‘Because, considering the implications of Vatican involvement in an incident so terrible, the police captain, – who is a practising Catholic, I might add – has, although continuing to investigate further, offered generously not to release anything to the media until the autopsy has been completed, which allows us twenty-four hours for you to find out what exactly is going on.’
‘Me!’ Harker felt a further chill run through him. ‘What can I do?’
Stefani regarded him unsympathetically. ‘The Templar role of Jarl was created specifically for this type of situation… to discover the truth, and protect people from it if necessary.’
Outwardly Harker remained calm and collected, but inside he was feeling increasingly twitchy. When he’d accepted the position of Jarl, he had essentially believed it was simply to go through and re-examine every item and artefact the Templars held in their possession. To be a curator like Carter only… only a head curator. This was quickly turning into something far more hands-on than he had anticipated. His experiences over the past few years with the Templars had certainly forced him to strengthen his character both in body and mind but dealing with a double murder! This, whatever ‘this’ was, seemed well beyond his skill set, after all, he was an archaeology professor, a scholar; not Hercule Poirot.
As Stefani continued to stare at him waiting for an answer, Harker found himself pondering on the responsibility he had taken when accepting the position of Jarl. Of course having something like this dropped in his lap had never even crossed his mind but he couldn’t just say no. It was a serious position and what would it say about him if he refused the first job handed to him?
‘OK,’ he replied, ‘what is it you need me to do?’
Stefani let out a sigh of relief, then reached over and squeezed his arm. ‘I can’t tell you how glad I am to hear that, Alex. And if you are going to look into this, it’s important that I be completely up front with you. I know I’m seeming to be more emotional about this than a Templar should, especially one who’s going to be guiding you in your new role, but what no one else knows – including Grand Master Brulet – is that…’ Her words trailed off and then her shoulders stiffened and a look of strength returned to her. ‘John Davies is… was my adoptive father.’
This news came as a total shock to Harker but it still did explain why she had seemed so emotionally charged through the entire meeting. Adoption amongst priests was rare but in certain cases it was allowed after special consent from the Vatican had been obtained and evidently this was one of them. ‘God, I’m sorry. I didn’t realise.’
Stefani raised a hand towards him and clearly trying to maintain her composure. ‘Sebastian, the Templar High Council… no one knows about these murders except us two and it has to stay that way.’
‘Why?’ Harker asked, perplexed by the notion of keeping it hush-hush when the Templars were meant to be a family: brothers and sisters who would help each other out at a moment’s notice.
‘I don’t mean to sound condescending, Alex, but you’re relatively new to the Order and, even though you categorically deserve to be here there are some things you have to remember. The Templars are a force for good and always have been. They are decent, self-giving and pragmatic, but they are also highly religious and devoted to their beliefs. If my father lost his mind for some reason, and as a result did those terrible things, then that is one thing. But, Alex,’ Stefani paused as if the words were physically difficult to expel from her mouth, ‘if my father was truly possessed by some supernatural force, a real-life demonic force, then I need to know first. It will have been the only time in Catholic history that an exorcist has become possessed by the very spirit he was seeking to exorcise. And it will have been my father, my line that allowed it to happen.’
Harker finally began to understand where she was coming from and, after a few seconds of frankly needless contemplation, he nodded in agreement once more. ‘OK, Stefani, you and me. But once we discover the facts, we go immediately to Sebastian and the Council, agreed?’
As if galvanised by his offer, she nodded enthusiastically.
‘But I want to bring in David Carter,’ Harker insisted. ‘I trust him and he has access to any Templar information I may need to source. OK?’
Stefani continued nodding even as Harker got out of his seat and placed Father Davies’s smiling photo back down beside the others.
‘I owe you, Alex Harker, and it’s a debt I will repay,’ she replied, pulling out her mobile phone. ‘Give me a few minutes and I’ll get a jet organised for you and also anything else you might need.’
Harker watched the young Templar woman head out of the room, leaving him alone, which gave him a moment to reflect on what he had just undertaken. In all his time on earth, he had never had anything to do with a case of possession, but he felt happy to help a Templar in need. Besides, truly awful as these murders had been, it would probably turn out that the priest had suffered some kind of major mental breakdown and, once that fact was established, he could fly home and together they would explain the appalling tragedy that had befallen Stefani’s father.
It was with this comforting logic that Harker convinced himself. But as he glanced down at the horrendous series of photos, he felt those butterflies begin to twitch again in his stomach.
It had to be the result of a man simply losing his mind, and nothing otherworldly… didn’t it?
Chapter 4
‘That’s creepy,’ Detective Russo declared with a look of distaste. ‘And he’s a priest, you say?’
‘Well, he was,’ Harker replied, taking a few steps further into the living room. ‘And it is creepy, yes.’
