The Suicide Exhibition: The Never War (Never War 1) (17 page)

There was enough light streaming in from the moon and the bombings for them to see that the room was empty. Or
rather, it was full – of boxes and crates, shelves weighed down by papers and books and artefacts. But there was no one there.

Harry walked over to a wooden packing crate that stood in the middle of the floor. It was about ten feet long, a yard wide and just as high. Large enough for someone to be hiding behind it. Warily, Harry walked round it. He shook his head – no one.

‘This wasn’t here last night. It’s come from Lisbon according to the stamp.’

‘Delivered this afternoon,’ Elizabeth told him. It was evidently Davenport’s artefact.

She made to follow Harry from the room when there was another loud thump from behind her. They both turned back. The crate was shuddering, shaking as something knocked hard against the inside. The wood of the lid splintered.

‘What the hell?’ Harry put his arm out to stop Elizabeth going closer. ‘Better keep well back, miss.’

Another massive blow raised the lid several inches, nails squealing as they pulled from the wood.

‘Must be an animal,’ Harry said.

‘I don’t think so,’ Elizabeth told him. ‘We should get out of here. Lock the door.’

Her words were drowned out by the crash of the wooden lid shattering. Splinters of wood flew across the room. Harry cried out and threw his hands up in front of his face. Elizabeth felt something sharp scrape past her cheek.

Without the lid to hold the crate together, the sides fell away, revealing the plain dark stone of the rough-hewn sarcophagus inside. The heavy lid juddered and scraped. The weight and force of it lifting had been sufficient to shatter the crate – what the hell was inside, Elizabeth wondered.

As she watched, transfixed, the lid moved again, pushed up from the inside, revealing a strip of darkness.

The Italian was designated Number Nine. He sat at a plain stone table in the crypt-like room lit only by the guttering oil lamps. He hadn’t moved since he was brought here, which Kruger knew meant that what he saw had not changed. When
that happened, he would draw a new picture. If it ever did change.

Kruger stifled a yawn. There was no point in him staying. He would send one of the junior technicians to check every half hour or so. He turned to leave.

And as he turned, he heard the familiar scratch of pencil on paper.

Number Nine was drawing. Again, the image was of darkness. But now there was a strip of light.

The lid of the coffin crashed to the floor. The solid stone split across under the impact. But Elizabeth barely noticed. Her attention was focused on the coffin itself. On the hands that had hurled the heavy lid aside.

Beside her, Harry crossed himself. ‘Sweet Jesus.’

‘Hardly,’ she murmured in reply.

Flashes of light blazed across the skylight. A plane crashed past, engulfed in flames.

In the flickering orange glow, a figure was hauling itself out of the casket. Withered, wrinkled hands gripped the rim of the coffin. Ancient, translucent skin stretched tight across the bones as the fingers scrabbled to get a grip.

Then the face, rising out of the sarcophagus and staring at Elizabeth.

Number Nine’s hand worked rapidly across the paper. The next picture showed the moon, almost full, shining down through a casement. It was shoved aside as the Italian started on another sheet.

Hoffman arrived in time to see this next picture.

‘The Reichsfuhrer has been alerted,’ Kruger told him.

Hoffman nodded, staring down at the picture taking form in front of them. Two figures stared out of the image, their sketched expressions a mixture of fear and disbelief. A man with receding dark hair and a stubby nose, and an elderly woman.

The ancient robes had rotted to rags, barely covering the figure’s withered, emaciated body. The ridges of ribs thrust through. Bony fingers clutched the air. The remains of leather sandals fell away as it climbed out of the sarcophagus.

But its face was the worst. A sudden burst of flame right above the skylight lit up the room, drenching the nightmare figure in blood red lightning. Flesh the texture of rotten fruit, empty eyes sunken into a head that was little more than a skull. Wisps of grey hair clung to the scalp. Blackened, broken teeth were visible through the cracked, drawn lips.

Elizabeth took a step backwards as the figure shuffled towards them. But Harry remained rooted to the spot. He was incredibly pale, shivering with fear. A withered hand reached out for him, and he let out a cry.

It was choked off abruptly.

A hand clamped on a neck. The man’s face screaming above, eyes bulging in terror.

The paper thrust aside and on to the next image.

A body lying on the floor. Bare, skeletal feet beside the man’s head. The decayed leather strap of a broken sandal trailing from one foot.

