The cool night air was a welcome respite from the evening’s traumatic events as Harker briskly headed down Grove Avenue, in the suburbs of Cambridge, with Doggie close on his heels. Their taxi drive over had not taken long and, apart from a call to Chloe’s mobile which went straight to answerphone, it had been accomplished in silence. Much to Harker’s relief, his old friend had remained uncharacteristically quiet throughout the journey. Even the taxi driver had refrained from idle talk, probably sensing the tense atmosphere his two passengers were exuding. Just as a precaution, Harker had requested they be dropped off about a hundred metres from their intended destination. If someone was watching his every move, then he was determined to make things as difficult as possible for them.
The small apartment block was located just off the main road and facing an open stretch of grass common. The building itself looked fairly modern but had that grubby tell-tale black grime smudging the brickwork, so typical of houses situated near a busy main road.
Upon reaching the paint-cracked, green door, Harker immediately began scanning the area around him for any sign of unwanted observers. The common nearby seemed quiet for this time of day and, with the exception of a man walking anxiously behind his black French bulldog with a pooper scooper, nothing seemed out of place. Not that Harker could see, at any rate.
‘How do we get in?’
‘Well, knocking’s a good start,’ Harker replied, and he rapped on the door with a clenched fist.
After a few seconds the familiar sound of a latch being released could be heard, and the door swung open to reveal an elderly lady wearing an old-style pink floral apron, above wrinkled stockings and a pair of fluffy slippers. She reminded Harker of the archetypal dinner lady from his schooldays, with her silver hair tied up in a bob to complete the look.
‘Sorry to disturb you, but Lucas asked me to stop by.’
He’d barely finished the sentence before the old woman began ushering them both inside. ‘You took your time. Come on, then, chop-chop.’
With mutual glances of cautious surprise they made their way inside and into a small communal hallway covered in light-brown flock wallpaper.
‘Lucas said you’d be here earlier and I’m already late for the bingo,’ the pensioner complained as she closed the door.
‘The traffic was a nightmare,’ Harker offered, not wanting to shock the old lady with details of the man’s suicide. Witnessing one death was enough without giving this old girl a heart attack. ‘My apologies.’
‘Fine, fine,’ she mumbled grouchily, ‘but you can tell him I’m not his personal doorman.’
‘I can assure you, madam,’ Doggie interrupted and smiling kindly, ‘you’ll not have any further trouble from Lucas. I guarantee it.’
She growled grudgingly and then passed over to Harker a bronze-coloured apartment key. ‘It’s number 2a – up the stairs and to the right.’
Key in hand and with a pleasant smile from Doggie, they headed up the narrow wooden staircase to the first-floor landing.
‘This place could pass for an Indian restaurant,’ Doggie quipped, grimacing at the walls with their tasty brown flock wallpaper.
‘God, Doggie, when were you last in an Indian restaurant?’
‘I don’t know. It’s been a while.’
‘You’re not kidding,’ Harker replied, starting to wish he had not brought the dean along. ‘Flock wallpaper died out in the nineties.’
Apartment 2a was at the far end of the landing. As Harker approached it he felt his stomach begin to tighten in apprehension. Who knew what they were going to find: an empty room or perhaps a couple of Lucas’s friends? Harker was hoping for the former, because in a tussle Doggie became more of a liability than an asset. Place the dean in a room of socialites and the man shone, but when confronted with physical aggression he was not one to rise to the occasion with unrestrained vigour.
‘This is it,’ Harker said and placed his ear against the door. Apart from the sound of a washing machine rumbling away in the apartment opposite, all was quiet, and so he slowly slid the key into the lock. With a glance back at Doggie, and a nod to confirm that he was going in, Harker turned the key, keeping his palm placed squarely against the door to minimise any creaking, and then headed inside.
The apartment had an open-plan layout, with the entrance leading directly into one spacious room split into a kitchen and lounge with only a chest-high partition acting as a divider. The single door at the opposite end of the room was closed and a single thick tan-coloured curtain covered the only window, making for a gloomy if not menacing atmosphere.
Harker gingerly made his way further inside with Doggie closely in tow and, once satisfied they were alone for the moment, he tiptoed over to the connecting door and once again listened for any sounds coming from beyond.
Still nothing.
He turned the handle and allowed the door to swing back under its own weight, revealing a small bedroom with an open shower room off to the right. Once reassured there was no one lurking in the shadows, he flicked the light switch on the wall next to him.
