The Doomsday Testament

VI

A night searching the internet drew a disappointing blank on anything called Operation Equity that wasn’t about spending billions to rescue banks. By the time he woke the next day Jamie’s hands itched to get back to the diary, but he still had a business to run. He spent the morning working on the itinerary for an upcoming trip to Switzerland to check out the sale of what might be a Watteau once owned by an Alsatian industrialist and his family. Economically he had to find other reasons to justify the expense. That meant checking out auctions and galleries in Geneva for acquisitions that might yield a small profit. The Watteau itself was such an ugly painting he wondered why anyone would want it back.

At lunchtime he changed from his suit into casual jacket and jeans and took the train from Victoria station to Welwyn. He still had too much to do before the clearers arrived, and the discovery of his grandfather’s journal had set him back at least twenty-four hours. As he changed trains at Finsbury Park he couldn’t get the diary out of his mind. Nothing had prepared him for the sheer awfulness of his grandfather’s war. He tried to remember Matthew’s eyes. Was there any evidence there that the man behind them had killed and killed again? It was never stated directly in the journal, but there were plenty of hints that couldn’t mean anything else. Hints that put Stan’s boast about breaking necks into perspective. Lieutenant Matthew Sinclair had been forced to kill to survive, and it had changed him. Jamie’s walk from the station to his house took less than ten minutes and on the way he enjoyed the sun on his face and the sound of the birds singing. This was home, familiar and comforting. Welwyn Garden City was well named. It had been planned with wide, tree-lined boulevards radiating from a central square. Of course, it had developed and grown since Ebenezer Howard had designed it in the 1920s, but the original principles still held sway and no one who lived there wanted to live anywhere else.

Before he got started, he switched on the heating and filled the kettle. While it boiled, he leafed through the newspaper he’d bought, which, as it had been for months, was full of the credit crisis. Jamie tended to bypass bad news stories, but he took a certain doom-laden satisfaction that house prices were in free-fall just when he had one to sell. On the upside, if there was an upside to the death of a family member, the place should still provide him with enough money to survive for a few years, even in his present state of semi-permanent business doldrum.

A story on the Foreign pages caught his eye. A security guard at the Menshikov Palace in St Petersburg had died a hero fighting off an attack by suspected Chechen terrorists. Something flared inside him. What did these people think they would gain by destroying some of the most beautiful things in the world?

The puzzling element of the attack was that the terrorists, one of whom had been shot dead, had taken only one item before they set their explosive charges and escaped; a Tibetan artefact that appeared to have little value and even less real interest. Why that, when there were so many more valuable things they could have fenced on the international black market to help fund their cause? The piece was said to have no national or cultural importance, so the authorities were working on the theory that it had some sort of religious significance. In the meantime, a minor international row had broken out over the casket’s ownership. China, which now controlled Tibet, had demanded its return on the grounds that it had been looted from the territory before the war, while Germany claimed that the then Dalai Llama had given its 1937 expedition permission to remove it from the country. A German spokesman said that if found it should be sent back with all the rest of the artworks the Red Army had pillaged on their way to Berlin. The Russian president condemned the outrage while threatening the usual bloody consequences and said the return of the Tibet casket was not subject to discussion. It might have been comical but for the death of the poor guard.

Jamie was upstairs when he heard the sound of a door opening and closing. The only person with a key for the house, apart from himself, was Mrs Jenkins next door who had been Matthew’s housekeeper. He grimaced at the thought of wasting an hour chatting to the old busybody while he should be working. The way things were going he’d be lucky to finish before he flew to Geneva.

Reluctantly, he dragged himself downstairs, hesitating as a thought occurred to him at the spot where he’d found Matthew, before rounding the corner with a welcoming smile that instantly froze on his face.

In the centre of the living room, with a pile of papers in his hand, stood a hard-eyed older man wearing a black leather bomber jacket and dark trousers. In other circumstances, the almost uniform and the close-cropped hair might have marked him as a plainclothes cop. But, if he was, how did he get into the house? The man stared. Everything about him now: the look on his face; his stance, balanced on the balls of his feet; the way he held his hands, said one thing — ready.

‘Can I help you?’ Jamie said warily.

‘You can fuck off,’ the intruder suggested in a flat accent that originated somewhere east of London’s docklands.

The dismissal was meant to intimidate him, but Jamie felt only a curious thrill of anticipation. He had missed out on a light heavyweight boxing Blue at Cambridge after coming up against a combative South African with a titanium chin and a punch like a steam hammer. That, and the close combat training he’d been given in the OTC, had nurtured an unlikely, but surprisingly fierce taste for moderated violence. The only drawback to a fight was the size of the room and the furniture, which precluded any of the Ali-style dancing he favoured. Still, he was certain he could take this guy, even if he was a few pounds heavier and looked as if he could handle himself.

‘I believe you’d better leave before I call the police,’ he said politely.

