The Stonehenge Legacy

105

The only investigator not at the Chief Constable’s early morning all-agency briefing is Josh Goran. Not that he minds. He’s already made sure he’s never out of the information loop. His team have a range of journalists, police officers and civil servants on their payroll. The ten thousand bucks he pressed into the palm of field agent Alvez made sure he’s bang up to date on everything and anything of note.

Inside the overwarm conference room, Alan Hunt’s deputy, Greg Dockery, makes a plea to the seven men sat with him. ‘We need a full and confidential exchange of key intelligence. We have to bury our differences and work together. That’s why we’re here. Later today Chief Constable Hunt will personally reassure Vice President Lock of the resources that are being deployed to recover his daughter. Commander Gibson, please give us your update.’

Barney Gibson looks across the table and already sees operational fault lines. The two FBI agents have taken up one side, the Wiltshire officers the other and his own Met colleague is sat apart from either camp. Cultural schisms, unbridgeable divides during the course of only one operation. ‘In the early hours of this morning we received further communication from the group we believe are holding Caitlyn. The call was traced to France, but this time not Paris. It came from a public box in Cannes, in the south of the country.’

John Rowlands throws up his hands in despair. ‘I’m sorry, I just don’t buy it. They are no more in the south of France than we are.’

The Chief shoots his Head of CID a blistering look. ‘John, forget your own pet theories for a moment, we can speculate all we like afterwards. Let’s listen to the tape first.’ He takes a beat then readdresses the whole group. ‘From the timing and nature of the recording you’ll see that they’ve responded directly to Kylie Lock’s press conference.’

Barney Gibson presses play on the small digital recorder in the centre of the conference table. The room’s expectant silence is broken by a distorted male voice. ‘The price for the safe return of Caitlyn Lock is twenty million dollars. Her mother has promised ten, we expect her father to do the same. The conditions are as follows: the FBI, the British police and that bounty hunter will all state publicly that no surveillance will be mounted on an agreed exchange. And no attempt will be made to arrest any people involved in the exchange. Only when we have this guarantee of safe passage will we give further details of our conditions. Please understand this: we have the resources to hold Caitlyn Lock for as long as we wish. Years if necessary. Sooner or later our demands will be met.’ Caitlyn’s voice suddenly fills the room. She sounds calm but weak. ‘Mom, I’m in Cannes near the Carlton Hotel where I stayed with you and François before the film festival at the Palais des Festivals. It’s raining today on La Croisette and the Palais is hosting a video gaming conference. Pop, I’m being well looked after. No one has hurt me. Please do what they say.’ The distorted male voice returns. ‘Let me be clear, unless we see the televised guarantees, this will be our last communication with you.’

The tape hisses to a stop. The investigators sit in shocked silence. Barney Gibson knows they’re all imagining how Caitlyn’s parents are going to react when they hear it. He rises above the emotion and ploughs on. ‘The details given in the tape are correct. The weather in Cannes yesterday was as described and the exhibition mentioned is indeed taking place. Technicians both sides of the Atlantic have confirmed the call was made in Cannes and the background sounds are consistent with those of this particular spot on the Côte d’Azur. Todd, do you want to say something about it?’

‘It is a bitch of a recording,’ says the FBI man. ‘Our techies stripped it down while your guys were sleeping and they confirm that, like the first one, it was assembled on several different levels. The two voices were recorded separately. They spliced them together, then added a third track, a continuous background noise. We analysed the woman’s voice and we are certain it’s Caitlyn. The distorted male voice, we think is English, the same that we heard on the first tape.’

‘First Paris, now Cannes,’ observes the Deputy Chief. ‘They keep shifting her. Are probably moving again as we speak.’

‘It would explain why they are using phone boxes,’ says Gibson. ‘They don’t mind being traced because by the time we have a fix on it, they’re no longer there.’

‘Or they never were,’ says John Rowlands, still unconvinced that Caitlyn has crossed the Channel. ‘It could just be one guy on a motorcycle travelling around Europe sending these clips down the wire. I don’t necessarily buy that she is even out of the UK.’

‘We have to plan for either eventuality,’ says Hunt, ending the speculation. ‘Greg, keep me informed of how resources and emphasis is split on this one.’

The deputy nods. ‘Sir.’

‘What about their demands, their conditions?’ asks John Rowlands.

Hunt raises an eyebrow. ‘The British Government, police and people do not negotiate with kidnappers. It’s policy. We never have and never will.’

Danny Alvez nods in agreement. ‘Vice President Lock has said the same kind of thing. It may be different because this is his own daughter, but I doubt it.’

‘No way,’ says Burgess. ‘Thom is hard line. He ain’t gonna blink on this one. These sons of bitches can wait as many years as they want, he still ain’t going to negotiate with them.’

106

Any moment now the target will appear.

He will be white, thirty to forty-five, and will perfectly fit Megan’s psychological profile. She just knows he will.

The DI is parked across the street from a big-windowed shop in Tidworth, her eyes never leaving the area beneath a sign boldly proclaiming: ‘Matt Utley. Master Butcher.’ Once she’s got a good ID on him, she’ll get a search warrant and turn his house over. See if there’s any clothing to match the snagged samples found at the Chase estate in Tollard Royal. Or maybe tools that serial-match those recovered from the kit bag he left behind.

It’s eight-thirty and she’s been sitting patiently for an hour. Her mind wanders for a moment, back to her renewed relationship with her ex-husband. Everything seems to be going well. Adam spent last night at her house — their old house — and this morning Sammy skipped in with a smile as big as a slice of melon.

At eight-forty a man jogs across the road right in front of her, opens the shop door and turns on all the lights. She watches him pull on a red-and-white-striped apron and busy himself behind worktops and freezer counters. He’s in his early twenties, she guesses. Not her target. Just after nine he flips a sign in the door window to declare the place open. She waits a while longer. At nine-thirty, Megan gets out of the car, pulls out her pocket book and wanders in.

A brass bell dings as she opens and shuts the door. She doesn’t wait for a greeting. ‘I’m Eileen Baxendale. Council rates review unit.’ She puts pen to paper. ‘What’s your name?’

‘Carl, Carl Pringle.’ He seems totally flummoxed. ‘I don’t know nothing about the rates.’

‘You don’t? Well, who does?’ She looks around pointedly.

‘You need to speak to Matt. Mr Utley. The owner. I just work for him.’

‘And when can I do that?’

‘He isn’t coming in today. Said I was in charge.’

‘He’s sick?’

‘Didn’t say. Just said I was to run the place and he’d call me later.’

She has enough information to find Utley. He will be on the electoral role, registered with the tax and health authorities. There is little point grilling the kid for any other scraps. ‘Okay, I’ll come back later in the week.’ The bell dings again as she leaves.

On the journey back to HQ, she phones in her requests for background checks on her missing butcher. With any luck they’ll be on her computer by the time she gets in.

When she walks into the CID room, Jimmy Dockery greets her with a sheet of paper and a smile. ‘I’ve been to the labs. Look at this.’

He slaps the forensic report down on her desk, points at a crucial part and summarises: ‘The field near the burned-out barn was covered in minute particles of human debris.’

Her eyes widen. ‘You got the dogs out there?’

He laughs. ‘No, not dogs. Something even better. This is going to sound insane but I read about German detectives using buzzards to search for corpses. So when I couldn’t get ground radar or sniffer dogs, I contacted an exotic bird expert and he had two Turkey vultures fly the field we visited.’ He proudly taps the report again. ‘This is what he came up with.’

Megan is impressed. She reads from the microbiologist’s paper: ‘Samples of soil were tested and contained human traces. All identified DNA was that of a single individual.’

‘You said Tony Naylor was in that field, boss. You were right.’

She forces herself to be cautious. ‘Let’s make sure it is Naylor before we tell anyone. Try to get a familial DNA match via blood from his sister or parents. Check the national database to see if we ever tested him in connection with an offence.’ She thinks of something else. ‘Oh, and get the landowner interviewed, I sure as hell want to know how he came to be crop spraying with human remains.’

107

Gideon leaves the Sanctuary in the same way he entered it. Hooded, cuffed and driven in the back of a plain looking builder’s van.

After twenty minutes the vehicle lurches off-road and stops. Its back doors creak open and he hears birdsong spill in from outside. It’s still early morning. Pre-rush hour. The floor beneath him dips as someone climbs in, swings his feet around and pulls him by the ankles across the van floor. They dangle his feet outside the vehicle, sit him upright and pull the cloth sack from his head.

It’s not Dave Smithsen staring into his face. It’s the man who almost killed him. The one who left him for dead in his father’s burning study. Gideon’s eyes drift down to the man’s hands. There, on a small finger, is the distinctive signet ring that opened up the wound on his face. Behind the man is what looks like deserted woodland. The perfect place for a grave to be dug and a body to be hidden.

Smithsen walks into view and is smiling. ‘This is Musca and from now on you will know me only as Draco. You will treat us both like long lost brothers. Either that or we’ll kill you. It’s your choice.’

Musca pulls a gun from the seat of his trousers, presses the barrel hard into Gideon’s forehead. ‘I don’t mind which.’

Draco sits casually on the back ledge of the van and puts an arm around Gideon in a gesture of mock chumminess. ‘One of our rules is secrecy. Enforced secrecy, if you get my meaning. And the Master relies on Musca and me to enforce it.’ He squeezes Gideon. ‘If you live, then you live by the rules. On no account do you speak about the Craft, the Followers or the Sacreds to any non-members. Ever. You don’t telephone us. You don’t turn up at our houses or our businesses. You never contact us. We contact you. If we call you on the phone, you don’t mention your name or our names. You use the name that you will be given, should you be initiated. You use that name at all times. Don’t forget these things. If they slip your mind, my friend’s finger might slip too.’

Musca’s eyes dance and he pushes the gun harder against Gideon’s skull. ‘Boom.’

Draco gets to his feet. ‘Put him in the front, then you can go.’

Musca guides Gideon around to the passenger’s door, helps him into the cab, slams the door and heads to a Mercedes parked nearby. The indicators flash orange as he zaps the central locking.

Draco talks as he starts up the van and drives. ‘Here’s how it goes. I take you home and stay with you while you collect these books that your father has written. You hand them over to me and I return you to the Master. It is that simple.’

‘Then you should be able to manage it, shouldn’t you?’

Draco laughs. ‘You and I need to get some things straight. The Inner Circle voted a few hours ago on your initiation. The Master’s vote carried it. One vote. That’s all. So listen rather than talk. All right?’ His eyes flash menace. ‘For the next twenty-four hours you are my responsibility. I will deliver you to the Master’s knife and hammer. If you survive the initiation, mine will be the first face that you will see. From that point on, I own your loyalty. You do what I say, when I say, how I say. Do you understand?’

Gideon can see he’s riled. ‘Clear as day. You’re acting tough but really you’re just the Master’s messenger boy. You don’t do anything unless he tells you.’

Draco hits the brakes. The van skids to a halt and the engine stalls. He throws a meaty right-hander into Gideon’s face, cannoning his head into the side window. Gideon tries to fend him off with an arm but Draco is already out of his seat, raining blows down on his head and face.

The beating lasts less than ten seconds. Draco holds him by the neck in iron-like fingers and delivers one final blow. The most painful one of all. ‘Remember this, Mr Smartmouth, when we’re alone, I am your master. I own you. I was ready to kill your father and I’m more than ready to kill you.’

108

The rest of the journey to the Chase estate takes place in a painful silence. Particularly so for Gideon. His lip is busted and a tooth feels loose.

Draco frogmarches him through the front door and straight upstairs to the hidden room.

‘Neat job,’ he says as Gideon reveals the panel in the landing wall. He taps it with his big perma-grazed builder’s knuckles. ‘Not bad at all. If I hadn’t already been in the room behind here, I would never have guessed one existed.’

Gideon ignores him and steps into the long narrow space.

Draco can’t hide his shock when he sees the shelves are empty. Just dust and faded paintwork marking where the diaries had been.

Gideon blots his bleeding lip. ‘What did you expect?’

‘Watch your mouth.’ He smiles at his own joke and walks the room. Knocks on walls. Thumps his heels in a few places. ‘Are there any more secret places in here?’ He bangs his foot down again on the flooring.

‘Aren’t you worried about my damaged rafters?’ says Gideon sarcastically.

‘They’re oak,’ chides Draco. ‘It would take the Great Fire of London to burn them down.’

He bangs his way along a line of ceiling panels. Gideon’s eyes focus at the far end, the one above his father’s telescope.

Draco stops just inches short of it. ‘So where are they? Where have your old man’s books gone?’

The sound of electric chimes pre-empts a reply. The gate bell. Draco looks edgy. ‘You expecting anyone?’

Gideon shrugs. ‘No. There’s a security monitor in the kitchen. We can see who it is.’

They go downstairs. The small wall-mounted screen shows a woman waiting in a car idling outside the gates to the house.

‘I know her,’ says Gideon. ‘It’s the detective heading the investigation into my father’s death. She’ll be able to see my car and your van on the drive.’

‘Let her in but get rid of her quickly.’ He heads towards the fire-damaged study. ‘Looks like I’ve got some work to do after all.’

Gideon buzzes Megan in, opens the front door and walks outside to greet her as she parks. He blots his lip once more on the back of his hand.

