4
Eddie departed the hotel the next morning without
breakfast or even a word, leaving Nina in a bad mood. She was still
mad at him – and Larry – for their sheer childishness.
Her outfit from the
previous night was on a chair; she folded the skirt and blouse to
return them to her suitcase. The creased business card dropped to
the floor. She glowered at it, then found her wallet and slipped it
inside. Amongst the phone numbers was Larry’s home; though she had
no particular desire to talk to him, she might still want to speak
to Julie, if only to apologise again.
But for now she had
work to do. Though she had spoken to the trustees of Glastonbury
Tor from New York, the hastiness of the arrangements meant she
wanted to check that all was in order before setting out. She
started making calls.
Half an hour later,
everything was confirmed. Nina tied her hair back in a ponytail and
was gathering her belongings when her phone rang. Eddie? No, Macy.
‘Hello?’
‘Hi, Nina!’ From the
background noise, Macy was apparently in a car, and going at
considerable speed.
‘Hey, Macy. Where are
you?’
‘On the freeway. M3,
I think it’s called. I’m on my way to you.’
‘Did you bring either
of the statues?’
‘I’ve got both of
them! Mr Penrose persuaded Dr Assad to let the Egyptian one go on
vacation, and your friend at Interpol – Mr Jindal? He said yes
right away about the other one. Are you still in this Bournemouth
place?’
‘Yes, I’m at the
hotel.’ Nina gave her the postcode.
‘Okay,’ Macy said
after entering it into the satnav, ‘it says I’m seventy-five miles
from you. Also says it’ll take an hour twenty-five to get there,
but pshht! I can do better than that.’ The engine note
rose.
‘There’s no rush,
Macy,’ Nina told her. ‘They’re not expecting us there until
lunchtime.’
‘No problem. You and
Eddie can show me round England first.’
‘Eddie’s not coming
today.’
‘No? Huh. Why
not?’
‘Personal reasons,’
was the only answer Nina felt like giving. ‘I’ll see you
soon.’
‘Where’s Nina today?’
asked Nan.
She and Eddie were on
a clifftop road overlooking the sea, Bournemouth’s pier jutting
into the English Channel to the west. He was pushing her along in a
wheelchair, an oxygen cylinder on its back connected to her breath
mask; though unhappy about the enforced helplessness of her
situation, for now she had resigned herself to it. ‘She’s gone to
Glastonbury, Nan,’ he told her. ‘Some archaeological
thing.’
‘Oh, I see. Why
haven’t you gone with her?’
He was still
simmering from the previous night, but kept it to himself. ‘Because
you wanted me to take you out for a walk,’ he said instead. ‘So
here I am!’
‘But what if
something happens to her?’
‘Like
what?’
‘I don’t know, but
things always seem to happen to you two. Like the last time you
were here, and the Imax got blown up.’ She pointed at a tower crane
inshore of the pier, marking the site where a group of Russian
mercenaries had come to a fiery end. ‘They had to demolish it, you
know. Which was marvellous, it was a hideous building! But I do
worry.’
‘Well, there’s
nothing to worry about at the moment. Far as I know, we haven’t
upset any cults, there aren’t any ancient civilisations somebody
wants to keep secret and nobody’s trying to kill us.’
‘That’s as may be,
but I can’t help it. And I’m sure Nina would feel better with you
there.’ They continued along the road for a short while before Nan
spoke again. ‘What are you going to do today if Nina’s not here,
then?’
‘You make it sound
like I can’t do anything without her permission.’
‘You know what I mean
– you’re a couple, you usually do things together.’
He hadn’t actually
thought any further ahead than what he was now doing. ‘I dunno.
Maybe spend the afternoon with you and Holly and
Lizzie.’
‘Holly’s gone out
with her friends.’ She looked back at him with a knowing little
smile. ‘But I’m sure you and Elizabeth will have lots to talk
about.’
‘Yeah, right.’ His
relationship with his older sister was brittle enough at the best
of times, and since she would certainly have called their father
for a report on the previous night, Eddie didn’t doubt that she
would have plenty to say on the matter. ‘But I don’t want to just
abandon you.’
‘Oh, don’t be silly!
You don’t have to hang around all day with an old goose like me.
There must be other people you can see while you’re here. What
about your friend, the Scottish gentleman?’
‘Mac?’ Nan had met
him on a couple of occasions, most recently a party to celebrate
Eddie and Nina’s first wedding anniversary.
‘Yes, him. He was
very charming. Where does he live?’
‘London.’
‘Well, that’s less
than two hours away on the train. You should call
him.’
Eddie considered it.
