by James Becker
The rector shook his head.
“No to both, I’m afraid. The church was extensively renovated during the Victorian period, and my guess is that if there ever was such a cupboard, it was probably removed when that work was being done. And over the years tastes and customs change, so perhaps the painting was thought unnecessary or even vulgar or inappropriate by the church authorities and disposed of. Or maybe it was removed when most of this parish was confiscated from the Templars after the order was purged in the early part of the fourteenth century and their properties handed to the Hospitallers. Or it could have been lost much more recently. Perhaps it was even stolen from the church. I really have no idea, and neither has anyone else. Unfortunately both the church and the village archives are noticeably silent on the subject of the painting.”
And that seemed to be more or less the end of that. It looked to Mallory as if the trail that had started with the discovery of an ancient lost manuscript inside a booby-trapped book safe had come to a sudden, unexpected, and final end in a little-used country church in a tiny village deep in rural England.
Mallory glanced at Robin and shook his head. If they’d read the clues correctly, whatever the next link had been in the chain they were following, it was now lost and gone forever, probably swept away unnoticed during the Victorian renovation of the building.
“Come with me,” Unwin said, recognizing their mood change, “and I’ll show you those photographs. Just to satisfy your curiosity.”
He led the way to a narrow side door and opened it.
They followed him into a small white-painted room that clearly served various different purposes. On one wall were several coat pegs on which a number of garments were hanging, from their appearance presumably used during church services of one sort or another, while most of the floor was occupied by anonymous cardboard boxes piled one on top of another. At one end was a small wooden desk and a single padded swivel chair, the surface of the desk covered in papers, and a small wooden crucifix mounted on the wall a short distance above it, where anyone sitting at the desk would be able to see it at eye level.
“This is my robing room and occasional office,” Unwin explained. “I visit a number of different churches in this area, and it’s often helpful to leave clothes and other things here.”
He stepped over to the desk, pulled open one of the drawers on the right-hand side, and pulled out a large brown photographic envelope, the backing stiffened with cardboard. He opened it and extracted the contents.
“Here we are,” he said, clearing a space on the desk and fanning out the photographs. “These show the Head itself, and these are what most people want to look at. These other half dozen images just show the reverse, and, as you can see, the wood is unmarked, nothing carved on it, and no sign there was ever anything written in ink or painted on it.”
Robin and Mallory bent forward over the desk and stared at the pictures. As they did so, the muffled sound of conversation from the main part of the church gradually became audible. Unwin turned around and headed for the door.
“More visitors,” he said. “Excuse me while I tell them I’m shutting the church in a few minutes.”
The door closed behind the rector as he left the room.
“He’s right,” Robin said, staring down at the photographs and sounding utterly dispirited. “There’s nothing at all on any of these photographs, apart from the usual blemishes you get on any piece of wood. I really thought we’d cracked it with that ‘behind the eyes’ clue. We’ve obviously missed something, or misinterpreted it. I hate to say it, but this really could be the end of the trail.”
“Quiet,” Mallory said urgently. “Listen.”
Robin glanced up at his face, but Mallory was giving all his attention to what he was hearing from outside the room.
Voices raised in anger, or making threats. It was impossible to tell which. But something was very obviously wrong.
And then they both heard a loud and echoing bang that could only be one thing.
35
Templecombe, Somerset
“That was a gunshot,” Mallory said. “It must be those bloody Dominicans. I mean, who else could it be?”
He reached around to the small of his back, pulled out the Browning Hi-Power pistol he’d acquired from one of the hired assassins who’d tried to take them down on the road outside Okehampton what felt like half a lifetime ago. He racked the slide back to chamber a round and set the safety catch.
“I didn’t know you had that with you,” Robin said.
“Just as well I did. You wait here. There’s a phone on the wall over there. Dial triple nine and get the cops and the medical people heading this way. Tell them there’s been a shooting.”
“We don’t know what’s happened yet.”
“I think I can guess. Those Italians don’t fire warning shots. Unwin’s dead or at least wounded, and the Head has probably gone by now.”
Mallory eased the door open silently and peered outside. He saw nothing. He glanced back at Robin, who was already reaching for the wall-mounted phone, then slipped out of the room.
He ran as quickly and quietly as he could across to the opposite wall, from the corner of which he would be able to see the main part of the church, including the wall upon which the Templecombe Head was hanging.
Or, as he realized immediately when he took a quick glance around the corner, where the Templecombe Head had previously been hanging, because it was no longer there. The wall was bare, and a few feet away, lying curled in a ball on the old stone floor of the church, was a black-clad figure. But there was no sign of the Dominicans whom Mallory had expected to be there.
He again checked that the safety catch was engaged on the Browning, then slid the pistol back into the rear waistband of his trousers and ran forward.
