“Velinda.” I knocked on the study door to the sound of sobbing inside. “Velinda.” The door remained shut so I turned the knob and entered to see ‘Prinny’ slumped at her desk in tears.
“Velinda,” I said again. “It’s me, Jack. What on earth’s—”
“It’s Cyrus,” she said, raising her head. “He’s gone.”
“Gone, what do you mean?”
“I mean left. Me, the academy, everything. Run away.”
“I’m sorry,” I said, sitting down, and immediately thinking Pengelly might have been wrong about Slevin, and that Flimwell was involved with Angel’s disappearance after all. “Where… I mean how… can you tell me what happened?”
“Oh, I can. You remember the note you found in Angel’s desk.” I nodded.” That was Cyrus’s writing.”
“Yes, I know that now.”
“And he called her Iseult, Iseult I tell you.”
“I believe that was what the ‘I’ stood for yes, and the ‘T’ for Tristan was Cyrus’ name for himself.”
“Iseult’s what he called me, on our honeymoon. We were Tristan and Iseult.”
“Oh.”
“I kept the note after we spoke, I’m not sure you noticed, but I did, and—”
“I noticed.”
“Well, I challenged Cyrus straight afterwards, and he admitted it all, said he couldn’t help it, had become infatuated with Angel. We didn’t really speak after that, then this afternoon he just upped and left. Took a suitcase, took the car, took a wad of cash from the safe as well.”
“Do you know where he’s gone?”
“He didn’t say, but back up to London I suppose.”
“We must tell the police. Find him, see if he knows what’s happened to Angel.”
Velinda sat back when I said this and looked hard at me.
“He doesn’t have Angel.”
“How do you know?”
“I’m sure, Jack. From everything he said, I’m sure, and apart from anything else, he was with other people during the time she went missing.”
“She could have met him later or something, but okay,” I said, Velinda’s eyes, and everything else I knew, telling me Cyrus Flimwell probably wasn’t the abductor. “I’ll have to inform the police and the institute anyway I’m afraid, but if it makes you feel any better, we did run a check and your husband has no record of anything like this in the past.”
“Yes,” she almost spat, then lit a cigarette. “That’s what makes it worse. If he’d had a roving eye, even for schoolgirls, it would have been better.”
“It wouldn’t, would it?”
“It would to me. You see Cy actually thought he was in love with Angel.” She violently stubbed out her half-smoked cigarette (on the back of Cyrus Flimwell’s hand, I imagined she imagined), then immediately lit another. “I gave up having kids to be with him, and then he does this, I…” She began to weep again, and I passed her my handkerchief.
“I’m sorry, Velinda, but I’m going to need you in good shape this afternoon I think.”
She nodded, with a look of resignation.
“We’ve lost another eighteen pupils in the last two days by the way, Jack,” she then said. “And the staff have all left for an evening out in Truro. Claimed it was just social, but I think they’re going to discuss leaving en masse. There’s only me, Runtle, matron and the girls’ and boys’ duty teachers here right now.
“Eighteen?”
“Yes, so are you any closer to finding Angel?”
“Maybe.”
“The police haven’t a clue by the way. They all left for the weekend, just after twelve.”
“I think she’s alive, Velinda, and I think she’s nearby, somewhere in the Plantation. And if I’m right, before long we’ll be calling the police back here to look for her.”
“Oh, I hope they find her,” she said, as rain beat against the office window. “But it’ll be so hard to search in this deluge.”
“Have you seen Canon Pengelly?”
“Why yes,” she said wincing and looking up as another thunderclap sounded off, the storm now almost directly above us. “In the chapel I think, and oh, this is going to be a stormy night.”
Yes, I thought to myself, this is going to be a stormy night.
*
I entered the academy study room, a large, high-ceilinged space which had been a dining room for the old hotel (a brand-new refectory had been built for the academy as part of the overall refurbishment).
“You still haven’t finished the translation?” I asked Spider and Jonny, who were sitting in the corner, barricaded behind three tables which they had presumably pushed together.
“It’s harder than we thought, Mr Sangster,” Spider answered without looking up, he and Jonny poring over a mass of papers and books. “Isn’t it, Jonny?”
“Really hard, Mr Sangster. We have to translate the Aramaic into Koine Greek, then English. Wish Angel was here to help.”
“That’s the whole point, you dickhead,” Spider said, slapping Jonny over the back of the head. “She isn’t here. Keep going.”
“So, when will you be done then, Spider?”
He muttered something as a thunderclap, powerful enough to pierce the thick stone walls and roof of the academy and blot out any other noise, crashed around us.
“Sorry?” I shouted.
“Six o’clock, yeah?”
“Sure?”
“I think so, Mr Sangster.”
“I’ll come back then.”
*
The chapel at the academy ‘sweated antiquity’ as Sir John had once rather irreverently but very accurately said. It was small, with a central aisle, rows of oak pews either side, a stone pulpit with stairs leading up to it on the far right, and an ornate altar on a dais next to that, behind which was a disproportionately large pipe organ that was known to regularly deafen worshippers. Some walls were hung with tapestries depicting various biblical scenes, while others were covered by peeling frescoes which seemed to be (as far as my heathen eye was concerned), portraits of the disciples (at least I counted twelve of them). Above and behind the altar was a rather gruesome looking crucifix, made of brown wood except for eyes that had been painted a piercing blue, and high over that, on wooden beams where the pitched roof came to a point, hung a small bell.
“Probably makes a right racket, because it’s never rung that bell,” I remembered Runtle telling me when I’d first looked over the academy. “Clapper’s been taken out, the old vicar and the one before him never fixed it, and the new chap’s never got it fixed either”.
I lowered my gaze to see a cassocked figure knelt on the stone steps leading up to the altar.