‘You know, I think I will.’
‘You see? Your old
nan still knows what’s best. You should always find the time to
catch up with your friends – you never know when you’ll see them
next.’ She pointed again, this time to a scenic overlook. ‘Oh,
Edward, can you take me over there? It’s one of my favourite
spots.’
At the height of the
summer holiday season the clifftop was thronged with tourists, but
people were good-natured enough to clear a space for an old lady in
a wheelchair. ‘Will you help me up?’ she asked Eddie.
‘You’re supposed to
stay in the chair, Nan.’
‘I’m not a cripple,
Edward. Come on, give me a hand.’ She pushed herself from the
seat.
Reluctantly, Eddie
helped her to her feet, aware how light and fragile she felt in
contrast to the firm and busy figure from his childhood. It was
evidently a struggle, as she took several heavy breaths and forced
back a cough, but she managed to stand and lean against the fence.
‘Thank you. Oh, look at that! Isn’t it lovely?’
It was indeed quite a
sight. The air was clear, providing a panoramic view along the
coast to Poole Harbour and beyond. The sea glittered under the noon
sun, the long beach dotted with hundreds of sunbathers. Seagulls
drifted lazily overhead, gliding on the warm rising air. ‘Yeah, it
is,’ Eddie agreed, the view lifting his mood.
Nan regarded it in
silence for some time, taking the sun on her face, before
eventually lowering herself back into the chair. Eddie helped her
sit. She coughed again, harder, then cleared her throat. ‘I’m glad
I got to see it again. Especially with you. I do like the sea. You
know, I’ve told Elizabeth that when I go, that’s where I want my
ashes to be scattered.’
Eddie didn’t like the
new turn in the conversation at all. ‘You can see it again whenever
you want, Nan. And I’ll be back to see it with you before too long,
don’t you worry.’
‘Oh, I’m not worried
about me, Edward. I’ve had a good run. But your old nan is . . .
well, starting to fall apart.’ She tapped the oxygen mask. ‘I don’t
want to hang around if I have to be tubed up in some hospital. I’d
rather just fall asleep and never wake up.’
He had heard her say
similar things before, but always jokily. This time, though, it was
almost in resignation. ‘Don’t talk like that, Nan. You’ll be around
for a long time yet.’
She smiled up at him.
‘You’re a good lad, Edward, thank you. But I’ve done everything I
wanted. I’ve got grandchildren, I’ve got great-grandchildren, and
about the only thing I still want is to see you and Nina give me
another one.’
‘Not sure when
that’ll be,’ said Eddie, ‘but if that’s what it takes to make sure
you don’t go anywhere, then I’ll see what we can do.’
Another smile behind
the mask. ‘That’s nice. But it’s your world now. Nobody should stay
around past their time.’
Her words made
Eddie’s throat tighten as though he was being choked. He looked
away, following his grandmother’s gaze across the peaceful
sea.
Nina didn’t need the
satellite navigation system of Macy’s rented Range Rover Evoque to
tell her how far they were from their destination. The tiered hump
of Glastonbury Tor, the ruined tower of a medieval church atop the
green hill, stood out for miles on the plain of farmland
surrounding it. ‘There it is.’
‘Good,’ Macy replied.
‘I didn’t know driving in England would be so stressy.’ After being
stuck behind a slow-moving horsebox for several miles, she had
finally lost patience and blasted past it on a near-blind corner,
to Nina’s armrest-clutching dismay.
‘Because of being on
the wrong side?’
‘That, and these
roads.’ She jabbed a manicured finger at the winding lane ahead.
‘I’ve used Scotch tape that’s wider! And what’s with all the twists
and turns? Did the Brits lose straight line technology after the
Romans left?’
Nina smiled. ‘Well,
not much farther now. And I think you’ll find Glastonbury relaxing.
I know I did.’
‘Didn’t you get
chased and shot at?’
‘I meant apart from
that!’
Before long, they
arrived at the Tor. There had been changes since Nina’s previous
visit; following her discovery of King Arthur’s tomb beneath the
hill, a large part of the southeastern face was now fenced off,
portable cabins acting as headquarters and labs for the ongoing
dig.
They were met by the
archaeological team’s leader, Dr William Barley. The elderly man
wore thick round glasses and had a pipe clenched between his teeth.
‘Dr Wilde, welcome. A great honour to have you here.’
‘Thank you,’ Nina
replied. ‘This is my assistant, Macy Sharif.’
‘Very good to meet
you,’ said Barley. ‘Now, Dr Wilde, you said your visit was a
potential security matter?’
