The young man bounding up the steps to the stage to collect his award must have been no more than twenty years old. The name of the stylishly dressed Nigerian man announced over the loudspeaker was Charles Henderson. According to the event’s brochure, read aloud by the suited Master of Ceremonies behind a lectern, Henderson had already made his first million in the fashion industry, and with his label about to be sold to a High Street retailer, he was well on the way to becoming seriously wealthy.
After shaking the Master of Ceremonies’ hand, Henderson confidently took the microphone from the stand and stepped to the edge of the stage. The only sound in the lecture theatre was the intermittent click of camera shutters.
‘Thank you for those kind words.’ The man’s diction was precise and wouldn’t have sounded out of place on the playing fields of Eton. ‘Before I accept this prize, I would just like to say a few words about the person who has inspired me more than any other. I will never forget the day, five years ago, when Ema Mats arrived at my foster home.’ Henderson beamed a smile over to the seated guest of honour at the side of the stage and beckoned her forward to the lectern. At first, Mats remained resolutely in her chair, but as the spontaneous ripple of applause turned into a thunderous ovation, Mats was left with no option but to join the man at the front of the stage. As she moved to kiss her protégé politely on the cheek, she whispered something into his ear.
‘Get ready, the time has nearly come.’
Chapter 51
Even though the stairs leading up to the entrance of the Jerusalem Tavern had been gritted, a thin layer of ice had begun to form on the uppermost steps. Milton saw the tell-tale sparkle of ice crystals as he began to climb the stairs. He flattened his stride and steadied the swing of the service revolver under his jacket by clamping it securely under his elbow. As he ascended the marble stairs, his hands, deep in their pockets, pulled his long black overcoat close around his body.
He barged open the large entrance door with his shoulder and stepped into the bar. The pub was already three-quarters full with the usual eclectic mix of city slickers and postal workers from the nearby Mount Pleasant sorting office. Mixed in with the regular clientele was an assortment of flotsam and jetsam washed up from the constant stream of commuters running outside the pub’s front door.
The policeman scanned the bar to find Blake and Sabatini. Milton had met Blake at his local many times before, but it was evident that he wasn’t sitting in his usual position at the corner of the bar. He began to panic.
Where the hell are you?
At that moment, Milton felt a tap on his shoulder. It was Frida holding a circular metal tray. The detective recognised the pub’s landlady.
‘If you’re looking for Vincent, he’s over there in the snug.’ Frida nodded to the far end of the bar and then walked off, tapping the tray against her hip like a tambourine.
Milton quickly found Blake and Sabatini sitting around a small wooden table. Blake was staring into mid-air. He looked terrible. Milton retrieved a chair from the table opposite and sat down; his voice was uncharacteristically hesitant when he started to speak.
‘Vincent, I am deeply sorry about your place, but I’m afraid I have something really difficult to tell you.’
Blake gave a hesitant nod and then took a breath that seemed to catch in his chest.
‘The fire brigade are still putting the fire out, but I’m really sorry to say they’ve found a body.’
‘A body?’ Blake looked at Milton, alarm etched over his face.
‘Yes. I need you to tell me who was staying with you in your flat,’ said Milton in an official way.
Blake felt his heartbeat begin to pound in his ears.
‘Staying with me? No one. No one was staying with me,’ said Blake.
‘Vincent I need you to think very carefully.’
Blake’s mind was already working overtime to think through any possibility. Finally, he just shook his head, his eyes reflecting back an expression of total bewilderment.
‘What about a key? Did anyone have a spare key?’ asked Milton.
‘No, no one. I’ve only been in the flat for two weeks. I’ve only got one key and it’s in my pocket.’
To make the point, Blake retrieved a key ring from his trouser pocket and placed it at the centre of the table.
Milton stared at the silver key for a moment and then gave his thick five o’clock shadow a long scratch.
‘So who the hell is it?’ he said blankly.
‘I’ve got no idea,’ said Blake.
The detective shook his head slowly.
‘Man, I’m really sorry about your place. You had me going for a minute. I thought you’d gone up in the building. Things have got really out of hand.’
