Holy Blood Read online

  ‘Haven’t you gone back to Oxford yet?’ he asked, pleased to see how Mandy and Trev scrambled out of their seats and set about making themselves look busy.

  ‘The TV company called,’ Mandy said. ‘A new producer is turning up tomorrow to reshoot some of the footage.’

  He groaned. Not that pantomime again.

  ‘They say they’ll pay us again for the re-filming,’ Mandy added. She picked at the scraggly end of her plait. ‘Only problem is, they want to reshoot the bits with the Holy Blood.’ She looked as though she was going to cry.

  ‘Brilliant,’ Aidan said, his heart sinking. ‘Don’t you worry about it, Mandy, it’s not your problem. But I’ve got something for you. Can you get a rough idea of where the major Catholic families were in this area, during Elizabeth I’s reign?’

  ‘Sure, but why?’

  ‘Something cropped up in the records at Hailes. If you could cover a twenty-mile radius from Hailes that would be great.’

  Mandy perked up and hurried away to start the research. Aidan turned to Lisa. She was perched on a chair, legs crossed, swinging her foot. In her navy shift dress and matching navy sling-backs, and with her short, reddish pixie haircut, she looked eminently respectable, like a solicitor or a tax accountant. The Lisa who taught him the filthiest songs he’d ever heard was centuries away.

  ‘Find anything new on the skeleton?’ Aidan asked.

  ‘I’ve recorded every single wound on the bones,’ she said. ‘Every nick, every healed fracture. He’d been through the wars, our chap. I’m surprised he lived so long, to be honest. Quite a few of those injuries could have killed him, never mind the risk of infection.’

  ‘What do the injuries suggest about him?’

  ‘Apart from the fact he was almost indestructible – until someone bashed his head in – I’d say he was a soldier. A professional soldier, by the injuries. I don’t think he was just called into his local lord’s service as and when. I think he spent his life fighting.’

  ‘A mercenary?’

  ‘I’d be happy with that conclusion,’ she said, crisply.

  ‘That fits with the isotope analysis.’

  ‘Mandy showed me the graphs. He’d been around a bit. If it weren’t for the injuries, I’d say he was a commercial traveller.’ She slugged the coffee. ‘Or one of Walsingham’s spy network.’

  ‘Maybe we can interest the TV company in that instead of the mumbo-jumbo and the druids,’ Aidan said. ‘Might distract them from the fact I’ve inadvertently lost the Holy Blood.’

  He kicked out a chair and flopped down into it, puffing out his cheeks. ‘Right bloody mess this is. A documentary about the Holy Blood and the fucking thing has vanished.’ He scrubbed his hands over his face. ‘That’s a much better story for the TV company, how we had this artefact and lost it. I’m going to look like a right idiot.’

  ‘Have you told the police yet?’

  ‘No. I was hoping it would turn up again.’

  ‘Who do you think took it?’ Lisa said.

  ‘Lewis Jordan,’ Aidan said, without hesitation.

  Lisa drained her coffee. ‘Me too. The way he looked at it, like it had magical powers.’ She laughed. ‘You know, I wouldn’t be surprised if he believed that it would give him eternal life.’

  ‘Didn’t work for him then, did it?’

  ‘No.’ She pursed her lips. ‘What would you do to get it back?’

  ‘Not kill him, that’s for sure.’

  ‘I didn’t say you did. Though you were quite happy to accuse me.’ She cocked an eyebrow. ‘So go on, Aidan, what’s it worth to get the Holy Blood back?’

  He shrugged. ‘Right now it’s costing me my job, my reputation, probably my whole career and the future of the Heritage Unit. So that’s everyone’s job on the line. Plus Eden thinks the missing Blood makes me suspect number one in Lewis’s death.’

  ‘Oh dear,’ Lisa drawled, ‘trouble in paradise?’

  ‘Don’t start.’

  ‘I can make this mess go away, you know.’

  ‘What are you talking about?’

  ‘The reason the Blood didn’t give Lewis eternal life is because …’ she reached into her bag, ‘I stole it back.’

  And there was the Holy Blood: the deep crimson jewel phial with its silver stopper. For a moment, Aidan couldn’t breathe.

  ‘How the hell did you get that?’ he whispered.