The small apartment was less of a living space and more of a tribute to all things avian, with its walls covered by framed pictures of birds of all species. This wasn’t particularly odd, though perhaps a bit eccentric, but the hordes of stuffed animals littering the surfaces of tables and chairs did give pause for thought. Every bird Harker was aware of appeared to be represented. These included an American eagle, wings spread wide, hanging by a wire from the ceiling, while to his left a bright pink flamingo watched him as he studied the lifeless menagerie before him. The unpleasant atmosphere was compounded further by the lack of outside light which was being defused by the apartment’s stained yellow windows, causing the shadows to shift from one moment to the next and giving the impression of movement from the otherwise motionless stuffed animals.
‘I imagine Father Davies had an interest in taxidermy,’ Harker suggested, reaching over to a motionless stuffed black raven perched on a wooden coffee table and tapping it on the head.
‘I would say obsession,’ Russo replied, electing to remain in the doorway. ‘An unpleasant one, too.’
After parting company with Stefani back at the Tower of London, Harker had headed straight back to his home in Cambridge, care of Detective Owens, for a quick change and there to pick up his passport. The officer had initially appeared happy to provide a taxi service but had seemed visibly upset at Harker’s request that he be allowed time to take a quick shower. Following possibly the quickest wash in his life, Harker had then been whisked away at high speed to Cambridge airport where, as promised by Stefani, a twin-engine Cessna Citation X jet was waiting for him on the tarmac. During the drive there, Harker had made a single call to Chloe, who at first had been furious for him ‘dumping her’ but, once his situation was explained, her mood had lightened… slightly. Sadly, this accommodating reaction was not shared by Doggie who, after grabbing the phone from Chloe, had literally screamed down the receiver and demanded to know where the hell his car keys were. After a quick apology, and a promise that Chloe would drive him to their house, where the keys were now waiting for him on the side table in the hall, the Dean had angrily hung up on him. This darkening mood was intensified further, by Harker himself this time, when he was informed by the pilot that Stefani would not be joining him and that he would be making this trip alone. He had called her straight away with the inte
ntion of throwing a few choice words at her, but had been unable to get through, which wound him up even more.
After sitting for most of the flight in a complete grump, he had come to the conclusion that Stefani had not wanted to draw any undue attention to herself by disappearing hurriedly from the Templar meeting at the Tower, which he had to admit seemed annoyingly reasonable. Whatever her rationale though, he felt like he’d been screwed over. But by the time he arrived at Rome international airport his blood had cooled, and being met by Detective Andrea Russo had helped immensely. The detective of the Rome’s Polizia di Stato immediately introduced himself as ‘a friend’, and had driven them both straight to Father Davies’s residence. The small apartment was within a stone’s throw of the city’s famous Spanish Steps linking the Bourbon Spanish embassy at the bottom to the Trinità dei Monti church at the top, and therefore the exterior of the place was impressive. The location was considered prime real estate – as pretty much everywhere in Rome was – and, with the Vatican just over a mile away across the river Tiber, it was a striking home for a mere Vatican priest.
The journey was made with little conversation and it became clear that Russo neither knew exactly why Harker was here in Italy or what he was looking for, and the man seemed happy to keep it that way – as was Harker. ‘I was asked to drive you to this address, and I will help in any way I can,’ the detective had merely offered, ‘but the less I know about it the better.’
The cloak and dagger approach was only to be expected when it came to the Templars and, besides which, until Harker knew what was going on, he had no wish to drag the questionable idea of demoniac possession into the conversation.
‘So, what is it you’re looking for, Professor?’ Russo finally asked, as he continued to hover in the doorway.
‘Honestly, I’m not sure.’ Harker replied, giving a mystified smile. ‘Maybe I should have a look around.’
Harker’s clueless response had the detective also smiling. ‘OK, how is it you say… “knock yourself out”?’
In spite of Russo’s offer of help, the man really didn’t seem like he wanted to be here, and to be fair neither did Harker. But this was a way to prove his position of Jarl was justified and to that end he would do whatever it took to separate the wheat from the chaff – or rather the ectoplasm from the demoniac presence. He congratulated himself on thinking up such a bad joke and began navigating his way past the miserable-looking multitude of stuffed birds, who appeared to glare at their uninvited guest accusingly, and then on towards the rear end of the apartment, which opened up into a hallway with three rooms leading off it. The corridor was a mess, with nasty lime-green wallpaper peeling off at all angles and stacks of browning newspapers lined the skirting boards, giving it the look of a storage shed rather than a homely dwelling.
Harker entered the first room to his left, where immediately an unpleasant odour had him wrinkling his nose. The small kitchen was basic, with an ancient white, rusting fridge and a four-ringed stove that looked even older, its appearance not helped by it being covered in congealed grease. The grey linoleum floor tiles were clouded with age and a stained ceramic sink filled with unwashed plates protruded from the opposite wall. Either Father Davies had questionable domestic-hygiene issues or the priest had not been back home in a while.
Harker made his way over to the sink to find the source of the stench, which immediately made him feel queasy. Wedged between a couple of dirty dishes was a half-eaten ham sandwich that, at first glance, appeared to be moving, but upon closer inspection this was due to the maggots wriggling about on top of it. The sight only convinced him that no further investigation of the kitchen was needed.