Number Nine pushed the paper away, hardly pausing before starting on the next image. The old woman’s startled face – up close. A withered hand punching towards her.

The hand was dry, like forgotten autumn leaves. Elizabeth reeled back from the blow, colliding with the frame of the door. Her legs gave way beneath her and she fell. The shrivelled, desiccated figure loomed over her, moonlight streaming round it. The rhythmic percussion of a stick of bombs growing louder as they approached. Her vision blurred, faded… Died.

The sound cut out.

Everything went black.

The old woman’s body was a crumpled heap on the ground.

Number Nine pushed the paper away. Kruger pulled the
pencil from the man’s cold fingers, pushing another sharper one into place immediately.

The pencil sped over the paper. The shape of a dimly lit corridor began to form, grey scratches across the paper. Impressions and ideas rather than sharp details as the Ubermensch moved quickly along the corridor. Through heavy doors, the hint of wood grain sketched into place, out into the night and the ruined city.

IT WAS WITH
a mixture of nervousness and excitement that Sarah Diamond travelled into the centre of London the next morning. She couldn’t imagine what Pauline Gower would say to her transfer. Her reaction was sure to be extreme – but whether extreme anger and resentment or extreme indifference Sarah couldn’t guess.

That was a potential problem for later though – one that Colonel Brinkman could deal with, hopefully. And at the back of Sarah’s mind was the possibility that she would return to the Air Transport Auxiliary in due course anyway. She couldn’t bear the thought of being away from flying for very long. Perhaps she could continue to fly for the ATA occasionally while working for Station Z.

Once she knew what Station Z was and what it did, she’d have a better idea.

For now, though, she stood across the street from the offices, just as she had when watching them clandestinely. She was expected, she had every right to be here. But she felt as nervous as a schoolgirl on a first date. What would she find? Once through the doors, despite her hopes of continuing to work with the ATA, she knew that there would be no turning back. It would be a threshold crossed in more ways than one.

So she stood and watched, and waited for Guy Pentecross. There was a calmness and sensibility about the man that had
touched something in Sarah, even though it was a contrast to her own impulsive personality.

‘I wasn’t sure whether to wear uniform.’

The unexpected sound of his voice made her heart jump, and she spun round.

‘God, you startled me.’

‘Sorry.’ Guy smiled apologetically. He was wearing his Foreign Office suit, like the day before. Or one very similar. Sarah hadn’t even considered putting on her ATA uniform – it was designed for the practicality, and chill, of flying rather than office work.

‘I guess you’re as wary of going inside as I am,’ Guy said.

‘No,’ she said quickly. ‘I was just…’ She stopped and laughed. Who was she kidding? ‘Yes,’ she admitted. ‘I have no idea what we’re going to discover, what we’ll end up doing.’

His eyes glinted. ‘Exciting, isn’t it?’

‘Yes,’ she agreed, but hesitantly. Then, more confidently, she decided: ‘Yes, it is.’

In the event, they never made it inside. They crossed the road, only to meet Colonel Brinkman hurrying out of the door.

‘Come with me,’ he said, without breaking step.

Sarah and Guy fell in behind him.

‘Where are we going?’ Sarah asked.

‘British Museum.’

‘I didn’t know it was open,’ Guy said.

‘It’s not.’

‘So if we’re not going to see some
thing
we must be going to see some
one
,’ Guy said.

‘Absolutely right,’ Brinkman agreed. ‘Leo Davenport just telephoned. He says Elizabeth Archer was attacked last night.’

With no further explanation as to who Elizabeth Archer might be or why Davenport was at the British Museum, Brinkman increased his pace. Sarah and Guy exchanged glances and hurried to keep up. Although it was a little way, it was undoubtedly quicker to walk than to try to drive through the remnants of the previous night’s bombing.

Brinkman evidently knew his way around the museum. There was a smell of dust and age in the air. Sarah caught glimpses of empty galleries, and of burned out rooms where incendiaries had fallen.

‘It’s taken a bit of a beating,’ Guy said quietly.

Sarah didn’t reply. There was nothing really to say. So much of London had ‘taken a bit of a beating’. She didn’t consider the city to be her home, not really. But she felt for it like it was a living thing, just as she felt for the people who did live here.

The building was a rabbits’ warren of corridors and stairways. They descended deeper and deeper below the main structure until they emerged into a vast cavernous space all but filled with crates and shelves, boxes and storage cabinets.