‘Good morning, Inspector. I didn’t expect to see you today.’

She grabs her handbag as she climbs out and shuts the door. ‘I wanted to see how you are.’ She notices the swollen and bloodied mouth. ‘Which doesn’t look very good. What happened?’

Gideon touches his mouth again. ‘I took a fall while trying to fix up the study. It’s not as bad as it looks.’

Her eyes drift past him as Draco comes walking out towards his van. ‘You having some work done?’

Gideon glances towards him. ‘Yes, Mr Smithsen did some jobs for my father and he kindly came by when he learned of the fire.’

‘That’s neighbourly.’ She remembers their conversation in the pub near the crematorium, what Gideon had told her about the builder’s previous visit and how he suspected he was linked to his father’s death.

‘Can’t believe Mr Chase’s bad luck,’ says Draco loudly, as he steps closer to them. ‘What’s the world coming to? You lose your father, then the scum of the earth break in and nearly burn you out of house and home. Terrible affair.’ He heads back to the van, rattles a large bag full of tools.

Megan knows they’re being watched, given no real chance to talk. ‘I came by to ask you a few more questions about your father — is this a bad time?’

‘It is,’ answers Gideon. ‘Do you mind if I call you? I can come into the station, if that makes it easier for you.’

‘That would be fine.’ Out of the corner of her eye, she sees the builder watching them. ‘Before I go, can I use your loo? It’s quite a drive back.’

‘Of course. Let me show you where it is.’

They peel away from Draco and once through the door she leans close and asks. ‘Are you all right?’

‘Not really. I have to go with him when you leave. They want my father’s books.’ He flicks a light on in the corridor and glances back towards the open front door. Draco slams shut the van door and is heading their way. ‘I can’t talk now.’

Megan has no choice but to slip into the downstairs toilet as Draco strides through the front door and pulls Gideon towards him. ‘I saw you both talking. What did she just say to you?’

Gideon tries not to panic. ‘Take your hands off me. It was my father’s funeral yesterday. She was just being sympathetic.’

He unclenches his fists and lets go of Gideon’s shirt. ‘Get her out of here. Quickly. Or you’ll be going to another funeral.’

109

Gideon walks Megan to her car and holds the door for her. He knows he only has a few seconds.

‘I was threatened this morning at gunpoint.’ He nods to the house. ‘By Smithsen and another man. The burglar who attacked me. They’re working together.’

Matt Utley’s photo flashes in her mind. She wants to tell him about her trip to the butcher’s shop but there’s no time. ‘Get in the car. We can sort all this out down at the station.’

He glances nervously to the front door. ‘I can’t do that. I have to go with him.’

‘Why?’

‘My father killed himself rather than condone what they’re doing.’

‘What are they doing?’ She looks at him quizzically, remembering again his fragile mental state.

Gideon sees doubt rising in her eyes. ‘I told you before. Sacrifices. I think they’re about to make another one.’

Megan wants to challenge him but spots Smithsen by the side of the house. He’s carrying a length of burned timber, trying to look busy. Now is the wrong time. She starts the engine and slips off the handbrake. ‘I’ll call you later.’

Gideon steps away as she drives off. Smithsen walks towards him, his eyes tracking the car to the electronic metal gates and out on to the country lane.

‘What was that all about?’

‘Money,’ says Gideon. ‘My father traded artefacts. Made millions from them. Probably some tomb-robbing in his time. The force’s art and fraud people want to interview me about his last set of accounts.’

‘She ask about your face?’

‘I told her I’d had an accident.’

‘Good.’ He turns and starts back to the house. ‘Come on, we’re wasting time. Let’s get those books and get out of here.’

‘Wait,’ says Gideon. ‘You think I’m stupid enough to leave them in the house?’

Smithsen’s face sets like concrete. Gideon digs his car keys from his pocket and opens the boot of the Audi. The builder peers inside and sees a thick blanket-wrapped bundle. He leans in and tugs off the outer layers. Inside are four A4 diaries, two from each decade of Nathaniel Chase’s time in the Craft.

‘Is this all?’

‘All for now.’

Smithsen opens one up and stares at the coded text. ‘How do we even know this is what you say it is?’

Gideon takes the book from him. ‘Only my father and I understood this code and that’s a good thing. Good for me and good for you. Most people would just throw these things away if they came across them, but they would be wrong to do that. Very wrong.’ He closes the journal, rewraps it in the blanket and hands the bundle over. ‘That’s my side of the bargain. Now complete yours.’

110

By the time you reach the rank of DI, you’ve usually suffered a few professional wounds. And if you are a woman, you’ve certainly set some personal rules along the way. From leaving early at end-of-case parties to never marrying another copper, you’ve laid down the markers. Megan has broken both of those little beauties. But there is one guideline she always follows.

Look at the bigger picture. Don’t make knee-jerk decisions. Stand back and weigh everything up. Big. Small. Important. Mundane. Take every factor into consideration.

Which is why she doesn’t beat down her boss’s door and ask for an arrest warrant and a tactical firearm unit to take in Dave Smithsen. Instead, she talks it through with Jimmy and tries to make sense of it all. ‘I saw Gideon Chase this morning. He looked like he had been roughed up. Said he’d been threatened at gunpoint by two men. A builder called Smithsen and the man who broke into his father’s house last week.’

Jimmy’s surprised. ‘I thought you said Chase hadn’t seen the burglar?’

‘I did. It turns out he had.’

‘So why did he lie about it?’

‘Long story. Says he felt he had a personal duty to find out what his father was mixed up in.’

‘So where did he get threatened and why?’

She shakes her head. ‘I don’t know all the details. I didn’t have the chance to ask him. Smithsen was there with him at the house, fixing the fire damage.’

Jimmy adds it all up. ‘So this builder and his burglar mate threaten Chase and then a few hours later he comes round to his house to fix it up? Sounds strange.’

‘You’re right. It is strange. But it got me wondering whether the suicide of Nathaniel Chase isn’t somehow connected to the ransom demand for the kidnapped American girl.’

Jimmy’s eyes widen. ‘Why? How on earth can you connect the two?’

‘Cast your mind back to when you saw Jake Timberland’s body in the barn. You said you had a gut feeling that the crime scene had been staged. Can you remember what you put that down to?’

‘Sure. Location, location, location.’

‘That’s right. Well, location is the factor that’s been bugging me. Both cases share the same focal point. Stonehenge. It’s where Lock and Timberland were probably heading for a romantic sunrise before the kidnap and murder. And it’s the place Nathaniel Chase wrote books about and where he wanted his ashes scattered. Come to think of it, it’s also where his son claims he was cured of hereditary cancer when he was a child and where he believes a prehistoric cult makes human sacrifices so they can benefit from its powers.’

Jimmy screws up his face. ‘You don’t really go for all that mumbo-jumbo, do you?’

‘Just playing devil’s advocate for a minute. Why not? People have been digging up the bones of thousands of human sacrifices for centuries. The practice has been recorded in the Bible and dozens of other historic documents.’

‘I get the history, but even if such a cult still existed, why would it want to sacrifice an American politician’s daughter and the son of an English Lord? And how do you explain the ransom demand?’

Jimmy’s logic pulls her up short. The cult is a stupid idea but one she’s not yet ready to completely write off. ‘Cults pick victims for a whole range of reasons. Just like rapists and murderers, they have their own secret criteria. It could be sexual, racial, gender-oriented. Maybe it fits or offends their belief systems. Perhaps Caitlyn fitted one of those categories.’

‘And Timberland?’

‘It could be that he didn’t fit the criteria, that’s why he got killed. He was just defending Caitlyn. Being gallant.’

Jimmy shows his ace card again: ‘And the ransom?’

She taps her fingers on the desk. Her nails sound like a hungry woodpecker. ‘Forget the ransom for a minute. I’m not done with the locational aspect.’

Jimmy thinks that argument is just as flawed. ‘Stonehenge. Okay. So how could a cult carry out a ritualistic killing there? The place is slap bang in the middle of two busy roads. Always crawling with tourists. Twenty-four-hour security.’

Megan’s eyes light up. ‘What if the security team at Stonehenge is involved?’

Jimmy thinks for a second. It would certainly change things. ‘Sean Grabb worked security there. I heard he’s been missing since the abduction and murder.’

‘You sure?’

‘Overheard it in the canteen. And remember this guy has previous for burglary and assault.’

Megan looks energised. ‘So if Grabb and others working security were part of the cult, they could fix access to the site at any time they wanted.’

‘It’s possible. I’ll check with English Heritage and the security company they use. See what Grabb’s attendance record is like. Could be that he pulls sickies all the time and often goes missing. Or maybe this is the only day he’s had off for years.’

Megan is only half-listening. ‘Good. Good idea. Give it a shot.’

Jimmy has implanted another idea in her head. One more unorthodox than any she’s considered in her career. One that could solve the case. Or get her sacked.

111

Cuffed and hooded in the back of Draco’s van, Gideon tries to work out the route they are taking back to the Sanctuary. He’s sure from the turn out of his gate that they’re heading west from Tollard Royal along the B3081 past the King John Inn.

He wriggles into a seated position behind the driver’s wall at the front of the van and navigates according to which direction he gets thrown. A jerk to the left tells him Draco has turned right and is driving north. Gideon tries to judge the passing minutes and comes to the conclusion that they’ve reached Shaftesbury and are now headed in the direction of Gillingham and Warminster.

The last part of the journey is the quietest. Few cars can be heard. From the reduced speed and increasingly bumpy ride, it seems they’ve gone off road. Gideon is thrown around for several minutes before the vehicle stops and its back doors clunk open.

Three, maybe four men pull him out and manhandle him over hard ground. They walk him into a chilly, enclosed space where footsteps create echoes. Some kind of door is being unlocked in front of him. There’s a lot of noise now. Sounds of people grunting. Things shifting. Something heavy sliding.

‘Quickly,’ someone shouts.

A hand goes around the back of his head, pushes him down, urges him forward. Makes sure he doesn’t crack his head on something. He hears rumbling, grunting again behind him. No one says anything for maybe a minute. His mind goes into overdrive. The silence around him feels toxic.

Finally Draco speaks. ‘You’re going down some steps. Watch you don’t fall.’ There’s sarcasm in his voice.

Gideon hears the slap and echo of footsteps in front and behind as he descends. The steps are solid. Thick stone in a large space, nothing to soak up the sound. Exactly twenty of them.

The descent stops and two sets of hands grab his arms and walk him briskly for almost thirty seconds.

‘More steps,’ comes the sarcastic voice.

Another twenty.

He recognises the smell of being deep underground. He knows the odours of the earth — peat, chalk, running damp, sandstone, flint, wet iron, rich moulds. They all zing like sharp perfume notes to his trained archaeological senses.

Guiding hands halt him. The hood is plucked from his broiled face. Torchlight. He is deep inside the Sanctuary. A part he has never seen. Those around him are robed and hooded. That’s what the delay must have been for, before they started the downward climb.

‘Get him stripped and prepared,’ says Draco, his voice tough now, as hard as the stone. Gideon tries not to think about what’s happening to him. He concentrates instead on forming a mental picture of where he is. A large underground space in open fields at the end of an hour-long drive. He guesses he’s thirty miles from Tollard Royal. Thirty miles probably north, perhaps a little west.

Draco interrupts his calculations, leans in close, his warm, sour breath in Gideon’s face. ‘Listen to me. I am going to teach you how to respond to the Master during the initiation ritual. Don’t shame yourself or me by getting any of it wrong. And remember, many agonies will visit your mind and body. If you are truly devoted to the Sacreds, then you will survive.’ He smiles. ‘If not, you will perish.’

112

Lillian Cooper’s pager bleeps on her hip. The haematology consultant unhooks it and curses the message from her secretary: ‘DI BAKER HERE TO SEE YOU.’

A long day just got longer. The bath and the glass of chilled white will have to wait. She starts the walk along a zig-zag of hospital corridors back to her office and thinks. Detectives don’t turn up announced. Not unless there’s trouble. And trouble is what might well be there. She’s already behaved unethically, breached internal guidelines and contravened countless clauses of the Data Protection Act by giving the DI confidential information.

‘Megan Baker. Apologies for coming over unannounced,’ The police woman rises brightly from a chair outside the small office and proffers a hand.

‘Not a problem,’ says Cooper. ‘Please come in. What can I do for you?’ She can feel her heart drumming.

Megan takes one side of a desk and opens a cappuccino leather Padovano handbag that Adam bought her in Italy three years back. ‘It’s about when we last spoke. About Gideon Chase.’

She produces a small sheet of paper and passes it over.

Cooper picks it up and looks at it. ‘I don’t understand. Who are these people?’

Megan produces her friendliest smile. ‘I need your help. Just once more. I want you to access the health records of all the people on that list and tell me what you find. Their hospital and GP surgery records.’

The professor is aghast. She leans away from the paper as though it’s white hot. ‘Inspector, I shouldn’t have helped you the first time. I’m certainly not going to repeat the mistake another half a dozen times.’

