The Lazarus Vault Part 18

A knight on a bay charger comes galloping at me, heading me off. I put the banner out of my mind and draw my sword. It's always more dangerous the second time. Neither of you, man or horse, is as focussed. The worst injuries happen now: the shield you don't hold high enough, the piece of armour that's come unlaced, the dazed horse who staggers at the crucial moment.

I p.r.i.c.k my spurs and return to the battle.

It's a good day for us. By the time the bugles end it, we've taken a dozen prisoners, including a castellan's son who should fetch a good price. My body aches all over, though nothing compared with what it'll be like tomorrow. I've got a cut above one eye where a splinter caught me, but otherwise it's only bruises.

Yet I still feel uneasy. I watched for it all day, but I never found the banner I'd spotted. After the second charge, the tourney splintered into scores of skirmishes and individual combats, gradually spreading over miles of fields. I had to stay close to my company; I couldn't risk myself alone.

I tell myself it's probably nothing. Lots of knights carry blue banners and even if it was Jocelin, he could have broken his lance on my shield and never recognised me. But I'm eager to get back to our camp and find Ada.

The tent's empty; she's not there. Etienne and the men have gone to feast in the Count's castle, but one of the grooms is sitting by the fire, drinking wine we took as ransom for a Burgundian knight.

'Where's Ada?'

He wipes wine from his mouth. 'She went to meet a horse-dealer at the chapel of Saint Sebastian, near the forest.'

Why not the horse market? I hurry down between the rows of tents, trying not to snag my spurs on the guy ropes. I'm so busy watching my footing I don't see the young squire approaching. I barrel clean into him. It's only as I draw back, murmuring an apology, that I see his face. The red-brown hair in loose curls, the mouth that droops down at the corners, the cheeks that never quite lost their youthful fat.

'William?'

'Peter?'

He's not happy to see me. He knots his hands together and twists them in his tunic. He doesn't know what to say.

'It's good to see you again.' I have a fixed smile on my face; my mind's racing. How much does he know? Who can he tell?

'Have you taken service with another knight?'

He shakes his head. 'I'm here with Jocelin.'

I should kill him cut his throat, sink him in the town ditch. But we lived in each other's pockets for six years: sparred, played, joked and fought together. He isn't my enemy.

I put my hands on his shoulders and force him to look at me.

'Where can I find Jocelin?'

William stares at the ground. He mumbles something I probably wouldn't have caught it, but I heard the name just five minutes ago.

'The chapel of Saint Sebastian.'

The chapel stands on the edge of a mown field, with a walled crypt beside it. I arrive on my charger, armed and helmed. I don't see anyone there.

A cry comes to me on the evening air. I follow the sound, around the churchyard wall to the place where the forest comes hard up against it.

She's tied to a birch tree wearing nothing but her shift, so badly ripped that there's barely a palm's breadth of cloth intact. Rasping blows have lacerated her skin, and there are burn marks on her arms that look like the tip of a heated sword.

Her eyes open, tiny points of light against deep wells of shadow. 'Peter?'

I jump down and run towards her, my sword drawn to cut the ropes.

'Go away.'

They're the last words she speaks to me and I wish she hadn't said them. I want to remember her voice as it was, full of life and spirit. Not this cry, dragged out of her in agony.

A harness jangles to my left. I turn. A knight rides out of the shadows of the forest, flanked by four or five men on foot with spears. One of them runs to my horse and grabs the bridle.

'What have you done to her?'

'Not what you think. Not yet.'

I can't see Jocelin's face, but I know his voice. It's rich with triumph.

'She's still my father's property, for all she's wh.o.r.ed herself to you. Perhaps when he's finished with her, he'll give her to me. And when I'm finished, I'll give what's left to the stable boys for their sport.'

I wish I hadn't dismounted. I wish I'd never come to this tournament. I wish I'd killed Jocelin that night in the tower.

'Let her go. Let her go and take me.'

He laughs. 'I don't have to choose.'

They're paltry words. But in that clearing, with blood in my mouth and guilt flooding through me, they make me snap. I'm back in Guy's hall fighting over a stolen book. I know I can't beat him: he's on horseback, fully armed, but it doesn't matter. I put up my sword and charge at Jocelin. One of his men drops into a crouch and hurls his spear at me. Out of pure instinct, I duck.