Mallory knelt beside the rector. He had no need to feel for a pulse, because the man was audibly groaning, and clearly still alive. His hands were clutched to his stomach, his whole body seeming to be folded in on itself, as if the bullet that had wounded him had tripped some kind of internal hinge. A spreading deep red stain on the floor attested to the seriousness of his injury. Mallory could see at once that Unwin had been shot in the stomach, one of the most painful of all gunshot wounds. Excruciatingly painful, but not necessarily fatal if expert medical treatment was available quickly.
“Who did this?” Mallory asked urgently.
But the rector didn’t respond, his eyes closed and his mouth clamped shut as his mind and body struggled to come to terms with the incredible pain he was experiencing.
Mallory knew there was nothing he could do for him, there being no first aid he could render for that kind of injury. Or, rather, he had already done all that he could by getting Robin to scramble a medical team. He stood up, took out the pistol again, and ran over to the open door of the old church.
Not knowing how far away the Dominicans would be, he slammed to a halt inside the doorway and looked cautiously outside.
About thirty or forty yards away, two bulky men wearing dark clothes were struggling under the weight of the large wooden box that obviously contained the Templecombe Head, another man, similarly garbed, walking briskly beside them.
As Mallory edged forward to get a better view, the man apparently acting as an escort looked back and saw him.
The recognition was instant. Mallory had last seen the Italian on the side of a hill in Switzerland, standing alongside Toscanelli, the psychopathic leader of the group, the Dominicans temporarily rendered harmless by the Swiss authorities. And the Italian equally obviously recognized him.
The Dominican enforcer turned on his heel, immediately pulled out a pistol and aimed it in one fluid movement, then squeezed the trigger twice. The first nine-millimeter bullet crashed into the old stone a couple of feet to Mallory’s left as he ducked back inside; the second hit higher and slightly farthe
r away.
Then the Dominican started running back toward the church, obviously intending to finish the job.
For Mallory, it wasn’t a difficult decision. These men had just shot down the rector—an entirely innocent man—in cold blood as he’d presumably tried to stop them from robbing his church, and had basically left him for dead. And Mallory had no doubt that the enforcer would do his best to kill both him and Robin if he got the chance.
So he decided not to give him the chance. And at the same time to return the favor.
For a couple of seconds Mallory just watched him approaching; then he stepped back into view, raised his own pistol, locking his left hand around his right wrist in the classic Weaver stance.
The man skidded to a halt the instant Mallory appeared, perhaps stunned by the realization that the man he’d just tried to shoot was also armed. He again lifted his pistol.
Mallory didn’t wait, just took careful aim and fired the moment the man stopped moving.
He had always been a good shot, and his bullet took the Dominican squarely in the stomach. The Italian staggered backward a couple of steps, the pistol falling from his grip, and then crashed heavily to the ground, letting out a piercing shriek of pain as he did so.
The two men carrying the wooden box glanced back over their shoulders, but continued on their way.
Mallory swung the heavy church door shut and slammed the bolt into place, just in case another of the Dominicans decided to come and try his luck. Then he bent down and picked up the ejected cartridge case—he didn’t dare leave that behind him, just in case the police managed to find both him and the weapon—and ran back inside, to see Robin kneeling beside the injured rector.
“He’s still alive,” she said as he approached, “but in a lot of pain. And there’s nothing we can do about that. What happened out there? I heard more shots.”
“The Dominicans are now one man short,” Mallory said, “and that means we have to get out of here right now, before the cops turn up. Otherwise, we’ll really be in the shit.”
And as he said that, they both heard the sound of another shot outside the church.
“They can’t get in,” he said. “I’ve bolted the door on the inside.”
Mallory led the way, the pistol back in his hand, just in case. At the door, Robin slowly released the bolt, making as little noise as she could, then pulled the door open just far enough for Mallory to see outside.
“I think it’s all clear,” he said, stepping through the narrow gap and looking around the churchyard. “In fact, I’m pretty certain they’ve gone, because they’ve cleaned up after themselves.”
“What do you mean?” Robin asked.
Mallory pointed at the unmoving figure lying on the grass, a ghastly red halo around his head.
“That’s the Dominican I shot,” he explained, “but I only wounded him and now he’s clearly dead. Not only that, but his pistol has gone as well. That’s what I meant by them clearing up after themselves.”
“So, that last shot we heard,” Robin said, but didn’t finish the sentence.
“Exactly. One of them came back, executed the wounded man, and took his weapon, just to make sure that he couldn’t talk to the police or anyone else. They did exactly the same thing in your apartment in Dartmouth right back at the start of all this.”
There was nothing else they could do there, either for the wounded rector or for themselves. What they had to do was get as far away from what was now an obvious crime scene as soon as they could.
Mallory led the way out of the church tower, leaving the door open behind them, and they jogged along the path, past the dead body of the Dominican, and out of the gate. As soon as they reached the road, they slowed to a brisk walk and immediately turned off into a side street, because they could hear the distant sound of an approaching siren. The vehicle was probably already at the village limits.
“I hope that’s an ambulance, not a patrol car,” Mallory said, as they slowed to a gentle stroll. “I feel guilty about Unwin. I really hope he makes it.”
