The Plantagenet Vendetta (21 page)

On the top floor of the farmhouse, the door to the last bedroom on the right was slightly ajar. Thomas entered the room and sat down on the chair near the bed. The patient was still awake, but clearly exhausted. His breathing was laboured, as it had been before their arrival. Beneath the sheets, over seventeen stitches marked the area where the bullet had penetrated.

At least they had managed to remove it.

Thomas dragged his chair along the floor to the side of the bed. The patient looked up at him, his eyes displaying a mixture of fear and uncertainty. He said nothing, but the look in his eyes suggested communication.

What are you going to do with me?

For several minutes Thomas did the same. After watching him for what seemed an eternity, he asked, “Who are you?” To which he received no reply.

Just eye contact and the sound of extended breathing.

As the man tilted his head to the right, finally unable to stay awake, Thomas’s attention turned to his possessions: a dark woolly hat, black combat jacket, black combat trousers, black T-shirt, black socks and black boots.

Beneath the sheets, even his underwear was the same colour.

Aside from his gun, the man carried little. There was no form of identification; the nearest was a phone.

Thomas scrolled through the contact list. The numbers were English, all mobiles, but the identity of their owners impossible to know.

The entries were written in code.

After placing the mobile phone in his pocket, Thomas got up, ready to leave, but then stopped. The man’s left pectoral muscle was visible where the duvet had fallen. There was a mark on his chest, a tattoo of some kind. It was either a symbol or a coat of arms – the prince was unsure which.

Whatever it was, it matched the one he had seen on the friar at the Tower.

He walked over to the side of the bed and lifted the duvet.

After replacing it around the patient’s shoulders, he walked away and left the room.

Stephen opened the boot of the limousine and unzipped the first holdall.

What he saw amazed him.

The bag was full of guns.

29

Jen was the first to make her way up the stairs, with Anthea following closely behind. After making sure the door was locked, they headed back along the cloisters, stopping on reaching the door that led back into the church.

In the distance Jen could see a light shining, quite possibly the security light outside the church, but whatever it was, it was clearly not an interior light. Less clear, the source of the sound they heard in the vaults.

If someone had entered the church, they had since disappeared.

They locked the door to the cloisters and continued toward the entrance of the church.

“Wait,” Jen said, as Anthea prepared to unlock the door. There was light outside, clearly the security light.

Someone – or something – had activated it.

Jen put her eye to the keyhole, seeing if she could make it out. She could see the light, but everything else looked normal. Nevertheless, the field of vision was far too narrow.

She couldn’t rule out the possibility that their exit could be observed.

“Tell me there’s another exit.”

“You’ve got either the sacristy or the cloisters.”

“Where is the door to the sacristy?” Jen asked.

“Over there.” She pointed to the left of the altar – the other side of the church.

“Perfect.”

This time Jen allowed Anthea to lead. For the first time, Jen reminded herself that she was inside a church. In her mind, somehow the vaults seemed separate from the church itself. Despite the secrecy, it hadn’t felt like breaking and entering until now. Behind the altar, the raredos was illuminated by light coming in through the stained-glass windows. Why had the security light come back on?

The thought disturbed her.

She genuflected quickly as she passed in front of the altar, and made a muttered sign of the cross. If anything, that had unnerved her even more. Anthea opened the door to the Lady chapel, a latch handle that fortunately didn’t need locking with a key. On the other side of the chapel, a second door led to the sacristy. Anthea found the key at the seventh attempt, opened it, and locked it again from the inside. She saw the door to the outside.

In principle, it had been a good idea.

She switched the flashlight on her phone back on, and shone it on her surroundings. There were cupboards everywhere, including a large chest of drawers.

“What are they keeping here?” Jen asked.

“Stuff for the Mass, I’m guessing.”

Jen continued to take in the sights. “How about Parish registers? Burial records? That sort of thing?”

Anthea shrugged.

“It would be recorded, wouldn’t it? Even the old stuff.”

“Wouldn’t that be written in Latin?”

Jen was too busy to answer. “Check the cupboards; check the drawers.”

Jen went through the cupboards while Anthea started on the large chest of drawers. Most of the content was albs and various vestments, whereas the papers were bulletins or things to do with the order of service.

Either way, no registers or anything of the sort.

She closed the door of the cabinet and looked at Anthea.

“Come on.”

From the window of Wootton Court, the old man watched as the two figures emerged from the door that led to the sacristy. One, he recognised, but the other he was still to have the pleasure of meeting.

