The drive north was a tense, silent blur of grey motorway and lashing rain. Thorne drove with a controlled fury, the windscreen wipers beating a frantic rhythm against the storm. Elara scoured databases on his laptop, the glow painting her face in stark relief.
"Bell tower, silent sister, choir," she muttered, her fingers flying over the keys. "It's not just any church. It has to have a historical crime. An unsolved death. A 'silent sister' could mean a nun under a vow of silence, or… a murdered one."
"Great. That narrows it to every ruined abbey in the country," Thorne said, but his grip on the wheel tightened. He was thinking, his detective's mind cross-referencing. "The salt. The note said 'follow the salt.' The mine salt was from here, Cheshire. He's staying local. Not London."
Elara's search parameters shifted. "Cheshire… monastic foundations… bell tower… scandal or unsolved death…" The results scrolled, a cascade of medieval history and modern tourism websites. Then one entry snagged her eye.
"St. Brigid's Priory. Dissolved 1538. Partially demolished. The bell tower and choir survived, later incorporated into a parish church. But before the dissolution…" She clicked, leaning closer. "There was an incident. 1522. A novice nun, Sister Euphemia, found dead at the foot of the bell tower. Ruled an accident. A fall while cleaning. But local chronicles hint at… 'a silence that fell upon the sisters thereafter.' A cover-up."
"The silent sister," Thorne said.
"And the choir where the music ended." Elara's voice was taut. "If he's replicating it…"
"He'll kill her in the choir, leave her in the tower." Thorne hit the accelerator. The car surged forward through the downpour. He grabbed the radio. "I need a unit at St. Brigid's Priory Church, near Chester. Possible imminent homicide. Suspect is armed, highly intelligent, likely wearing clerical or period disguise. Do not approach. Surveillance only. We are twenty minutes out."
The rain had eased to a cold drizzle by the time they skidded to a halt on the gravel path beside the church. It was an architectural patchwork: the heavy, Norman bulk of the old priory choir abutting a simpler, later nave. The infamous bell tower, square and brooding, rose against the scudding clouds.
A young, anxious-looking uniformed officer hurried over. "Sir. No one here. Church was locked. We've had a man watching the only door. All quiet."
Thorne and Elara exchanged a look. Too quiet.
"He wouldn't use the door," Elara said, her eyes scanning the structure. "He'd know another way. A priory like this… there would be a night stair. A direct passage from the dormitory to the choir for nighttime prayers. It might be blocked off, but he'd find it."
They rushed to the main door. The vicar, a rumpled man in his sixties woken from his bed, fumbled with a large key ring. "The night stair? Yes, it's still there, but it's behind the organ. Sealed with a grille in the Victorian renovation. No one uses it."
"Show us," Thorne commanded.
The interior of the church was ice-cold and smelled of damp stone and furniture polish. Their footsteps echoed in the empty nave as they hurried past pews towards the raised choir stalls. The massive, gilded organ pipes rose like a metal forest against the east wall.
Behind it, in a shadowy alcove, was a heavy iron grille. It was padlocked. But the padlock lay on the stone floor, its shackle neatly severed by bolt cutters.
Thorne drew his weapon, a gesture that made the vicar gasp. He pulled the grille open with a screech of rust. Behind it, narrow stone steps disappeared into utter blackness, winding upwards.
A sound drifted down. Faint. A woman's voice, singing. A single, pure, wordless melody. A chant.
Elara's blood turned to ice. "He's already here. He's with her."
Thorne didn't hesitate. He started up the stairs, torch in one hand, gun in the other. Elara followed, ignoring the vicar's stammered protests. The stone steps were worn concave by centuries of devoted feet. The air grew colder, thicker with dust.
The singing grew clearer. It was coming from the choir level, not the tower. A door at the top of the stairs stood ajar, yellow light spilling out.
Thorne paused at the threshold, then pushed it open.
The priory choir was a long, high room, empty of pews. Starlight filtered through tall, slender windows. In the centre of the stone floor, a woman knelt.
