The Last Enemy (14 page)

Dan offered them coffee, and while he made it, Jake and Lauren took turns to fill him in on the situation they found themselves in: starting right back with the ancient Order of Malichea, the hidden library, and the shooting of Alex Munro, and Jake and Guy finding themselves in a police cell. They didn’t tell him about finding Jasper Brigstocke’s mutilated body, deciding that would only send him into a panic about Gemma’s safety.

They finished by telling him that the book everyone, including them, was looking for was The Index, the list of where all the secret books were hidden.

‘And Guy’s involved?’ asked Dan.

Jake and Lauren nodded.

Dan put their coffees down on the table for them, looking thoughtful.

‘He was a bad one, Guy,’ he said.

‘That’s what your sister said.’

‘She’s right. And you think he’s been abducted? Taken prisoner?’

‘We know he has,’ said Lauren. ‘Like we said, we saw him at de Courcey Hall, being put into an SUV at gunpoint.’

Dan took out his mobile and dialled.

‘This is starting to sound too dangerous,’ he told them. ‘I’m calling Gemma again.’

They all listened as they heard the ringing tone, then the automated voice cutting in telling Dan to leave a message.

‘Hi, Gemma,’ said Dan. ‘It’s Dan. Call me. It’s urgent.’

He hung up and turned back to Jake and Lauren.

‘So, what’s the next move?’ he asked.

‘If we can get our hands on The Index we think it’ll solve this business once and for all. Everyone will stop looking for it.’

‘And you think the de Courceys have it?’

‘
Had
it,’ corrected Lauren. ‘And we also think they hid it somewhere.’

‘Do you know of any hiding places in the hall?’ asked Jake. ‘You know, a priest’s hole, or somewhere they used to hide religious things?’

Dan thought about it, his brow furrowed.

‘Not that I can think of,’ he said. ‘Everywhere at the hall was opened up just before the old earl handed it over to the National Trust. There were no hidden rooms, no priest’s holes or anything like that.’

Jake felt a crushing sense of disappointment descend on him, like a dead weight. In that one sentence, all his hopes of finding The Index had been destroyed.

‘Mind, there was Platt Castle,’ said Dan thoughtfully.

Jake and Lauren looked questioningly at Dan.

‘Platt Castle?’ asked Lauren.

Dan nodded.

‘It was the de Courcey’s family home before they built de Courcey Hall. It wasn’t very big, not how you usually think of a castle.’

‘Where was it?’

‘The site is only about two miles away from de Courcey Hall. The de Courceys owned all that land around there. The place is derelict now, just a load of broken walls, but there used to be a small chapel in it at one time.’

‘Do you know when it was abandoned and why exactly?’ asked Jake.

‘There’s something about it in one of the visitor guidebooks to de Courcey Hall,’ said Dan. He got up and went to a bookshelf. ‘Mum was given one by the old earl.’ He gave a bitter laugh. ‘Gemma said it was the only thing Mum ever got from the de Courcey family.’

He opened a slim glossy paperback guide, and flicked through the opening pages, before stopping.

‘Here it is,’ he said. Aloud, he read: ‘
The original family home of the de Courceys, Platt Castle, was abandoned during the time of Elizabeth I. It is thought that this was to show their good faith to King Henry VIII, so that he wouldn’t accuse them of treason and take their family fortune, which was common practice with Catholic families at the time.’

‘So at the time the abbey at Glastonbury was ransacked when Henry VIII was on the throne and the books from the Order of Malichea given to the de Courcey family, the castle and chapel were still intact and functioning. They didn’t abandon them until years after,’ said Lauren.

‘Which means it’s possible that The Index and the
Journal
could have been hidden in a secret place inside the chapel at Platt Castle,’ added Jake.

Dan shrugged.

‘It’s possible,’ he said. ‘But how do we find out?’

‘We go there,’ said Jake. ‘You said it wasn’t far away.’

‘Isn’t it a bit late to go exploring?’ asked Lauren. ‘It’ll be dark soon.’

