Free The Messiah Secret by James Becker Page A

sprinted the last few yards to the boundary fence. Then he’d walked through the woods back to his car, and waited for the last of the British Museum people to leave.
    Darkness was falling as Carfax walked back towards the house. The cars had left, and no one seemed to be around. A solitary bat swooped through the gloaming. So far, so good, he thought.
    Quickly, he made his way to the window he’d left open at the back of the house. He took one more look round and pushed the sash upwards. Or tried to. It took less than a second for Carfax to realize that somebody – obviously one of the team from the British Museum – must have spotted the open catch and locked it.
    ‘Bugger,’ he muttered, backing away and retracing his steps. He had come prepared, though. In the boot of his car he’d assembled a selection of tools that he hoped would be enough for him to slip the window catch if he found it locked.
    Ten minutes later he was back at the window, a long thin chisel in his hand, which he slid up between the two sections of the sash window. He positioned it against the locked catch and applied sideways pressure. Nothing happened – the catch remained obstinately closed. He tried again, and then again, each time increasing the levelof force on the tool, and each time with precisely the same result – the catch didn’t move.
    Carfax swore again, more loudly this time. He’d chosen that window because, of all those on the ground floor, that one had the loosest catch. Finding a chunk of stone that had fallen from some part of the house he dragged it across to the window and stood up on it. Almost immediately he spotted the screw jammed into the catch, and knew he wouldn’t be able to force it from the outside.
    Somebody must have guessed he’d been inside the property. He thought he’d covered his tracks, and had only taken a handful of the choicest pieces. Quickly he tried forcing the other windows in the back wall of the house, but he knew that all the other catches were stiff with rust and disuse. Within ten minutes he was certain he was wasting his time – none of the other catches had budged even a millimetre.
    Grumbling to himself, Carfax gathered together his tools and equipment. His best option seemed to be a ladder that he could use to reach one of the first-floor windows. Hopefully he’d be able to force one of them. His only other choice was to break a pane of glass and open a window on the ground floor but then the police would get involved and he really didn’t want that.
    There were a couple of pieces of really good Georgian silver somewhere in the house that he hadn’t found yet, and a tray made by Paul Storr that he guessed would havea five-figure price tag, so being able to get inside undetected was vital.
    No, he’d just have to come back tomorrow with a ladder. He had a right to Oliver’s possessions, and he was going to make damn sure they came to him, not to any museum.

14
    ‘Nice place,’ Chris Bronson remarked as Angela parked her Mini outside Carfax Hall the next morning.
    Despite being divorced, he and Angela had remained the closest of friends, talking every day on the phone, and had come to trust and rely on each other perhaps even more than some married couples. Bronson was hoping they might get back together as man and wife, but Angela was still cautious about committing to that, the painful recollection of their separation and divorce still fresh in her memory. He was doing all he could to make her change her mind.
    He had taken a couple of days’ leave and had driven up the previous evening, after Angela had told him about the possible intruder at Carfax Hall. Angela said she’d feel a lot happier having him around, and he’d agreed to come immediately. It was, he hoped, a sign that she might be about to put the past behind her.
    ‘I’m afraid the house is virtually falling apart. All those lumps of stone’ – she pointed – ‘have fallen off the roof and the upper walls.