by Tom Harper
‘Nick Ash. I work in digital forensic reconstruction.’
Like most people, Royce looked blank. ‘What’s that?’
‘It’s trying to piece together documents that have been torn or shredded beyond recognition. I work on systems that scan the pieces and then digitally reconstruct them using algorithms. The idea is they might be used as evidence.’
‘Do you do that for us?’
‘For the federal government – the FBI, other agencies.’ Again, it sounded good when he wanted to impress someone. For Royce, it was just another opening.
‘Do you have access to classified documents?’
Nick shook his head. ‘It’s still a research programme. The technology’s unproven.’
Royce lost interest. ‘Let’s get to last night. First of all, please describe your relationship with the deceased.’
Nick told them everything he could, starting from when they’d moved in to the apartment. The message from Gillian, the panicked call from Bret, his decision to check on the webcam and what he’d seen. His pulse rose as he described the chase up the stairs, the panicked moments on the rooftop when he thought he’d die.
Royce listened to it all folded up on his chair like a bat. Unlike the night before, there were no interruptions. If anything, Nick found the silence more unsettling. No noise penetrated the room; all he could hear was his own voice and the whine of the video camera.
He finished and looked up. Royce seemed to be examining some blemish on the corner of the table.
‘That’s quite a story.’
What did that mean?
‘Would you say you were close to your room-mate?’
‘We’re – we were – very different people. We got on OK.’
‘The lab had a look at the PC we recovered from your apartment. Couldn’t find much because apparently half your hard drive’s encrypted.’
‘I told you; I work under contract to the FBI.’
‘While your friend’s machine,’ Royce continued, ‘that really opened our eyes. Would it surprise you to hear he had a significant number of indecent images – really, a lot – stored on his computer?’
Nick was too tired to pretend. ‘Bret liked looking at porn. He’s not the first guy to do that and it’s not against the law.’
‘Did he ever share his stash with you?’
It was so hard to get a handle on Royce. One minute he was aloof, a prick with a badge – the next he was trying to be your big brother.
‘I had a girlfriend.’
Royce looked unimpressed. ‘Did you see what he was looking at?’
‘Tried not to.’
Royce leaned closer. ‘Why? Was it really bad?’
‘No. Just…’
‘Did Bret ever talk about it?’
He never shut up. ‘Sometimes, I guess.’
‘Did you ever hear him mention underage girls?’
That took Nick by surprise. He did his best to let his shock show while his mind raced. There were no black-and-white answers where Bret was concerned, only sludgy shades of grey. But even he had limits.
‘Bret would never have done anything illegal.’
‘You admitted yourself he was a drug abuser. If he was still alive we could have gotten him for possession with intent, with all the pot we found in your apartment.’
‘What are you-’
Royce pushed back his chair, almost knocking over the video camera. He spread his arms and leaned over the table. The flaps of his suit jacket stretched behind him like wings. ‘Bret’s death wasn’t an accident. Someone tied him to that chair and killed him because they wanted him dead. At this stage in our investigation we don’t need to look too fucking far to find a motive.’
Nick said nothing. Royce was trying to pen him in, confirm his prejudices.
‘I don’t think you’re right,’ he said at last. ‘I told you what happened. The killer must have broken into the apartment and tied Bret up. Then they got him to call me to get me home. He only killed Bret when he realised I’d seen him on the webcam.’
‘Did you do that often? Spy on Bret?’
It was like talking to a ten-year-old. They heard what you said but took a completely different meaning.
‘I never spied on Bret. He told me to Buzz him.’
‘Excuse me?’ Royce sounded perplexed, though his expression said he knew exactly what Nick was going to say.
‘Buzz is a communications interface – software. It’s sort of instant messaging, Internet video and voice calling all in the same package.’
‘Sounds great.’ Royce switched again. ‘We’d like you to unencrypt the contents of your computer.’
‘I can’t do that. My contract with the FBI-’
‘Forget it. We can get a warrant, but it’ll look better if you cooperate.’