“Afternoon, Pengelly, Velinda Flimwell said I’d find you here.”
“Sangster.” He turned his head but stayed kneeling. “I am praying for Angel.” He clutched a pewter communion chalice, its neck shaped like a crucifix, the body and outspread arms of Christ forming the stem that held the bowl.
“Have you been taking communion?”
“No. We don’t actually serve wine from this chalice, bishop doesn’t approve of it.”
“Whyever not?”
“Thinks it, how shall I say… a little flamboyant, pehaps a bit papist. Chalice was here longer than anyone can remember but nevertheless, I have to use this one for services.” He looked up at a more sober looking silver cup standing on the altar. “But this one,” he went on, clutching the crucifix chalice even tighter. “Gives me succour as I pray.”
“Can’t do any harm I suppose, praying for Angel.”
“Any news, Sangster?”
“Nothing more than when we talked at lunchtime.”
He stood up and then beckoned me to the chapel’s main door (I had entered by a separate passageway leading directly from the academy building), pointing to the stone archway above it (which most certainly did fit Sir John’s epithet of sweating antiquity).
“You’ve never really been in here, have you, Sangster.”
“I looked in a couple of times when we were organising the refurbishment, but it’s listed, I suppose you knew?”
“Of course.”
“We couldn’t touch this place because of it being listed, so never really had the need to come here to oversee any building works.”
“Well, I’ve been priest-in-charge for five years now, and I never cease to wonder at these symbols. It’s difficult to tell at a distance but look hard and you’ll see.” I squinted, eventually making out various pictograms carved into the crumbling stone.
“This, Sangster, tells the story of Jesus coming to Cornwall.”
“Is it really two thousand years old?”
“Oh no, not sure how old, but perhaps twelfth century at the most. Only thing that predates it is that bell up there.” He pointed to the roof and the underside of the bronze-coloured bell. “That’s been here since records began.”
I looked hard again and failed to see anything that would help us in the stone symbols. There was no detail in the way of the etching on the dagger, or Angel’s notebook, just vague pictures.
“I suppose you showed all this to Angel, Pengelly?”
“She looked at it once or twice, didn’t seem to get too excited. In fact…”
“Yes?”
“She said something very odd.” He looked around the church. “‘Just an echo’. That’s what she said.”
“Alright.” I looked at my watch. Five to six. “I’m going to check something out, then I’ll be back. I’m pretty sure I’m going to need your help.”
“I… I… cannot, I’m not able,” he stuttered. “I must pray again.”
*
I walked back through the connecting passage, and even there, surrounded by thick walls on all sides, could hear the thunder outside. After a minute I was standing next to Spider and Jonny.
“So, gentlemen, what have you got for me?”
“Grab a chair, Jonny,” said Spider, “for Mr Sangster.” Jonny obliged. “Now then,” Spider continued. “Like I said on the phone, we can’t believe what we’ve read. Basically, it says that Jesus’ body was brought here—”
“Spider,” I said, holding my hand up. “That’s fantastic work you’ve done to find that out, but I know all about it, and the link with Joseph of Arimathea. Is there anything you translated that might tell us where Angel is?”
Spider looked a little crestfallen at this and pushed several sheets of translated notes to one side, before Jonny spoke up.
“Oh yes, she’s—”
“Alright, Jonny, I’ll tell Mr Sangster.” Spider showed me one of the sheets. “We think the knife talks about a place here in Cornwall, close by, and, if you can believe it, a place in America.”
“America?”
“Yes. I’m sorry, but we’re pretty sure.”
“But they wouldn’t have had a word for America in Aramaic.”
“They didn’t. It talks about a great ocean, a river, and an inland sea, or maybe their word for a lake.”
“That could mean anywhere.”
“Yes, but look.” He thrust more sheets of translated notes at me. “We found this note of Angel’s…”
For the ocean that was at that time navigable; for in front of the mouth which you Greeks call ‘the Pillars of Heracles’ there lay an island which was larger than Libya and Asia together; and it was possible for travellers of that time to cross from it to the other islands and from the islands to the whole of the continent over against them which encompasses the veritable ocean…
“The Pillars of Hercules, which is…”
“I know, Spider, the Straits of Gibraltar, and before you tell me, I also know that’s a famous quote from Plato about Atlantis.” The lad looked even more crestfallen, in that way only the very young and very intelligent can when an adult displays even a little of some arcane piece of knowledge they believe to be their very own.
“Four hundred BC,” Spider added hopefully, and I could tell he wasn’t just trying to be clever and genuinely sought for appreciation of the work done, but I had no time for niceties.
“All that on a foot-long knife?”
“Not that bit, Angel had added to it in her notes. Took us ages to translate. She’d done them in the same Aramaic script, and the same Koine Greek.”
“Didn’t want anyone reading them then.” Spider shook his head, as did Jonny.
“But you must see this. It’s a place in America, I’m sure.”
“Sure, of what?”
“Look,” Spider said, showing me several sheets of notes, one of which showed a map of a lake, the outline of which was perhaps known to me. “State of Michigan, an island in Lake Superior. Isle Royale.”
“Isle Royale, Spider?”
“Yeah. We’re sure. I dunno why though.”
I remembered the book with the fold-out map in WPC Woon’s ‘academic pile’.
“This was certainly important to Angel, but did you see anything that might help us find out where she is?”
“I’m not sure, but we found this.” He held the notebook open at its centre pages, to show a sketch Angel had drawn, more a design really, of different sized cogwheels, looking like a watch with the back off. “We didn’t try to copy it, just translated the words.”
I saw a title, ‘Star Sailor’, and a note at the bottom, ‘Antikythera type mechanism to navigate the Atlantic’.
“What does Antikythera mean?”
