The Boudicca Parchments (4 page)

Yet he was by no means all work and no play. He loved spending time with his young nieces and enjoyed outward-bound activities with his teenage nephews. In the winter months, he was equally good at keeping them occupied with kitchen table science. On one occasion, he had taught the boys how to make a radio out of household items like a rusty old razor blade, a pencil, a plastic bottle and some wire. To their amazement he then improved it by adding some foil, greaseproof paper, a brass nail, a coin and a lemon (which he described as “the battery”). He had download the information on how to do it from the internet and then challenged them to do a project of their own, making a shortwave radio, using a broken saucepan as the main component. They came through with flying colours.

These were simple pleasures that Charlotte never understood. To her, even the idea that two adolescent boys could prefer a home-made radio that you had to strain to hear with an earpiece, over a cool, hi-graphics video-game, contradicted the stereotypes that she had read about – as well as her assumptions about human nature. In the perennial conflict between the Having Mode of life and the Doing Mode, she found happiness in luxury possessions and the company of well-bred but ultimately shallow people. Daniel believed in the dictum of popular philosopher Cyril Joad, that happiness was the “by-product of purposeful activity.” And soirees with some latter-day “New York 400” were not his idea of purposeful activity.

This was ironic really, because he had first met Charlotte at a University function. But then again, as he recalled, the function was in honour of some rich donor, so it represented that awkward meeting point between academia and philanthropy, when scholarship and Mammon pay mutual homage to one another, with a mixture of envy and guilt.

Relaxing in his first class seat, he tried to remember if there had ever been a time when he had seen her looking anything other than comfortable. The only time he could think of was the event that had triggered their divorce: when he had caught her in flagrante delicto with one of his students. And even then, she had tried to put him on the defensive, reminding him of all the times he had regaled her with tales of his female students flirting with him and how he seemed flattered rather than merely amused by it. He responded by trying to make her recognize the difference between being subject to temptation and succumbing to it. But even then he felt as if he was talking to her in a foreign language.

Troubled by these painful memories, he slept a fitful sleep through most of the flight. But even though the sleep was punctuated by episodes of awakening, it was a ten and a half hour flight and so he was relatively fresh when he picked up the hired Audi A4 at Luton Airport. His own car was at Heathrow, but he decided that as he was going to be meeting the abominable Martin Costa in Hertfordshire, he may as well fly into Luton, so the drive would be shorter.

On the drive to Ashwell, through leafy country lanes, he tried not to think too much about his ex-wife, still less of the man he was going to meet. Martin Costa was an odious little spiv – a prostitute of academia – who had turned from incisive thought and the pursuit of knowledge to legerdemain and the pursuit of the quick and easy buck.

Paradoxically it had been the opposite with Daniel. It was his adolescent interest in sleight of hand that had led to his academic development. Because with his new found confidence in his skills at wowing an audience with illusions, he gained a sense of self-belief that led him to try harder in school. No longer satisfied with being in the “top third” of his class, he sought to be the best, at least in those subjects that interested him. That meant languages, history and even subjects that his school didn’t actually teach like psychology and cultural anthropology.

The fact that he went to a Jewish school was also helpful in forming his specialization. Although he no longer adhered with any great feeling to the faith of his childhood, he developed a powerful interest in Jewish history, which
was
taught at the school. He also found himself paying more attention in religious studies classes. He wasn’t interested in theology as such, but he
was
interested in human thought and in language – how it developed and the strange discrepancies between classical Hebrew and its modern counterpart.

Not sure what street the
Three Tuns
was in, he had set his SatNav for Ashwell. But by mistake, he had accepted the device’s suggestion of Ashwell and Morden Station, where he found himself looking at a pub called
The Jester
. Not quite sure of the etiquette of such situations, and not wanting to ask for directions to another pub without at least buying a drink, he parked and stepped out of the car. The first thing he noticed, was the all-pervasive smell of horse manure, which as a lifelong townie, he put down as being the rural norm.

In the pub, not wanting to touch alcohol while driving, he ordered a diet coke. While he was drinking at the bar, he engaged the barman in conversation and discovered that he was not actually in Ashwell at all, but rather two miles away from the village. He took the opportunity to obtain directions and proceeded down a narrow country road past isolated houses, parched fields of golden corn and a path leading to a trailer park, according to the signpost. The speed limit was 40 mph, but it dropped to 30 when he reached the pinch point that marked the entrance to the village.

Inside the village, he asked for directions again and found himself driving past a traditional village green on which a game of cricket was in progress. Except that this was no ordinary cricket game. For some reason, all the players were in fancy dress. As he slowed down to rubberneck, he spotted a school-master – complete with gown – Batman, Robin Hood, a soldier in camouflage fatigues, a turtle, a very out-of-place tiger and an equally out-of-season Santa Claus. It wasn’t clear whether this was a weekly occurrence or a special occasion – and he couldn’t escape the feeling that he had strayed into a real-life
Wicker Man
scenario – but he noticed children and parents watching the event, albeit in small numbers.

He was still mulling over the cricket game’s poor attendance when he parked the Audi in the quiet village street a few yards past the sub-post office. As he crossed the road to the red brick building that was
Three Tuns
, he heard the clip-clopping of horse’s hooves. Standing outside the pub, he turned to watch as two pretty young women in their early twenties rode by on horseback. Their image as rural young ladies was marred somewhat by the fact that one of them was sporting a couple of visible tattoos

There were two entrances, one for the hotel and one for the pub. He chose the latter, on the right. The place was half-full with lunch-time patrons. He sat down and looked around, trying to figure out which one of them was Martin Costa. It had been a while since they had last seen each other and Daniel wasn’t sure if he would recognize him.

