by Bill Napier
How the hell did she know that? Cautiously: 'Perhaps.'
'And Tebbit has told you nothing about the contents?'
'Who am I speaking to, please?' I asked.
'You may call me Cassandra. I have information about the item which I'd like to share with you.'
There was another outburst of female laughter in the pub. I put my hand over an ear. 'I'm listening.'
'We should meet, but we can't be seen speaking together, Mr Blake. Do you know the prayer room in the cathedral?'
'You mean the Langland Chantry?'
The line went dead.
The night air was cold after the warmth of the pub. I trudged up Steep Hill, my mind buzzing with possibilities, none of them sensible. The cathedral was still open. I nodded to the lady at the collection box. There were a few late evening tourists, sparsely scattered around the huge, mind-emptying interior. I made my way towards the far end, past the big transept, before turning right into a small stone room with a heavy door and bars on its window. A notice said: HERE IS A PLACE TO BE QUIET WITH GOD. Another said: SILENCE PLEASE.
The centre of the room was taken up with a small table on which candles were burning. A wall was taken up with a plain wooden cross, another with tall, narrow stained-glass windows. There were hard wooden chairs against the walls, and there was a gargoyle, mother with child, with squat faces like Easter Island statues. The room was empty.
I waited. After about ten minutes the room began to feel vaguely oppressive; maybe it was the silence, maybe it was the overbearing presence of the iconry. I turned to leave and was startled to see a woman standing silently at the door, watching me.
She had short black hair and a hooked nose and dark eyes, and she may have been Greek, Italian, or even Turkish. She was dressed in a business suit, and she wasn't a local. Her dark eyes looked directly into mine. 'Mr Blake?'
'Yes. And you are?'
'I'll come to the point, Mr Blake. I'd like to buy it.'
I shook my head, mystified and uneasy. 'You'll have to discuss that with Sir Toby. By the way,' - I lowered my voice in the empty cathedral - 'how do you know he had the journal? That information is confidential.'
She waved a hand dismissively. 'Unfortunately Tebbit is in London and I need to acquire the document quickly.'
I asked her, 'It's cold here. Can we talk about this someplace warm? Over a glass of wine, maybe?'
She shook her head impatiently.
I shrugged. 'I'm sorry, I can't help you.'
'I'm authorised to offer you twenty thousand pounds for it.'
In Sir Toby's study I'd mentally bracketed the journal somewhere between one and three thousand dollars. For a moment I wondered if the woman was some sort of lunatic. There was something not right about her; whether it was her body language, or the direct way she had approached me, or the slight air of fanaticism which she seemed to exude, I couldn't say. 'I'd like to help, but it's not mine to sell.'
Again that impatient shake of the head. 'I have no time for horse-trading. We need the journal immediately. Let me go to my limit, which is fifty thousand pounds. You can have that by tomorrow morning, in cash if you like.'
Fifty thousand! I began to feel a sense of unreality, as if I was watching a scene in a movie. The woman was peering at me, trying to read my mind. 'I'm sorry, but if it's not mine to sell, how can I sell it?'
'That is a conundrum.' She nodded thoughtfully, running a finger absentmindedly up and down her neck. Then, 'Is a hundred thousand pounds the answer?'
I think I must have gone pale. Certainly I felt my mouth going dry. The woman was deadly serious; I could see it in the tense downturn of her wide mouth and her steady, disconcerting stare. If twenty thousand was silly money, a hundred thousand was scary. It would also clear my overdraft, car loan and credit cards, and make a big dent in the mortgage on the flat. I actually hesitated for a moment. But then I was saying, 'I'm sorry, but there's no further point in this conversation. Why don't you just find out where Tebbit is and ask him to phone through his authorisation to sell?'
'The fact is, the journal is not Tebbit's to sell. It belongs to the people I represent.' She paused. 'And you have no right to be holding it.'
The tone of menace came with a touch so light that I wondered if I had imagined it. I asked, 'The people you represent?'
Curtly: 'Don't concern yourself with that.'
'I don't understand. If the journal is yours, why are you trying to buy it? Why not just prove ownership? Go through the courts if you have to.'