‘It wasn’t an accident, was it?’ said Blake.
Milton had rehearsed the answer in his mind whilst driving at full speed from the burned-out shell of Blake’s bedsit to the Jerusalem Tavern, but the words still got caught in the back of his mouth.
‘Vincent, I think … I think we need to be…careful.’
‘Careful? Someone has just tried to kill me, right?’
The look in Milton’s face answered Blake’s question for him.
‘They’ve burned down my bloody bedsit, thinking I was in it, right?’
A dreadful realisation broke over him.
‘Oh fuck! The Drakon. You don’t think…?’ said Blake his face full of alarm.
Sabatini shot Blake a puzzled look.
‘The Drakon?’ asked the academic, ‘Who or what is the Drakon?’
Milton cut the conversation. ‘Look, we’ll talk about this in the morning. The important thing is that you’re safe. What we’ve got to do now is get a place for you to stay tonight. I’ll get a hotel organised.’
Milton reached for the mobile in his pocket, but before he had time to dial a number, Sabatini made a suggestion.
‘Vincent, why don’t you stay in my hotel? Nathan and I were booked into rooms tonight ready for our return flight back to Rome; the rooms have already been paid for. It’s nothing fancy, a small place called the Bedford. It’s only a short taxi ride from here.’
Sabatini shrugged her shoulders, not knowing how her suggestion would be taken. Blake sat there rooted to the spot, paralysed with confusion. It was as if the walls and the ceiling of the pub were closing on in him, inch by inch. Soon there wouldn’t be enough air to breathe. He fought to remain calm. Someone had just tried to kill him. His bedsit and his few possessions had been torched. All he could think about were the family photograph albums of Nomsa and Sarah that had just gone up in flames, his memories irrecoverably erased.
Blake was shaken from his thoughts by Sabatini’s hand on his arm.
‘So, Vincent, what do you think?’
‘Okay, thank you. I guess I don’t have many options left,’ said Blake.
Milton rose to his feet.
‘I think it’s best that we take a few precautions,’ said Milton. ‘I’ll get a squad car stationed outside the hotel during the night. Tomorrow, when you’re ready, can I ask you both to come over to the police station and we’ll take it from there?’ The detective checked his watch. ‘I’ll drive you both there now. We can pick up some toiletries from a shop along the way.’
Before leaving the bar, Milton patted Blake on the shoulder. ‘Man, I’m really sorry for all this shit. We’ll get them I promise you.’ With that, the policeman stepped out of the bar and started dialling a number on his mobile. By the time Milton had begun talking into his phone, Blake had found Frida. She was stacking glasses behind the bar.
‘Frida, I need you to do me a favour,’ Blake said hurriedly.
‘What’s that, Vincent?’
‘I need you to look after a couple of things for me.’
Chapter 52
With no cloud cover, the evening
air temperature had plummeted. As Milton rocked from foot to foot to keep warm, he realised that he hadn’t eaten since breakfast and his body was starting to protest. The cumulative effects of the last forty-eight hours, living on strong coffee and infrequent indigestible food, had drained his reserves of energy, and all he wanted to do now was to switch off and refuel. His old friend was safe. Well, at least for now.
Outside the Jerusalem Tavern, Milton made two phone calls. The first call was to his divisional commander to inform him that the charred carcass found in the gutted bedsit wasn’t Blake. His second call was to his desk sergeant back at the station to request a protection car outside the Bedford Hotel to safeguard Dr Vincent Blake and Dr Carla Sabatini. As Milton hung up, a strange metallic click echoed in his earpiece.
Part 3
The Third Law of Motion
For a force there is always an equal and opposite reaction: or the forces of two bodies on each other are equal and directed in opposite directions.
Chapter 53
Monday 30 November
Two things were unusual about the appearance of the white-coated doctor who had just opened the door to the private patient’s room on the fourth floor of London Bridge hospital.
