The Book of Secrets

by Tom Harper

  ‘Was she working on anything to do with the playing cards?’ he prompted. ‘Anything for sale or auction?’

  ‘I’m not aware of any new works by the Meister der Spielkarten to have appeared in the last hundred years. They certainly haven’t come through our door.’

  Another pause. The waves crashed and rolled down the line.

  ‘I really must go and look after our customers. But thank you very much for your call. Do get in touch if you find out anything else. We’re all very worried for Gillian.’

  It was only when he hung up that Nick realised he hadn’t got the man’s name. He swore and thought about calling back, but he had a feeling he wouldn’t get an answer. Outside, darkness had already brought a premature end to the short January day. He’d finish his coffee and go home.

  Lying on the table, his cellphone suddenly glowed blue and let off a series of outraged beeps. ‘Seven missed calls, one new voicemail,’ the screen announced. He checked the numbers. All the calls had come from his apartment.

  He ignored the voicemail and rang Bret. He picked up on the first ring.

  ‘Nick? Is that you?’ He sounded breathless, close to tears. ‘You need to get back here. It’s Gillian.’

  Nick forced himself to be calm. ‘Did she call? Is she OK?’

  ‘Um, Gillian called, yeah. Listen, you need to get back here pronto.’

  ‘Did you speak to her? What did she say? Is she in trouble?’

  ‘Trouble? Yeah I’d say she’s in fucking trouble. It’s – listen, you can’t even-’ He broke off with what sounded like a sob. A second later: ‘Sorry. Just get back here now OK? And buzz me when you arrive.’

  It took Nick twenty-five minutes. On a wet Friday night in the city there wasn’t a cab to be found: he ran almost the whole way. By the time he arrived outside the apartment building his wool coat was soaked through. He bounded up the stairs into the lobby, past the steel mailboxes and dimly lit buzzers.

  Buzz me when you arrive.

  But why buzz when he had his keys?

  Nothing made sense, hadn’t since Gillian’s message arrived. Maybe if he stopped to think about it… But he couldn’t stop, didn’t want to think about it. He wanted answers. Everything else could wait. He punched the elevator button, then decided the stairs would be faster. He took them two at a time, past the startled faces of familiar, anonymous neighbours. He reached the third floor and pushed through the fire door.

  The corridor was dark. He punched the switch on the wall. The low-energy bulb jumped into life with a buzz.

  Buzz me when you arrive.

  Why did Bret sound so panicked? What had Gillian said to him? What would he care? So far as Nick could tell, Gillian had never been any more to Bret than a redhead with nice tits.

  Help me theyre coming.

  And in the twenty-first century there was more than one way to buzz someone.

  Afterwards, he couldn’t say why he did it – only that his world had gotten so strange that even the weirdest things seemed normal. Nick pulled the laptop out of his bag and flipped it open on the floor. This close to the apartment, it had no trouble connecting to his wireless router. He clicked an icon on the taskbar. A new program filled the screen.

  Welcome to Buzz

  Call Message Video File Transfer

  His contacts were listed underneath, Gillian still perched at the top.

  Last seen: 06 January 07:48:26

  No change. Nick scrolled down until he found Bret.

  Last seen: Online Now

  Feeling ridiculous kneeling on the linoleum floor almost outside his own front door, Nick clicked the VIDEO button.

  A hazy image of his apartment appeared on screen. Bret’s face filled the foreground, slumped back in his chair. His eyes were open as if he was trying to scream, though no sound came through the duct tape plastered over his mouth. Blood dribbled from a gash in his temple. Over his shoulder, in the middle of the room, Nick could see a man in a leather jacket and black balaclava waiting opposite the door. He swung his arms, shifting his weight impatiently. A long-barrelled pistol flashed in his hand.

  Help me theyre coming.

  Whoever they were, they’d come.

  VIII

  Cologne, 1420

  ‘Is everything satisfactory?’

