The Lost Testament

106

Bronson quickly led her behind a white van which offered a place of concealment and also a vantage point from which they could see the entrance to the terminal, and the two taxis still waiting outside.

A dark-coloured saloon car swept into the aerodrome, tyres chirping as the driver took the corner at speed, and slammed to a halt behind the second taxi. Two men got out and ran inside the building.

‘Walk quickly, but don’t run,’ Bronson said, as he and Angela headed in the opposite direction.

‘Bad guys?’ Angela asked.

‘Definitely.’

They’d barely left the premises when they saw a taxi coming around the bend, heading towards them.

‘That’s our ride, I hope,’ Bronson said, glancing at the business card he was still holding to confirm the name of the firm.

Seconds later, they were sitting in the back seat as the driver headed towards Tunbridge Wells, Bronson checking behind them for any signs of pursuit.

When they reached Bronson’s home town, he directed the driver to drop them near the centre, not beside his house. As soon as the taxi had gone, he and Angela walked a couple of hundred yards to the nearest cab rank, waited until the first two taxis had pulled away, and then sat down in the third vehicle. That, Bronson hoped, would end any possible pursuit.

About half an hour later the second taxi pulled up outside a hotel on the southern outskirts of Sevenoaks and they climbed out. They picked a double on the first floor at the back of the building, near the rear fire escape.

‘We could have gone to your place,’ Angela said, ‘or don’t you think that would have been safe?’

‘I don’t think we can take any chances, not until we’ve published this thing. Look, let’s go down to the restaurant and see what they’ve got on offer, because I’m really quite hungry. Then we can decide our next move — somehow we have to get you and the parchment up to London and into the museum, get the relic authenticated and translated, and go public.’

‘And then we just let the Vatican and the Roman Catholic Church face the consequences,’ Angela finished for him.