But as terrible as those things were, they weren’t what Ben was staring at as he stepped inside the chapel. He was looking at the cage atop a stone table nearby. Its bars were black metal, crusted with filth. Inside the cage was the crying baby.

Ben had seen a lot of bad things in his life. But never anything quite so sickening as this. Now he understood what Bartholomew Van Brakel had planned to be the special event of tonight’s anniversary celebration. The ritual murder of Chrissie Cassidy had been just for openers. Afterwards, the inner elite of Van Brakel’s cult were going to repair to their underground Satanic church and cut open this poor infant and spill its blood into the silver chalice. This was their ultimate tribute to their deities, the defiling of the most innocent and helpless kind of little life.

Ben muttered out loud, ‘Oh, holy Jesus’, and the burning torches seemed to flicker in protest, as though it offended them for that name to be uttered here in this place. Ben’s hands were shaking as he opened the cage and lifted out the naked, squirming baby boy. He was still tiny, probably no more than a few weeks old although Ben knew nothing about these things. The kid was wailing loudly, clutching and waving his little fists and kicking his legs, eyes screwed shut and cheeks mottled red. Ben wondered where he could have come from: an unwanted birth, or a kidnap, or even a donation from some unhinged devotee of the Pandemonium Club. It didn’t matter; like Chrissie, the little man was safe now. Ben held the baby close and ran from the chapel, never wanting to see anything like it ever again.

Chrissie was asleep outside in the passage, overwhelmed by the trauma of her experiences. Ben would now have to carry both of them. Quickly stripping off his shirt he made it into a sling that would hold the infant securely against his chest. He bent down and scooped Chrissie up over one shoulder. Then left this awful place forever, and kept on running.

The ground floor of Karswell Hall felt like a welcome respite after the horror of the crypts. Jeff was waiting outside the banquet room. He’d been expecting Ben to turn up with the rescued woman, but his eyes shot wide open at the sight of a baby. It wasn’t often Jeff Dekker was struck virtually dumb. ‘No,’ was all he could say. ‘No fucking way.’

‘They were going to murder him,’ Ben said.

Jeff ran to fetch a chair and they gently laid Chrissie in it, still fast asleep with her head lolling on her shoulder. Ben handed him the infant while he put his shirt back on. The boy had puked on it, but Ben put it on anyway.