mobile laboratory for the processing and documentation of forensic evidence. With its on-board generator and communications equipment, it provided a rapid response to a serious crime and allowed for 24/7 operations at a single location.

  On seeing Blake emerge from the taxi, Milton brought his diatribe on his mobile to a close and began to stride across the lawn towards the car. The arrival of the powerfully built detective at Blake’s shoulder had the effect of pacifying the taxi driver, whose fare had just been paid with a large assortment of coins. Milton placed his heavy hand on Blake’s shoulder.

  ‘It’s good to see you, my friend. Thank you for coming up. You okay?’ The policeman’s voice was as deep as a lion’s.

  Blake turned around and reciprocated the greeting.

  ‘I’m fine, Lukas. Let’s go to work.’

  As they walked to the entrance of the library, Milton described the crime scene that had greeted him the previous evening.

  ‘The Italian priest, a Nathan Vittori, was shot in the head at point-blank range. He was celebrating his seventieth birthday with a tour of the library when … bang!’ Milton shot a pretend bullet from the end of his finger. ‘Some birthday present! The forensics boys are still trying to clear things up.’

  ‘Last night you mentioned witnesses?’ Blake asked, staring up at Milton’s tinted glasses.

  ‘Yes, Dr Carla Sabatini, a friend of the priest, and Dr Henry Jenkins, the guy who was giving the tour of the library.’

  As the two men approached the foot of the grey stone staircase leading to the library, Milton handed Blake a pair of blue plastic shoe covers and a pair of surgical gloves.

  ‘The forensics team have been in here for most of the night and the morning, but we need to put these on to protect the crime scene.’

  Blake nodded, bent down, and slipped the plastic coverings over his shoes.

  ‘They went specifically for the display case containing the exhibits,’ said Milton. He rubbed his fingertips through his wiry, shortly cropped hair and then rummaged deep in his jacket pocket. His hand resurfaced moments later holding a small white plastic tube. It wasn’t until Milton placed the object between his teeth t
hat Blake realised the plastic cylinder was actually an anti-smoking inhalator and not some new piece of evidence.

  ‘You know, chewing plastic will kill you in the end.’

  ‘Fuck off!’ Milton countered tight-lipped like a ventriloquist.

  The two men walked stride by stride.

  ‘How many times is that now?’ Blake didn’t need to ask the question. He knew the score exactly. ‘With this one, it makes four in the last eighteen months.’

  Milton stopped walking and looked at the ground.

  ‘And now with this shooting added to the list, a holy nightmare is about to be unleashed from on high.’ As Milton spoke, he fidgeted with the large gold sovereign ring around his finger. ‘The Home Office and Interpol are already requesting updates. It’s going to get very nasty if we don’t get these bastards and get them soon.’

  Blake and Detective Milton climbed the stairs slowly, both trying to order their thoughts. As he gripped the iron handrail, Blake could feel his heat being drawn into the cold metal. He shuddered and released his hand.

  ‘Lukas, you do realise what we’re dealing with here?’ Blake stopped on the stairs causing Milton to turn around. ‘We’ve got ourselves a “Dr No”. He’s probably got the same Caribbean island mansion ornamented with stolen works of art, just like the James Bond villain. Mark my words, Lukas. Four jobs, all targeting Newton. We’re dealing with a private collector who won’t be trying to sell them on.’

  Milton stroked the plain blue tie that dangled loosely around his substantial neck, hoping somehow that the action would make the implications of Blake’s hypothesis disappear.

  ‘Maybe,’ said Milton.

  ‘Lukas, you know as well as I do, that because of their portability, rare books are either stolen for sale at a private auction or used as payment or collateral for drug deals. We’ve found no evidence that this gang is using them in this way. None of the stolen items have resurfaced with a dealer, auction house, or fence for that matter. They must have all headed for a private collection somewhere.’

  Deciding not to answer, Milton nodded a greeting to the uniformed officer on sentry duty outside the entrance to the library. Dutifully, the officer unhooked the drooping length of cordon tape safeguarding the crime scene. At the far end of the hall, a forensics technician dressed in a blue semi-transparent plastic overall was taking photographs of the shattered display case. The light from the flash glared under the brilliant whitewashed ceiling. On the floor, like a giant scab, a black pool of congealed blood spread out from the white outline marking the position of the victim’s body.

  ‘Okay, so what do we know so far?’ asked Blake.

  ‘The CCTV cameras placed around the university campus show that two police motorcycles approached from the back of the university grounds and parked up outside the library at 5.14 p.m. last night. As I explained on the phone, Dr Jenkins was conducting a private tour of the Newton display case for his guests, Dr Sabatini and the priest, Father Vittori, when the men stormed in. According to Sabatini, the priest decided to play the hero and was rewarded with a hole in the head; a case of being in the wrong place at the wrong time. The forensics boys found the slug embedded in the bookcase over there.’

  Milton pointed to a dark wooden bookcase just beyond the shattered remains of the display case. The bullet had narrowly missed an elaborate wooden carving of a phoenix and lodged itself deep within the end of the bookshelf. Blake stared at the carving of the mythical bird, its head tilted to one side as if consciously dodging the path of the oncoming projectile. The bullet hole had the shape of a distorted star caused by the forensics team gouging the surrounding wood to recover the bullet.

  ‘The ballistics report confirmed that it’s a 0.40-calibre Smith & Wesson round.’

  ‘The same calibre the French police found in Cannes with the Clerot robbery.’ Blake glanced at Milton looking for some recognition for his hypothesis, but found none in Milton’s dour features.

  ‘So, what did they take?’