  I sat at the workbench and tried to concentrate on the sheet of paper laid in front of me. I wanted to impress my new master with my diligence, but everywhere my surroundings seduced my attention away. It was as though all the dreams of my imagination had exploded into this one room. Tools beyond number hung from nails on the walls: burins and polishers, scrapers and chisels, and many whose names I did not know but would learn. One whole beam was given over to a set of hammers, ranging in size from a sturdy mallet to a gem hammer so small it could have beaten angel hair. A rack on the opposite wall held more treasures: glass and silver beads dangling on long strings, fragments of crystal and lead, vials of antimony and quicksilver for alloying the gold, pink coral that forked like antlers, long iron fingers loaded with rings. In a lattice-fronted cabinet by the window, gold cups and plates awaited their owners. Even the scorch marks on the table by my elbow seemed to speak of wonders. Outside the shopfront, across the square, buttresses and scaffolding rose around the unfinished cathedral.

  Konrad Schmidt, master goldsmith and now also my master, sighed to draw my attention back.

  ‘For seven years I undertake to school you in the ways, crafts and mysteries of the goldsmith’s guild. You will live under my roof, eat with my family, and do all the work I command you in accordance with the laws of the guild. I will not demand anything below your dignity as an apprentice. You will draw water for quenching iron but not for drinking; you will fetch wood for the forge but not for my wife’s oven. In return, you will pay me ten gulden now, and another gulden each three months for your food and lodgings. You will conduct yourself as befits a member of this noble guild. You will not divulge the secrets of our craft to any man. You will not steal from my shop or my family. You will moderate your appetites and bring no shame on my household. You will not commit any immoral or heinous act under my roof, nor insult my family. Is this satisfactory?’

  I snatched the reed pen from the inkpot and scrawled my name large across the bottom of the page. Flush with the desire to impress my new master with my learning, I signed in Latin. Johannes de Maguntia – Johann of Mainz. Henchen Gensfleisch, the boy I had been, was gone, abandoned on the wharf at Mainz six days earlier.

  Konrad Schmidt was not a man susceptible to enthusiasm. He took the paper, sanded the wet ink and left it to dry.

  I took a moment to examine the man who now owned my future. He was about fifty, his eyes dark and deep, his cheeks hollowed out by age. He wore a high-necked wine-coloured gown with a fur-trimmed jerkin over it, and a fat ring on his left hand which was rich but not gaudy. Grey curls poked out from under the velvet cap he wore; sobriety seemed written on every line of his face. When he smiled, which was rarely, it only made him seem sad.

  And what did he have in return? I saw myself over his shoulder in a silver mirror on the wall. Surely I was the model of a young apprentice. I wore the fresh white shirt I had bought in Mainz and kept wrapped for a week while the barge brought me downriver. My hair was brushed and trimmed under my cloth cap, my skin scrubbed in the bathhouse, my cheeks freshly shaved. All my belongings were gathered in a sack by my feet. From the moment I had set foot on the dock at Cologne and seen the cathedral on its hill like a blade of glass, I had felt free, beyond my father’s reach at last and released from the suffocation of my family. This, I knew, was where I would make my mark.

  Schmidt saw me staring but did not comment. ‘I will show you the rest of the house.’

  I picked up my sack and followed. A door at the back led into a small yard which contained a privy, a storeroom, a woodshed and a large furnace set against the back wall. A man in a leather apron worked a pair of wheezing bellows by the furnace. He turned as he heard us
approach.

  ‘This is Gerhard,’ said Schmidt. ‘He finished his apprenticeship this past summer. Now he works here as a journeyman.’

  I disliked him at once. His big hands looked far too clumsy to have created any of the delicate pieces in the shop. His face was fat and red, sweaty from the forge, with puffy skin around his narrow eyes. He reminded me of my father, though he could not have been more than five years my senior. He nodded at me and grunted, then turned back to his task.

  ‘Gerhard will supervise you while I tend the shop.’

  My shining mood dimmed. Konrad Schmidt was everything I had expected from my master: solemn, authoritative, easy to obey. Gerhard, I knew instantly, was an oaf who would teach me nothing. It was with a sullen face that I followed Schmidt up the wooden staircase on the outside of the house to the next storey.

  ‘This is where my wife and I live.’

