The Lazarus Vault Part 27

'... bring it to me there.'

'And how ?'

But the one-eyed man isn't listening. He's staring past the fire, straight towards me. The puckered skin around his blind socket goes taut, as if a phantom eye is stretching to see me. But there's no problem with his other eye and in trying to hear him, I've been drawn into the light.

'That's him.'

Too late, I realise he's hired them to kill me. I could hardly have made it easier for them. The knights s.n.a.t.c.h weapons from around the fireside and jump to their feet. Just for an instant, fear keeps me fixed to the spot not fear for my life, but fear that if I lose sight of my quarry now, I'll never see him again. Never find Malegant, never find answers.

But I won't find him if I'm dead. I turn and run through the campsite, hurdling ropes in the dark, pushing past onlookers before they can stop me. I see the road ahead and swing left, through an arch and across the bridge. A gatehouse guards the far side beyond that, I can surely lose them in the forest. I grab a ring in the gate and heave.

The gate's locked. The castellan must be worried about brigands drawn to the tournament. I bang on the door, but there are no lights in the barbican tower. The gatekeeper's probably gone to enjoy the festivities. He doesn't realise he's just signed my death warrant.

I turn, pressing my back against the gate. A single lamp hangs over the arch: the four knights prowl like wolves just beyond the ring of light. They all have swords in their hands.

I promised the hermit I wouldn't fight: I'm not carrying so much as a paring knife. I look for help, but the only other man on the bridge is a beggar, stumbling forward tapping his staff. One of the knights gives him a warning gesture, a hand slicing across his throat.

'Why do you want to kill me?' I shout. The night swallows the sound.

The nearest knight shrugs. He doesn't know why. All he knows is what he's been paid to do. He puts up his sword to strike and pauses. The beggar's still coming, his staff tap-tapping the wooden bridge. Maybe he's blind. The knight makes a sign to one of his men to get rid of him. I want to shout a warning, but the words won't come.

Chaos and shadow make it hard to see what happens next. There's a blur of movement, a rush and a splash. Suddenly, there are only three knights on the bridge. The beggar seems to have grown six inches: he's thrown off his cloak and holds the staff like a cudgel. Two of the knights run towards him. One gets. .h.i.t in the chest so hard I hear the ribs crack. He drops like a stone. The man behind him trips on the body and stumbles forward, into the path of a scything blow that sends him reeling to the parapet. Another prod of the staff tips him over the edge.

Now it's just three of us standing on the bridge. The beggar lowers his staff like a spear and walks slowly towards the remaining knight. The knight edges backwards until he comes up against the parapet. He's got nowhere else to go. He weighs his chances and makes his choice. He jumps in the river.

All this time, I've stayed rooted in place. Have I been rescued? The beggar turns towards me.

'Peter of Camros?'

The voice is familiar, though I don't know where from. I stare. Now that his cloak has come off, I can see a wine-coloured tunic embroidered with lions. The man who was watching me in the hall.

How did he know my name?

'I'm Chretien. Peter is dead.'

'Not to us.'

Something strikes the side of my head. Like a candle being pinched out, I sink into the darkness.

x.x.xIX.

Chalon-sur-Saone, France Ellie wanted to avoid the motorways and drive through the night. Doug resisted and won on both points.

'They don't know our car, and they don't know where we're going. They can't put watchers on every bridge in France.'

'They won't take long to work out where we're going. Someone inside Talhouett must know about Mirabeau. The moment they find that person, they'll be all over it.' She remembered Saint-Lazare's private jet. 'They move quickly.'

'That's why we should take the motorway.'

She surrendered. And when, halfway through the night, Doug turned into a service area and parked up at a motel, she didn't argue. She snuggled up to Doug and was asleep almost before he'd turned out the light.

People who rhapsodised about French cuisine had never eaten a 6 a.m. breakfast at a roadside rest stop. While Doug got the food, Ellie tried the number on Harry's card from a payphone again. All she got was the voicemail, a recorded epitaph.

They chewed greasy croissants and read over the file they'd taken. Juggernauts thundered past on the motorway, the heavy cavalry of commerce.

The file was in English, though it didn't help much. Most of it was so impenetrably technical that even Ellie couldn't get much sense from it. It seemed to be about a huge coal seam near Lyons which Talhouett was mining. There was only one reference to Mirabeau, near the end. Doug found it while Ellie was getting a refill of coffee.

