Alchemist

  For years rumour has claimed that politicians, high-ranking clergymen, powerful businessmen – as well as members of the police and the armed forces – are numbered among its initiates. But no such evidence exists. There are even rumours of a Satanic Vatican, variously located in the desert of Saudi Arabia or the foothills of the Andes.

  Daniel Judd, the son of fanatical religious parents against whom he rebelled, was recruited into the coven when in his teens. He then had a spectacular rise during the late 1950s and early 60s, becoming its United Kingdom Grand Magister in 1968 at the age of only thirty-four. Strangely, he cannot be traced beyond 1969, the year in which he published The Master Grimoire of Power and Success Through Satanic Workings. By his thirty-fifth birthday, he seems to have disappeared off the face of the earth. Judd, or ‘Theutus’ as he preferred to be called, claimed that he had magical powers and could make himself invisible, or could shape-change, at will. Rumours abound that he transformed himself into a beast or a fowl, that he went to another planet, that he dematerialized and became part of the energy force of the cosmos, and, more prosaically and even less probable, that he abandoned his occult life and went into industry.

  Monty checked back to the picture she had already seen of Daniel Judd wearing his frog mask. Then she began to search for the second index reference, on page 138. To her surprise, she found the page was missing. Looking more closely, she could see a sliver of it remaining; the page itself had been carefully cut out. By a souvenir hunter? she wondered.

  The frog mask gripped her, despite herself. Like a lot of people, Monty was slightly drawn to the thing that most scared her. Daniel Judd? Theutus? She had come here to learn more about occult workings, to find out more on what Tabitha Donoghue had tried to teach her, to protect herself and Conor. But some instinct told her not to ignore Judd. Or was it just the coincidence of the frog mask?

  She looked at her six remaining volumes and realized that one of them was Judd’s own oeuvre: The Master Grimoire of Power and Success Through Satanic Workings. She began reading the author’s introduction.

  Since the dawn of time Occult Masters – Adepts – have possessed the power to influence people, to change events and to command whatever they desired to happen. Many of these men and women have been quite ordinary looking, possessing no special physical qualities, and attracting no undue attention towards themselves. It was said of them that ‘Things seem always to go their way.’ But whilst most of these Adepts have led lives far removed from the spotlight, some have been among the most famous personages of all time. To the well-informed reader it will be no news that much of human history has been shaped behind the scenes by the secret machinations – good and evil-of the very powerful men and women of the magickal arts.

  Nothing happens ‘by chance!’

  Things that mystify, baffle or terrify us are always caused by someone or something. This is not only axiomatic of magick, but of every true science also. With Ceremonial Magick you can learn to control your destiny, rather than being controlled by it. This choice is now about to be yours in the pages of this grimoire.

  On the back cover there was only a woodcut of a frog’s head inside a circle, with a small pentagram above. So Monty turned to the contents page and found a list of illustrations, including several of the author.

  When she looked up the first one she saw that it had been removed. The next illustration was also missing, and the next. Every single page which carried an illustration of Daniel Judd, except for one, where he was wearing his frog mask, had been cut out.

  Increasingly puzzled, she began searching through the indexes of the other books she’d found. Judd’s name was in most of them, and in three, references were given for photographs of him. She searched for them with no success.

  Every single page that should have shown a photograph of Daniel Judd’s face had been removed with surgical precision.

  A shadow fell across Monty and she looked up, startled. The duty librarian who had helped her earlier was looking down at her. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘It’s seven now, and we’re finished for the night.’

  Monty nodded reluctantly. ‘Would you like these –?’

  ‘Just leave them on the desk. They’ll be collected in the morning. Are you going to want to come back tomorrow and look at any again?’

  ‘Yes – I – might do that.’

  ‘I’ll have them kept out. Come and see me when you get here.’

  Monty thanked him and made for the deserted lobby. Her boots clicked on the marble floor as she walked, bringing back memories. She had always loved the British Museum, it had been her favourite expedition as a child and she had spent many afternoons exploring it with her father. But right now, like the whole world outside, it felt alien and menacing.