The spear sails over my head and makes a soft, clean landing, barely a sound. I turn, though I already know what I'll see. It struck Ada clean through the breast, pinning her to the tree. Her hands clutch the shaft: she's trying to pull it out. She doesn't have the strength. Her arms go limp, still gripping the spear; her head drops. Blood flows down the ash, touches her hand and drips onto the ground.

Even Jocelin didn't mean that to happen. His surprise is a fraction slower than my fury. I fly towards him and get inside his guard: he pulls his boot from his stirrup and kicks the sword out of my hand, but I grab his arm and sink my teeth into his exposed hand. He screams and loosens his grip. I grab the sword by the blade and wrest it out of his hands. It cuts my fingers and I let it fall. He wants to bring his shield round, to chop it down on my head, but the straps get caught on the pommel.

I cling on to his leg, trying to wrestle him out of the saddle. Something comes away in my hand his spur. Gripping it like a knife, I plunge it into the exposed leg just above his knee.

There's a howl of agony. I want to keep hold of the spur, to keep stabbing him until all the blood drains from his body. But surprise makes the horse move. My frenzied thrust misses Jocelin's leg and sinks into its flank.

The sound of a screaming horse is worse than a screaming man. The horse rears up; its hooves drum the air inches from my face. It lurches forward, trying to outrun the agony of the spur stuck in its side. I fling out my arms to grab on to Jocelin, but a hoof strikes my chest, kicking me back onto the ground. Then he's gone.

The other men flit about me, shadows on the edge of the clearing. I can hear a couple running after Jocelin; the other two wait, wondering what to do. They could kill me easily, but perhaps they don't know if Jocelin wants me alive.

Shouts and hooves in the falling darkness decide them. If I twist on my side, I can see fire on the meadow, hors.e.m.e.n with torches riding towards us. They're calling for me.

Jocelin's serjeants melt into the forest as Etienne and his men gallop up to the clearing. It's as well they're carrying torches or they might have ridden straight over me.

'Peter?'

They're all staring at Ada, speared to the tree. The weight of the shaft has prised open the wound: her white shift is drenched in blood that's black in the firelight. Shock's written on their faces. They all liked her.

I fall on my knees and vomit onto the ground. Etienne puts a tentative arm on my shoulder, but I shake him off.

He thinks he's saved me. But Ada's dead, my mother and father and brother are dead, and the men who did it haven't been punished. I've failed everyone I ever loved.

Nothing can save me now except revenge.

XXIX.

Newport, South Wales According to the hospital, her mother died while Ellie was on the plane somewhere above the English Channel. Ellie didn't think anything could make her feel worse, but somehow it did. She should have been on hand, at her mother's bedside not drifting up in the clouds. It felt like a metaphor for something: lofty, blinding, insubstantial.

Doug didn't come to the funeral. She sent him a text message telling him the news, but ignored all his replies asking when the funeral would be. Blanchard didn't come either, though he sent his representatives: two men in a blacked-out Mercedes, parked across the road from the crematorium with the engine running. The wipers never stopped, presumably so that the soft rain gathering on their windscreen wouldn't obscure the view. Ellie almost considered inviting them in, offering them the chance to do their job properly, without pretence. There were plenty of seats.

Afterwards after Mrs Thomas had said a few words about what a kind lady Mrs Stanton had been; after a choir had sung 'Men of Harlech' out of the CD player in the corner; after she'd watched the coffin conveyed onto its gas-jetted pyre they went to the tea shop on the corner. No one stayed long. By two thirty, when Mrs Thomas picked up her terrier and announced she had to go and collect her grandson from school, the low clouds were already threatening a premature dusk.

Mrs Thomas kissed her on both cheeks and gave her a hug. 'Do be careful,' she said. 'You're on your own now.'