On leaving the sacristy, he saw them disappear into the graveyard.

Less than two hundred metres from the church, the longhaired brunette approached the gate that led to the footpath.

The dust of the church, accompanied by the stress of not being seen, felt extra heavy on her lungs, forcing her to stop to use her inhaler.

She could see movement near the sacristy, the door opening and closing, followed by the sight of two figures running. She watched as they disappeared toward the Hog.

Alone in his cousin’s study, Thomas attempted in vain to control his patience as the dialling tone continued to dominate his hearing. Although it was after eleven, it was unlike his father to go to bed that early.

Finally an answer.

“I’m sending something through to you.”

The prince replaced the receiver and inserted the number into the fax machine.

At the other end of the line, the Duke of Clarence collected the first three sheets. All three contained nothing but one small photograph, the contact list of someone’s mobile phone.

There were eight sheets in total – each containing phone numbers.

He didn’t need his son’s instruction in the ninth that the clues would lie in uncovering the identities of their owners.

Moments later, in the headquarters of MI5, the DG received the same fax. Wasting no time, he picked up the telephone.

“Get me the Director of GCHQ.”

Jen was back in her room by 11:30. The first thing she did was examine the photographs she had taken, the images far more visible on her laptop.

The symbol that had been hidden behind the Jeffries one definitely had the appearance of the white rose of York. According to the Internet, there was a yellow sun in the centre of a white rose with five petals that rested on a green five-pointed star, itself inside another white rose with five petals that also lay atop a five-pointed green star. The largest of the five-pointed green stars also pointed downwards, but much of the other detail on the one in the vault had been worn away. The upper part of the smaller rose, in particular, had practically disappeared, but there were enough parallels to satisfy her that the two were a match.

In theory, that much wasn’t a problem. The original church – once part of the priory – dated back to the early Norman era, and she was certainly in the right county. She guessed in all likelihood, there were bound to be some graves of that era in the vaults – and just because she hadn’t seen them didn’t mean that they didn’t exist. She exhausted Google for any hint of a secret door, local legend, old wives’ tale or other, but yet again the exercise proved fruitless. If the Internet was to be believed, the church had enjoyed a relatively uneventful history…

Or to be more precise, a Jeffries-dominated uneventful history.

The family history seemed equally uninspiring. The family came on the scene in the mid-1550s, rising from minor to prominent noblemen in the East Riding of Yorkshire. Most were significant landowners, but nothing else to trouble the history books.

All in all, pretty forgettable.

But there were things that didn’t add up. Firstly, Anthea was right. Edward Jeffries’ father had been a politician, rising to leader of the Democrat Party. Several stories came up on Google, including a Wikipedia profile. The man had been a politician, only to die in a car crash prior to the 1994 election.

She tried to remember him but couldn’t; she figured she was simply too young.

The second thing was even stranger. The family motto
dieu et mon droit
was not entirely original.

Nor was it even original to that graveyard.

Even to this day it belonged to an even more prominent family.

30

Oxford, England

The black Ford pulled into a parking space on the right-hand side of Museum Road, just outside Keble College. Seconds later, Thomas emerged from behind the wheel, dressed far more smartly than he had the night before. The slip-on shoes, dark trousers, and smart sports jacket did not look out of place. To a casual observer, he could have been anything from an undergrad to a research fellow – perhaps something more impressive still. There was something about the way he walked that suggested familiarity.

He turned left where Museum Road met Parks Road and left again on reaching the Porters’ Lodge.

This was the main entrance to Keble College.

He flashed his old student card to the face behind the entrance window, catching a brief acknowledgement but nothing more. Instead, the woman was more preoccupied with the departing prospective students and their agitated parents as they left the college on the back of a recent guided tour.

Five years had passed since Thomas had last visited Oxford. Nothing ever changed. It was a city of elegance and beauty that continued to merge the elitist, the wannabe, the tourist, the local, and the downright drunk. In term time, he was used to every street and alleyway being packed to the rafters with students, some strutting, others ambling, making their way to the chosen port of call: the library, the lecture theatre, the dorms…

The bar…

At certain times of the year, the city had a buzz to it. The buildings of the university radiated distinction and permanence, unlike the students. The awe of the old guard lingered, whether it be in the form of a plaque, painting, or photograph of past achievements. He remembered his first week – the expectation, the stress…the contemplation of suicide…

Even for a royal it was relentless – perhaps even more so. It was difficult to shake the impression that someone was always watching you.