The room lit up to reveal nothing out of the ordinary, just a bed with its white sheets neatly folded and a cheap single-file plywood chest of drawers next to it. A small darkly lacquered writing desk occupied the far corner, with a chair neatly under it and an empty plastic paper bin sitting next to it.
‘The place is empty,’ Harker observed after taking a moment to poke his head into the bathroom which, clean and tidy, was devoid of any lurking would-be attackers. Back in the main room, Doggie was drawing back the curtains and, even though he already knew the answer, Harker couldn’t help himself from calling out: ‘Chloe, are you in here?’
His cry was met with silence and, after checking under the bed and finding nothing, he moved back into the main room to see Doggie standing there aimlessly.
‘If she was here, she’s not now,’ Doggie confirmed, and bit his bottom lip in frustration as Harker scanned the room carefully. The whole place was immaculate, with no trace of dust anywhere. Clean coffee mugs lined the kitchen shelf and the cooking utensils looked shiny, almost as if they had never been used. In fact, the whole interior of the apartment was so clean it could have served as a show room. That is, except for just one thing. Poking out from behind the still open door to the flat was a thin strip of dark-brown wood running from floor to ceiling. With the door wide open it was barely visible, but the contrasting colour stood out like a sore thumb in such a colour-coordinated interior.
‘What’s that?’ Harker muttered, before making his way over to the door of the apartment and pulling it back only to reveal another entrance. It wasn’t exactly well hidden but it had been cleverly placed so that when the front door was wide open, it disguised the opening behind it.
‘Interesting,’ Doggie remarked with raised eyebrows. ‘I doubt that was part of the original design.’
Harker said nothing and instead took a step inside.
There was a tight, ninety-degree turn to the left, which meant that light from the main room was unable to penetrate the pitch darkness ahead. Wherever this narrow corridor led to, it was sure to be windowless, and Harker edged forward cautiously, sliding his palm along one wall until after a few metres it fell away. A faint draught of air swept across his face, suggesting a larger open space just ahead, and it was enough to convince him to stop dead in his tracks. He began to fumble around in the blackness for a few moments until he came across a light switch. Squinting in preparation, he flicked it and above him a single bulb lit up, bathing him in light. After a few seconds under this bright yellow hue his eyes refocused; what he saw now was as creepy as it was confusing.
The room itself was only a few metres across, with just enough room for a cheap folding wooden chair and not much else. The walls, though, were another matter altogether. To the left were fixed a jumble of colour pictures taken of what he knew to be the pages of the Codex Gigas, displaying the various texts it contained; the nearest one was the infamous image of the Devil himself. It was not unlike the usual representations of the Devil in that some of the classic details had been included like the horns and a forked tongue, but that is where any similarities ended. The face itself was green and covered with scales, yet with very human characteristics such as ears, eyes, a nose – and a row of teeth that appeared to have been filed down to points. Large red spiky talons protruded from the hands and feet as the creature sat on its haunches with arms held high above its head intimidatingly.
‘Ugly little fellow,’ Doggie remarked, having now ventured into the hidden room himself. ‘It looks like a circus midget with haemorrhoids.’
‘It’s from the Codex, and goes to confirm how obsessed Lucas was with it.’
‘I’m afraid that’s not the only thing he was obsessed with, Alex,’ Doggie replied soberly, gesturing towards the opposite wall which was covered with numerous photos of Chloe Stanton and himself. ‘Looks like he had you both under his magnifying glass for some time.’
Harker leant closer to inspect the photos and what he saw only served to fuel his fears, because it was clear that Lucas had been following them both everywhere for months. There was even a picture of Harker on the doorstep of his house, paying the pizza delivery man. It wasn’t the work of some crazy operating on the spur of the moment. This was organized and methodical. ‘Jesus, who was this guy…? And where the hell is Chloe?’
Still preoccupied with that thought, Harker turned his attention to the final wall straight ahead, and it was here that he encountered the most disturbing aspect of the entire room. A world map had been Sellotaped to its surface, on which eight pins had been placed at various locations. From each pin hung a tag with several pieces of information scrawled upon it, and tiny pictures had been attached to the individual tags.
Harker moved in closer to inspect this hodgepodge of images, trailed by Doggie, who was looking just as mystified.
‘What the hell is that?’
‘I’m not sure,’ Harker replied before pointing to a number of pins, ‘but they all have names, dates and’ – he paused to focus in on one of the attached photos – ‘dead people.’