‘That’s right,’ said
Nina, removing the case containing the two statuettes from the
Evoque, as well as a larger one which she presented to Macy, who
stared at it uncomprehendingly before realising she was expected to
carry it and grudgingly taking it. ‘The IHA came into possession of
artefacts that may have a connection to Glastonbury.’
Barley sucked wetly
on his pipe stem. ‘Not sure what to think about this cloak and
dagger business you have at the IHA. I can understand keeping
things quiet to stop treasure hunters, but it’s hard to imagine how
anything found in an archaeological site could pose any risks to
global security.’
‘You’d be surprised,’
said Nina. ‘Can we see the tomb?’
‘Of course. This
way.’ Barley plodded to the tomb entrance, which was now covered by
a wood and brick structure watched by CCTV cameras. He unlocked the
door to reveal a narrow tunnel leading down into the heart of the
Tor. Apart from the addition of a string of electric lights, it was
just as Nina remembered finding it two years earlier, the Roman
numerals inscribed into one of the stone supports marking the year
of its construction: 1191 AD. The monks of Glastonbury Abbey had
secretly excavated the tomb and moved the bodies of Arthur and
Guinevere – and Arthur’s legendary sword, Excalibur – to a new
resting place to prevent their abbey’s greatest treasures from
being plundered.
She also remembered
other things she had discovered within. ‘You’ve, ah, found all the
death traps, I hope?’
Barley chortled. ‘No
need to worry, Dr Wilde. Everything’s been made safe.’
‘Glad to hear it!
Okay, if you’ll lead the way?’
He knocked out his
pipe against the wall before picking his way down the steep tunnel,
Nina and Macy following. At the bottom of the incline was the start
of a literal maze, one of the tomb’s defences, but Barley led them
briskly through it. Past the statue of the Lady of the Lake, down
through what on Nina’s first visit had been a flooded labyrinth, up
into a foul-smelling space where a great grinning relief of Merlin
once marked an explosive end for the unwary, and finally into the
vaulted chamber of the tomb itself. The side room containing the
black stone coffins of Arthur and his queen was open.
Macy took it in with
awe. ‘Wow, this is incredible. I only saw pictures before – didn’t
think I’d get to see it for real.’
‘Working for the IHA
has its perks,’ Nina joked. She became more serious as she examined
the object between the coffins. It was a cube of granite, three
feet to a side, with a narrow slot in the top from which Excalibur
had once protruded – and a chunk sliced from one corner where she
had inadvertently discovered that in the right hands, Arthur’s
weapon was more than a mere sword.
‘So, what are these
artefacts?’ Barley asked. Nina opened the case. The British
scientist seemed underwhelmed by the figurines within. ‘I don’t
recognise them.’
‘Nor do we – and
that’s the problem. I’m hoping that bringing them here will prove .
. . illuminating.’
Nina hadn’t planned
on making a pun, but couldn’t resist. She touched one of the
statuettes. As she had hoped, the tomb was still a confluence point
for lines of earth energy – and whatever it was about her that had
allowed Excalibur to slice effortlessly through solid stone now
caused the figurine to light up with an eerie indigo
glow.
‘Good God!’ cried
Barley.
Macy’s response was
much the same. ‘Whoa!’ she yelped, flinching back. ‘It’s not
radioactive, is it?’
Nina lifted her
finger from the statue, and the glow vanished. ‘Open the case, and
we’ll find out.’
Macy was about to put
the case on Arthur’s coffin when a stammered protest from Barley
prompted her to switch to the granite block. She opened it, and
Nina took out a piece of equipment. ‘Geiger counter,’ she
explained. ‘Macy, you hold it while I touch the statue
again.’
Macy held the counter
at arm’s length, cringing as the figurine lit up. Nothing came from
the machine except the intermittent crackles of normal background
radiation. ‘I wish you’d checked that first, before maybe zapping
us with gamma rays,’ she complained.
‘What causes that
glow?’ Barley asked, stepping closer.
‘It’s a phenomenon
called earth energy,’ said Nina, ‘but as for exactly how it works,
I can’t tell you. Not because it’s classified – although it is –
but because I genuinely don’t understand it myself. I’m not a
physicist. All I know are its effects.’
‘Which are . . .
?’
‘Classified.’
Barley sighed. ‘I
suspected as much.’
Nina placed the first
statue on the block, then took the other from the case. It too
reacted in the same way to her touch, filling the chamber with an
unnatural light. But she noticed something as she put the second
figure down beside the first: the effect was not
uniform.
Macy saw it too.
‘It’s brighter on the side facing the other one – like it’s
responding to it.’