But fortunately today was different. The academic year was over; it was the time of transition. Today there was a different kind of environment. It was not the student, but the happy snapper, mainly from Asia or America, who frequented the famous buildings – the dinner gowns replaced by T-shirts and baseball caps, and the various wide-angle camera lenses.

In truth he knew he could not have picked a better day to return.

He continued through the main gate and stopped to take in the sights. The freshly cut lawn of Liddon Quad teased the nostrils, as did the accompanying smell of hot sun on pavement. To his right, the Gothic-revival chapel rose into the clear blue sky like a miniature cathedral, while to his left the equally Gothic library had a more foreboding feel, being drenched in shade. Like many buildings in the university, this part of the college was arranged in a quadrangle, and Gothic-revival architecture abounded. The consistent colour of the brickwork, reddish-brown or orange depending on the light, matched the consistency of the shape.

Like the joining of the past to the present, the cycle continued.

He followed the footpath that circled Liddon Quad, and reached the door to the chapel.

The interior was equally impressive. It was airy, lavish, and beautiful. Sunlight blazed through the stained-glass window behind the altar, engulfing the front of the chapel in an angelic glow. The pews on either side were empty, which was rare, even out of term time. Of all the buildings of the college, the chapel was arguably the biggest tourist attraction.

With the possible exception of one.

Thomas continued along the main aisle and turned right on reaching a door. He opened it and entered a small, airy room with light-coloured stonework and four arched windows. A handful of chairs had been placed either side of the carpet, facing the altar. An original painting hung behind the altar, depicting Christ holding a lantern, standing outside a door with no handle, surrounded by thorns.

Holman Hunt’s masterpiece
The Light of the World
.

Keble’s greatest treasure.

In the front row, an elderly gentleman sat with his eyes on the painting. He was balding, clean-shaven, slightly overweight and possessed striking green eyes that always seemed to be capable of looking everywhere at once. He was dressed impeccably.

As Thomas had always remembered.

“Professor Wilson, it’s so g-good to s-see you.”

The old man rose to his feet. “Thomas,” he said, cupping the prince’s right hand with both of his, “how have you been?”

“My health has been quite s-sound,” he said, surveying his old mentor. “And yours?”

The old man smiled kindly. The light entering through the window seemingly caused his eyes to twinkle. “One gets old.”

He lowered himself back into his seat.

“I always liked it here. In my earlier years, I would come here sometimes to look at the painting. I had a cousin who entered the priesthood, you know; he used to preach about this. He told me that the light of the world was hidden, covered by the undergrowth. But it wasn’t so much what’s in the painting, you know, but also what’s on the other side of the door. That’s why there is no handle, you see.

“It’s up to us to let in the light – not the other way round.”

The prince was familiar with the analogy. “I hear you retired.”

“As I say, one gets old.”

He knew the man’s age was seventy-four. “How’s Isabelle?”

“Passed away this time last year.”

The news was shocking. “I n-never knew.”

“Why should you? You’ve had far bigger things to worry about.”

“I’d like to have known.”

The man smiled at him. “It all came about rather suddenly. A strange bugger – cancer. You never really know how it’s going to strike until it does. Fortunately for Izzy, it had already spread too far by the time it was caught. By that time there was no way to fight it. The decline was quick, but peaceful.”

The prince put his hands to his eyes. “I’m so sorry.”

The old man’s expression was thoughtful. “So what brings you back home?”

Thoughts returned to the present. The messages to the King. Shakespeare. Nursery rhymes. Everything that had happened since.

“I was speaking with my father yesterday. There’s something I would r-rather like your opinion on.”

“How is the old rascal?”

“Still complains about his hip.”

Wilson laughed boisterously. “I should have thought his brother might have promised him a new one.”

The prince laughed.

“How is your uncle?”

The prince hesitated, preventing a stutter. “What do you know about the Sons of York?”

“HA. Do you want history or my conjecture?”

It was the answer he expected. “How about we start with history, th-then give me your b-best guess.”

Professor Wilson cleared his throat. “All right. According to a source from the 1700s, they were a band of mercenaries who played a somewhat inconspicuous role in the Monmouth and Glorious risings against James II.”

Nothing new. “I’ve seen the manuscripts myself.”

“I should think so, too; they’ve been in your family for over a hundred years. I needed special permission myself to see them. And even then under close guard.”

“I’m also familiar with the views of some more recent authors.”

“So you are looking for conjecture?”

Ten years of knowing the man told him it was a statement not a question. “I’m prepared to keep an open mind.”

Wilson watched him without expression. “In that case, follow me.”