Spider and Jonny both shook their heads, but judging by the care taken with the drawing, this mechanism, whatever ‘Antikythera’ meant, was also clearly important to Angel. Nevertheless, it still didn’t provide any clue to her whereabouts. I needed something more, something immediate.
“So, tell me what else she wrote, Spider, just the main points, because if this is what I think it is, we haven’t much time.”
“It’s in these other sheets,” said Spider, holding up more papers. “And everything points to a place near here, Bethadew Well mine. She’s actually written ‘Sepulchre of God’ next to it, but we think she means Bethadew. You know, the old place up—”
“No stop,” I said, holding up my hand in an effort to calm the almost hysterical Spider. “I know all that lad. Bethadew Well doesn’t translate to ‘Sepulchre of God’. Angel was wrong, and we have to look elsewhere.”
“It does, it does, look.” He held the notebook page up to my face and my blood ran cold as I read Angel’s words…
‘Found it, the Sepuchre of God!!! Original Cornish name Bedh Whel Duw anglicised = Bethawhealdew. Mining text book says English owners changed the name in 1790 to sound more English, moving the parts around to get Bethadew Well. Wonder if they really knew why they did it? Deep memory made them uncomfortable?’
…then remembered Morwenna’s words (‘It would have to be called Bethawhealdew to mean Sepulchre of God’).
“Where at Bethadew?” I shouted. “Where?”
“Underneath.”
That could only mean the fogou.
“Alright. Bring all of your notes, and Angel’s notebook, and the etching drawing of the dagger, and meet me out front in ten minutes by the gatehouse with them. And tell Prinny to meet me by the front door.” Lightning suddenly lit the room, then thunder banged through the windows, adding to the already deafening din of the rain. “Got all that?” Spider nodded. “Now go.”
*
Coming back to the chapel, I saw the figure of Pengelly, now almost recumbent on the altar steps. His hands were held together in prayer, his arms still clutched the chalice, his head was elevated towards the macabre crucifix above the organ, and his voice rang out, almost shouting, though sometimes barely audible above the unabated storm.
“The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want. He maketh me to lie down in green pastures, he leadeth me…”
“Pengelly.”
The canon turned to me, and I started at the sight of his face, filled with fear and dread, eyes wild, and almost devoid of reason.
“I did this, Sangster. I let the weakness of my flesh lead Angel into the clutches of Satan.”
“We need to find her, Pengelly, and most of the staff are gone, as are the police. Come on man.”
“This is all in the Lord’s hands now. We can do no more.”
“I know where she is, now come on.”
I placed my hand on his shoulder, but he merely knelt lower.
“Leave me,” he cowered. “Leave me to face my sin alone. We cannot help her now.”
I tried to drag him up to no avail, him slipping out of my grip and lurching forward to end up face down on the steps, before lifting his arms up and shouting at the crucifix.
“Take me now, Lord, a sinner, I will confess all—”
But he never got to make the confession. On the word ‘all’, every window of the church was illuminated, as lightning flashed all around. The chapel was silent again for a moment, and I waited for the thunder, but all at once there was another flash, this time accompanied by a sound that I could best recall afterwards as being like a zip fastener being done up very quickly.
“Oh,” cried Pengelly, looking up to the ceiling, which was now making a cracking sound, the wooden roof beams creaking as they split one by one. Then the entire structure began to groan, and I saw it start to collapse, first plaster landing on the floor, then pieces of wood.
“Pengelly,” I yelled. “Come back from there.”
“Take me,” the canon screamed, hands still held up towards the crucifix which itself then fell from the wall, along with the organ pipes which clanged as they landed against the stone altar.
I grabbed Pengelly’s legs and pulled, as the thunder continued, rain now beginning to find its way in through the damaged roof. A clanging sound then made me look up, and I saw the bell moving, as the framework that held it gave way. I pulled Pengelly again, dragging him back down the aisle as the belfry collapsed and the bell hit the flagstones with a metallic thud. The granite floor then screeched as it shattered into star patterned cracks, and the bell rolled, still clanging, until it came to rest next to Pengelly’s head.
“Am I taken?” he whispered as the chapel fell silent, the thunder now apparently in at least temporary respite.
“No, you’re not taken, you’re very much alive. Now get up, we have to find Angel.”
“I cannot,” he wailed, and stayed on the floor.
“Then stay here, man,” I snapped, and ran back to the passageway, looking back to see Pengelly now cradling the bell, which was bigger than it had looked hung up in the top rafters. And as I watched this wretched tableau, I saw that the rim of the bell was marked with symbols that I’d seen before.
*
“What’s happened, Jack?” shouted Velinda as I ran into the entrance hall. “I heard a crash from the chapel. Is anyone hurt? “
“No, but the bell fell down from the roof and Pengelly’s in shock.”
“Oh my goodness.”
“You should get over there though. Canon needs someone with him.”
“And you?”
“I think I know where Angel is, and I’m going there now.”
“Do you want me to call the police?”
“Er, no.” I tried to clear my mind and then think of the best thing to do. “Go straight to the chapel and help Pengelly. I’ll call them from the gatehouse.”
“Alright, Jack.”
I climbed into the car and pressed the ignition. The engine, which normally started with a rich and deep sound, began with a stutter, then revved up as I pulled away and drove down towards the gatehouse, where I saw Spider sheltering by the postern, the sheaf of papers under his arm. Slowing down, I felt the car stall, and despite my pressing the ignition several times, it failed to restart. I jumped out and ran into the lodge, where Runtle stood holding a candle, shouting to Spider to put the papers in the car boot as I went.
“Storm’s taken the electrics out, Mr Sangster,” said Runtle.
“The phone, can I use the phone?”
“That’s out as well. Phones in the main building should all work though.”