  The security guard pushed the door open for her, and the cold draught of the night air struck her face. Then she stopped in her tracks at the top of the Museum’s steps. Saw the white car speeding in through the gates, a blue light on the roof and fluorescent stripes down the side.

  It pulled up just beyond the bottom of the steps, the rear door sprang open and the interior light came on, revealing he neat, close-cropped profile of Detective Superintendent Levine.

  121

  Monty stood, panic-stricken. Make a break for it across the courtyard? But she didn’t know how fast Levine could run. She made a snap decision. Better odds, not good, but better, she calculated. She turned and hammered on the door, signalling frantically to the guard who had just let her out. ‘Forgotten something!’ she mouthed.

  He opened up again, and she barged past him. ‘Sorry! I left something really important!’ Then instead of heading back to the Library, she turned left and sprinted up the wide steps to the first floor of the British Museum.

  ‘Hey!’ she heard him call. ‘Hey, m’am, it’s closed. The Museum’s shut!’

  She kept going, up into the darkness, reached the top of the stairs and saw the shadowy statue of a kneeling man and beast that she remembered marked the entrance to Prehistory and Roman Britain.

  She ran forward into the first of the Roman galleries; it was pitch dark here, too black to see, just the faintest shimmer from a dim, overhead light source. She slowed to a walk; the only sound she could hear now was the click of her own heels and her breathing.

  Keep going straight, she thought, trying desperately to remember the geography of the place. After Roman Britain she should be entering the Early Medieval room, and then she could turn left into the long gallery that led to Ancient Iran.

  Instead she stopped dead with a jarring thump that knocked all the wind out of her. She had walked straight into a display cabinet, she realized, feeling its contours, edging around it. There was a shout behind her now, quite dose. Then the beam of a flashlight streaked past her and for a brief moment she could see ahead, and get her bearings.

  She broke into a run; keeping as best she could to the left-hand side, avoiding the centre displays. The beam flashed again, striking a Roman head on a plinth directly in her path. She dodged sideways, then was suddenly dazzled by the beam of another flashlight shining straight into her eyes.

  The beam lowered and as she blinked she could make out the silhouette of the guard blocking her path. Before he had a chance to speak, she yelled urgently at him: ‘Did you see them? Two men? They just broke into one of the offices; I chased them this way, they must be here somewhere!’ Monty was gambling and she knew it.

  ‘Heck, no – No I didn’t!’

  ‘Give me your torch a sec.’

  As he held it out, with slight reluctance, she snatched it and raced on. With the beam guiding her, progress was far easier and she tore at full sprint down through Ancient Iran into Babylon. Then the Royal Tombs of Ur. As she rounded the Tombs, another guard appeared at the far end of the gallery and she could hear an alarm siren. ‘That way!’ she shouted at the guard. ‘They went that way!’

  ‘No one came past me, miss.’

  ‘They must have done!’ Sh
e ran on again, without waiting for his further response; then in her panic she missed the right turn-off she needed and found herself among the Egyptian mummies. Silent bandaged figures stared at her from behind glinting glass. She spun round, disorientated. Twin torch beams were jigging down towards her. She raced back at them, saw the open entrance into Coptic Art, tore through, then down the staircase at the far end into the small North Entrance lobby. A guard was standing by the door.

  ‘Quick!’ she shouted at him. ‘There’s been a break-in in Oriental Antiquities. The police are outside, let them in!’

  He hurriedly unlocked the door, pushed it open, and peered out expectantly into the night. Monty squeezed past him, looked quickly both ways, then rocketed along the pavement of Montague Place, across the dark, terraced square of Bedford Place and into the bustle of Tottenham Court Road.

  She saw a free taxi, hailed it frantically and clambered into the back, pulling the door shut with a slam; then fell into the seat panting so hard she was unable to talk for a moment.

  The driver slid back the glass partition. ‘Where to?’

  She coughed, gulped down more air. Anywhere but here, she thought. ‘Just drive on for a couple of minutes, then I’ll tell you.’