She was young, dressed in a simple, modern white shift, not a nun's habit. Her hands were clasped in prayer, her head bowed. She was singing, the melody haunting and ancient. And she was alone.
"Police! Don't move!" Thorne's voice cracked through the space, but the woman didn't flinch. She kept singing.
Elara rushed forward, her medical training overriding caution. As she approached, she saw the woman's eyes were wide, unfocused, pupils dilated. Drugged.
"She's been sedated. Something psychoactive," Elara said, gently touching the woman's shoulder. The singing faltered, then stopped. The woman blinked slowly up at her, a serene, empty smile on her face.
"Where is he?" Thorne demanded, sweeping the room with his torch. There were deep shadows behind the stone columns, in the triforium gallery above.
The woman just hummed softly.
Then, from high above them, a new sound. A slow, mechanical creak. Then a deafening, shuddering CLANG.
The great bell in the tower had tolled once.
The sound vibrated through the very stones, a wave of physical force. Dust rained from the ceiling. In its aftermath, a different noise became audible. A rhythmic, metallic scraping, descending. Not from the night stair. From the tower.
Thorne ran for a small, arched door in the corner that presumably led to the tower stairs. He yanked it open. A rush of cold air blew down. The scraping was clearer now. Something heavy being dragged down a spiral staircase.
"Stay with her!" Thorne ordered, and vanished into the darkness of the tower.
Elara knelt beside the woman, trying to keep her calm, her own heart hammering against her ribs. The vicar appeared in the doorway from the night stair, pale and trembling. "Is she—?"
"Call an ambulance. Now. She's drugged."
From the tower, a shout. Thorne's voice. Then a crash. Then silence.
"Thorne!" Elara cried, starting toward the tower door.
A figure appeared in it, silhouetted against the dim light from within. Not Thorne. Taller, leaner. He held something long and heavy in one hand. A fireman's axe from the church's emergency kit.
He wasn't looking at her. He was looking at the drugged woman. He took a step into the choir, his movements calm, deliberate.
"Sic transit," he murmured, his voice the same cultured tone from the mine. He raised the axe not to strike, but in a theatrical, almost ceremonial pose.
Elara did the only thing she could think of. She didn't scream. She spoke, her voice cutting through the fear with academic clarity.
"Sister Euphemia didn't fall, did she?"
The figure froze. The axe lowered a fraction.
"The chronicles were wrong. It wasn't an accident in the tower. It was in the choir. You're not here to repeat a fall. You're here to correct the record."
Slowly, the figure turned its head toward her. The light from the window caught the edge of a sharp jaw, the curve of an ear. He was wearing a dark, modern jacket, but over it, like a sash, was a strip of rough, undyed wool—a monk's scapular.
"You've read the marginalia, Dr. Vance," the voice said, a hint of genuine pleasure in it. "But have you understood the text?"
A shout came from the tower stairs. A scuffle. Thorne erupted from the doorway, his shirt torn, a bloody gash on his forehead. He saw the axe and lunged.
The figure was fast. He dropped the axe—it clattered on the stone—and sidestepped Thorne's charge with fluid grace. He didn't fight. He fled, darting past the startled vicar and down the night stair, his footsteps echoing away into the depths of the church.
Thorne made to follow, but Elara caught his arm. "The woman! He drugged her for a reason. Check her!"
Thorne skidded to a halt, breathing hard. He looked at the woman, now lying peacefully on the stone, humming again. Then he looked at the fallen axe, then at the dark tower stairs where the killer had descended.
"He was going to make it look like she stole the axe, climbed the tower, jumped," Thorne panted, wiping blood from his eye. "Another 'silent sister.' Another historical accident replicated."
"But you stopped the bell from tolling the full death knell," Elara said, her gaze fixed on the empty doorway. "He had to improvise. He left the scene unfinished."
Outside, the first sirens of the ambulance wailed in the distance. They had saved a life. But as Elara looked at the strip of monk's wool left behind on the floor where the killer had stood, she knew they had not won.
They had interrupted a sentence. And a meticulous writer always comes back to finish his thought.