‘I’m afraid I don’t remember much.’
She glances to the nurse now at her side. ‘Is there somewhere more private than this? A place he and I can talk?’
The nurse has to think for a second. ‘There’s an examination room down the corridor.’ She points. ‘Use that. Flip the sign on the door so you don’t get disturbed.’
Megan looks back towards Gideon. ‘Are you good to walk?’
‘Sure. I’m fine.’ He slowly swings his legs out of bed, taking care the ill-fitting pyjamas don’t reveal more of him than is acceptable. ‘Forgive my appearance.’ He gestures to the striped and faded flannels that finish way above his ankles.
They enter the room and the nurse leaves them.
Megan flips the sign to ‘Engaged’, shuts the door and pulls out two chairs, one from behind a desk. ‘So what happened after you left the police station?’
He feels stupid. ‘I hadn’t really thought things through. After I left you, I realised I didn’t have anywhere to stay. It seemed like a good idea to go to my father’s and sleep there. I suppose deep down I felt drawn to it.’
‘That’s natural enough.’
‘Maybe. Anyway, the back door had been broken open so I called 999 and went to have a look around.’
She laces one leg over the other. ‘You should have waited until the patrol car arrived. Didn’t they tell you to wait?’
He can’t remember if they did, but he doesn’t want to get anyone in trouble. ‘I suspect so. I just wanted to have a look inside and make sure I hadn’t raised a false alarm.’
‘Which you clearly hadn’t.’
‘No. I hadn’t. I saw this man in my father’s study. He was setting it on fire.’
‘How? What exactly was he doing?’
The image is clear in the archaeologist’s head. ‘He had one hand — his left — full of papers and he lit them with a cigarette lighter, one of those cheap little ones.’
‘Disposable. A BIC?’
‘Something like that. He lit the papers, then set the curtains on fire and was about to do the same with my father’s desk.’
‘When you confronted him?’
‘No, not exactly. At first I just pulled the door shut and locked him in. Then I realised I had to let him out, otherwise he’d have probably died.’
‘Some people might have been tempted to leave him in there.’
‘I was.’
‘Good job you didn’t. I’d be charging you with a criminal offence this morning if you had done.’
‘I know.’
She studies him. He’s an academic, not a fighter. One of those men who looks tall enough and fit enough to handle himself but evidently never learned how.
‘So you opened the door and he just starts laying into you?’
‘Virtually. He pushed me out of the way and I grabbed him around the waist, rugby-style. Only I didn’t take him down and he started punching and kicking me.’
She looks at the bruising. It’s unusual. ‘He cut your cheek quite badly. From the mark, I’d say he was wearing some jewellery on his right hand, maybe a signet ring.’
‘I didn’t notice. Just the pain.’
‘I imagine.’ She lifts her handbag from the floor. ‘You mind if I take a shot of this, the outline is really clear?’
‘I suppose not.’
She slides back the cover on the tiny Cyber-shot that she carries, then virtually blinds him with a camera flash. ‘Sorry,’ she says from behind the lens, ‘just one more.’
Another flash and she clicks it closed. ‘We may want SOCO to look at that.’ She drops the camera back in her bag. ‘If we can catch the guy that laid that ring on you, he should go down for assault, burglary and arson. A nice trio, he could get a good stretch for that.’
‘Could?’
‘Afraid so. The English judiciary will listen to any sob stor ies about him wetting the bed as a child, his father being an alcoholic or such like. They call it mitigating circumstances. Did you get a good look at him?’
Disappointment shows on Gideon’s face. ‘No, I’m afraid not. It all happened so quickly and it was really dark.’
Megan has a degree in psychology and spent two years working on secondment to one of Britain’s top profilers. She can see a lie coming before it’s even crossed a guy’s lips. She frowns and tries to look confused. ‘I don’t quite get it. You clearly noticed the lighter in his hand — the BIC. But you didn’t see his face.’
Gideon feels uncomfortable. ‘I don’t know. I guess my eyes were drawn to the flame.’
‘I can understand that. But despite all the light from the fire — from the papers in his hand and from the blazing curtains — you didn’t get at least enough of a look at him to give a rough description?’
He shrugs. ‘Sorry.’
‘Mr Chase, I want to help you. But you’re going to have to trust me.’
He looks surprised. ‘I do. Why wouldn’t I?’
She ignores the question. ‘Are you sure you can’t tell us anything about the man. His size? Weight? Hair colour? Clothing? Anything?’
He can feel her eyes boring through him but he’s staying silent. He has a photograph of the man, snapped on his mobile phone, just before he’d shut the door. The burglar must have been there in connection with his father’s secrets, and he intends to discover precisely what they are long before the police do.
Megan is still waiting for an answer.
He shakes his head. ‘I’m sorry. I just can’t help you.’
She flashes him a smile so bright he nearly flinches. ‘You will,’ she says with an icy coldness. ‘Believe me, you will.’
16
Protecting the precious stones principally means stopping people from climbing on them or defacing them. To that end, English Heritage has erected fences, traffic barriers and ropes, and only allows people into the roped-off relics on special occasions or with written permission.
The government-funded body is good at its job but has no idea just how devoted some of its subcontracted security staff are. The likes of Sean Grabb are devout members of the Followers of the Sacreds. Long after their paid shifts have finished, they still watch the precious site.
Thirty-five-year-old Grabb is one of those sleeves-rolled-up, slightly overweight guys who always gets a job done and is never short of a good word for those who work for him. He heads up a team of Lookers who keep Stonehenge under constant vigil. Three hundred and sixty degrees. Twenty-four hours a day. Seven days a week. Three hundred and sixty-five days a year.
He and his Lookers never stop looking. Some of it is done openly during the Heritage-paid shifts, some covertly by tiny remote cameras strategically placed across the landscape.
Grabb has been a Looker for ten years. Known inside the Craft as Serpens, he is following in the deep footsteps of his father, grandfather and every other traceable male in the paternal line. With him today is twenty-five-year-old Lee Johns, a relatively new recruit, yet to be formally admitted into the Craft’s hallowed ranks. He’s tall and thin with pimply, undernourished skin and, outside of his work uniform, lives in unwashed denims and rock band T-shirts. He’s not too bright and has weathered his share of problems, including drugs and homelessness. By his early twenties, society had written him off as an eco-hippie troublemaker. For a while he sought solace in the company of other protestors and agitators. He never totally fitted in.
His life started to have meaning only when he drifted down to Stonehenge en route to Glastonbury, where he’d hoped to score some cheap gear and maybe string together a bit of money from low-level dealing. But he never made it to the music gathering. The solstice was so breathtaking he felt unable to even move from the henge. He stayed, helping clear up and volunteering for any kind of work in relation to the magical stones.