‘Not the way I came.’
Harry reached inside his pocket and pulled out a slim paper wallet. ‘Not where you’re going, either. I’ve booked us on the next train to Paris.’
‘I didn’t bring my passport.’
‘There’s one in the envelope. Your name’s Jenny Morgan now. Once we get to Paris, we can go right across Europe without leaving a trace. We’ll keep you safe, Ellie. I promise.’
They descended the escalators to the departure lounge and waited twenty minutes for their train to be called. After everything she’d endured, that was almost the hardest part. She watched the seconds tick over on the clock, counting them off until she thought she’d go mad. Harry bought her a coffee, but she let it go cold in her hands. At last the announcement came; they shuffled up a moving walkway on to the platform and took their seats on the train. Ellie stared out of the window, willing the train to move, watching the queue inch aboard. Everyone seemed to have vast amounts of baggage, which took forever to stow. Families with children going away for half-term; businessmen extending their trip to the weekend; backpackers on the next leg of their journey. And two men in long black coats and black leather gloves, who carried no luggage at all.
A weary dread seeped into Ellie’s blood. She clutched Harry’s arm.
‘Those men. They’re Blanchard’s.’
Harry sat bolt upright. ‘Are you sure?’
‘They were at my mother’s funeral.’ She felt the same overwhelming helplessness she’d felt in the tunnel, unstoppable light bearing down on her. ‘But how did they get here?’
‘They must have followed you.’
Ellie stared at him blankly. ‘They couldn’t have.’
Harry glanced down at the bulge in her jeans pocket. ‘You didn’t bring —?’
She pulled the phone out of her pocket and stared at it, the black plastic so smooth and beguiling. Red writing gleamed under the mirrored surface as the phone began to vibrate. It was ringing.
Harry jumped to his feet and pulled her up. ‘Get out of here, Ellie! Go!’
He ran down the carriage. A steward tried to stop him, but Harry pushed past, shouting something about forgetting his umbrella. He pulled a backpack off the luggage rack and dived onto the platform. Ellie hesitated just a moment, then grabbed her bag and ran the opposite way.
At the end of the platform, a guard in a peaked cap blew a whistle. The doors slid shut with a hiss. The signal turned green.
Tripping over outstretched legs and bags, Ellie reached the train door just as the door locked. She hammered at the button, but the door wouldn’t open. The platform began to move: through the window, she saw Harry and the two Monsalvat men like mannequins in a shop window. Harry had been wrestled to the ground; one of the men crouched over him, while the other searched the backpack he’d stolen. She watched, a spectator at an exhibition, as the tableau drifted out of sight. She wanted to scream, but the sound wouldn’t come.
Pinned to the platform, Harry looked up into his enemy’s face and felt the needle slide into his vein.
‘This won’t kill you,’ the man told him. ‘We just want a chat.’
Beside him, the other man had finished digging through the stolen backpack.
‘It’s not here. It must be on the train.’
Harry heard footsteps running across the concrete, but he wasn’t expecting a rescue. He supposed they’d have some kind of story ready. He could feel the poison creeping through his body: soon he’d be in no position to deny anything.
They’d pinned his arm to his side, but he could still reach his coat pocket. He slid his hand in and felt for the capsules. There were two: he’d meant to give one to Ellie, but there’d been no time.
His captor got to his feet and started explaining to the station staff how Harry was an escaped patient from a private mental hospital. He’d stolen someone’s bag — was there any way of returning it to the poor victim? They’d sedated him; if the station guard could just help them lift him …
The movement loosened the grip that held him. It was all the time Harry needed. He ripped his arm free, and in an instant had the capsules popped in his mouth. He bit down on both, just to be sure, while his captors tried too late to wrench his mouth open.
With his last living thought, he prayed they wouldn’t catch Ellie.
Ellie got off the train at Ebbsfleet. The staff tried to stop her, to explain you couldn’t use the Eurostar for domestic journeys, but she screamed and wept about a family emergency and in the end they let her go. She scanned the platform, terrified that Blanchard’s men might have anticipated her move and got there first, seen the commotion she’d made. But it had only taken fifteen minutes, and even Blanchard couldn’t conjure a faster way to get across London. She watched the train pull out of the station, a wasteland of concrete, arc lights and chain-link fences that looked like some kind of prison camp. On board, in the luggage rack above Ellie’s empty seat, her mobile phone emitted its invisible signal, describing her progress towards the Channel Tunnel and France. With any luck, it would be hours before they found she wasn’t with it.
She stood in the station hall and stared at the departure boards. Through her shocked and exhausted eyes, the names blurred into a meaningless void, a nowhere place. Her shoulders ached from the weight of the backpack; she wondered what was inside, but didn’t dare take it out in public. What could possibly be worth so much violence and terror?
Her mind was drifting. She forced herself to focus.
You’re carrying something on your back that your father died trying to get hold of, that Monsalvat are willing to kill to get back. Harry might have some friends, but he’s almost certainly dead and you’ve no way of getting in touch with them. You’re on your own.
Where do you go now?
XXXII
The Count’s corpse lies headless on the floor. Blood pools around the altar. At the door, two of our men are battling back the guards who’ve arrived too late. Malegant rips open the lid of the golden reliquary, peers in, then hurls it at the window. The glass cracks; bones and dust fall out of the casket. It’s not what he came for.
He gestures to a side door in the chapel wall.
‘Through there.’
Four of us follow of him into a tiny vestry. A ring of keys lies on the table. Malegant snatches them up, then leads us out by another door into the courtyard. To our left, the guards are still attacking the chapel. We fall on them like wolves: trapped between the men in the chapel and the men outside, they’re quickly slaughtered.
I feel something peck my face, too hard for a raindrop. A small crater’s appeared in the wall in front of me, gouged out by a crossbow bolt. I hurl myself to the ground. The man beside me isn’t so lucky: the bolt hits his shoulder, drives through the chain mail and lodges in his back. I think about pulling it out, but it would only make the bleeding worse.
More missiles rattle around us. They’re coming from the windows in the keep.
‘We have to get in,’ Malegant says. We don’t have shields, but Malegant grabs one of the dead guards and hauls him to his feet. He holds the corpse in front of him like a rag doll. Bolts prick it like a pincushion.
I have a better idea. I tip over a water barrel and roll it up the slope, crawling behind on hands and knees. Halfway to the tower, it no longer protects me: I kick it away and sprint the last few yards to the shelter of the wall. Crossbow bolts clatter off the ground behind me.
Malegant’s already there, an arrow-riddled corpse beside him. He’s lethal, but I want to keep him close. He has an aura, a sense of invulnerability that I hope will protect me.