The Chaos Code

by Justin Richards

  A shadow fell across the page he was reading. A hand closed on Matt’s shoulder. He gave a cry of surprise and jumped out of his chair, twisting and turning sharply to throw off the sudden grip.

  ‘Hey, you’re jumpy,’ Robin said. She held her hands up as if in surrender. ‘I just came to see how you’re getting on.’

  ‘Sorry.’ Matt sat down again, and Robin pulled up a chair to sit beside him at the table.

  The candlelight flickered on her face and danced in her deep blue eyes. ‘Any luck?’

  ‘A mention of Sivel. Nothing much else though.’

  ‘Don’t worry,’ she said. ‘We’ll find it. And your father.’ She put her hand on his shoulder, then pulled it quickly away again. ‘Sorry.’

  Matt smiled. His heart was still racing. ‘That’s OK. You startled me before. Like you said, I’m a bit jumpy.’

  ‘Because of your dad.’

  ‘Yeah. And because …’ Should he tell her? ‘Because of something that happened when I went home, to Dad’s house.’

  ‘Oh?’

  ‘Probably nothing. Just imagination.’

  ‘Tell me.’

  He was afraid she’d laugh at him. But she sounded sincere and Matt was feeling more and more that he could trust the girl. Weird, yes. But friendly and helping him find Dad. Her deep eyes seemed to draw him in still further. So he told her.

  ‘I went into Dad’s study. When I first got to the house. I heard him in there. At least, I think I thought I did. I don’t remember much. I must have fallen, slipped, and banged my head. Or fainted. And maybe it was a dream.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘I thought someone had been there. Going through Dad’s stuff.’

  ‘Who was it, did you recognise them?’

  He shook his head. ‘I didn’t see anyone. Well, just a vague figure out the back. Watching the house, I thought. I can’t be sure.’ He shuddered as he remembered. ‘But someone hit me, or smothered me. Put their hand over my mouth. That’s why I was jumpy.’

  She put her hand on his shoulder again, and this time she kept it there. ‘I’m not surprised.’

  ‘It was a rough hand. Not really like a hand at all, the texture I mean. Gritty and sharp.’

  As he spoke, Matt was staring at the candle flames. Three tiny yellow shapes, dancing and flickering. They seemed to be leaning towards him, as if anxious to hear what he was saying, or to see what he had been reading. The shadows lengthened across the pages of the book as the flames moved.

  ‘It felt like sandpaper,’ Matt said.

  He heard Robin gasp. Felt her hand whipped away from his shoulder. With a sudden movement, she stood up, leaned forward, and blew out the candles. Thin trails of black smoke curled up from the dead wicks.

  Her voice was a fearful, trembling whisper. ‘You shouldn’t have lit the candles,’ she said.

  Chapter 7

  At dinner, Aunt Jane alternated between saying nothing and talking non-stop. Nerves, Matt guessed. He felt the same. He wanted to talk about things – about Dad, and Atticus Harper and the Treasure of St John. But he had very little to say. Neither of them ate much and Matt cleared away plates of half-eaten lasagne.

  ‘Didn’t your father give you any idea where he was going?’ Aunt Jane asked Matt, for the third time.

  ‘I told you, I haven’t spoken to him. Apart from the weird message he left me on that website. He’s more likely to tell you what he’s up to than me or Mum.’

  Aunt Jane’s expression suggested she didn’t think this was really the case. But she didn’t say so.

  ‘Anyway,’ Matt went on, ‘wherever he was, he’s not there now. Harper told us that.’

  ‘Mr Harper,’ Aunt Jane corrected him.

  Matt sighed. ‘Whatever. He’d done some work from home, I think.’ He tried to look on the bright side. ‘If we find the Treasure first, maybe they’ll just let him go, whoever these people are. Or if they find the Treasure, they won’t need Dad any more so they’ll let him go anyway.’ Not that Matt was convincing even himself. ‘Do you think?’ he added, doubtful.

  ‘Let’s hope so.’

  ‘About all we can do,’ Matt said glumly. ‘Apart from help Mr Venture and Robin follow Dad’s trail through documents and files.’

