Simon Toyne - Bestselling Conspiracy Thriller Trilogy - Sanctus, The Key, The Tower

There were no adornments in the chapel, not even windows; the soft light emanated from a network of concealed lamps that gradually brightened the higher you looked – a piece of architectural sleight of hand intended to draw the eye upwards. It was an idea he had stolen from the great gothic churches of Europe. He figured they’d taken much more from him and his people.

Oscar could see another twenty or so people holding their own private vigils; other night owls like himself, people of the secret congregation who had caught the news and been drawn here to pray and reflect on what the sign could mean to them and their kind. He recognized most of them, knew some of them pretty well, but then the church wasn’t for everyone. Few people even knew of its existence.

Mariella sat nearby, wrapped in her own private contemplation, uttering a prayer in a language older than Latin. When she finished she caught Oscar’s eye.

‘What were you praying for?’ he asked.

She smiled quietly and looked towards the front of the chapel where a large Tau was suspended above the altar. In all the years they’d been coming here, she had never once told him.

He remembered the first time he’d met the shy eight-year-old girl who’d blushed when he spoke to her. The chapel had been young then and the statue it was built inside had carried the hopes of their tribe. Now a man halfway round the world held them in his outstretched arms.

‘When you built this place,’ Mariella whispered, dragging his attention back to the silent room, ‘did you really believe it would change things?’

Oscar considered the question. The statue of Christ the Redeemer had been built at his suggestion, and with the help of money he had been instrumental in raising. It had been sold to the people of Brazil as a great symbol for their Catholic nation but was in fact an attempt to bring the ancient prophecy of a much older religion to pass.

The one true cross will appear on earth

All will see it in a single moment – all will wonder

When it was finally revealed to the assembled world media, after nine years of construction, images of it appeared on newsreels and in papers around the world. It wasn’t quite a single moment, but all did see it and the gushing encomia testified to their wonder.

But nothing happened.

In the years that followed, its fame had grown. But still nothing had happened; at least not what Oscar had hoped. He had succeeded in creating nothing more than a landmark for the Brazilian tourist board. His one consolation was that he’d also succeeded in building a secret chapel in the foundations of the huge statue, carved into the rock in another neat reflection of the Citadel, a church within a mountain.

‘No,’ he said, in answer to Mariella’s question. ‘I hoped it would change things, but I can’t say I believed it would.’

‘And what about the monk? Do you believe he will?’

He looked at her. ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Yes, I do.’

Mariella leaned forward and kissed him on the cheek. ‘That’s what I was praying for,’ she said. ‘And now I will pray that you are right.’

There was a sudden disturbance at the front of the church.

A small group of worshippers were huddled by the altar, their intense conversation whispering through the chapel like a strengthening breeze. One broke away and began walking up the aisle towards them. Oscar recognized Jean-Claude Landowski, the grandson of the French sculptor who had built the structure in which they all now prayed. He paused by each worshipper and whispered solemn words.

Oscar watched the body language of the recipients of Jean-Claude’s news, and felt Mariella’s hand grab his. He did not need to hear the words to know what was being said.

‘OK,’ Reis began in his best bedside manner. ‘Case number one-eight-six-nine-four slash “E”. The time is ten-seventeen. Attending are myself, Dr Bartholomew Reis of the city coroner’s office, and Inspector Davud Arkadian of the Ruin City Police. The subject is an unidentified white Caucasian male, approximately thirty years of age. Height –’ he withdrew the steel tape measure that was built into the table and extended it sharply ‘– six feet two inches. First visual assessment is commensurate with eyewitness reports, detailed in the case file, of a body that has sustained major trauma following a substantial fall from height.’

Reis frowned. He tapped the flashing red square to pause the recording.

‘Hey, Arkadian,’ he called in the general direction of the coffee pot, ‘why’d they kick this in your direction? This guy threw himself off a mountain and wound up dead. Not much detecting called for, far as I can see.’

Arkadian exhaled slowly and slam-dunked the balled-up wrapper emphatically into the waste basket. ‘Interesting question.’ He poured two mugs of coffee. ‘Unfortunately, this wasn’t one of those “sneak off and do it in private” kind of suicides.’ He grabbed the milk carton and poured most of its contents into one of the mugs. ‘And our man here didn’t just throw himself off a mountain; he threw himself off the mountain. And you know how much the people in charge hate it when anything, how shall we say, “un-family friendly” happens there. They think it might put people off coming to this beautiful city of ours, which will impact distressingly on sales of Holy Grail T-shirts and “True Cross of Christ” bumper stickers – and they don’t like that. So they have to be seen to be doing everything they can to respond to such a tragic incident.’

He handed Reis a very white coffee in a very black mug.

Reis nodded slowly. ‘So they throw an inspector at it.’ He took a slurp of his homemade latte.

‘Exactly. This way they can hold a press conference and announce that, having brought all the expertise and diligence of the police force to bear, they have discovered that a guy dressed as a monk threw himself off the top of the Citadel and died. Unless, of course, you discover otherwise …’

Reis took another long gulp of his tepid coffee and handed the mug back to Arkadian.

‘Well,’ he said, hitting the red button to restart the audio file. ‘Let’s find out.’

Kathryn Mann sat in her office on the second floor of the townhouse surrounded by piles of paperwork in a variety of languages. As usual her door was open to the hallway and through it she heard the footfalls on wooden floors, phones ringing and fragments of conversation as people drifted in to start the working day.

She’d sent someone back to the orchard to pick up the volunteers. She wanted to be alone with her thoughts and feelings for a while, and right now she just couldn’t face another earnest discussion about dead bees. She thought of the empty hives in the light of the monk’s death and it made her shudder. The ancients had been big on the omens contained in the uncharacteristic behaviour of animals. She wondered what they would have made of the supernatural events that were taking place in the world today: melting ice caps, tropical weather in formerly temperate zones, unprecedented tidal waves and hurricanes, coral reefs poisoned by acidic seas, disappearing bees. They would have thought it was the end of the world.

On the desk in front of her lay the field report she’d rescued from the passenger seat of the minibus. It had done little to lighten her mood. She’d only read half of it and already knew that it was going to be too expensive to fund. Maybe this was just one more bit of the world they were going to have to let wither and die. She stared hard at the carefully annotated diagrams and charts outlining initial building costs and projected tree growth, but in her head she was seeing symbols etched on to fragments of slate, and the shape made by the monk before he fell.