by Jim Eldridge
‘Stand away and put your hands in the air!’
They all turned, and saw two men standing glaring at them, one old and one young. They looked like father and son. The older of them was holding a shotgun pointed directly at Jake.
Woody may be a great dog for sniffing out things, but he wasn’t much of a watchdog, thought Jake bitterly. But even as he thought it, Woody growled and bared his teeth, and Jake was sure that if the dog hadn’t been held tightly on a lead, he’d have hurled himself at the man with the gun. Andy made a clicking noise with his tongue, and the dog settled down, but kept his eyes all the time on the man with the gun.
‘Hand it over,’ snapped the man with the shotgun.
‘Hand what over?’ asked Jake, looking up at the men from his position inside the hole.
The man with the shotgun scowled.
‘That thing you’ve just dug up,’ he said grimly.
As Jake straightened up and turned to face them, stepping out of the hole, he slid the package down inside the back of his jeans.
‘We haven’t found anything yet,’ he insisted.
‘Don’t lie to me,’ grunted the older man. ‘Just hand it over.’
‘Do you have a licence for that shotgun?’ asked Andy, speaking with a note of confidence in his voice that surprised Jake.
The older man frowned.
‘Yes I do, as a matter of fact,’ he said. ‘And you’re trespassing and illegal treasure hunting. This is my land.’
‘We’ve got permission to dig from the landowner,’ put in Michelle.
‘That don’t matter,’ snapped back the older man. ‘This was my land before they took it over and there’s things here that belong to me and mine.’
He’s a Watcher, thought Jake. Weems must have alerted him after he found us.
‘That may be,’ said Andy, ‘but we’re not here for treasure.’ He reached into his pocket and produced an identification card. ‘Search and rescue, working with the police. We’re looking for evidence of a crime.’
The older man looked at them, puzzled, and Jake noticed the look of concern that crossed the young man’s face.
‘What crime?’ asked the older man.
‘That’s official business,’ said Andy crisply. ‘And at the moment you’re committing another one, pointing a loaded gun at plain-clothes police officers.’
‘It ain’t loaded!’ burst out the young man.
‘Shut up!’ barked the older man at him.
So, thought Jake, definitely Watchers, come to scare us off and stop the book being taken, but not using real violence; just a threat.
Andy pushed his ID card at the young man.
‘Take a proper look at that if you don’t believe me,’ he said.
The young man took Andy’s ID card, looked at it, and compared the photograph on the card with Andy, then offered it towards the older man.
‘That’s what it says, Dad,’ he said. ‘Search and rescue.’
As I thought, father and son, mused Jake. Handing down the Watcher tradition.
The older man spat on the ground.
‘Cards like them don’t mean anything,’ he said. ‘People make ’em up on computers.’
‘There’s a phone number on it,’ said Andy. ‘Phone and check. And then put down that gun and let us get on with the job we’re here to do.’
The old man looked uncertain, and very unhappy. His son looked even unhappier.
Jake let out a deep sigh which made everyone look at him.
‘It’s not here,’ he said, looking into the hole. ‘Looks like our information was wrong. If it was really here, we’d have found it by now.’ He shook his head. ‘Guess we’d better get back to the station and tell the boss the bad news.’
‘What you looking for?’ asked the younger man, curious.
‘Official business,’ said Andy again curtly. ‘Need to know.’
‘So, we’re giving up?’ asked Michelle.
Jake nodded.
‘Guess so,’ he said. ‘We’d better go and file our report — ‘‘Waste of time’’.’
With that, he bent down and picked up the spade and trowel.
‘Aren’t you going to arrest them for threatening us with a shotgun?’ asked Andy.
‘We weren’t threatening!’ said the younger man, repeating: ‘It’s not loaded!’
‘It’s still threatening,’ said Andy coldly.
‘We’ll let it go this time,’ said Jake. He shrugged. ‘To be honest, I can’t be bothered filling in all the paperwork.’
