The Excalibur Codex

XXXIX

‘Sir Walter Scott.’ It had all come together for Jamie in that single moment. The cryptic reference in the codex to the gift of the Lady in the Lake. The shelf of books in Harold Webster’s library. The statue in Central Park. Helena Webster had sat with him on the steps below Robert Burns, but they’d been looking directly across the Mall to the grave figure of Scott. When Webster had tortured Wolfram Sievers’ assistant in Nortstein Castle, he hadn’t only given up the swords, but their origins: the castles, museums and houses they’d been stolen from. Helena Webster had laid it on a plate, but he’d missed it. You’re a clever guy, Jamie Saintclair. You’ll work it out. What did she know?

‘There’s a roundabout half a mile past the new hospital,’ Moffat had said. ‘Abbotsford House is just down the road from there. You can’t miss it. Pillared entrance on your right-hand side and a big house with grey chimneys.’

He took it slowly down the narrow road, allowing the headlights to pick out the detail of the trees and ditches that lined the winding Tarmac. His first instinct had been to get to the house to pre-empt any move by Steele and whoever he had with him, but this was the start of the tourist season. He needed privacy for what he planned. Abbotsford closed for visitors at five-thirty p.m. So, at the writer’s suggestion, he’d driven into the little town of Melrose for a coffee. And waited for darkness.

It was a different game now, so he left the mobile phone off. Instinct, intuition, call it what you like, but he knew the two sinister 4x4s he’d watched passing through Jedburgh were something to do with this. Whether it was Steele or not only mattered because it would be good to know whether he was the hunter or the hunted. If it was the sword collector there was only one answer. Adam Steele looked on his adversaries as prey whether it was on a pheasant drive, in the boardroom or on a fencing mat. It would be foolish to give him the advantage of knowing how close he was.

Excalibur. When this had started it had all been about Arthur’s sword, or so it seemed. Now he wasn’t so sure. Yet in the final reckoning it might be the bargaining chip that meant the difference between life and death, so he would find Excalibur if he could. Every instinct told him that if it existed, the sword was here.

Scott was a hoarder, Moffat had said. Scott has hundreds of weapons in his collection. Rob Roy’s claymore. Swords from Waterloo. Pistols and muskets from Culloden. Relics of Napoleon and Bonnie Prince Charlie.

The sword Wulf Ziegler had stolen in 1937 had belonged to a warrior king in the twilight years after the Romans had left Britain, but it was not Excalibur. Yet that in itself was significant, because it was evidence of an unseen hand protecting the true sword. It had been left as a substitute by someone who knew that, some day, people were going to come looking for the real thing. If nothing else, that told Jamie Excalibur was close.

When he rounded the next bend a substantial wall of lichen-dotted grey stone replaced the trees and bushes. A sign with a gilt arrow appeared in the twin beams pointing to the Abbotsford visitors’ entrance, but the gate was closed. He drove on, keeping the same pace and scanning his surroundings for any hint of danger. Up ahead on the right lay a derelict single-storey lodge or gatehouse and he guessed this was the original entrance to Sir Walter Scott’s estate, leading to some sort of driveway through the trees to the house. Moffat had told him that the only permanent presence in the building out of visiting hours was an elderly housekeeper and her husband who lived in the accommodation wing. So why, as he passed the gatehouse, did he imagine he saw the faint gleam of black paint belonging to a car parked in the shadow of the building?

Because they were here.

He drove on for almost a mile before he found somewhere to turn and studied the very basic plan of the house and gardens in the brochure he’d picked up in Jedburgh. He was to the west of the house now, and a band of woodland screened this side of the estate. On the plus side, it would mask his approach, but the trees in the car’s headlights were ancient hardwoods and that meant a forest floor strewn with rotten branches like a natural minefield. It might take him hours to work his way to the house. He didn’t have the time and he couldn’t risk a broken ankle. Which more or less made the decision for him. He retraced the route back to the entrance, again bypassing the lodge house, and continued until he reached the visitor car park. Steele was no fool. He had worked out the location of the house from the Ziegler codex and got there ahead of Jamie. But he thought Jamie had the computer and the skills to find the true sword, so the team waiting in the shadow of the lodge house weren’t to stop him getting in, they were to stop him getting back out again.

What Steele didn’t know was that the computer was with Abbie’s parents and that Jamie intended it to stay there. His original plan had been simply to walk up to the door of the private apartments and knock, relying on the famous Jamie Saintclair charm to talk his way in. Then, when Steel arrived, events would take their course to the inevitable point when the good guys won the day. With Steele waiting for him that was no longer an option. He needed to know how many they were and exactly who was where in the house. Certainly more than four, or what was the point of coming in two cars? Excalibur and the computer were the main attractions, although he suspected Steele had a strong secondary motive: to see the inconvenient and annoyingly persistent Jamie Saintclair safely dead and buried. Silence was golden, and there wasn’t anything more silent than a dead man.

