Читать книгу The 13th Apostle - Richard Heller - Страница 13

Day Two, late evening

Regent’s Park Tube Station

Camden Town, London

Professor Arnold Ludlow struggled up the steps, two heavy suitcases in tow. Sweat from the strain dripped into his eyes, and his back hurt like the dickens. A welcome bit of cool air wafted from the street above. He breathed it in, then with a sigh renewed his climb.

Sarah would be furious. She had begged him to arrange for a private car from the airport but he had refused. They had not put away enough money in the safe yet, he had protested. If Sabbie should need it … Neither Ludlow nor his wife had allowed themselves to linger on the thought.

“Until there is a comfortable cushion of funds, the tube will suit me fine,” he had concluded. “Besides, the exercise will do me good.”

Sarah had kissed him on the bald spot on his head and had given his shoulders a squeeze. Now, she’d be rubbing his back with her infamous Chapman’s Liniment for a week.

“Bloody stuff is made for horses,” he would protest.

“That’s what you get for acting like an ass,” she’d be certain to counter.

Ludlow smiled.

He had reached the street and, revived by the cool air, he headed toward Upper Harley Street and the pleasures of home.

The walk was surprisingly invigorating and his apartment house greeted him like an old friend. Perhaps if his back hadn’t been hurting him so badly, he might have realized something was wrong. Perhaps he might have become alarmed at seeing the apartment windows dark when he knew Sarah would be wide awake and anxious to hear the details of his trip. In any case, he still would have walked unknowingly into their apartment and into the stark terror that awaited him.

Two strong arms seized his and pulled him into the room, even as he struggled to free the key from the lock. They encircled him, and with one great wrench against his chest, left him breathless and in agony from ribs that splintered and gave way. Ludlow slumped to the floor. The room, suddenly flooded with light, seemed oddly filled with white. Two huge figures towered above him, each in clothes devoid of color and faces devoid of expression.

Only Sarah brought color to the moment, her face, hands, legs, and nightgown, all covered with the sickening brown-red of fresh blood. One eye was swollen shut, and a red trickle ran from her ear, but she was alive.

“Please, take what you want. Take it all,” Ludlow pleaded. “Just leave us alone. We’re old. Take whatever you want and go.”

“You know what we want,” the first intruder said softly.

Sarah’s sob broke the silence that followed.

While one tormentor held Ludlow’s head in place so that he would bear witness to the scene that was to follow, the other walked toward his beloved Sarah. The intruder hesitated for a moment, smiled at Ludlow, then kicked the prone woman full force in the side of the head.

Ludlow heard the crack of her neck as it snapped the life out of her. For a moment, the room was silent, save for a tiny exhale of her last breath.

“No!” Ludlow shrieked. He was on his feet, and his hands found the face of the executioner. Ludlow held him by his hair as one eye yielded its soft viscosity to his death grip. Ludlow’s screams of rage drowned out his victim’s cries of pain.

The old man heard nothing, saw nothing, knew nothing. His body did what it had to do and continued grasping and flailing, even as the second intruder pulled him from the first and beat and kicked him until his body could no longer bring muscle and nerve together to move.

“Now give it to us,” the murderer demanded.

“I don’t know what you want,” Ludlow mouthed. His chest spasmed with unreleased sobs. “I don’t know what you want,” he whispered again.

“The diary, you old piece of shit! Just give us the diary and we’ll let you die in peace.”

“The diary?” Ludlow whispered, confused.

Another kick to his back. “Like you didn’t know,” his torturer snickered.

Ludlow struggled to clear his thoughts.

That’s what this was all about? The diary! No, it couldn’t be. It was all too fantastic to imagine.

He had warned DeVris that powerful people had powerful reasons to get control of the diary. DeVris had laughed at him. Sabbie had indulged him his secrecy and had gone along with his emergency preparations, though she had thought him over the top about it. Sarah, too. But none of them had ever considered him anything but paranoid about the whole matter. Even he doubted his own concerns. And, now, son of a bloody bitch, he had been right all along.

Ludlow smiled; a tiny raising of the corners of his mouth, an insignificant movement that echoed a greater victory than any round of cannon fire.

He had what these murderers so desperately wanted, but they had left him with no reason to give it to them. They had taken everything; his Sarah, his desire to live, and his body’s ability to continue to endure their abuse. He was dying and he knew it. Yet this, the only thing they really wanted, they would not get.