‘It’s not half a dozen.’ Megan is steely-eyed. ‘It’s four people. And it would be a bigger mistake not to help.’ She sits forward on the edge of her chair. ‘The first name on that list, Nathaniel Chase, is the father of the man you looked at for me. We have reason to believe Sean Grabb, David Smithsen and Matt Utley may be connected to Nathaniel’s death and to another matter we are investigating. Grabb is currently missing from work and a warrant for his arrest has been issued. All I need to know about him, and about the others, is whether they have, or have had in the past, a major medical problem. That’s all.’

‘Inspector, I really—’

Megan can see she’s softening. ‘Just tell me if they have ever been signed off work by their doctors. And if so what for.’ She opens her hands in a gesture of simplicity and finality. ‘It’s not much to ask.’

Cooper looks worried. She shakes her head. ‘It would be traceable. Any search I do like that is electronically logged. It comes back to the computer. Even if I use a different workstation, I still have to log in. I could lose my job just for getting you the information.’

Megan scratches her head. She’d been expecting this. It wasn’t how she wanted the conversation to go, but it was what she anticipated. ‘Doctor, you know from our mutual friend what kind of person I am. Any assistance you give me is solely for the public good. I assure you of that.’

‘That’s not the point. It’s just not right.’

Megan is going to have to play dirty. ‘Lillian, you are married and you are having a long-term affair with a married police officer. How right is that?’

The woman gasps. ‘I can’t believe that you bring my private life up like this.’

‘Believe it.’ Her face hardens. A look toughened in the tempering heat of countless interview rooms. ‘Please don’t preach to me about right and wrong and don’t judge me. I’m trying to solve a serious crime and save people’s lives. I am prepared to do almost anything I have to in order to do that, and right now I need your cooperation.’ She grabs the list of names from the desk and holds it up in front of the medic. ‘Now Professor, will you please help me? Or do I have to call my friend at the Gazette and Herald?’

113

The main passageway of the Sanctuary is lit only by the smoky, orange flames of an endless line of wall-mounted torches. Long black scorch marks taper up the stone walls like vaporised ghosts.

The passage curves relentlessly downwards and inwards. It’s just like his father described. St Paul’s beneath the earth. A vast cathedral-like area with magnificent chambers and crypts. Gideon is trying to blot out what’s happening to him — what is about to happen to him. Under different circumstances, he’d be overjoyed to be here, professionally elated at the prospect of opening up the tombs beneath his feet, carbon dating and forensically piecing together the lives of the people buried beneath him.

Four hooded Bearers guide him into an opening so narrow he barely sees it. The top of his head brushes the underside of the thick lintel as he passes through. Another twenty steps and they take a similar squeezed turning into a smaller chamber. A moon face with sagging jowls rises and speaks from beneath a sackcloth hood. ‘You must disrobe and shower. Then we will dress you for the initiation.’

They guide him into a separate area where he hands over his clothes and steps into a dark stone trench. There is nothing to wash himself with. No shampoo. No soap. He stands naked and alone. A torrent of water bursts out of the blackness above him. Hits him so hard it whiplashes his neck and drops him to his knees. Gideon shuts his eyes and covers his face with his hands. The flow last minutes and then stops as unexpectedly as it started. He is given a towel and led naked down the corridors to the Great Room.

The sight of the chamber takes his breath away. A life-size replica of Stonehenge fills it. As complete as the first moment it had been finished. His father had declared this to be the true tabernacle of the ancient gods. Their original resting place, while the monument in the fields near Amesbury was built.

A loud guttural rumbling turns Gideon’s head. The Great Room is being sealed. A sinister brown tide of hooded devotees swells around him. A surge of bearers edge him to the circumference of a fiery ring of tall, thick candles. Beyond the flames stands the Henge Master, in his hands the ceremonial hammer and chisel. Instruments that may take Gideon’s life. Fear wakes inside him. He feels it coursing through his body like a poison.

The initiation has begun.

‘Behold the embodiment of the Sacreds.’ The Master raises his hands and turns slowly. ‘The divinities rested here centuries ago, when our forefathers built this cosmic circle and this Sanctuary. In here, you are in their presence. Out of respect, once initiated, you will ensure your head is always covered and your eyes always lowered. Do you understand?’

Gideon responds as Draco instructed him. ‘Yes, Master.’

‘You are brought before us because you are deemed fit by members of our Craft to become a lifelong Follower. Is that your will?’

‘Yes, Master.’

‘Are you ready to pledge your life, your soul and your loyalty to the Sacreds and to those who protect them?’

‘Yes, Master.’

‘The Sacreds renew us only as long as we renew them. We honour them with our flesh and blood and in return they protect and renew our flesh and blood. Do you pledge your flesh and blood to their immortal holiness?’

‘Yes, Master.’

Thuribles of incense swing behind him, slowly releasing their sweet and spicy aromas. The Henge Master spreads his arms again. ‘Bring him who wishes to Follow to the Slaughter Stone.’

Gideon is led through the ring of candles into the circle. He remembers Draco’s warning to keep his eyes averted from the Master. Before him is the terrifying slab they call the Slaughter Stone. He freezes. Unseen hands push him to his knees and then to the floor, securing his wrists and ankles. Fear runs wild inside him.

‘Do you believe in the power of the Sacreds and all who follow them?’

Gideon thinks of his father lying in this exact spot. Chained as he is now. About to have his blood spilled so his son might escape the agonising death suffered by his wife.

The Master raises his voice, repeats the question. ‘Do you believe in the power of the Sacreds and all who follow them?’

‘Yes, Master.’

‘Do you trust unquestionably and unhesitatingly in their power to protect, to sustain and to heal?’

‘Yes, Master.’

‘Do you dedicate your life to their service?’

‘Yes, Master.’

‘And do you swear upon your life and the lives of all members of your family and those you hold dear never to speak of the Craft outside of your brotherhood unless given permission to do so?’

‘Yes, Master.’

Members of the Inner Circle swing their thuribles over him and then step away. The Henge Master produces the stone blade that was fashioned from the first trilithon. ‘I draw the human blood, flesh and bone in the hope that you will accept him as one of your servants and will afford him your protection and blessings. Sacred Gods, I humbly beg you to find a space in your affections for our brother.’

He slashes a deep cut from each of Gideon’s wrists up to his shoulders, from each ankle to the top of each leg. Finally, from the neck to the base of the spine. Gideon chokes back a scream. He sees his mother before him, memories of her putting him to bed, kissing him goodnight, smiling at him. Then comes a flash-frame of her in Venice on the film his father made. Then the message she taped for him. The awful secret she revealed to him.

He feels a violent blow to his head. Knows what it is. The brutality of the hammer and the chisel. He hears the Henge Master’s voice far away. Black ness steamrollers him. The only words left ringing in his head are those his mother spoke to him from beyond the grave.

114

Megan uses her hands-free device to call Jimmy from her car as she returns to Devizes. ‘Are you alone?’

‘Give me a sec.’ He steps away from his desk and into the corridor outside CID. ‘I am now.’

‘How did you get on with the check on Sean Grabb?’

‘Good. Security firm were very cooperative. They knew about his previous criminal record, he’d told them. They gave him a chance. Say he’s turned out to be a model employee. Always punctual and to the best of their recollection, he’s never had a day off unless for a holiday.’

‘That’s because he’s never had a day’s illness in his life,’ says Megan. ‘Neither has his father or his grandfather, who lived to be almost a hundred.’

‘Good genes by the sound of it.’

‘It’s more than that.’ She glances at her handbag on the passenger seat. In it are the notes she made when Lillian Cooper finally cracked. ‘Dave Smithsen, our builder friend, has also never been sick. Not so much as a day off school. And it’s the same with Matt Utley, the butcher cum burglar at the Chase estate.’

‘They’re healthy people. What does that prove?’

‘Gideon Chase said the stones had healing powers. Claimed they’d cured him of his childhood cancer and protected people in his father’s cult. Remember how quickly his face healed after the fight with the intruder?’

‘Boss, you’re not from round here but believe me, Wiltshire’s a very healthy place to live,’ says Jimmy, not sure of what she’s driving at. ‘Good healthy stock — no big city pollution, not many fast-food restaurants, lots of country walks and healthy living from when you’re a kid.’

‘Jimmy,’ she interjects. ‘Everyone gets sick sometimes. Food poisoning, hay fever, genetic disorders, whatever. Country air and a walk down a farm lane don’t stop you getting ill or injured. But these people had none of it.’

‘That doesn’t prove anything. My father is strong as a bull and has never been injured or ill to my knowledge. Neither has my mum or me for that matter.’

They both fall silent as they realise the implication of what he’s just said.

115

Megan lets herself into her house, heads straight to the fridge and a half-finished bottle of Sauvignon Blanc. She kicks off her shoes and flops on the sofa, brimming glass in hand. She and Adam are supposed to be having a romantic night. Her parents have taken Sammy so they can go out for dinner and be alone. If ever she wasn’t in the mood for pressured sex, it is now.

She has done a lot of hard thinking on the drive home. About Gideon. About Jimmy. About Jimmy’s father — her Deputy Chief Constable. Jesus.

She hears a key in the door and shivers.

Adam calls her name from the hallway. ‘Meg, you upstairs?’

‘In the lounge, getting pissed.’

He appears in the doorway and smiles. ‘Are you all right?’

She nods, then says, ‘No. Not really.’

He goes to her. She’s clearly tense and he thinks he knows why. She’s worrying. Stressing unnecessarily. ‘Sweetheart, don’t get worked up about tonight. I’m fine if you just want to stay in and watch a movie. We can curl up on the couch, like we used to when Sam was a baby.’

Tears brim in her eyes and now she feels embarrassed. Awkward but grateful.

Adam goes back to the fridge and finds another bottle of wine to top up her glass. He grabs himself a beer as well and goes to sit with her. Sit where he used to sit. The way things used to be.

Megan puts her head on his chest, closes her eyes and starts to cry.

116

Gideon can’t tell if he is regaining consciousness or is still in the middle of a nightmare. Waves of trauma crash in his head. So much pain. So much shock. Torrid images sweep him back and forth like a child in a rolling sea. An underground Stonehenge. Black eyes beneath sackcloth hoods. A giant ring of burning candles. His mother’s face. An ancient stone blade and ceremonial hammer. His father’s diaries. The Henge Master’s raised hands. His naked body chained to the Slaughter Stone. The burning stab of the knife in his wrists and legs and back. The taste of his own blood as it runs into his mouth.

Now he sees a boy. An eight-year-old with dark hair and big hopeful eyes. He is holding the hand of his father and they are standing in a swirling mist in an open field. Stonehenge. Only it isn’t. They are inside a circle of tall, spectral figures. The vaporous shapes keep shifting, becoming wider then stretching thin like smoke rising from lamps in the ground, then gushing higher like black jets of oil, burning red like the fires of hell, turning gold like the strings of some massive harp.

Now Gideon sees only a waterfall of stars. Galaxies of stars pouring into the centre of the henge, swirling in a vast, bottomless cosmic pool. The stars begin to fade. Rocks are falling behind him. Rumbling like an earthquake. The Stone Gods on the edge of the pool are moving, crossing the darkness of his mind. Closing in on him. One grasps his ankle chains. Another lifts the metal restraints around his wrists and then drops his limb like the arm of a rag doll. His heart hammers in his cold, naked body. The giant Gods lean over him. Then they shift. Drift away. Vanish like the mist he remembers around Stonehenge.

The only light in the Great Room, the pale flickering glow from the ring of candles, goes out. Gideon is alone in the stony darkness.

117

Adam gets up long before Megan to make breakfast. Just as he used to. Everything is going to be just like it was.

He hears her come out of the shower. Ushers her back into their sex-wrecked bed. Hurries downstairs and returns with a tray of toast, orange juice, fruit and a flower from the small cottage garden.

She smiles. ‘It’s been a while since you treated me like this.’

‘It’s been a while since you let me.’

They kiss and almost simultaneously glance at the bedside clock. 7.10 a.m. No time for anything except food. She bites hungrily into the hot buttered toast.

‘I’ll take Sammy to nursery,’ he says perching on the edge of the bed. There’s something on his mind. ‘What you said last night, about crazy cults and Stonehenge. Do you really believe it? Or was it just the messed up day and bottle and a half of wine talking?’

‘Bit of both, I suppose.’ She hadn’t told him everything. Only some of her speculation about Lock and Timberland. Why they’d been drawn to the site, the lure of the solstice and its sacred connotations. She’s interested in his professional opinion. ‘You think it’s daft to consider a cult rather than a kidnap gang?’

He shrugs. ‘Aside from the odd one or two, the Charles Mansons of this world, I don’t believe cults are anything more than a few nutty fanatics who like a strange dance and the odd prayer or two before a bit of dressing up and frantic sex.’

She laughs.

‘Listen, Stonehenge is commercially marketed as being magic, mystical and all that stuff. The security staff over there actually tell you it’s a sacred site, they warn you that you mustn’t on any account even touch the stones. They are paid to say that, to perpetuate the myths. It’s a pagan place of worship. Go there any day of the week and you’ll see nut-jobs from all over the world kneeling and praying before those rocks. You’re bound to come across stories about cults and all their oddities.’

She’s missed being able to talk to him like this. Confide in him. Bounce work off him. ‘So you don’t buy it? It’s all just legend and folk tales. Like turning water into wine and feeding thousands with a loaf of bread and a couple of fishes?’

