She rummaged in her bag and passed him the piece of folded paper.

And then she watched as he read it and the colour left his face.

Forty

It was early, hardly light, when Nicholas awoke. For once he hadn’t dreamed, and now he was desperate to urinate. Moving into the bathroom he relieved himself, his hand resting on the wall over the cistern as a sudden wave of nausea came over him. Surprised, he waited for the feeling to pass, then walked out into the corridor. Even with the door of Father Michael’s room closed he could hear the snoring. He paused for a moment, listening to the old priest giving an abrupt snort and then rolling over in bed. The springs creaked and protested, but a moment later the snoring began again.

Back in his room, Nicholas got into bed then paused, listening. He could hear footsteps on the gravel outside. Who would be walking around the church at four thirty in the morning? Flicking off his bedside light, he moved to the window and looked out. The gravel path was empty, the street lamp illuminating parked cars but nothing else. Certainly no figure moving around.

Surprised, he returned to bed. Lying down, he felt something – a sharp object digging into his back. He snapped on the light and stared at the wooden crucifix lying in the centre of his bed. It hadn’t been there before he went to the toilet. Someone had come into his room and placed it there … Gingerly, Nicholas picked up the crucifix, then dropped it, standing up and backing away from the bed.

It was not an ordinary crucifix. It was one he knew. But he hadn’t seen it for a long time.

It was the one Nicholas had been given by his sister years earlier, when he had first become a priest. Grabbing the phone, he punched out Honor’s number.

There was no answer.

Forty-One

Troubled by the events of the previous night, Nicholas eventually managed to contact Honor at eight o’ clock. His sister was puzzled by what he told her.

‘What are you talking about?’ she asked. ‘The crucifix I gave you—’

‘Was in my bed last night. And I didn’t put it there,’ he snapped. ‘Someone was in the vestry and they put it there.’ His voice shook. ‘I heard footsteps, and in the time it took me to have a pee someone got in and planted that crucifix in my bed.’

‘Where was Father Michael?’

‘Asleep. I could hear him snoring,’ Nicholas retorted heatedly. ‘Anyway, do you really think an old priest would play a trick like that?’

‘I don’t know,’ Honor replied, pouring herself a coffee and sitting down in her kitchen. ‘Who else could it have been? I mean, you’d have heard someone break in, wouldn’t you? You’re a light sleeper, Nicholas – that would have woken you.’

‘Unless they were already in the house.’

She shivered. ‘Are you serious?’

‘They were bound to come after me sooner or later,’ Nicholas replied. ‘They tried to frame me for Father Luke’s murder, but that didn’t stick, so now they have to find another way to stop me. They can’t kill me, that would be too obvious—’

‘Nicholas,’ Honor said softly, ‘you can’t really believe that the Catholic Church would murder you? That’s crazy.’

‘So now I’m going crazy?’

‘I didn’t say you were going crazy, I said the theory was crazy.’ Her voice was patient. ‘You’re under a lot of stress. You said yourself you weren’t sleeping. You could be imagining things—’

‘A crucifix in my bed!’ he snapped. ‘Father Michael said someone had been watching the church and he’s had phone calls in the middle of the night. When he answers, there’s no one there. I know I’m being followed, but now they’re upping the ante.’ He thought for a moment, ‘Maybe it was Father Dominic from St Barnabas’s. Father Luke’s running mate. He’s scared enough—’

‘You’re scaring me,’ Honor interrupted. ‘You have to calm down, get things into perspective.’

Nicholas wasn’t listening.

‘It would have to be clever, nothing shocking,’ he went on. ‘They can’t kill me outright – it would be all over the papers and people would ask questions. Whistle-blower priest murdered would provoke some interest. Only a few people know about the Bosch deception, but someone would speak out if I were killed. The Church wants me to shut up, so they’re trying to frighten me.’

‘Give them the bloody papers!’ Honor snapped. ‘Who cares what happened to Hieronymus Bosch? No one. You’re tilting at windmills again, and you’re the one who’ll get hurt—’

‘But that’s the point. It might not be just me … I want you to go and stay with our uncle for a while—’

‘I’m not going to live with David Laverne again!’ she retorted. ‘And what makes you think that I’d be any safer in the country than in London? God, Nicholas, think about it. If someone wanted to harm me, they would have done so already. Besides, I don’t know what the deception is, do I? You never told me – not the whole story anyway.’

‘You mustn’t know it. Your safety is in not knowing it.’

‘Nicholas, please, calm down. You’re letting your imagination run away with you. This is madness—’

‘I don’t care if you think I’m a lunatic,’ Nicholas replied, his tone sharp. ‘Can’t you see what they’re doing? They want you to think I’m crazy, so that they can discredit what I say. Believe me, I know what these people are capable of, and if they can’t get to me they’ll go for the people I love.’ He cringed at the thought. ‘If you won’t go to the country, come here. Stay at St Stephen’s with us.’

‘I can’t just take time off work—’

‘Say you’re ill,’ Nicholas suggested. ‘This won’t go on for long, Honor. The chain’s being sold at auction in a few days’ time—’

‘So why don’t you put the papers up for auction as well?’

He was taken aback. ‘What? I don’t want to raise money with them, I want to expose the Church for their part in the deception.’

‘Which you would if you sold them,’ Honor retorted. ‘And if “they” thought the papers were going to be public knowledge there would be no point in coming after you.’

‘I know what the secret is,’ he said wearily. ‘Whether I have the papers in my possession or not, I know the secret.’

‘So why haven’t you gone to the press with it? You did last time.’

Nicholas smiled bitterly. ‘That’s the point – last time I was discredited. Who would believe me this time? They won’t. Unless someone respectable speaks out for me – like Father Michael. He offered, I didn’t ask him to. He wants to do it, to make amends for the past.’

‘And you’re going to let him?’ she asked incredulously. ‘You can be a right bastard, Nicholas.’

‘He wants to do it!’

‘And your arriving on his doorstep with a conspiracy theory didn’t force his hand?’ She slammed down her coffee cup. ‘You don’t really care about the deception; you just want to get your own back on the Church and you’re prepared to use an old man to do it.’

‘He offered.’

‘You knew he would! When you turned up out of the blue and told him about it, you knew he would have to help you. Catholic guilt and all that shit. I imagine poor Father Michael thinks he’ll get a front-row seat in Paradise for doing this.’ She shook her head. ‘You can fool other people, Nicholas, but not me. I know you.’

‘He wants to do it.’

‘Even if he gets killed? You might escape, Nicholas, with your religious celebrity, but what about some old man who’s on his last legs?’

Her anger shook him. Why had Eloise Devereux brought him and his sister together again? Honor would have been safer kept out of it.

‘I didn’t want any of this—’

‘Didn’t you?’ Honor countered. ‘Seems to me that it’s offering you a very convenient way to have another go at the Church.’

‘You think I was wrong to expose them?’

‘Not the first time, Nicholas,’ she replied. ‘I admired you for that. You stood up and told the world what had been done to those boys and it cost you. I know how much. I know what it did to you, physically and mentally. But this time – this time it just looks like you’re a conspiracy nut out for revenge.’