She shook her head. 'It would create . ..' - she struggled for the right word - 'complications.'
'As would my selling it to you without Sir Toby's permission. Look, he'll be back on Sunday. Why don't you speak to him then?'
'You must not return this article to Tebbit. But I see we will have to find other ways to persuade you.' She gave me a smile of undiluted malice, and said, 'We'll meet again, Mr Blake.'
'I look forward to it.'
The smile intensified, and then her high heels were clattering along the stone slabs of the nave.
I gave myself five minutes, feeling a bit shaky. There was a light drizzle outside, and a little cluster of merry revellers around a hot dog stall: I recognised the office party from the Crown and Martyr. I took the road round the side of the cathedral and turned off towards my flat, at the end of a cul-de-sac shared by half a dozen upmarket houses. The lane was deserted.
Feeling exposed in the street lights, I turned into the gravelled courtyard, fumbling for my keys and expecting heavies to jump out of the bushes. Cursing my overactive imagination, I inserted the Chubb key and turned it. Then the Yale, the wrong one, of course. Trying again, with an unsteady hand; finally I got it right and the door opened. I groped in the dark for the light switch. The hallway was empty; through to the living room: empty. Of course. I padded through to the bedroom, resisting the ridiculous temptation to look under my bed. Then I went round the flat checking doors and windows. Back in the hallway I hung up my jacket and kicked off my shoes, grinning and sighing with relief and mentally calling myself an idiot.
I was in the kitchen, rustling up a tomato sandwich and still grinning at my own silliness, when I spotted the rainwater on the windowsill. Just a few drops.
This time, when I went through the flat again, breadknife in hand, I opened wardrobes and looked under the bed. Finally I opened the safe, a feeling of dread washing over me. But the Model G400 Guardsman with key, keypad and fire-resistant lining was undisturbed, and I went weak with relief.
I threw my clothes off and ate the sandwich in bed, flicking through the journal pages but unable to make any sense of it. Finally I put it back in the safe and switched the light off. Things were swirling round in my head but I could make no sense of them either. I listened for sounds, but heard only the steady patter of rain on the roofs of cars and an occasional shudder from the refrigerator. From time to time I peered into dark corners of my room.
As I dozed off I thought that, if it hadn't been for the rainwater on the kitchen windowsill, I'd never have known someone had been through the flat.
In the event I didn't sleep much. Partly it was the foetal comfort of lying in bed and listening to rain battering off the window pane. Partly it was the mystery of the journal; a journal which Sir Toby had known nothing about from a relative he didn't know he had, but which was sending him into a state of mild paranoia. Mainly, though, it was the dark shadows in my room, and a vague foreboding of trouble to come.
CHAPTER 4
Round about eight in the morning I rustled up scrambled eggs, and while I watched low, black clouds sweeping in over the fields behind the flat, I made a telephone call.
'Sir Toby?'
'Yes?'
'Harry Blake here.'
A hesitation, then, 'Blake. How the hell did you find me?'
'Your daughter tells me you usually stay at the Cavendish. There's a problem. Someone's trying to get hold of the manuscript.'
'Wh
at?' Surprise and consternation came down the line.
'I was offered a lot of money for it, in fact a ridiculous sum. I referred them to you but they thought you wouldn't be interested. The woman concerned also claimed rightful ownership.'
A slight hesitation. Then, 'That's nonsense.'
'And something else. My flat was broken into. That can't be a coincidence.'
'You mean you were burgled? What about the manuscript?' There was alarm in his voice.
'They didn't get to it. Sir Toby, I think I'm entitled to know what I'm getting into here.'
'Getting into? I don't know what you mean.' The man was lying. I knew it, and he knew that I knew it, and he didn't give a damn.
His arrogance was getting to me. I said, 'I guess I'll go to the police.'
Tebbit's response was gratifying. 'No. On no account.'
'Oh, but I will, Sir Toby. Unless you tell me what's going on here.'
This time the silence was longer. Finally he said, 'I would like you to trust me on this. I really cannot tell you what this is about.'
'When I put this phone down, Sir Toby, I'm going to pick it up again, report a burglary and mention your journal.'
'I'm not used to begging, Mr Blake.'
