The Babylon Rite (20 page)

It was the video, shot by surveillance officer Kilo 1 two minutes ago. The quality was excellent, the zoom precise, the face clearly pictured – the same face as in all the photos Ibsen had seen over the last few urgent hours. This was their man: Tony Ritter.

‘Team K,’ he said firmly and clearly, into his radio. ‘You are good to go. Surveil and pursue. Follow but do not apprehend.’

The DCI motioned to his driver: go that way, very slowly.

Their car was a good three hundred yards behind the surveillance officers, who were on foot. Their duet of reports buzzed over Ibsen’s radio.

‘Suspect X walking quickly up Goswell Road.’

‘Turning right, into Clerkenwell.’

‘Walking fast, very fast.’

‘I can see him stopping, looking at something in his hand—’

Ibsen intervened. ‘What? What’s in his hand?’

A defiant pause. What was going on? Ibsen cursed the lack of time to get a proper surveillance team, to call in more officers, to put a GPS on Ritter’s person, somehow; this was fly-by-your-seat police work, with a potentially very dangerous suspect, involved in some brutal ‘suicides’ that might not turn out to be suicides at all.

‘Samsung Zaf.’

‘What?’

‘He’s looking into a mobile, sir. Think he’s reading a map. He’s just standing by a bus stop on Clerkenwell Road.’

The pause returned. A third and fourth flake of snow settled on the windscreen; then more. Ibsen churned, mentally, what little else they knew of Antonio Ritter. He was a serious Californian villain, father Texan, mother Puerto Rican. He was linked to organized crime in Europe and elsewhere, people trafficking in particular. He had several convictions for violence. And he’d gone to ground recently after a stint in an LA jail.

What about those prison terms? Ritter had done some hard time in some nasty Californian clinks. Is this where he had got the tattoos? Did this suicide sex cult originate in some gruesome Californian jail? Full of Latinos and Yardies and Koreans, each with their lethal gang? And their own special tattoo?

The snow was whirling, thickening, settling.

Ibsen mused. The tatts could be gang colours of some kind.

‘He’s moving again – fast. Walking briskly. Like he suddenly remembered where he’s going.’

‘North up Clerkenwell.’

‘He’s almost running, sir.’

‘Yes, he’s running’

‘Jesus, the snow!’

It was now coming thick and hard, almost horizontal, turning into a blizzard. A man could barely see more than five yards. A man could easily get lost.

Urgently, Ibsen pressed the speak button on his radio. ‘Team K. Can you see him? Kilo 1, do you have visual contact?

‘Yes, sir.’

‘Kilo 2?

Silence.

‘Kilo 2?

‘I think so sir … Yes, I can see him now. I think he’s doubling back, he’s changed his mind—’

‘Maybe he’s going for his motor, because of the weather. Larkham, get ready to follow in your car.’

Kilo 2 interrupted. ‘No. He’s heading down Goswell Road, not turning left—’ The signal crackled into lifelessness for a moment then, ‘Sir, I reckon he’s taking the Tube. Barbican Underground.’

‘Get on it! Christ. Kilo 1 and 2! Don’t let him get on that Tube without you!’

Ibsen slapped the dashboard in anger, his frustration intense. But for now, Ibsen just had to sit it out. They were down in the Tube, so he had radio silence, and no information. What was going on down there? Had they arrested him, lost him; had he spotted them on the Tube train; had he turned on the officers, shooting a gun, spraying a carriage, killing a kid with a ricocheted bullet? The silence was like waiting for a returning space mission to go through the atmosphere. Would anyone be alive at the end?

Ten minutes. Fifteen. Eighteen.

They had an armed response team ready, down the Pentonville Road. But that was a bit late if the guy was already culling infants on the Northern Line.

An efficient little crackle, like a throat clearing, brought the radio to life. ‘He’s up. We’re out. On the surface.’ It was Kilo 1. ‘We’re at the Angel, sir. Angel Tube.’

Just four stops away. Ibsen signalled to his driver. ‘OK, Kilo 1, Kilo 2, keep following him. We’re here for the whole ride.’

‘Sir. Walking up Upper Street.’

Kilo 2 kicked in, ‘He’s stopped, sir. By that weird low building …’

‘Antique arcade.’ A more authoritative voice, crackled through. I’m just parked across Upper Street, sir. He’s stepping inside—’

Ibsen shot back, ‘Larkham? You’re there? How did you know?’

‘Took a guess, sir, followed the Northern Line overground north.’