Ellie went back to the house and fetched a few things from the attic. She supposed she'd return some day, even if only to sell it, but she said goodbye anyway. Just in case. She turned off all the lights and the heating, and made sure the doors were locked. Outside, the black Mercedes was struggling to reverse into a parking s.p.a.ce on the narrow street. Ellie waited until it was wedged in, then left the house and hurried down towards the station. She knew they'd catch up with her but not before she'd had time to use a payphone. She let it ring three times, then hung up.

I'm on my way.

London Ellie took a taxi straight from Paddington to Claridge's. It was only seven o'clock; Blanchard wouldn't be back from the office for hours. The final details of the Talhouett takeover agreement had proved elusive; for the last two days, teams of lawyers had been working around the clock, garrisoning every spare corner of the Monsalvat office. Ellie had barely noticed them.

She lay on the bed and thought about what she had to do. She opened the brandy decanter and poured in the phial of liquid Harry had given her. She stared at the paintings on the walls and they stared back: a gallery of callow knights and flimsy damsels, in dark forests or empty wastelands. It surprised her that Blanchard subscribed to this romanticised, Victorian take on the middle ages. Somehow she'd thought, with his far-back ancestry, he'd prefer a more authentic view.

Blanchard came in at eleven, smelling of coffee and cigar smoke.

'You should have called. I would have come straight away.' For the first time she could remember he looked tentative, unsure what to say. He sat down on the bed beside her and undid his tie.

'How was it?'

'It was my mother's funeral.' What do you expect?

Blanchard took a decanter of brandy and poured two gla.s.ses. 'This will help.'

Ellie didn't touch it.

'If you want to be alone tonight ...'

'No.' She spun around, pushing him back on the bed. She stood in front of him. Staring down, she unclasped her necklace and earrings and laid them on the dressing table. She shrugged off her jacket. Without artifice, as if she were in a shop changing room or the gym, she unzipped her skirt and unb.u.t.toned her blouse, Blanchard lay there, watching and sipping his brandy. She held his eyes as she unclasped her bra and laid it over the other clothes on the back of a chair.

The lights in the suite were low. From the corner of her eye she glimpsed herself in the mirror, the curves and shadows of her naked body. Her raven hair hung down her back; her b.r.e.a.s.t.s were hard and cold. She looked like one of Blanchard's pre-Raphaelite maidens, transported by ecstasy or death. She wondered if she had the strength for what she had to do. For the first time in her life, she felt utterly alone in the world. In a strange way, that made it easier.

Blanchard began unb.u.t.toning his shirt. 'We don't have to '

She got onto the bed and knelt over him. Her hair brushed his face.

'I need you.'

She had never made love like it before. A frenzy possessed her: grief, guilt, fear, hatred a storm of pent-up emotion cracked open like a thunderhead. She prised his lips open and pressed herself inside him: her tongue, her b.r.e.a.s.t.s, her fingers. She bit and pinched and raked her nails down his back, raising welts like burns wherever she touched. She forced him into her; she rocked back and forth against his hips, moaning and gasping as if exorcising a demon, careless of who could hear it in the corridor or the world outside. Blanchard finished before she did, but she made him go on, holding him inside her until she screamed. She fell forward on top of him, pressing herself against him. She was sobbing, though she didn't know what the tears were for. Their faces were so close the tears wet them both. Blanchard wrapped his arms around her and told her he loved her. For the first time since she'd known him, he sounded frightened of her.

She didn't know how long they lay there. Somewhere in their pa.s.sion the clock had got knocked over. When she heard Blanchard's breathing soften, she pushed herself up and looked down.

Blanchard's face was still. In the hollow of his throat, the small gold key hung where it always did.

Ellie blew on her hands to warm them, then reached down and lifted the key. There was no clasp: she had to loop it over his neck.

The chain brushed his ear and he stirred, murmuring something in his sleep. Ellie went still as stone. If he caught her now he would surely kill her. She waited, not daring to breathe.

The doctored brandy had done its job. Blanchard settled back and let dreams reclaim him. Ellie pulled the key free and rolled away off the bed. She dressed quickly: not in her funeral clothes, but in an old pair of jeans and a tight-fitting jumper. She rummaged in Blanchard's suit and found his access card, then pulled the cufflinks out of his shirtsleeves.

