Darren Craske - The equivoque principle

'If we don't, my friend, we shall almost certainly freeze to death,' said Quaint, trying to search in the pitch blackness for the gas inlet pipe. 'Unless we get lucky and suffocate first, of course -but either way we're in big trouble.'

'If only we had light,' said Butter, scratching at his thick, black, matted fringe.

'Hang on, we do! My tinder-box is right here in my coat pocket,' Quaint said, fumbling down his body. He slapped his forehead with his palm. 'Blast! The coat that happens to be outside.'

'I have no Plan B, boss.'

'Join the club.'

'Then…I am useless.'

'Far from it, Butter, you're my sounding board-added to that, you prevent me talking to myself like a madman, and that's a very important job!' said Quaint, with a wince as he lifted his arm. The pain from where the dog had sunk its teeth into him earlier was now pulsating in sympathy with the rest of his battered body. 'Come on, Cornelius, you're a bloody conjuror. You've gotten out of far worse scrapes than this. There must be something we can use to try and lever our way out.'

Butter moved over to the heavy metal door and began slamming his weight against it, but it was pointless. The locking mechanism was designed to keep the door completely airtight, and true to its design, it didn't budge so much as an inch. His diminutive frame had all the effect of a rotten tomato against a brick wall. Quaint meanwhile, had gone decidedly quiet, unnoticed under the noise that the Inuit was making. He rubbed furiously at his arms and upper body, in an attempt to get his blood flowing, but it almost seemed an impossible task.

'Must…sit down for a little bit,' said Quaint. Each word was a strain to speak, each breath a struggle to take as the coolant vapour burned his lungs. 'Yes…that's it. I just need…five minutes'…rest.' He curled his body into a tight foetal position on the ice box's freezing cold floor, desperate to keep warm, his teeth rattling in his gums.

Meanwhile, Butter continued his relentless assault upon the door's frame with his hammering fists-oblivious to the slumped figure of an unmoving and unspeaking Cornelius Quaint, drifting a hair's breadth from death's embrace.

SEVERAL MILES AWAY, the moon reflected the slumbering sun's glow like a golden teardrop suspended lazily in the starry sky. An off-kilter spire breached the diamond-speckled night, casting a long, crooked shadow across the muddy graveyard.

'So this is Crawditch abbey, eh?' said Mr Reynolds.

'What's left of it, yes,' answered Bishop Courtney as he stood with his hands on his hips examining the church. 'It's hardly a functioning place of worship any longer, Mr Reynolds, not since the larger building was built over in Lambeth.'

Reynolds sucked on his cigar, and exhaled smoke rings into the sky. 'I suppose the locals only use this place for weddings and funerals nowadays, Bishop, and there are precious few of both around here.'

The Bishop clutched a small carpetbag under one arm, and a lantern in the other, and he called over his shoulder to his coach driver, sitting high at the front of the carriage like a pensive vulture. 'Melchin, old chap, keep an eye out for Mr Hawkspear, will you? Tell him we have pressed on ahead.' Melchin puffed on his pipe, and grunted a reply. 'Come, Mr Reynolds, the crypt is this way,' and he led Reynolds to an arched wooden door set into the side of the church wall. He shone his lantern down the haphazard stone steps into the darkness below. 'There is something of interest down here that I wish to show you.'

At the bottom of the steps the two men reached a wrought-iron gate. The Bishop pulled a small bronze key from a pouch affixed to his belt, and unlocked the gate with a jolting snap. Once through, the crypt opened up a little more, and Bishop Courtney used the lantern to light a wall-mounted torch. It sprang into life immediately, bathing the enclosed space in yellowish-brown light. Reynolds's eyes adjusted to the light, and he scoured every inch of the crypt like an automaton. It was difficult to see what could possibly be of interest to him in a chokingly dry cellar bereft of anything of value.

'I take it there's nothing left in this crypt worth stealing then?' Reynolds asked, with a sardonic grin. 'Otherwise, maybe I would've been here before, eh?'

'Yes, well, that's the trick isn't it, Mr Reynolds, keeping the thieves out-or at the very least, dissuading them.' Bishop Courtney swung his arm in an arc around the bare room. 'Most common thieves presume this place was robbed of all its riches years ago. This is due largely to a rumour propagated by none other than the Anglican Church itself.'

'They went to an awful lot of trouble for some poky old crypt, didn't they? That infers that there is something to find here.'

'Astute as always, Mr Reynolds.'

'Right…so what's here then? Treasure?' asked Reynolds.

'Of a sort,' answered the Bishop, his eyes sparkling with something akin to gleeful pride. 'But it isn't gold, silver or jewels, my lad…it is of far, far greater value than that. Allow me to explain; buried in that cemetery out there is-'

The Bishop suddenly broke off mid-sentence as he heard several scuffling footsteps approaching down the stone steps towards them. The lithe form of a man in his early thirties appeared at the foot of the steps, pushing a second man in front of him, and the torchlight flickered in the breeze as he entered the crypt.

'Ah, Mr Hawkspear,' greeted the Bishop. 'So glad you could join us…and you have brought company, I see.'

Hawkspear was a bedraggled young man with pinched features and eyes like azure pools of water. Beneath tendrils of greasy black hair was a low brow and thick, bushy eyebrows that gave him a constant scowl. Hawkspear pushed the bound, gagged and bloodied landlord of The Black Sheep tavern in front of him, and the man stumbled awkwardly on the uneven ground. Hawkspear shoved Peach roughly to his knees in front of Bishop Courtney's portly frame.

'Aye, this is the landlord as you ordered, Bishop,' said Hawkspear, with a thick, Irish drawl. 'Arthur Peach, his name is.'

A spidery grin crept across Courtney's fat face like a cracked window. 'Splendid, Mr Hawkspear, simply splendid!' The Bishop grasped Peach's head, twisting it from side to side. His eyes noticed the assortment of fresh bruises littering the landlord's face. 'I see you had a little entertainment en route.'

Hawkspear bowed. 'Sorry, Bishop…he tried t'run. I had to convince him that it wasn't a good idea. In me own special way, like.'

The Bishop smiled-a full, blossoming smile this time-with eyes alight like burning coals in a fireplace. 'Well, you had better hope he isn't too badly damaged. I want him alive…before I kill him.'

Peach moaned a mournful, sorrowful cry, and sniffed back petrified tears. His eyes bore into the Bishop, appealing for help.

He would find none.

The Bishop clenched his fist. 'Stand him up! Now, you're probably wondering why I dragged your carcass all the way across town, Mr Peach.' The Bishop didn't wait for an answer. 'I have been given some disturbing news, you see. It seems that you had a visit from a man named Cornelius Quaint the other night, and like the gutless worm you are, you talked!'

Peach whimpered again through his gagged mouth.

'You informed him about Mr Hawkspear here,' continued the Bishop. 'A fact that led the man straight to the police. Luckily we have a man on the inside, and were able to contain that, but it has upset some carefully laid plans. Because of your slippage, I had to act quickly to secure the circus strongman's release from his cell before he could be questioned fully. My thanks to Mr Hawkspear for a wonderful job with the acid…I hear it had the perfect effect.'