  This level was divided into two rooms, a hall and a bedchamber. Green hangings covered the stone walls, and three dark chests lined the edges of the room. Sitting on one of them, next to a cradle, a fair-haired woman in an unlaced dress suckled an infant.

  ‘My wife,’ said Schmidt gruffly. Just before he pulled me back to the staircase I saw her shoot me a welcoming smile. She must have been closer in age to me than to her husband, and time had been kind to her figure. I understood now why Schmidt had put such emphasis on my moral obligations.

  ‘Do you have other children?’ I asked as we climbed to the attic chamber. We were high up now: rooftops, chimneys and spires stretched away all around us. Down in the courtyard, even Gerhard looked small.

  ‘A daughter, apprenticed to a weaver, and a son. You will meet him soon enough. The guild has just approved his enrolment as my apprentice. You will share the room.’

  We reached the platform at the top of the stairs and ducked into the attic. A window in the gable admitted a cool autumn light. Otherwise the room was bare save for a lamp, a chest and a single bed.

  ‘This is where you and Pieter sleep.’

  I crossed to the window and looked out. Directly opposite rose the half-built cathedral – the needle-thin chapel the only part rising to its full height. The city stretched away from it in a broad crescent, mirroring the bend in the river which ribboned away to the south, back to Mainz. The view reassured me. Perhaps Gerhard’s tutelage would not be such an ordeal.

  The door banged open and I turned, thinking the wind had blown it in. A youth, not much more than a boy, stood on the stair outside and peered in curiously. He had soft white skin, unmarked by any line or flaw, and a cap of golden curls. For a moment I thought he must be an angel. Then I saw the resemblance with Konrad. They were as alike as two clay vessels moulded by the same potter’s hand, one fired and cracked, the other moist and smooth, untouched by the kiln. He smiled at me.

  Schmidt made a gesture between us. ‘This is my son, Pieter.’

  That moment, I felt the demon enter my soul.

  IX

  New York City

  Bret’s eyes opened wider – at least he was alive. He stared out of the laptop window and jerked his head back over his shoulder. The gunman’s gaze was fixed on the door; he hadn’t noticed Nick’s face on Bret’s screen.

  Nick’s mind spun; he wanted to vomit. What was this?

  A door banged open behind him. ‘Nick? What are you doing?’

  Nick turned. It was Max, his neighbour from across the hall, an eight-year-old latchkey kid whose mother worked all hours at some big legal firm. Nick had helped him with his homework a couple of times. He was peering out his apartment door, sucking on a soda and looking down curiously at Nick. ‘Did Bret lock you out again?’

  ‘I-’

  Nick heard the gunshots through the wall. A split second later the noise repeated through the speakers, a digital echo almost louder than the original. By then, Bret was dead. His body convulsed under the impact of the bullets, jerky and unnatural, as if the enormity was too much for the camera’s connection. The man in the room was staring at the monitor, watching Nick on screen. For a moment their eyes met, artificially opposed in virtual space. Then the gunman moved for the door.

  Max screamed and slammed his door shut. Nick picked up the laptop and ran. Sick with shock and adrenalin, he burst into the stairwell. Up or down? Downstairs was the street, people, safety – would the gunman expect that? Was there someone else waiting for him there? If he went up, would he be trapped?

  The door to his apartment opened and he decided. Down. Slipping and sliding, hanging on to the rail for dear life as he corkscrewed around. He passed the door to the second-floor corridor and kicked it open, hoping to confuse his pursuer. But he was the only person on the stairs: his footsteps must have clattered all the way up to the roof. There was no way the gunman could mistake it.

  Nick skidded to a stop at the bottom of the stairs. The lobby was empty, but through the glass doors that led onto the street he saw movement. A man was loitering outside, keeping just out of range of the light over the door. He had a black coat draped over his right arm, covering the hand and whatever it held.

  It could have been anyone: someone waiting for his date, a smoker getting a fix, a driver making a pickup. Nick didn’t want to find out. An animal instinct seemed to have taken over. Everything else – the horror, the confusion, the terror – had been locked down. Footsteps were pounding down the stairs.

