Bacchus and Sanderson (Deceased) (39 page)

***

              The office door opened and Ben eased himself into the office carrying his crutch and a tray of coffe
es
for William and himself. He put the tray onto the desk and sank into a battered leather armchair. He started to speak and then saw that William was on the telephone. Stopping until he had finished his call, he asked,

“Annabel?”

“Annabel’s voice mail. She asked for a Chinese takeaway for supper this evening, my second sight is failing me and I have no idea which of her many favourites might be the one she would like tonight. She must already be in the bath.”

Ben looked a little surprised,

“That’s quick. She dropped me at the door ten minutes ago. Anyway, to business. On the way back, I scanned Jonas’s entire diary in again in case it wasn’t just the end that was missing. The computer has been chewing on them for about an hour and has completed the majority of the original text. That part will be quicker as the intuitive nature of the program means it recognises code or sequences it has seen before. The new section is taking longer. Even though the processes are the same for breaking the code in the new section as they were in the original text, the program has to decode each individual word.”

Ben looked at the timer underneath the processing data and read,

“About thirty-five minutes until we will have clear text.” Ben took a sip of his coffee and then a larger gulp.

“Penny highlighted something none of us was aware of. Jonas was an expert in the neurochemistry of cocaine. He was expected to continue with his research for his doctorate, but unexpectedly switched to alternative fuels.”

              As Ben finished the final syllable of the sentence, the far side of the small room shimmered and Ernest and Juanita appeared. Without preamble Ernest said,

“William, what security have you got?”

William looked confused,

“Security? Alarms on the shop, a safe for documents. Is that enough?”

Juanita answered,

“Personal security. The problem I mentioned has become far worse than I imagined. Helena, and with her consent and supervision, Charles are planning to use their powers outside of limbo.”

Ben looked at Juanita and said,

“Can they? This is starting to sound very witches and wizards. Magic wand fights on Sherborne high street. Glittery vapour trails around the Abbey?”

Ernest looked at Juanita perplexed,

“One of the first things you said to me was no ‘Harry Potter, no fire from finger tips, no magic wands and never on earth.’ Has that changed?”

Juanita shook her head to emphasise the importance of the point she was about to make.

“No. No form of magic; no wrong word.” She thought for a moment and then continued,

“No use of powers not available on earth has been allowed for over six hundred years and for good reason. Have you heard of the witch trials of Lucca? No? Not that surprising as the cleanup was almost perfect. The long and short of it is that Tuscany almost ceased to exist because of careless use of powers by the dead relatives vying to help their families gain ascendancy on earth. Glittery vapour trails and fire from fingers doesn’t scratch the surface of the antics these mediaeval Italians saw. So it was ruled by God that no powers could be used on earth. As she is more powerful than the devil, her word is law. Occasional minor infringements, when he has pushed against her authority have occurred, but nothing of any significance”

William interrupted Juanita’s reminiscing and brought back to their current situation.

“And now? How are Helena and Charles able to use these powers against us?”

“I don’t know. We overheard a conversation, snippets of conversation, it wasn’t clear. The essence was that we were getting too close and if Felicity couldn’t control the situation then Helena would. You need physical security, a show of force. Charles and Felicity need to see that you are serious. The diary. Have you copies?”

Ben answered,

“Everywhere. Laptops, hard copy is in our safe deposit box in the bank, I deposited it before I came here. Memory sticks for each of us to wear on our person and cloud storage in ten locations worldwide. It will take Felicity a year to work out where they all are. As a precaution, even I do
n’
t know the cloud locations. I can access them, but I don’t know their physical locations.”

William said,

“For physical security I know just the man, I’ll call him and hire him and some of his colleagues until this is all over. Very large and very reliable colleagues.”

              The office door opened at the same time as William heard a gentle knocking. Debbie stepped in looking worried and upset, her face sheet white. Ben went over to her and said,

“Debbie, what’s wrong, what’s happened?”

Debbie gulped and then taking Ben’s hands in hers she said,

“The police are downstairs, it’s Jemima, she’s been in an accident. The doctors think she’ll be…” Ben had already flung the door open and was racing down the stairs as fast as he could with his crutch. William followed him at a run. As Ben came around the corner in the stairs and saw the two policemen he shouted at them,

“How is she? Where is she? What happened?”

The policeman tried to calm Ben down by being reassuring. Ignoring them he turned and said to William,

“Where’s the car?”

“Annabel still has it at home”

Sliding his iPhone out of his back pocket, he limped towards the door while dialling a number.

“Taxi numbers, shit engaged. What’s another one?” Turning back into the shop, he bellowed, “Debbie what’s a taxi number? I need a cab, now.”

The police sergeant said

“We can take you if you’d like. Ms Cortez is in Yeovil hospital and very insistent that she wanted you to be contacted and not her family.”

Ben nodded at the policeman and then turned to William with tears in his eyes and said,

“William can you come with me, please? I’ll grab my bag and then can we go.” The last part was aimed at the police sergeant. He nodded. William ran and got Ben’s bag and computer grabbed his own phone and asked Debbie to look after Wooster. As they climbed into the back of a police car and they started their blue light run to Yeovil, William sent a quick text to Annabel.

‘Jemima in an accident, gone to the hospital with Ben. Call later when I know more. Love you.’

Helena and Charles materialised in Felicities living room expecting to find her there. Nothing.