‘It won’t be dark for another hour,’ Jake said. ‘At least we can go and look at the place.’

‘Will it help Gemma stay safe?’ asked Dan.

‘Possibly,’ said Jake.

‘OK,’ said Dan. ‘I’ll go and get my bike.’

‘A bike?’ asked Lauren. ‘How do
we
get there?’

‘It’s a motorbike,’ clarified Dan. ‘And it’s got a sidecar. We use it for getting the shopping. Cheaper than running a car.’

As Dan left the trailer to go and get his motorbike, Jake turned to Lauren and said, ‘You heard what Dan said about Gemma seeing Sue Clark?’

Lauren nodded.

‘It was about half past four when we found Jasper Brigstocke’s dead body in his shop,’ she said, shuddering at the memory of it. ‘If Gemma didn’t tell Sue Clark about Jasper Brigstocke until just before six, then it couldn’t have been Pierce Randall who tortured and killed him.’

‘Unless they’d already found out about the sale of the books some other way.’

‘Possibly, though I’m starting to think that someone else killed him,’ said Lauren.

‘The Mexicans?’ suggested Jake. ‘They had knives.’

‘Who knows,’ said Lauren. ‘We’ve seen before with these books, there’s nearly always someone else in the picture that we don’t know about.’ She looked nervous as she added, ‘I think there’s someone else at work here, someone
really
nasty, and we don’t know who they are.’

‘Think they’re watching us?’ asked Jake.

‘I don’t know,’ admitted Lauren. ‘I hope not. Because, if they are, we’re in more danger than we think we are.’

Chapter 19

Dan pulled up the bike in front of a wooden gate set in a high wire fence. The gate marked a gap in a thickly wooded area, but the track from the gate curved and twisted among the trees, so it was impossible to get a real view of what lay behind the fence.

The gate was closed and looked ramshackle, like it hadn’t been opened for many years. Beside it was a battered sign that said: ‘Platt Castle. Private property. No entry.’

‘This is it,’ said Dan. ‘We walk from here.’

As they took off their crash helmets and put them in the sidecar, Dan said, worried, ‘I still haven’t heard from Gemma.’

‘I’m sure she’s OK,’ said Lauren. ‘She seems a very resourceful girl.’

‘She is,’ agreed Dan, but he didn’t seem reassured. ‘Anyway, I texted her to tell her we were coming here, just in case she gets home and wonders where I am.’

Jake and Lauren followed Dan as he climbed over the gate. They made their way along the rough winding track, through a jungle of trees, until they turned a final bend and saw a clearing ahead, and at the far side of the clearing, the outline of the castle.

Castle was too grand a name for it; the building was more the size of an old manor house. Although, when the place had been built, many hundreds of years ago, it would have been an imposing building. It had thick stone walls; but the tops, where battlements would once have been, were long gone.

They followed Dan to an area at one side of the derelict building.

‘This is the site of the old chapel,’ said Dan.

It was a small area, not much bigger than a large room in a house. All that was left were the flagstones of the floor and the remains of the stone walls. Ivy and weeds had grown up over and through all that was left of the walls. Rubble, broken stones and more weeds were spread across the floor.

‘Where do we start?’ asked Lauren.

‘We tap the floor,’ said Jake. ‘Listening for where it sounds hollow.’

Lauren looked doubtful.

‘Come on,’ encouraged Jake. ‘Let’s start by tapping all over, and see if there’s any difference in the sound.’

With that, Jake picked up a piece of broken rusted metal from the debris lying around, and began to knock it on the flagstones. Lauren copied him, but Jake stopped her.

‘I think we can only do this with one of us,’ he said. ‘It makes it hard to hear if we’re all knocking at the same time.’

‘OK,’ said Lauren. ‘We’ll do the listening while you tap.’

Jake resumed tapping the piece of metal against the flagstones, moving from one flagstone to another. Each time they heard the same dull solid thud.

‘The light’s going,’ said Dan. ‘We might have to come back tomorrow.’

‘Just a bit longer,’ urged Jake.

