The Lazarus Mysteries- Omnibus Collection

by Ken Fry

  A sharp crack and a single round caused a piteous bellowing moan as one hapless beast fell to the ground with half its head missing. The other attempted to run but another shot brought it down in a welter of blood, before it gave one long last twitch and died..

  Praise be to God.

  He thought the time was nigh for some serious entertainment.

  §

  The Village Outskirts of Uffington

  Oxfordshire, UK

  She never tired of looking at it on the farside scarp of the Berkshire Downs. Cut deeply into the hillside, The White Horse had been there for over three thousand years, since the Bronze Age. It was generally regarded as a masterpiece of minimalist art and protected with loving care. She felt close to it and had felt drawn by its simplicity from the moment she laid eyes on it. Ulla Stuart loved it more than most. For here, she could remember Brodie and how much he loved it whenever they visited.

  The years had been kind to Ulla. Her poise and stature remained, and her hair had but a few grey strands. Since the Lazarus episode, she had made a success of her life and prospered in the world of real estate. However, the old yearning to ‘liberate’ art and precious things never entirely left her. Often, she would be overcome by the desire, the old habit, to walk around at night and release a captive work of art, returning it to its rightful owner. But it was not to be. Her burglary days had died a slow death. The care and welfare of her daughter took center stage.

  Gazing upon the horse, she dropped her personal sadness into the green and chalky hillside and pretended that Brodie could return to her life once more. Broderick Ladro had walked out of her life sixteen years ago. The accursed Lazarus painting had broken them up. It divided them like nothing else could, and the strange and mystical events of those days now appeared like ghosts in her dreams and unguarded moments. The entire sequence of events had a momentous dimension that had skewered his life away from her and into the hands of a monastery. God knows where ... in Spain, where the whole business had started.

  When he left, she knew she was carrying his child. A child that was now a young woman who had never seen her father ... nor did she know who he was. Ulla had never told her the whole story, which she had written down in a continuous series of sixteen diaries, locked away in the house.

  That was about to change.

  She had named her daughter Martha for a reason, and it had been an appropriate choice. Not only was she born on the feast day of Saint Martha, July 29, she had grown so like Martha in the New Testament and had developed a very business-like and practical nature. There was something very like Brodie about her. In this, she found comfort that softened the pain in her heart.

  In all the time she had known Brodie, she had never thought he would choose the life he was now in. Within her mind, she would attempt to visualise his life and what he could be doing at certain times of the day. She missed him.

  Around herself and Martha existed a cohesive link. An understanding that there was, in their natures and lifestyle, a very common bond. It was difficult to define, but many had noticed an unusual grafting of their personalities in a strange way. They would often speak identical sentences at the same time, and their movements would at times appear to be synchronised, almost choreographed.

  The following day was to be Marths’s seventeenth birthday. She was mature, far in excess of her years.

  Here existed a mystery.

  Each year, from the date of her first birthday, a gift had always arrived. It was either blue flowers or a plant. They had never figured out who sent them. No card or address was ever attached. Ulla liked to imagine it was from Brodie, but he would not have known her frequent changes of address, so it couldn’t be him.

  Over the years, she had written him four letters, care and courtesy of the Condesa Maria Francesca de Toledo, who had figured so prominently in their lives when chasing the Lazarus painting. Ulla had never received a reply from her ... or from Brodie. If the Condesa was still alive, she would know where he was.

  Wherever Ulla had been living, and there had been four moves in those sixteen years, the mystery flowers had always arrived on schedule. Somebody out there knew a lot more about her than she felt comfortable with. Tomorrow, she would see if the process would continue.

  §

  “Happy Birthday!” Ulla greeted Martha as she descended the stairs, still looking sleepy and wrapped in a large, red dressing gown. College had broken for the summer holidays and she was not in her usual rush.

  “Thanks, Mum.” Martha leant forward and gave Ulla a big kiss on the cheek. “What did you get me?” She couldn’t avoid a giggle.

  Martha was a tall and slender girl, and like her mother, had long blond hair and the same startling green eyes. She had an inquisitive and intelligent attitude to life and was still deciding if she would pursue a degree in art & archaeology, or religion and philosophies, as her potential university studies. She was quite an artist, like her father, and her interest in ancient history was drawing her to the former. Whatever course she chose, she wanted to study at SOAS (The School of Oriental and African Studies) University of London.

  “This is for you.” Ulla handed her a small, wrapped gift box.

  “What’s this?”

  “You will know if you open it, won’t you?”

  With care and deliberation, Martha untied the blue ribbon and pulled back the scarlet wrapping paper. Inside was a small silver box. She started to open it, but Ulla’s hand pressed down on top of hers.

  “Don’t be shocked, but it’s time you knew a few things. It’s your birthright.” Ulla withdrew her hand.

  Martha, looking puzzled, lifted the lid. Inside was a golden heart-shaped locket. She looked up at her mother and her hand trembled. “I have a funny feeling I know what this is.”

  “I thought you might.”

  She unclasped the tiny latch and opened the heart-shaped top. She gasped at what she saw and her hand covered her mouth.