‘You know, Meg, Wiltshire is full of ghosts and myths. St George is supposed to have slain a dragon over at Uffington. Merlin is supposed to have been at Stonehenge.’ He laughs as he stands up. ‘Don’t get too hung up on it all and I wouldn’t go mentioning it to anyone at work who is brighter than Jimmy.’

He bends down and kisses her. ‘Got to go.’

‘Thanks. Tell Mum I’ll call her later.’

She hears his feet thunder down the stairs and the front door slam.

Adam starts up his old BMW, a four-year-old three series he bought cheap at auction. He backs off the drive and calls the station to see if anything urgent is happening. He’s struck lucky. Sounds like a nice quiet shift ahead.

Next he swaps phones and makes a private call. The kind he doesn’t want Megan knowing about. ‘It’s Aquila,’ he says. ‘I’m not entirely sure, but I think we might have a problem.’

118

The Henge Master sits in the flickering candlelight of his chamber and muses on the tricky issue of timing. Three days until the first twilight of the first full moon after the summer solstice. The time the ritual must begin. He must be precise. The sacrificial offering has to start in astronomical twilight on the evening of this coming Sunday and be completed by the start of nautical twilight on Monday morning.

There is much to plan. Bearers to be chosen. Lookers to be detailed. Trusted Followers will soon start arriving from across the world. They will be ensconced as guests in the homes of their British counterparts.

The police activity has lessened but it is still considerable. Too intense to take chances. The newspapers write of little else but the young woman held captive just metres from him. She is less troublesome now. Six days without food has taken the fight out of her. After the pointless escape attempt she has become more placid. He thanks the gods for small blessings.

Then there is Gideon. Spread out in his chamber are the coded diaries Chase brought with him. The Master can’t make sense of what they say. The boy has probably made copies of them. He’s not stupid. Seems every bit as smart as Nathaniel was. Every bit his equal. Should he survive the effects of the initiation, he may prove an asset rather than a liability.

The door to the chamber opens and the hooded form of Draco enters.

‘What is it?’ The Master’s clipped tone betrays a building tension.

‘Thank you for seeing me at short notice. I was contacted this morning by our brother Aquila. His wife, a detective inspector working from headquarters, is starting to make the kind of connections we don’t find helpful.’

‘In what way?’

‘About the American girl and her English boyfriend. She has been speculating that they had been drawn to Stonehenge because of the solstice. That the American had been kidnapped close by.’

The Master is unconcerned. ‘I’ve read as much in the tabloid press. The police won’t make it their focus. ‘They know the media make up a new line every hour.’

‘But this woman is also investigating the Nathaniel Chase suicide,’ says Draco. ‘And a missing person. The young man chosen as our last sacrifice.’

The Master nods. ‘Now I understand. It is good that you raise this. And good that Aquila reported his concerns with us. I will have the detective taken care of.’

119

Jimmy Dockery is missing.

He hasn’t turned in to work. No one has seen him. The computer on his desk is off. There’s no response on his radio. He hasn’t phoned in sick and from the checks Megan has done he’s not at home. No car on the drive. No sign of life.

There could be a perfectly reasonable explanation. But that’s not what she’s thinking. She’s imagining the worst. And with good reason. Gideon Chase is also missing. He doesn’t answer his landline or his mobile. He’s not at home either. She just drove back from Tollard Royal and there’s no trace of him.

Could Jimmy be with Gideon? It’s the obvious connection. But why? Was Jimmy following up on things they’d discussed? She censors more sinister thoughts. Megan would like a face-to-face with Dockery Senior. She’d love to look the Deputy Chief in the eyes and see if he knows anything about his missing son. She can’t believe she’s thinking like this. She remembers what Adam had said. That it would be professional suicide to start talking to other people at work about what is going on in her head. She shakes off the dark ruminations and determines to busy herself. Wait for either Jimmy or Gideon to turn up.

Master butcher Matt Utley is top of her to-do list. She heads to the property office to take another look at the evidence recovered from the burglary. She now feels sure that the axe she noticed in the recovered bag will turn out to be some kind of butcher’s cleaver.

Megan briefly passes the time of day with Louise, the recently widowed property officer, and tells her what she needs. They carry on chatting as the fifty-two-year-old disappears in the back and shouts above the noise of rooting through paper bags and boxes on metal shelves. ‘You sure about the dates and case number, Megan?’

‘Sure I’m sure.’

Louise reappears. ‘Let me check again.’ She types in the reference in her computer. ‘Sorry, I don’t have any entry record.’ She looks puzzled. ‘There’s no trace of anything at all being logged. These numbers you gave me, they don’t match anything in the back.’

Megan is thrown. ‘Then where is it? I saw this evidence personally. I went over it with the PC who recovered it and my own DS said he was—’ She runs out of words.

Jimmy told her he’d log the evidence in. She clearly remembers him picking it up off her desk. Her blood runs cold.

Another thought hits her.

She thanks Louise and rushes back to her desk. Opens her computer mailbox. Frantically scrolls down the messages. Panic makes her heart race. She types quickly into the search box.

Nothing.

Types again. This time slower. Scrolls manually through the messages. Still nothing. Flushed with shock, she checks her recent documents tags and deleted files section.

Blank.

They’ve all been permanently erased. ‘Oh God.’ She covers her face with her hands. The automated mail that alerted her to the face-recognition match with Matt Utley has vanished.

She has nothing on him.

Every shred of evidence has disappeared.

120

‘You don’t look so arrogant and full of yourself now,’ says Draco, leaning over Gideon and looking into his bloodless face. The Keeper of the Inner Circle knows what he’s been through. Hell. He’s been there himself.

Draco picks up a wrist manacle, puts a key in it. The chain is dangling to the screwed hook in the stone floor. ‘Before I let you out, I need to know if I can trust you.’

Gideon is weak, traumatised. ‘You can.’ His voice is slow and hoarse.

Draco unlocks the manacles. Two men materialise out of the shadows and lift Gideon to his feet. He is a dead weight and has trouble standing. Blood rushes painfully to his head. He feels incredibly weak, hungry.

He drifts light-footedly across the Great Room, disorientated, as though in the middle of an out-of-body experience. The hooded men around him seem to be shimmering, surrounded by golden auras that expand and shrink as they breathe in and out. When Draco speaks, clouds of white waft from his mouth. Like breath on a cold winter’s day.

He knows they are moving him down passageways but he can’t feel his feet. Can’t feel anything. Yet his sight and hearing are highly sensitised not dulled. He can hear the moisture shrivelling up in the hewn sandstones around him. He can see the entire corridor reflected in the dark eye of an ant in the mortar where the wall meets the floor.

They stop in a panic. Their halos mingle and seem to catch fire. Their voices overlap, spill on to each other, their words are green, red, brown. Gideon laughs. They spin him round. He senses uncertainty. There are other men across from him. Men and a woman.

A beautiful woman. Young, dark haired and gorgeous.

His mother.

Gideon knows it is her. She is alive. They pull him away from her. But she sees him. For a split second, he is sure his mother’s eyes catch his.

He is wrestled away. He cranes his neck and looks for her over his shoulder. But she is gone.

121

Megan knocks lightly on the door of Jude Tompkins’ office and peers in. The DCI is a long way from being a friend, but seems to be the only person she can turn to now.

‘Ma’am, I’m very sorry to disturb you. I need to talk in confidence about an important development.’

The office is dark. Tompkins frowns through the puddle of yellow light spilled from a desk lamp. ‘What is it, Baker?’

‘Ma’am, Jimmy and I have been following up on the Naylor case.’

The DCI looks up, casts her mind back and remembers the file. ‘Tony Naylor?’

‘Yes, ma’am, that’s right.’

She downs her pen and sits back. ‘Okay, come in. Tell me quickly. Gibson and Rowlands have got me chasing my own tail.’ She gestures to a seat.

‘Thank you, ma’am.’ Megan shuts the door and sits. ‘To cut a long story short, Naylor is dead.’

Some of the tension on the DCI’s face eases. In terms of time, money and resources, a dead missing person is usually better than a live one. ‘You’ve got a body?’

‘Sort of, ma’am. Naylor’s body was reduced to fertiliser and spread across a field.’

The DCI puts her head into her hands. Wearily. A dead murdered person is a whole other matter. The last thing she wants right now. She scrubs at her mat of lacquered hair, tries to get the blood flowing. ‘You have forensic evidence, Baker?’

‘We got a sample from his parents, ma’am. The match is perfect.’

Tompkins widens her tired eyes, sits more upright and stares across the desk. ‘Have you told them any details?’

‘Not yet.’

‘You said he was fertiliser?’

‘Maybe a wrong description, ma’am. Somebody, some thing, pulverised his body then spread it across what used to be a crop field near Imber.’

She pulls a sour face. ‘So how did you find it?’

‘We got a lead from a dog tag found by a jogger. Naylor’s sister identified it, from the inscription on the back, as one she’d bought for him.’ Megan can see by the exhausted look on her boss’s face that now is not the time to mention the rather unorthodox deployment of Turkey vultures. ‘DS Dockery organised a search, brought back soil samples. The lab ran quick PCR tests on them and found scraps of human flesh in the earth. These samples were taken from a huge field, from right across it. And all of them contained the same DNA. Labs then matched those to the familial DNA we took.’

Tompkins is impressed. ‘Well done. Another time, this would be our major case of the year.’ She glances down at the files on her desk, a mass of papers, the photographs of Jake Timberland and Caitlyn Lock. ‘Was that what you wanted to discuss confidentially, or is there something else?’

‘There’s more.’ Megan gestures to a giant map of Wiltshire on the wall of the office. ‘It’s where we found Naylor’s remains that disturbs me, ma’am.’ She gets to her feet, walks over to the map. ‘Here.’ She lands a finger out in the desolate woods and fields of Salisbury Plain. ‘It’s barely a mile from where Jake Timberland’s body was found.’

Tompkins gets up to join her at the map. She peers at the bleak spot. ‘So who owns this section of land?’

‘That’s what’s interesting, ma’am. If you look at the Land Registry, it says the Ministry of Defence owns everything out there. But that’s not quite true. I dug around a bit and it transpires they own 99.9 per cent. The 0.1 per cent they don’t own is this section. The bit with our field and our barn in it. The place where we’ve discovered the remains of two bodies within a matter of days.’

‘So whose is it?’

‘It’s owned by Nathaniel Chase. Or at least it was, until he killed himself. Now it belongs to his son. Gideon.’

122

The rule of three. It was one of the first things that producers taught Caitlyn when she went on Survivor.

Rule one: humans can’t survive more than three hours exposed to extremely high or low temperatures unless they are wearing proper clothing. Rule two: humans can’t survive more than three days without water. Rule three: humans can’t survive more than three weeks without food.

Caitlyn thinks they should have added a fourth: humans can’t survive when they’re imprisoned in a block of stone and mind-fucked by whack-jobs in dressing gowns.

The cramped conditions are physically gruelling. The lack of fresh air is an agony. She is permanently shivering with cold. But what’s really killing her is the boredom. She’s being crushed to death by her own fears and imaginings.

Her teeth chatter. She knows her body temperature is falling critically but there isn’t enough room to do any form of exercise vigorous enough to generate heat. They are giving her water but she’s dehydrating. The persistent migraines are so bad she feels like she’s going to black out. Hunger pains are constant and it’s so long ago since she ate she can’t remember. In the Camper with Jake. That must have been it. A lifetime ago.

Another stomach cramp chews through her abdomen and Caitlyn doubles up in pain. She knows exactly what’s happening to her body. Wishes she didn’t. It’s eating itself. Chewing through her reserves of fat and muscle. Laying to waste all the years of good nutrition and hard work in the gym. Already she can feel her well-toned biceps and quads softening, shrinking.

After her appearance on Survivor, Caitlyn was signed up as an ambassador by GCAP, the Global Call to Action against Poverty. So she knows every dirty detail about starvation. On average, it’s how one person dies every second. Four thousand an hour. A hundred thousand a day. Thirty-six million a year. She doesn’t want to be one of them. Not another awful statistic.

Dizziness washes over her again. She slides to the floor so she doesn’t fall and crack her head. A sickening blackness engulfs her. She’s uncertain now whether she’s awake or hallucinating. Men are lifting her out of her cell and walking her to the showers. Her vision is blurred and she feels faint, struggling to breathe.

Out of the corner of her eye she sees a dark huddle. People moving towards her. Hooded captors, holding someone.

Jake.

He’s alive.

She struggles to focus. Sees him surrounded by other men, robed and mean-eyed. Like the monsters who have been guarding her. He looks naked. His chin is sagging on his chest as they lead him by the arms. She wants to say something but her mouth won’t work. Wants to run to him but can barely stand. Blood rushes through her like a queasy tingling virus and she collapses in the smothering dark.

123

Megan and her boss are still staring at the map. They’ve come to the same conclusion.

Two dead bodies found in such a small area, both discovered within days of each other, and on land owned by a rich and powerful man who unexpectedly killed himself. It’s a combination of factors that can’t be ignored.

‘Pull Gideon Chase in and give him the third degree,’ says Tompkins. ‘Rattle his cage and see if he’s a grieving son as white as pure driven snow or whether there’s something else to him.’