‘Why don’t you make me…?’ He launched himself across the room, swinging a telegraphed right hook designed to break the younger man’s jaw. Jamie saw it come and timed his response to perfection. With a twist of his body, he swayed clear and stepped aside, allowing his attacker’s momentum to take him past. When he was placed just so, Jamie rammed a lightning one-two into his kidneys that brought a grunt of agony.

The intruder turned and stretched, rubbing at his lower back. He was hurt, but he’d been hurt before. Warier this time, he tested Jamie with a couple of jabs, one of which stung the younger man’s shoulder. So, he fancied himself as a boxer? That suited Jamie just fine. He hunched his shoulders and raised his guard. In the next minute and a half he connected with two good shots to the head that left the other man bleeding from the nose and lip, following them with a right to the solar plexus that doubled him in two. Jamie stepped forward to finish him off, but the intruder had other ideas. The twinkle of a knife point betrayed the blade in his right hand and Jamie felt a surge of adrenalin as he understood the battle was now in deadly earnest. He was close to the kitchen door, but there was no question of retreating. Dropping into the classic self-defence crouch, the voice of his close combat instructor whispered in his ear: It’s all about the timing, laddie. Let him make his move, then use his own momentum to hurt him. But his opponent was better with the knife than he had been with his fists. As he feinted a darting jab to the body, the point came slicing up towards Jamie’s eyes. Forced to retreat, he stumbled on a chair and fell to the carpet. As he tried to squirm away, he found the other man looming over him and probing for the opening he needed. ‘Now we’ll hear you squeal, you bastard.’ Helpless, Jamie waited for the knife to plunge. Instead, the man glanced away, distracted for a vital second. Jamie saw his chance and brought his heel up hard into his opponent’s unprotected groin. With a groan, the intruder doubled over and dropped the knife. Jamie hauled himself to his feet. Very deliberately he brought his knee up into the man’s face, sending him backwards over a chair.

‘Right you bastard,’ he said. ‘What—’

The whole world went dark.

He found himself hovering just below wakefulness. He couldn’t be entirely certain where he was, but a combination of scents, sounds and the feel of threadbare linen sheets told him it must be hospital. The pain was out there waiting for him. He decided to let it wait a little longer.

The next time he came to, he realized how sensible his earlier decision had been. From a delicate point just below his waist to the top of his throbbing head, his body was one big ball of suffering, an all-over toothache only time would cure. He had a vague memory of being in a fight, but felt as if he’d been run over by a bus. He risked opening his eyes, or, rather, an eye singular; only one appeared to be working. A female figure rose at the end of the bed and he recognized his secretary. ‘Hello, Gail,’ he croaked. ‘Are we still in business?’ She looked up in alarm and he saw something in her eyes. He wondered why he’d never realized how much she cared for him. As he tried to think of something clever to say, she waved to someone beyond his line of vision and a large, uncomfortable-looking man hove into view, accompanied by a young nurse.

The nurse placed a cool hand on Jamie’s brow, shone a light in his good eye and asked with a professional smile if he felt up to answering a few questions from Sergeant — a cough from the background — sorry, Detective Sergeant Milligan.

‘Tell him if he’s here to arrest me, I surrender.’

She laughed in a way that he found reassuring. ‘It may not feel like it, Mr Saintclair, but your injuries are mostly superficial bruising. No broken ribs or internal injuries, thankfully. The blow to your head was the one we were worried about, but any concussion you have is mild.’

‘They gave you a right going-over,’ DS Milligan confirmed. ‘You were lucky.’ Jamie had a flash of his attacker’s face as he stood with the knife at the ready and silently agreed. He was lucky to be alive. Whoever had hit him from behind must have hauled the knife-man off before he could do any real damage, then allowed him to have a little fun just to even things up.

‘Why…?’

‘That’s what we’re trying to find out, sir. I’m afraid the house is a bit of a shambles, although you won’t be worrying too much about that just now. This sort of thing often happens after the death of someone who lives alone. The crooks see the notice in the paper and reckon the house will be empty. We’ll have to ask you to check if anything is missing, but for the moment all we know is that they didn’t take any of the valuables that would normally be targeted by people like this. Very professional. No stone unturned, if you see what I mean, but it appears they were after something specific. You wouldn’t know what that might be? No Picassos stored at your granddad’s, given your profession and all? No little stashes of diamonds the taxman doesn’t know about? Not that it would be any business of mine.’

Jamie tried a smile, but it was too painful, and he had a feeling that shaking his head would be worse.

Milligan got the message and nodded sympathetically. ‘Well, if anything does come to mind…’ He asked for a description of the attacker, which Jamie gave him, and left.

Jamie asked the nurse to prop him up in a sitting position and he and Gail talked about his trip to Switzerland — postponed — and the other appointments she’d have to cancel. ‘I thought you might need this.’ Gail handed over his antiquated leather briefcase. When she had gone, he opened it and pulled out the journal.

It was only when he had it in his hands that he realized just how specific it was.