C. Palov - Templar's Quest

‘I apologize, dear Kate, but needs must.’

Retrieving the tray, he carried it into the kitchen. As usual, he braced himself for the onslaught – the sink full of dirty dishes, the countertop inundated with empty food containers. He set the tray on the counter, inadvertently knocking over a tonic bottle. Its evil twin, a green bottle of Tanqueray, remained upright. He could see that there were two fingers of gin left. Enough for a double.

He reached for an empty glass, unconcerned that it had a dirty smudge on the rim.

By his own admission, he’d succumbed to a pitiful paralysis of mind and spirit, having experienced grief in all its myriad forms over the course of the last two years. Indeed, there were many times when he’d been unable to utter the words ‘Juliana is dead’ without tearing up. And having to hear the ‘I’m so sorry’ speech was pure torture. While the condolences were well-intended, they couldn’t resuscitate the dead.

At least Kate had spared him that torment. Clearly, she had no idea that he’d met Juliana Howe, an investigative reporter for the BBC who, one humid August evening, happened to be standing at a London tube station when a RIRA bomb detonated. He’d just ‘celebrated’ the two-year anniversary of that horrific event; the reason for the drunken binge.

He raised his glass in mock salute. ‘To Ars Moriendi , the art of dying.’

A contrarian, he was clearly determined to end his own life in the most craven way imaginable, nothing quite as reprehensible as an unrepentant inebriate. Unless it was a cold-blooded killer. He had the dubious distinction of being both, having killed the man responsible for Juliana’s death. Moreover, he’d stood by and watched as a nine-millimetre bullet ploughed through his enemy’s skull. Rendering the bastard a graceless heap, arms and legs splayed like spokes on a blood-stained wheel.

Certainly, he’d had just cause.

Juliana Howe had been brilliant. And beautiful. And she did not deserve to die because a rebellious Irishman wanted to terrorize London. Christ. It’d been a scene right out of the Apocalypse, the bomb blast having turned the tube station into a fiery death trap. A maelstrom of twisted metal, chunks of concrete and deadly steel rods. In a frantic state, he’d shouldered his way past the dazed survivors, screaming her name. When his gaze landed on a familiar black high-heel shoe still attached to a foot, he’d lurched, heaved, then promptly vomited. His gut painfully turned inside out at the realization that Juliana had literally been blown to bits. Nothing to recover but that bloody stump.

Having vowed to find the perpetrators, he used his government contacts to track down the RIRA mastermind. In the days preceding the execution, he’d been so consumed with bloodlust that he had no recollection of the trip from London to Belfast.

How is it possible to forget the road from Gethsemane to Calgary?

Once he’d arrived in Belfast, he’d tracked Timothy O’Halloran to a raucous pub on the Catholic side of the peace wall. No surprise there, the Irish being fine ones for drinking and blathering ad nauseam . Committed, he waited in a darkened doorway for three hours and seventeen minutes. Legs cramped. Neck pinched. Finger poised over the trigger. And then the pub door swung open and O’Halloran, jolly smile plastered on his drunken face, blithely stepped across the threshold. Cædmon followed him down the rain-slicked pavement, until O’Halloran ducked into an alleyway to relieve himself. That’s when he pulled the black balaclava mask over his face and removed the Ruger pistol from his pocket.

Having been obsessed with revenge, he’d not reckoned for the ensuing guilt that now clung to him like a second skin. Killing his enemy in cold blood was supposed to set him free. But, instead, he discovered that you take everything from a man when you kill him. And he, in turn, steals everything from you. Gin was simply the most expedient means of dulling the pain.

How pathetically trite. A man drowning his sorrows in a bottle of distilled spirits.

Knowing that his battle with the bottle trivialized Juliana’s death, Cædmon ran his thumb over the glass rim, wondering if he should, if he could , pour the remaining contents down the drain. After two years, surely the time had come to put his life in order?

He raised the glass to his lips. Shag it. What was the point? So he could return to the infantile enthusiasm of his youth? At forty years of age, he was too jaded to believe in a Second Coming.

‘Rack and ruin. The measure of this man.’

Hearing a chime emanate from his laptop, Cædmon, glass in hand, wandered into the other room. Curious about his old lover, he first opened the attachment marked ‘Katsumi Rosamund Bauer’. Rosa Mundi . The Rose of the World, as he used to affectionately call her. He quickly scanned the particulars of the dossier. As he neared the bottom, his stomach clenched, horrified to read that two years ago Kate’s infant son had died of SIDS, cot death.

We are kindred after all, Rosa Mundi.

Cædmon opened the next attachment.

‘Shite,’ he muttered, utterly astounded. While the ex-Delta Force commando didn’t fit the typical stereotype of a RIRA terrorist, the connection was there. Even more worrisome, the man was a fugitive from the law, accused of committing two heinous murders.

The skin on the back of his neck prickled, as though a ghost from his old life had just flitted past.

Concerned for Kate’s safety, Cædmon snatched his car keys out of the crystal bowl on top of the cabinet and stuffed them into his trouser pocket. That done, he opened the top drawer and removed a leather holster, quickly strapping it on to his shoulder. Spinning on his heel, he rushed out of the room, grabbing a tweed jacket off the arm of the sofa on his way to the door.

Just you wait, you bloodthirsty Irish bastard.

25

Finn turned the ignition key, the Vespa thrumming to life.

Clambering on to the back of the scooter, Kate adjusted her hips so that she wasn’t pressed so intimately close to Finn’s rear end.

‘Since we can both use some shut eye, as soon as we finish buying the supplies I’ll find us a secure hotel room.’

The offer came as something of a surprise, with Kate beginning to worry that Finn was the product of a clandestine military experiment, reprogrammed to function on little to no sleep.

‘Thank you.’

‘You’re welcome, Katie.’ Finn turned his head a few more inches in her direction, his whiskered cheek brushing against the side of her face. ‘Okay. We’re ready for takeoff.’

Warning issued, he steered the Vespa down the rutted alley, merging on to a narrow street jam-packed with parked cars and Greek cafés.

Kate glanced back at L’Equinoxe. At the gently swaying sign emblazoned with The Fool. She’d never dreamed that she’d see Cædmon again, had long since shoved recollections of their time at Oxford to the wayside of her youth. Seeing him after so many years brought it all back. So many endearing memories. The chiaroscuro light and early-morning mist that suffused Oxford. The silliness of trying to learn the meaning of a ‘quid’ and a ‘crisp’. The challenging debates that lasted well into the night. The lazy Sunday afternoon picnics along the River Isis.

Hard now to imagine herself ever being that young. That naive about relationships. About love. Betrayal. The evil that men do.

With a forlorn sigh, Kate leaned her cheek against Finn’s broad back. So strong and dependable . Her bulwark against all that evil. And while Finn McGuire was an unrepentant smart-aleck, he would never harm or demean her in any way.