He regarded these lanky, lairy teenagers, thinking about his own children: ten and eleven years old. Would they soon end up like this, surly teenagers, scattering swear words and empty crisp packets?
The radio crackled.
Sir!
Yes?
Hes coming now, hes coming out right now.
On his own?
Yes.
OK, so, you know what we discussed. Send me shots and a video, immediately. Follow him, but dont do anything else, until Ive given the go-ahead.
Ibsen estimated his own pulse rate had reached the 115 mark. Extremely alert, but nothing dangerous. Not the 175 where you make a terrible decision. With an armed response team.
He listened to nothing, saw a single flake of snow settle on the windscreen. Just one, then two. And then his computer pinged and he found the communication.
It was the video, shot by surveillance officer Kilo 1 two minutes ago. The quality was excellent, the zoom precise, the face clearly pictured the same face as in all the photos Ibsen had seen over the last few urgent hours. This was their man: Tony Ritter.
Team K, he said firmly and clearly, into his radio. You are good to go. Surveil and pursue. Follow but do not apprehend.
The DCI motioned to his driver: go that way, very slowly.
Their car was a good three hundred yards behind the surveillance officers, who were on foot. Their duet of reports buzzed over Ibsens radio.
Suspect X walking quickly up Goswell Road.
Turning right, into Clerkenwell.
Walking fast, very fast.
I can see him stopping, looking at something in his hand-
Ibsen intervened. What? Whats in his hand?
A defiant pause. What was going on? Ibsen cursed the lack of time to get a proper surveillance team, to call in more officers, to put a GPS on Ritters person, somehow; this was fly-by-your-seat police work, with a potentially very dangerous suspect, involved in some brutal suicides that might not turn out to be suicides at all.
Samsung Zaf.
What?
Hes looking into a mobile, sir. Think hes reading a map. Hes just standing by a bus stop on Clerkenwell Road.
The pause returned. A third and fourth flake of snow settled on the windscreen; then more. Ibsen churned, mentally, what little else they knew of Antonio Ritter. He was a serious Californian villain, father Texan, mother Puerto Rican. He was linked to organized crime in Europe and elsewhere, people trafficking in particular. He had several convictions for violence. And hed gone to ground recently after a stint in an LA jail.
What about those prison terms? Ritter had done some hard time in some nasty Californian clinks. Is this where he had got the tattoos? Did this suicide sex cult originate in some gruesome Californian jail? Full of Latinos and Yardies and Koreans, each with their lethal gang? And their own special tattoo?
The snow was whirling, thickening, settling.
Ibsen mused. The tatts could be gang colours of some kind.
Hes moving again fast. Walking briskly. Like he suddenly remembered where hes going.
North up Clerkenwell.
Hes almost running, sir.
Yes, hes running
Jesus, the snow!
It was now coming thick and hard, almost horizontal, turning into a blizzard. A man could barely see more than five yards. A man could easily get lost.
Urgently, Ibsen pressed the speak button on his radio. Team K. Can you see him? Kilo 1, do you have visual contact?
Yes, sir.
Kilo 2?
Silence.
Kilo 2?
I think so sir Yes, I can see him now. I think hes doubling back, hes changed his mind-
Maybe hes going for his motor, because of the weather. Larkham, get ready to follow in your car.
Kilo 2 interrupted. No. Hes heading down Goswell Road, not turning left- The signal crackled into lifelessness for a moment then, Sir, I reckon hes taking the Tube. Barbican Underground.
Get on it! Christ. Kilo 1 and 2! Dont let him get on that Tube without you!
Ibsen slapped the dashboard in anger, his frustration intense. But for now, Ibsen just had to sit it out. They were down in the Tube, so he had radio silence, and no information. What was going on down there? Had they arrested him, lost him; had he spotted them on the Tube train; had he turned on the officers, shooting a gun, spraying a carriage, killing a kid with a ricocheted bullet? The silence was like waiting for a returning space mission to go through the atmosphere. Would anyone be alive at the end?
Ten minutes. Fifteen. Eighteen.
They had an armed response team ready, down the Pentonville Road. But that was a bit late if the guy was already culling infants on the Northern Line.
An efficient little crackle, like a throat clearing, brought the radio to life. Hes up. Were out. On the surface. It was Kilo 1. Were at the Angel, sir. Angel Tube.
Just four stops away. Ibsen signalled to his driver. OK, Kilo 1, Kilo 2, keep following him. Were here for the whole ride.
Sir. Walking up Upper Street.
Kilo 2 kicked in, Hes stopped, sir. By that weird low building
Antique arcade. A more authoritative voice, crackled through. Im just parked across Upper Street, sir. Hes stepping inside-
Antique arcade. A more authoritative voice, crackled through. Im just parked across Upper Street, sir. Hes stepping inside-
Ibsen shot back, Larkham? Youre there? How did you know?