With that, he set off along the track, carrying the tools, aware of the book pushed down the back of his jeans, and hoping the two men hadn’t spotted it. Behind him, he heard Andy tell the two men firmly: ‘You’ve been warned. Do that sort of thing again and you’ll be in court.’
Then Andy and Woody followed Jake, with Michelle bringing up the rear. All the time they walked, Jake was aware of the eyes of the two men on them. As they neared the cars, he whispered under his breath to Andy: ‘Plain-clothes police?’
Andy chuckled.
‘It worked, didn’t it?’
Chapter 16
The whole way on the drive back to the Grail and Thorn, Jake sat clutching the black parcel tightly in his hands and staring at it. They’d found one! It was only small, about the size of a thin paperback, but it was real and solid and in his possession!
‘What are you going to do with it?’ asked Michelle.
‘Do what we said, get it tested in a lab, and then you can do a story on it.’
‘Yes, but before then. What are you going to do with it now?’
‘Put it somewhere very safe,’ said Jake. This was Lauren’s ticket to freedom, and there was no way he was going to let it vanish.
When they got back to the hotel, Jack hurried to the room he shared with Robert, while Robert went off to the bar with Michelle and Andy.
Jake sat on the bed and studied the package. As well as the letter ‘M’, the symbol of Malichea, there was a number on it in Roman numerals, but he couldn’t quite make them out, and he didn’t want to start scraping at it, or do anything that might damage the covering. There was still the problem of potential toxins being inside the book, or even inside the package. He looked at it again. The package was small and closed shut with a knotted leather thong. It looked safe enough, so long as it remained shut.
He looked around the room. Where could he hide it? In his bag? In the bathroom? He dismissed all those options. Those two men, the Watchers, knew they had dug it up. Or, they soon would. Jake was sure they’d come after it. They’d trace them to this hotel. The men were local. They were bound to know someone who worked here. Some money handed over would get them the key to the room. No, Jake couldn’t leave it here.
He went to his bag and took out the small first-aid box he always took with him when he went away. He took off his jacket and shirt, slipped the ancient packet inside a small plastic bag, and then taped the bag to his stomach with surgical tape. Luckily, the package was small, and if he wore his shirt hanging loose outside his trousers, hopefully no one would notice. And, if they did, he hoped they’d be polite enough not to tell him he was developing a pot belly.
He stood up and looked at himself in the mirror. The bulge beneath his shirt didn’t show.
‘Good,’ he murmured to himself, satisfied.
He put his jacket on, and went downstairs.
‘I can’t believe I sat on the phone all that time talking to Weems about planning regulations, and it made no difference!’ said Robert.
Jake, Robert and Michelle were sitting at a table in the pub restaurant, relaxing over a beer after their meal. Andy was out, taking Woody for a late-night walk before they all retired to bed. Robert was still brooding on the fact that he’d kept Weems talking at great length, and the Watchers had still turned up to try and disrupt their dig.
‘I should have said about how the Watchers work in groups,’ admitted Jake. ‘Weems couldn’t protect that book a
ll on his own. It had to be shared.’
‘And all the time he was talking to me about planning requirements, he must have known I was just doing it to keep him talking, and he was quite happy because it was all on my phone bill!’ Robert scowled as he took another sip of wine. ‘He must have been laughing up his sleeve at me!’
‘He won’t be laughing when he and his friends realise that we’ve got the book.’ Michelle smiled. She looked at Jake. ‘Is it safe?’
‘Very safe,’ Jake reassured her.
He felt elated. They’d found one of the books! Once they got back to London, Michelle would talk to her editor and show him the film she’d taken on her camera, and then the process could start rolling about putting the hidden library of Malichea right into the eye of the public. No more secrets, no more mysteries kept hidden, just open transparency. The truth would be out there, and Lauren could come home. Maybe not immediately, but soon.
‘My room’s been turned over!’
The three turned to see Andy, standing with Woody beside him on his lead. Andy looked furious.
‘What?’ asked Michelle.
