The man with the gun spoke.
‘I told you to sit down. If you don’t, my friend here will hurt her. Keep your hands in front of you, and forget any thoughts you may have of heroism. If you try to attack either of us, I will not hesitate to shoot you.’
The camp bed was too unstable to sit on, so Ethan crossed to the nearest chair and sat on it. He took care to commit the faces of the intruders to memory, singling out the most obvious features that would work well later in an e-fit or EigenFIT session at the station.
The man with the gun wore a black woollen cap from the edges of which strands of blond hair poked out. He looked to be in his mid-thirties, well fed, calm. His face was northern European, his eyes were deep cerulean, his lower jaw was set back half an inch from the upper, his ears stuck out slightly more than average, a long scar ran from high on his forehead almost to the point of a sharp nose. But while the region of Ethan’s brain that was a policeman took all this in, the emotional centres focused, not on the disparate parts, but on the man himself; and the man sent a narrow blade of ice all the way along Ethan’s spine. He had interviewed his share of killers in his time, and he knew at once that the man only a couple of yards away would be capable of anything, that murder would come to him as easily as blowing his nose.
The other man was, Ethan thought, quite probably eastern European or Russian. He was much bigger than the first man, well over six feet tall, and muscular. His face, like his partner’s, showed neither emotion nor any sign of stress. Thick, startled eyebrows like giant hairy caterpillars loomed above heavy, wrinkled eyelids. Beneath the latter glared somnolent, dark olive-green eyes, and lower again pale thin lips framed yellowing teeth. Beauty and the Beast, thought Ethan. If Beauty was a killer, Beast would be the torturer who prepared his victims for the coup de grâce.
Beauty snapped an order to his companion in a language that sounded Slavic to Ethan’s ears. The big man nodded, took tight hold of Sarah and twisted her round till she was facing him. Suddenly, he grabbed her clothes at the neck and started to rip them. His meaty hands tore the fabric apart like paper. He stripped her to the waist, then pushed down her trousers and pants before forcing her to step out of them.
Ethan looked away, but it was all he could do not to throw himself on one or other of the attackers.
Beauty walked across to Ethan and put the barrel of his gun under his chin, forcing him to raise his head.
‘Mr Usherwood. Ethan. You bear a great resemblance to your photograph. Miss Usherwood too. She’s a lovely young woman, is she not? Pretty, and with such a striking body. My companion is, as you can imagine, a lonely man. Not a great success with women, unless he has them by force or whatever small sums he can afford to pay the more desperate among them. His attitude to the sexual act is, if I may put it bluntly, much like that of an ape. I don’t expect him to live long, but for the moment he is strong and devoted to me, and I find him useful.
‘Now, I should add that I find Miss Usherwood most tantalising. If you would care to open your eyes, you would see that she has the most delectable of bodies: firm young breasts, a waist and hips that would make a man of stone desire her, long, slim legs… Imagine it all for yourself. And while you do so, let me tell you what Lukacs here is going to do with your precious niece. He is going to rape her. He is going to force himself on her, and it’s very likely he will hurt her while he does so. He is not a gentle man; I’m sure you can see that. She is already shivering, so I imagine the ordeal will be worse for her than if she were warm, relaxed, and welcoming.
‘When he has done, he will withdraw and take out his gun to point at you while I rape her as well. Of course, I am hardly as well endowed as my little friend Lukacs, but I shall be eager. And when I too have done, I see plenty of objects in this room that could be well employed to rape her as many times as Lukacs and I desire.’
‘You may as well kill me,’ shouted Sarah, fighting hard to stop herself quivering from cold and fear.
‘We may do that in the end,’ said Beauty. ‘Once I have all I need from you, that’s exactly what I may do.’
‘What do you want?’ asked Ethan, praying it was something he could give. He knew he would give anything to prevent everything the man had threatened. Even had Sarah been the remotest person to him, a passing stranger from any street or street corner, he would have offered her assailants whatever they wanted just to spare her the ordeal they threatened. And it dawned on him then, in that moment of crisis, that in the short time he’d known her, Sarah had, of all people, become the least remote to him.
‘How touching of you to ask. Your grandfather asked the same thing of me last night. When I answered him, he clammed up. No matter what inducements I offered him and his friend, they refused to part with the information I needed. Perhaps you will do better, you or your niece here.’
‘Then get on with it,’ spat out Ethan.
‘What we came for last night, what we are here for tonight as well, are not things of any great significance to you. You have never seen them, they have no sentimental value to you, as they did for your grandfather. Perhaps you will find it easier to part with them. You already know that Lukacs and I have no compunctions. No morals, no ethical code. At least, none that either of you would recognise. You are a policeman, and you see the world with a policeman’s eyes, all rules and regulations passed on to you by someone else. That’s pitiful. Your sort will always lose. You lack the willpower, the inner strength, the natural hardness of mind and body that gives victory to the strong.’
Ethan opened his eyes. There was no shame in anything now. Sarah’s nakedness was no reason for embarrassment, not for her, not for him. He could see nothing beautiful or desirable in her, not now, not in this bitter cold, with the threats of rape and death hanging in the unfeeling air. The only emotions he felt were pity and fear. For some reason — a true instinct, as he would later reckon it — he thought of photographs he had seen of women herded into concentration camps and stripped naked.
‘Tell me what you want, take it, and get out of here,’ said Ethan.
‘Pray to whatever god you worship that you know where to find them. We’re here to take what rightly belongs to us. The Spear of Destiny, the Grail, the Crown of Thorns, all the Christ relics. If you know where they are, you would do well to tell us. And if you don’t know what I’m talking about, I find it hard to believe your niece will have any trouble.’
He looked round at Sarah, who was shivering badly now as the intense cold bit through her skin. The Beast was holding her firmly from behind, pinning her arms to her side. Her skin was showing signs of exposure, her lips had turned blue, and wave after wave of involuntary shudders passed through her. Ethan looked into her eyes and almost recoiled at the horror and helplessness he saw reflected in them.
‘Tell him, Ethan. Whatever they are, they aren’t worth this.’
‘You promise you will let her go the moment you have the relics in your hands?’
‘Of course. Why would I encumber myself with her? Lukacs and I will be out of your hair as soon as the relics are handed over. Believe me, you will never hear from us again. Your bumbling police will never track us down; perhaps you can warn them not to bother trying. Now, tell us where they are.’
He told them.
Beauty looked him up and down.
‘How do you know this?’ he asked.
‘I…told him,’ said Sarah. ‘The relics are still there. You can take them. I hope they make you happy. I hope they bring you close to God.’