The sound of Davenport’s voice drifted to them from somewhere out of sight. Its soothing tone was punctuated by the sharper timbre of a woman’s voice. As Brinkman led them through the maze of shelves and cabinets, the words became clearer.

‘I am fine, thank you, Leo. Now please stop fussing and let me get on.’

She didn’t look fine. Brinkman introduced the elderly lady with Davenport as Elizabeth Archer. She forced a polite smile, but Sarah was sure it was painful, her face was so bruised. Around the purple discolouration, she looked pale. She remained seated behind her desk, and Sarah suspected she didn’t trust herself to stand up. What had happened to her?

Davenport answered the unspoken question: ‘Elizabeth was attacked last night. As she was leaving here.’

‘My God – who by?’ Guy asked.

‘I keep telling Leo, I’m quite all right. Poor Harry was
killed
by the brute. I was merely… inconvenienced.’

‘We need to get you checked over,’ Brinkman said.

‘No,’ Elizabeth Archer told him, ‘we don’t. I’m a bit shaken, I don’t deny it. Bruised, but it looks worse than it is.’

‘Should we tell the police?’ Sarah asked.

‘Absolutely not,’ Brinkman said immediately. ‘This was no ordinary attack.’

‘Then – what?’ Guy demanded. ‘The poor woman was badly injured, however brave a face she puts on it.’

‘“The poor woman” has a name, you know,’ she said.

‘I’m sorry, Miss Archer.’

‘It’s Mrs. But I’ll thank you to call me Elizabeth.’ She turned to Brinkman. ‘He should be easy enough to find. The young lady’s suggestion of involving the police may not be such a bad notion.’ She shook her head. ‘
I
’m doing it now, I’m sorry. I assume “the young lady” has a name too.’

‘You still haven’t said who attacked you,’ Guy pointed out once Davenport had introduced them.

‘The man from the coffin, from the burial site,’ Elizabeth said, as if this had been obvious from the start. From Guy’s expression, Sarah knew he was no more enlightened than she was.

‘It was my fault,’ Davenport said. ‘I shouldn’t have had that thing brought here.’

‘You weren’t to know he’d suddenly wake up.’

Sarah tried again: ‘Who?’

‘Oh, I’m sorry,’ Elizabeth said. ‘A dead chieftain from a hidden Bronze Age burial site in France. Probably about four thousand years old. He certainly looked it.’ She shuddered.

‘And he – woke up?’ Guy said, amazed.

‘He certainly did. I take it you’ve not been with Station Z for very long.’

‘Our first morning,’ Sarah admitted. What the hell had they got themselves into?

‘Well, if he’s wandering about in the open, someone should report it soon enough,’ Brinkman said. ‘Are you sure I can’t get a doctor over to check you’re all right?’

‘Quite sure. The doctors of London have more urgent cases than a bruised old lady who was knocked over and bumped her head, I’m certain of that.’

‘This Bronze Age chieftain, whoever he is,’ Guy said to Davenport. ‘He was in the sarcophagus you shipped back? The one you wanted to stop the Germans getting hold of?’

Davenport nodded. ‘That’s the fellow. Beginning to wish I
hadn’t bothered.’

‘Your point?’ Brinkman asked.

‘Two points, really. First, why did he wake up now?’

‘I was wondering the same thing,’ Elizabeth said. ‘Could be the change of environment, though I think that’s unlikely.’

‘External factors then,’ Davenport said.

‘I think so,’ Brinkman agreed. ‘Someone woke him up, simple as that.’

‘What’s the second point?’ Sarah asked.

Guy shrugged. ‘Another question, really. Why did the Germans want him? I mean, did they know what was going to happen?’

‘I suspect it may be the Germans that woke him up,’ Brinkman said. ‘He’s been sent his orders.’

‘Orders?’ Sarah echoed. ‘You mean, like they sent him a radio message or something?’

‘I doubt it was anything so direct,’ Brinkman said. ‘Now, since I’m obviously surplus to requirements here, I’ll head back to base.’ He turned to Guy and Sarah. ‘Not you. You can both stay here with Davenport and Mrs Archer. It’s as good a place to start as any. Elizabeth – show them what was recovered from Shingle Bay.’

Across the street from the British Museum, a thin figure stood huddled inside an ill-fitting raincoat it had found half-buried in the rubble. It kept to the shadows, features shaded and indistinct. Its bare legs and feet, protruding from the coat, were bony and discoloured, etched with wrinkles and scratches.