“Where the fuck is she?” As Helena finished her question the door opened and Felicity walked in talking on her mobile. Helena hissed at her,

“Finish the call now.” As she spoke the word ‘now’ she telepathically ripped the phone from Felicities hand and hurled it against the wall, smashing it into small pieces.

“She’s still alive.” The controlled fury in the voice caused Felicity to sit down onto the Chesterfield and ask,

“Who?”

“Who? Who do you think I mean? Your sister Jemima. He’s loosing his touch. He only caught her a glancing blow with the van and as we speak the massed forces of Team Bacchus are on their way to comfort her. We’ll never get near her again, at least you idiots won’t. Perhaps I should try?”

Her rage dissipated and she regained her equilibrium. She moved around the room ignoring both Charles and Felicity, who stayed stock still awaiting the next eruption.

“Annabel Anderson, the vicar, has she been dealt with?” Helena asked Felicity.

“Yes. Thrasher has sent the Ladrone brothers. She should be somewhere safe until we want to have a chat with her.”

“The diary?”

“No. We followed them from Cambridge back to Sherborne, but they didn’t stop for fuel, coffee anything. The cripple was dropped outside of the bank and went straight from the car in and five minutes later back out. They have a safe deposit box there so I think the actual diary is there. However, with his computer skills he’ll have copies everywhere.” Felicity looked at Ernest and then Helena to see how this news had been taken. Ernest looked at her, shaking his head in irritation.

“Why didn’t you force them off the road and take possession before they returned to Sherborne? Are you losing your grip? What did Jonas discover and write in his diary? We don’t have a clue. It could be nothing or he might, just might have discovered how we bring in the cocaine and why we haven’t suffered significant seizures since possession and supply was criminalised. If he has discovered our secrets and has now passed them on via his diaries to team Bacchus then, we all have a problem. Our problems,” Charles pointed at himself and then Helena,

“Are nothing by comparison to yours. You will not only have lost your way of getting cocaine into Europe, angering the gentlemen you supply, but you will have angered Helena. The European gentlemen you might be able to elude. Helena sees everything from up here and she is very vindictive.”

              Felicity ignored Ernest and Helena, getting up and opening the balcony doors and stepping out. With studied indifference, she lit a cigarette with her gold Dunhill lighter and stared out over Regents Park. Helena glared at her back through the balcony doors. After a moment, her glare was replaced by a knowing look and then a hesitant, uncertain smile. Felicity flicked her half smoked cigarette butt over the balcony and came back into her living room, shutting the balcony doors and blocking the noise of London traffic. She strolled to the coffee table and picked up the remote control for the television on the wall. Turning it on she selected the BBC rolling news channel and waited for a moment staring at the screen. A story about an errant priest caught with his hand in the collection plate finished and a breaking news banner filled the top half of the screen.

“Watch.” Was all she said to them.

The newsreader began,

“In breaking news a suspect has been named in the attempted bomb attack at the Houses of Parliament that was thwarted by the quick thinking and calm actions of Home Office Minister Alexander Cortez. Benjamin Sanderson, son of the wealthy businessman Ernest Sanderson has been identified on CCTV footage leaving a rucksack containing two kilograms of a Semtex like explosive in a cleaning cupboard opposite the Home Secretaries offices.” Helena and Charles watched a grainy video of a man putting a rucksack in a cupboard and then walking away from the cupboard. The camera zoomed in on a pass around his neck, which read, ‘Ben Sanderson - Analyst.’ The newsreader continued,

“Mr Sanderson who lives in Dorset has been working in the Home Secretaries department for a number of weeks, though other members of staff struggled to recollect him. The police anticipate an early arrest. In other…” Felicity clicked the off button on the remote.

              To Charles she said,

“You’re right, we all have problems of different magnitudes. Mine as you have indicated are significant. However, I prefer to focus on solutions and not the problems.”

Turning to face Helena whose half smile had become a wolfish anticipatory grin.

“We can’t take the diary away from them and it will be difficult, though not impossible to silence all of them should we need to. As my grandfather used to take great delight in saying to me ‘You can’t plan without all of the information,’ and he was correct. So, it seems obvious to me, if we can’t access the diary to read what’s in it, we need to get our information from the horses mouth.”

***

              Ernest and Juanita watched as the police car sped down the bypass towards Yeovil and the hospital. Ernest shook his head looking worried and said to Juanita,

“I wasn’t expecting attempted murder. Have I been missing something all these years? How desperate are they to hold onto their secrets? What the hell are they hiding?”

Juanita waved her hand at Ernest trying to stop his inane rambling.

“What?” he said with a confused expression on his face
.
“
What?”

“Ernest, please be quiet. I’m trying to think” She continued to drift backwards and forwards with an intense expression on her face.

“With Charles and Hannah in limbo, watching, they’ll know. I don’t think they had any idea that there was another copy of the diary. Now they know there is and they know that William and Ben have it and will have secreted copies everywhere, they will be sure they’re in trouble. They don’t know if what is in this copy will make a difference or even if it is any different. How do they discover what is in it? Penny didn’t know what Jonas had written, so she’s irrelevant. Damn, damn, damn.” Juanita drifted backwards and forwards again for a moment before stopping and saying, “Ernest, if you were worried that the document might have information that your enemies could use to ruin you, what would you do?”

Ernest thought for a moment before saying,

“If getting access to the document is impossible and I needed to know if I have anything to worry about. The only person who will be able to help me is the person who wrote the document.”

Ernest looked at Juanita expecting an encouraging smile. All he saw was a very worried expression. Then it hit him.