The Midnight Conspiracy by David Leadbeater

Author:David Leadbeater [Leadbeater, David]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers
Published: 2023-01-30T12:00:00+00:00

Chapter 26

Hill Street was a narrow, cobbled road with cars parked along its right-hand kerb. A white van drove between the brick buildings that loomed on both sides as Mason watched, its red lights flashing constantly as it took extra care passing the parked vehicles. A blue car tried and failed twice to reverse into one of the empty parking spots.

Hill Street was a one-way, nondescript path to another basin, the hidden way that led to the Ark. It had already occurred to Mason that since Freemasonry was so deeply rooted in Edinburgh’s past it would make a good hiding place for the Ark.

Sally set off down the street, counting numbers along an unrelenting, varied façade of windows and doors. The ground beneath their feet was a little slick, the air cold. Mason felt the odd flick of drizzle on his face and pulled his leather jacket tighter. They went single file along the pavement as a woman walking a dog rushed by. Mason wrestled with an odd feeling – maybe it was the way they’d arrived here or how they’d been unexpectedly thrown into the midst of all this chaos, but searching for this treasure felt most unlike their previous missions. Ever since they’d arrived in Edinburgh he’d felt a sense of mystery in the air, a sensation of something ancient bearing down on them that wasn’t just the perpetual, lofty castle. Could it be more than the weight of history?

‘This is it,’ Sally said.

Mason stopped on the narrow pavement. His back to a nearby house, he looked across the road and saw a brown double door between two dirty pillars. A lintel ran along the top of the door bearing the words ‘The Lodge of Edinburgh’ and, below that, ‘(Mary’s Chapel No.1)’. The door looked old, the blockwork dusted with soot and pitted. The entrance fitted in well with the ones that stood to each side and, indeed all along the row, the double pillars barely standing out. The façade consisted of four storeys. Sally motioned to a six-pointed masonic symbol between the upper two windows. An ornament hanging beside the first-floor window was also adorned with subtle masonic symbology.

‘There’s even a doorbell.’ Roxy nodded at a fitting to the right of the door. ‘Shall we press it?’

‘We’re just tourists,’ Sally said quietly. ‘Just tourists.’

Mason looked further along the street. ‘There’s no entry this side,’ he said. ‘It’s too public.’

‘A dead end,’ Roxy grumbled. ‘As we feared.’

‘Shall we see if there’s a way around the back?’ Mason ventured.

‘My thoughts exactly.’ Hassell was already moving.

They traversed the road a little further, passing people left and right, feeling hemmed in by the narrow thoroughfare and its tall buildings, eventually reaching an unremarkable little side street that cut between the houses. Hassell whistled his appreciation.

‘Follow me.’

They walked down the road between double yellow lines and then turned left at a gym, reversing their journey, now parallel to Hill Street. The backs of all the buildings were just as forbidding as the

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