‘I’ve just been up to my room to put Woody in after our walk, and my room’s been ransacked,’ said Andy. ‘Someone’s gone through everything. My stuff’s all over the floor.’
Robert and Michelle turned to look at Jake, shocked, and then they all headed upstairs to their rooms.
They found them in the same state as Andy’s: in the room that Jake and Robert shared, their suitcases had been opened and then left lying upside down on the floor, with their clothes strewn around. It was the same in Michelle’s room: her overnight bag open and dumped, and her clothes thrown on to the floor.
And none of the locks of the doors have been damaged, noticed Jake. So either someone had picked the locks, or it had been done by someone using a pass-key. If it was a pass-key, then Jake guessed it could have been the two men they’d encountered with the shotgun, the Watchers. If the locks had been picked, then they were up against someone much more dangerous.
‘They were looking for the book,’ said Michelle. ‘Those two must have dug into the hole after we’d gone and discovered it wasn’t there, and they came looking for it.’
‘Or it was someone else,’ muttered Jake.
‘What?’ asked Michelle.
‘Who?’ demanded Andy.
‘There have been other people trying to find it,’ said Jake. ‘Before we came down here. They tried to stop us.’
‘They slashed Lizzie’s tyres!’ growled Robert, still angry at the memory.
Andy looked puzzled.
‘You mean that those two blokes were in London?’ he said, baffled.
‘No,’ said Jake. ‘These were other people.’
Andy let out a low whistle.
‘Like I said, this must really be some special book!’ he said.
‘I’m not happy about staying here tonight,’ announced Jake.
‘Why?’ asked Michelle. ‘If it was those two gaffers we met who did this, they didn’t seem particularly harmful. OK, they tried to threaten us with a gun, but it wasn’t loaded, and when Andy did that thing with his ID card, they backed down.’
‘But say it wasn’t them?’ said Jake. ‘Say someone followed us down from London. The people who slashed Robert’s tyres.’ And who stuck that picture of Lauren on my wall with a knife, thought Jake miserably. ‘Trust me, not everyone who’s after the books is harmless. And if we stay here, who knows what they might do tonight to get hold of the book.’ He gestured at the mess in the rooms. ‘This is nothing. I’ve seen what these people can do.’ And, with a shudder, he remembered finding the body of the ex-SAS soldier in his flat, stabbed to death.
‘Well, I can’t leave,’ said Robert. ‘I’ve had enough wine to stop me driving tonight.’
‘And there’s no way I’m taking a chance of driving anywhere and losing my licence,’ put in Michelle.
Jake sighed. If he stayed here tonight he was in danger, and he knew it.
‘Maybe there’s a train back to London?’ suggested Robert.
Michelle shook her head.
‘No,’ she said. ‘I checked it out before I came down here, just in case I could do it by train. There’s no station at Glastonbury, and I think you’ll have missed the last train from the nearest place.’ She checked her watch, and nodded. ‘Yes. No last train for you.’ She shrugged. ‘Looks like you’re here till the morning.’
‘Oh dear,’ said Andy. They looked at him, and he gave them all a rueful grin. ‘This is where the non-drinker always suffers. A weekend party, a match, an outing, guess who gets to be the designated driver.’ He looked at Jake and asked: ‘How serious is it? This threat you’re talking about?’
‘Very serious,’ said Jake. ‘I’m not joking.’
Andy hesitated, then said, ‘You sure you can’t wait till the morning?’
Robert looked at Andy, shocked.
‘You’re not seriously thinking of driving back to London with Jake tonight?’ he asked, incredulous.
Andy shrugged.
‘Well, you and Michelle can’t do it. And if Jake thinks there’s a real threat . . .’
‘I do,’ said Jake firmly. Then he softened. ‘No, Andy, it’s not fair. After all, you don’t know me, except through Robert . . . and I know it’s asking a bit much for you to drive me all the way back in the middle of the night.’
‘But this book is important, right?’ asked Andy. ‘Getting it safe?’
‘Yes.’ Jake nodded.