Firstly, the doctor wore no name badge. Since the hospital’s last major redesign in the early 1980s, all medical staff were required to wear identification. Secondly, the doctor was wearing an operating theatre mask and surgical gloves. Hospital protocol was very strict on the issue of cross-contamination between wards, and wearing used protective clothing across sterile boundaries was a serious disciplinary offence.
With the main light switched off, the room was bathed in a subtle red glow from the bank of medical equipment at its far end. For a little while, the Drakon just stared at the slight frame of the patient occupying the hospital bed. It was four o’clock in the morning, but the room was far from silent. The clicking sound of the ventilator piston breathing air into Sarah’s lungs and the regular metallic ping of her heart monitor filled the air.
Sarah there you are, you wretched child. Look at you, all twisted and deformed. You know, your father is causing me so much trouble. He is the reason you are lying here, like road kill. I must admit I was surprised to find out that they managed to scrape you off the tarmac still alive.
The Drakon stretched, and a strange percussive sound of clicking vertebrae echoed through the room. The intruder leaned forward and ran a finger through Sarah’s matted hair. Killing your mother was all too quick. I remember the sound of her head slamming onto the bonnet and her limbs being mangled under my wheels, but it was all over too soon. Your demise on the other hand has been all too slow. Look at you, your body slowly putrefying in this bed. Your deformity disgusts me. I have given your father a chance to stop his pointless games, but he continues to defy me. He is ruining everything.
In a series of short staccato breaths, the Drakon smelt the skin around Sarah’s throat. You rotting excuse of a human being. Your father has dared to keep something very precious from me and he must be made to realise that my retribution for his insolence will have no bounds.
Sarah’s stiff neck was raised off the pillow and two cold, probing fingers were inserted into her ears.
Don’t fight me. Surrender to me. A surge of energy flowed across Sarah’s temple. You are very much alive, Sarah. I can feel you. You are struggling to be heard, but no one is listening. Before long they will switch these machines off and you will perish just like your mother. But now you have a use to me.
The Drakon dropped Sarah’s head onto the pillow and then knelt down next to her bed. Without warning, Sarah’s hand snapped into a tight fist, sending a shockwave down the IV line connected to her forearm. The Drakon seized the child’s hand.
I see you are not as dead as you seem.
Slowly, the Drakon pulled down the facemask and raised Sarah’s hand to an open mouth.
The sister sitting at the nurses’ station looked up from her magazine and stared at the flashing display. Two alarm lights flashed red, both for Room 4 and both indicating dangerously raised vital signs. For a moment she hesitated, her eyes flicking between the screen and the patient names written on the ward wall chart next to her desk. Then her hand slammed down on the emergency crash alarm button. Twenty seconds later, the sister and a duty doctor burst through the doors of Sarah’s room. The sister let out an audible gasp at the sight of the pool of blood surrounding the patient’s left hand.
In the basement of the hospital, a laundry bin was open and now filled with three items: a white coat, a pair of latex gloves and a surgical face mask. Two words were stencilled on the side of the laundry bin in dark blue lettering.
For incineration.
Chapter 54
Vincent Blake hadn’t slept a wink all night. The hotel alarm clock had jolted into action at 6.30 a.m. and had been met immediately by Blake’s fist silencing its incessant electronic drone. The implications of the previous day’s events bounced around his head like a trapped wasp looking for something to sting: the torching of his bedsit; the body found in its wreckage; Sabatini’s crimson book; and the hidden map he had discovered in the back of Newton’s pocket watch. He felt like he had been dragged out to sea and was now alone, drifting, off-course in a vast threatening ocean.
He noticed the first signs of daylight breaking through his bedroom curtains and was relieved that the night was finally over. The wooden floor felt cold under his feet as he moved slowly to the bathroom. He looked at his reflection in the mirror. The edge of his greying stubble followed the shape of his sunken cheeks like the contours of a map. As he stared at his reflection, a dark thought invaded his mind: the thought of pulling a trigger and putting a bullet-shaped hole in the head of the Drakon.
