The Messiah Secret by James Becker Page A

it was exactly matched by a second hole opposite. That, and the band of darker material, told her all she needed to know.
    ‘There’s a hole driven through both sides of the neck where it’s narrowest,’ she said, ‘and this darker material seems to be some kind of sealing putty or resin. According to Richard Mayhew, who seems to have taken quite a keen interest in the Wendell-Carfax history, the vesselBartholomew found was secured with a pin driven through the neck, a pin that went right through the wooden stopper, and the outside was then sealed with some sort of putty. And this,’ she finished, ‘could well be the remains of that first-century pot.’ She paused. ‘There was nothing else up there, was there?’
    ‘Just the usual sort of rubbish that seems to migrate to any attic. Look, I’ll need to stay awake tonight, so I should get my head down this afternoon. The first bedroom on the left at the top of the stairs still has a bed and mattress in it. Can you come up and wake me about half an hour before you all leave?’
    Angela looked troubled. Although she’d eagerly embraced the idea of Bronson staying at the property overnight when he’d first suggested it, now that the evening was approaching she was feeling markedly less certain that it was really such a good idea.
    ‘Are you sure you want to do this, Chris? I mean, suppose there are half a dozen intruders, all armed?’
    ‘Then I’ll lock myself in the loo and dial triple nine on my mobile,’ Bronson said. ‘But most burglars operate alone, and they almost never carry weapons, because the penalties for being caught with a knife or a gun are so severe.’ He put his hands on Angela’s shoulders and kissed the tip of her nose. ‘If I think I’m in danger, I promise I’ll put on that suit of armour that’s standing in the hall.’

17
    6 p.m. Angela and her museum colleagues had left, and Carfax Hall was completely silent.
    Chris Bronson walked through to the kitchen and clicked the switch on the electric kettle. Coffee, he knew, would help him keep alert. He’d have no trouble staying awake until well after midnight – he’d always been a late bird – but staving off boredom and sleep in the early hours of the morning would be more difficult.
    He’d establish a routine, and prepare the house for his coming vigil. At night, sound travels further and more clearly than during the day because of the absence of other noises to interfere, so there were things he needed to do. The first was to go round the entire house and open every door to allow him to enter any room as silently as possible – a creaking hinge would be an obvious giveaway.
    He started on the ground floor, checking that both the front and back doors of the house were securely locked.Then he walked through each room in turn and opened all the internal doors wide. Some he had to prop open because they were fitted with self-closing hinges, but there were plenty of boxes he could use.
    He walked up the wide staircase and repeated the process on the first floor, and then on the attic floor above that. Back on the ground floor, he checked that the cellar doors were also open. There were two doors, one leading to a wine cellar that appeared to have been emptied of its contents, and the other to a general-purpose cellar full of various sorts of household junk, and which also housed a large and clearly elderly central-heating boiler.
    Finally, because he hadn’t got a torch, he switched on the hall, staircase and main upper corridor lights so he’d be able to move around without walking into doors or tripping over things. Those lights would be enough to let him see where he was going, but hopefully wouldn’t raise the suspicions of anyone who’d tried to force the rear windows.
    That done, he walked back into the kitchen, made a mug of coffee and sat in the armchair in a corner of the room. He’d found a handful of paperback novels in the library, hidden away amongst the collection