Seven of the pins had either photos or sketches of dead people – men and women – and all with something in common. In each case the victim’s throat had been slit from ear to ear, and then the tongue had been pulled through the gap and left to hang like a glistening, crimson neck tie. In addition the bodies had been posed spread-eagled, clearly in an attempt to remove the last vestiges of dignity from the victim. In a final act of grotesquery their eyes had been burnt out, leaving nothing but blackened sockets.
‘That’s brutal,’ Doggie murmured, his nose wrinkling in disgust as he now examined all of these vile mementos. ‘Why do you suppose some are photos while the others are drawings?’
Harker quickly pointed out the details on each pin. ‘Look at the dates of their murders. Photography wasn’t invented until 1827, so these deaths go back long before that. Out of the seven pins only four have photos. Take another look.’
He gestured to each one in turn, beginning with one dated 1737 and running all the way up until 1977. Whether it was a photo or pencil sketch, each of the victims had been arranged in the same pose along with a few words detailing the location of the murder
‘What we have here are seven murders, committed in exactly the same fashion, and taking place every forty years dating back to 1737!’
The notion already had Doggie shaking his head. ‘But that’s obviously not possible. The killer would have to be almost three hundred years old!’
It was now Harker’s turn to look at his friend in disbelief. ‘I agree it makes no sense. More important still, what the hell has this got to do with the Codex? Christ, for all I know the bastard Lucas murdered Chloe and then committed suicide as an act of atonement.’
‘Don’t ever think that, Alex,’ Doggie replied sharply. ‘Now pull yourself together, young man. Chloe needs you, so stop feeling sorry for yourself and let’s figure this out.’
Doggie’s berating was just what Harker needed, and he now stood up straight and sucked in a deep lungful of musty, if oddly refreshing, air.
‘OK, let’s say Lucas was on the level and there are others in his “gang”, and they’re the ones who have Chloe. Now, they want the seven missing pages of the Codex. Why, I have no idea, but it doesn’t matter because, whatever their reasons, the reality is I need to find them.’
Harker crossed his arms and focused his attention again on the world map. ‘There are seven murders indicated on this board, and I’m looking for seven lost Codex pages… Coincidence or design?’
‘Could be either,’ Doggie replied, attempting to keep his thoughts relevant to the task at hand even though none of this was making any sense to him.
‘Could be,’ Harker replied firmly, now finding his stride. ‘But Lucas said this address would be the starting point, and the only thing that stands out on that map is the eighth pin, which is missing the details of any murder.’
‘OK…and that means?’
‘C’mon, Doggie, use your head.’ Harker was sounding more confident with every second. ‘These murders have been taking place every forty years, to the day, which means the next murder will take place tomorrow night at this location.’ He pointed to the eighth solitary pin and the handwritten time and date scrawled there in red biro. ‘Lucas may have been crazy, but he got one thing right…the timing.’
This idea definitely resonated with Doggie, but he was still looking doubtful about something. ‘Are you absolutely sure we shouldn’t inform the police?’
Harker was already shaking his head. ‘And do what? Wait twenty-four hours before I can finally fill out a missing person’s report? No. The police can’t help me…but I do have some friends who can.’
‘You mean the Templars?’ Doggie replied, suddenly looking extremely excited at the prospect. With all their wealth and connections, the Templars were seen by Doggie as the ultimate in social hierarchy and power. As a result, of course, he had been pushing to meet them since learning of their existence.
‘That’s exactly who I mean and, before you ask, no, you still can’t meet them or mention them to anybody. Not unless you want to end up dead.’ Of course, the Templars would never actually kill Doggie, but this served its purpose in keeping the dean from blabbing about things that were not his to share.
‘Yes, I know,’ Doggie growled. ‘And thank you for the umpteenth time for reminding me of that fact.’
‘Hey,’ Harker responded with upturned hands, ‘just trying to keep you alive, my friend, which is I why I need you to stay here in the UK.’
‘What…why?’ Doggie complained, not happy at the suggestion.
‘Because I have no idea what I’m getting myself into, and if it does all go pear-shaped, then I need to know I’ve someone I can trust to help me. And anyway, with Chloe’s life on the line, I’m going to need all the help I can get.’
‘Well, you would perish without me so that part is true,’ Doggie said, and then he thought about it for a moment before offering a grudging nod. ‘Fine, I’ll be waiting for your call.’
‘Thanks, Doggie… Sorry, Tom.’
The correction received an appreciative smile from the dean, who then pulled out his mobile. ‘I’ll call a cab. Where exactly are you going anyway?’
Harker leant over to extract the eighth pin while noting its exact location on the map. ‘Berlin. I’m going to Berlin to stop a murder… And I have absolutely no idea how or why!’