Denic adjusted the driver’s wing mirror of the blacked-out Mercedes van. From his position just outside the Bedford Hotel, they had both points of entry to the hotel covered. He would see them long before they saw him. Now it was just a matter of waiting. He had already checked that there was a round in the chamber of his Sig Sauer P228 9mm semi-automatic pistol. Its weight felt reassuring against his chest, but he couldn’t be too careful, particularly if they needed to make a speedy exit. London’s traffic was notorious and they would need options if they were forced to abandon the van and move on foot. They had decided that a quick sprint through Canonbury Square Gardens to the Tube station beyond would be their best option, or, failing that, the labyrinth of Islington Town Hall would afford lots of opportunity for escape.
Through the tinted glass of the van’s back window, Crossland noticed the slim profile of a woman crossing the street onto the opposite pavement. Regardless of the cold, she wore no coat and appeared to be rushing from one office to another with a file of papers under her arm. She wore a pair of black woollen tights that disappeared midway up her thighs under a large oversized cashmere jumper. As she came closer, he could make out that she looked Asian, with razor-sharp cheekbones and wide dramatic eyes. He waited until she had passed the car and then studied the shape of her buttocks moving up and down inside the wool of her dress. He watched as her long hair swayed in time with her bottom.
‘Don’t get distracted,’ Denic shouted over his shoulder as he leant over to the passenger’s seat and opened the glove compartment. From within, he removed a small plastic zip-lock bag containing several pairs of surgical gloves. He pulled on a pair, stretching the thin synthetic material tight against his fingers. Then, without diverting his gaze from the entrance of the small townhouse hotel, he tossed the bag casually over his shoulder into the back of the van.
‘Get them on. You ready?’ asked Denic. With his attention now refocused on the job in hand, Crossland unrolled a cloth tool holder on the van’s floor. Once fully open, it was clear that the heavy fabric sleeve held a collection of work tools: small chisels, wire-cutters and pliers of different sizes.
‘One minute. I just n
eed to get this packed,’ said Crossland. Grabbing the headrest of the front passenger seat, Crossland hoisted his great weight upright, and removed a stainless-steel dental drill from the back pocket of his jeans. The car’s suspension rocked with the shifting weight.
‘Don’t worry, Sarge. Give me five minutes with him and he’ll be squealing like a pig to tell us where that pocket watch is.’
Denic quietly considered a response and then decided better of it. Crossland had been convinced that he had dealt with Blake the day before, soaking him in petrol and setting him alight. This time he wasn’t going to take any chances. They would do the job together. He would make sure it was done right. The tone of the Drakon’s latest message informing them of their failure had been chilling in its simplicity. If they fucked up this time, they were dead.
Denic looked over at the small plastic container lying on the passenger seat next to him. Under the Drakon’s express instructions, he had collected it from a left-luggage locker at Kings Cross Station three hours before. He’d opened it. He wished he hadn’t. Denic looked at his watch. The express train from Paris to Zagreb would be leaving in twenty-three hours, and he planned to be on it.
‘Any sign of movement from the hotel?’ Crossland asked as his oversized fingers tucked the cylindrical dental drill into the canvas sleeve.
‘They’re still in there. Just sit tight and be ready.’ Denic reached inside his jacket and felt the cool metal of his Sig Sauer. ‘You know our instructions; get the watch at any costs. Blake and his Italian girlfriend are about to get an early Christmas present they weren’t expecting.’
Sabatini was right on time, which meant that Blake was late, and he knew it. The first ring of the doorbell came while he was cleaning his teeth with the toothbrush that Milton had bought him the night before. The second and third rings were accompanied by a series of raps on the door. The previous evening, Blake had agreed with Sabatini that she would call for him on the way down to breakfast. They would spend the morning talking through the implications of the crimson book and Newton’s map, and then decide what to tell Milton. The two messages that had just arrived on Blake’s phone had upset his timing: a voicemail message from the hospital and a text from the DCI explaining that the patrol car stationed outside the hotel had just finished its shift and was now leaving for other duties. A replacement car was on its way.
THE HISTORY OF THINGS TO COME: A Supernatural Thriller (The Dark Horizon Trilogy Book 1) Page 20