  ‘I told you, I stole it.’

  He stared at her, his mind racing with questions.

  Lisa dragged her chair closer to his. ‘When you said the Blood was missing, I knew it must have been Lewis who took it. So I went to his hotel room and pretended I wanted to talk about the documentary and, well, flirted with him.’

  ‘You slept with him to get the Blood?’

  She reared back. ‘You think that of me? I’m not a whore, Aidan.’

  He breathed hard through his nose. ‘I’m sorry. How did you get it?’

  ‘I pretended I’d got grit under my contact lens and went into the bathroom in his hotel room to sort it out. The Blood was in his washbag so I pinched it.’

  ‘But how did you know it was in the bathroom?’

  ‘I’d already searched his jacket pockets while he was ringing room service for drinks.’

  He ran his hands through his hair. ‘You’re amazing,’ he said, at last.

  ‘True. So how about you stop being such a bastard to me?’

  ‘I’m sorry. Eden found that origami swan I made in the pub in Lewis’s room and asked a lot of awkward questions about how it got there.’

  Lisa ran her tongue over her teeth and regarded him for a moment. ‘What did you tell her?’

  ‘I lied.’

  CHAPTER

  EIGHTEEN

  Hailes Abbey, September 1571

  Lazarus followed Brother John out of the physic garden and towards the old workshop. When he had known it, many years before, it had adjoined the infirmary. Beyond it were the fishponds that supplied the Abbey’s table; as a boy he’d dabbled his fingers in the cool water for the fish to nibble. As they rounded the corner, he was dismayed to see the infirmary buildings torn down, not a stone remaining, the workshop standing alone in a sea of bare earth. The fishponds were clogged with weeds, and a rank stench hung over them like a miasma.

  ‘How is it you are still here?’ he asked.

  ‘I stayed to treat the sick, and was allowed to make my home in the workshop,’ Brother John replied. ‘When they took down the infirmary, they left my house standing, thank God.’

  ‘You never thought to move away?’

  ‘There was much to do here.’ Brother John pushed open the door. ‘And where would I go?’

  Lazarus shrugged and ducked his head to enter the house. There was a narrow bed in one corner, a leather chest, and a fire with a pot hanging from irons beside it. The rafters were festooned with bunches of dried herbs. One wall was lined with shelves crammed with glass beakers and pottery jars.

  ‘Every medicine for every ailment,’ Brother John said, seeing Lazarus eyeing the shelves.

  ‘As always,’ Lazarus said.

  Brother John poked a stool into the middle of the room with his toe. ‘Sit, and let me tend those wounds, my friend.’

  Lazarus shook off his cloak and jacket, and pulled his shirt over his head. His skin mapped his life’s journey: every fight, every kill was marked there. Brother John came close, his breath feathering on his naked skin as he examined him.

  ‘You have seen great danger and survived, Sweet Matthew.’

  ‘They still call me Lazarus.’

  ‘Earned more now than ever before, I see.’

  Brother John fetched down two pottery jars and a glass phial of dark green liquid. He mixed up a potion in a beaker, topped it up with water from the pot, and pressed it into Lazarus’s good hand.

  ‘Drink. It will help this wound in your leg, though I must wash it to take out the poison.’

  Lazarus gulped down the hot liquid. It looked and
tasted as vile as a frog boiled in ordure. He gritted his teeth and forced it down. When he dared breathe again, he caught the merry blue eyes of Brother John on his face.

  ‘You have indeed grown into a man of great courage,’ Brother John said. ‘Now let me see this wound.’

  Pain knifed through him when Brother John washed the poison from his festering wound and Lazarus dug his finger stumps into the meat of his thigh to stop himself screaming. The stink of it made him ashamed. He dared not look at the mess that spewed forth, but he felt its hot trail down his skin. Brother John pressed the wound again, probing it for pockets of poison, only sitting back on his heels when he was content that the wound was fully drained and clean. He went to the chest and drew out a length of linen, packed the wound with herbs and ointment, and bandaged it tight.

  ‘It is bad,’ Brother John said, wiping his hands clean on a square of linen. ‘But I pray it will resolve itself. Come back in two days and I will drain it again.’

  Lazarus pulled his breeches back on. ‘I do not know where I shall be in two days.’

