Catacombs of Terror! by Stanley Donwood Read Free Book Online

then mentioned a café. “You know it? I’ll see you in, what, about half an hour. You’re buying the coffee. Bye.”
    I strode briskly in the rain through town to where the café was. It was a fairly civilised place, but it was near the city Baths, and as I passed them I shuddered.
The head will be found on the east pediment. Staring up at the sky.
I thought of the hole at Charlcombe, the paved floor, and the tunnels. This morning, anything seemed possible. Murder, mutilation, my arrest—anything. Anything at all. Twenty-four hours and my world had been turned upside down. Back to front. Any which way but right.

Chapter 8
No Messages
    I arrived at the café at the same time as Kafka, which I took to be a good omen. I needed some good omens. We took a table at the back of the café, ordered a couple of coffees.
    He raised his eyebrows, lit a cigarette, and asked me to tell him everything. I filled him in on what had happened since I last saw him—I told him about Charlcombe. He was a good listener, even though I didn’t much like the expression that gathered force on his face as I related my tale.
    “It stinks, Martin. This whole thing reeks. KHS obviously have an agenda that goes far beyond archaeological research. The fact that they also control the city’s library is suspicious, especially when coupled with the fact that they suddenly acquired the contract to move the books from the old site to the new one. I don’t like the ‘
no significant finds
’ bit from the digs they’ve already done either. It begins to seem like they’re not after relics at all. At least, not the kind of relics you’d expect.”
    I took a slurp of my coffee.
    “I don’t ‘expect’ any fucking kind of anything. Where do I fit into this? Why am I being fed this information? I mean, they practically drew me a map. I was expressly told to check out the Charlcombe dig. Whoever is doing this knows all the answers already. Why do I have to find them out all over again? And, more to the fucking point, why can’t they leave me the hell out of it?” I said wearily.
    “I’m not sure, but it could be that someone in KHS has broken ranks. They’re too scared—of something—to do anything about it themselves so they’ve picked you to do their work for them. Maybe the bit about you getting arrested is just to get you sufficiently self-interested to basically do their bidding. Maybe the arrest—your arrest—is a lie.” Kafka raised his eyebrows.
    “I like that idea. I like it a lot,” I growled.
    “Who was the woman you met with at the Star?”
    “She didn’t say. I asked. She didn’t tell. I asked her about Eliot—Barry Eliot—but she didn’t seem to know who he was. As far as I could tell.”
    “Okay, but his is the only name we have. And you say that he knows that you’ve been—sleeping—with his wife. Interesting. What does he do for a living?
    “He’s a property developer. A bigshot. He’s connected with most of the grandest projects around here. He’s—fuck, he’s connected with everything important. Shit. I bet he’s been involved with all the sites that KHS have worked on, before the building started. And I’ve been sleeping with his wife.” I sat back in my chair and exhaled deeply. Something was adding up to something. The trouble was I had very little idea what any of the somethings were. All I knew was that I didn’t like any of them.
    “So.” Kafka was pensive. His mouth twisted. “So. This Barry Eliot guy is connected—somehow or other—with KHS. Someone has been spoon-feeding you information about KHS. They’ve threatened you with the possibility of arrest—for murder. They’ve described a murder scene that is connected with a heritage site. The body is supposed to be discovered on the morning of the 13th July. Your arrest is supposed to be scheduled for that afternoon. They’ve even given the arrest a time of day, which is, on the face of it, unbelievable. KHS seem to work almost