  She checked through the rear window, but with the thick wedge of traffic behind it was impossible to tell if she was being followed. Ahead they were fast approaching Euston Road. The Bendix Building was less than a mile away to the right. She leaned forward. ‘Turn left at the Euston Road,’ she said, wanting to put as much distance between herself and the building as possible.

  Then she leaned back and closed her eyes, thinking hard. Tabitha Donoghue had been through all the protection protocols with her. Purifications. Salt. Lumiel square. Visualization. Incantations. But there was one thing she had not done; in fact, she had poured scorn on it. Right now, Monty decided, anything was worth trying.

  She addressed the driver once more. ‘Do you by any chance know a church that stays open all night?’

  122

  Saturday 10 December, 1994

  It’s an alms house. They have a soup kitchen in the crypt for the homeless. Never shuts.

  That’s what Monty’s taxi driver had said, and that’s how she’d come to spend the night in the house of God. With the intermittent company of a ponytailed clergyman who had worked his way round all the troubled souls sleeping on his pews, and prayed with them. But come morning, her father was still in the wrong hands, and the mother of the man she loved was still dead.

  She admired the grand entrance enviously. She’d taken a fast train to Tunbridge Wells from Charing Cross and then travelled by taxi to the Kent village where Sir Neil Rorke had his country residence. The gates were open and a gravel driveway lined with laurel bushes curved away towards the house, which was not visible from the road. At this stage she chose to make her approach by foot, and as she rounded the first bend, the house appeared about a hundred yards ahead, behind a formal grass circle in the driveway – in the centre of which lay an ornamental pond.

  It was just as she’d expected from the photo-feature she’d seen a couple of weeks back in Hello!, an imposing, if rather cold-looking property. The front façade was Georgian, square and handsomely proportioned, with grey walls, a slate roof and an elegant white porch. An immaculate black Range Rover was casually parked to one side, and Monty skirted it.

  As she walked up to the porch, she heard frenetic barking coming from inside the house. The sky had darkened in the last few minutes, and an icy gust tossed flecks of sleet around her. She was all too conscious that her presence was uninvited, as she pressed the bell.

  Instantly the barking intensified, then she heard a familiar baritone voice booming: ‘Bartholomew! Simeon! Sit! Sit!’

  The door opened and she saw Sir Neil Rorke himself, in a silk paisley dressing gown and black leather slippers, semi-kneeling, holding the collars of two huge, frisky, mastiff puppies, and struggling to keep his balance.

  For one fleeting instant there was an expression of complete hostility as if he was angered at having the privacy of his weekend disturbed, Monty assumed. She suddenly remembered one of the captions she had read in Hello!:

  ‘With his business and charity commitments, my husband spends most of the year travelling. We try to keep our country home as our one sanctuary.’

  But before she could fully register it, all traces of hostility had vanished and Rorke’s eyes twinkled with what seemed like genuine delight.

  ‘Miss Bannerman! What a lovely surprise!’

  ‘I’m really sorry to disturb you at the weekend, Sir Neil.’

  ‘Not at all; always delighted to see you, my dear. Come in, please.’ The dogs began barking again, and he bellowed at them to be quiet. ‘You’ll have to forgive my appearance – I was just having a bath and change – got to attend a local Christmas charity.’

  The hall had a flagstone floor scattered with Persian rugs, oak-panelled walls hung with tapestries, oil paintings and gilded mirrors, and a wide, elegant staircase leading up from it. He closed the door and released the dogs, which jumped up excitedly at Monty, almost bowling her over.

  ‘Quiet!’ he bellowed again. ‘Bartholomew! Simeon! Baskets!’

  The two dogs seemed to take this as a cue for a game and both leapt up at him simultaneously, catching him off-balance. The rug skidded under him and he made a lurch for the nearest secure object – a bentwood hatstand. As he leaned against it, he stretched an arm back to smoothe his wavy hair. The action caused his dressing gown to slip off one shoulder for a moment and Monty saw, to her surprise, a line of numbers and letters there, about a quarter of an inch high and two inches wide; the skin around them was scarred, as if they had been branded on.