Project Mirabeau : Unconventional Hydrocarbon Exploration

CONFIDENTIAL.

Following environmental concerns regarding the hydraulic fracturing process, this project has been terminated.

'Is that all?'

Doug flipped through a few more pages. 'There's an Environmental Impact a.s.sessment.'

They read it together. There was nothing about Mirabeau.

'What about that?'

Halfway down the page, under the heading 'Sites of Historic/Cultural Interest', Ellie read: Submerged CHAPEL of Saint Donatian, Norman, XII-XIV(?) Century.

Map Ref: D5 Risk: Low 'At least it's medieval,' she said doubtfully. Doug had a strange look on his face. 'What?'

'It's three hundred miles from anywhere the Normans should have been building at the time.'

'You trust a mining company to know the difference? And what do you suppose it means by "submerged"?'

Doug consulted the map at the front of the file. His finger came to rest on a blue patch near the middle of the page.

'D5 is in the middle of a lake.'

They turned off the motorway and headed east, a long road winding its way through dark pine forests into the hills. Sometimes they'd come round a bend and glimpse the jagged peaks of the Alps far in the distance, before the hills closed in again. It reminded Ellie how close they were to Saint-Lazare's castle, not far over the border in Switzerland. She twisted round in her seat and stared out the rear-view mirror. A tremor in her stomach told her Blanchard couldn't be far away.

'I think this must be it.'

A chain-link fence had appeared on their left, running along the side of the road, penning in the forest. Strings of razor wire spiked the top of it. At first all they could see behind it was trees, but as the road climbed higher they found themselves looking down a steep escarpment into a bowl between the hills. It must have been a natural dip, but heavy industry had gouged it out to make a black pit, vast terraces sinking into the earth. Heavy trucks ground their way up a track like a scar through the trees.

A black haze hung over the valley. There was no sign of a lake. Ellie checked the map.

'The site entrance should be at the top of the next ridge. There'll be a track from there leading down to the lake.'

'Are we just going to drive in?'

'Let's have a look.'

The road took a hairpin bend and climbed towards the ridge. Ellie could see a guard hut, and the red-and-white stripes of a barrier post sticking up beside it.

Doug slowed. The gate was open. A black Mercedes 4x4 sat in the entrance, engine running. It must have just got there, though Ellie hadn't seen it on the road.

'Keep going.'

Doug glanced across. She gripped his arm. 'Just go.'

If anyone was watching, it would have looked so obvious. One moment the car was slowing down; the next it was accelerating away as quickly as the small-bore engine could manage. Had they spotted Doug and Ellie? Had they noticed the car had UK plates? Ellie craned her head round and looked back: she thought she saw a man standing in the road, gesturing after them. Then the car went round a corner and she wasn't sure if it might just have been a tree.

'Wrong entrance?' Doug asked.

'Bad feeling about that car.' She thought she'd seen a Swiss flag on its number plate.

Doug checked his mirror. 'No one behind us yet.'

They crested the ridge and started down the opposite side. The trees grew thicker, hiding whatever might be coming after them. The chain-link fence continued unbroken.

'Pull in there.'

On the opposite side of the road a forestry track led off into the trees. Doug braked hard and nosed the car in. They couldn't go far a rusted gate blocked the way but it hid them from sight of the road.

'Let's get going.' The fear that had stalked Ellie since the moment she stepped into the vault was beginning to close around her again. 'If they saw us at the gatehouse, we don't have much time.'

Doug took the backpack with the box. They jogged down the side of the road where the trees gave them cover, examining the fence for a way in. They hadn't gone far when the baritone throb of an engine intruded on the silent forest.

'Get down!'

They lay flat on the ground and waited. Half a minute later a car roared past and vanished round the bend. With her face buried in moss and pine-needles, Ellie couldn't get a good look at it. They waited until the sound died away, then carried on, faster now.

Ellie quickly became aware that something had changed in the forest. Before, the trees had been an unbroken wall of drab green: now, most of them were brown. Dead needles clung to dead branches; dead trees pulled on their dead roots. Several had succ.u.mbed completely and torn themselves out of the ground.

'There.'