  Aunt Jane looked at Matt sadly. ‘Leave that to them,’ she said.

  ‘But I might be able to help. I can sort out the computers and organise the data for them.’

  She turned away, so he couldn’t see her face. ‘I told you – I don’t want you involved,’ she said.

  Matt went over to her and put his hand on her shoulder, remembering the warmth and sympathy of Robin’s similar gesture. Jane turned round, and he saw how sad she looked. He kept his hand on her shoulder, squeezing gently to reassure her that he wasn’t cross or angry. He was sad, like her. ‘It’s my dad,’ he told her. ‘I may not see him much. I may not really understand him or listen to him, not all the time. But it’s Dad. I’ve got to help.’

  She put her hand over his. ‘I know. He’s an infuriating, stubborn idiot with no common sense and no idea how any of us feel about him. But he’s my brother and I love him, and so do you.’ She sighed. ‘And you’re right, we have to help all we can.’ She turned away, and he only just caught her last words. ‘Whatever the cost,’ she said quietly.

  Matt thought he’d never get to sleep. He finished the book he’d borrowed from Aunt Jane, then he lay with light out listening to the wind howling round the cottage. There was going to be a storm. He thought about Robin closing the door and windows in Venture’s study, about her anger and fear at the candles – what was that about? But before he could reach any sort of conclusion he had drifted into sleep. He woke with the wind still clawing at the windows and the curtains glowing with the early morning sun.

  He told Aunt Jane at breakfast about the candles. But she had no more idea about Robin’s reaction than Matt did himself. ‘Julius asked me to remove the carafe of water from his reading room,’ she said. ‘He always keeps water there. Perhaps they’re just feeling the stress. Like we are.’ She looked like she hadn’t slept at all.

  Further discussion was cut short by the sound of a car from outside. In fact, it was two cars, and four motorbikes. Matt and Aunt Jane watched through the kitchen window as the convoy of vehicles swept up the drive to the manor house. Two enormous black limousines flanked by outriders in bulky yellow reflective jackets.

  ‘Mephistopheles Smith,’ Jane said. ‘This will be his idea of travelling discreetly.’

  ‘At least it isn’t a helicopter,’ Matt said.

  • • •

  The business of running Venture’s affairs had to go on. He was patron of several charities, was invited to give lectures and talks, write papers, review journal articles, meet with the great and the good – or at least, the famous. Aunt Jane handled all these commitments and more. She managed his diary, organised his schedule, arranged his meals … So once again, despite the urgency of the quest for the Treasure of St John, Matt would be left to his own devices.

  They walked up to the manor house together, struggling against the wind that seemed determined to drive them back, away from the house.

  ‘They say that if the leaves start to fall this early, then we’re in for a cold autumn and winter,’ Aunt Jane said as they reached the shelter of the porch. ‘But then, they always say that.’

  Matt did not answer. He was looking at the cars and motorbikes parked outside. Stony-faced motorcyclists, still wearing their helmets, stood almost to attention beside their bikes. He imagined that similarly serious drivers were at the steering wheels of the two cars. But the windows were tinted, so you couldn’t see in. Matt assumed they could see out, guessed they were watching him every inch of the way to the porch.

  Standing at the door was a man in a dark suit. It was a dull blustery day, but the man was wearing sunglasses. Like the drivers in the cars, his eyes watched without being seen. The thin lips pursed into a semblance of a smile and the man pushed op
en the front door for them.

  ‘Thanks,’ Matt said.

  The man had already turned away, all trace of the smile gone.

  Another man in sunglasses stood outside the closed door to Venture’s study. He might have been the first man’s brother, they were so similar. Even down to the expressionless face.

  Aunt Jane clicked her tongue in annoyance. ‘Mr Smith is always so melodramatic.’

  ‘What’s he do?’ Matt asked.

  ‘Who knows? Some sort of advisor to the government I think. A spin doctor or a Whitehall mandarin or something.’

  ‘Do you know what Mr Smith does?’ Matt asked the blank-faced man at the door.

  The sunglasses angled slightly towards Matt. ‘I really couldn’t say.’

  ‘He doesn’t know either,’ Matt told Aunt Jane.

