All Sorts of Possible (18 page)

A buzzing in his pocket made him flinch, scattering his thoughts, because he knew what it was immediately. But he didn’t look at Mason’s text straightaway. He sat there, pretending
that Mason lived in a different world to the one he was in. But when the phone started to buzz again and again he checked the messages. They all said the same thing:

Will pick u up tomorrow. Hospital. 12pm. Bring Rosie. Mxx

Seeing ‘M xx’ at the end of every message made Daniel so angry that when he stepped off the bus at his stop he only managed to walk a few steps before he hurled the phone against the
wall and heard the screen crack.

Foxton was a small village seven miles outside Cambridge. The cemetery there was separated from the churchyard by a narrow lane banked on either side by a drystone wall
decorated with green ferns the size of ostrich feathers. A wooden gate was hung on spring-loaded hinges, powdered with rust, and Daniel watched it click shut as Mason and Rosie walked on ahead down
the grassy path between the gravestones. Jiff was ambling behind them, the hump on his back like a tiny burial mound of his own.

All the gravestones around them were crooked and slanted askew in the ground. Daniel wanted to turn round and run away rather than walk between them. Looking back, he saw how easy it would be to
sprint across the lane and disappear into the hedge and hide there. But Frank was leaning against the blue BMW parked up the lane, and he looked up suddenly from his phone as if a text had pinged
in to tell him what Daniel had been thinking about doing. When he stood up and started walking, Daniel just turned round and pushed the gate open and went on through.

He tried not to look at the gravestones as he walked down the path, letting them bob at the edges of his eyes, his fists turning damp on the inside.

Mason stopped at a round-topped headstone made of sandstone that had been dulled by the wind and the rain, with lichen smeared over it like gum. A plain stone. A plain
inscription. Mason rubbed it over with the flat of his hand:

HERE LIETH THE BODY
OF FRANCIS GREEN

BORN

FEBRUARY 17TH 1718

DIED

AUGUST 26TH 1779

Carved above it was an ornate oil lamp with a tiny flame protruding from the spout. Mason crouched down beside Rosie and Daniel, a thick, hot smell coming off him.

‘Know what an oil lamp means on a gravestone?’ They shook their heads. ‘Immortality. Legend has it Mr Green was an alchemist who discovered the secrets of eternal life.
Didn’t do him much good though, did it, boys?’ shouted Mason, and Frank and Jiff both laughed, nodding as they lit up cigarettes.

Mason grinned as he patted the grass beneath him. ‘We dug up the bones a few weeks back and Lawson looked them over. Said they were Green’s all right because Lawson saw things.
Moments. Like Green making a beautiful golden flask.
Like something made from sunshine
, Lawson said. And he said Green gave it to his wife as a present and it stayed in their family for
years. Lawson only found out bits and bobs about the flask. But you two, well, you two might be different; you might see a whole lot more than he did. You might be able to see where it is now and
that’s got me very excited.’

‘Mason wants to live forever,’ said Frank, puffing on his cigarette. ‘Don’t you, boss?’ He raised his arms. ‘Not like all these poor buggers.’

‘In this world?’ grunted Mason. ‘You must be joking, Frank.’ He grinned at Rosie and Daniel. ‘So don’t worry, I won’t be around forever. I don’t
believe the legend. I want the flask for another reason. So I need you to tell me what Lawson couldn’t. To find out what other secrets are lurking in those bones below us and tell me where
the flask is now. For you to have a look around in the places I can’t get to.’

‘You want us to do that right here?’ asked Daniel.

Mason nodded. He looked up into the sky and screwed up his face at a big black cloud. ‘Looks like rain so we should hurry up,’ he growled. ‘This is an expensive suit. Savile
Row, don’t you know,’ he said, rhyming it like it was a line of verse. And then he folded his arms. ‘Come on, I’m all ears.’

When Rosie closed her eyes, Daniel expected something to happen, but it didn’t. There was no golden warmth in his chest. No sensation at all. When he saw Rosie’s face tensing more
and more, he knew that something was wrong. Before he could say anything, she opened her eyes and stood blinking in the sunlight. Then she reeled back suddenly and grabbed hold of the gravestone
for balance. In one sweeping bow, she leant forward and vomited on to the grass.

The first drops of rain hissed as they landed. They looked like wet thumbprints on the gravestones, but Mason just stood there, more raindrops popping on his shoulders and his chest as he
watched Rosie wiping her mouth with the back of her hand. ‘Well?’

