‘Yes.’
‘But now he’s gone. If I held one of these bills — if I came to you today and demanded the money you owed me, what would you say?’
‘Guillermo — the master — would pay you. At Ascensiontide he’d send the bill by messenger to a money-changer in Bruges.’
I grip the table. ‘So Lazar is in Bruges?’
‘No. The man in Bruges is another correspondent.’
I’m beginning to get lost in this web of money, all these pieces of paper with their promises of riches. No doubt that’s what Lazar intends.
‘Do you know how the money finally reaches Lazar?’
A sly smile spreads over the clerk’s face. ‘When the Bruges moneylender sends us his bills, I enter them in the ledgers. Once, there was a mistake — he sent us a bill that he should have kept. There was no name on it, but I recognised the writing.’
‘Did it say where it came from? How it got to Bruges?’
‘It came from London.’
XLI
The man edged forward. His red hair grew long and wild, matted into impromptu dreadlocks. Leaves clustered on it like velcro. His face seemed to have deep clefts scored into it, though as he came closer Ellie saw it was actually camouflage paint. His eyes were wide and round like an owl’s. He had a camera slung around his neck.
‘Put your hands where I can see them.’
He spoke English with an accent, German or Dutch. Ellie and Doug put their hands in the air.
‘Are you with the Brotherhood?’ she tried. ‘A friend of Harry?’ He didn’t look much like Harry — he looked wild. ‘I’m Ellie. I broke into Monsalvat.’
Nothing registered. He jerked the gun. ‘Are you with the company?’
Yes? No? What was the right answer? He didn’t look like a security guard.
‘Not any more.’
The gun barrel inched a fraction higher. She’d never imagined the absolute terror that came from looking down the barrel of a gun. She could almost feel the tension of the finger on the trigger, the tiny movement that was all that stood between life and death.
‘I used to work for the company that owns Talhouett. I heard some rumours — I thought they might be doing something bad here.’
‘OK.’ He considered that. Ellie began to think he was as confused as they were. But he had the gun.
‘Who are you?’
‘Joost is my name. I belong to an organisation, the Green Knights. You’ve heard of us?’
Ellie mumbled something noncommittal.
‘We’re an environmental group. You know the old story, right? The Green Knight cuts off your head if you tell lies or do bad things? We do that for companies.’
‘You’re spying on Talhouett?
He tapped the camera. ‘Documenting them.’
‘Then we’re on the same side.’ Cautiously, Doug reached into the backpack and pulled out the Talhouett file. The muzzle followed him all the way. Doug tossed it on to the floor between them.
‘That’s their file on this place.’
Joost crouched, angling the gun towards them, and leafed through the file. Under the camouflage and dirt, Ellie saw his face soften.
‘This is gold. Geological surveys, invoices, environmental reports. Risk assessments.’
‘Risk of what?’ Ellie said. ‘What’s happened here? Where did the lake go?’
The gun tilted down a bit. ‘Hydraulic fracturing.’ He saw it meant nothing to them. ‘Talhouett have a coal mine here, OK? The concession expires soon — they have to decide if to renew it, but they’ve taken all the coal out of the ground. But they think, maybe there is something else here. You know shale gas?’
‘What’s that?’
‘Natural gas trapped in rocks, like you use for cooking or whatever. But the rocks are impermeable, so you have to break them open to let the gas out. You pump water and chemicals deep into the rock to make a fissure. Hydraulic fracturing. Sometimes it goes wrong.’
‘Talhouett have been doing that here?’
‘Very secret. Very illegal. They do not have a permit, but they want to know if there is gas before they renew the concession. But they make a mistake. They drill too deep, they disturb something. Suddenly, the water vanishes.’
‘Exposing the church,’ said Ellie. ‘So when Saint-Lazare started sniffing around Talhouett, the Brotherhood got worried he knew about it.’
‘So what’s in here that’s so valuable?’ said Doug.
Ellie looked around the roofless church, the green scum on the walls, the effigies of the knights with their faces washed away. ‘There must be something.’
Joost jerked the gun. Another bolt of fear flashed through Ellie.
‘You think Talhouett have hid something here?’
‘They’re desperate to protect it,’ Ellie said. ‘But we don’t know what it is. Something old.’
Joost considered this. His round eyes drifted to Doug’s back. ‘What’s in the bag?’
‘Something we took from the company.’
‘Let me see.’
A prod from the gun gave them no choice. Doug unshouldered the bag and unzipped it to reveal the square cardboard box.
‘What is it?’
Doug lifted out the cube. His breath fogged the glossy black surface.
‘What the hell is that?’
‘I wish we knew,’ said Ellie.
‘Don’t fuck with me, you people. It looks like a bomb.’
‘We stole it from the company’s vault. We don’t know what it is. We think there might be a clue in this chapel.’
Joost’s eyes bulged wide. ‘You guys are crazier than me. If you’re telling the truth. Maybe if we put a bullet in it something happens.’
He raised the rifle. Instinctively, Ellie moved to put herself between the gun and the box. Joost gave a manic laugh. ‘So it’s valuable.’
‘To someone.’ Ellie looked around, wondering desperately where Harry’s friends might be.
‘Give it to me.’
If she’d been braver, or watching the scene play out on TV, she might have wondered if he’d really shoot her. Standing in the cold, muddy chapel on the wrong end of a gun, her heart almost bursting out of her chest, she didn’t doubt it. Even then, she hesitated. Joost squinted down the barrel of the rifle like an old-time gunfighter. She stood stock still, frozen like the stone knights on the floor.
Nye Stanton died trying to get it back.
She felt Doug’s hand on her arm, tugging her away. She thought of her mother: her long, lonely years because her husband had thrown his life away. For what?
Swallowing her anguish, she closed the bag and slid it across the floor to Joost, who hooked it over his shoulder. She ached like a mother surrendering her child.
‘So where do you find your clue?’ Joost asked.
Concentrate. It helped take the pain away. She looked at the knights’ effigies.
‘They don’t open,’ Joost informed her. ‘I tried. In case there was treasure inside, right?’
She felt dizzy. She leaned on one of the columns for balance. The massy stone reminded her again of the Monsalvat vault.
Where’s the most valuable place in a church?
Towards the back of the chapel, the mud floor sloped upwards. Ellie supposed there must be a dais underneath where the altar had once stood. She walked on to it and knelt. Damp seeped into her jeans. She dug her hands into the mud, feeling it ooze around her skin.
On her right middle finger, something shifted. Blanchard’s ring — she’d worn it so long now she’d forgotten she still had it on. She took her hand out of the mud, slid off the ring and shoved it in her pocket.
‘Did you find something?’ Doug asked.
She plunged her hand back in the mud. ‘Not yet.’
Halfway down to her elbow, she felt something smooth and solid. She dug in with both hands, scraping like a dog. Doug joined her. Soon they’d excavated a small hole in the silt, down to the old church floor. Through the film of mud that caked the stones, she saw faint lines, like a diagram or a map.