Free The Lazarus Prophecy by F. G. Cottam

1944.’
    â€˜The court thought her powers real?’
    â€˜Obviously they did.’
    â€˜But they didn’t think them God-given.’
    â€˜No, I’d say quite the opposite.’
    â€˜I think the Scholar might approve of witchcraft.’
    â€˜Yeah, well, even I’d worked out that he’s a very bad man.’
    â€˜Goodnight, Jacob.’
    â€˜You’ve got nothing, really, have you?’
    â€˜We’re looking for someone physically strong, familiar with London and expertly versed in theology. It’s fair to say he’s got a grudge too against the established Church. If I didn’t know better, I’d say you’re in the frame. Night, Jacob.’
    â€˜Sweet dreams, Jane.’

Chapter Three
    Father Cantrell was scheduled to meet the Cardinal in the afternoon at Bayonne. He had spent the night in San Sebastian where he attended early morning mass and then decided he would rent a mountain bike and ride along the coast. The salt air and sunshine would invigorate him. He craved somewhere bright and clean and unambiguous, after his brief dip into the murky London world of the Irish adventurer Daniel Barry the previous night.
    He breakfasted at a street café in a square in the pretty Basque port town. There was a smell of freshly brewed coffee and Spanish tobacco and eucalyptus. The iron wheel rims of a cart laden with fruit clacked, hand-drawn across the cobbles. Street vendors barked and bantered with early good cheer. He had a leaflet from the hotel he studied as he drank his espresso and ate a sweet almond croissant. There was a tennis court with a ball machine he could rent for an hour. He was a good player. He considered himself too good for the baseline lottery of a borrowed racket. Those he owned were custom-weighted to his own game.
    A woman at an adjacent table lit a cigarette and sipped from her coffee cup and smiled alluringly at him. Cantrell was attired for breakfast in cream chinos and boat shoes and a sky blue polo shirt. He didn’t very much look like what he was. But he thought disguises rather suited the often clandestine work he carried out. He thought about the coarse and threadbare habits worn against their skin by the hermits he had left to their redundant future the previous day and almost shivered at the thought of them. They were distasteful. With their fasters’ breath and grey, sunless skin, they were almost repulsive.
    He could swim, which was a temptation. But he had more time to kill than a swim would usefully occupy. A bike seemed the best bet. There were the sinewy twists of the coast road to negotiate. There were trails, should he feel adventurous, and he could enjoy an early picnic lunch before his departure from the spot. His legs were slightly feeling the climb of the previous day and it would do him good to pump some oxygenated blood into them. He had in his travel bag in his room the bright Lycra shorts and jersey he wore to cycle in. A man had to take his chances where he could. Or at least some of them, he thought, returning his breakfast neighbour’s smile.
    He had spoken to the Cardinal just as soon as his mobile, plugged into the Jeep’s cigarette lighter, had shown a sufficiently strong signal to enable him to do so. That had been at about 6pm the previous evening, a couple of hours after his departure from the priory. The descent on foot had been relatively straightforward because the icy snow patches of the morning had softened into slush with the heat of the afternoon.
    And he had felt energized by the success of his mission. He was a dynamic man, which was one reason he had been chosen for the decisive role he played in front-line Church politics. He could be easily angered and sometimes too easily discouraged, but felt events in the High Pyrenees had gone as well as they reasonably could have.
    In their short satellite phone conversation, he did not mention to the Cardinal the existence of the document the