As quietly as he was able, he opened the boot of the car and retrieved his rucksack. It contained a Sig-Sauer P226, weapon of choice of the British Special Air Service. He weighed the gun in his hand. This was the target shooting variant and a relic of his pistol competition days. That didn’t make it any less deadly, only more accurate. He checked the fifteen-round magazine and clicked it home. Jamie wasn’t planning to shoot anybody, but he reckoned that Adam Steele would expect him to be armed, and he didn’t want to do anything that might make the businessman suspicious.

Shrugging the rucksack onto his shoulders, he jogged across the Tarmac to the other side of the road. The visitors’ entrance was locked, but the six-foot wall didn’t pose much of an obstacle to someone fit and able-bodied. He heaved himself up and slipped over onto the walkway behind, crouching in the darkness for a few moments to be certain of his surroundings. Ahead of him a path sloped away into the gloom, hemmed in on one side by an impenetrable beech hedge and on the other by a high wooden fence. While he assumed that none of this would have been here when Wulf Ziegler made his one and only visit in 1937, this was still the most likely route the German would have come. Jamie advanced cautiously down the path until it ran parallel to a high stone wall. He debated whether to climb it, but remembered the lines in the codex — We followed the walls until we came to a gate, which took the work of only a few moments to open. What was good enough for Wulf Ziegler was good enough for Jamie Saintclair and he reached the gate a few seconds later. He unshouldered the rucksack, removed an eighteen-inch crowbar and forced the narrow end into the gap beside the Yale lock. One sharp tug and it opened with a crack — he flinched at the sound, and decided that Ziegler’s solution had probably been a little more elegant, but the effect was the same. On the far side of the cropped lawn he saw Abbotsford House properly for the first time, silhouetted against the night sky. Someone was home, because a subdued light glowed from windows in the centre of the building, but the gable facing him was in darkness. He had a feeling he’d need a jemmy more than the gun in the next few minutes, so he re-stowed the Sig-Sauer and carried the crowbar in his right fist. It must have been a hundred yards from the gate to the side of the house and he felt terribly vulnerable as he made his way furtively to the centre, adrenalin coursing through him and every sense pitched to an intensity he’d seldom experienced.

A tall shadow appeared in front of him and he ignored it, remembering Ziegler’s encounter with the statue of the boy. But as it passed to his left the shadow moved inexplicably, separating into two distinct forms. One of them wrapped its arms around him with an enormous strength that punched the breath from his lungs. Instinctively he rammed his head backwards and felt the jar of bone on bone and a crunch as something less solid gave way under the impact. Still there was no lessening in the pressure on his ribs and chest, but his assailant’s hold was high enough on the forearms that he could move his hands and he stabbed backwards with the crowbar into the other man’s ribs. By luck it was the pointed end that connected. It wasn’t sharp enough or the blow powerful enough to penetrate the flesh, but the man behind must have thought he’d been stabbed. He reeled away with a cry and the respite allowed Jamie to wheel and bring the crowbar round in a scything blow that took him across the jaw and cheek. The impact was solid enough to jar Jamie’s wrist and the other man dropped like a stone.

Jamie stood for a few moments, his whole body shaking and on the verge of shutdown. He knew that if he didn’t move quickly he might not have the nerve to continue, but somehow he couldn’t get his feet to obey his brain.

A scream of mortal agony tore apart the fabric of the night. It was a woman’s scream and it acted like an iron nail being run down the inside of his skull.

His first instinct was to sprint towards the source of the sound, but he knew he couldn’t afford to leave a threat to his escape route. He dropped to one knee to check the man he’d hit and found a faint pulse. His attacker was bleeding from the nose and mouth, and it felt as if his jaw was broken. When he touched the side of his head he felt a distinct dent in the temple that didn’t bode well for an early recovery.

Plan B had been to make some kind of covert entry through the private quarters, but the scream and its implications meant he had no time for the recce he’d banked on. It also brought the Sig-Sauer back into play. He ran towards the front of the house. What he’d thought was a continuous wall on the far side of the lawn fortunately turned out to be a series of open arches and he could see a gravel parking area beyond. He scrambled through one of the arches and stood with his back against the base of a hexagonal tower at the corner of the building. A second scream made his spine creep. It came from the far side of the car park, somewhere in the private area. He took a step forward and froze as a light came on in the window next to him. Instinctively, he dropped to the ground and squirmed slowly across the gravel. When he reached the far side he heard voices coming from a rectangle of light that marked an open door. With his heart in his mouth he made his way across the intervening ground and stood with his back to the wall, just to one side of the light. All he had to tell him what waited inside the door was a single male voice.

‘You’ll tell us eventually,’ the man said. ‘Better to give me it now than what the boss will do to you. I’ve seen him work on a woman before and it isn’t pretty. You’re a rare beauty, he’ll use that against you. No? Well, that’s a shame.’

