Stones of Fire

62

‘I don’t know about you, but I’ve had enough chips for one day,’ Cædmon grumbled.

‘And guys with big guns and things that go bump in the night.’ Edie squinted, there being only a glimmer of light shining under the locked door. MacFarlane’s idea of food and rest was a cupboard and a couple of bags of soggy fried potatoes.

‘But on a bright note, we shall be lulled to sleep by the babbling brook that runs beneath the mill.’

Edie made no reply, a damp chill oozing up through the floorboards on account of that same babbling brook. Already she could feel the ache in her joints.

‘By the by, I’ve got your metal nail file hidden under the insole of my shoe.’

‘I can top that. I’ve got a thousand dollars stuffed inside my boot. After the attack in Oxford, I was worried someone might steal the Virgin bag.’ She abruptly changed gear. ‘There’s something I need to tell you: I have intimate knowledge of Stanford MacFarlane.’

‘Indeed?’

‘Not biblical knowledge,’ Edie quickly amended. ‘But I do know the heart of Stanford MacFarlane.’

‘And how is that?’ There was no mistaking the interest in his voice.

‘My maternal grandfather was something of a religious zealot. If not from the same bolt of cloth as MacFarlane, Pops was certainly cut from a similar one.’ She laughed caustically, the memory an unpleasant one. ‘My grandfather believed that freedom of religion extended only to other evangelical Christians.’

‘Being a young girl, I’m surprised that you weren’t, er…’

‘Indoctrinated? Having been raised by a mother who repeatedly told me she would clean up her act and who repeatedly failed made me a hard sell. Deep-seated trust issues, I suppose.’ She readjusted her legs, the dark space a tight fit for the two of them. ‘Having sat through all those Sunday sermons, I know that men like Pops and Stanford MacFarlane lie awake at night consumed with visions of a global theocracy.’

She paused a moment, recalling her conversation with MacFarlane. ‘Although I get the feeling that, unlike Pops, MacFarlane thinks of himself as some sort of Old Testament patriarch.’

‘One of those bastards who prays before the bloodletting, hmm?’

Edie shuddered. ‘He’s probably praying as we speak.’

Putting an arm round her shoulder, Cædmon pulled her close. ‘As long as there’s a chance of finding the Ark, you’re safe. MacFarlane knows that if he harms you in any way, I’ll refuse to comply with his demands.’

‘You don’t actually trust him to keep his word, do you?’

It being too dark in the closet for her to discern Cædmon’s features, she sensed rather than saw his sardonic smile.

‘In my experience, deciding how much to trust one’s enemy is a fine art.’

In the same way that she had sensed the smile, Edie intuited its disappearance.

‘It’s my fault you got dragged into this mess. I should never have agreed to —’

Edie put a hand over his mouth, hushing him. ‘Since meeting you at the National Gallery of Art, everything I’ve done, and I mean everything — from coming to England, to making love, to riding in the back of that refrigerated truck — I’ve done of my own free will. We’re in this together, Cædmon. And don’t for one second think that we’re not. There was no way either of us could have known that MacFarlane’s goon had planted a tracking device on me.’

‘Are you saying the punch-up in the alley was a blind? Bloody hell. From the outset MacFarlane has been one step ahead of me.’

Hearing the self-recrimination in his voice, she thought a change of subject in order. ‘We’ve got sixteen hours to figure out the meaning of those two geese in the basket. All we know is that one of them represents Philippa.’ She sighed, sixteen hours suddenly a very brief amount of time. ‘I wish we knew more about Philippa. Other than the fact that she married Galen and joined a nunnery, we’ve got precious few clues.’

‘The nunnery… The nunnery! That’s it! You, Edie Miller, are bloody beautiful!’

Cædmon began to bang on the cupboard door with his fist.

‘What the hell’s goin’ on in there?’

‘Tell MacFarlane that I know where the Ark is hidden.’