  On one side of the locket was a twist of dark hair. On the other, a craggy smiling face beamed up at her from a small photograph.

  “That’s Broderick Ladro, your dad.”

  Martha shook. She stared back into her mother’s face before they both burst into tears.

  “Sit down, Martha. We need to talk and it’s going to be a long story. I’m going to start from the very beginning when I first met your father at the Stephen Chan Museum in New York...”

  Two hours later, Ulla had revealed all the details surrounding the Lazarus painting and how it affected their lives and relationship. That included the killings and the miraculous healings that transpired, and the pivotal role Brodie had played in it.

  “He,” she said, “had been summoned. That was what ended our relationship. I couldn’t compete with Christ.”

  During the conversation, there were several pauses for tears to flow and they hugged each other as only a mother and daughter could.

  “Mum, if anybody else had told me that story, I would never have believed it. Coming from you, I know it can only be true. So painful, and you don’t even know where he is?”

  “No. Somewhere out there in some remote monastery just like Francisco was.”

  “Do you want to find him?”

  “Yes and no ... but the die has been cast. To know he is safe and well would be enough.”

  A sharp rap on the door interrupted their conversation. They looked at each other and blurted out, “I wonder?”

  Ulla rose and strode towards the outer front door. On opening it, she was not surprised at what she saw. A delivery man stood there with an enormous bunch of flowers.

  “For a Miss Martha Stuart.” His gruff voice seemed oddly reassuring.

  “Yes, she lives here. Who are they from?” She knew he wouldn’t know.

  “No idea, Missus. I’m just told to deliver them.”

  She signed the delivery ticket and walked back in.

  The flowers, as they had always been, were a stunning colour blue.

&nbs
p; “Phacelia Campanularia or Desert Bluebells if you prefer, and for you, as usual.” She smiled and handed them over to Martha.

  “Who has been doing this all these years, Mum? It’s so touching.”

  “I don’t know. I used to think it was Brodie. But there’s no way he could do this.”

  Martha bent forward to take in its scent, but stopped, knowing bluebells have none. ‘Wait, look, there’s a small envelope tucked in at the back.”

  “What?”

  She reached in and detached a discreet, cream-coloured envelope. She stared back at Ulla. “Maybe we’re about to find out at last.” Opening the seal, she reached inside with her fingers and removed a folded note. She handed it to her mother and they read it at the same time.

  Written in immaculate, black, cursive calligraphy were the words…

  Be happy, for it is almost time.

  “What?” They both exclaimed. Their eyes returned to the note and then back at each other.

  “I don’t like this...” Martha looked disconcerted.

  Ulla turned the envelope around and examined it from every direction, even sniffing at it inside and out. “Whoever has been sending these flowers to you for the last seventeen years is a mystery. Why the big secret? And now this? What the hell does this message mean?”

  “Should we call the police?”

  “What do we tell them? Besides, I don’t think your mysterious sender means to harm you. It seems like a promise is hanging around you, though. What that is, who knows?” Ulla sighed. “What a morning for you, Martha. You now know all about your father ... and then you get these. There’s just one more thing remaining. Everything that I told you? I wrote them down in my diaries. Let me show you.”

  “Mum, I don’t think I can take much more of this.”

  “This is the last, I promise you. Follow me.”

  They went upstairs to Ulla’s bedroom and Ulla unlocked the cupboard. Stashed away at the back were sixteen robust leather-bound diaries. “These are now yours to keep. It’s our life, sweetheart. Please say you accept.”

  Martha hugged her mother close. “You know I will, for as long as I live. C’mon, let’s get out of here and go for a drink somewhere.”

  Forty minutes later, at the Fox and Hounds pub, with a view of The White Horse, they ordered lunch and began going through it all over again.

  CHAPTER 2

  El Desierto de Tabernas

  30 Kilometres North of Almeria, Spain

  Brother Baez, sitting by the entrance of the cave, wiped away the sweat dripping from his temples using the hem of his cassock. As he did so, he felt the rush of cool air passing up his legs and body. Standing up, he stretched, tugging the heavy, woolly robe off, and sat back in only his light vest and underpants. In front of him stood his extendable easel, with a wide, fully stretched canvas ready and waiting. Arranged in a careful row on a white sheet was his various tubes of oil paints and an array of different brushes, plus water and cloths. Onto his palette he loaded an array of colours. It was almost time to begin.

  As had become his custom before commencing to paint, he would spend some time in a mixture of prayer and meditation. This was no exception. He had no idea what he was to paint, relying only on his emotions to guide him through. He opened his eyes and gazed out at the barren landscape and then at the canvas that seemed to contain ideas and promises within its blank whiteness.

  Starting with faint charcoal outlines, his strokes became bolder and swifter as he began an unknown construction.

  A familiar image started to emerge. Mary the Holy Mother.

  Her blue robe flowed and draped down to an unseen floor. Her facial expression had a will of its own and he was unable to prevent the movement of his hand. It swept one way, and then the next, as eyes, cheeks, and lips, took shape.