‘Ma’am, I’ve been trying to get in touch with him all day, without any luck.’ She hesitates before adding, ‘I’ve also been unable to contact DS Dockery. He seems to have gone off radar.’

Tompkins fears this is a classic case of the left hand not knowing what the right is doing. ‘Is he already with Chase, Baker?’ The thought amuses her. ‘Is your DS already a step ahead of you?’

Megan doesn’t rise to the bait. ‘Perhaps, ma’am. But that doesn’t explain why I can’t contact either of them. Chase’s landline is tripping to answerphone and I’ve tried both their mobiles and left messages.’

‘Then perhaps Jimmy’s dragged him out to the middle of the Plain. Reception out there can be bad.’ The thought jolts her into a more strategic worry. ‘Actually, we need to get operational support to cordon off the scene where you found Naylor’s remains and find a forensic archaeologist to search the area.’

‘I’ve already had the scene secured, ma’am. I took the liberty as soon as the results came in. You were unavailable at that time, otherwise I’d have updated you earlier.’

The DCI’s door opens and her secretary leans in. ‘The Chief and the Deputy would like to see DI Baker, ma’am.’

Tompkins looks surprised. ‘Why?’

‘I’m afraid I don’t know. The Chief’s PA didn’t give a reason, just said I was to find her urgently.’

In Megan’s experience, ‘urgently’ isn’t a good word. Never has been. Never will be.

‘I’ll come with you.’ Tompkins pulls her handbag off the corner of the desk chair. ‘If it’s urgent for you, it’s urgent for me as well.’

124

The Henge Master rises and embraces the new initiate. ‘My son, it is so good that you are now with us.’ He holds Gideon’s head to his face. Hugs him like a father embracing a lost child. ‘Sit. You must rest.’ He turns to Draco. ‘Leave us. I will call for you when we are done.’

The Master smiles as he sits alone with Gideon at the circular stone table. ‘The ceremony is draining. You will feel weak and tired for some hours, but your body will heal, regenerate quickly.’

On the table in front of him are wooden platters and jugs of water and juice. The boards are piled with chopped raw fruit.

‘The food here is perfect for your purified body. Blueberries, cranberries, figs, bananas. Power foods. Please eat. You need to build your strength.’

Gideon picks a little. He has no appetite. He glances around. The dark stone walls seem to suck all of the light from the room.

‘Such a famous fruit and such a powerful symbol, don’t you think?’ The Master holds an apple in the palm of his hand.

‘You mean Adam and Eve?’

‘No, no, I don’t. I was thinking of something Greek.’

Gideon knows he is being tested. His brain slowly moves up a gear. ‘Ah, the Twelve Labours. Heracles had to steal golden apples from the garden of the Hesperides.’

The Master smiles then bites the apple. ‘You are indeed your father’s son.’ He nods towards the coded diaries spread at the end of the table. ‘When we are finished, I want you to read to me. Explain the code.’

Gideon pulls the stalk from a rich red cherry. ‘I have some questions.’

‘Ask. This is your time. I am here to help you learn to become a valued member of our Craft.’

‘I am curious about the Sanctuary. How and when it was built, where exactly it is.’

The Master smiles. ‘You will learn the location of the Sanctuary in good time and when you are fit enough I will personally guide you through its magnificent chambers.’

Gideon looks offended. ‘I am still not to be trusted?’

The Henge Master sighs. ‘The initiation begins your journey of faith, it does not complete it. I think you know that we are approaching an important time in our calendar. One that no one can jeopardise. After that, we will revisit this issue.’

‘The ritual of renewal. I presume that is what you mean.’

‘I do. In three days it will be completed and then we will allow you to leave.’ He smiles. ‘On stepping outside you will know the location of the Sanctuary.’ He laughs. ‘You will know it instantly.’

‘And until then I am to stay here? As what? A prisoner?’

‘Of course not. As a scholar. We shall talk every day. You will educate me about Nathaniel’s writings.’ He picks up a diary from beside him. ‘And I will educate you about your duties as a Follower of the Sacreds. It will be time well spent.’

125

The two policewomen don’t say much as they walk the short distance to the Chief’s office suite. They’re asked to wait outside for a moment, then his PA ushers them through.

Alan Hunt and Greg Dockery sit at a conference table not far from the door. Neither seems to notice that Tompkins has tagged along.

‘You asked to see me, sir,’ says Megan, trying to hide her nerves.

‘I did, Detective Inspector.’ The Chief flashes a politician’s smile and nods to a chair. ‘Please sit down.’ He looks to Tompkins. ‘This is nothing to worry about, Jude.’

‘Relieved to hear it, sir. With your office saying it was urgent, I thought you’d appreciate me being here.’ She helps herself to a seat alongside Megan.

Hunt ignores the comment and turns to his deputy. Greg Dockery fixes his eyes on Megan. ‘We have just been informed that the Home Office are about to publish their annual review.’ His tone is almost funereal. ‘And it will be highly critical of the Wiltshire Constabulary. Particularly, about our attention — or what they see as our lack of attention — to long-term unsolved cases. With that in mind, we need to be proactive and head off any rebukes.’ He musters a smile. ‘This is good news for you, Baker. As of this minute, you are the acting head of our new taskforce, Operation Cold Case. If you make sufficient progress, if this appointment heads off the criticism, then you can expect accelerated promotion to the rank of DCI. Congratulations.’ He stands up and leans across the desk to shake her hand.

Megan is surprised and confused. ‘Thank you, sir.’ She rises to grip the extended palm.

‘Starting when?’ asks Tompkins coldly. ‘With respect, we’re badly stretched, sir. As well as the Lock case, DI Baker has a very full workload, including a new murder. The timing really isn’t good.’

‘Starting right now,’ says Hunt acidly. ‘Timing is never good, Jude. There’s always a reason to put off change. We’ll assign someone else to clear the DI’s workload.’

His deputy picks up the impetus: ‘This is a major opportunity for you, Megan. It’ll be good for you. The posting is in Swindon. You will need to clear your desk today. You start in the morning.’

She swallows. ‘Sir, I have a young daughter who goes to nursery in Hartmoor. I need a little more time.’

Hunt cuts her off. ‘You don’t have time, Detective Inspector.’ He glances at his watch. ‘Nor do we. You are very lucky. You’ve landed a hell of a job. Now go and make the most of it.’

‘Yes sir.’ Megan leaves in a dignified silence, followed by Jude Tompkins. Once outside the door, the DCI takes her by the arm. ‘Come back to my office. We need to talk. You’re bright, Baker, but not that bright. Jobs like this don’t just fall like rain out of the sky. I would have known if a job as strategic as this was in the offing.’

The DCI doesn’t say any more until they’re back in the privacy of her own room. She shuts the door and shoots Megan an accusatory stare. ‘You are being bumped out of here. Shifted doubly quick. What have you been doing? Is it Jimmy? Have you been bedding that ginger toe-rag?’

Megan is horrified. ‘I certainly have not.’

‘Good. I credited you with more sense than that. So what is it?’

‘This has nothing to do with my private life. And, not that it is any of your business, I’m actually back with my husband.’

‘So illuminate me. What the hell is all this to do with, then?’

Megan tries to figure it out. Her boss is right. The new job isn’t a bump up, it’s a bump out. She’s not being promoted. She’s being shut down.

Tompkins can’t sit. She paces and glares with anger. ‘Things have never been busier. We’ve got a suicide, two murders — Naylor and Timberland — and a VIP kidnapping. And the top brass want to ship out my DI in the middle of it all.’ She moves closer to Megan. ‘Think, Baker. Think hard about anything unusual you have found or that has happened to you. Tell me about it. Is there anything at all in any of the cases that you have been holding back? Doing a bit more work on. I need to know it all. Now.’

126

A night spent on a bed of straw in a stone cell has left Gideon aching from head to toe. The Master can call him a scholar all he likes but he knows exactly what he is. He’s a prisoner. No less captive than the pale young woman he saw as they led him from the Great Room. The one in his delusional post-initiation state he thought was his mother. It was the girl off the news. He realises now. Caitlyn Lock. The daughter of the US Vice President. That was the woman he’d seen. From what he can remember she had a lover, an Englishman. He supposes he is also being held somewhere, probably in a cell like his own.

Then he remembers. Remembers his father’s book. Immurement. Ancient Britons adopted the practice of the Greco-Romans. They walled-up errant citizens, confined them in tiny spaces until they starved to death. The Followers employed the same practice to purify the body of the sacrifice and rid the mind of any form of visual or audible stimulus.

Gideon pities her. She must be going insane. Pressed up against dark dusty stone with no way to move and nothing to do. A living hell. He stands and walks his small cell. Seven strides long by three wide. Luxurious compared with how they’ll be keeping Caitlyn.

He sits on the straw bed and falls deep in thought. The Sanctuary is a circular structure. He can picture the Descending Passage. The corridor of the Outer Circle. The Great Room. The cleansing area. The Master’s chamber. Some outer chambers. The cell that he is in right now. From this first-hand knowledge and the descriptions in his father’s diaries, he believes he has a good mental map of the entire place. Including where they must be holding Caitlyn.

There is only one gap in his knowledge.

The exit.

127

Megan has spent another night at her parents’ house with Sammy. After news of her so-called ‘promotion’ and the doubts that Tompkins raised, the last thing she could face was an evening with Adam and his bullet-train desires to resume normal family life as though nothing had ever happened.

She steps in the shower and tries to clear her head. All of yesterday’s worries are still there. Gideon is missing. Jimmy is missing. She is going to have to uproot Sammy and move to Swindon.

She towels dry and dresses. Tompkins promised she’d put the skids under the whole change of jobs thing. Slow it down. Make it manageable. But Megan doubts even the DCI will be able to get the Chief and the Deputy to change their minds.

Her parents have fed and dressed Sammy and Megan thanks them and drives to nursery, her mind on autopilot. Yesterday’s twist in events has brought her and Tompkins closer together. Closer than they’d ever been. She’d even felt confident enough to confide in her. The DCI had typically demanded every last detail and Megan had given it to her. Everything. Gideon Chase’s theories about cults. The disappearing evidence that linked butcher Matt Utley with the break-in at the Chase estate. Everything. She was surprised — and somewhat relieved — she hadn’t been laughed out of the station.

Having dropped Sammy and kissed her goodbye, she uses her mobile to phone HR and tell them she’s going to the doctors’ and can’t come in today. Maybe not tomorrow either. She looks at the keypad and then tries the numbers she has for Gideon and Jimmy. Another blank. Gideon’s absence can only be bad news. She turns the car around and heads out to Tollard Royal.

It’s a sunny, clear day and the hour-long trip is almost therapeutic. It’s a tiny village on the southernmost boundary with Dorset. Not much there of tourist interest. A thirteenth-century church and a Quaker burial ground. Only Ashcombe House, home to Cecil Beaton, Guy Ritchie and Madonna, is worthy of note.

At the Chase estate the gates are locked. She presses the buzzer repeatedly and calls his phone lines again. Nothing.

Megan gets out of the car and walks the tall brick walls of the perimeter until she’s out of sight of any passing traffic. If Utley found a weak spot in the home’s defences, she can.

And she does. After a little tree-climbing and a jump that Sammy would have applauded, she makes it on to the top of the wall. She goes down on her knees, grips the brick edge, hangs low and drops into the garden. She emerges from the soil and shade on to the long back lawn.

‘Gideon!’ she shouts up towards the house. Doesn’t want to spook him, have him mistake her for another intruder.

It takes several minutes to negotiate the lake and the back of the house. There’s no one here. His Audi is parked on the gravel out front and judging from the glistening spider webs spun across the wing mirrors, it hasn’t been moved for a while.

Megan rings the bell. Bangs with her fist and shouts his name again, even through the letterbox. Nothing. She scribbles a note for him to call her and pushes it through the metal flap. She withdraws her hand and stands frozen in thought.

The last time she saw Gideon was with Smithsen, right here. And he looked scared. At the time she wrote it off as a psychological reaction to his father’s death. Now she knows that she was wrong. Maybe he’s even lying dead on the floor inside.

She tries to rationalise. Smithsen wouldn’t really kill him, would he? Not after seeing her at the house, not after talking to her, a detective, on the driveway. He’d be mad to. The logic is enough to stop her breaking in. At least until she has spoken to Jude Tompkins.

Megan retraces her steps, climbs back over the wall and heads to her car. As she starts up the engine, she sees a flash of something in her rearview mirror. A man in a green jacket moves quickly out of her line of sight.

She is being watched.

They are following her.

128

Once past the King John Inn, Megan pushes hard on the Ford Focus’s accelerator as she heads into the open countryside around Ashmore. Sixty, seventy, eighty. Easy for the little car. If they are tailing her, then they are going to have to show themselves.

Just before a tightish left-hander, she catches a glimpse of another car, way back. It’s moving fast. Every bit as fast as she is. It could be the lure of the open road that has tempted the driver to put his foot down. She has to find out.

Megan knows that until they get to the aptly named Zig Zag Hill, the B road offers nothing more testing than gentle bends. The Focus is soon doing way over a hundred. She has opened up at least four hundred metres between her and the following car. As she hits the vicious right-hander at the foot of the hill, she pumps the brakes and the Ford deftly keeps its balance going into the left switchback that instantly follows. Her heart kicks like a mule. She works the brakes again, slowing as quickly as she can without smearing telltale rubber.