'Talk, Sir Toby. Either to me or to the police.'
'Whatever fee you had in mind, I'll double it.'
'That would make things damned expensive for you. We're dealing with some sort of Elizabethan shorthand. It'll take me days to transcribe it into modern English, even if I can track down the shorthand system, and that may no longer exist. There was a lot of secret writing in those days.'
'Look, just do it, will you? Triple your blasted fee. And for Christ's sake keep the manuscript secure and your mouth shut.' The line went dead.
I gave it a minute of serious thought while the black cloud approached. Then I lifted the phone again and dialled another number.
* * *
Janice was used to my sudden absences and could be trusted to look after the shop for a few days. All right she didn't need the money, but she was long overdue for a salary increase and I kept waiting for that elusive rarity, a map or a document that would fetch half a million at Christie's. I filled a holdall, tossed it in the boot and took the Ml past Nottingham. Mozart took me on a long, slow crawl around Birmingham and on to the M40, and some mid-Atlantic DJ with ten times my income drivelled me towards Oxford. The road was congested and I kept clearing greasy spray from the windscreen. I also kept having fantasy thoughts about being followed, but there was no sign of anything odd in my rear mirror. But then, I wondered, would there be?
In Oxford I trickled along Woodstock Road, parked in St Edwards School and made my way diagonally across the quad in the rain, past the school church. The man waiting for me at the entrance to the common room was about fifty, with a haphazard mop of white hair which offset the formality of his suit. He grinned at me over the top of his half-moon spectacles. 'Harry, good to see you again. Well, what have you got? Let's be at it.'
We sat on soft armchairs in the upstairs gallery, next to the bar. It was just after two o'clock and the common room was deserted. I sat down and took the journal from my briefcase. He turned over the pages, his eyes scanning them carefully.
'Fascinating. You're right, Harry, it's Elizabethan, no question, and written in an early system of secret writing.'
'Can you identify the system?' I was speaking to one of the world's authorities on Elizabethan secret writing.
Fred Sweet grunted. 'It looks like a very early one. Very like that of Timothy Bright himself, which would put the manuscript at 1588 or later. Except that there are minor differences. He might have been using an earlier version of Bright's system.'
'But look at the watermark, Fred. It's Spanish Netherlands. What's an Elizabethan journal doing written on Spanish Netherlands paper?'
He held a sheet up to the window and peered at it through narrowed eyes. 'You're right. The paper comes from the Spanish Netherlands.'
'That's weird. Like seeing a 1940 British government memo written on Nazi notepaper.'
He shrugged. 'Maybe, maybe not. The Dutch had more or less loosened their Spanish chains by the late 1500s. And the Netherlands was crawling with agents of the English. But I agree, it's odd.' He looked at me curiously. 'Where on earth did you get this?'
'Sorry, Fred, but my client wants to stay anonymous.' It came out sounding excessively conspiratorial. 'But I do need to crack that code.'
'Try Bright's An Arte of Shorte, Swifte and Secrete Writing by Character. The Bod's bound to have it.'
I thanked Fred, left the car in the school car park and took a crowded bus into the centre of Oxford. Normally my reader's card took me into the Map Room in the New Bodleian, but Timothy Bright would come into the Rare Books category and hence the Old Bod, across Broad Street. I passed through the first security point and climbed the spiralling wooden stairs into the Arts End, a hundred feet of light, airy Gothic fantasy. Through a second security barrier, whose guard was struggling with the Daily Mirror crossword, and I was into the inner sanctum, forever beyond the Great Unwashed: Duke Humphrey's Library, almost as old as the book I was seeking.
I ordered Bright in the Graduate Study and waited for an hour at the reserve counter, soaking up the grotesques, the coats of arms in the ceiling, the light smell of ancient books. It was dark by the time the woman arrived with a small, leather-bound book and a smile. I found an empty chair in one of the narrow alcoves and sat down between an elderly scholar with a nervous tic and a miniskirted girl with a pink laptop computer. I laid out the book on the long, narrow shelf. I carefully turned its pages. And I recognised words. My old friend Fred had been right: Bright's system was the secret key to Ogilvie's journal.