  ‘You’ll be here,’ Brother John said, and fixed him with a stare that penetrated to his soul. ‘I would offer you lodging here, Sweet Matthew, but I fear that would not suit you.’

  ‘I need to be free to make my way how I see fit,’ Lazarus said. He dug some coins out of his purse and slid them onto the workbench. ‘For the physic.’

  As he stood to go, Brother John said, ‘I’m glad to see you, Matthew. When you disappeared, I feared for you, and searched for you for a long time.’

  ‘You had no need to do that.’

  ‘I did. You were under my protection. I could never forgive myself if you had come to harm.’

  Lazarus swallowed. ‘A long time ago.’

  ‘Indeed. But some things never change.’

  Hailes Abbey, Christmas Eve 1539

  A crowd had already gathered in the cloister. The usually quiet precincts were rowdy with townspeople and rank with ale-seasoned breath. There was a moment’s hush then a great roar when Abbot Sagar appeared in the cloister with Dr London at his side. Dr London, in his long black robes and with a narrow lawyer’s face, glared out at the rabble like an eagle contemplating a juicy rabbit. In his hand was a scrolled document. He brandished it at the crowd and spoke, not raising his voice and thus forcing the mob to shut up so they could hear him.

  Matthew, shrouded with misery, made out only a skeleton of his words. His most gracious Majesty … in his great mercy … end of monstrous deceits and heresies … a noble day for us all … live in honesty … His Majesty’s loving subjects.

  Beside him, he could feel Brother John shaking, though whether that was due to anger, or fear, or the wet snow that had started to fall, he could not tell. Across the cloister the other lay brothers huddled, shocked and afraid; like him, uncertain of where and how they would live from now on. Of the monks themselves, twenty-one remained, wide-eyed and trembling.

  The document was unfurled on a table that had been dragged across the cloister flagstones, and Abbot Sagar signed it and shook sand over his signature. He swept up the document and waved it at the brothers.

  ‘The Abbey is surrendered,’ he told them. ‘You are released from your vows.’ As an afterthought, he called after them, ‘Apart from your vow of chastity, of course.’

  The drunk crowd jeered at this, swallowing up whatever it was that Abbot Sagar added in a howl of derisory filth.

  At the proclamation, Matthew felt the air gust out of his body, as though he’d been kicked in the stomach. His eyes darted around the Abbey precincts, at the honey-coloured stone walls that had sheltered and nurtured him; at his home.

  Abbot Sagar turned now to Dr London and handed over the seal of the Abbey. For a moment, his fingers clenched the great seal as if he were parting with a lover, then he relinquished it and stepped back to watch Dr London place the seal on the table, and smash it in two with a hammer.

  Dr London held up the pieces of the Abbey’s great seal, and Matthew bit back the wail that was forming in his throat. As if he sensed it, Brother John rested his hand on his shoulder. ‘Be strong, Sweet Matthew, the Lord is with us,’ he whispered.

  Dr London shoved the broken seal and the document of surrender into a saddlebag and turned to go. His horse and that of Abbot Sagar were ready. Both men mounted and were at a canter through the gate as the auction started. As if the dogs of hell were yipping at their heels, Matthew thought, watching the billowing black gowns recede.

  A beefy, ginger-haired man heaved himself up on the table, planted his feet in a manner that tolerated no nonsense, and yelled, ‘Auction of the property of the place formerly known as Hailes Abbey.’

  Two men hauled in the door to the chapter house, its hinges still screwed to the wood and flapping. Behind them, a team of men set about dismantling the Abbey and collecting every pot, spoon, bucket, blanket and ladder they could set hands upon.

  ‘This fine door here,’ the auctioneer shouted. ‘What am I bid?’

  Two men approached the clutch of monks. ‘Strip,’ they said.

  The brothers gaped at them.

  ‘Your robes are property of the Abbey and it’s all being sold. Strip.’

  Seventy-year-old Brother Hereward – crooked of back, cloudy of eye, and childish in his wits these past five years – mashed his gums at them. The men grabbed him and tore off his habit. He shielded his nakedness with his arms, his skin pale and welt with the marks of mortification he’d inflicted on it over the years. Beside him, his fellow brethren slowly disrobed and handed over their garments to be sold.

