Last night, after his fifteen-minute dinner, catered by the local fish and chip shop and washed down with two glasses of Pinot Grigio, he had dwelled on the fallout that would ensue when word of the discovery of the old priory’s underground rooms hit the press. Wickersham would become a madhouse. Every newspaper, magazine and TV station would be clamouring to take pictures, demanding interviews, letting nothing get in their way in order to get a front-page story.
His mind flashed back to a conversation that had taken place two years ago, in Alex and Kate Sheppard’s living room, when he had told them that the blue rose they had just discovered in their garden was about to turn their world upside down and that their lives would be forever changed. The chapel and the circumstances surrounding Wickersham were different, but nevertheless pandemonium could and certainly would break loose unless immediate steps were taken to head off such a catastrophe. Word would spread like wildfire and the resulting media frenzy on top of all the local nosy parkers could have a devastating effect on the gardens, not to mention Jamie’s privacy and life in general on the estate. He would have to sit down with her right away and draw up a plan of action. First they would have to inform the local council members, the police and emergency services. Controlling the influx of traffic would be the first problem to address. He could think of a dozen others.
When would he tell Ferguson? In fairness, he should be among the first to know. But how much did he know already, Kingston wondered? It could have been him at the chapel yesterday. He admitted to being on the estate before, the time when Kingston and Jamie were gone. The more he thought about it, the more the idea of Roger’s going behind his back seemed ludicrous—totally out of character. The man was an archivist, a scholar. Naturally he would have an all-consuming interest in such a discovery. For him, this was a once-in-a-lifetime historical and archaeological breakthrough in which he was directly involved. That said, Kingston couldn’t dismiss entirely the suspicion that Ferguson knew more than he was admitting.
Chadwick, too, should be told about the chapel. He would hear about it soon enough but if—as Kingston was now almost certain—the catacombs revealed Ryder’s secret cache of paintings, then police involvement would be essential.
At the house, he found Jamie ready and waiting in the kitchen. She was wearing blue jeans, a black wool pea coat over a cream turtleneck and a red wool scarf, loosely knotted in the front. A navy woollen hat concealed her hair.
‘You look very fashionable, I must say,’ observed Kingston, smiling.
‘Well, you said to dress warmly.’
‘No, I approve. You look great.’
‘Okay, then,’ she said, taking one last glance around the kitchen, ‘let’s go see this chapel of yours.’
‘Of yours, I believe.’
‘I’m not so sure. From what you’ve told me, the place is likely to become some kind of archaeological shrine. Somehow we’re going to have to separate it from the gardens.’
‘You’re right. I’ve been thinking about that. It’s obvious we won’t be able to keep it a secret for long, so the sooner we start thinking about dealing with it the better.’
In five minutes they reached the chapel. Kingston unlocked the door and they stepped into the cool silent interior. It was the first time in his many visits that he had seen the stained glass windows in their full glory. The morning sunshine streaming through them lit up the room with kaleidoscopic colours. Whether by accident or design, the effect was spiritually uplifting.
At the pulpit, Kingston showed Jamie how he had spotted the subtle difference in the wood graining of the pews, then made a modest ceremony of releasing the catch and starting to raise the pew. As the pew began its upward arc, Jamie gasped. She watched as it locked into the vertical. ‘Amazing!’ she breathed. ‘Awesome!’
‘Well, Jamie, here it is,’ Kingston said, as they both stood at the top of the stone steps, looking down into the darkness. ‘Let me switch the lights on and we can go down.’The night before, after their phone conversation, Kingston had gone to the garden workshop, picked up some cables and low-voltage lighting apparatus, and taken it to the chapel. Within an hour, he had managed to string temporary lighting almost a hundred feet into the catacombs. From there on, they were going to have to rely on a portable Coleman lamp, good for at least eight hours of light, and a flashlight that Jamie carried. With Kingston leading, they went down the steps.
The lights made navigating the hall much easier and far less daunting than on his first visit. After recovering from her initial awe and uttering a few more exclamations of amazement, Jamie followed silently. Every now and then, aided by illumination from the Coleman lamp, they stopped to look into one of the side rooms. Now, construction and workmanship details could be seen clearly; far more advanced than he’d thought. As they walked silently along the cobbles Kingston was gaining a much greater appreciation of the extent of excavation and engineering that had gone into the construction of the catacombs—and all of it by hand. It seemed unlikely that the monks could have done it unassisted.