The scream that followed a second later would have frozen Jamie to the spot if he hadn’t been expecting it. Instead, he stepped into the doorway with the Sig-Sauer in front of him. He was in a relatively modern kitchen and a tall man with his back towards the door held the left hand of a partially bound girl he didn’t recognize over the steam from a boiling kettle. The girl’s face was contorted in agony, but her eyes were open and he saw the moment she registered the newcomer with the pistol. Somehow through the agony she found the focus for rational thought. A dozen possibilities flickered in those eyes and the result was an even louder and more prolonged shriek that gave Jamie the vital moments it took to cross the kitchen. With one movement he raised the Sig-Sauer and smashed the butt of the pistol into the base of her torturer’s skull and the man collapsed on to the tiled floor.

Jamie made sure he was unconscious before turning his attention to the victim. The girl was hunched over and obviously close to collapse herself. She was small and dark haired with a pale, slim face and dark pain circles under wide electric-green eyes that in other circumstances might have been described as hypnotic. He helped her to a chair and she slumped forward with her head on the kitchen table, sobbing quietly. He felt a surge of compassion, and her blistered hand needed treatment, but he knew he didn’t have time to play nurse.

‘I’ll need a knife,’ he said.

She raised her head and blinked before nodding towards a drawer next to an ancient Aga. Jamie laid the pistol on the table and rummaged in the drawer until he found what looked like a bread knife. He cut her free, using the cord to bind the hands of the unconscious man on the floor. When he looked up she was watching him.

‘Thank you.’ She shuddered. ‘I think you might have saved my life. He said this was just the start. Who are you?’ She had a very soft voice with a gentle Scottish lilt.

‘That can wait.’ He gave her a smile that was meant to be reassuring. ‘Can you stand? It’s time we got you out of here. How many of them are there?’

‘Three that I’ve seen, apart from this one, but possibly more.’ She groaned and tried to get to her feet. He went to help her, but she shook her head. ‘Their leader is an older man. I think he’s a little mad. He keeps talking about Excalibur. They’re searching the house.’

He nodded. ‘If I help you out to the trees, do you think you can find somewhere to hide out until the police get here?’

She frowned. ‘What about you?’

‘I have some business to finish with these people.’ He picked up the pistol and checked that the magazine hadn’t been dislodged by the impact on the man’s skull. When he was happy, he held out an arm to support her.

‘I’m not going anywhere without you.’ Her voice was hoarse, but there was no mistaking the conviction there.

‘Jesus …’ The word burst from him.

‘No,’ she said, and he was astonished to see a twinkle of humour in the tired eyes. ‘Fiona. Fiona Maxwell.’

She held out her right hand and he took it, wondering what in the name of God he was going to do with her. ‘Look, you’re still in shock—’

‘He has one of those too,’ she said, ignoring him and pointing at the Sig. ‘I saw it under his coat.’

Jamie cursed himself for not searching the downed man. He checked under the black bomber jacket and came up with a Ruger automatic, the twin of the one Gault had carried in America. He saw Fiona Maxwell studying the gun. ‘Do you know how to use it?’

She met his gaze and raised a cultured eyebrow. ‘I assume you point it and pull the trigger.’ He shook his head as he handed her the pistol, but he couldn’t help smiling. Fiona Maxwell might be small in stature, but it was clear she had a giant heart. Five minutes ago she’d been having her hand broiled and her future promised nothing but a shallow grave. His mind rebelled against allowing her to risk her life again, but there was no fighting the determination in her eyes. The gun looked huge in her petite hand and she struggled to hold it straight, but she had long musician’s fingers and her forefinger curled round the trigger. She glared as she looked along the barrel. ‘Better with two hands, but one will have to do.’

‘It has two pressures,’ he explained. ‘You take the first strain on the trigger, and it will fire as soon as you deliver the second.’ He was looking towards the internal door on the far side of the room as he said the words. When he looked back the gun was pointed at his chest. His heart missed a beat.

‘I’m asking you again. Who are you and why are you here?’ Her face was deathly white, but the gun was steady enough now and there was iron in her voice that demanded a response.

It was a question Jamie had always known he’d have to answer, but the circumstances were a little different from what he’d imagined. Staring down the barrel of the Ruger there didn’t seem any point in arguing, so he gave it to her straight. ‘My name is Jamie Saintclair, I’m an art dealer who specializes in the return of stolen works and artefacts.’ The intensity of the dark eyes deepened a fraction, but it was only later he would understand why. ‘I came here to make sure some property that was taken from this house is returned to its rightful owner.’ He met her gaze. ‘I am also probably responsible for what’s happened to you. I’m sorry, that wasn’t part of the plan.’

The pistol drifted to the side. ‘You mean the sword the man brought with him? You really shouldn’t have bothered. We’ve more swords in this house than we know what to do with.’ For a moment the dismissal of his efforts took Jamie’s breath away, but before he could reply she said: ‘In that case, perhaps we should be on our way.’ She turned to the outside door, but hesitated when he didn’t follow. ‘Well?’

‘There’s another reason for staying. I owe it to a friend.’

‘So it’s a matter of honour?’

He shrugged.

‘Well, why didn’t you say so in the first place?’