‘Good man! But I know that place.’

‘Yes?’

‘If he goes in there we can lose him, a warren of old gaffs, all those lanes outside!’

‘He’s gone in.’

Ibsen barked, ‘Kilo 1 follow.’

‘I’m inside, can’t see him – wait …’ His pulse rate was now 125, 130.

‘Kilo 1? Can you see him?’

Silence.

‘Kilo 2? Can you see him?

Silence.

‘Kilo 1? Fuck sake, Kilo 2?

A breathless voice. ‘He’s running, sir.’

Running?’

‘He’s sort of running, and – and these little alleys are filled with shoppers – all the snow – it’s chaos. Maybe he knows we’re here …’ The policeman was panting. ‘I can just see him, the snow is so heavy, Sir … is that … wait … I can’t …’

They were going to lose him.

Ibsen waited for half a second. He waited for another half a second, Pulse maybe 140, 145, 150.

Kilo 1: ‘I’ve lost him. No visual contact. Repeat, no visual contact.’

‘Kilo 2?’

‘Me too. Lost him. Sorry, sir. The bloody snow …’

‘Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck.’

Ibsen slapped the dash again. He had one last hope. His brilliant junior, the one man he could rely on, his go-to guy for not utterly fucking things up all the fucking time.

‘Larkham?’

‘Same here, sir. I got a glimpse. Then he just— You should see the snow, you can hardly see your own …’

Ibsen let the bitterness seep into his conscience for another half a second, then switched into a more professional gear. ‘So he’s gone to ground. But he’s somewhere around. Who saw him last, and where, precisely?’

Kilo 1 answered: the antique parade; Kilo 2 agreed. Then Larkham said, ‘Think it was me who saw him last. He was jogging up Islington Green. Just a glimpse, through the snow. I could see his head, then nothing.’

Ibsen closed his eyes for a second. Repressing his anger and guilt. ‘Just stay there, patrol discreetly, and keep your eyes open, we might just get lucky again.’

Ibsen knew they weren’t going to get lucky. The suspect’s last movements were all too indicative of a professional criminal who was aware he was being followed. He watched the delicate star-clusters of snow fall and melt on his windscreen, in prolificity and profusion; like lemmings, killing themselves on his glass, and melting into nothing. Suicidal snow.

The driver pierced the silence, jolting Ibsen from his reverie.

‘Are you all right, sir?’

‘I’m fine. Bloody furious, but otherwise fine. So we lost him. We still have a lead. He must have had a reason to come here in the first place What is it? Why has he come to Islington?

From Temple Station they walked briskly up a steep narrow street lined with venerable buildings, made somehow more scholarly – and picturesque – by their new, white, lawyerly wigs of snow.

They were at the Temple Church, an eight-hundred-year-old survivor. It looked impossibly beautiful and quaint, the arched windows and golden buttresses surrounded by Christmas Carolly scenes of snowbound gardens, and liveried beadles, and eighteenth-century doors decorated with green wreaths of berried holly.

Nina opened her rucksack with shivering hands and recited: ‘“The London Temple was one of the three administrative centres of the entire Order, along with the Paris Temple and their headquarters in Jerusalem. All the Templars’ British wealth was held here, in the London Preceptory, in a treasury so renowned for security that the English king stored the Crown Jewels herein.”’

Adam said nothing. A face was peering at him from behind a large sash window. The curtain fell.

Nina went on. ‘“At the time of the Templars’ fall from power, this reputation for hidden wealth gave rise to the rumour that the London Temple was the storehouse for the Templars’ “secret treasure”. Over the years this notorious treasure has been variously reckoned as the Ark of the Covenant, the True Cross, the Turin Shroud and the Holy Grail. In truth, there was no such secret treasure; these absurd rumours of secret wealth rose arose simply because the Templars were the first bankers of Europe, and their vaults were filled with noble loot, held as surety, or deposited for safekeeping.”’ She finished, and shrugged.

Adam sighed. ‘Your father was a sceptic. We know. The question is: how did he go from all that to believing that there really was a deep Templar secret?’

A secret that gets you killed? Adam baulked at saying it. Instead he looked at the exterior of the church. He had no need of a guidebook to tell him about this. From research on earlier articles, from simple sightseeing as a young Aussie in London, he knew that most of the exterior of the famous church was twentieth-century work, cleverly restored following the dreadful damage of the Blitz. Only the west porch remained from Templar days. So they could be pretty sure Archie McLintock didn’t come here to admire the exterior.