Nick stared at him. ‘Look better to who? I came down here to answer your questions. Am I under arrest?’
‘No.’ Royce pulled back. ‘You’re just giving us a statement. Everything’s cool.’ He glanced at the video camera. Had he slipped up? Nick began to wish he’d brought a lawyer with him.
‘Look at it from my point of view,’ Royce said, more reasonable now. ‘We’ve got the gun that killed Bret and it’s got your fingerprints all over it. We’re still waiting on the samples from your hands for gunpowder traces.’
Gunpowder traces? Did they think he’d fired the gun? Could it have got on his hands when he picked it up?
‘We’ve got witnesses who place you at the scene of the crime-’
‘Of course I was at the scene of the crime.’ Nick was almost shouting. ‘It’s where I fucking live.’
‘And you’re giving me this – frankly – incredible story about some masked guy who chased you onto the roof with a gun, then changed his mind and vanished into the night. Leaving the gun behind for you.’ Royce rested his hands on the back of the chair and leaned forward. ‘I want to believe you, Nick. Really, I do. But you’re not making it easy for me.’
Nick’s mind raced, trying to think of something that would exonerate him.
‘Max.’
‘What?’
‘Max. The kid across the hall. He was talking to me when Bret got shot. He’ll tell you I had nothing to do with it.’
For the first time that morning, Royce looked uncertain. He excused himself and left the room. When he came back, he slumped into the chair.
‘We haven’t interviewed the kid yet. His mom says he’s in shock, won’t let us near him.’
That sounded right. Max’s mother was a force-five hurricane of a woman who made up for never seeing her son by being ferociously protective of him. If he tripped on his shoelaces she’d probably have sued the sneaker manufacturer.
‘Did the kid see the gunman?’
‘I don’t know. It all happened so fast.’ Nick cleared his throat. His mouth was dry as bone. ‘I’d like to go now. Can I do that?’
XIV
Upper Rhine, 1432
The traveller walked his horse to the bluff and looked out over the valley. What did he see? The river below him, of course, quickening as it squeezed around the promontory, then easing out again into a smooth ribbon between the wooded hills. Fish basked in the shallows near the bank, flitting among the weeds that writhed like smoke in the water. Dragonflies hummed over the surface, and golden sunlight warmed the sandy bottom.
Just behind the promontory, the river lapped into a shallow bay where a tributary joined it, young and lithe in comparison to the stately Rhine. Looking down, the traveller would have seen a clearing near where the lesser river flowed out, and – if the sun was not in his eyes – a crude hut made of branches and mud. In front of it, where the shore sloped down, a table with two of its legs sawn off tilted steeply towards the water. Planks had been nailed across it in a series of ridges, like steps. The whole structure glistened with wet mud. Beside it, a hollowed-out tree trunk formed a crude trough.
The traveller twitched the bridle and guided his mount
back into the trees. The path was steep, but not treacherous. Dappled sunlight brushed the forest floor; the woods hummed with the buzz of bees and insects, gradually giving way to the rush of flowing water. Soon enough, he arrived at the bank of the tributary river. It looked deeper than he had thought. He slid down from the saddle, looped the bridle around a branch and strode out into the water a few paces to check the ford.
The strong current tugged at his legs as he tried to balance on the slippery stones underfoot. Downstream, a forlorn pile of boulders marked the remains of an attempt to make a breakwater. The river had broken through, and the stones meant to stem the flow now urged it on, drawing it through the gap. Still, the traveller thought, his horse should manage it.
As he turned to go back, a beam of sunlight flashed through the trees and struck his eyes. He threw up a hand to block it, but that unbalanced him; he lunged to keep his footing, but the rock that held his weight betrayed him and toppled over. With a splash, he pitched headlong into the river.
The current seized him immediately, propelling him forward towards the channel in the broken dam. He lashed out, but the river was too strong. It spun him around like a twig. He felt himself sucked under, swallowed a mouthful of water and rose gasping to the surface. Then his head dashed against a boulder and the world went dark.