Why the hell am I sitting in a village pub, waiting to meet a man I don’t trust as far as I can throw him?

He felt like Rick in
Casablanca
: not actually knowing why he was doing something, but doing it anyway. The only explanation that he could give himself is that there was something about that blurred text that looked awfully familiar – and his curiosity was aroused.

But where was Costa? The trouble was, none of the other patrons was alone. They were variously in couples or groups. Costa would be alone. The secretive nature of his approach, and the man’s very nature, assured Daniel of that. There was however a simple way to find out. He took out his phone and sent a text: “I’m here. Where are you?”

He looked around for any sign of some one receiving a text. It wasn’t a foolproof test: there were more patrons in the spacious grassy garden behind the pub. But two minutes later he got a reply.

“Am delayed slightly. Treat yourself to a meal.”

Daniel ordered fish and chips at the bar, but asked if they could replace the chips with mashed potato. They told him that it would be no problem. He told them that he wanted to eat in the garden. They gave him a flag with a number so they would know where to bring the food. Then he went to the loo and through into the garden to await the meal. In fact, although the garden was spacious, there were actually very few of the wooden tables there. Instead the garden provided space for children to run around, although there was also a toddlers playground behind it. Daniel looked around and finally found the only free table there.

When the food arrived, he saw that they had not in fact replaced the chips with mash. He considered sending it back, but decided not to. Taking the minor irritations that life throws at one was part of his philosophy. He wasn’t exactly a stoic. But neither was he one of those precious types who insists that everything has to be done just right. It was life’s little unpredictabilities that made every day different and worth living. Otherwise he would not be here now waiting for Martin Costa to get here.

In the end Martin Costa never did get there. Instead, Daniel got a text message, while he was still eating, saying: “Come to the derelict house on the way to Partridge Hill, just next to the house where they sell arts and crafts figures. Make sure you are not followed.”

Daniel smiled. Costa seemed to be enjoying playing the role of International Man of Mystery with his excessive use of the phrase about not being followed. Never for a minute did Daniel actually consider that maybe he was…

Chapter 7

They were dressed up as eighteenth century Polish noblemen, two bearded men in long frock coats and felt hats, with a thin black ribbon tied round their waists to separate the upper half of their bodies – containing the heart and the brain – from the lower half, which contained the sex organs.

But they were not fetishists. This was how they dressed, just as their ancestors had dressed this way for the last two hundred years. They were a small ultra-religious Jewish sect and like the Quakers and Amish Mennonites, they dressed in the style of clothes that had characterized their religious movement since it was first established.

Strictly speaking, it was not in the style of
their
religious movement that they dressed, but rather the style of the movement from which they had seceded. For this movement was in fact not quite as old some people thought. It had only been founded in 1938 after it broke away from a larger Jewish religious movement over a major political difference.

The older man, in his sixties but looking somewhat older, called himself “HaTzadik” – The Righteous One – although his real name was Shalom Tikva. And the very tall man he was addressing was his thirty-year-old son Baruch.

“When Sam Morgan arrives, he will be bringing something of importance, so treat him with respect.”

“
What
will he be bringing?”

The resentment in Baruch Tikva’s tone was palpable.

“I do not want to put the evil eye on it by talking about it. You will see when it arrives.”

“I don’t know why you trust that man. You should be very careful of him.”

“Why? Because he is a gentile? You sound like the profane ones!”

“I don’t mean because he is a gentile. I trust the Arabs more than the profane ones! But I trust Sam Morgan even less. He is greedy. And he has wormed his way into your trust. I mean no disrespect, but be careful of him my father.”

HaTzadik’s tone was conciliatory.

“You have nothing to be jealous of. You are my son and he… he is a stranger.”

But the words did not heal the wound: they twisted the pain even more.

Chapter 8

Daniel asked for directions from the girl tending the bar, but he had to ask several other people along the way as he navigated the village roads and paths towards the house. He walked rather than drove because he had been told that it wasn’t all navigable by car and it was easier to ask for directions on foot. SatNav was all very well, but how do you enter “the derelict house on the way to Partridge Hill” on a SatNav input?

The last stretch of the walk was along a narrow dirt track lined with trees, hedges and bramble – much of it overhanging, creating a shelter of foliage along the path. The house selling arts and crafts was on the left, set back somewhat from the path and had a large garden and grounds all around it. He knew it was the right house from the sign on the gate announcing that arts and crafts items were for sale there. But that house held no interest for him. He had been told to come to the derelict house next to it that stood directly on the path, also on the left.

The derelict house was in fact two semi-detached houses. The part farther along the path – to the right when looking at the house – had a brick façade. The upper bricks had been painted white, but the lower ones were still their native red. There was some foliage clinging to the exterior walls and the corrugated roof was dirty and bore patches of moss.

But it was the other house – standing closer to the arts and crafts house – that appeared to be the derelict one. This one had a stucco façade, although little of it was visible beneath the thick blanket of ivy clinging to the surface. The roof was a horizontal, watershed lattice of wood. But as he moved round the house to the left side, he noticed that there was a part of the house that receded from the path and had no roof at all, just the long wooden beam at the apex that had once supported it. Even some of the upper brickwork was missing.

This must be the place.

He moved round it to find an entrance, eventually seeing a door that was ever so slightly ajar. Was Costa already in there waiting for him? Or was he late again? And was the door open simply because the house was abandoned and contained nothing of value that anyone would want?

Daniel rapped on the wooden door with his knuckles.

“Anyone home?”

No answer.

He pushed the door gingerly with his hand. It swung open slowly and then, even slower still, started to close again. That could have just been the way it was hung on its hinges. At any rate, he stopped it with his hand and stepped across the threshold. As he entered, he turned his head to survey the contents.