She grabbed her backpack and tiptoed out of the room. Her watch said half-past midnight. Harry had said the spiked drink should last for about eight hours, but she thought six was safer. And she had a lot to do.

For the first time all week, the bank was dark. The bid teams must finally have gone home. Foil wrappers and wire cradles from champagne bottles littered the lobby floor; she a.s.sumed it meant good news. Even the security guard seemed to have indulged: he was nowhere to be seen. She let herself in with Blanchard's card and went straight to the lift.

From high in the corner of the foyer, a camera's black eye recorded her entry. The pictures travelled instantly to the fifth floor, where a computer a.n.a.lysed them and compared the face coming through the door with the card that had been used to open it.

Ellie arrived on the fifth floor half a minute behind her image and let herself in to Blanchard's office. Down the hall, the computer recorded the fact. She pulled a small laptop out of her bag, bought for cash on the Tottenham Court Road. With an electrician's screwdriver, she prised the mother-of-pearl inlay off the cufflinks she'd taken from Blanchard's shirt. A small circuit-board, the size of a five-pence piece, lay nestled inside.

'Is there a video camera or something in there?' she'd asked when Harry gave them to her. They'd been in the changing rooms at a clothes shop on Oxford Street, pressed into awkward intimacy behind the curtain.

'The sleeve would obscure a video camera. This is a gyroscope and accelerometer. It measures the pattern of his movements, the distance and direction, and the software can correlate that with the keypad to work out which b.u.t.tons he's pressed.'

Ellie had looked doubtfully at the small cufflinks. 'It sounds like science fiction.'

'These things are everywhere now mobile phones, laptops, music players.' He'd given a sheepish grin. 'We actually got these from a video-game controller.'

'And that's supposed to make me feel better?'

She slid a nail under the circuit-board, pulled it out of the housing and connected it to the computer using a plug that Harry had given her. A window opened on-screen with a picture of a telephone keypad. The virtual b.u.t.tons flashed; a second later, a number appeared superimposed.

918193.

She swung pack the painting that covered the safe.

Contrary to the office joke, Destrier didn't live at the bank. His home was a mock-Tudor mansion near the A12 in Ess.e.x, which he shared with two Rhodesian Ridgebacks and whoever could be paid or persuaded to share his bed. That night, she was a skinny girl with vacant eyes and no chest; she barely looked thirteen, though the agency had a.s.sured him she was old enough. Whatever his impulses, he knew what his employers would do if he got caught out with an underage girl.

And now his phone was vibrating in the darkness. He fumbled for it on the bedside table, rubbing his eyes as he stared at the screen.

INTRUSION ALERT.

He tapped the screen to call up the details.

Card 0002 >> facial verification failure He didn't have to check the registry to know who card 0002 belonged to. He stared at the picture underneath. The Stanton b.i.t.c.h. Every suspicion he'd entertained for the last six months every doubt, every worry, every fear crawled over his skin like lice.

Calm down, he told himself. He knew she'd been f.u.c.king Blanchard that night had listened to it through the mic concealed in her phone. Her moans had still been in his ears when he screwed his own girl, who'd been limp and undemonstrative by comparison.

Maybe she picked up the wrong card. Perhaps Blanchard sent her to the office to get something.

He left the girl and went to the computer in the room next door. He connected to the office and brought up the security log.

01:09 >> Card 0002 entry to BUILDING 01:11 >> Card 0002 entry to ROOM 5-1 Blanchard didn't allow cameras in his office, or Destrier could have had a look at what Ellie was doing. All he could do was watch the log to see what happened next.

While he waited, he dialled Blanchard at Claridge's. He let it ring until the voicemail picked up; hung up; tried again. No answer. He swore, though silently. Blanchard wasn't the sort of man you cursed out loud, even from thirty miles away.

A new line appeared on the security log. Destrier stared at it in disbelief.

01:15 >> ROOM 5-1 access to SAFE Ellie lifted the red folder out of the safe and laid it on Blanchard's desk. She hesitated for a second, reading the gold-lettered LAZARUS on the cover and wondering what she would find inside. She felt the leather cords; she tested the seals between her finger and thumb. The wax flexed in her grip: it must have been resealed recently.