‘OK,’ said Andy. ‘Give me time to stuff my things back in my bag and get Woody sorted out, and we’ll go.’
Jake felt a wave of relief wash over him. What a great bloke! But then, he supposed that was the kind of unselfish person you found in search and rescue, someone who thought nothing of putting themselves at risk for others. A pity there aren’t more Andys in this world, thought Jake.
‘Thanks, Andy,’ he said. ‘I promise, some day, I’ll pay you back for doing this. I don’t know how, but I will.’
Chapter 17
Late at night, there was hardly any traffic on the road as they headed east, so they made good time. Jake sat in the passenger seat, feeling the book still taped to his stomach, and relieved to be away from Glastonbury. He had no doubt that whoever was after the book would have struck again that night, and not just ransacking a room.
Behind Jake, Woody lay in the footwell of the back seat. It also gave Jake comfort, that, if they were suddenly overtaken and their car stopped, they had the dog with them to defend them. Jake had already seen the dog prepared to launch an attack when that shotgun had been pointed at them.
As they drove, Andy talked about his search and rescue work, and then he asked about the book they’d found, and what it was all about.
‘Robert didn’t tell me a lot about it,’ he said.
So Jake told him about the Order of Malichea, and monks hiding the library, and all the different people who were trying to get their hands on the books. It helped pass the time on the long drive, and Jake felt he owed it to Andy, especially as he was putting himself out this way.
‘So that’s why you wanted to head back to London,’ said Andy. ‘To get the book back there to safety.’
‘Right,’ agreed Jake. ‘The way they’d searched our rooms for it meant to me they’d try again.’
‘Makes sense,’ said Andy.
Ahead of them, they saw the sign for a twenty-four-hour service station.
‘Excellent,’ said Andy. ‘We could do with some petrol. And I don’t know about you, but a coffee would help keep me awake on the rest of the journey.’
‘Sounds a great idea,’ said Jake.
Andy signalled, and pulled into the service station. Ahead of them, the cafeteria was lit up, but there were few cars parked. Jake wasn’t surprised; at this time of night he didn’t expect there to be much traffic. Andy ignored the service station and turned into the lorry park, where rows and rows of lorries were pa
rked up for the night.
‘You missed it,’ said Jake.
‘Missed what?’ asked Andy.
‘The car park. This is the lorry park.’
‘I know,’ said Andy. ‘But this is quieter. Fewer people around.’
Jake frowned.
‘You think someone might steal your car?’ he asked.
‘No,’ said Andy. ‘But I need you to hand the book over, and if you resist, it might get noisy.’
Jake stared at Andy, bewildered. Andy still seemed the same easy-going guy he’d been all weekend, but there was a harder look to his expression that hadn’t been there before. Cold.
‘What do you mean? I don’t understand,’ said Jake, still trying to come to terms with what Andy was saying.
‘I mean you’re going to hand the book over to me.’
‘Why?’
‘Because someone is paying me thirty thousand pounds to get hold of it.’
‘Thirty thousand?’
Andy nodded.
‘Someone has obviously been listening in to yours and Robert’s conversations, because I got this phone call from someone who knew that Robert had asked me to go to Glastonbury with you. They told me you were looking for some sort of book. Well, I knew that, because Robert had already told me. Then they told me they’d pay me thirty thousand if I could get hold of it.
‘They paid me ten thousand in cash up front as a sign of good faith, and told me I could keep it, whatever happened. But, if I could get hold of the book, there was another twenty thousand in it for me.’
‘But you’re Robert’s friend!’ exploded Jake.
‘I play rugby in the same team as him,’ corrected Andy. ‘It’s not the same thing.’
‘So . . . was it you who searched our rooms?’
Andy nodded.
‘But your own room was searched as well,’ said Jake, bewildered.
‘Of course,’ said Andy. ‘I had to make it look good.’ He grinned. ‘When you got all jumpy and said you had to get back to London tonight . . . well . . . That was better than I imagined.’