Out in the bay where the two rivers joined, a dark speck broke the silver sheen on the water. An observer from the bluffs above would have taken it for nothing, a ripple or perhaps the shadow of a hovering hawk. Closer to, however, the shadow resolved itself into something like a man. He was a wild sight. His hair reached down to his shoulders, his beard almost to his chest: both were matted with so much grime you could hardly tell the colour. He stood waist deep in the water, swaying easily in the current, his feet planted in the ooze where eels and weeds twined themselves around his legs. He scooped mud from the riverbed into a cracked wooden bucket. When the bucket was mostly full, he half-carried, half-floated it back to the shore and clambered out.
He was naked. Mud caked his chest, his arms and his face like a potter’s effigy, cracked in the sun; below the waist his skin was washed clean and white by the river. He hauled the bucket up to the slanting table and tipped it out. Mud slithered down the ladder, slopping over the rungs and leaving a residue of white clay clinging to the boards. The man scooped it off and deposited it in the trough, which he then filled with water from his bucket and stirred with his hand. White clouds billowed and swirled in the water, but where sunlight touched the bottom, through the whorls and eddies, he caught the unmistakable sparkle of gold.
Something at the mouth of the river caught his eye. At first he thought it was a log, then perhaps a dead fox, or even a sheep swept down from a distant pasture. Only when it was almost past him did he recognise it for what it was.
He hesitated a moment, but only because he was not used to urgency. Then he ran into the bay, kicked off from the bottom and dived forward. He was a strong swimmer: a dozen strokes took him to the body. He grabbed a fistful of the man’s sodden shirt and pulled him back. The current was stronger here, hurrying him towards the open river; he let his legs sink but could not touch the bottom. The drowning man jerked under his touch, flailing and choking. He might have killed them both in his frenzy to live. Kicking furiously to stay afloat, the mudlark wrestled him down. He hooked one arm over his shoulder, another around his waist, and hauled them both back to the shore. When he had dragged his prize up onto the bank he pulled him into a sitting position, took his hands and bent him double, pumping the water out of him like a bladder.
The man-who-had-not-drowned spat, groaned, retched, then rolled over and lay heaving on the leafy ground. The mudlark left him to dry in the sun. He brought bread and honey and left them a little distance from his guest. He blew life into the fire that smouldered by his hut and warmed some milk in a bowl. By the time he returned to his guest, the food was gone and the man was sitting propped against a log. He squinted up at his saviour.
‘Thank you.’ He made an appreciative gesture with his hands. ‘If not for you…’ He trailed off.
‘What is your name?’ said the mudlark. He spoke slowly, unused to speech, his tongue searching his mouth for the sounds.
The guest smiled. ‘Aeneas.’
The name was like a stick poked into the past. Memories bubbled up through the mud: sunlight pouring through a schoolroom window, a monk in a grey cowl, an ancient book of stories.
‘Multum ille et terris iactatus et alto.’ A man tossed about on land and sea.
Aeneas sat up in surprise. He studied the mudlark, then laughed curiously. ‘What a strange fellow you are. You haunt the woods like a faun or a wild man; you swim like a mermaid and rescue travellers from their doom; and then you quote Virgil at me. Tell me, what is your name?’
The mudlark looked confused – frightened, almost. There had been so many names over the years: names called in anger, in derision, in ignorance and fear. Names given, never owned. But before them all there was:
‘Johann,’ I said.
Aeneas stayed that night in my hut. He was remarkably cheerful for a man who had almost died. By mid-afternoon he was able to stand with the aid of a staff I cut him from a willow. By dusk he had accompanied me back to the path to fetch his horse, and when night fell he built up the fire and shared the bottle of wine he had in his saddlebag. He also gave me a mirror, a silvered piece of glass set in a cast-iron frame.
