The Excalibur Codex Read Online Free PDF Page B

door. ‘Don’t tell me you’re too bloody busy?’
    Jamie watched the big car roar away, the powerful engine kicking through the gears. No, he wasn’t too busy. Saintclair Fine Arts was walking its usual perilous tightrope between solvency and the other thing. Truth was, he needed either a change or a rest, but something told him a rest would only invite the ghosts of the past back into his life. There had been something in the way Steele made his suggestion, a certain electric charge in his voice, that made Jamie Saintclair think he might well take up that offer.
    But not now. Now, he needed a bottle of malt to numb the pain, some music to remember her by, and a lonely bed where he could dream of vengeance.

IV
    Bang. Bang. Bang. His mind threatened to explode as he smashed his fists against the coffin lid. Bang. Bang. Bang. It wouldn’t budge, not even the tiniest fraction, and he knew that even if it did he would still be buried beneath six feet of damp, black earth that would pour into his mouth and suffocate him. His throat constricted at the thought and the level of panic rose, so he would have screamed if he had been able. Bang. Bang. Bang. Jamie Saintclair came bolt upright in the bed, the breath wheezing in his throat and cold sweat running down his back. The coffin had been a nightmare, but the banging was real. He rolled over and stood up on shaking legs, dragging on the black silk robe Abbie had given to him on his last birthday. The sound came from the front door of the Kensington High Street flat and he staggered through, wishing to Christ he hadn’t had the last of the Macallan and with half a dozen horrible scenarios fighting a nuclear war in his aching head.
    Bang. He ripped back the bolt and opened the door.
    ‘Mr Saintclair.’
    ‘Ugh?’
    ‘Perhaps there might be a better time, sir?’
    Through a half-opened eye the blur became a uniformed sergeant of Her Majesty’s Metropolitan Police. He shook his head. ‘Wha’ can I do f’r you?’ God, something had made a nest in his mouth and he sounded as if it was still in residence on his tongue. He licked his cracked lips. ‘No, um, time like the present, Officer.’
    ‘I just wondered if I might ask you a few questions, sir, and return this.’ The policeman held out a clear plastic evidence bag containing a mobile phone that Jamie vaguely recognized as his own. ‘And perhaps I might make you a cup of coffee to apologize again for the bad timing of my visit. Though I’m sure you, more than anyone, understand the urgency of the situation?’
    Five minutes later they were seated at the kitchen table. Jamie had thrown on a few clothes and he sucked at the life-giving nectar that was milky Nescafé with three sugars, though he usually took neither sugar nor milk. ‘Good.’ He raised the cup in salute.
    The grey-haired sergeant gave the tight smile of a man who’d administered many such life-giving revivers and took out his notebook to signal that the interview had entered its more formal phase. He placed the evidence bag on the table in front of Jamie.
    ‘You volunteered your mobile phone as evidence on,’ he checked his notebook, ‘the twelfth of February, threedays after the unfortunate events out by Gerard’s Cross. Can you just confirm that this is the evidence in question?’ Jamie nodded, but made no attempt to pick up the phone. ‘Good. Then I formally return this evidence to your possession. If you could just sign here, sir.’ He produced a form and Jamie accepted a cheap plastic ballpoint and signed with a shaking hand. The sergeant smiled, relieved to have the difficult part of the proceedings out of the way. He picked up the bag and carefully dropped the phone into his palm. ‘Now, sir,’ he handed Jamie the slim oblong of black plastic, ‘if I could ask you to switch it on – I think the battery should still be charged – and, er,’ his face twisted in a way that said he wasn’t entirely comfortable, ‘bring up the final