The Nosferatu Scroll

77

Bronson leaned against the wall of the cellar as he replayed the events that had just taken place. He’d seen Angela, seen exactly where she was, standing at the opening of the end cell. He’d heard her calling out his name.

Nobody had gone anywhere near her from that moment on. The attention of the hooded men had been entirely concentrated on the girl who’d been lashed down on the stone table. Then the shooting had started, and people had been moving all around the cellar, trying to take cover from the bullets, or firing themselves.

As Bronson recalled each of these events, he remembered something else: just before the screaming started, there’d been a noise like something heavy falling to the ground. But could it have been something else? Could it have been the sound of a stone door closing?

‘I think there’s another way out of here,’ Bronson said to Bianchi.

Bianchi looked doubtful. ‘An underground chamber is rare enough in the Laguna Veneta, and this is quite a big room on a small island. It’s very unlikely there are any other spaces down here.’

Bronson reached out and grabbed a torch from the assault vest of a police officer who was standing next to Bianchi. The officer tried to take it back, but the inspector stopped him.

‘Very well,’ he said, sighing. ‘But if you find a door, call me, and then we’ll assess the situation.’

Bronson ran over to the cell where Angela had been imprisoned. That was the obvious – in fact the only – starting point. But all that was there was the crudely made wooden bed, a thin mattress and a single pillow. Under the bed was a rusty metal bucket and a partially used roll of toilet paper. The only other object he could see was the steel chain lying across the mattress, one end attached to a large eyebolt screwed into the stone wall, the other end dangling down, the open handcuff resting on the floor.

Bronson turned to his right, towards the opposite end of the cellar from the stone table. If there was a hidden door – and this was the only explanation that made sense – it had to be somewhere beyond the line of cells.

He gave the outside wall of the cell a cursory glance, then directed the beam of the torch at the solid wall of the cellar as he walked across to it. The old stones looked damp and cold; and none showed the slightest sign of movement when he pressed against them. Bronson used both hands, pushing his palms firmly against each stone at about chest level as he worked his way slowly towards the back wall of the cellar. He reached the corner of the wall, glanced back briefly and then resumed his steady and methodical progress. Using the same technique, he crossed the back wall of the cellar with exactly the same lack of result. Every stone he’d pushed had seemed absolutely solid.

But Angela had been in the cellar, and now she wasn’t. She hadn’t gone up the spiral staircase, so there definitely had to be another exit. He’d tried the walls without result. Now he had to look at the floor.

Bronson directed the torch beam downwards and stared at the old flagstones, worn down by countless feet over the years. It didn’t look as if any of them had been moved in decades, possibly for centuries. He studied them anyway, looking for any sign of movement, of suspiciously clean edges or anything of that sort. Nothing.

He had to have missed something, some clue that would show him where the hidden entrance was located. Then he slowly became aware of something gnawing away at his subconscious. He’d seen something, or felt something – something that wasn’t quite right, something out of place. Bronson jogged back to the side wall of the cellar, and started walking slowly along the wall, staring at the stones and touching each one that he pressed against before. He reached the end, then started on the back wall. And then it struck him.

The stones on the side wall had looked and felt damp, as had those on the back wall, all except three of them in a horizontal line, about five feet from the junction of the two walls. Those stones were solid and cold, but not quite as cold as the stones on either side of them, and his fingers could detect no trace of damp.

He felt the stones above and below the three he’d detected, and they all showed the same characteristics: they were solid and cold but not damp. He’d found the hidden door. All he had to do now was work out how to open it.

Bronson shone the torch at the stones. Now that he’d identified the door, its shape was fairly obvious. He looked closely at the spaces between the stones. In an almost vertical line, from floor level up to about five feet above the ground, there was a straight edge where no mortar was visible.

But what he still couldn’t see was how to get it open. He ran his fingers up and down the vertical edge, feeling for a catch or lever. He pushed against each of the stones in turn, in case one of them would work a hidden catch, but again without result.

There had to be a way of getting the door open. Almost in desperation, he pressed his left shoulder against the stones, braced his feet on the floor and started to push. His right foot started to slide, and he changed position. As he again put his weight on his right foot, he felt rather than heard a click under the sole of his shoe, and the stone door swung silently outwards.

Caught completely unawares, Bronson tumbled through the opening, and crashed to the ground on the other side. Immediately, powerful springs swung the door closed again, the solid structure clicking back into place with a muted thump, the same sound he had heard minutes earlier.

He scrambled to his feet, reached down and drew the Browning from his holster. Then he replaced the weapon. It was pitch black in the chamber, and if he couldn’t see, he couldn’t shoot. He needed light.

The torch had fallen from his hand as he’d tumbled through the doorway, and he crouched down and felt around on the floor, searching for it. His probing fingers touched something shrivelled and furry, and he recoiled. A dead rat, probably. In a few seconds, his hand closed around a cool metal tube, and he gave a sigh of relief.

But that feeling didn’t last long. When he pressed the switch on the end of the torch, nothing happened. He shook it, and could hear a faint rattling sound inside it. The bulb or something had obviously broken when he fell.

He would have to find his way around by feel. Having made sure his pistol was properly seated in the holster, because if he dropped it he might not be able to find it again, Bronson extended both arms in front of him and started walking forwards.

Then he stopped dead. Somewhere in the darkness ahead of him, he could hear the faint sound of movement.

‘What happened?’ Inspector Bianchi demanded.

The black-clad police officer shook his head. ‘I don’t really know, sir. One minute the Englishman was standing close to the back wall of the cellar, then I looked away for a few seconds. I heard a noise and-’

‘What kind of a noise?’

The police officer shook his head again. ‘A kind of thump, I suppose. And when I looked back to that end of the room, he’d disappeared.’

‘Right.’ Bianchi called out to a pair of police officers who were manhandling a battery-powered floodlight into the cellar. ‘Get that light on, and aim it at the back wall. We need to find where Bronson has gone – right now.’