Bestselling Conspiracy Thriller Trilogy: Sanctus, The Key, The Tower

Whoever was on the other side of the grille got up and left.

The man waited, listening to the whispers of tourists and the clicking of cameras. They sounded to him like the rasping legs of scuttling insects. He heard movement on the other side of the grille.

‘I am the emissary of Brother Peacock,’ a low voice announced.

The man leaned forward. ‘Please forgive me, for I have sinned.’

‘And what have you to confess?’

‘I have taken something from my place of work, something which does not belong to me, something I believe concerns a fellow Brother of your church.’

‘Do you have this thing with you?’

A pale hand dusted with freckles took a small white envelope from an inner pocket.

‘I do,’ he said.

‘Good. You understand that the purpose of confession is to enable sinners who enter the house of God burdened with their sins to leave again free of those burdens?’

The man smiled. ‘I understand,’ he said.

‘Your sin is not grave. If you bow your head before God I believe you will find the forgiveness you seek.’

A hatch slid open beneath the grille. He passed through the envelope, feeling a slight tug as it was taken from him. There was a brief pause. He heard it being opened and inspected.

‘This is everything you took?’

‘It’s everything there was to take as of about an hour ago.’

‘Good. As I said, your sin is not grave. I bless you in the name of the Father, of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. You may now consider your sins absolved – provided you remain a friend to the Church. Bow your head before God once more and he will reward his faithful servant.’

The man saw another envelope poking through the hatch. He reached down and took it. The door slid shut and whoever had been on the other side departed as quickly as he had arrived. Inside the envelope was a thick wad of unsigned hundred-dollar traveller’s cheques. They always paid him this way, and he smiled at the neatness of it. If he had been followed, which he knew he hadn’t, he could plausibly claim they’d been mislaid by a tourist. They were also untraceable, probably purchased by someone using a fake ID at any one of the Bureaux de Change that lined the old streets.

He pocketed the envelope and slipped out of the booth, past the patient queue, his eyes making contact with nobody until he’d left the church well behind him.

34

Five minutes after Brother Peacock’s emissary had absolved the man with the freckled hands, the envelope was placed in a basket alongside twelve dead chickens and eight pounds of ham at the foot of the tribute wall on the shadowy northern side of the mountain, then winched up on a swaying rope until it disappeared from sight.

Athanasius wiped a sheen of sweat from his skull as he watched the refectory monks haul in the basket. He retrieved the envelope before it joined the rest of its contents in the large copper stockpot. He had walked down nearly half a mile of corridors and stairwells to get to the tribute cavern. Now he had the envelope he turned wearily on his heels and walked right back up them again, heading to the ornate splendour of the Abbot’s private chambers.

Athanasius was breathing heavily by the time the gilded door closed behind him. The Abbot snatched the envelope and ripped it apart, hungry for the knowledge it contained. He stalked over to a writing desk set against the wall by the stained-glass window and folded down the front to reveal a sleek modern laptop.

A few mouse clicks later, the Abbot opened the case file Inspector Arkadian had closed less than an hour before. The face of Brother Samuel returned to haunt him, pale and ghastly under the stark lighting of the autopsy room. ‘I’m afraid the body appears remarkably undamaged by the fall,’ he said, scrolling rapidly through the first few images.

Athanasius winced as he caught sight of ribs poking through the shattered body of his former friend. The Abbot opened a text document, mercifully obscuring the ghastly images, and started to read. When he got to the final comments his teeth clenched.

Whoever this man was, he chose to fall. He waited until he had witnesses then ensured that he would land in city jurisdiction. Was his pre-death vigil some kind of signal? If so, who was he signalling to – and what message was he trying to communicate?

The Abbot followed the Inspector’s train of thought as it brought him dangerously close to forbidden territory.

‘I want the source who gave us this file to keep us regularly updated.’ The Abbot closed the case notes and opened another folder labelled Ancillary Evidence. ‘Any new discovery, any new development, I want to know about it immediately.’

He clicked on an image file and watched the screen fill with a slide show of close-ups of other evidence relating to the case: the coiled rope, the blood-soaked cassock, rock fragments retrieved from the torn flesh of the monk’s hands and feet, a strip of leather lying on an evidence tray …

‘And send word to the Prelate,’ the Abbot said gravely. ‘Tell him I need a private audience as soon as his holiness is blessed with sufficient strength to grant one.’

Athanasius could not see what had so unsettled the Abbot, but it was clear from his tone that he had been dismissed.

‘As you wish,’ he said, bowing his head and backing silently out of the room.

The Abbot continued to stare at the image until he heard the door shutting behind him. He checked he was alone then reached into the front of his cassock and pulled a leather thong from around his neck. Two keys dangled from it – one large, one small. He bent down to the lowest drawer of the desk, fitting the smaller key into the lock. Inside it was a mobile phone. The Abbot turned it on as he stared once more at the image frozen on his computer screen.

He punched the numbers into the phone, checked they were correct then pressed the call button.

35

Liv was driving slowly back along the I-95 with about ten thousand other people when her cell began to vibrate.

She glanced at the display. The caller’s ID was withheld. She dropped it back on the seat and returned her gaze to the slow-moving traffic. It buzzed a few more times then fell silent. Having been awake for what felt like a week, her only priority now was to get home and into bed.

The buzzing started up again almost immediately – too quick to be the answering service calling back. Whoever it was must have hit redial as soon as they’d heard the voicemail message. Liv looked at the river of red brake lights snaking into the distance ahead of her. She clearly wasn’t going anywhere in a hurry, so she swung her car over to the verge, slammed it in park, cut the engine and switched on her hazard lights.

She grabbed the cell and hit the answer button.

‘Hello?’

‘Hello.’ The voice on the other end of the line was male, unfamiliar and roughened round the edges by the hint of an accent. ‘Who is it I’m speaking with please?’

Liv’s antennae bristled. ‘Who are you trying to reach?’

There was a brief pause.

‘I’m not exactly sure,’ he said. ‘My name is Arkadian. I’m a police inspector trying to identify a man who was found with this phone number on him.’

Liv ran his response through her journalist’s mind, weighing every word. ‘What department are you with?’

‘Homicide.’

‘So I guess you’ve either got a perp who won’t talk or a victim who can’t.’

‘That’s correct.’

‘So which is it?’

He paused. ‘I have an unidentified body. An apparent suicide.’

Liv’s heart lurched. She ran through the list of men who had this number.