“You didn’t shoot him,” Robin snapped, her eyes clouding with tears.
“No, but if we hadn’t been there talking to him, the church would probably have been locked and he’d have been somewhere else and out of harm’s way. That’s what I mean.”
About a minute later the noise of the siren died away, and with a roar from its engine an ambulance, lights blazing, swept past the end of the lane, heading straight for the church.
“What did you tell them when you dialed triple nine?”
“Just that a man had been shot in the church at Templecombe. And I left the phone off the hook so that they could confirm the location that way if they misheard me or anything.”
“Good,” Mallory said, glancing back. “Now let’s get out of here.”
The village was quite small—Mallory thought that the population was round about 1,500 people—and they only saw a few dozen of them as they made their way back to the road where Mallory had parked the Porsche. The local residents clearly seemed to have been attracted by the unusual noise of the sirens echoing around the village, as they were all either looking at or actually walking toward the church, where the ambulance had been joined by at least two police cars that they had both heard and seen.
And although he and Robin were doing their best to blend in with the scenery and not attract any unwanted attention, Mallory was keenly aware that he had a totally illegal loaded pistol stuck into the waistband of his jeans under his jacket, and even a rudimentary test of his hands would prove beyond doubt that he had fired that weapon or another firearm. So as well as keeping a lookout for the Dominican enforcers, they both knew only too well that they needed to stay away from the British police.
“If a police car stops anywhere near us,” Mallory said, as they both heard the sound of another siren approaching the village at speed, “we separate. You’ve got nothing incriminating on you, and you’ve done nothing wrong, so there’s no legal reason why you should be detained. But if they stop me, then I am in trouble, because there’s no way I can talk myself out of jail this time.”
Robin shook her head decisively.
“I’ll stick with you,” she insisted.
“You won’t,” Mallory replied. “If you’re with me, then the official view of the Thin Blue Line will be that you’re an accessory before and after the fact, as they describe it, and so whatever mud gets slung at me will stick to you as well. And, frankly, you’d be a lot more use to me walking around outside the local police station, sorting out a sharp legal eagle to help me, than sitting in the same police station in the cell next door to mine. So if it looks as if we’re attracting even the slightest sign of any official interest, you have to just walk away. If you don’t, then I’ll make a run for it anyway and that will ensure they chase me and leave you alone.”
The expression on Robin’s face showed that she didn’t like it, but she did nod her reluctant agreement.
In any event, none of it mattered, because they reached the car without seeing a police vehicle anywhere near them, or any sign of the Dominicans. And this time, when Mallory unlocked the doors of the Porsche using the remote control, Robin held out her hand for the key.
“Just in case,” she said firmly, dropping into the driving seat and starting the engine. “In this car, I can lose the Dominicans and any number of local rozzers, unless they put a chopper up after us. But let’s hope I don’t need to,” she added.
“We should be okay,” Mallory said. “I was involved in a few incidents like this when I was in the force, and I can almost guarantee that they won’t be looking for anybody at the moment. Whenever somebody is wounded by an attacker, with a knife or a gun or whatever, their first priority is always to get the victim to hospital as quickly as possible, and only when that’s been done will they start to take a proper look at the crime
scene itself and try to work out what actually happened. Once they’re satisfied about the probable sequence of events, they’ll start doing house-to-house inquiries, appealing for witnesses and all that kind of thing. And by the time they start doing that, we could be in another county, or even in another country.”
Robin was driving the Porsche in a general northerly direction away from Templecombe, traveling as fast as the road conditions allowed. When she saw signs ahead for the junction with the A303, she slowed down and glanced at Mallory.
“So, where are we going now?” she asked. “Back to the same hotel?”
“There’s not really much point in doing that,” he replied. “We checked out this morning, and all our stuff’s with us in this car, so we can go wherever we like.”
“Right,” Robin replied, steering the Cayman to join the eastbound carriageway of the A303 toward Wincanton. “But that doesn’t really answer the question, does it?” She sounded peeved. And almost resigned. “We still need to decide where we’re going next and, even more importantly, what we’re going to do next. Do we just give up, or do we go back to the drawing board and take another look at the clues we’ve uncovered so far? Because the one thing we definitely know right now is that we read that last one completely wrongly. The rear of the wooden panel was very obviously unmarked, and as far as I can see that pretty much means it’s the end of the trail. There was nothing for us to find ‘behind the eyes.’ There might have been something on the wood a couple of hundred years ago before the Victorians got their hands on it, or maybe a piece of Latin text carved into some cupboard in the church, but whatever was there must have been swept away during the renovations.”
“If it was a carving, if it was something chiseled into the stone of the church, it might still be there somewhere, just covered over with plaster or whatever,” Mallory pointed out, “but that’s exactly the same as it not being there at all, unless we could somehow identify the precise spot where the carving was done, and I have no idea how we could do that. Let’s hope we missed something, or we read that last clue wrongly.”