“Spider,” I shouted through the open door. “Run back and tell Prinny we couldn’t drive up there and Runtle’s phone’s out. She needs to call the police, now.”
Spider stood stock still, rain falling about him and frozen with, as he’d told me once before, ‘information overload’.
“Runtle, what’s the fastest way to walk to Bethadew. Up the road?”
“Oh no, if you’re on foot you’ll want the creekside path,” the caretaker answered, sounding for all the world as if I were asking for directions on a sunny Sunday afternoon. “That’s the best way, down to the ferry landing stage, then turn right after about a mile and when you come to those old ruins you were talking about, turn right again and up through the woods.”
“No quicker way?”
“Best way I know.”
“Look,” I said, taking him by the shoulders. “Go back and tell Mrs Flimwell to call the police and send them to Bethadew mine now. Okay?”
“No need to push me, Mr Sangster, I’m on my way.”
“And take Spider here,” I said, looking at the still catatonic youth.
Runtle put his arm through Spider’s, turned the staring lad around then began to march him back up the drive. I watched them go, then walked out through the postern and looked down the road towards the landing stage. The tarmac was awash and seemed like a less than sure bet to walk down given what was at stake.
*
“Never mind that way,” came a voice from behind. I turned to see, through the almost solid curtain of rain, the bedraggled form of the tramp standing behind me, wooden staff in one hand and an old-fashioned oil lantern in the other. I jumped, having heard no sound nor seen any sign of his coming. “You got to go, now, Mister, save the girl if you can.”
“We should wait for the police.”
“No time, Mister. Even as we speak, Angel’s life hangs by a thread, now come.” He pointed with his staff to a gap in the trees on the other side of the road. “There’s a path here’ll take us where we need to go, much quicker than the path by the water.” With that he hobbled across and disappeared into the wood, calling me to come with him.
After an unsure backward look at the still-open postern door, I gave a shrug and followed the tramp, who, despite his limp and the downpour, moved quickly and easily through the trees, so that I struggled to keep up. He stopped and turned every now and then, beckoning me on, before continuing through the undergrowth. In my struggle to keep up I began to understand how this old man could apparently appear and disappear so easily when he wanted to.
The tramp’s ‘path’, as I complained to myself while scrambling after him, was really no more than a vague (and by the undergrowth on it, little used), track. This made passing through the tangled scrub oaks and steep slopes of the Plantation, which would have been challenging enough in broad daylight, difficult to the point that I nearly turned back more than once, with only the calls of my guide and the dim glow of his lantern to persuade me otherwise. But I didn’t turn back, and quite quickly found myself close by the ruined stone jetty, where the waters of the usually sheltered creek, with the tide now at full flood, could be seen through the trees, writhing in the wind and beating rain.
“This is it, Mister, this is the way he brought her,” the tramp shouted as the sky thundered and the trees were momentarily lit like skeleton bones by an almost simultaneous lightning bolt.
“The police found no trace and there was no way out of the school, how could he bring Angel here?”
“Ah, he’s a clever one, that priest,” said the tramp, tapping the side of his nose. “And it’s the clever ones that are easiest caught. Never think anyone else is as clever as they are.”
I looked around at the lost walls of the buildings and the stone quayside, lit by the glow of the lantern. There was surely no place to hide.
“So, you say she’s here?”
“No, Mister, she’s not here. Got to go on, path that leads up to the castle.” He levelled his staff towards the steep track leading inland from the disused jetty, the track that I’d descended only a few hours before. “She’s in danger I tell you. I heard the bell toll just before.”
“Oh, you mean the chapel bell. No, that was lightning, it struck the—”
“Bell only tolls when it wants to.”
“But—”
“It’s underneath the castle you’ll find the girl.”
“Angel’s buried there you mean,” I said, looking in the direction he was pointing, to see, as far as I could tell in the shadows and rain, and disoriented despite being here only a few hours before, the broken chimney of the Bethadew Well mine. “You mean buried alive?”
“I mean run. Save her if you can.”
“Of course, but…” I looked around to see the lantern left balanced on the stone parapet of the jetty, and nothing else. I panicked at being alone. “Come back, it might need two of us, you brought me here,” I shouted into the black woods.
Nothing but the sound of the wind and rain in the trees came back, and after several minutes of calling, I despaired, sensing by the lack of echo that the surrounding woods were immediately absorbing any sound I had hoped would carry. I picked up the lantern and started walking as the tramp had indicated, climbing up the track to Bethadew. As I walked, I counted myself lucky the track was at least narrow enough that the stunted scrub oaks either side could meet overhead and shelter me from the worst of the weather, and within a few minutes arrived, slightly breathless, at the base of the ruined pump house.
‘Underneath’, that was what the tramp had said, and that was what Spider’s notes had said. ‘Underneath’.
I looked around, the place seeming impenetrable in the fading light. Brambles guarded the walls, the interior of the derelict engine house was clear of any hidden rooms or entrances, and the single pit within just as full of gravel and concrete as it had been in the light of day before the storm.
I walked around the building, swinging the lantern in the vague hope of casting light on concealed steps, a trapdoor, a niche in the walls, or some other way that might lead underneath the mine, but to no avail.
Somehow, the way to Angel must be the fogou, I thought as I came finally to the entrance, with its iron grill and council sign looking as immovable as ever. I put down my lamp and placed my hands against the bars of the grill, shaking it in vain.
*
“Don’t move, Sangster.” I felt a blunt object press into my back and looked over my shoulder to see the face of Slevin, smiling at me from under a broad brimmed hat. “Now walk over there, no sharp moves, I think you know what this is in my hand. I’m not just pleased to see you.”
“Where’s Angel?” I shouted.