  One of the dismantlers came up to Brother John. ‘You too. Get them off.’

  ‘Leave him!’ Matthew jutted his chin forwards and lifted his fists, ready to fight. Brother John steadied him with his hand on his shoulder.

  ‘It matters not,’ he said, and started to remove his monk’s robes.

  ‘Brother, take this.’ It was the smith, pushing through the crowd and untying the laces on his cloak. He swept it around Brother John’s shoulders. It was a rough thing, patched and torn, but Brother John stroked it down and smiled at the smith.

  ‘Thank you, my friend.’

  The snow was falling harder now, a pale wetness that rimed the pots and plates and jars and shelves that were stacked in the cloister waiting to be sold. Matthew shivered and rammed his hands up the sleeves of his coat.

  They were selling the refectory benches now. Gone for a few pence and dragged away by a ruffian and his ill-featured son. Matthew saw the feet of the benches scuffing along on the cloister slabs and pain sliced through him. How tenderly the Abbey furniture had been kept: scrubbed clean and polished with beeswax. To see it treated so roughly was almost too much to bear.

  And what of him? He was also property of the Abbey. A lay brother bonded to Brother John, who was no longer a brother but a mere man, and neither of them with a place to live nor a groat to call their own. How could Brother John stand there, silent and yielding, as their lives were dismantled around them?

  ‘Brother?’ Matthew said. ‘What is to become of us?’

  ‘We are free men now, Matthew.’ The answer came out on a deep sigh. Freedom given in this way was unwelcome indeed.

  ‘But what am I now, Brother?’

  No answer. Brother John was staring at the auctioneer, who was now holding aloft a pair of candlesticks that had once graced the high altar. Brother John’s throat bobbed, and he covered his eyes with his hands.

  On the other side of the cloister was a rumpus, a pocket of noise and growled threats. Matthew looked across and his heart banged in his throat. The butcher, the man who had half killed him, was only feet away from him.

  As if he sensed Matthew’s gaze, the butcher looked about him, and his eyes fastened on Matthew’s face. His mouth twisted into a noiseless roar, and instantly Matthew was a child again, cowering against the butcher’s boot in his ribs.

  He ducked behind Brother John, then slid away, weaving
his escape between the legs of the crowd until he was behind the infirmary. The auctioneer’s men were dragging down the beds and tossing the blankets out of the windows. He snatched up a blanket and ran, hurtling round the Abbey wall and across the fields, not stopping until he was sure there was no one in pursuit. Then he drew up and looked behind him. The Abbey squatted like a tawny toad in the valley. Pain pricked his heart again, and he turned, spread the blanket about his shoulders like a cape to shield him from the snow that swirled fast and thick about him, and trudged over the fields to meet the road to Gloucester. He would not be noticed there, in the city. He knew how to use a knife; he could slit a pig and bleed it dry; he knew how to tend plants and mix physic. He would make his own way, somehow.

  CHAPTER

  NINETEEN

  Thursday, 29 October 2015

  16:32 hours

  An accident on the M5 on the way back from Birmingham trapped Eden in bumper-to-bumper traffic, unable to move an inch. The car radio was tuned to a local radio station, which had a phone-in on the badger cull. Listeners, who evidently had nothing else better to do than compete for five minutes of local fame, were ringing in and yakking about anything but the badger cull. Eden lost patience and snapped the radio off.

  Drumming her fingers on the steering wheel, she reviewed the case and her meeting with Bernard Mulligan, mentally constructing a timeline and slotting in what she knew. She started with the skeleton at Hailes Abbey, which had thrown up an artefact remarkably like the Holy Blood of Hailes when it was excavated. This discovery brought Lewis and his crew running to Cheltenham, where he used to live and where he had old enemies amongst his former foster mother and her family. Not that he was short of disaffected former lovers and their husbands who might wish him ill. Stranger was the fact someone hired Bernard Mulligan to background check everyone even remotely associated with the archaeological find. The Holy Blood was stolen and Lewis Jordan found dead in his hotel room, his eyes burned out with ammonia, his mouth blackened, and with a hole bashed in the back of his skull. The poison pen letters that Lewis had been receiving for some time before he came to Cheltenham continued to arrive, some of them posted after he was dead, and drafts of those letters were on Lewis’s own laptop.