‘I didn’t see anything.’ Rosie took a breath and spat something white and foamy as far as she could.

‘What? Nothing?’ asked Mason. And Rosie shook her head. ‘But even Lawson got something.’

‘Well, why don’t you try asking him?’ hissed Rosie, crouching down, pulling something stringy and white from her lips and wiping her hands on the grass.

‘Because he’s dead, Rosie. Daniel popped his hand off like a champagne cork. Which means you two are filling in now.’

The rain was pattering harder and Mason’s bald head was starting to glisten. A droplet rolled down his brow, making him frown even more.

‘I need to go home,’ said Rosie.

‘What?’ replied Mason, blinking like a baby bird.

‘I’m not feeling well.’ When Rosie wiped her eyes, the green in them glistened. ‘It’s the chemotherapy. It’s done something.’

Mason dug a divot in the grass and stared at the moist, muddy earth. Then he looked up at the grey sky, into the drops of rain, as if weighing up whether it was just a shower that would
pass.

‘We could dig up the coffin like we did for Lawson, see if that helps. Give you something more to work with. But we’d have to wait till tonight to do that.’

‘Didn’t you hear me?’ replied Rosie. ‘The chemo’s done something. I can’t make the fit with Daniel.’

‘Well, what would you like me to do?’ Mason wiped his face and his eyes shone as though a fire had been lit inside him. ‘This isn’t exactly what I was
expecting.’

‘I don’t know.’

Daniel folded his arms and stood as tall as he could. ‘We should go. Try again another time.’

Mason clicked his tongue against the roof of his mouth. Then he pointed at the church. ‘No, we’re not going anywhere. Let’s sort this out in the dry.’

Inside the church, the rain sounded like tacks falling out of a box on to the roof. Rosie and Daniel stood, hot and prickly with damp, on the flagstone floor as Mason clunked
the big oak door shut behind them, the echo ringing round the stone walls as if all three of them had entered the belly of some ancient, fossilized beast. He walked past Daniel and Rosie and
stopped on a red carpet running the length of the aisle.

‘Dearly beloved,’ he quipped. ‘We are gathered here today to ask you, God, and baby Jesus too, to help Rosie get over whatever problem she’s got so she and Daniel can
make the fit. Because I need them to. Amen. Bless you and all that.’ He bowed comically and tried to make the sign of the cross and then he turned to Rosie and Daniel.

‘I told you. It’s the chemotherapy. It’s done something. I can’t see anything,’ said Rosie.

‘What do you think, Daniel? I thought you were supposed to be the battery, the power. Maybe you just need to bump up the charge to help Rosie, is that it?’

‘I don’t know how it works,’ replied Daniel. ‘If Rosie can’t do anything then I think we need to wait until she feels better. Try again—’

‘BUT . . . I . . . DON’T . . . WANT . . . TO . . . WAIT!’ shouted Mason and his voice rolled like thunder round and round the vaulted ceiling, forcing a trio of pigeons,
roosting outside the stained-glass windows, to flap noisily away. He smoothed a hand over his bare head and glared at the two of them as the silence settled again. The air was bitter with Brasso
and wood and cold stone as Daniel struggled to breathe.

‘Francis Green may or may not have been an alchemist,’ continued Mason more calmly, ‘but he was most definitely one of the finest goldsmiths of his time. In fact, his
contemporaries said he struck a deal with the devil his work was so unique, so
ex-quis-ite
. You can look in any auction catalogue or museum guide to see why.

‘Now a couple of months ago, I got talking to a collector about Green at a function, one of those hoity-toity affairs with pearls and bow ties and drinks bubbling in glasses on silver
trays, that people like me are always desperate to get invited to. And this collector told me he was very keen to find a particular piece of Green’s work. A flask made of gold. The Headington
Flask. Rumoured to be somewhere near Cambridge, buried in the Fens perhaps or maybe hidden in a church or one of the colleges in Cambridge. And I promised to find it for him because this collector
is willing to pay a lot of money.
A lot
of money. And, as you know, I like money.

‘I thought to myself,
Lawson can help me out here. Lawson’s my go-to guy for that kind of stuff.
But now Lawson’s gone and if I can’t locate the flask I promised
to deliver then I’ve got a problem. So I don’t need you, Rosie, to be a problem on top of another problem. That just would not do. Because I don’t have time for problems. Not even
at the best of times.’ Mason glared at her. Clicked his fingers and raised a large forefinger. ‘You’re my go-to girl now Lawson’s gone.’