“Oh, you’ll be pleased to see her shortly. Now stop and turn around.” I did as instructed to see him standing in an almost floor-length leather coat, gun in one hand and canvas tote bag in the other, rain falling off his hat brim in torrents.
“You won’t be able to cover this up you know, Slevin, whatever you do to me. The police know I’m here and they’ll find you.”
“Oh, I don’t want to cover it up,” he laughed. “Quite the opposite. Just want to get away.”
“I thought you were from the Vatican, so—”
“Yes, I am,” he laughed again. But that’s not who I really work for. My real bosses have a vested interest in all this going public, now walk, Sangster.” He jerked the gun towards the stone archway.
“But it’s blocked by a metal grill.”
“Not if you know how,” he laughed again. “Now place your hands on the top of the two end bars on the left, that’s right, at the very top.” I felt the cold metal and waited for more instructions. “Just stay there and keep your fingers tight on those bars.” He edged over to the other side, put his bag on the ground, then held the top of the righthand-most bar. “Now on the count of three, I want you to pull downwards. One, two, three…”
The grill fell away in my hand, surprisingly easily, both Slevin and I jumping back as it clanged to the ground. I fell against him, and he quickly turned, holding the gun level, and without noticing that a very large iron key was protruding from his coat pocket.
“Whoa,” he said, looking upwards to steady his aim, so that I managed to grab the key and slip it in my pocket unseen. “Don’t come close like that.”
“Just an accident, Slevin, easy with that thing.”
“For sure, Sangster, now Angel’s inside.”
“She’s been there too long. We must get her out.”
“That’s not my problem,” he grinned. “Tide’s up and I’ve got a boat to catch.”
‘Boat’ I noticed he said, not ‘ship’. A submarine?
“You’re in the pay of the Soviets?”
“Very clever. Been a lot of sea monster sightings in the last week, haven’t there?”
“But what do they, I mean you… want from all this?”
“Oh, the Kremlin’s very keen to see all this come out. The resurrection of Christ a sham, Western values a sham. I’ve got photos, documents, even a bone from that tomb in there.” He laughed. “You get the picture, Sangster.”
“You’re a Catholic priest.”
“I don’t owe the church anything. Ruined my mother’s life, sent her to a workhouse for having a child out of wedlock, and then sent me to be brought up by Jesuits. Give me the boy and I’ll give you back the man, that’s what they say.”
“I heard that same thing the other day.”
“Well in my case it was give me the boy and I’ll do what I like to him.”
For a moment after he said this, despite all the worry about Angel, and with Slevin pointing a gun at me, I was suddenly filled with a vision of this long-haired priest as a boy, alone and undefended against who knew what. This also made me think that any compassion or conscience had been taken from Slevin long ago, so that he probably wouldn’t hesitate to kill me, Angel, or anyone else if it suited him.
“But I don’t see it,” I finally said, hoping he wouldn’t sense my fear. “Despite that, you trained all your life for the priesthood, went to the Vatican.”
“If you want to get even, first get close.”
“But the betrayal of your country.”
“Well, Ireland has no tolerance, and even so-called liberal England isn’t exactly kind to a man of, well, my inclinations.”
“It’s getting better, you must see that.”
“Well, this isn’t my country anyway. British soldiers did things to my ancestors in Ireland a kid wouldn’t do to the next-door neighbour’s cat when nobody’s looking.”
“You used to torture cats, Slevin?”
“Look,” he said, after pausing for a moment. “I’m not here to be, what do they say, ‘psychoanalysed’, and though it’s always nice to chat, I really must be getting on. Now walk.”
“But that passage is a blind end.”
“Course not. My Russian mates supplied the gear and we dug it out easily enough, so that now a few carefully placed boulders behind the iron grill here look fine to anyone passing by.”
He pointed to a pile of such boulders by the sides of the passage, and then poked the gun in my back again and we walked down the rock-lined tunnel, me in front with the lantern, eventually turning a bend to see a wooden framework with a block and tackle slung under it. Next to this were shovels, a pickaxe and a pile of rock and earth, dug I assumed, from a round hole in the floor beneath the block and tackle, about a yard deep and the same wide. Inside the hole was a circular stone slab embedded with a rusting iron ring.
“Grab the end of that boom and heave, Sangster.” He pressed the gun barrel against my spine. “Go on, heave it.”
I heaved as requested and, slowly but surely, the slab lifted, and like the iron grill, more easily than I expected, although the ring looked ready to give way at any time.
“Sure,” said Slevin, as the slab was raised above head height to the ring’s creaking. “I’ve been worrying about that ring holding up each time I’ve done this. Doesn’t look too good, does it?”
“What now?”
“Just take your little tilly lamp and climb down,” he said, tying up the beam. “Then you’ll find a ladder.”
I swung the lamp into the hole, then lowered myself down to the aperture, where sure enough, a metal ladder was leaned against the lip.
“Now down you go, and don’t fall, it’s a way to the bottom.”
I turned and placed my foot on the first rung, hearing a moan from inside the blackness.
Angel!
“Why did you keep her alive for so long?” I whispered, my heart pounding at the realisation the girl I’d sought for so long was alive at all.
“I wanted more information, but she wasn’t giving. And I’m not a murderer, Sangster.”
“You will be if you leave us down here.”
“Thought you said the police knew where you were. Now go on, we haven’t got all night.”
I stepped downwards, coming to the floor, perhaps twenty feet below, when the groan of stone against iron slowly began to pervade the atmosphere.
“Looks like that ring’s finally given way,” Slevin shouted to me as the slab crashed down into place, sealing Angel and me inside.
*
“Angel Blackwood, this is a friend. Is that you?”