  ‘Bloody dogs!’ Rorke was saying, making light of the incident. He had straightened his dressing gown, seemingly oblivious of what had just happened. ‘Tea, coffee – or a glass of sherry?’

  ‘Coffee would be great.’

  He led her through into a room she also recognized from the Hello! feature, a fine period drawing room, elegantly furnished, with rows of Christmas cards on the marble mantelpiece. She thought again about the strange markings on Rorke’s shoulder, puzzling; then realized, with a chill, what it must be: concentration camp branding.

  She sat on a sofa. The Nazis had branded all the Jews. Rorke must be Jewish. Yes, she thought, he could be with his dark wavy hair and his heavy face, there were definitely Semitic traces in his features. But was he old enough to have been interned? He must be in his late fifties, early sixties. Yes, he could have been, as a child.

  She was distracted by the ping of a telephone, as if a receiver had just been lifted or replaced. But she had to focus on the way she planned to tackle Sir Neil. She removed the dictating machine from her handbag and checked that the tape was wound back to the start.

  A few minutes later Rorke reappeared, apologizing for the absence of his wife. He had changed into a suit and striped shirt and was carrying a tray laden with coffee and biscuits.

  He put the tray down, raising his eyebrows at the dictating machine, then eased himself on to the opposite sofa, leaned forward and pushed a coffee cup, then milk and sugar, towards his guest. ‘Right, my dear,’ he spoke good-humouredly. ‘Are you going to interview me?’

  She smiled thinly, feeling very nervous. ‘No. There’s something on this tape I want you to hear. I’m afraid it’s going to shock you.’

  Rorke listened intently to the tape and to Monty’s story, which she made as detailed as she could. He looked increasingly incredulous, but also receptive. Monty had the feeling throughout that it was almost as if he was waiting for proof of something he already knew.

  He stood up decisively when he had heard everything. Instead of wasting time expressing his horror, he was ready for action. ‘The immediate priorities are to find your father, to protect you and Mr Molloy, and then to see what we can do about your Anna Sterling, and all the other women on that evil list.

&nb
sp; ‘One of my closest friends is Sir Patrick Norton, Chief Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police. Whoever this little squirt Levine is, he can’t have that much influence. Obviously we need to move quickly; if you’re being watched, they’ll know you’re here now. I’m going to call Patrick at home immediately. I want to see Crowe under arrest by the end of today. And that’s just for starters!’

  As she watched Rorke stalk out of the room, Monty suddenly felt sorry for him, and strangely guilty at having been the one who’d had to break the grim news to him about the company he chaired.

  She heard the ping of the phone again, then, less than a minute later, a second ping. That had been a short conversation, she thought. Then she realized that the number might have been engaged and he was trying again. She slipped the dictating machine back into her handbag, feeling drained. She heard the phone ping a couple more times.

  Rorke came back down after ten minutes; he seemed to have aged ten years, and he had a coat slung over his arm. ‘Right, let’s get moving. Sir Patrick’s arranged for the Chief Constable of Kent to be here in person in about five minutes. He’s going to take us to the Bendix Hammersmith with an escort.’

  Monty was impressed by the level of Rorke’s contacts; the big cogs were turning now. If only she’d done this earlier, she chastised herself, instead of trusting that creep Levine.

  ‘Your lunch?’ she said suddenly. It was 1.30. ‘Aren’t you expected?’

  ‘I phoned,’ he said curtly. ‘Dealt with it.’

  After that there was an awkward silence between them; the situation had gone beyond words, Monty acknowledged.

  The doorbell rang and generated fits of barking which sounded muffled now, as if the dogs had been locked in somewhere. Rorke stood up to walk out into the hall, and Monty followed. Through the window, she could see the front half of a black Mercedes with smoked windows, waiting in the drive.

  Rorke opened the front door with a flourish and gestured for Monty to go first. She took one step forward and stopped dead.