‘I don’t want to try anything now,’ said Rosie as she raised a trembling hand to her brow. ‘Please, I don’t feel well. I have a headache. I don’t want to do
this.’

Mason shook his head. ‘You’re going to have to try harder. Work through the problem. What you need, Rosie, is some gentle encouragement.’

Mason took a deep breath and strode down the aisle, raising his arms as he looked about him. ‘We’ve got lots of dead people here. Names on plaques. Tombs. Even a person on a cross.
We’ll work through this chemotherapy problem with you or else I’m going to start cracking a skull or two and I’ll begin with your gran’s.’

Mason tripped back down the aisle like an overweight Fred Astaire and dug around in the change in his pocket and popped a pound coin into the donations box beside the door. When it hit the
bottom with a
thunk
, he picked up a small pamphlet entitled: ‘A History of St Barnabas’s Church’.

Mason dabbed a finger with his tongue, parted the thin pages and started reading out the names of people.

‘Francis Levant. Josephus Dunn. Charles Lavelle.’ He paused and tapped the page. ‘John Bannister’s the one!’ Mason beamed. ‘It says here he’s buried
down in the crypt.’

They stood in the semi-dark, with a lit candle and the tomb of John Bannister in front of them. Mason was using his phone to see the page of the pamphlet clearly, the light
setting his face in relief like some gargoyle.

‘Come on, Rosie,’ whispered Mason. ‘Get that talent of yours up and running. Make the fit with Daniel. I know you can.’ He tapped the page. ‘Tell me something about
Mr Bannister to prove it or else I’ll break your granny’s fingers one by one . . .
snap . . . snap . . . snap . . .
like little
sticks of kindling.’

Rosie’s face was all bone and shadows in the candlelight. When Mason grinned even more, motioning at her to go ahead, she closed her eyes, swaying until she put her hand against the wall
to steady herself.

There was nothing at all inside Daniel. No golden glow. He watched Rosie’s face tensing up. Her hand was pressing harder against the wall and then the fingers started to clench up into a
claw.

‘Rosie,’ whispered Daniel. ‘You don’t have to do anything. You don’t—’

‘Daniel,’ said Mason, ‘you’re not helping. Be a good boy and let Rosie concentrate.’

Rosie’s hand was a fist now. Her arm was juddering and the knuckles were chafing against the wall. In the candlelight, Daniel could see that she was rubbing them raw.

When he started to feel something in his chest, it was not a golden warmth. There were painful spots all over it, so electric and sharp it was like his skin was being stippled with a needle.

Daniel shuddered as the pain became more intense, the stabbing sensation faster and harder. Rosie’s face twitched and danced as the candle puffed and skittered, catching the draught coming
down the steps into the crypt. She started to talk about John Bannister and who he had been and what he had done. Her fist rubbed frantically over the wall, making the skin start to bleed. When
Daniel felt more pain, like nails being tapped into his chest, he cried out.

‘Something’s wrong, Rosie. This doesn’t feel right. Rosie, stop!’

But she gritted her teeth and spat out a few more words and phrases from the pamphlet that Mason was holding until he held up his hand and announced that she could stop.

She fell back against the wall, clutching her raw, bloody hand to her chest. Daniel crouched down, breathing hard, as the pain in his chest slowly began to fade.

‘I knew I could trust you, Rosie,’ said Mason and gave her the thumbs up. ‘You just needed a bit of encouragement, that’s all. Now you two find that golden flask for me.
Tell me where it is and I’ll forget today ever happened. I’ll even give you a clue: The last place Lawson had been looking for the flask was an old stately home called Ashwell Lodge. I
know the spot. It’s a few miles outside Cambridge. Lawson said he’d read something about Francis Green possibly staying there when he was an old man, and wanted to look around more,
that he was on to something after making a few visits. So you two scoot along there tomorrow. I want to know straightaway if there’s anything there that might help or whether it’s just
a dead end. Or else we’re digging up Green’s bones again.’

Mason walked across the crypt and stopped before he reached the steps. ‘The collector who wants this flask is going to pay me a lot of money for it, enough so I can retire and go live
somewhere hot and lie like a hippo by a pool.’ He smiled for a moment and cupped a hand to his ear. ‘I can hear the clink of ice in the glasses now. The sun on my face. And those
insects. The grasshoppery ones, what are they?’