Megan glides the car off road into the copse of trees on the right. She stops as deep in the clearing as she can manage. Within seconds, the car behind her zips past. It’s a Mercedes. Cream-coloured. That’s all she can make out.

Now comes the real test. If Merc man is just driving for fun, he’ll work the hill and put his foot down as soon as he is clear of the bends. She won’t see him again. But if he is following her, within the next minute or so, then he’s going to be wondering where the hell she is. He’ll probably swing it around, check he hasn’t missed a turning, maybe even double back.

Megan reverses carefully out of the copse and cautiously resumes her journey to HQ at a more sedate pace.

She sees the Merc just past Cann Common. Pulled up. Brake lights on. Two people in the front. A cheap personalised plate ending: 57MU.

Matt Utley.

She remembers Gideon saying he saw Utley with a gun. The brake lights on the Merc go off and it noses out of the lay-by in front of her. She hits the accelerator and burns through the gears, as though she’s going to ram the car. She doesn’t. At the last moment she pulls right into a small access road to half a dozen houses set back from the road. It runs parallel to the main road and she uses it like a pit lane on a race track. Only Megan isn’t stopping.

The back end of the car drifts as it floats over the grass and tarmac. Somehow she keeps control. Swerves out of the close back on to the B road. Heading right past the Merc. For a second her eyes catch those of the driver. It is Utley all right. She has seen his photograph often enough and long enough not to be mistaken. She thinks she recognised his passenger too. She only got a brief glance of the thick-set man in a white shirt, but there was something about his outline, the curve of his shoulders and the shape of his head that was familiar.

She accelerates hard along Higher Blandford Road and doesn’t let up until she’s crossed Christy’s Lane and made it on to the much busier A350.

Megan keeps one eye on her mirror all the way back to Devizes. Her brain is reeling from what she’s just been through. What she saw.

The man in the front seat of the car with Utley was her husband. It was Adam.

129

They only let him out to go to the toilet.

The rest of the time, Gideon spends locked in the solitary confinement of the stone cell. They bring him meagre food and each passing hour makes him feel more like a prisoner.

He realises there are only two days to go before the Followers complete the ritual of renewal and offer up the life of the woman he saw. They can’t take risks. And he could well be a risk. They know his father tried to stop anyone outside the Craft being sacrificed, so there’s a chance he might try to do the same.

The bolts on the door are drawn back. It creaks open. Two robed men walk in, say barely anything, except that he is to be taken to the Master.

He walks the corridor his father walked and imagines the secret life of the man he never really knew. How had he felt after his initiation? What were his thoughts after he’d just been initiated into one of the oldest and most secret brotherhoods in the world?

The Lookers leave Gideon inside their leader’s chamber. The Master shows him to the stone table, where Nathaniel’s diaries are stacked. His voice is business-like. ‘Time for you to read to me. Illuminate me. Then I will enlighten you.’

Gideon opens one of the last of his father’s journals. He knows exactly the passage that he’s looking for. He clears his throat and begins: ‘If this diary is being read, I pray to the Sacreds that it is you Gideon who is doing the reading. You were always the most methodical of children, so I presume you will have started from the beginning and this will be one of the last entries you will read. Now you will know of my differences with the Inner Circle, of their desire to force me to accept their will. I cannot bend to their ways. I must not and I shall not. If you take, so shall you give. You personally. Not you by proxy or by threat. It is entirely wrong that if you take, you force someone else to give. This is not the way holy people repay their debts. It is the way of the selfish, the untrustworthy, the dishonourable. The way of a man I deemed a friend. A person I allowed into my own house and trusted like a brother. A man who tainted everything in life that I respected.’

Gideon stops reading, turns the diary round. ‘Here.’ He places a fingertip besides the inscription ‘ΟΩΜΥΖ ΙΥΛΦΗΩΣΚΛ’. ‘Do you recognise this name?’

The Master cannot read the code but he knows he is looking at his own name. It is hardly surprising to him to see it written disparagingly in Nathaniel’s diary. It proves something to him. The books are truly as dangerous as he feared they would be. ‘Your father and I didn’t always see eye to eye. Nor was he right about everything. He was a brilliant man, this you know. But it made him difficult. He couldn’t be reasoned with.’ He stands, moves away from the table and paces slowly. ‘Tell me, do you share his views?’

‘On what?’

‘On me. On the fellowship. He probably wrote in detail about it. Our differences of opinion, especially as far as the rituals are concerned.’

Gideon responds without hesitation. ‘He did. I know better than anyone that my father wasn’t always right. For years we barely spoke. Now he is gone.’ Gideon pauses reflectively, then looks straight into the Master’s eyes. ‘My wish is only to experience a long and healthy life. To show my loyalty to the Sacreds and if you help me do this, then of course my unquestioning loyalty to you.’

The Master embraces him. It is the best answer he could have hoped for. Gideon returns the gesture, though he would rather drive a knife through the man’s heart.

The Master pulls back and holds him proudly by the arms. ‘Now it is time for me to illuminate you, to reveal to you secrets that will leave you breathless.’

130

Megan sits in her car in the supermarket car park and waits.

She can’t go home and she can’t go to work. All she can do is dwell on the awful, fleeting image of Adam in the Mercedes with Utley. It was as bad as catching him in bed with another woman. Yet one more rotten, stinking example of his cheating, lying and betrayal.

She thinks of Sammy and wonders how he can have had the gall to come home to them and play the perfect father and husband while keeping all his secrets. Secrets of belonging to other women, other men, anyone except her and their daughter. Now the sadness turns to anger. Her skin flushes and prickles with the rising rage.

It’s late afternoon when an old Jag stops alongside her Focus. The window slides down and the driver breaks Megan’s festering mood by shouting, ‘Get in.’

The waiting is over.

DCI Jude Tompkins listens patiently as Megan tells her about being followed by Utley and her husband Adam. She calls for a vehicle check and confirms the Mercedes is registered to Matthew Stephen Utley of Tidworth. ‘I could check on your husband’s movements over the last couple of hours but not without people asking me why I want to know.’

‘Don’t bother,’ says Megan. ‘I know it was him.’ She chews at a blooded nail. ‘I feel so stupid. I thought he came back because he wanted to be with me and Sammy.’

‘You’ll have time to beat yourself up about that later,’ says her boss. ‘Right now we have to work out what to do about your daughter. Who we can turn to without raising suspicions.’

‘Mum has Sammy,’ says Megan. ‘I called her and said Adam has been aggressive with me. She won’t let him in the house or near Sam. My dad is at home too, so everything will be okay.’

‘Good. I did some checking this morning. Double-checking, if you like, to make sure we weren’t jumping to the wrong conclusions.’

‘And?’

Tompkins slides a mugshot out of her handbag. ‘Sean Elliott Grabb.’

‘Suspect with his prints on the VW Campervan.’ Megan takes the picture. ‘Worked security at Stonehenge.’

‘Right. He’s dead. Turned up in Bath. Fished out of the Avon.’

‘Murdered?’

‘Too early to tell,’ says Tompkins. ‘Grabb and Stonehenge. That’s yet another connection to the Timberland, Lock and Chase cases. There are far too many coincidences for my liking.’

‘So what do we do, ma’am? Where do we take this?’

‘That’s what I’m worried about.’ Tompkins gives her a studied look. ‘The Chief and Deputy want you out of Devizes, right? They’re packing you off to Swindon. So I don’t think we can trust either of them.’

‘What about Jimmy Dockery? Any sign of him?’

‘He’s done a Lord Lucan. Completely vanished.’ She scratches the back of her head. ‘I’m thinking of taking all this out of force, going to Barney Gibson, the Met Commander.’

Megan is surprised. ‘He’s going to think you’re mad.’

Tompkins smiles. ‘I know. That’s why you are going to tell him, not me.’

131

The Henge Master guides Gideon through the mazy inner sanctums of the Sanctuary. He raises his hands towards the chiselled walls and ceilings. ‘The ancients quarried far and near for this stone. It was hand-picked and dressed by initiated builders. The precision was incredible. Each piece sanctified by the Sacreds. Two million individual blocks interlocked. The entire structure erected without mortar.’

Gideon rubs a hand along the smooth walls as they walk. The twisting corridors become narrower and the ceiling height falls as they descend into the heart of the temple. ‘Why has this place never been discovered?’

The Master smiles. ‘Because there is no reason to look for it. No one knows of its existence and all archaeological digs are focused around Stonehenge. Occasionally there are finds — a wooden henge in line with the Sacreds, a crematorium, the bones of dead soldiers, ancient axes and tools. This is enough to satisfy academic appetitites.’

‘But there is more?’

‘Much more,’ says the Master. ‘Not only the Sanctuary but other sacred places that are all aligned and linked, blessed and protected. And not just here. Across the world.’

Gideon is dazzled by the extent of the unknown. He has a thousand questions.

‘Come,’ urges the Master walking again. ‘In all, it took more than a hundred thousand people over two centuries to complete the Sanctuary and Stonehenge.’ The Master leads him through a spiralling labyrinth of tunnels. ‘They quarried without machines, used rough wooden sleds and their hands to haul titanic weights hundreds of miles, sometimes across deep stretches of water. They built scaffolding from felled trees, ropes and pulleys from grasses, tree bark and vines. They dug a fully functional and entirely original sewerage system. It still works perfectly. Channelled through the plain to the Sanctuary to fall into deep chalk pits fed by underground streams.’ He stretches upwards and touches an open hole in the sandstone blocks. ‘Ancient air ducts ensure a steady flow of oxygen. These vertical tunnels are also star shafts. They point to specific stars, certain constellations. The Sanctuary is a precessional clock that also allows us to keep our charts and calendars, just as our forefathers did.’

The Master leads them through a narrow arch into a passageway running directly below the Great Room. ‘While the Sanctuary’s initial purpose was to be a temple for the Sacreds, it was also a Neolithic teaching hospital, a form of university cum town hall where science, health and administration were practised.’

‘Their society was that advanced?’ asks Gideon.

‘Every era has its outstanding leaders, even the Neolithic one.’ The Master walks on through the passageway and produces a large iron key hung on brown string around his neck. ‘Let me illustrate the point.’ He unlocks a narrow oak door and they slide through into the pitch black.

The air is even cooler and their footsteps echo even louder. The Master lights a wall torch and several large, floor-level candles. As their eyes adjust, they see a large and perfectly circular chamber dominated by a dark block in the middle. The vast walls are hewn from blood-red granite, reminiscent of Egyptian tombs. On the walls to the left and the right as far as Gideon can see are dozens and dozens of open coffins all angled so the skulls of the dead have a perfect view of the large Pantheon-like single star shaft in the centre of the room.

‘A crypt,’ observes Gideon. ‘Who were these people and why the special treatment?’

‘These are the ancients. Our predecessors. The brilliant men who designed and built the Sanctuary, Stonehenge and all the henges, barrows, burial mounds and avenues linked to them.’ The Master moves slowly around the room lighting more torches and candles. ‘But this is more than a sacred resting place, Gideon.’

The giant stone block in the middle becomes increasingly visible. Fashioned out of polished sandstone, it is at least five metres high and three metres wide. On two sides are shelves filled with maps and scrolls. The other two are divided into what look like dozens of small ovens filled with rubble.

Gideon is amazed. He approaches it like a cat stalking a bird.

The young archaeologist is almost too afraid to touch anything. It is a library. A museum. A time capsule filled with ancient scripts, artefacts, carvings and tools.

‘How far back does this go?’ he asks.

‘Right to the beginning.’ The Master points to the top of the cube. ‘Up there you will find original carvings. The first plans for the Sanctuary and Stonehenge. Over there in the largest coffins you see the remains of the first sacrifices, those who completed the Sanctuary and the henge.’

‘The builders were sacrificed?’

‘It was their will. They knew that in offering themselves to the Sacreds, they ensured blessings for their children and the generations to follow.’

Gideon stands in awe. Around him is an archaeologist’s dream. An Aladdin’s Cave of ancient history and civilisation. The discovery of a lifetime. His pulse races. ‘I never read anything about any of this. In all the diaries I found, there was no mention of this place or anything in it.’

‘Nor should there have been. Speaking of it, or writing about it, is forbidden.’ The Master moves closer to him, smiles again. ‘Nathaniel knew of this chamber. He did much work in here. Among the parchments and documents in the archive, you will find his own labours, contributions to the star maps and charts that all Masters are obliged to complete.’

So much history in one space. So much knowledge. So many secrets. The Master breaks the spell by motioning to the door. ‘We must go. I have more to show you and very little time in which to do it.’

Reluctantly, Gideon leaves the chamber and the Master extinguishes all the lights, relocks the door. They walk to the end of the passage and begin a steep and precarious climb up a seemingly endless flight of open-sided stone steps. They cling like ivy to the outer wall of the Sanctuary. No safety panels or guard rails. A sheer brutal drop beside them.

‘Take care,’ says the Master. ‘You may still be a little weak from the initiation.’

It’s good advice. After more than a hundred steps, Gideon finds himself sweating and struggling for breath. The man in front pushes on like a mountain goat, taking each stone slab with a powerful and confident stride.

