James Becker - The Messiah Secret

Angela shivered and rubbed her arms.

‘Come and take a look at this,’ Bronson said, moving to the kitchen window.

Like all the other ones in the property, it was a two-part sash window, single-glazed with a wooden frame. The only lock was a simple turnbuckle mounted on the top of the lower frame that locked both halves of the window together when it was rotated through ninety degrees.

Bronson pointed at three or four vertical scratches on the side of the catch.

‘That’s where he tried to slip it,’ he said, ‘and if you look down here, at the gap between the two panes, there are scratches there as well, where he forced the tool up to the catch.’

‘But he didn’t get inside the house?’

‘It’s just possible he did manage to open one of the windows, but if he did he must have secured it from the inside afterwards, and then left by one of the doors. Could he have done that?’

Angela shook her head decisively. ‘Not a chance. The rear door is bolted on the inside — in fact, we haven’t had it open since we’ve been here — and the front door’s fitted with a deadlock. I think even Richard Mayhew would have been suspicious if he’d found that open.’

‘OK,’ Bronson said, putting his arm round her shoulders. He could tell she was still nervous. ‘So apart from that first day, when it’s possible he got in through the unlatched window, or maybe even strolled in through the front door if he had the balls to do that, he can’t have got back inside.’

‘So what can we do to make sure he doesn’t get inside again? Go to the local police?’

Bronson laughed. ‘Unless the Suffolk Constabulary is very different to the one I work for in Kent, it’d be a complete waste of time. They’ll have their hands full trying to solve crimes that have already been committed. They certainly won’t have time to try to prevent a possible future crime.’

‘So what can we do?’

Bronson glanced round the room, then looked at her. His face softened. ‘As I see it, you’ve got three choices. First, do nothing. Keep all the doors and windows properly secured and hope that’ll be enough to keep this tea-leaf out. Second, stop what you’re doing here and transport the entire contents of the house straight to the British Museum and do your classifying and sorting out there. That’s probably the best option.’

Angela shook her head. ‘Most of this stuff is of no interest to the museum — we really don’t want to clutter the place up with the kind of things you can find in any provincial antique shop. We’ll cherry-pick the very best bits and most probably sell the rest through a local auction house. What’s the third option?’

Bronson grinned at her. ‘It’s obvious, really. You employ a night-watchman. Somebody to patrol the house and make sure nobody breaks in.’

Angela stared at him for a few seconds. ‘We can’t afford to do that — not on our budget. Have you any idea how much it would cost?’

‘That depends who you get. Some people are a lot cheaper than others.’

‘You’ve got someone in mind, haven’t you?’

Bronson’s smile widened. ‘Of course I have,’ he said. ‘Me.’

Michael Daniel Killian stared at his reflection in the bathroom mirror and grimaced. The pad over his left ear, which he’d only changed an hour earlier, was showing spots of red again. Carefully, he unwound the bandage from his head, then teased away the cotton pad he’d placed over his injured ear. Some of the fibres had stuck to the open wound, and he gave a grunt of pain as the pad came free and his ear started bleeding again.

He turned his head sideways and looked closely at the wound. The old bastard in England had done a pretty good job. His teeth had been strong and sharp, and his jaw muscles surprisingly powerful. His bite, and Killian’s initially futile attempts to escape his grasp, when he’d jerked away, had actually severed the upper part of the ear, and that section of it was now attached only by a narrow band of flesh close to his head.

He’d not tried to get his injury treated in England — the old man had died in the house, and any doctor he went to would remember such an unusual wound. His image might even have been recorded on the CCTV system of any hospital he visited. So he’d simply covered the injury as best he could.

He’d also been worried about the surveillance cameras he knew were all over British airports, so he’d dumped his Heathrow to LA ticket and instead had taken the Eurostar to France, then hopped a flight from Paris to New York, and then on to LA, in an attempt to muddy the waters. To anyone who asked about his bandaged head — and only two people had during his entire journey — he’d explained he had a bad ear infection, and was returning to the States for treatment.

But Killian hadn’t gone to a hospital or doctor in America because he still feared his injury would excite comment and — far worse — be remembered. Instead he’d placed pads around his ear to hold the loose part in position, hoping that it would somehow re-attach itself without the need for stitches. He could now see that this wasn’t happening.

For a couple of minutes Killian stared at his ripped ear as small rivulets of blood dripped off the lobe, splashing into the sink. He couldn’t go on without doing something about the injury.

Replacing the cotton pad, he roughly retied the bandage around his head, tightly enough to stop any more blood seeping out. Then he walked out of the bathroom and down the hall to the smallest bedroom of his modest and fairly isolated single-storey house, located in the countryside a few miles outside Monterey.

The moment he touched the door handle, a feeling of peace and contentment suffused his body. He opened the door and stepped inside.

At the far end of the room stood a tall cupboard, the doors and sides hidden behind deep purple cloth. Above it, a richly ornamented crucifix gleamed golden in the light from the candles burning on either side of it, the only illumination in the room. Directly in front of the makeshift altar was a single bare wooden pew, wide enough for only two or three people to kneel side by side. Killian had bought the pew from an antique dealer in France, and knew it was over five hundred years old.

He closed the door behind him, crossed himself and bowed his head, then walked forward slowly, reverently, to the wooden pew. He stepped into the centre of it, crossed himself again, then knelt down, clasping his hands together. For some seconds his lips moved in silent prayer, then he looked up at the crucifix.

‘Forgive me, Father, for I have sinned,’ he began. ‘I need Your guidance and Your help and Your strength to complete the sacred task You have set for me.’

Ten minutes later, Killian emerged from his chapel, bowed once towards the altar, then closed the door behind him. Then, removing his black shirt and clerical collar, he assembled the materials he would need for what he now knew he had to do.

In his bathroom, he again stared at his reflection for a few seconds, then plugged the electric soldering iron into the shaver socket and tested the tip with his finger to ensure that it was getting hot. Taking a small piece of cotton cloth, he folded it until it fitted over his entire mouth. He used one hand to hold the cloth there while he wrapped duct tape around his head to hold the material firmly in place, as a simple but efficient gag. Finally, he made sure that the scissors were close to hand.

His preparations complete, Killian unwrapped the bandage around his head and removed the pad from his ear. Once again, blood started to flow from the open wound.

Picking up the scissors, he opened the blades and positioned them over the thin band of tissue that connected the two sections of his ear. As the steel of the scissors touched his flesh, Killian jumped involuntarily, then steadied himself. He took a deep breath through his nose, and squeezed the blades together.