  Nick threw himself into the waiting elevator. His thumb hammered on the button; the footsteps were almost on top of him.

  The doors slid together with a grumble. In the narrowing crack, Nick saw the gunman race into the lobby. He’d pulled off his balaclava, revealing a closely shaved head and a row of gold studs gleaming from one ear. His head turned; their eyes met. Then the doors shut and the elevator began to rise.

  He was heading for the top floor. Instinct had made the decision again, the basic desire to go as far as possible from danger. But how far was that? All the corridors were dead ends. There was a door onto the roof – he’d taken Gillian up there in the summer to stargaze, though all they’d seen was the navigation lights of planes dipping into La Guardia. But where then?

  The elevator stopped. From below, Nick could hear footsteps clattering up the stairwell once more. He turned down a short corridor that ended in a door with a green FIRE

  EXIT sign nailed to it. Nick slammed straight into the metal bar and barged it open. He stumbled out onto the roof.

  An angry, high-pitched whine erupted behind him, the building itself protesting against his trespass. The fire alarm. When he’d come up with Gillian, they’d used a credit card and a roll of tape to disarm it. Now it was in full roar, filling the cold night with its siren. Good. Help would come, the fire brigade or the police.

  But until then…

  Raindrops spat against his face. A shiver of despair knifed through his body. He had come out onto a small square of Astroturf that some optimist had once laid to impersonate a lawn. All around him were the water tanks, heating vents and satellite dishes that crusted the roof. Plenty of cover – but nowhere to hide for long.

  The fire alarm hammered against his ears. He couldn’t even hear if the killer was coming up the stairs. He stood there on the soggy fake grass, stiff with indecision. All his life had been based on reason: methodical, boring, safe. Now he had nothing. No framework. No time to think. Whatever instinct had driven him up there was spent. He had nowhere to go.

  Strangely, in that moment of emptiness he didn’t think of Gillian, or his parents, or his sister. He thought of Bret, lying dead in an easy chair four floors below him. Bret who had told thousands of men how to go all night without ever, to Nick’s knowledge, bringing a girl back to the apartment. Bret who had bid for countless auction items he had no intention of buying. Bret who had sat with a gun held to his head and still managed to warn Nick. Buzz me.

  Nick ran across the wet roof and threw himself down behind an air-conditioning unit. Puddled water soaked into his shirt. At least his coa
t was black. He peered around the corner, between the struts supporting a water tank.

  For a moment he thought his pursuer might have given up. In the pink half-light that passed for night he saw the stairwell door swaying loose in the wind. The fire alarm wailed. The damp shirt pressed against his chest like a heart attack.

  Then Nick saw him, crouched in the doorway as he scanned the cluttered rooftop. The pistol swept over Nick’s hiding place and carried on around. He was a short, heavyset man and looked out of breath. It was the first time Nick had supposed he might be anything less than superhuman.

  Almost because he knew it was expected of him, Nick felt a powerful, suicidal need to run. He fought it back. They couldn’t stay like this for ever. Even in New York someone must have heard the shots, called the police.

  The gunman knew it too. He edged away from the door, tracking the pistol in sharp sweeps across the rooftop, silent under the shriek of the alarm.

  Then, as suddenly as it had started, the alarm cut out. A desolate silence filled Nick’s ears. Even the gunman was caught off guard. He paused, glancing around uncertainly.

  Nick reached inside his coat pocket and felt his keys, cold and wet. He balled them in his fist and pulled them out. The background roar of the city at night was beginning to filter back over the ringing in his ears, but he didn’t dare risk being heard. Across the rooftop, the gunman was still edging closer.

  Nick reached out. His arm was frozen and weighted down by the sodden coat. He had it to do it. Throw the keys, distract the killer, tackle him and get the gun out of his hand. If he just came one step closer…

  Nick was trembling. He’d never done anything like this in his life.

  The gunman took a half-step nearer and turned. Nick tensed his arm for the throw – but now the killer was looking straight at him. If Nick moved he’d be dead before the keys left his hand. Even if he didn’t move… He held his breath, feeling the pressure build in his lungs, pushing against his chest and throat. All he wanted to do was scream.