  She smiled sympathetically. ‘He said he couldn’t say, not that he doesn’t know. Come and find me if you get bored. I’m sure there’s lots you can do to help me out.’

  She didn’t want him spending time with Robin, Matt thought. But he kept his expression as blank as the men in sunglasses. ‘Will do. See you, then.’

  • • •

  He found Robin was already in the library, sitting exactly where he had left her the previous evening. The book giving the account of the Siege of Malta was still open on the table, but now it was surrounded by other books and documents. There was a small laptop open in the middle of it all, looking rather out of place. Matt could see that it was displaying images of some of his father’s handwritten notes.

  Robin glanced up as Matt approached. She looked pale and tired.

  ‘You been here all night?’ Matt asked. He meant it as a joke.

  But Robin nodded, and looking at her, Matt could believe she had not actually slept at all. Maybe not even left the room. ‘We’ve made good progress,’ she said.

  He sat down next to her and surveyed the mass of papers and volumes. ‘Tell me about it.’

  ‘We’re narrowing the options,’ she said. ‘Dad was here too, until Smith arrived just now.’ She shifted a couple of books, moved a pile of papers. ‘It’s odd. Weird.’

  ‘What is?’

  ‘Your Dad’s work. I mean, it seems like it’s all there, but he jumps to conclusions in a way that really isn’t like him at all.’

  ‘You’d know, would you?’ Another joke that she answered seriously.

  ‘So my Dad tells me. But anyway, he follows leads that don’t seem to be the best option really, yet time and again he turns out to be right.’

  ‘Luck?’

  ‘A lot of it. He also discards what seem like the best leads, again without any apparent explanation. Just gives up on them, or glosses over obvious clues. There’s a mention of Sivel being in Brittany in 1567, for example. But he just ignores it. Doesn’t even mention it in his notes, but he must have known because he’s catalogued the diary of the Duc de Malpores that includes the account.’

  ‘So what are you telling me?’ Matt asked. ‘What are you saying?’

  She shrugged. ‘I don’t know. Maybe we don’t have all his notes. Or maybe he didn’t write everything down.’

  Matt picked up the nearest book. It was a small, leather-bound journal written in faded ink and in a language he didn’t recognise. ‘You said you’d made good progress,’ he prompted. He put the book down again and gave Robin his full attention.

  As she spoke, the tiredness seemed to slip away and soon her deep blue eyes were shining with enthusiasm and energy. ‘Henri Sivel vowed to retrieve the Treasure after it was taken by the Turks,’ she said.

  ‘Yeah we sort of figured that yesterday. We thought maybe he was in Constantinople after the city fell to get the Treasure back, or something.’

  ‘That’s right. Sivel thought – we assume – that the Turks would want to restore it to the city. And it seems that Sivel was successful, that he found the Treasure again. There is the fact that you discovered he was on Malta in 1565. Your father also found an entry in a journal kept by one of the knights that mentions his arrival.’

  Robin pulled the little laptop towards her and paged through several documents, looking for the one she wanted. ‘Here we are, look.’ She read from the screen, running her finger under the text as she did so: ‘Henri Sivel, of this order, arrived yesterday and with him brought a great gift the value of which cannot be overstated.’

  ‘That’s in Latin,’ Matt pointed out.

  ‘So?’

  ‘So you read Latin?’

  ‘Obviously. I’m good at languages. I have a good teacher.’

  ‘Where do you go to school?’ Matt wondered. He doubted it was nearby. And anyway the state schools hadn’t broken up yet.

  ‘Does it matter?’

  ‘Sorry. Go on. Henri Sivel brought a great gift to Malta. No prizes for guessing what it might be, right?’

  ‘Right. Then Sivel isn’t mentioned again. But his gift is. Or at least, your father assumed that it was his gift …’ She closed the file on the laptop and opened another one. ‘Here are his notes. He believes that the reference in 1568 to “certain divers papers and artefacts” that were taken from Malta for safe-keeping refers to Sivel’s gift, to the Treasure.’

  ‘And why does he think that?’