  Milton retrieved the small black notebook from the inside pocket of his charcoal flannel jacket and located the relevant page that detailed the inventory of stolen objects.

  ‘A first edition of a book called the Principia, apparently it was Newton’s own personal copy. His walking stick …’ Milton paused to decipher his handwriting, ‘a lock of Newton’s own hair displayed in a silver locket, and a notebook … I’ll get Sergeant Peck to drop off a copy of the case notes to you.’

  Milton paused. ‘There’s one last thing, Vincent. They didn’t get everything. The priest was still clasping this in this hand when the medics arrived.’ From deep within his pocket, Milton produced a clear plastic evidence bag and handed it to Blake, who held the bag up to the light.

  Inside was a pocket watch.

  Chapter 31

  Dr Carla Sabatini and Dr Henry Jenkins sat at opposite ends of the medical consulting room, both lost in their own private thoughts. The room was warm, but an icy shiver kept travelling down the sides of Sabatini’s body. She pulled her chocolate-brown cardigan tight around her shoulders and stared blankly into the centre of the large room. Every so often, the horror of the last twenty-four hours would crash into her thoughts, making her face tighten in her effort not to cry. But there were no more tears, just a darkness that surrounded her.

  After whispering some words of comfort, the uniformed policewoman relieved her of the cup of coffee that had sat untouched in her lap for the last twenty minutes. She barely noticed the officer’s intervention, her senses deadened by exhaustion. Having safely secured the cup on the table, the officer placed her hand on Sabatini’s shoulder and then returned to the incident report on her laptop.

  Jenkins sat at the other end of the table. He looked like a defeated boxer nursing his wounds, a thick crust of dried blood clinging to his swollen lips. His wiry grey hair had gravitated to one side of his head as if it had been blown over by a strong wind. Hesitantly, his hand explored the changed landscape of his bruised face, but the pain from his stitches made him stop. He recoiled back into his chair and waited for the pain to subside. As he did so, the ball of his foot began to bounce on the floor.

  There was a loud knock at the door, and Blake entered the room. He was acknowledged by the policewoman and then by the seated witnesses.

  ‘Dr Sabatini, Dr Jenkins, this is Dr Blake. He’s assisting the police with our enquiries and would like to ask you a few questions. Afterwards, I’ll drive you both to your hotel,’ the policewoman explained.

  Blake offered Jenkins his hand. He took it and eyed up the new arrival.

  ‘It must have been terrible for you both,’ said Blake, ‘I promise not to keep you unnecessarily, but you must both understand that time is of the essence. Every hour that goes by reduces our chances of catching the people who did this to your friend. I’m sorry to say, but it looks like Father Vittori was just in the wrong place at the wrong time. Rest assured that his murder makes this a top priority case for the police, and that’s why I’ve been called in as a special adviser on the investigation.’

  ‘So, what do you advise on?’ questioned Jenkins as he started to pick at an angry patch of eczema around the nail of his forefinger. Blake gripped the back of a chair.

  ‘My business is the recovery of stolen historical artefacts: documents, paintings, rare books. The items that were stolen yesterday will be heading for somewhere specific, and it’s my job to find out where.’ He released his grip on the back of the chair. ‘I believe we are dealing with an international gang who are systematically targeting objects that are linked to Isaac Newton. There have been similar jobs in France, Japan and London, all committed over the last eighteen months. I have good reasons to believe that all the robberies are connected and have been carried out by the same gang.’

  Sabatini looked up at Blake. ‘Have they murdered before?’

  Blake’s hands returned to t
he back of the chair. A surge of emotion began to rise from deep within. He drew in a breath and released it before answering.

  ‘Yes, and very recently.’ He paused, ‘I suspect that they’re ex-military.’

  Sabatini began to nod, as Blake’s proposition concurred with the blitzkrieg offensive she had endured and barely survived.

  Jenkins continued to scratch at his finger to the obvious irritation of the policewoman sitting next to him.

  ‘So why on earth would two ex-soldiers commit cold-blooded murder in order to steal some old scientific artefacts?’ said Sabatini.

  ‘That’s what I’m here to find out.’ Blake answered. ‘Both of your witness statements say that Father Vittori refused to comply with the thieves’ demands, and this is why he was shot. I must say it puzzles me,’ Blake continued. ‘Why on earth would he risk his own life in this way?’

  Sabatini reached over to her cup of coffee and took a small sip. The bitter taste of the lukewarm liquid made her feel instantly nauseous, and she returned it to the table without a second taste. She cleared her throat to speak.

  ‘Dr Blake, Nathan lived for books. Earlier in his career, he was a very successful scientist but was called from front-line research by his Holiness to oversee the Vatican’s astronomical library at Castel Gandolfo,’ said Sabatini. ‘As Chief Librarian, he dedicated himself to studying historical documents and preserving them for future generations. He often said that they were his children.’ Sabatini’s eyes began to fill up as she fought to regain her composure.

  ‘Nathan was especially interested in the works of the natural philosophers of the Enlightenment, particularly Newton. He desperately wanted to come to Cambridge and examine Newton’s personal possessions for himself. Recently, it had become something of an obsession with him. He had been quite insistent on making this trip and seeing the exhibits. His seventieth birthday was approaching and I wanted to help him. You know … something like a birthday present … and now, he’s … he’s dead.’ She buried her face in her hands and tears dropped onto the surface of the table. The policewoman stood up and placed a small packet of tissues in her hand. Sabatini squeezed it. The action seemed to release some of the tension around her eyes. Blake took a seat and directed his next enquiry to Jenkins.