“It is,” came a whisper in the dark. I held the lantern high, and there she lay, on the floor next to an oblong stone structure that dominated the centre of the chamber. On the walls, which were smooth hewn rock, were numerous inscriptions, in the same style as the notes Angel had made, and the markings on the dagger and the bell. More disturbingly, there were also statues, standing silently by the walls and clearly of great antiquity, with the stone cracked and angles smoothed, by age rather than weathering. And they were life-sized figures; a weeping woman, a man kneeling with outstretched arms, another with an open book, and yet another with what might have been a fishing net over his arm. In one corner, a hook-nosed man in a full-length robe stood with his hands together, head bowed in prayer.
Angel herself had her head raised, but otherwise was barely moving. She lay, almost corpse like, in her torn skirt and blood-stained blouse, the rank smell of the clothes, along with urine and excrement stains, confirming if I needed such, the duration and confines of her incarceration. Only a metal flask next to her, and some scattered bread crusts on the nearby floor gave any clue that she might have been given sustenance or otherwise cared for during that time, so that I feared for Angel’s survival.
Looking at her feet first, I saw one ankle was clearly sprained, swollen twice the thickness of the other (she was wearing what had once been white ankle socks, one of which was now stretched tight, cutting into the skin around the enlarged joint). Her upper body was cruelly bound with thick chains, attached to iron rings sunk into the flagstones, each secured with a massive padlock. Then I looked into Angel’s face, and even in the half-light of the chamber, I knew this was someone different.
‘Quite remarkable’ as Pengelly had said.
The girl’s features, while smeared with dirt and tears, were certainly as beautiful as they appeared in the police photo and when I’d briefly seen Angel around the school, but it was her almost saucer-like green eyes, and the sense of wisdom behind them, that took their hold on me. I tried (and failed in that moment), to avoid the feeling that Angel saw everything, missed nothing, felt intimate connections between the most insignificant and the most profound things, and with that had nothing less than access to an inspiration that was perhaps divine. In all my years as a convinced atheist, looking at Angel that night in the sepulchre was the nearest I had come to a religious experience. I shook myself, held up the key I’d snatched from the Monsignor and set to work on the locks.
Chains now discarded, I held Angel in my arms, body limp with fatigue and fear, hair and skin matted with who knew what? I laid her down as gently as I could, back against the side of the stone tomb, then offered water from the flask and, as she sipped it, looked again at the girl’s darkly stained face and torn clothing.
“I’m—” I began, but she cut me off.
“I know who you are, Mr Sangster, and I can guess how you found me.”
“Oh, you do, and you can, can you?”
“Yes.”
“Well… er,” I stuttered, never thinking to doubt her. “Did he… did he do anything to you, Angel?”
“No,” she said immediately. “And I wanted him to, that’s why I came here. I wanted him, not as a girl with a crush, but as a woman who wants a man. The priest though, well he didn’t want me. Not like that.”
‘She’s a true genius, Jack, but also a teenage girl with all the normal urges and uncertainties that go with it’, I recalled Velinda Flimwell saying. And knowing what I did of the Monsignor, I could easily understand why he was able to manipulate an infatuated Angel whilst remaining entirely immune to her charms.
“So, once he’d found this place, why did Slevin keep you here?”
“He couldn’t exactly let me go.”
“No, I mean, you know… alive for all this time.”
“He wanted more information. I didn’t give it to him.”
“There’s more?”
“Oh yes, he hasn’t guessed the half of it.” She laughed a little, then winced in pain. “And he needed to wait until tonight to be picked up.”
“In a submarine, he told me.” She nodded.
“Does anyone know we’re here, apart from Slevin that is?”
“I’m afraid not,” I replied, knowing that even the best of white lies likely wouldn’t work with Angel. “I came quickly. It was an old man.”
“The tramp?”
“Yes, he said I should come quickly, showed me a short cut through the woods.”
“He would do that,” she said flatly. “He’d need someone else, someone he felt was right, like you, to enter the sepulchre. He’d think it wouldn’t be right to enter himself.”
“The school has called the police though.” I tried to say this brightly. “So perhaps they’ll find us.”
“They weren’t able to before, so they won’t be able to now. Slevin will have covered his tracks and yours.” She thought for a moment. “And even though the tramp probably guesses we’re stuck here, he won’t tell the police, or anyone else for that matter.” She said this with a finality that made me despair. Would two more bodies, both starved to death, be added to the count of this sepulchre?
“Then we must wait and hope, Angel,” I said flatly.
“Oh no, there’ll be a way out. Anywhere you can get into, you can get out of.”
‘Try asking a lobster in a lobster pot’ I almost said but thought better of it. Somehow, in this girl’s presence, all of my thoughts seemed crass and childish, and I suddenly felt the truth behind Pengelly’s comment.
‘She’s just quicker.’
“I’ve been watching since I was chained up. Each time Slevin puts the slab back in place when he leaves, there’s a breeze, fresh air, can you feel it?”
I sniffed. Yes, there was a hint of a draught.
“Is there another way in, Angel, or out?”
“No, the air’s coming through the edge of the stone covering.” She pointed up at the roof. “The surround’s been worn away over countless years, so the stone slab now rests on the thinnest of ledges.”
“It’s still got to weigh near on a ton though.”
“Exactly, and that will work in our favour.”
“How?”
“If we can scratch away at the stone on the right side of the ledge, just a little, that slab will come crashing in.”
“Won’t doing that just wedge it further down as it slips?”
“No, the edges of the opening have been worn so that only a few protruding bits of the ledge on the right are keeping the slab from falling. It will crash right through.”
“But this is granite. I’ve a steel penknife, but that won’t work and anyway it’s too small. I’m sorry, there’s nothing we can possibly use to scrape that will be big enough or hard enough?”