  ‘You tell me. But assuming he is right, it was taken with a group of the knights who left to found another centre for the order. We aren’t told who went, but your father found a sort of roll-call for all the remaining knights taken two years later in 1570.’

  She sounded excited, and Matt was finding himself caught up in her enthusiasm. ‘Of course,’ he said, ‘so we can compare the list of who was left with the list of who was at the siege in 1565, and that’ll tell us who’s gone off in that time.’

  ‘That’s right. And Sivel is not included in the later list. But before you get too carried away, that doesn’t mean he went off with these knights to some other centre. Or even if he did, that the Treasure went too. It just means he was no longer there. He could have left for some other reason, or even died in the meantime. Or the list might not be complete. We just don’t know.’

  ‘But it’s something, isn’t it?’ Matt said, trying not to get disappointed. ‘It’s a possibility.’

  Robin nodded. ‘And one that your father took to be a probability. He followed it up quite vigorously, and found several mentions of a group of wandering Hospitallers at various times and places across Europe. He even drew a map, look.’

  She dug round in the papers on the table and eventually found a sheet of modern paper with a map of Europe on it. ‘I printed it out, complete with your father’s estimates of the routes they might have taken.’

  Matt examined the map. It had a dotted red line running from Malta to Brittany. There the line split into several lines. One headed for Italy, one across the channel to England and on up to Scotland. Another was dotted across land up into Scandinavia, while a fourth headed back towards the south of France.

  ‘Just some of the possibilities,’ Robin said. ‘Presumably the ones he thought were most likely, for whatever reasons.

  Each line ended in a red cross. ‘X marks the spot?’ Matt suggested.

  ‘Possible spot.’ Robin pointed to the cross in Scotland. ‘That’s Rosslyn, which he discounted as just too convenient.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Supposed to be where the Holy Grail is, according to one set of opinions and legends. There’s a fascinating chapel there, and it all relates to the Knights Templar.’

  ‘Wrong order,’ Matt agreed.

  ‘And wrong period – the chapel was actually built far too late. But that still leaves these others though.’ She pointed to them in turn. ‘Pomponini, an old Roman town. Valdeholm, which is actually a little island with lots of churches on it. And Pont St Jean, which does at least have an echo of St John in its name, but that could be coincidence. And the knights may have moved on from any of these places, taking the Treasure with them.’

  ‘Or they may have been
to none of them,’ Matt said.

  ‘And even if they were there, they might not have had the Treasure with them anyway.’

  ‘And you call this progress?’ Matt said. He punched her gently on the shoulder and grinned. ‘Just kidding.’ But there was something at the back of his mind, something that Robin had said stirred the dust in his brain, reminded him of something. Something important, Matt thought. If he could only remember what it was.

  Robin stood up. ‘I could do with a break.’

  ‘Good idea.’ He’d almost had it then, but the memory scuttled away so he barely caught sight of it. Just a shadow in the corner of his mind.

  Robin wanted to get some air, probably to wake herself up after the night’s work. She had pulled her long black hair back into a pony tail, which made her look younger. Matt wondered again how old she really was. Fifteen, maybe.

  They reached the hallway just as the door to Venture’s study opened and a man stepped out. Matt could see that the curtains were drawn and the lights were on, although it was bright and sunny outside now, but his attention was on the small, round man who smiled amiably at him. He had dark hair slicked back from a high forehead, and he wore small, round, dark-tinted glasses that hid his eyes. It was only as he blinked that Matt caught anything from behind the lenses. Standing beside the tall, broad-shouldered bodyguard whose eyes were covered by designer sunglasses invited comparisons that did the man no favours.

  ‘You must be Matt,’ he said, and his voice was surprisingly deep and rich.

  ‘Yes,’ Matt said. ‘Hi. You must be Mr Smith.’

  The small man nodded enthusiastically. ‘I must indeed, yes. And in fact, I am.’ He thrust out a podgy hand. ‘Delighted to meet you, young man.’

  The grip was strong and firm and as Matt shook the man’s hand he felt he was being carefully scrutinised.

  ‘I met your father a few times,’ Smith said. ‘Oh, many years ago now. Be assured I shall do everything in my power to help Julius find him for you.’