On the far side of the fence, one of the dead trees had toppled over, making a precarious bridge across the razor wire. Doug made a stirrup with his hands and hoisted Ellie up: she hooked her arms around the trunk and hauled herself on. The stumps of broken branches sc.r.a.ped and scratched her. One almost clawed her eye out.

'Will it take your weight?' Doug asked.

She wriggled along the dead tree. She was halfway along when she heard the sound of an engine coming back up the slope. She tried to go faster. She lifted herself up and crawled forward like an ant, tensing her hands and feet in the clefts of the branches.

With a horrifying crack, the branch she was holding snapped off. She threw out a hand to balance herself and grabbed a handful of razor wire. It stopped her falling, but sliced a b.l.o.o.d.y gash across her palm. She screamed, but if she let go she'd lose her balance and fall, probably slice her neck open.

'Hold on!'

Doug pulled himself on to the tree and crawled towards her. The engine was getting louder. Gently, he reached round and cupped his arm around her waist so she could disentangle herself from the fence. Wet blood ran down her hand and dripped on to the ground. When she tried to put weight on it, she could hardly stomach the pain.

'I've got you.'

With Doug supporting her, they edged forward. The engine was just round the corner now.

But they were too much for the fragile deadwood. The tree cracked: not a branch, but the whole trunk. In the split second before it broke, Doug threw his weight forward, carrying both of them beyond the fence. They fell in a tangle of limbs and branches and hit the ground with a thud.

The black Mercedes cruised past, driving more slowly this time. Ellie held her breath. The fence swayed. Could they see it? She felt sure they must hear the echo of the tree falling. All she saw was the tyres. She didn't dare look up for fear of making eye contact. Was it slowing down?

It disappeared out of sight. They lay there until the sound had died away completely.

Ellie got up and brushed pine dust off her face. 'How will we get out?'

'Cross that bridge when we come to it.' Doug pulled out a handkerchief and tied it around her hand to stop the bleeding. He picked up the backpack and slung it on his shoulder. 'If there is a bridge.'

They left the road behind and walked into the forest, heading down the slope. The pine-needle carpet m.u.f.fled their feet like snow. The deeper they went, the browner the forest became. Whatever blighted the trees had spread to almost all of them. Ellie remembered the file. Environmental concerns regarding the hydraulic fracturing process. What did that mean?

Ahead, the forest darkness began to lighten to the flat grey of open sky. They hurried on. The trees thinned, then stopped abruptly in a hard line. They both stared.

'What happened to the lake?'

They'd come out at the bottom of a long, wide valley, a hollow cupped among the hills. Once it might have been a pretty spot: now it was a wasteland. Black mudflats stretched from one hillside to the other. Dead trees ran back up the slope like debris from an explosion. In the centre of the desolation stood a sandstone church with a square tower and no roof.

'Is this Mirabeau?'

'This is where the map says. That must have been the submerged church.'

They slithered down a steep embankment and walked along what had once been the sh.o.r.e of the lake. Doug took a tentative step on to the mud. It looked firm, but as soon as he put his weight on it it oozed away, sucking him in. Ellie grabbed his arm with her good hand and pulled him back.

'Perhaps there's a way across further round.'

The desolation overwhelmed Ellie. The more she stared, the more she saw the detritus of the lakebed littered across the mud. Boots and buoys, blackened tree-stumps and rocks. In the middle of the lake, the rotted hull of a rowing boat had a strand of weed trailing behind it like fishing line. Most of all there were the bones: the carca.s.ses of unnumbered fish picked clean. The birds must have gorged themselves.

A gust of wind blew through the pines. The dead-brown forest shivered: from somewhere up the slope Ellie heard a noise like a small explosion as another tree let go its roots. The grey sky didn't blink.

'What's that?'

Doug had stopped dead. Ellie, watching her footing, walked straight into him and almost knocked him over.

About ten feet into the lakebed, a flat stone lay embedded in the mud. It didn't look like much, until you looked beyond it and saw another about three feet further, and another beyond that, a string of dull pearls leading across the mudflat to the church. Too straight and regular to be there by chance.

'Stepping stones,' Ellie said. 'But how do you get to the first one?'

'There must be a million dead branches around here.' Doug ran up to the treeline. He came back almost at once with a quizzical look on his face, dragging a long plank behind him.

'I found this just inside the woods. Someone left us a drawbridge.'

Ellie gazed around the wasted landscape. 'Who?'