The Messiah Secret

She did the only thing she could. The instant he released his grip on her shoulder, she let go of the leather-bound box and dodged away from him, ducking under his outstretched arm. And then she ran away – ran for her life – up the street towards safety.

* * *

Running as fast as he could, Bronson reached the corner of the street where he had parked his car and turned into it. She had to be down there somewhere.

He’d barely made ten yards down the street when he saw her, dishevelled, panting and running hard in the opposite direction.

‘Angela!’ he yelled, and ran across to her.

She slumped to a stop and collapsed into his arms, gasping for air and trembling with exertion.

‘What happened?’ Bronson demanded. As he held her, he scanned the street behind her. It was deserted.

For several seconds Angela couldn’t speak. Finally, she gasped out a single sentence.

‘He knew my name, Chris.’ She flung out an arm and pointed down the street behind her. ‘The priest,’ she said, ‘down there.’

But apart from a couple of girls who’d just appeared from a side street about a hundred yards away, there was nobody in sight.

‘Thank God for that,’ she whispered.

‘What happened?’ Bronson asked again, holding Angela hard against his chest.

In short, breathless sentences, Angela explained what had happened to her since they’d separated outside her apartment building.

‘And you thought he was a priest?’ Bronson asked.

Angela shook her head. ‘I meant he looked like one. He was wearing a black suit and a clerical collar.’

‘Would you recognize him if you saw him again?’

Angela nodded decisively. ‘Absolutely. I’ll never forget those cold, dead eyes. And I left him a souvenir.’ She held up her hand and Bronson saw the blood under her fingernails.

‘Good for you,’ he said, hugging her.

She pushed herself back, her hands on Bronson’s shoulders. ‘He called me “Angela”, but I’ve never seen him before in my life. He wanted the box of papers and I’m afraid he got it. But it saved my life. If I hadn’t jammed it down when he swung the knife at me, I’d be dead by now.’ She turned and looked towards the end of the street.

‘What happened to the flat?’

‘You’ve been burgled,’ Bronson stated flatly. ‘You’d better check and see what’s been taken.’

‘Oh, shit,’ Angela said, her old spirit returning. ‘Why the hell is it always my place that gets robbed?’

As Angela looked around her flat, Bronson found a couple of long screws in the small toolbox she kept under the sink and replaced the lock assembly on the main door of the apartment.

‘You’ll need to get that door fixed properly,’ he warned her, ‘but that should hold it for a day or two. And there is some good news.’

‘Like what?’

‘Whoever did this was a professional, not some hyped-up junkie looking for something to sell so he could buy his next fix.’

‘How can you tell?’

‘Those drawers over there.’ Bronson pointed at the sideboard. ‘Amateurs usually start searching in the top drawer, but that means they have to close it afterwards so they can look in the one below it. Professional searchers – or professional thieves – always start with the bottom drawer and work their way up. That way they can leave each drawer open when they’ve finished.’

Angela straightened up, and put her hands on her hips. ‘That makes me feel a lot better.’

‘Actually, it should. The other trick amateur burglars are fond of pulling is to take a dump on the floor, preferably in the middle of the carpet, before they leave the place. They seem to think it leaves all the bad luck in the property, and means they won’t get caught.’

‘Are you serious?’

‘Absolutely. So what’s been taken?’

‘Just my laptop and the broken pottery vessel from Carfax Hall. The laptop wasn’t an expensive model, and those broken pottery shards are worthless from a commercial point of view.’

‘So whoever took them was clearly looking for those and nothing else.’

Angela nodded. ‘Odd, isn’t it? Especially as there are lots more valuable things around.’

‘It’s pretty clear what happened,’ Bronson said. ‘The man who attacked you broke in here first and took those bits. Then he waited for you down on the street. And that begs another question.’

Angela nodded grimly. ‘Yes. Somebody must have told him what I look like.’

‘We’ve been here before, Angela,’ Bronson said slowly. ‘Somebody else is obviously searching for this “treasure of the world”, and we’ve no idea who it is, or why they’re looking for it.’

‘If I’m right and it is the Ark of the Covenant, the “why” is a very easy question to answer: the value of that relic is incalculable. I mean, you’d certainly be talking tens of millions of pounds, maybe even hundreds of millions.’

‘High stakes, and that means high risk. And now you’ve lost all your research notes and the box of papers, I suppose we’re pretty poorly placed to keep searching?’