Gideon keeps one palm on the wall. He notices the intricate carvings in the stone. Ancient art depicting farmers working fields, women carrying babies, herds of cattle gathering by streams. Across the walls he sees other scenes. Workers raising giant blocks of stone, the first outlines of the henge being formed. People at burial mounds, their heads hung low. Scenes showing the orbit of the sun, the constellations of the stars and the phases of the moon. Up above, there is a more frightening depiction.

Men in robes are gathered around a bound figure over the Slaughter Stone, the hammer of the Master is raised. It reminds him that the young American woman, the one from the news, is immured somewhere below them.

He sways on the steps.

A hand grabs a clump of his robing. The Henge Master pulls him tight to the wall. ‘Be careful.’

He steadies himself and breathes slowly. ‘I’m okay.’

‘Good. Then we go on.’

Within a few steps, they reach the top. Gideon sees now that there is another set of stone stairs descending on the other side, running straight down towards the chambers and the Great Room.

The Master again uses the key from around his neck.

The area that Gideon steps into is a world removed from the archive chamber and in its own way even more surprising.

The first thing that strikes him is the light. The bright white fuzz of fluorescent tubes, flickering and buzzing like trapped and angry ghosts. The floor and the walls are grey. But not stone. Concrete. Plaster. It is as though he has walked into a giant modern warehouse or garage.

In front of him is what he guesses is an acre of sealed concrete. Hundreds of metres of plastered walls. The Master walks forwards on to a slatted steel gantry some ten metres above the floor. Gideon follows. There are vehicles parked at the far end. Chunky 4×4s and something distinctly familiar. Draco’s white builder’s van.

The place is more than a garage. He can feel it in his gut, long before his eye roams over the vast greyness. The space is divided into other distinct areas. There are dozens of metal lockers; clusters of changing benches, tables and chairs. A kitchen section with rows of sinks; endless worktops to cut and prepare food on; lines of tall refrigerators and freezers; microwaves, stoves, ovens and pans.

Enough room and equipment in here to feed an army.

‘It’s our operational centre,’ says the Master casually. ‘Below ground we respect our traditions in the way our ancestors did. Above the surface, we are an elite force. Tomorrow you will come here and work. You will play your part in the preparations for the great day.’

132

Dawn sleepily pulls at the dark curtains of the sky like a red-faced toddler tugging blankets at the foot of its parents’ bed. Lookers surround the dew-soaked fields of Stonehenge. They stand in the empty car park. No tourists have been allowed to book any early visits to the site.

The Henge Master walks the public footpath trodden by millions, steps across the newly cut grass. Enters the iconic circle. Today will last sixteen hours, thirty-seven minutes and five seconds. The altitude of the sun is 61.9 degrees.

Tomorrow it will make its first major shift for ten days and drop to 61.8. He looks to the ever-changing sky as he enters the horseshoe of trilithons.

Moonset was more than an hour ago. There is no sign of the lady in white. She dances in the unseen darkness almost a quarter of a million miles away. At nine tonight she will return and she will appear in 98 per cent of her full virgin glory.

Almost ready.

A gentle wind blows across the open fields. The Master stretches out his arms to feel the energy of the Sacreds. Everything that happens from now on is about precision. Precision, alignment and the final will of the gods.

133

Caitlyn has never prayed. Her father comes from lapsed Jewish stock and her mother from a brand of Protestantism so casual she might as well have been an atheist.

The only things her family have ever believed in are fairness, goodness and kindness. Do unto others as you’d have them do unto you. Not the kind of upbringing that prepares you for being held hostage, immured in stone and starved to death. That’s where she has been since she injured herself and they moved her. In a tiny immurement cavity stuffed with memory foam. She can feel it against most of her front and back. Like being sandwiched between mattresses.

Caitlyn closes her eyes and tries to pray. Her mind is such a spiky jumble of fear that she can’t even focus a single silent plea to any or all spiritual saviours. For the first time since they locked her up, she starts to cry.

134

It is exactly eight a.m. when Megan follows her DCI into Barney Gibson’s makeshift office. She last saw him and his operational sidekick Stewart Willis six days ago, but the two men look ten years older. Endless shifts, sleepless nights and the stress of the inquiry are breaking their health.

Tompkins lays it out for them. ‘Almost a week ago, DI Baker sat in this same room and told you that she believed Caitlyn Lock and Jake Timberland had been on their way to Stonehenge when he was killed and she was abducted. We have information that now seems to confirm that. And we think we know who is responsible. Incredible as it seems, there is good reason to believe that an ancient pagan cult may be behind the abduction.’

‘Unlikely,’ says Willis. ‘We have reliable intelligence that an international crime syndicate has Lock. Ransom demands have already been made.’

Tompkins holds her ground. ‘I’d ask you to stay open-minded, sir. What DI Baker is about to tell you is going to sound fanciful but I assure you that there is strong circumstantial evidence to support it.’

Gibson is starting to think it was a mistake to consent to this confidential meeting. ‘Jude, why didn’t you take this to John Rowlands or your own Chief?’

She knows she’s on thin ice. ‘Sir, there is a possibility that my own force may be implicated. Physical and electronic evidence has already been tampered with. The inquiry could be compromised from within.’

‘Those are very serious allegations. You put me in a difficult position.’

‘I do, sir. And I apologise. But given the circumstances, I believe it is entirely appropriate that we seek your guidance as senior external officers heading this major investigation.’

‘Point made.’ He turns to Megan. ‘So, Detective Inspector, what’s the story?’

Megan knows she’s only got one shot at maintaining her credibility. ‘While investigating the suicide of Professor Nathaniel Chase, a published archaeologist and world-renowned expert on Stonehenge, his son Gideon made me aware of diaries written by the professor about a secret cult dedicated to the stones of the henge.’

‘Druids?’ interjects Willis.

‘No, sir. This society predates any druid movement. If you need a comparison, think of the Freemasons. I believe we are talking about an ancient craft-based order that has matured over centuries and wields considerable power and influence.’ No sooner have the words crossed her lips than she regrets them. If either Willis or Gibson is a Freemason, her case is dead in the water. ‘Sir, coded diaries discovered by Gideon Chase suggest that the cult derives some form of blessings and protection from Stonehenge providing human sacrifices are periodically made to their gods.’

The two men are looking at each other, thin smiles on their lips. ‘I find this very hard to believe. Human sacrifice is unknown in modern day Europe,’ says Gibson. ‘Even in America, where they have more than their share of extremists, there are only a few documented cases over the past hundreds of years. I’m really struggling to buy into this theory of yours.’

‘I was too, sir,’ says Megan. ‘But certain events have changed my mind.’

Willis glances impatiently at his watch. ‘And they are?’

‘It all seems to come back to Stonehenge. It is at the centre of all our recent major cases. Nathaniel Chase, an expert on the henge, commits suicide. Lock and Timberland are attacked while visiting the stones. Sean Grabb, one of the men we wanted to interview about those attacks, is found dead in Bath. He was working security at Stonehenge. And all of this happens around the summer solstice.’

Gibson seems interested. Or maybe amused. It’s hard for Megan to tell. ‘Sir, I’ve checked the medical records of Gideon Chase. He told me he had cancer as a child and the stones cured him. According to the records, his claim seems to be true.’

Willis frowns. For him, it’s just not credible. ‘Are you telling me that his medical records say he was cured of cancer by a ring of stones?’

‘No, sir. They say he had an incurable form of cancer and was cured. They give no explanation, simply because they couldn’t find one.’

Gibson lets out a sigh of exasperation. ‘DCI Tompkins said evidence had been tampered with. What evidence and what tampering?’

Megan realises his patience is wearing thin. She summarises as tightly as possible. ‘Someone broke into and set fire to the home of Nathaniel Chase. But not before trying to recover or destroy something of value. We think the intruder was after the secret diaries we now know the professor had written about Stonehenge and the cult connected to it. His son Gideon managed to take a camera-phone snap of the burglar. Our facial recognition software produced a match with a local man. And we also recovered physical evidence from the break-in. Tools in a kit bag that had been left behind. When I last checked, sir, all that evidence was missing from the property store. All trace of it had been wiped from the computer log. As had the electronic bulletin sent to my mailbox about the facial match. Everything had been erased from my files.’

Gibson makes notes then looks up at Tompkins. ‘We need to talk separately about this and how we handle it.’

She nods.

The Met Commander sits back and weighs up Megan. As crazy as everything sounds, she seems a first-class officer and not the type to get carried away on flights of fancy. He is also aware that she is supposed to be in Swindon setting up a new cold case unit. What she shouldn’t be doing is speaking confidentially to him behind her chief’s back.

He leans forward and clasps his hands on the desk. ‘You’re an experienced officer, Megan, so I’m sure you’re aware that our investigation is on a knife edge. We have the FBI, Interpol, private investigators and most British police forces all chasing leads. The strongest of inter-agency evidence demonstrates that an international crime syndicate has taken Caitlyn and is extorting money from her parents. The asking price is currently twenty million dollars. I respect the manner in which you came to us, but at the moment I cannot risk deploying resources to investigate your claims, I—’

‘But sir—’

He stops her. ‘Let me finish.’ A stern pause. ‘I need proof. I need to see the coded diaries you mentioned. I need evidence that there have been human sacrifices in the past. I need something forensic before I even think about switching precious time and people away from where I have directed them. Bring me that and you’ll get a different response.’

Tompkins pushes her chair back. ‘Thank you, Commander.’ She nods to Willis. ‘Chief Superintendent. I’d like the assurance that this conversation remains confidential for the moment. For obvious reasons.’

‘You have it,’ says Gibson. ‘But only for the moment.’

135

The day before the ritual is the start of a holy period. A time of reverence. The Master, the Inner Circle and all Followers begin a devout fast. They do it out of respect for the sacrifice. They drink only water. They abstain from any sexual acts of any kind, either practised or witnessed, until the first evening twilight after the completion of the ceremony.

The Henge Master explains the pursuit of purity to Gideon as they sit in his chamber. ‘The ritual of renewal is sacred to us. But that does not mean we are barbarians. No. The most important person among us right now is the one who will be sacrificed.’ He rests his left hand on the four diaries. ‘I believe that through your father you may well have learned more about the sanctity of life and its meaning in death than most.’

Gideon is unsure where this is leading. ‘All I know is, he was willing to give his life to save mine. To give me the chance to raise children of my own.’

‘Exactly. A single sacrifice for the greater good of the many.’ The Master studies the young man opposite him. ‘It is our practice that one of our Followers, usually a member of the Inner Circle, spends the last stressful hours in the company of the sacrifice. To give moral and spiritual support until the very last moment. And to ensure that nothing can happen to them before the ritual begins. This is a role, Gideon, that I would like you to perform for us.’

He can’t hide his shock. ‘I don’t understand. Why me?’

The Master smiles. ‘I think you do, Gideon. I think you know why I have shown you mercy and favour. Why I have invested my personal trust and faith in you, despite those close to me doubting the wisdom of letting you live.’

Gideon feels a chill creep through him.

‘It is important to me that I go into the ritual with a clear mind and an open spirit. Tell me, Gideon. Is there something your father told you that you haven’t shared with me?’

Gideon shakes his head. His denial is true. But he knows what the Master is driving at. He sees his mother again. The frail old woman whom he barely recognises sits up once more in her deathbed. She speaks the words that turn his life upside down.

Nathaniel is not your father, Gideon.

The Henge Master reads it in his eyes. ‘Then your mother told you. I am your father, not Nathaniel Chase.’

136

Megan pulls the car into the kerb a street away from her house and walks the rest of the way. She’s trying to cool down. The meeting with Gibson and Willis had been a waste of time. Made her and Tompkins look foolish. The DCI said as much. The two Met men hadn’t believed a word that had been said. They wanted facts. Wouldn’t listen to anything else.

Megan feels alone. Vulnerable. Edgy. She’s not just walking to cool down, she’s also taking precautions. Adam might be at the house. Adam, the husband she thought she was falling in love with again. Adam, the man she saw sitting alongside burglar and police attacker, Matt Utley. She can’t see any strange cars near her home. She loiters in the quiet cul-de-sac for almost five minutes before she feels safe enough to go inside.

The house is empty. But he’s been here. She knows he has because there’s a note propped up on the dining table, bearing his writing. She snatches it away from the vase of flowers.

‘Meg. Gone back to mine. Call me when you’ve got your head together.

A x.

P.S. — we need to talk about me seeing Sammy.’

She screws it up, drops it in a full pedal bin. Her heart is racing. She gathers swimming clothes and thick towels for her and her daughter, takes a quick look around and then steps out on to the drive and locks the door.

There’s a man there. A man who has been watching her home and waiting for her.

137

Father and son look at each other across the ancient stone table.

‘When did you find out?’ asks Gideon.

The Master bows his head. ‘Not until Marie was dying.’ He looks up, his eyes glassy. ‘Nathaniel sent for me when she was in the hospice. She told me just hours before she passed. There was nothing I could do. It was too late to seek intervention.’

Gideon is surprised to feel anger rising. ‘And what was she to you?’

The Master scowls. ‘What was she? She was everything. Everything and nothing. She was the woman I couldn’t have but would have married. The person I would have spent my life with had we not argued and drifted apart. If she hadn’t met Nathaniel.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘We were childhood sweethearts. After our relationship broke up, she moved away, to Cambridge. It was there that she met Nathaniel, and married him. I didn’t see her until a year after the wedding when she moved back to Wiltshire.’