  She had the face of Ulla, his lost partner and lover, and she tenderly held the infant Jesus in her arms. Her green eyes were bright with maternal bliss. He had no idea from where it came. He knew only that it was as it was. His love for Ulla would never die.

  As his brush scourged across the canvas, he began to weep.

  This new painting would be worthy of the monastery. The Abbot would be pleased.

  His hand continued to move quickly across the canvas of its own volition, and his light pencil strokes started to reveal another image. A praying penitent kneeling before the Holy Mother.

  Her full profile emerged, and Brother Baez gasped, not knowing why.

  Long blonde hair … a suggestion of green eyes.

  He did not know who she was, but it felt right … and familiar.

  His breath descended into short sharp jabs. It was getting difficult. He could not find the clarity and peace he longed for.

  In a sense of mounting exasperation, he threw his brushes to the floor. “God, have pity,” he yelled out into the unheeding desert.

  There was no response … just the whispering of a desert breeze.

  §

  Uffington, UK

  Martha sat completely still. Of late, The White Horse had become important to her. She would seek its presence and gaze across at its form, and completely lose herself in its grace. It generated a feeling of quietness within her.

  On this particular day, she had sat there and had lost all sense of time. It was as if a trance had descended upon her. Ulla’s revelations, and what she had written in those diaries, had at first startled her. But those emotions were now replaced with a burning curiosity, an ever-deepening sense of attachment and belonging to a man she would probably never know.

  Oh my! What a life they had together. Was it all true? She had no way of knowing. Even her mother, Ulla, had wallowed in an element of disbelief.

  The knowledge that her unknown father, Broderick Ladro, was also attached to the artistic symmetry of the chalky horse she was now gazing at, made it all the more poignant. It made her feel close to him. Within her, she felt the stirrings of business unfinished. As if there was something she needed to do. One day, she resolved to discover what that was.

  She decided to take a walk, needing to be alone and away from the crowd. Without intending to, her route proceeded up The White Horse hill. Her mind whirled as she considered the endless possibilities. In a world of uncertainties, her recent discoveries hung from her like an injured swan. Her mother’s revelations had, indeed, been shocking. Not that she condemned her, far from it. Martha only felt admiration for her mother.

  The curvature of the horse became less distinct the closer she got. She paused and rested her qualms into its chalky ridges, which had graced the hillside for three millennia. It oozed mystery that radiated all around. She was alone with its primitive magic and felt the touch of a vanished world, which suited her mood.

  The wind whipped up chalky dust particles and Martha shielded her eyes. It was then that she heard it.

  A voice…

  At first, she thought she had imagined it … but she hadn’t. It became clearer and she gripped her fists and closed her eyes tight, lest she offended its presence. It spoke to her in her head. There was no doubting it. She stood, hammered to the spot.

  “Martha, you are upset and worried by many things. When the time arrives, you will know. Have no fear, for he is safe.” Three times the message was spoken clearly in her mind … and then it was gone.

  Martha slowly opened her eyes, only to see she was alone, as she had been, and gazing across the hill into a small valley. The wind whipped her hair and the grass around her looked wonderfully green.

  What happened just then? I heard a voice. I did. I know I did. I heard it three times! He is safe? Who is safe? I must tell Ulla!

  Forty minutes later, breathless and with an almost child-like excitement, she found herself blurting out the sequence of events to her mother.

  “It called my name and told me that when the time arrived, I would know. The words were just like what’s on that note with the flowers. It also said he was safe, and that I shouldn’t be afraid. When the voice s
topped, and I opened my eyes, everything around me looked and felt so vibrant.”

  Ulla’s expression went from puzzlement to one of worried concern. For several minutes, she refused to speak and just shook her head. What words she managed were almost inaudible. “Please, God. I ask you, not again … please!”

  Martha twisted her hair. “What do you mean? What do you mean not again?”

  Ulla took a deep breath. “Martha, what you experienced on the hill has an ominous ring about it. It smacks of Brodie, your father. He started having strange and weird moments, like yours, that nobody could explain. I don’t know what it means. All I sense is that something is wrong. If it is what I think it is, then strange things will be happening along the way, wherever that is leading. As for him being safe, I guess it would be too easy to think it’s referring to your father. I honestly don’t know what to think.”

  “I’m frightened now.”

  “So am I.” Ulla poured out a large scotch and proceeded to drink it neat.

  “What do we do?”

  “I don’t know. If past events are anything to go by, we won’t have to wait too long to find out.

  §

  El Desierto de Tabernas

  Brother Baez had managed to maintain the order of daily offices with only one or two minor exceptions. There were moments when he recalled the lives of various saints and would begin to paint them for the walls of the monastery. Yet, his heart wasn’t in it. He found the exercise mechanical, and almost boring. He needed to feel something, like he had all those years ago, which had culminated in his best work, The Raising of Lazarus, the one that had cured the Condesa Maria of her terminal illness. That painting was now a jealously guarded secret.

  He knew better. Secrets don’t stay secrets and there were others who knew of its existence like the Condesa herself, Ulla, and now several monks. He didn’t doubt it.