Silence followed, and I guessed Angel had resigned herself to the hopelessness of our situation.
“This is how we’ll do it,” she suddenly said. “There’s a bag under those stones in the corner.” The way she spoke, sure and deliberate even though her voice was weak, made me realise I had guessed wrong. Angel was merely calculating everything that needed to be done.
I lifted the lantern high, its light letting the statues cast grotesque shadows onto the walls behind them, then stepped carefully towards the corner where sure enough, behind the hooked-nosed saint, a loose pile of stones could be seen.
“Under here, Angel?”
“Yes, my backpack.”
I set the lantern down and scrabbled to remove the stones, eventually feeling canvas.
“Got it.”
“Bring it to me.”
I sat down next to Angel and handed her the bag, which she unbuckled.
“I knew from the outset what the Monsignor was going to do once I’d shown him what he wanted, I just didn’t want to admit it to myself,” she said as she put her hand inside, pulling out a sackcloth bundle. “So, I hid the bag when I first came here with him. Slevin was so caught up with the tomb and the inscriptions on the walls he didn’t notice me put it under the pile of stones. Then, when he locked me up, I still didn’t tell him about this…”
She unravelled the sackcloth and held up a metal blade about a foot long. I drew breath, knowing immediately this was the dagger, the bronze knife that Pengelly was so convinced held the key to the fate of the Christian church, and the modern chemical composition of which had so surprised Professor Polkinghorne. I watched the light from the lantern flame (which would fail soon I was sure), catch the dull metal, bringing out an almost greenish hue, especially on the raised edges of the numerous symbols etched onto the blade and handle.
“Why is this knife so important, Angel?”
“It is of a special metal, and the making is unknown to us today. Hard like a diamond when cold, soft as clay to fashion when hot.”
“It’s modern, Angel, a replica from America.”
She smiled and nodded, stroking the blade thoughtfully. “No, it really is very old, and these symbols guard a great secret. That’s why I couldn’t let Slevin have it.”
“And what is that great secret that—”
“No,” she almost shouted, voice now very weak but still defiant. “Forget secrets. Right now, this knife is important because it will get us out of here. Now please, Mr Sangster, just climb the ladder, start chipping away at the weak part of the ledge, and the knife will do the rest.” She passed me the dagger then slumped back against the tomb, eyes half closed.
I stood, lifted the metal ladder, and leaned it back against the wall at an angle that would let me reach up to the side of the slab. Then, taking the lantern and knife in one hand, I climbed, looking down and almost falling as the interior of the tomb came into view. The bottom was much lower than the surrounding stone sides (which were in truth just a parapet surrounding a deep pit) and strewn with the unmistakable shapes of bones. Many were scattered at random, but there were some, such as ribs and long bones like femurs, still arranged as they would have been in life, and a white rounded orb at one end was surely a human skull.
I steadied myself and, hooking the lantern on the end of the ladder, began to scrape at the granite with the dagger.
Angel was right, the blade did cut the stone, in a way I wouldn’t have thought possible, grinding the solid granite to dust as I moved the knife back and forth. Spurred on by the sound of the slab groaning, I scraped harder, bringing down more dust and feeling the slab shift, once, twice, and then a third time. The ledge then cracked, and the slab fell away, knocking me backwards and crashing against the tomb, shattering the stone lid, the noise echoing around my head until I fell into darkness.
“Mr Sangster,” I heard Angel say. “Mr Sangster, are you alright?”
I opened my eyes to see the girl, pale faced and wiping away blood from my brow with her sleeve.
“You fell when the slab came down. If you can walk, we can climb out.”
I looked upwards, allowing my blurred vision to settle for a moment, to see the square entrance in the roof was now a gaping hole.
“Can you walk, Mr Sangster?”
I pushed myself up against the wall and took a step forward.
“Yes, just.” I gave a slight laugh. “I’m supposed to be looking after you.”
“We must leave this place; I don’t like it here.” She took the dagger, which was lying next to me, and wrapped it with the sackcloth before placing it back into her bag.
“You go first, Angel,” I said, pointing to the ladder. She climbed slowly up, every rung clearly painful and almost beyond her strength, and I followed, still unsteady myself from the concussion. Despite this, within less than a minute we were safely in the rock passage.
“Come on, Angel,” I said, as she paused and stared back down into the now darkened sepulchre which had been her dungeon for so many days. I thought at first she was perhaps trying to rid herself of the fear of the place, facing back at it now she was free. Then I wondered when, for the most fleeting of moments, I could have sworn a smile passed across Angel’s lips, a knowing but enigmatic smile, perhaps triumphant.
“Mr Sangster, promise me something, please?”
“If I can.”
“Don’t tell them I have the dagger.”
“Who do mean by ‘them’?”
“Anyone. It will be for the best. Oh,” she whispered. “And burn all my notes.”
I wasn’t quite sure why but felt that somehow what Angel wanted would be for the best, so just nodded my agreement. She nodded back, turned away from the sepulchre entrance, then held tight on my arm. Supporting each other like this, we walked slowly, the noise of raindrops growing louder as we came to the fogou entrance, where I saw that the pile of boulders had been replaced. Swinging the lantern and peering through gaps between the boulders, I also saw that the iron grille was back in situ.
Slevin could have made his escape and let the authorities know where we were but had chosen to leave Angel and me to our fate, concealed, and Slevin had done his work well. Anyone passing, including the police, wouldn’t see us unless we could somehow shout out and be heard, which wouldn’t be easy, given the ceaseless noise of the rain and the ongoing thunderstorm. I gulped, remembering Pentreath’s comment about the dogs.
‘Will still usually pick up a scent, unless it’s raining heavily of course, then they can’t’.
The only way out was to dig.