Took a guess, sir, followed the Northern Line overground north.
Good man! But I know that place.
Yes?
If he goes in there we can lose him, a warren of old gaffs, all those lanes outside!
Hes gone in.
Ibsen barked, Kilo 1 follow.
Im inside, cant see him wait His pulse rate was now 125,
130
Kilo 1? Can you see him?
Silence.
Kilo 2? Can you see him?
Silence.
Kilo 1? Fuck sake, Kilo 2?
A breathless voice. Hes running, sir.
Running?
Hes sort of running, and and these little alleys are filled with shoppers all the snow its chaos. Maybe he knows were here
The policeman was panting. I can just see him, the snow is so heavy, Sir is that wait I cant
They were going to lose him.
Ibsen waited for half a second. He waited for another half a second, Pulse maybe 140, 145, 150.
Kilo 1: Ive lost him. No visual contact. Repeat, no visual contact.
Kilo 2?
Me too. Lost him. Sorry, sir. The bloody snow
Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck.
Ibsen slapped the dash again. He had one last hope. His brilliant junior, the one man he could rely on, his go-to guy for not utterly fucking things up all the fucking time.
Larkham?
Same here, sir. I got a glimpse. Then he just- You should see the snow, you can hardly see your own
Ibsen let the bitterness seep into his conscience for another half a second, then switched into a more professional gear. So hes gone to ground. But hes somewhere around. Who saw him last, and where, precisely?
Kilo 1 answered: the antique parade; Kilo 2 agreed. Then Larkham said, Think it was me who saw him last. He was jogging up Islington Green. Just a glimpse, through the snow. I could see his head, then nothing.
Ibsen closed his eyes for a second. Repressing his anger and guilt. Just stay there, patrol discreetly, and keep your eyes open, we might just get lucky again.
Ibsen knew they werent going to get lucky. The suspects last movements were all too indicative of a professional criminal who was aware he was being followed. He watched the delicate star-clusters of snow fall and melt on his windscreen, in prolificity and profusion; like lemmings, killing themselves on his glass, and melting into nothing. Suicidal snow.
The driver pierced the silence, jolting Ibsen from his reverie.
Are you all right, sir?
Im fine. Bloody furious, but otherwise fine. So we lost him. We still have a lead. He must have had a reason to come here in the first place What is it? Why has he come to Islington?
27
Temple, London
From Temple Station they walked briskly up a steep narrow street lined with venerable buildings, made somehow more scholarly and picturesque by their new, white, lawyerly wigs of snow.
They were at the Temple Church, an eight-hundred-year-old survivor. It looked impossibly beautiful and quaint, the arched windows and golden buttresses surrounded by Christmas Carolly scenes of snowbound gardens, and liveried beadles, and eighteenth-century doors decorated with green wreaths of berried holly.
Nina opened her rucksack with shivering hands and recited: The London Temple was one of the three administrative centres of the entire Order, along with the Paris Temple and their headquarters in Jerusalem. All the Templars British wealth was held here, in the London Preceptory, in a treasury so renowned for security that the English king stored the Crown Jewels herein.
Adam said nothing. A face was peering at him from behind a large sash window. The curtain fell.
Nina went on. At the time of the Templars fall from power, this reputation for hidden wealth gave rise to the rumour that the London Temple was the storehouse for the Templars secret treasure. Over the years this notorious treasure has been variously reckoned as the Ark of the Covenant, the True Cross, the Turin Shroud and the Holy Grail. In truth, there was no such secret treasure; these absurd rumours of secret wealth rose arose simply because the Templars were the first bankers of Europe, and their vaults were filled with noble loot, held as surety, or deposited for safekeeping. She finished, and shrugged.
Adam sighed. Your father was a sceptic. We know. The question is: how did he go from all that to believing that there really was a deep Templar secret?
A secret that gets you killed? Adam baulked at saying it. Instead he looked at the exterior of the church. He had no need of a guidebook to tell him about this. From research on earlier articles, from simple sightseeing as a young Aussie in London, he knew that most of the exterior of the famous church was twentieth-century work, cleverly restored following the dreadful damage of the Blitz. Only the west porch remained from Templar days. So they could be pretty sure Archie McLintock didnt come here to admire the exterior.
Which left one choice.
They entered the church, through the low side door. The building was empty and hushed. Slender candles twinkled; the blonde wooden pews were empty; winter daylight striated the floor. The old church was beautiful and sad, and vacuous. There was no sense of mystery here, no sepulchral clue, no air of intrigue that might imply what Professor McLintock had found. It was an echoey cenotaph, laid with effigies.