Gideon does the maths. His sainted mother had apparently broken her marriage vows with the monster sat opposite him only a year after pledging her eternal love to the man he thought was his father. ‘How could you?’ He stands, face flushed with anger. ‘She’d only just got married and you seduced her.’

‘It wasn’t anything like that,’ says the Master, undisturbed by Gideon’s rage. ‘It just happened. You’d have to understand how intensely I loved your mother to begin to realise how that one moment of weakness surprised us both.’

‘One moment?’ Gideon doubts it. ‘I was the result of one moment of weakness?’

The Henge Master gets to his feet and comes round the stone table. ‘I had no idea until your mother passed. How could I then approach Nathaniel? What could I have said to him about you?’

‘Did you know the cancer was genetic?’

He nods.

‘And you persuaded my father to join the Craft to protect your own son, to protect me?’

‘Yes. It is what a father should do. I needed to protect you.’

The Master embraces him. Holds him tight. As tight as a father would hold his long lost child.

138

Jimmy Dockery steps down the driveway towards Megan. He can see she is scared. ‘Don’t be frightened, boss.’

But she is. She backs off, retreats towards her own front door.

‘I need to talk to you.’ He takes another slow step her way.

She drops her handbag, turns the keys in her clenched right fist into a spiked knuckleduster.

He glances at the makeshift weapon, a dismissive look on his face. ‘You want to fight me?’

‘Come any closer, Jimmy, and I’ll kill you.’

He can tell she means it. He doesn’t have much time. He lurches forward and makes a pretend grab with his left hand. Megan falls for it. She throws a spiky cross with her right. He steps inside and blocks hard with his left forearm, knocking the keys from her fingers. He could pick her off now with one knockout blow to the jaw. Instead, he snatches her left wrist and whips it up behind her back. Slaps his other hand across her mouth.

Before she knows it, he’s bundled her around the side of the house. She tries to kick out but Jimmy is wise to it. He spreads his legs and holds her like an adult would a kicking toddler in a tantrum.

‘I’m not going to hurt you.’

Megan carries on kicking.

‘Boss, stop it. You were right, okay? I’ve been following Smithsen and you’re right.’

She’s not sure that she heard him properly. But she caught enough to stop thrashing and fighting.

Jimmy takes his hands off her.

She turns to face him. ‘What did you say?’

‘I know where they go. Where Smithsen and the others meet.’

139

The Henge Master opens the diary and points to his own name. ΟΩΜΥΖ ΙΥΛΦΗΩΣΚΛ. ‘James Pendragon,’ he says aloud. He puts a fist to his heart in a gesture of pride. ‘It’s a name to be proud of. A family line that stretches back through Celtic times. Back to the most famous king of Briton. Back into the mists of mythology and beyond. We are the stuff of history you and I.’

Gideon is familiar with both fact and the fiction. ‘King Arthur is more fairy tale than reality,’ he says.

The rebuke does nothing to cool the Master’s familial passion. ‘Really? Arthur Pendragon, the great Briton King? Or Riothamus the King, or the Cum brian King, Pennine King, King of Elmet, Scottish King, Powysian King or even the Roman King? You think all these are kings of fantasy? You are a learned man. These legends are rooted in more than mere myth. They have endured.’

‘And you?’ asks Gideon, a hint of bitterness in his voice. ‘What of you is fact and fiction?’

The Master shrugs. ‘I am certainly no king, but I do serve and lead our people, the Followers. I am the only child of Steven George and Alice Elizabeth Pendragon. I have never married, and apart from you I have no children.’

‘Are they still alive? Your parents, I mean.’

‘Very much so. Your grandfather is ninety and your grandmother eighty this year. Both are in excellent health.’

Gideon’s emotions are in turmoil. Despite her deathbed confession, he still yearns for his mother, and still feels guilty about what happened between him and Nathaniel. Now he is face-to-face with his birth father and a family tree of mythical dimensions that overwhelms him.

The Henge Master senses the dilemma. ‘You will need time to come to terms with things.’ He grips his arm. ‘Thankfully, we will have it. Once the ritual is over, we can get to know each other. Find ways to bridge the years.’

Gideon still has dozens of unanswered questions but not now. Now is a time of silence. Inner thought.

‘So,’ says the Master. ‘Will you accept the task that I asked of you? Can I rely on you to be the last companion for the girl, the chosen one?’

Gideon nods.

‘Good. Very good.’ The Master embraces him again.

As they come apart, they lock eyes. ‘You are no longer Gideon. You are Phoenix. Your given name is Phoenix.’

He is confused. ‘I understood Followers adopted star signs that began with the initial letter of their first name.’

‘They do,’ says Pendragon, his face suddenly stern again. ‘The name I always wanted for my son was Philip. It is what I always called you when I thought of you. From now on, you will be known as Phoenix.’

It feels like a crude trick, a psychological blow to undermine him. This disownment of his name hurts him. Strips him of his identity.

‘Our family motto is a simple one,’ says Pendragon. ‘Temet Nosce. Thine own self thou must know.’

140

‘You nearly broke my damned arm, Jimmy.’ Megan nurses her bruised limb.

‘Sorry,’ he says. ‘I tried to stop you without hurting you. I could have been much rougher.’

She straightens out her clothes. ‘Bully for you. Where the hell did you learn that physical stuff?’

‘Got picked on a lot at school. Ginger hair, makes you a target. My old man took me to taekwondo lessons.’

‘Tompkins is going to kick your arse. You’ve been off radar so long.’ She stretches her arm several times.

‘You told her?’

‘Had to tell someone.’

Jimmy realises he’s at the point where he has to explain things. ‘You didn’t trust me, I could tell, so I went off to find something that would prove to you that I wasn’t part of this crazy cult tied to the dead professor and Stonehenge.’

She looks at him suspiciously. ‘And did you?’

‘I followed Utley and Smithsen. They certainly know each other. Caught Utley at home and followed his Merc. He met up with Smithsen in a lay-by on the A360. They got into the back of Smithsen’s van, maybe he took something out. Then went their separate ways.’

‘Which ways?’

‘Utley back east towards Tidworth and Smithsen headed west.’

She maps it out in her head. ‘There isn’t much out there, not until you loop north to Devizes.’

‘It’s all military. Part of the MOD buy-up.’

‘Did you stay on Utley? Or follow Smithsen?’

‘Decided to go after Smithsen. As far as I could.’

‘And?’

‘He went north past Westdown Camp and Tilshead. After a couple of miles, he forked sharp left. Towards Imber.’

‘Imber?’

‘It’s a ghost town. Way into restricted access. No one has lived there for more than sixty years. It’s just empty houses. Buildings remain standing but no one is home. The church still holds the odd service every year.’

Megan remembers the map on Tompkins’ office wall and her records search. ‘It’s where Nathaniel Chase owns a strip of land. One of the few bits that the War Office couldn’t buy up.’

‘Can’t think why anyone would want to own it. From what I know, soldiers just shoot the shit out of the place. Then drive over it in tanks and even bomb the land around it.’

‘A lot of work for a builder?’ ventures Megan.

‘Doubt it. The army would just fix it up themselves. They’d use squaddies to do basic bricklaying and bang up some boards on doors and windows.’

She weighs things up. If Gideon Chase is still missing, it’s possible he is being held somewhere in Imber. They could be holding Lock there as well. ‘I don’t know what to do, Jimmy. I can’t go to Tompkins with this and your old man and the Chief want me transferred to Swindon.’

‘What?’

‘I’m being bumped. Shifted sideways. It’s a long story. How do we get to look around Imber without anyone at work finding out?’

‘I know exactly how.’ He gives her a confident smile. ‘In fact, I’ve already got someone who can help us. He’s waiting in my car.’

141

The chamber they’ve moved Gideon to is much bigger than the last one. About six metres long by four metres wide, he’d say. A penthouse compared with the matchbox they’ve been keeping him in. But it is still a cell.

The door is open, flanked by two Lookers, one of whom Gideon has seen before with Draco. Inside, high on all four walls are burning torches. On the hard stone ground are two makeshift wooden bunks filled with straw. In the corner of the room, two narrow stone troughs filled with water.

If he’s right, the chamber is no more than a twisting fifty metres of corridor from the steep stairwell that leads to the warehouse. It doesn’t take him long to work out why that is. They bring the girl here so it’s easy to move her into a waiting vehicle.

Gideon hears footsteps outside. A mix of men’s voices, shadows across the gated doorway and then four Lookers lumber into the cell. At first he doesn’t see the woman between them. Two of the men lift her under her arms while others grab her feet. They swing her on to a bunk.

One of the men is Draco. He hangs back while the first two Lookers leave. ‘She is weak, hasn’t eaten anything for almost seven days.’ He puts his arm around the well-built Looker next to him. ‘This is Volans. He’s going to be right outside the chamber. He has instructions to fetch a doctor if you think her condition is deteriorating. Do you understand?’

Gideon nods.

‘Good, because this woman must not die. Her health is our single priority. For the next day at least.’ He gives Gideon a soldierly slap and steps out of the cell with Volans, shutting the iron door behind them.

Gideon wonders if the Master has told Draco about him. About their relationship. It would be the clever thing to do if he was worried about the support of the Inner Circle. It’s what he would have done in his position.

He takes his first look at the sacrifice. Easy to imagine that not so long ago she was very pretty. Even without make-up and her thick black hair matted, he can tell she is naturally attractive. Her short hooded robe has ridden up and he can see a flash of a Union Jack tattoo, a sign of another time, a symbol of flirtatious rebellion and youthful defiance. Gideon bends over her and pulls it down to preserve her modesty.

She slaps his hand away. ‘Leave me alone.’

He is startled and steps back.

The woman sits up defensively in the bunk. Disorien tated. Fear ingrained in her eyes. ‘Keep away. Keep away from me!’

‘I’m not going to hurt you. Honestly, I’m not.’

She looks around. Her prayers haven’t been fully answered but at least she’s no longer in that claustrophobic hell hole. She can breathe and stretch. And lie down. She looks at the stranger near her, her eyes almost black.

‘Who are you? Why are you in here with me?’

142

A mountain of man gets out of Jimmy’s black Golf GTI. ‘Josh Goran, ma’am. Pleased to meet you.’

He towers over Megan as they shake hands. He has short dark hair, blue eyes, looks like he has been hewn from granite. Then it comes to her. He’s the guy from the TV news appeals. From Kylie Lock’s press conference. She guesses Jimmy has already told him about her. ‘You’d better come inside. We can talk better there.’ They follow into the cottage. And once the door is closed, Jimmy fills in some of the gaps. ‘Josh has been retained by Caitlyn’s mother to find her.’

‘And return her safely,’ adds Goran.

‘I know,’ Megan says. ‘You’re some kind of bounty hunter cum private eye, right?’

‘Rescue and return operative,’ he says. ‘I have two decades’ experience in what is the US equivalent of your SAS. Only better.’ He cracks a Hollywood grin. ‘Ma’am, I think we’re kindred spirits. Seems you and I are both being kept out of the loop. It’s why Jimmy here came to me.’

‘I don’t know anything about that,’ she confesses.

‘With due respect, ma’am, I think you probably know more than most.’

‘Meaning?’

‘From the intelligence that I’ve gathered — and believe me, I’ve gathered a lot — your local police, the FBI guys, I think they’re giving too much credence to this theory that Caitlyn’s been kidnapped by an organised gang and is being held in France somewhere.’ He nods towards Jimmy. ‘I think you and Jim are much more likely to be on the right trail, ma’am.’

She can’t help but interrupt. ‘Josh, you’re going to drive me crazy calling me ma’am. Megan will do.’

‘Megan,’ he says, through a whiter-than-white smile. ‘In my experience if you kidnap someone and take them abroad, you leave traces. Driving’s the easiest option. But you do that and you have to dodge a whole lot of surveillance cameras. You got to buy ferry or train tickets, without being seen or recognised. These days that’s impossible. You flee the country, you leave signs. But in this case the Feds, your British police and my operatives, they’ve come up with zip. You know why? Because the perps never left the country. They’re still here. Still local.’

Megan agrees. But there are still loose ends. ‘What about the recordings of Caitlyn?’

He shrugs. ‘Not necessarily what they seem. Be easy enough to have made the recordings of Caitlyn here and then had a guy catch the Eurostar from London and play an edited tape down a French phone line. Point of contact proves nothing.’

‘Except that the kidnappers are well organised,’ adds Jimmy.

‘You can bet on that,’ says Goran. ‘These guys are very well organised. Part of the reason I think they’ve set up camp right in the middle of that military no-go zone.’

‘Imber is owned and patrolled by UK forces,’ says Megan. ‘It’s impossible for anyone to go in and out of there without clearance.’

Goran grins. ‘Not at all. You have working farms nearby and there’s a public footpath thirty miles long that runs around the firing ranges. Besides, the military have the dumbest guards alive. Believe me, I’ve worked with them most of my life.’

Megan smiles. ‘So do you think you could work out a way to get in?’

‘I’m ahead of you. I’m taking a surveillance team out there tonight. Zero one hundred hours to be precise. You want in?’