I grabbed the stones and pushed, but after several frantic minutes, it became clear that the way those boulders were arranged meant that they could only be removed from the outside.
“Don’t leave me here,” said Angel, now slumped against me. “I can’t be alone. Don’t leave me.”
“I won’t, and I can’t get out anyway,” I said. “We’ll stay in here together, then try again when the storm dies down.” I looked at her face, now ashen white, and wondered whether she would last that long, and with my own head cut and throbbing, and almost unusable bruised legs, whether I was anyway fit to raise the alarm if someone did happen by. “Or until someone comes,” I added for comfort. “Whichever is first.” I gently removed Angel’s arm from mine and went to help her sit down, but she stopped me.
“No, there’s a way we can get help.”
“How?”
“That jerrycan, by the block and tackle.”
“What jerrycan?”
“The one Slevin carries, with the liquid that he uses to cover his tracks.”
“Won’t it—”
“Just get it,” she said sharply. “While we still have a flame in the lantern.”
“You’ll be okay here?”
“Yes, now go.”
I limped back, waving the lantern in front of me, seeing nothing at first, and then behind some sacking a glint, and there it was, a green can standing by the opening to the sepulchre. Angel was right.
I grabbed the handle, the can feeling surprisingly heavy in my already weakened hand, then stumbled slowly back to the rock covered entrance, where Angel now sat. Her face, if possible, was now even whiter than when I had left her a few minutes earlier.
“Was it heavy?” was all she said.
“Yes, how did you know it would be there?”
“Slevin’s gone now, so he’s no need to cover his tracks anymore. And if it’s heavy all the better. That means the can’s full, so all we need to do is make a fuse.” I felt in my coat pocket and pulled out a handkerchief.
“This do?”
“No, it’s cotton. Will burn in a flash, either blow us up or go out before the flame gets to the can.” She looked downwards at herself. “Now then, I’m sorry, Mr Sangster, but I have to—”
“What are you doing?” I shouted, taking an involuntary step back when she began to unzip what was left of her skirt.
“Making a fuse,” she answered, taking the torn garment, and rolling it into a tight sausage of material. “This skirt is acrylic. Will burn slowly if I soak it in the liquid, now roll it up and put it into the spout of the jerrycan.” I took the material sausage from her and unscrewed the top of the can, eyes stinging immediately as the liquid inside began to evaporate in my face. I plugged the spout.
“Now what?”
“We place the can behind the boulders,” she said, pulling herself unsteadily to her feet. “Light the fuse, then go back down the rock passage until it goes off.”
“Alright,” I said, watching her in the lantern light, now only dressed in blouse, pants and shoes. “But for heaven’s sake take my oilskin first, Angel, you’ll catch your death, and anyway…” I pulled off the yellow smock and held it out, seeing the nine-tailed fish motif on Angel’s ankle. “I can’t have you sitting like that all night.”
“I am sixteen you know.”
“Never mind that.”
She took the oilskin and silently pulled it over her shoulders, watching me intently as I set the jerrycan down, making sure it was as close to the front of the archway as possible while still out of the rain’s reach. Then I took the lantern and undid the clasp, opening the guard and manoeuvring the precious flame towards the end of the makeshift fuse.
But just as I went to light the material, a lightning flash must have rent the sky as the spaces between the boulders were suddenly edged in blue, matched by deafening multiple thunderclaps. Whether from the surprise of the noise itself or an actual shock from the sodden, electrically charged air, I couldn’t tell but, either way, I reeled backwards, knocking the lantern as I went, which tipped on its side, oil dripping out and catching alight. After a brief flare, the passageway darkened, lit only by the remaining oil glowing on the ground, which could never have been used to light the makeshift fuse. I felt my legs buckle and cursed myself that our last hope of raising an alarm was extinguished, then I saw Angel, standing over me and smiling.
“I think you’d better let me do it,” she said, holding up a small object in her hand that I recognised as the matchbook from the Cassandra Arms. “You dropped this on the floor when you pulled out your hanky.”
“Did I?”
“Yes, and I picked it up, now go back down the passage, quickly.”
I got up on my knees and began to crawl, looking back to see the flare of a match, the skirt material fuse catch light, and Angel begin to stumble after me. Pulling myself upright I took her arm, and we rounded the corner together. Then, without any kind of a cue, we both turned away from the entrance and placed our hands over our ears.
I waited like that for what seemed an eternity, eyes shut as tightly as the palms of my hands were pressed over my ears. Then, through closed lids, I sensed the flash behind me, heard a crashing noise and felt almost intolerable force on my back from the blast, which threw me forward, as stones hit my legs repeatedly. Angel, too weak to stand against it, pressed hard into my chest as rock, wind, fire, and noise flew down the passage. Then, as quickly as it had come, the burning maelstrom subsided, leaving us clinging together in a bright glow coming from the direction of the stone archway.
“Angel,” I mouthed, ears ringing so that I wasn’t sure what I (or she) could and couldn’t actually hear.
“That’s done it,” I heard her say, almost, it seemed, in slow motion.
“Done it?” I felt my senses returning as I spoke.
“Yes,” she mouthed back, pulling away from me and pointing towards the glow. “Slevin’s fluid’s so volatile it will have split that iron grill into a thousand pieces and sent up a plume of flame through those rocks a hundred feet into the sky. Someone’s bound to come now.”
“Then let’s go and wait by the archway.” I offered my hand, before feeling my legs give way again, the pain from multiple rock hits now kicking in. She steadied my waist with her arm, leaned up, then kissed me on the cheek.
“Second time tonight,” I said, trying not to groan with the growing aches I was feeling all over, especially in my ribs as she pressed against me. “What’s that for?”
“It’s another thank you, Mr Sangster. Not just for saving me tonight, but for everything.”