“No, it’s not that simple. The police will not be involved for various reasons, and, well, let’s just say we might find some of the lines are slightly blurred, which is why I thought of your son, Mitchell.”
“I will make it financially worth his while. If you get him to call me if he’s interested, he can start immediately.”
They spoke on vague pleasantries for a moment or two, and then, he rang off. Now, all he had to do was get a lead that young Mitchell Webber could follow.
He smiled.
Mitch Webber had been a specialist in covert operations – seek and destroy missions, for the British army in various unpleasant places. He was a ghost, in that he could go places and do things without ever leaving a ripple. Matthew wasn’t bothered whether anyone was killed or not. All he wanted was his sword back.
He smiled.
The American was supposed to be dead anyway; perhaps, he would simply be doing the world a favour by finding his body!
Grant came through with the snippet he was hoping for.
“You mentioned a motorcycle courier,” he said when he called.
“Yes, so?”
“I checked all the airlines and CCTV footage at the airport, and there was nothing new showing your man. There was only that one that we I showed you. Now, as you know, in it, he is carrying a large music case that might contain the sword. There is no footage of him going through to airside to catch a flight, so I wondered if he was not flying out at all. I then, checked the CCTV at the rail station at the bottom of the hill from the airport.”
“Yes? Did you get him?”
“No, but this is where it gets strange. There’s a single glimpse of a girl getting onto a blue Suzuki motorcycle as a passenger. Strapped to the back of the bike is a similar music case. There aren’t many oboe cases around, particularly in Luton on the same day. There are no records of orchestras coming in or going out, so I have no way of knowing whether it’s the same one, but….”
“Can you see her face?” Matthew interrupted.
“No, as they are both wearing helmets. But, I’ve got the bike’s number plate, and when I checked the ports database, that number was on a bike that travelled on the ferry from Liverpool to Douglas just yesterday.”
“Douglas?”
“Isle of Man.”
“Where does it come back to?”
“A male called Lee Hobbs in West London.”
“West London? Not Cornwall?”
“No, Eastcote, West London.”
“So, why the Isle of Man?” he asked.
“No idea.”
Matthew scrabbled for his note pad. There, under his jottings for the possible location of Avalon was a tenuous link to Peel Castle on the Isle of Man. It was a slim chance, as nobody really knew. A slim chance was better than no chance at all. It made some sort of weird sense.
“Email me the stills,” he said.
Grant rang off, content he had done all he could to help his friend.
Chapter Sixteen
“Now what?” Lee asked.
“I’m not sure.”
“At least, it’s not raining. Why did the Vikings want a castle here, anyway?”
Tamsyn shrugged. She was beginning to doubt that this was the right place. She regarded the bleak landscape and the ruined castle that sat on the small island that was joined to the main island by a causeway.
Lee was reading a leaflet he picked up from the Manx National Heritage office.
“It says the Vikings under King Magnus Barefoot built the original fort here in the eleventh century. That’s a bit after your lot, isn’t it?”
“A lot later, yes.”
“There were Celtic ruins here that might have been a monastery or something.”
“Hmm.”
She turned and looked back at the main Island, along the road – West Quay. To the right, was a small hill with a car park below it. Something triggered a memory or some strange feeling of familiarity over that small hillock. The port of Peel was a busy, modern place, with breakwaters and harbour walls. None of this would have been there back in the sixth century.
She started walking along the road towards the hill.
“Where are you going? Don’t you want to look at the castle?” Lee asked, following her.
“It’s not the castle or the land on which the castle is built.”
She turned right and then, started up some steps that led to a footpath that wound up the hill.
“What’s up here?” Lee asked, looking at the featureless and barren hill.
Tamsyn said nothing. She had no idea why she was going up here, but something was at the top.
The castle was to the north, the marina and town to the east and the open sea lay to the west. The hill was not significant, and a woman was walking her Labrador coming the other way, towards the car park.
She smiled as she passed the couple.
“A bit windy today,” she said. “At least, it’s dry.”
Tamsyn nodded and smiled, staring at a small cairn of rocks that marked the highest point.
Lee was about to ask her something but saw the glazed expression and so, decided to wait.
The sun was occasionally peeping out from behind the scurrying clouds, so it wasn’t too cold. Tamsyn was immune to her surroundings.
As she stood, staring towards the cairn, trees appeared in her vision. They were not large trees, but they sheltered a small hut that sat here. It wasn’t a blacksmith’s hut, which she expected, but a watchman’s hut. This was a vantage point from which the people could look out for raiding Norsemen coming from the sea. An elevated platform had been built out of logs, giving the watchmen an extra twelve feet of height from which to view the sea.
Next to the tower was a pile of sticks - a bonfire, or beacon fire to alert the community of impending invasion.
A tall man wearing coarse clothes tied in the middle with a crude belt was stoking a smaller fire outside the hut. He looked up and stared at Tamsyn.
“My lady!” he said, registering surprise.
“Gladwin. How goes it?” Tamsyn replied.
“Huh?” said Lee. “What did you say, unable to understand the Celtic tongue and unaware of what Tamsyn could see.
Ignoring Lee, she walked a few paces forward and rested her right hand on the big man’s shoulder.
“We got word of your demise, my Lady.”
“I am not the lady you believe me to be.”
The man stared at her for a moment.
“Ah, in truth, you are far younger, but no less beautiful. How can this be?”
“I could ask you the same question. For how can you exist here and yet also back then?”
The man, Gladwin, frowned.
“My Lady?”
“These are mysterious days.”
“You bear the torque; how can this be?”
“I was someone else, and the torque called to me. It was lost in the tree, and when I recovered it and placed it around my neck – I became Tamsyn.”
“How?”
“It must be the old arts. Do you know who made the torque?”
“I do.”
“Was it made here?”
Gladwin laughed.
“Here? My goodness no. I am a smith, not a mage. The great mage Merlin made it over the water.”
Tamsyn frowned this time.
“In the land of the Scotti?”
“Nay, lady, they called it the land of the Slat’lanti people, from whence Merlin originally came to us.”
Tamsyn thought for a moment.
“Where is this place?”
Gladwin pointed to the south west.
“Several days sailing that way. Or it would have been. The mountains erupted in flaming rock, and the islands sank beneath the waves. That was why he came to us, as his home was no more. They were magical isles, and the people were truly magical people, capable of doing so many strange things that no man could understand.”
Before her eyes, the man started to fade.
“The sword, Gladwin. I have returned with it. I must place it in the fire from which it came!”
His laugh was fading with him
“My fire has been quenched for a long time. But you can relight it. It’s a fair walk. My smithy was in the woodland beyond Corletts Cave. Go there and use the timbers from the trees to stoke the fire.”