Nina picked up the
second statuette again and slowly moved it in a circle round the
first. There was indeed a somewhat stronger band of light on one
side of the figure, which changed position as the stone was moved,
so that it always shone in the direction of the statue’s near-twin.
‘Like holding a magnet to a compass,’ Barley mused.
‘There’s a compass in
the case,’ Nina said. ‘Macy, get it out; we’ll see if it’s some
kind of magnetic effect.’
It wasn’t, the needle
unmoving. Nina picked up both statues experimentally, wondering if
each would show a bright band when they were aglow. They did,
pointing towards each other no matter the figures’ relative
positions. Whatever caused the earth energy effect, whoever made
the two statuettes had found a practical use for it – if somebody
who could utilise the phenomenon had one statue in their
possession, they could use it to find the other.
But there was
something else – another, barely discernible line of increased
illumination on each. Whatever this pointed towards, it was
unmoving. Still holding the statues, she walked back and forth
across the chamber in the hope of spotting a parallax effect. None
was evident. The cause was apparently some distance
away.
‘What if it’s the
third statue?’ Macy suggested.
‘There’s another
one?’ Barley asked.
‘Yes – they fit
together.’ Nina returned to the block and slotted the statues
together, arms interlocking. This time, there was a change: the two lines merged into one, much
brighter, still pointing in the direction of the fainter bands she
had seen moments before.
She turned the linked
figures. The glow remained stationary, the band of light rippling
over the crude carved features as she rotated them. It was a pointer. One that led to the missing third of
the triptych.
But what was the
statues’ purpose, and who had created them?
Nina let go, the
illumination instantly vanishing. Macy tapped at the figurines, but
nothing happened. Barley warily followed suit, with the same lack
of result. ‘It’s only you, Dr Wilde,’ he said.
‘Must be my
electrifying personality.’ Silence. ‘Oh come on, that was
funny.’
‘Mm,’ said Macy, not
quite a ringing endorsement. ‘Touch it again – I want to check
something.’ Nina brought her hand back to the statues and the
strange light returned. Macy held the compass above the glowing
figures, taking a bearing. ‘So it’s pointing . . . just about
exactly southwest. If there really is a third statue, it’s
somewhere that way.’
‘Southwest . . . ’
Nina echoed. She turned to Barley. ‘Do you have a
globe?’
The Tor’s Arthurian
archaeological team did not in fact have a globe of the world to
hand, but they had the next best thing; a virtual equivalent on
Barley’s computer. ‘Are you sure you want to rule out any potential
sites in the UK?’ he asked in response to Nina’s request for him to
zoom out. ‘Dartmoor alone has over eight hundred Neolithic and
Bronze Age sites, and that’s southwest of here.’
‘I have a hunch that
we’re looking for something more far-flung,’ she said. ‘The first
statue was found on another continent - in a chamber that was
sealed centuries before the start of the European Bronze
Age.’
The image on the
screen pulled back more and more, until the Earth’s curvature
appeared at the edges of the screen. Nina followed a line running
diagonally down and to the left from Glastonbury, at the map’s
centre. Though it passed close to the Azores, out in the Atlantic,
it didn’t touch land until it reached South America, visible only
as a line of green along the very edge of the visible hemisphere.
‘Can you switch it to a cartographic view?’
Barley fussed with
the controls. The image changed, continents distorting as they
morphed from a three-dimensional representation to a flat one. The
line now made landfall near the great delta of the Orinoco river,
on the continent’s northern coast. ‘Venezuela?’ said
Macy.
‘And Colombia. And
Brazil, and Peru,’ Nina added,
following the line southwest through more countries until it
reached the Pacific.
‘Rather a lot of
ground to cover,’ said Barley. ‘And I think you’ll find Dartmoor a
lot easier to reach!’
‘The best sites are
always in the worst places . . . ’ She regarded the map. South
America: home to numerous ancient civilisations. Could one have
possessed the third statue? It was possible. But which – and
why?
She thanked Barley,
gently reminding him of the need for discretion, and headed back to
the Range Rover with Macy. ‘So what now?’ Macy asked.
‘I don’t know. Like
Dr Barley said, there’s a lot of ground to cover. And we don’t have
a distance, only a direction.’
There was one thing
she was sure of, though. Ancient artefacts that could conduct earth
energy definitely fell within the IHA’s remit. If there was a third
statue somewhere in South America, it was up to her to find
it.
Before anyone else
did.
Eddie put a pint of
beer and a whisky on the table. ‘There you go.’