‘It came from Aachen,’ he told me. ‘It has absorbed the holy radiance of the relics in the cathedral there. Take it. Perhaps some day it will bring you a blessing, as you have saved me.’
Aeneas loved to talk and delighted in company. Words poured out of him like a spring, overflowing with energy. He was particularly curious about me, though I avoided his questions. When he asked where I came from I simply pointed down the river; when he tried to discover how I had ended up dredging my miserable living from the Rhine mud, I threw another log on the fire and said nothing. Much had happened in the last ten years, but only in the way that a man falling down a well may strike the walls many times. Though each blow agonises at the time, all he remembers afterwards is hitting the bottom.
So Aeneas told me about himself. He was five years younger than me, though any observer would have looked at my face and guessed twenty. He had been born in Italy in a village near Siena; his father was a farmer of little standing, and Aeneas had rejected the fields in favour of the university.
He leaned forward so that his face shone in the firelight. ‘Did you ever feel that God made you for a purpose? I did. I knew I was destined for higher things than my father’s pastures. I studied everything I could. When the plague drove the scholars out of Siena, they could not carry all their books. I bought them for a pittance, taught myself everything they had to teach, then sold them back for five times what I had paid when the plague was over. Truly, there is nothing so profitable as knowledge.’ He chuckled at his own joke, then thought for a second. ‘Or perhaps, “Nothing profits a man like learning”? Which way sounds better?’
I shrugged. I could not help but wince at the comparison: the patrician’s heir rooting in the riverbed like a pig, and the farmer’s boy who had made more of himself. But he had not reached that part of the story.
‘At first I meant to become a doctor, or perhaps a lawyer. I have always been good with words.’ He was utterly immodest, but so sincere it did not seem boastful. ‘I tried many things – none seemed right. Then, a year ago, a man passed through our village. A cardinal, on his way to Basle.’
He squinted at me, clearly expecting some reaction or recognition.
‘You are aware there is currently a great council being held in Basle to address the wrongs of the Church?’
If I had ever known it, I had forgotten. ‘I took service with the cardinal and accompanied him.’
‘But you are not a priest?’ I asked. He did not seem like one. The first thing he had done after rescuing his horse was delve in
to the saddlebag for a clean shirt and hose. Even drowning in the river he had somehow managed to keep on his soft leather boots, their tops fashionably turned over to show off both their green silk lining and his calves.
He laughed. ‘Whatever God intends for me, I do not think it is holy orders. I am too much in love with the world. No – I interrupted myself. I joined this cardinal as a secretary, and he brought me to Basle. I soon found out that his riches were stored up in heaven – he did not have the money to pay me. I left his service, but I found another.’ He winked at me. ‘It was not hard. There is so much work to be done in the council that any man who can write his name is guaranteed employment.’
He rested his hand on his chin and stared into the fire, a caricature of thought.
‘You should come with me.’
Of course I resisted. But Aeneas had been right – he was clever with words. He argued with me through the night, until the fire burned low and the birds sang. He would not be refused.
The next morning, I left my hut behind and set out for Basle.
XV
New York City
A stiff wind hit Nick’s face as he walked out of the elevator onto the roof terrace. A memory of the night before seized his mind: water tanks and fake grass and the terror he would die. This was very different: bone-white paving slabs and a glass-boxed café, now shuttered for the winter; a huge spider sculpted from twisted iron, taller than he was. Beyond the box-hedge balustrade stretched the lifeless trees of Central Park, a dead forest. He could just see the reservoir through the branches. It reminded him of a poem from school:
The sedge has wither’d from the lake,
And no birds sing.
He found Emily Sutherland sitting on a steel bench, waiting for him. There was something anachronistic about her – not like the medieval studies majors he’d known at college, with their pre-Raphaelite curls and flowery dresses, but the formal elegance of the mid-twentieth century. She wore a fitted black skirt that ended just above her knee with a high-collared red coat. Her glossy black hair was tied back with a red ribbon, her hands folded demurely in her lap. She looked lost.