He banged the piece of metal down on the next flagstone. Once again, there was the same dull thud.

‘I don’t think we’re going to find it,’ said Lauren gloomily. ‘Jake, admit it, this was always going to be a bit of a crazy idea.’

Jake didn’t reply. He moved on to the next flagstone. Once more, there was that same dull solid sound. He moved on to the next and banged the metal bar again . . . and this time he stopped.

‘There!’ he said. ‘Did you hear that?’

‘What?’ asked Lauren.

‘It sounded different,’ said Jake. ‘Listen.’

And he banged the piece of metal on the flagstone again.

Dan frowned.

‘Actually, it
did
sound a bit different,’ he said.

Using the metal bar, Jake scraped away the dirt around the four edges of the flagstone, and he pushed it in, trying to get leverage. After a bit of pushing and manipulating, the end of the bar was in the crack. Jake pressed down on the end of the bar but the flagstone didn’t budge.

‘Let me help,’ said Dan.

Dan and Jake put all their strength into forcing the bar downwards and slowly that edge of the flagstone began to lift.

‘Right,’ said Jake. ‘See if you can lift it up while I hold the bar in place.’

Dan and Lauren joined Jake, putting their fingers under the edges of the flagstone, and hauling back. It began to lift . . . then Dan and Lauren slid it to one side. There was a hole in the ground beneath where the stone had been, and inside the hole was an object wrapped in oiled black leather.

With trembling fingers, Jake lifted the object out. It felt like a book. Was it The Index? There was only one way to find out. He began to untie the oiled twine that held the package together.

‘Do you think that’s a good idea?’ asked Lauren nervously. ‘Some of the books can be booby-trapped. Remember the toxic bacteria inside the first book that was found!’

‘If it was hidden here at the chapel, I don’t think it would be one of the Malichea science books,’ said Jake. ‘I’m pretty sure this is one of the books that the abbot gave to the de Courcey family, the
Journal of the Order of Malichea
or The Index.’

‘And if you’re wrong?’ asked Lauren.

Jake didn’t reply, but silently he hoped that he was right.

He undid the last piece of twine and peeled back the protective leather covering. Inside was a book, with the familiar symbol of the Order of Malichea inscribed on the cover. He opened it up and saw the ornate Latin writing on the first page, and then continuing on the other pages, each section in a different handwriting, and dated.

‘It’s the
Journal
,’ said Jake, and this excitement at having finally found it was mixed with bitter disappointment that it wasn’t the book he’d been hoping to find. ‘So where is The Index?’ he groaned.

‘My question exactly,’ said a voice behind them.

Chapter 20

They swung round, and were shocked to see Guy standing with two young teenage boys, one of whom they’d seen holding a gun on Guy in the car park at de Courcey Hall. Now, the gun was in Guy’s hand.

‘Don’t try anything, any of you,’ warned Guy. ‘This is a Hechler and Koch MP5K. Very powerful, and with a 30-round clip. Right now it’s on automatic, so it’ll cut you all in half before you’ve got within an inch of me.’ He smiled. ‘I know a lot about guns. They’re a sort of hobby of mine.’ His smile broadened. ‘Dan! Well, well! My old boyhood pal!’

Jake shot a look at Dan, and saw from the grim and sickly look on his face that whatever Guy and Dan had been during their childhood at de Courcey Hall, they hadn’t been mates. Dan looked frightened.

Jake turned back to Guy.

‘I thought you were in trouble,’ Jake said accusingly. ‘Being held prisoner.’

‘Yes, that’s what you were supposed to think,’ said Guy. He looked up at the sky. ‘It really is starting to get dark. I think we ought to continue this inside.’ He jerked the gun. ‘Follow Spider. I’ll be bringing up the rear. And, like I said, any funny business . . . You’re dead.’

Spider led the way towards the ruin of Platt Castle. Jake, Lauren and Dan followed anxiously, aware of Guy and the second boy behind them.

‘Make sure you don’t drop that book, Jake,’ said Guy.