‘I swear, I won’t.’ He laid her gently on the floor. Slid open the bolt of the first door and pushed it. It opened with a groan and the smell of human confinement hit him like a slap. He shone his light inside and knew exactly what he was seeing, because he’d seen things like it before. It resembled the most sordid Third World shithole prison cells he’d seen during his days of rescuing prisoners and hostages with the SAS. The bare walls were dripping with mould and condensation. A metal plate was bolted into the stonework, from which hung a length of chain with manacles attached. There was no bunk for the prisoner to sleep on, not even a bucket to serve as a toilet.

The pile of female clothing on the floor told him this was where they’d been imprisoning Chrissie. This was where the High Priest and his assistants had come to strip her and put her into the white sacrificial dress, before leading her up to the island, and her death.

Ben withdrew from the cell and moved across to the second door, fifteen feet down the passage. It had no bolt, just a giant black steel ring turn-handle. The images carved into the wood made his flesh crawl. One was of the bird god Thoth. The other above it depicted the head of a horned goat, with red stones for eyes that glittered evilly against the beam of his light.

Ben grasped the ring handle and shoved the door open hard.

And that was when he heard the baby crying.

Chapter 62

Ben felt cold and utterly numb as he stepped inside the cell. Except it wasn’t a cell. It was a chapel devoted to the sick, twisted religion that was practised down here in the crypts beneath Karswell Hall.

The room was dimly lit by burning torches on the walls, whose flames flickered and hissed and gave off the pungent, nauseating odour he’d been able to smell all over the house. If this was their version of church incense, it was like none other he’d ever known. The floor was cold, hard white marble inlaid with a red circle twenty feet in diameter. Inside the circle was the same Satanic pentacle design that was carved on the door. The circumference of the circle was ringed with black candles in tall silver holders. At its centre was a low altar, just a pair of stone plinths supporting a slab that was mottled purple and black with layers of dried blood. Two items were laid on the altar. One was an ornate silver chalice. The other was a short sword with a hilt in the shape of an ibis’s head and a curved blade that gleamed in the firelight.