Which left one choice.

They entered the church, through the low side door. The building was empty and hushed. Slender candles twinkled; the blonde wooden pews were empty; winter daylight striated the floor. The old church was beautiful and sad, and vacuous. There was no sense of mystery here, no sepulchral clue, no air of intrigue that might imply what Professor McLintock had found. It was an echoey cenotaph, laid with effigies.

Frustrated, he strode around the circular nave with its grotesque gargoyles. Here was a man screaming, with his ear being bitten by a creature. Why?

Nina was crouching beside a gravestone, reading quietly from her father’s book. Adam took some photos: of the delicate black marble pillars, then the elegant circular colonnading, then the effigy of William Marshall, Earl of Pembroke, laid out in full battle-kit, chainmailed, a sword in his hand. Ready to fight violently for Christ, even now.

‘This bit dates right back to 1200,’ said Nina, standing and gesturing at the clean golden arches, the chevrons of wood in the ceiling.

‘Still looks new,’ said Adam.

It did look new. Too new. As if it had been recently restored. Adam thought about the evil ambience of Temple Bruer. What linked these two places? Somewhere very old and dirty and pungent with atmosphere, and somewhere cleaned and spruce and empty.

Adam stepped to the side where there was a table stacked with helpful pamphlets, advertising opportunities for charity work in West Africa, and schedules of festive carols in the Wren Churches. He heard voices. Nina was talking to someone a gowned man, the verger, or the vicar maybe. Adam knew nothing about church hierarchies. The man had a fusty, middle-aged, churchly air and a black gown over his shoulders. Walking across, Adam extended a hand, just as Nina’s conversation with the man dwindled to silence.

‘Adam Blackwood. The
Guardian
.’ It was a lie, he’d been sacked; but he didn’t care. He wanted information, and saying you were a professional seeker of information just sped things up.

The man had strange eyes, as if he was wearing tinted contact lenses. A hint of livid blue. The word
restored
was a continuous bass organ note in Adam’s mind, waiting for the treble, the tune, the harmony, as the man swivelled.

‘Name’s Baldwin. I’m the churchwarden. I was explaining to your friend that I never met her father. The name doesn’t even ring a bell. Sorry.’ His accent was northern. Perhaps Yorkshire.

Restored?

‘She tells me he were a great expert on the Templars! But that he recently … passed beyond?’

Nina was trying again. ‘You’re sure you never met him ever? He came here last year, two days in a row.’ They knew this because of receipts from Caffe Nero, on Holborn.

The churchwarden gazed at Nina as if she was mad.

‘Miss McLintock, I don’t meet every tourist, even famous ones! We have so many visitors. Anyhow, I wasn’t here last summer: no one was. We were restoring.’

The lock yielded at last; Adam turned the mental key. ‘Do you mean the whole church was closed?’

‘Yes. Exactly.’ The man’s smile was sincere and bored. ‘The whole church were locked for, ooh, eighteen months. We allowed no visitors. Not a soul. It were the biggest restoration we’d had since the Blitz. Cost millions, but the Corporation were very generous, the large legal companies, and so forth …’

‘All visitors?’

‘Yes! We had an iron rule. Anyway, I must be getting on … Tempus bloody fugit. If you want to make donation, the offertory box is near t’exit.’

The gown swished and the churchwarden departed through an interior door. Nina looked with mystification at Adam.

‘I don’t understand. So Dad didn’t come here. Why come here, twice, if you can’t get inside? Did he go somewhere else?’

‘The exterior!’ Adam grabbed her hand. ‘It must be. We know he came to the Temple, but if he couldn’t get in – that means he must have been looking at the exterior. And there is only one bit of the exterior left—’

The excitement was mutual. Not pausing, they rushed outside to the West Porch: a large, dark door, filigreed with ironwork and iron studs; and surrounding it an intricate stone jamb, with a semicircular arch, semicircles within semicircles, like ripples of stone. Decorated with peculiar and significant sculptures.

The sculptures were all of Green Men. Dozens and dozens of Green Men, faces of the pagan past, wreathed in stone ivy and tendrils, grinning at him. Adam yelled with excitement. ‘This is it. Must be it. This is it! This is what he came to see. This. It’s our first real clue, Nina, this is it: Green Men, just like those at Rosslyn. So we know he was on to something, and we know it definitely is linked to Rosslyn. He wasn’t mad, he wasn’t joking; he really was unlocking a puzzle.’