‘Thanks,’ said Mac,
leaning forward to pick up his glass. His left leg creaked faintly,
metal and plastic rather than flesh and bone; he had lost the limb
from the knee down in Afghanistan. He took a sip of whisky, then
looked round the sunlit beer garden. ‘Nice afternoon for a trip to
the seaside. I’m glad you called – it was looking to be a rather
boring day otherwise.’
‘Any excuse to get
out of work, right?’ said Eddie, grinning.
‘Hmph. I wish. The
jobs from Vauxhall Cross seem to be drying up of
late.’
Vauxhall Cross in
London was the location of the headquarters of Britain’s Secret
Intelligence Service, better known as MI6. Since his retirement
from the military, Mac had on occasion worked for the agency as
what was euphemistically described as a ‘consultant’, even though
some of his operations had been very hands-on. ‘Really?’ said
Eddie. ‘Alderley not appreciating you, is he? Miserable sod. After
everything you’ve done for him . . . ’
Mac shook his head.
‘Peter’s not the problem. It’s more that everything I’ve got to
offer – contacts, local knowledge, intel . . . it’s all getting a
bit out of date. The whole world’s moving on, Eddie, and when
you’re not at the centre of things you start to get left behind,
unfortunately.’ A small sigh, then his expression changed to one of
curiosity. ‘And speaking of being left behind, you seem to have
been abandoned by your other half. Where’s Nina
today?’
‘Glastonbury. Work
stuff.’
‘And you’re not with
her?’ Eddie’s lack of an immediate response told his friend
volumes. ‘Things all right with the two of you?’
‘Just having a rough
patch,’ the Yorkshireman admitted. ‘You know what it’s like.
Everything seems to end up in an argument. And we had a pretty big
one last night.’
‘About
what?’
‘My dad. We had
dinner with him and his wife, and . . . it could’ve gone
better.’
‘You actually met
him?’ Mac was surprised. ‘A long time since that last
happened.’
‘Twenty-odd years,
yeah. Lizzie basically tricked me into it. I would’ve told him to
fuck off when he invited us to dinner, but Nina insisted that we
go. And that turned out fucking brilliantly. He hasn’t changed –
he’s still an arsehole.’
‘Hrmm.’
Eddie eyed the older
man. ‘Hrmm what?’
‘Oh,
nothing.’
‘Bollocks, nothing.
That wasn’t a “that’s interesting” hrmm or an “I need to think
about this” hrmm – that was a “you’re being an idiot but it’s not
my place to comment” hrmm. What?’
‘Well, since you
ask,’ said Mac, sitting up with a faint smile, ‘I don’t think
you’re an idiot—’
‘Cheers, always good
to know.’
‘—but I know you well
enough to imagine that . . . well, perhaps he wasn’t the only one
who hadn’t changed.’
‘You saying
I’m an arsehole?’
The smile reappeared.
‘Never crossed my mind,’ said Mac, before his face became more
serious. ‘But he made the first move – he was the one who put out
his hand.’
‘So?’
‘So he was trying to
have some sort of reconciliation, at least. Apparently it didn’t go
well, but still, he made the effort.’
‘Doesn’t mean that I
should’ve been all fawning and grateful.’
‘I’m not saying that.
I know there are some rather large issues between the two of you.
But it could be worth trying to deal with them while you have the
chance.’
The older man’s tone
made Eddie suspect there was more behind his words than he was
saying. ‘Sounds like something that’s been on your
mind.’
A silence, then: ‘It
has,’ Mac admitted. ‘I got in touch with Angela
recently.’
‘After so long?
You’ve been divorced for, what, seven years?’
‘Eight. But we met up
a couple of months ago. It went rather well,
actually.’
‘Are you thinking
about getting back together?’ asked Eddie in surprise.
‘No, nothing like
that – it’s been too long, too much water under the bridge. But it
was . . . nice. It reminded me how much
we had in common. And in all honesty, the older I get, the more
I’ve realised how easy it is to lose contact with people. You can’t
rely on them just being there any more – you have to make an
effort. It might be hard, but it can be worth it.’
‘And you reckon I
should make an effort with my dad?’
Mac took another
drink. ‘Just a thought.’
‘It might get Nina
off my back, I suppose.’ Eddie’s phone rang; he recognised the
ringtone. ‘Speak of the devil . . .’ He answered it. ‘Hey, love.
Where are you?’
‘Just leaving
Glastonbury with Macy,’ said Nina. ‘Heading back to
Bournemouth.’
‘Did you find
anything interesting?’
‘You could say that.’
Enthusiasm was clear in her voice. ‘We need to get back to New
York. I think we’re going to be busy.’