Strict rules are enforced within this sanctum sanctorum. Conversation is strongly discouraged. A manuscript older than 1901 may not be photocopied. Hand-held photocopiers are strictly forbidden. Photography likewise, even of the library interior itself. Pens may not be used. This means that if something is to be copied, you are down to a laptop computer or a pencil. I decided on a pencil and settled down to a long slog. The professor disappeared about six in the evening, and the girl shortly thereafter. I was alone in the alcove.
Just after nine o'clock, with my bladder beginning to complain and my fingers aching, I became vaguely aware that someone was standing next to me. I paid no attention until he cleared his throat apologetically. 'Mr Blake?'
A young man, with short, neat black hair and a brass earring. Smartly dressed in a three-piece suit and green tie. A stranger addressing me by name. Again. My stomach flipped. 'Yes?'
'You have some papers that don't belong to you. I want you to hand them over.'
I tried to suppress the sudden rush of alarm. 'Forget it, chum.'
'I don't think you grasp the situation. I'm instructed to retrieve it by whatever means.'
'And I suppose you have a shoulder holster with a Beretta automatic pistol?'
'No, just a pen with a poisoned tip.' His expression didn't change. 'We're serious people, Mr Blake. We're not even asking you to do anything wrong. Just stand up and walk away, leaving the manuscript where it is. Go back to your flat in Lincoln, and there you will find an envelope whose contents will give you a great deal of satisfaction. It's in your own interests to do this, believe me.'
'If you're a bona fide scholar, I'm a monkey's uncle. How the hell did you get in here?' I was drawing bravado from the security of the library.
'Ssh!' A white-haired old woman was glaring at us from the alcove across the passage. We were breaking the rule of silence and her face was lined with indignation.
The young man stared at me with ice-brittle eyes, then left as silently as he had come. He was gone by the time the shaking started.
I gave it five minutes and returned Bright to the reserve counter. A quick check with the guard confirmed that he had never set eyes on the gentleman before, but we get so many foreigners these days sir and he did hav
e a reader's card. I quickly retrieved my bag from security and mingled with the students on the wet, shiny pavements of Broad Street. I crossed and recrossed roads, doubled back, dived in and out of narrow lanes and the side entrances of pubs and generally behaved like an idiot before making my way to Gloucester Green bus station. It was standing room only on the bus but it quietened after a few stops and I took the opportunity to look at the assorted passengers, every one a heavy from a gangster movie. In dribs and drabs the heavies got off at various stops. At St Edwards School I reached my car safely, gratefully sank into the seat and took off smartly, heading away from Oxford. I found a hotel near Bicester, some miles out of town. I grabbed a beefburger and ate it in my room with a chair jammed up against the door. The food lay like a heavy lump in my stomach the whole night.
The next day I left my car and took a bus into Oxford. There was no sign of the polite thug from the previous evening. It would have been easy to dismiss him as a fantasy. At lunchtime I sat with my back to the wall in the Kings Arms. By the end of the evening I was through copying Bright and my hand ached from writing. I repeated my backtracking routine and shared the Thames Transit bus with a handful of tired travellers.
Bicester was almost deserted apart from a few harmless drunks. I turned left off Sheep Street onto a quiet lane. A young couple about twenty yards ahead of me suddenly seized each other and began to waltz. I thought this was strange until the edge of a hand hammered painfully into my kidney and a heavy fist smacked into my eye a second later. I collapsed in agony just as my briefcase was snatched from my hand. As I lay groaning on the pavement I thought it had been a fine piece of distraction.
I heaved myself up, using the wall of a house for support. I thought I'd better get to my hotel quickly, before they discovered that the briefcase was empty. I returned the receptionist's welcome with grunts, covering my bruised eye with my hand. Hopefully she thought I was drunk.
In my room I went through the routine of jamming a chair up against the door handle. My mouth was dry and I was shaking, but mainly there was an intense pain in my kidney. I eased Ogilvie's manuscript from inside my shirt and tossed it onto the bed. Something. Somewhere in its pages was something. The cold water stung my eye and there was more pain as I patted it dry. I phoned down. Sandwiches were off but the bar had crisps and soft drinks. After they had arrived I threw off my clothes.