The second room on the left was thankfully less offensive, with a neatly made single bed and an Ikea set of plywood drawers containing a meagre collection of trousers and T-shirts. At one corner was an en-suite bathroom which was cleaner than the kitchen and, with little else to check, Harker made his way back into the hallway and over to the final room whose door remained shut. He reached down to turn the cracked white plastic handle and poked his head inside.
If the smell of the kitchen had been unpleasant, what assaulted his nose now was downright offensive, and he recoiled back into the hallway with a hand over his mouth. It absolutely stank and Harker pulled out a white handkerchief from his jacket pocket and muffled his nose and mouth with it. The room was pitch black with seemingly no windows and, although it was impossible to make anything out clearly, he had the strangest sense he was being watched. He actually felt the hairs on the back of his neck stand up and this caused him to pull away from the open doorway and step to one side of it, out of view of anyone who might be lurking inside. The problem with instinctive feeling is that it is a process of evolution, a natural warning system that tends to favour caution above anything else, and if allowed it can override one’s common and practical senses. Realising this, Harker now forced himself towards the open doorway, to peer inside with extreme wariness.
He was confronted by a wall of blackness at first but, as he slowly scanned the interior of the room, his eyes began to acclimatise to the dark and various shapes began to take form. He could now make out the edges of something, and maybe also a circular object on the floor, but no more than that. However as he continued to scan the room, his focus settled upon something that caused him to freeze and his blood ran cold. A pair of eyes stared back directly into his, with the light from the hallway just catching its pupils in nothing more than a temporary glint of light.
Harker abruptly pulled his head away from the doorway. ‘Detective,’ he shouted loudly, raising his fists to defend himself, while Russo came running along the hallway to join him.
‘There’s someone inside,’ Harker informed him in nothing more than a whisper and the Detective, with no further persuasion needed, pulled the gun from his side holster and aimed it inside whilst taking cover at one side of the door.
‘Police,’ Russo announced gruffly. ‘Come out with your hands up… and slowly.’
There was no sign of movement inside and, after a few seconds, he gestured to Harker with a flick of his chin. ‘Reach for the light switch.’
It was a simple enough request but Harker found himself flexing his fingers nervously till, after an encouraging look from Russo he finally reached inside and slid his open palm across the inside wall until he felt the switch. With a nod to the detective, he flipped it downwards.
The room was instantly bathed in light from the single light bulb dangling from the ceiling and the sight of a shrouded individual standing before them had every muscle in Harker’s body tensing. Even the well-trained Detective Russo was putting extra pressure on his trigger finger at first.
‘What the hell is that?’ Russo exclaimed, pulling his gun back to a resting position.
The unblinking glazed eyes of a bull stared back at them as flies began to zip around its head, having been disturbed by the light source now shining above them. Harker’s first thought was that it was a man standing there in a mask, with a dark shroud wrapped around his shoulders which fell all the way to the floor, covering his feet, but a closer inspection dispelled that notion. Shreds of rotting meat hung from the neck where the head had been severed, and a gap in the shroud below the neckline revealed a section of the black metal candelabra that held it in place. The set-up reminded Harker of the terrible photos he had seen earlier that day of a woman’s decapitated head impaled on a broomstick, and he wondered if this particular piece of artwork had been created as practice for the worse atrocity Father Davies would commit later on.
‘That’s pleasant,’ Russo commented drily as he and Harker made their way on into the room and nearer to the revolting flesh sculpture on display. ‘Your Father Davies was quite the budding artist.’
The bull’s long blackened tongue lolled off to one side and Harker now examined the shiny ornaments surrounding the base of the candelabra, placed in a circle around it. A gold-coloured dish filled with coagulated gore sa
t directly beneath the head as if to catch the blood like a stale offering that no one in their right mind would ever want. Surrounding the gruesome effigy, burnt-out candles amid decaying bunches of flowers littered the floor, and a stained metal sickle protruded from the bull’s neck. Judging by the blood smearing its surface the same implement had been used in dispatching the poor beast.
Neither man said a word as they approached this bizarre spectacle, with the foul smell of decay growing ever stronger. As Harker investigated closer, he noticed what looked like a black smudge on the bull’s left cheek, so he craned his head around to one side and began to focus in on the mark while keeping as much distance as possible. Gradually a shape began to take form. At first, he thought it was a cross but, as he examined it closer, it became clear that this wasn’t a smudge but a symbol – one that he knew well.
‘It’s a swastika,’ he exclaimed, moving closer, ‘and it appears to have been put there with a branding iron.’
Russo looked confused as he moved to Harker’s side, inspecting the mark for himself. ‘A swastika? What, like this is a Nazi bull?’
It sounded a dumb question but Harker could tell the detective wasn’t joking.
‘Not necessarily Nazi,’ he replied, standing himself back from his inspection, ‘The swastika itself was originally a sacred symbol used in many religions, Buddhism to name just one. It was only when the Nazis adopted it that it came to mean something altogether different in the eyes of the world.’
Russo was now looking particularly confused. ‘You said the tenant here was a priest… was he a Buddhist priest?’
The Dark Temple Page 4